You have all been DC mailed information about the other members of your teams.
You and your team have 3 weeks to submit a game to TDC. Failure to do so will result in you and your team members all receiving a custom rating of:
"I create vaporware." until you submit a game.
From here on each team must complete a series of tasks, and at the end one team will be declared the Super Glory Team of Awesomeness.
I have provided a "Game Suggestion" to two of the teams. It is only a suggestion, but when I was creating the teams some of you had similar ideas for games you wanted to work on. Hopefully you'll all get along.
Tasks 1. Exchange online contact details and talk to your group members via DCMail/IM/email/private project forums/interbutts.
2. Submit a team name to me
3.(Optional) Create a project page
4. Get game making
5. Submit a game before Saturday, 8 June 2010 (UTC time).
Countdown: http://tinyurl.com/379n9yk
Sound effects
If you're struggling with some sound effects, I might be able to help. Just tell me the style you'd like (Retro/Realistic). I can also do ambient sounds. I won't be offended if you decide not to use my stuff, but ask me and I'll have a crack. No biggie.
Judging
Myself and Muz will be 'judging'. We will have an internal scoring system and at the end we will declare one team the Super Glory Team of Awesomeness. It will be based on how well your game does in terms of favourites, positive comments, ratings and front page exposure, however our scoring system is subject to (and likey to) change. Just know that if you make a super fun game, and you work well in a team, you will get recognised for it.
We will also be providing positive reinforcement by giving trophies and extra points to teams who are doing extremely well. A project page might help you here to update TDC of your project, but I would recommend that you don't spend too much time making the project page look pretty - spend more time on making the game! Short frequent updates are probably better than large posts planning what you are going to do.
Teams are strongly encouraged to post playable builds of their games as they go along. This will help you to get feedback on your games and will also decrease the chances of you creating vaporware.
Help
I'm happy to offer code-wise and design-wise help to the teams. DC message me if you want me to provide feedback on any builds or if you need something debugged. I'm sure Muz is willing to do the same.
Use the rest of this thread to discuss ideas, post your builds, or just talk about the team idea in general.
Anyway, yeah, I'd be happy to help if you guys have problems with code or design. It's a bit of a tight deadline, but remember to plan out your code. Saving 10 minutes on coding can cost you 30 hours of debugging, even more so in MMF
Disclaimer: Any sarcasm in my posts will not be mentioned as that would ruin the purpose. It is assumed that the reader is intelligent enough to tell the difference between what is sarcasm and what is not.
I must admit i was slightly skeptical about the whole thing, but it seems that the participants are really motivated. If this can continue, im sure we'll have awesome games coming out soon enough! Good luck guys!
n/a
Assault Andy Administrator
I make other people create vaporware
Registered 29/07/2002
Points 5686
8th May, 2010 at 15:26:12 -
It's good to see Team 2 and Team 3 have their project pages up!
We're using our project page pretty much for posting ideas. Still haven't got a solid one, but we'll get there. I say we need to, if possible, decide today or tomorrow, just so we have time to make the game, and possibly a little bit of time to refine it and/or check for bugs.
(Btw, Jon and Sumo, I'll prob be on Skype at 12:00 Pm CST. See you guys there hopefully! )
Assault Andy Administrator
I make other people create vaporware
Registered 29/07/2002
Points 5686
9th May, 2010 at 03:48:17 -
-MacAdaM- has joined Team 4 since they didn't actually have a dedicated artist. I hope that's okay with the other teams, since this is more about making games than anything else
I'd like to participate in something like this. If only there were another version of this competition for people with no free time. A deadline set around May 2011 would be nice!
Anyway, good luck to all teams! I wonder if pairs would have worked better than teams of 3+, but we shall see. I'm looking forward to seeing what you all produce.
//
Assault Andy Administrator
I make other people create vaporware
Registered 29/07/2002
Points 5686
10th May, 2010 at 10:04:10 -
At first I wanted pairs, but there were only 3 artists to 6 coders. So that's why I had to come up with this arrangement. Having multiple coders isn't a bad thing though, I'm sure we'll see some cool games soon
As for a long deadline, yes it would be cool to see what the teams could come up with, given more time, but that's also the reason a lot of games don't get finished. Think of this as a 'testing ground'. If the teams make a great game then I'm sure they will continue to stay as a team and produce even more games over a longer time frame.
Ah, darn, just wrote a long post and the browser crashed. Just a few tips..
First, elect a leader, preferably a lead game designer. One bad leader is better than two good ones. The rest of you would still give ideas and suggestions, but the leader would make the final decisions. I see many of you have already done this. Just make it kinda official
Also, you should remember that democracy is the fairest style, but it's one of the slowest. Someone may have to take the reins and make decisions on other people's behalf.
Seems like many of you still aren't sure what to work on. What I'd suggest is just to write down what you like about each idea. Write on paper or text document or whatever. Just make sure it doesn't limit the flow of your thoughts.
You'll find some ideas that you are actually excited with. Just cut your list down to those. Share it with your teammates and see what they think too.. if everyone is tossing in ideas, it's most likely a good idea.
While you're looking for ideas, draw some block diagrams of how you expect to code your game. Link the blocks to each other indicating the major coding points and how they depend on each other. E.g. for a platform, it'd be simple, with a platform engine, controls, special effects, enemies, maybe an online high score system. Something like RPGs and strategy would be much more complicated.
Don't worry about details for now, but you can build them in more detail later. Think of it as an event group. It doesn't have to be a flowchart
One major advantage to doing this is seeing how much complexity you're going to need. If you have no idea how to link the blocks now, you're not likely to know later on when you're deeper into programming it. It should be fairly easy to you, just to make sure that you're not coding something more complex than you can handle.
The other advantage is that you can clearly split it up into different parts. Since most teams have at least two coders, that should help a lot. You should have a clearer idea of how to get the two parts to communicate with each other from the block diagram.
Disclaimer: Any sarcasm in my posts will not be mentioned as that would ruin the purpose. It is assumed that the reader is intelligent enough to tell the difference between what is sarcasm and what is not.
Assault Andy Administrator
I make other people create vaporware
Registered 29/07/2002
Points 5686
12th May, 2010 at 09:56:06 -
Matt Boothman - You're doublely welcome. It looks good when you make it into a logo like that
I've talked to a few of the teams and I'm pleased to hear that everyone is making surprisingly quick progress. There are some really interesting games underway and I can't wait to see some functional builds and artwork.
As soon as I get those sprites done, I'll send em in! It might take a while though. Then once you're done coding we'll make it into an exe and set a time to test it.
An old and washed up once-kid
Assault Andy Administrator
I make other people create vaporware
Lol, I'm studying for a Bio SAT II test, and then exams. Even if we dont make the deadline the project will still continue.
n/a
Assault Andy Administrator
I make other people create vaporware
Registered 29/07/2002
Points 5686
4th June, 2010 at 09:30:00 -
Just get something done by the deadline. As long as it's a playable game, you will succeed. Perhaps cut a feature or a couple of characters that you wanted to put in. Just release something. You can always update and bring out new versions later.
Originally Posted by Assault Andy Just get something done by the deadline. As long as it's a playable game, you will succeed. Perhaps cut a feature or a couple of characters that you wanted to put in. Just release something. You can always update and bring out new versions later.
We'll try our best
n/a
Assault Andy Administrator
I make other people create vaporware
Registered 29/07/2002
Points 5686
7th June, 2010 at 10:40:50 -
14 hours left!
Finish up your games and submit a download to TDC downloads. Message me when you're done.
err...not sure if we'll make it. Werewoof isn't even done with the sprites and I still have to code the online attacks even though I have the basic engine done once he gives them to me. Well try to make something with what we have; maybe only a few characters
Lembi's having interenet isseues i think, he hasnt been on for a couple days. Thats a huge problem since only he knows how to use the level editor. We probabbly won't make it either, unless Lembi suddenly returns.
Ours has pretty much withered too - I've been busy with work stuff and away from the laptop, while UrbanMonk and Lino have both been busy with school (the latter had an exam today). I think we didn't really take into account the amount of work that would go into it, as well as the stuff going on already in our lives. I didn't even originally intend to enter a competition, I thought the Matchmaking thread was just about teaming people up based on their skills, not specifically for a contest, but more informally. I went along with it I think because thought I could do this in spare time, but I didn't have enough to give it justice.
But hey ho, shame it is and shame it was, we've done some nice work anyway, and next time I'll definitely only enter compos if I'm doing nowt.
Why does everyone talk like their leaving the compo. Our team is still going to finish it, but were just going to pass the "deadline". In a week or two after finals we should have plenty of time to finish it.
I just jumped in because I thought it would be nice to work in a team for once. But sadly real life destroyed any hope of achieving anything before the deadline.
There's no way Stormwire will be abandoning this anytime soon. But also, no way we'll make it before the deadline. The thought of doing graphics right now makes me head-desk, so maybe I'll have a week free before I get back on that.
But seriously, we won't be abandoning this, no sir.
Lol, I guess now that the deadline is passed, whoever finishes their game first wins the race
Disclaimer: Any sarcasm in my posts will not be mentioned as that would ruin the purpose. It is assumed that the reader is intelligent enough to tell the difference between what is sarcasm and what is not.
Assault Andy Administrator
I make other people create vaporware
Registered 29/07/2002
Points 5686
9th June, 2010 at 06:43:56 -
The idea of the countdown timer link that I posted around was so that you would be able to see the time left easily, without needing to convert between timezones
Still, you are the only group to submit a playable game at this stage.