Small important news: I had clarified the last sentence in the second to last paragraph to remove the contradiction within the same sentence.
Originally posted by RuberjigCan we submit a "pack" or folder containing more than one thing related to the round?
The pack should be related to each other. But if you submit two unrelated things, you're essencially participating twice, thus disqualifying you for the round.
Even then, you shouldn't submit too much. As a rule of thumb, maximally three different sprites (not counting projectiles), one generator or UberASM code or one patch should be submitted (blocks are harder to count).
And please keep them atomised! If your entry is an ASM file which contains e.g. multiple unrelated patches, you're essencially submitting multiple entries. Same with sprites: If you have got a sprite with totally different behaviours depending on the extra property byte, it's three sprites in that contest.
This doesn't apply to auxillary resources, of course, as they aren't the main focus of the submission. Anoni's development version of DynamicZ doesn't count for the rule since that isn't what his submission is about beyond the submission's graphics.
Originally posted by RPG HackerI don't quite know about this one. I really don't. Since the task is formualted so openly, it actually feels like it needs a bit of creativity to come up with something, which isn't really what I was hoping for or what a programming contest should be about. Was hoping for something with more direction and more restrictions, requiring less creativity and more problem-solving. To me, that was one of the areas where the first Mad Scientist failed. A programming contest shouldn't be about creativity. On top of that, the fact that it's this way also necessitates all these shaky explanations on what is and isn't allowed, which ultimately heavily comes down to interpretation. If I were a participant, I wouldn't really want to think about whether a submission of mine fit that rather vague ruleset of what is considered a "water-based" entry. I also don't think leaving the choice of tool up to participants is a great idea. That just seems like it spells trouble. I mean, how is anyone even supposed to fairly judge submissions to a competition that could end up featuring, let's say, both a complex custom boss by one participant and a simple custom block by another one?
I disagree. This is a website which focuses on modding and in many instances, that is a subset of game development.
Of course, there still is a notable difference between creating commercial games and making a small mod. However, if a game was created by a small team of only three, four people, the coder is more likely to be also a designer. And SMW hacks take this even as the majority are created by a single person (albeit make use of the resource section) or if not, they're often teamed up with a coder who makes the bosses themselves.
It would have been a different story if we had a homebrew scene in which case general programming would have been more common.
There also is another reason: Judging. Problem solving, code golf and obfuscated code fit more with set judges who can take a look at the code but I picked public judging for Mad Scientist which and the judging is shifted towards gameplay and appearance than code.
Lastly: The advantage of open themes is to get a variety of submissions. Take a look at 24hoSMW: All of them feature a given theme and you have to create a level in a single day. Some of them are more open, which leaves room for interpretations, and some of them are less so. In fact, the last theme, four, was pretty open but it also had a low entry barrier. On the other hand,
Originally posted by RPG HackerNot to mention that this also raises the entry barrier for newcomers quite a bit. Let's say you were at an ASM experience level only capable of making somewhat simple custom blocks. If there was a competition focussed on just that, you might give it a chance, because why not, but with a contest this open where anything basically goes and someone could technically even code an entire epic custom boss with mode 7 and all those kinds of shenanigans, you'd probably feel way too demotivated to give it a try at your skill level.
I disagree: Which contest
doesn't suffer from a "high entry barrier"? Just take a look at the latest level design contests and you'll often see names like idol, lazy, S.N.N., Sixcorby and worldpeace in the top ten (at least two of them, to be precise).
In my eyes, an open, non-technical theme is a low entry barrier since it doesn't require much technical knowledge to participate. The winning entry barrier is high, of course, but that's just a general issue with contests. If you know you can't make an appealing entry but still like to participate in a contest, nothing stops you from participating for fun.
And besides: Limitations isn't always an advantage for new users since one complain about OLDC is that the winners are the same as the aformentioned users.
Even then, I and lion discussed that coding a simple boss takes three days if you're focused
and you have someone to make the graphics and a good boss in at least one week under normal circumstances with, once again, someone to draw the graphics. There is a reason why I forbid team ups for Mad Scientist.
I can speak for myself: My sprite coding tutorial is still missing graphics which is why I skipped the boss part.
To bring up 24hoSMW again: The winner of last 24hoSMW is Medic who showed off his coding skills but managed to finish up only four rooms (wait a minute...) so there is more potential to his gimmick. Second place is xfix with a Wario Ware-styled level with 19(?) rooms (not counting the starting level) and doesn't need to be any longer.
Originally posted by RPG HackerI really don't know about this one. I think I'll pass the first round, unless I can somehow miraculously come up with a solid idea that I feel confident would pass that vague "water-themed" requirement. I have already been disqualified from contests in the past for interpreting rules too liberately and I wouldn't want that to happen again, so the minimum I would want is for a round to have a clearly defined ruleset with little room for interpretation.
That sounds like you have PTSD about open themes. That's okay if you can't participate in this round. However, that makes your opinion biased. In fact, I disagree that the theme is vague. In fact, I would even argue that the rules avoids vaguely water related submissions such as disallowing ice and other forms of water.
Or how much is a fish enemy which is logically put underwater "vaguely" water related?
Originally posted by RPG HackerFor the future, I would suggest going differently about this kind of contest. I would recommend applying a more restricted ruleset with more direction. Like, instead of just giving a vague theme, give a concrete task to complete. Something like "make a new Chuck sprite using soccer balls for attacks". That would be very concrete, less open to interpretation and yet would still leave some freedom on the details (such as how exactly the attack worked and how you would tweak it to feel more polished). It would also prevent that problem of having many different submissions completely different in nature. And to accomodate all the different skill levels, the different rounds of the contest could all focus on different aspects. For example, there could be a round dedicated to custom blocks, a round dedicated to custom sprites, a round dedicated to patches/UberASM etc.
See above: You're biased against open themes and I went with an open themes with the first round so it appeals more to. And besides: I can realistically only go with sprites and UberASM if I had to pick a theme with a certain resource type. Blocks? If you want to create awesome custom blocks, you can't go around sprites, UberASM and possibly patches. Patches? Could mean anything.
Also: A Soccer Chuck would be just a Puntin' Chuck but with a soccer ball, lol.
Originally posted by RPG HackerI don't quite remember, but I think this was pretty much exactly what I complained about for the first Mad Scientist: everything being too vague and open (I think I might have even given the exact same suggestions back then). "Make any bonus game" or "make any custom boss" just weren't really great tasks for a competition focussed primarily on programming rather than creativity, and "make anything water-based" is the exact same deal all over again, except even less focussed and thus even more difficult in my opinion. Unless you can quickly come up with an idea that you feel confident entering with, you're probably not even going to try. I hope I'll be wrong on this, but I personally don't see this kind of approach ending well...
A creativity blockage simple because you have got so many ideas to chose but you can pick only one... I can relate to that. But I also am positive that not everyone acts like you or me.
And this isn't always an issue why I couldn't participate in certain contests. Sometimes, I just can't find a good execution to a certain idea and sometimes, I just lack the time to finish the entry (as it happened last Mad Scientist).
Originally posted by Hobzinversely, wouldn't making a programming contest about the coding and not creativity just mean a bunch of entries that are effectively the same thing?
There is code golf and obfuscated code which is about problem solving
and creativity since the former requires you to write a small code and the latter a code which... just works even if it's a hell to understand. Those are incompatible to public judging, though.