Proposed Rules Change

TenjouUtena on 2006/08/21 12:42 of Cloaked

This was talked about last time, but I figure if we open the dicussion early we can have a giid dialog on it.

I propose we change the 'Innovation' category to 'Use of Theme'.

Without a judged category on 'Use of Theme', there is no reward for a team to really deeply integrate the theme into their game. Giving their game a glancing / passing nod to the theme, just enough to avoid disqualification, will be enough. I'll give an fictional example. Let's say the theme is 'Robots'. Team A makes a platformer where you are a robot. Team B makes a game wher eyou design, build, and program robots to perform specific tasks. I would say that Team B followed the theme a lot better then Team A. I think Team B should be rewarded.

So, why get rid of Innovation? I don't think that you're going to get many well-polished, innovative games out of sort-term game compos like this. Games typically fall into 4 categories.

  1. Rehashing an old format with updated mechanics. Generally resulting in a well-polished game with a sort of 'I've been here before' feel.
  2. Innvoative games that don't really get completed. The game concept seems exciting, but the execution leaves something to be desired.
  3. I'm trying this for the first time games. Which are fine, but arn't really in competition to win the vote, so can be dismissed for this discussion.
  4. Games that break the dicotomy between #1 and #2 above. There's generally 1 or 2 of these in a given Compo.

The reason for 1 and 2, where more games end up, is that if you have an innovative concept, you're solving new problems, which takes longer and gives you less time to polish. If you revisit an old formula, a lot of the problems are already solved for you.

I'll leave it at that for now. Let me know what you guys think.

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Comments

RB[0] on 2006/08/21 14:21:

Hmm. I like the idea of a 'use of theme' category but dont think innovation should go. Last time there were quite a few games that were innovative and polished. All of the winners at least did well in the innovation category. Plus I think its a good idea to give people incentive for trying new things and being innovative. If you dont most of the entries will just be re-makes or copies, and there wont much new happening in the competition. And innovation is a key part to these guide-lines on the home page... # Is intended to be challenging and fun, # Will hopefully increase the public body of game tools, code and expertise, If no one innovates then it isnt going to add a whole lot to the public body of game tools, and I personally think that innovation is one of the funnest and most challenging parts of the competition. RoeBros

RB[0] on 2006/08/21 15:59:

Sorry, I forgot you need to use br's at the end of a line. Here is the same text without the run-togethers.

Hmm. I like the idea of a 'use of theme' category but dont think innovation should go. Last time there were quite a few games that were innovative and polished.
All of the winners at least did well in the innovation category.
Plus I think its a good idea to give people incentive for trying new things and being innovative. If you dont most of the entries will just be re-makes or copies, and there wont much new happening in the competition. And innovation is a key part to these guide-lines on the home page...

# Is intended to be challenging and fun,

# Will hopefully increase the public body of game tools, code and expertise,

If no one innovates then it isnt going to add a whole lot to the public body of game tools, and I personally think that innovation is one of the funnest and most challenging parts of the competition.

Cthulhu32 on 2006/08/21 17:46:

well the "use of theme" concept can be interpreted in a lot of ways.

so I'm imagining two teams, Team A, and Team B. Team A has a robot platformer, Team B has a build your own robot program game. So lets imagine Team B has made a pretty cool build it, program it, use it sort of system. It sticks very closely to the Robot theme and all that good stuff. Now lets also say Team A's Robot Platformer not only has the player as a robot, you are fighting evil robots, trying to rescue a Robot princess, in a neverending robot factory. Infact, humans do not exist because they killed themselves off, and only robots exist in Team A's world. Your power ups are chips, your points are displayed in hex :-D

Would Team A still get less "Use of Theme" than Team B just because Team B's gameplay matches a real robot more than Team A's?


as for deleting Innovation, I'd say just add on Use of Theme, deleting Innovation takes away some of the fun of what you're creating.

SimRex on 2006/08/21 21:13:

I would love to see "use of theme" as a category, because while last round there were some fantastic games, there was also a lot of shoehorning going on, to make the theme fit the style of game the designers wanted to create... (eg MMOG in space... with steam!)

I don't mean any offense to anyone, because god knows I couldn't even think about making an MMOG, but I think it might drive people to up their game somewhat.

I think that ideally, "use of theme" should just be added to the existing categories, as some other people have suggested.

richard on 2006/08/21 22:14:

Use of the theme is far less important to me than innovation. I don't believe anyone could look a the various short-term programming challenges and say that there's no innovation.

The theme exists to serve two purposes:

  1. Inspire entrants at the start of the challenge, and
  2. Go a little way to preventing cheating.
How entrants interpret the theme (whether it be cosmetically or for deeper meaning) is completely open as far as I'm concerned. I've added words to this effect to the rules page.

Take "It runs on steam!" I'm very happy that we got a bunch of entries that had actual steam engines that needed feeding. I'm also happy that there were entries that just used the theme as cosmetic inspiration.

On cheating: we have a poll for disqualification during judging. I've run half a dozen challenges now and never seen anyone come even close to being disqualified for cheating. There's simply no incentive in a challenge like this.

TenjouUtena on 2006/08/22 02:48:

Individual Responses:

RB[0]: Look at the scores from last compo. Now, look at the standard deviation across the numbers. It's very very low. In fact, for a lot of the entries (Not just the ones on top) if you subtract .3 fromt he 'Production' score, they're basically all the same. I think that people just kinda vote how well they felt the game was. Good production values might mage a game seem more innovative. And yes, Nelly's Rooftop Garden was very very innovative. But several of the other top finishers

Cthulhu32: I'm not saying there's not judgement calls to be made within it. But that's true for all categories. And different interpretations of the theme just add to the fun. (See my response to Richard too...)

richard: But, how many people knew what sort of game they were going to make no matter what the theme was. I'll admit, most of those people didn't win, but...

And I understand the 'It's just for fun' argument, but, if it's just for fun, why bother to vote at all? It's not like this issue keeps me up at night.

On Cheating: I dont' think anyone, in a friendly competition, is going to vote to disqualify anyone. I just don't think there's enough of a mechanic there to discourage people from, 'OK I'm going to make an X game come hell or high-water, and we'll just add something in to make it slightly themeish'.

I really do feel that a Use of Theme category would actually improve the entries you get. People would think more about the theme, and this would force them out of their comfortable molds. I'll admit, I dont' feel as strongly as I once did about dropping the Innovation category.

richard on 2006/08/22 03:07:

But, how many people knew what sort of game they were going to make no matter what the theme was

As long as the game is developed to the spirit of the challenge (ie. within a week "from scratch") I don't care that someone has already decided they want to write an MMORP4XFPRTS (bingo? :) or whatever.

For some people, it's enough that they're writing their first ever game. I don't want to make it harder than it needs to be.

TenjouUtena on 2006/08/22 03:16:

Damn. Now I want to write an MMORP4XFPRTS.

richard on 2006/08/22 04:39:

:) I had fun trying to think of all the acronyms I could :)

Treeform on 2006/08/26 19:21:

i dont want to wrte a MMORP4XFPRTS, i want to write an p2pmmorts/fps....