Clear credits please

cyhawk on 2010/04/10 16:55

In a number of games it's hard to tell what's own work and what's not.

For example I've just played the __pyweeklings__ game, and it has quite a few assets, among them what seems like a badly edited professional photo, a number of optical illusion pictures, a drawing of a slime monster, a sound track and two fonts. If I recall correctly from IRC, the music is own work. But what about the rest? One of the fonts has the "Fontographer 4.7 12/8/06" string in it, the other doesn't. Did two different team members create them using different tools or do they come from a more suspect source?

I spend a lot of time deciding on cases like this because I neither want to give unfairly low scores or check "disqualify" when you have put a lot of work into asset creation, but neither do I want to give unfairly high scores for assets that you are using with or without the author's permission.

Please post here if you forgot to include credits for your assets to make sure nobody makes the wrong judgement about them!

(log in to comment)

Comments

Martin on 2010/04/10 18:37:

We (Super Effective) didn't "forget" to include credits for our assets - we have a vague policy of not crediting individuals for what we see as a team effort. Often graphics and sounds have been tweaked by several team members, and giving individual credit can be quite troublesome. Obviously all those assets which we are using under license are given due credit in the README.

That said, I'm a little uncomfortable with your implication that using assets created by someone else is worthy of a lower score than using assets you've created yourself. We don't give extra marks for reinventing the wheel in programming, and I see no reason why we should do the same for graphics and sound. As far as I'm concerned, so long as you obey the rules of the competition (and, it goes without saying, the law), I'm scoring you on the quality of the finished game, and where you got your graphics from is irrelevant.

Falun on 2010/04/10 19:46:

Yea, I agree with Martin here, using existing asset source should not effect how you judge an entry. On the rules page entry 6 is "Existing artwork, music and sound effects may be used."

Cosmologicon on 2010/04/10 21:09:

I don't know. To use an extreme example, if I use a library that comes with a demo game, and I just submit that demo game and do zero work, I think I should pretty much get zero credit. Regardless of the rules, teams that make their own artwork, music, and sound definitely impress me more than ones that copy all the artwork, music, and sound from some other free-to-use game.

But at any rate, I think you're misunderstanding cyhawk's post. He's just asking people to follow the rules and the law. He's not asking for individual credits within a team. And if you're using something public domain (or CC-NC or something) that you don't need to credit, it's probably a good idea to say so, because a lot of teams do "forget" to credit correctly, and that way you won't raise any suspicion.

richard on 2010/04/10 21:42:

I believe cyhawk's point is that use of unlicensed material is forbidden by the challenge rules (and, you know, the law in general), not that third-party artwork should result in a lower score in general.

cyhawk on 2010/04/10 23:36:

Yes, sorry, I didn't mean to discourage anyone from using licensed assets. I understand your position, Martin, and it makes sense to rate games without regard to the source of the assets if you look at PyWeek as a game programming/designing competition. But if you look at it as a game making competition it also makes sense to give more value to self-made assets. I think the final scores are all the more complete if some of us score one way and some the other.

Martin on 2010/04/11 00:48:

With respect, cyhawk, I disagree. If you look at Pyweek as a game making competition, then the winner should be the best game that has been made. As I said before, nobody gives extra marks for writing your own physics engine rather than using Box2D or Chipmunk. I think the same principle should apply in graphics and sound.

I'd like the goal of contestants to be producing the best game possible - and if the best way for them to achieve that is to use assets or libraries produced by other people, then that's what they should do. The rules of the contest allow for the use of both code and assets which have been developed outside the contest, and I think that rating someone down for taking advantage of this is just encouraging people to make needlessly inferior games.

cyhawk on 2010/04/11 10:33:

Don't think I'm going to extremes here. If there's an excellent game I will not score it down for using licensed stuff. The question arises more with weaker games. If it's not much of a game, but it has a few really nice static images and a cool background music, it does matter to me if those are own work (I might give an extra point of production).

Scoring this way rewards the accomplishments of both programmers with limited art/music skills and those of artists/musicians with limited programming skills. (Or say there's a group with an amazing artist but a lousy programmer and the game turns out barely playable. I would still like to award some points specifically to the artist. Whereas if it's just a solo entry from a lousy programmer who can find cool public domain stuff I care less about giving points for it.)

I don't think the analogy with physics engines is entirely right. The perfect physics engine is general enough to be used everywhere. The perfect sprite, sound effect or background music are specific enough to conjure up that one game whenever you see or hear them. If you make your own, even if it's slightly lower in quality, it may add more to your game's value as it contributes to its personality. If it's much lower in quality or you don't have time for it, of course go for third party stuff.

mauve on 2010/04/11 12:37:

I agree with cyhawk, but I'd add that my complaint about recycling pre-existing art is that it doesn't congeal into a consistent style that sets the atmosphere for the game. When I'm playing an entry, I'm not looking at the effort that has gone into creating the artwork or the code, I'm looking at the final effect. If an entry can take existing art and really make it work for the game, I can't see any reason to mark it down.

gcewing on 2010/04/12 07:57:

To use an extreme example, if I use a library that comes with a demo game, and I just submit that demo game and do zero work,

That would be against the rules, I think. You're allowed to use generic libraries, but not copy game-specific code out of another game.