About existing codebases

Noktai on 2012/08/27 16:29

Hello, 

I have recently (this ludum dare) started using pygame and I quite enjoyed it. So I'm thinking of joining pyweek. I have a question regarding the existing code base though.

The rules state: 
"You are not allowed to use any exising personal codebases. This includes using those codebases as a point of reference. Hint: release the code well before the comp as part of a tutorial. Then you may refer to it -- and so may the other competitors. "

I'm too late to submit my ludam dare code base now.
But the pyweek game will ofcourse use things like sprite animations and collision detection. I have my own way of handeling this, I always use a spatial tilegrid hash for optimized collisions. This code is going to look very similiar to the existing code, because I know that's what works.

Will I be fine if I just write the same code from scratch, even though it will look very similiar in the end?

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Comments

scav on 2012/08/27 18:19:

personal opinion (not authoritative):

Probably OK unless you are referring directly to your existing code. There's no rule against having code ideas or algorithms in your head before the competition starts. If it doesn't make up part of the game mechanics, my guess is nobody will care. If you are doing it to the extent that it feels like cheating, then it is. But you probably won't win anyway...

Either way, if what you are doing is awesome, we all get so see it and copy it for future games, so it's a net positive I think.

richard on 2012/08/27 23:41:

The point of the rule is to prevent a lage cut-n-paste from an existing unreleased project. If it doesn't feel like cheating then you're probably OK ;-)

Noktai on 2012/08/28 23:54:

Alright, thanks guys. Then I' ll just rewrite the whole thing during the competition :)

mauve on 2012/09/01 11:38:

It's always so frustrating to rewrite stuff I've written half a dozen times before, but the gap between writing potentially re-usable code and publishing it as a stable, documented library is large enough that I've never actually gotten around to doing so.

richard on 2012/09/02 00:20:

@mauve I can understand that sentiment. I'm not sure what could be done about it, really. I'm just not sure it's fair to other entrants to allow previous entrants to re-use the core code from their previous entries. I have explicitly written a possible loophole into the rules though:

Hint: release the code well before the comp as part of a tutorial. Then you may refer to it -- and so may the other competitors.

richard on 2012/09/02 00:20:

@mauve I can understand that sentiment. I'm not sure what could be done about it, really. I'm just not sure it's fair to other entrants to allow previous entrants to re-use the core code from their previous entries. I have explicitly written a possible loophole into the rules though:

Hint: release the code well before the comp as part of a tutorial. Then you may refer to it -- and so may the other competitors.

richard on 2012/09/02 00:20:

Ugh, sorry about the double.

mauve on 2012/09/02 12:15:

No, I mean, it's totally on me to get my stuff out as libraries.

Another loophole AIUI is to recycle your existing code as part of a personal toolchain, as there are no rules about tools you can use for creating assets. For example, if you wrote a landscape generator for your previous game, you could use that to generate a level file that is part of your entry, so long as you write the loader from scratch.

Off-topic: Can we get rid of this stupid HTML editor widget? It is basically unusable on Android.

richard on 2012/09/03 00:06:

Yeah, the editor's a bit of a pain but I just haven't found the time to look at adding bbcode or markdown or similar as an optional form of entry. I wish to retain the rich widget because it's much more convenient when it works (which is most of the time ;-)