Ballistic Blasters - Competition Overview

[kevin]

Competition Title: Ballistic Blasters


Document Revision V0.10 - Last Updated  21st, May ,2007

Table Of Contents

 
• Overview
• What's a Blaster ?
• Start & Closing Date
• Tools
• Submission Guidelines
• Judging Criteria
• Major Prizes
• Participation Prizes
• FAQ
• Ballistic Blasters Forum
• Submit Game

Sponsors

This competition is proudly sponsored by,

Overview

  This year we're officially throwing down the gauntlet and not only challenging your programming skills, but your design and creativity skills also!   You've no doubt already gathered from the competition title (Ballistic Blasters) that your prime objective is to create a shoot-em-up, but it's not that simple, there's a catch!  Your game design must embrace either one (or both) of the following pre-selected themes.


  Available Themes

   

       
• Liquids

                 Games utilizing the liquid theme might take place under the liquid, on the liquid  or  use characters that are made of  liquids.     Some Liquid Ideas might be  Water, Milk, Oil, Petrol, Acid, Lava etc etc    

   

         
• Fire / Explosions

                  Games utilizing the Fire/Explosions theme might take place within a  volatile world (Inside a Volcano), perhaps have to stop some major explosive event  (like an Asteroid hitting earth),  use characters that are made of fire,  use  weapons made of fire  or perhaps focus on over the top explosions.    



    Contestants are free to choose whichever theme they prefer, how they interpret it, is totally up to them.  While we're encouraging contestants to think laterally about this challenge, in the hope that it might inspire developers to come up with something the feels familiar (aka a shoot-em-up) but perhaps includes a new slant on this old chestnut.  Contestants are not obligated to do so.     While some might attempt to push the envelope, others might prefer to use this opportunity to adapt a tried and true game design to suit the theme.  

    Again, it's the developers choice !



   Example Game Ideas

      The following are just some ideas that might help you kick start the design process.

     

         
• Oceanoids

              Over head shoot-em-up where the player controls a life raft in the open ocean.  The players aim is to avoid / destroying floating ice bergs and fight off attacking pirate ships until rescued.   I.e Asteroids on the ocean.  

     

         
• Fire-Raid

               Side left/right scrolling shoot-em-up where the player controls a batter fire truck.   The player aim is to the protect the cities citizen from the raiding air attack.  The player patrols the city left/right, when a building is attacked you put out the fire and rescues the citizens back to the evacuation point.


     

• Drip

            -  Static side on view shoot-em-up that could take place in a room.   The players objective is to project the floor from falling drips of acid.   When a drip hits the floor it eats through the flooring, exposing the wiring.   If a drip hits an exposed wire then the player is dead.

     You're free to be as elaborate or subtle with the theme as you like.   It's your game, have fun with it !  


 
                   
    How Do I Know If My Game Design Is Acceptable ?

      Not sure if your game design is acceptable and need a clarification ?   Then feel free to contact me via ( PlayBASIC Support
) or post your question in the following thread.       See: Theme Clarifications / Questions







 

What's a Blaster ?

     While it's probably obvious to the seasoned gamers out there, a Blaster (in the context of this competition) is a Shoot-em-up game.  

     Now given the scope of this genre and it's many sub genres, like  overhead, side / vertical scrollers, isometric,  first person etc etc,  we're decided it's in the best interest of variety to not limit entries to any particular type of shoot-em-up.

    Therefore, contestants are equally entitled to create  Overhead / top-down perspective games (e.g. Asteroids, 1942, SWIV ), Side on perspective ( R-Type, Uridium, Scramble, ChopLifter),  First person shooters (Battle Zone, Star Wars) etc etc.    Moreover some games might be ship/vehicle based, others might be character based (Ie. Bezerk, Turrican, Rygar).

     This not only gives contestants the freedom to choose the representation that best suits their game design, but it will also ensure variety within the submissions.

    References
   

     
• http://www.retro-games.co.uk/museum/shoot.htm
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoot_'em_up

 

Start & Closing Date

  Starting Date:   1st, May, 2007

  Closing Date:   31st, July, 2007
 
 All entries must be received (via email) by the 12 o'clock midnight (Melbourne/Australia Time - GMT + 10) on the day of closing.

  See Current Time & Date In Melbourne

Tools

   Since Ballistic Blasters is a competition to promote Making Games With PlayBasic, all entries must therefore be produced with PlayBasic.

  Contestant may use any available version of PlayBasic from V1.00 through to V1.70 (or higher).     Moreover entries may be built using the  DEMO, RETAIL or BETA editions.  

   For PlayBasic Demo users, we'll be releasing a special competition version (later this week) of  PB1.62.   While this version will NOT produce exe's, the demo limitations will be expanded to ensure easy participation.    

   

https://www.Playbasic.com  

Submission Guidelines

 
• All Entries must be produced with PlayBasic

 
• All Entries must display the sponsors logo(s), upon start up.  

 
• All entries must be 'playable' in single player mode.  Two player only games are not allowed!

• Games can be submitted in the any of the following forms
  
  
  
  • 1) Binary Only (Exe + Media)
  • 2) Binary + Source Code + Media
  • 3) Source Code + Media (For Demo Users)

• Entries must NOT be packaged using any 'installer'.  Only ZIP / RAR format is acceptable.

• Entries should NOT exceed 10 Megabytes (10,485,760 bytes)

 
• Entries may NOT include any copyrighted or trademarked materials (i.e characters, Artwork,  music etc) from any 3rd party, without  including written consent from the creators.

• All submissions must include a README.TXT file including the following information.
  
  
  
  • Game Title:
  • Your Name(s): (Or your Team Name)
  • Brief Description of the game, including how to play and any cool things you've implemented
  • Controls:
  • Software/Hardware Requirements

 
• Submissions must NOT contain any bad language, adult images or racial intolerance.

 
• Authors automatically give Underware Design consent to redistribute submissions (Binary Versions / Screens Shots / Game Descriptions) in competition results and for PlayBasic promotional purposes.  

 
• Contestants may enter as many times as they like.

Judging Criteria

   Contestants need to be aware that Ballistic Blasters is a game making competition!  Therefore  Judges will be commenting upon the overall quality of each submission, and not purely any programming or graphically wizardry you may have achieved.

   All submissions will be ranked by each judge under three primarily categories  Playability, Graphics & Sound.     These categories each contain various sub categories that judges will be rating out of 10.   Where 10 is excellent, 5 is good and a 0 is awful.    Your overall result will be the sum of all of subcategories.

    Since Ballistic Blasters is competition to promote www.PlayBasic.com, Developers can choose to receive bonus points from UnderwareDesign.com by including redistributable extras like the source code, level editors for example.

    Your final score will be the sum of all primary categories + any bonus points awarded. This is then averaged across the number of judging staff. Therefore overall winners will be the contestant with game the receives highest overall average.


  Playability:
 

   
• Controls            [10 points](in Game & Menus)
• Difficultly Level   [10 points]
• Longevity          [10 Points]
• Overall Feel       [10 Points]

  Graphics:
 

   
• Titles & Menus          [10 points]
• Environments            [10 points]
• Sprites                    [10 points]
• Over All Presentation  [10 Points]

  Sound  
 

   
• Music         [10 Points]
• Sound FX    [10 Points]

 Bonus Points   (Awarded by UnderwareDesign.com)
 

   
• Program Performance/Scalability      [1 to 10 Points]
• Includes Source Code + Game Media [+10 Points]  (*)
• Complete Game [+10 Points]
• Includes Level Editor  [+10 Points]

 Note:  
    * = Allows redistribution by Underware Design  

Major Prizes

 The top three contestants will receive the following from our major prize pool.   More sponsors to be announced soon !


1st Prize

• $150 (US) Cash - Awarded Via PayPal.com
• 3 Full copies of PlayBasic (for team members)
• Published on UnderwareDesign.com

2nd Prize

• $75 (US) Cash - Awarded Via PayPal.com
• 2 Full copies of PlayBasic
• Published on UnderwareDesign.com

3rd Prize

• $25 (US) Cash - Awarded Via PayPal.com
• 1 Full copy PlayBasic
• Published on UnderwareDesign.com

  Winners will be interviewed in Next Issue of the www.UnderwareDesign.com (join on the home page) News letter

Bonus Participation  Prizes

  If participation is high enough, we'll also be awarding 3 more individual (FREE) copies of PlayBasic to 4th, 5th & 6th places,  plus discount  coupons to any remaining place getters.

Cleverest Coder Prize

  I'll be awarding a bonus prize to the entry that represents the best (most technical) programming achievement.

 
• $25 (US) Cash - Awarded Via PayPal.com

Prize Delivery

Note: Cash prizes can only be awarded via PAYPAL.com !

Note: All 3rd party prizes are delivered by sponsors and not UnderwareDesign


  Competition Rules are subject to change at any time !

Good Luck