How to improve the game competition...

[steve]

Perhaps voting could be in 2 stages, first just after the competition closes and the second vote 3 months later to see which games are still being played and to give voters a chance to get a deeper appreciation of each games finer points.

[redbox]

@ralferoo - all of the games did come with at least a DSK too so you should be able to play them on real hardware...?

@arnoldemu - I agree with the categories for voting entirely, the ones used this time appeared to be an afterthought and rushed. Maybe, as you kind of said, keep it to an AA review style of voting, something along the lines of Graphics, Sound, Playability and Overall score.

[ralferoo]

@ralferoo - all of the games did come with at least a DSK too so you should be able to play them on real hardware...?

Except I don't have any way to get a DSK file on to real hardware yet, only CDT files...

[dcdrac]

I was not sure if it meant rom chips or images

[AMSDOS]

Ideally it would of been nice if there was more time to play the games and get a proper feel for them. Personally I don't know how much time is enough time, once the games were available for download, it was simply a question of playing all four of them and making a decision. Obviously if there were 5 or 6 games, then those games would of needed to have been played as well, hence more time to decide, so perhaps work out a formula to determine how much time should be spent on playing 1 game and multiply by a factor of the number of games, so that every game gets equal amount of playtime.

[Gryzor]

Regarding voting:


Next year I will have a separate page ready, with proper voting, multiple votes and whatnot. Unfortunately I didn't think about that solution early enough this year and I had it almost ready but not quite before leaving for a short vacation. So I apologise for the clumsy voting system we used this year...


But yes, I agree we should advertise it as much as possible. We've got many voices, but how many propagated the news through their websites/social profiles?

[TFM]

... this year and I had it almost ready but not quite before leaving for a short vacation. So I apologise for the clumsy voting system we used this year...

Hey! Why don't you activate your voting page now for this years competition - for testing purposes! So all people can vote again AND CAN GIVE YOU FEEDBACK about the voting system. IMHO this would be a great thingy.

[Gryzor]

Heh, working on it this very moment, actually; deleted db and started from scratch, when I get something working I can show it...

[TFM]

Ah ok, Great! And Thunbs up for your effort 

[rexbeng]

Guys, please don't waste your time to only prove either that a) nothing would have changed with another voting system, or b) that the current voting system is a screw up and the whole compo was a joke. Because it's either the one or the other. There's no middle solution. Re-having people to vote for a thing that is over and done will only produce whining and nothing beneficial will come from this.

You are devaluing the compo this way.

Instrad, just do a bit of brainstorming on how to make this better next year. The organisers should talk with the people that participated or plan to participate in the compo about the voting system prior to changing it, ask their opinions and discuss. After all, it's they whose work is 'subjected' to criticism through this voting/compo thing.

Better yet, if you are willing to put some of your energy on this, please spend it on how to spread the word to the retro-scene that there were four great homebrew games released for the CPC.

rb

[TFM]

Are you afraid? 

About the voting system, you basically suggest what I suggested.

[arnoldemu]

I agree with rexbeng, no re-vote should be done.

Try a different one next time.

[ralferoo]

Yeah, I agree too.

It's fine to test out a new voting system, but use options like "Game A", "Game B" etc or use old games from back in the day, favourite current console or something. In fact anything except making it a duplicate of the last vote. Because otherwise, all that'll result is confusion.

It's fairly obvious that any new results will be different to the current results, even if the exact same voting system is used. Some people won't vote because the competition is over and there's no point, some people will have read about the competition elsewhere and made an effort to check out the games and vote, some people will discover the page and vote even though they missed the real vote, other people won't care to vote as it doesn't matter, etc.

[TFM]

I agree with rexbeng, no re-vote should be done.

Hi, I comment on your post, but this goes to the other two gentlemen too...

Obviously I made my self far more less clear than I thought. My point was NOT voting again. My point is to somehow TEST this new voting system BEFORE the next competition, so everybody can give constructive critics and improve the voting system. Understood?

[steve]

If Gryzor is looking for nominations for voting testing purposes, how about PLUS cartridge games with each category revealing how each game uses the PLUS hardware compared to the others.

[TFM]

That's a great idea.    Now we should consider a couple of categories.

And also: It would be interesting to have two kinds of votes:
- Public
- Expert team (that means people who know the hardware very well).[nb]Well, I can suggest you some persons if you like.[/nb]

[sigh]

I'm not too sure how to improve the competition as I thought it was rather good, but I think it would be nice to have different "theme challenges" for each competition in the same way as an art competition.

For example:

Create a puzzle game only using Plus hardware:

Scrolling: Vertical only.
Mode: Any
Sprites: 1 - 16, but must contain at least one female sprite.
Size: 256kb - 512kb.
Screen size: Min - 256x144. Max 320 - 200
Sound: Must contain at least 1 synthesized speech.

or

Create a music game for the standard CPC using only 16kb of ram.

Scrolling: None.
Mode: Mode 1
Sprites: 4 -8
Size: 16kb
Screen size: 128x128 only.
Sound: Must use at least 12kb.....

Of course these aren't the best examples, but they could generate some interesting and unusual entries.

[Gryzor]

Er... guys, no one said we would have a second vote for this year's compo We're talking about next year!


I'm against the 'expert voting' option. Who would be the 'experts', and who would decide that? Apart from that, since we're such a niche scene, we're all de facto a bit of an expert in some way or the other... 'expert' is not only about coding.

[AMSDOS]

Why bother having a voting review system full stop and just encourage people to discuss what they like/dislike about the games?

[tastefulmrship]

[rant] After reading a number of recent "related threads", I believe the easiest (and best) thing to make next year's competition better is for EVERYONE TO STOP TAKING IT SO F*CKING SERIOUSLY!

No offense to anyone (contributors or organisers), but it's a small competition within a VERY small community of people who happen to enjoy a defunct, olde 8-bit computer system. No-one here is being paid to create a game/demo/application/hardware project; it is simply a hobby... our real-world jobs/lives simply are more important and so creating anything for the CPC is a labour of love (and fits where it can within our real-world lives).

Let's just make games/demos/applications/hardware projects that we, personally, like and stop pretending we're part of a huge software conglomerate, where our CPC contributions will be sold in 400+ countries around the world and we'll be millionaires by the end of the year (Rodney). [/rant]

[Gryzor]

@AMSDOS: why not both? -errr, I think that's what is happening anyway.


@moutfulofanickname: not sure if you mean the discussion about the voting system, the title of the thread or the overall post-compo discussion. For me the discussion about the voting system is a valid one, though I agree with your general tone and that's why we didn't do it before the actual voting.

[AMSDOS]

@AMSDOS: why not both? -errr, I think that's what is happening anyway.

In theory it sounds good, though a Poll could simply operate as a preferential grading system. Grades are good, though on their own, it looks as bad as someones essay/assignment with only a grade on it, with no explanation on how that mark was obtained.

[EgoTrip]

Specific requirements (other than it being 16k) would only serve to limit the number of participants. You could always make them optional, with an additional voting category for those who opt-in so as not to discriminate against those who do not for whatever reason.


I still think that making it officially run over the autumn/winter would be a better idea, with an early spring deadline, something like september to march. Running it over spring/summer is not ideal as people are more likely to be indoors during the cold winters, and the vast majority of users here are in the northern hemisphere.


Also, to try to encourage more original ideas, try a "most original game" category too. Sure its good to have the ultimate Sokoban game, and Relentless was a technically excellent shooter, but both were completely unoriginal in terms of gameplay and nothing that hasn't been done a million times on the CPC already. I understand its next to impossible to come up with true originality, but a different spin on something would be good.

[Gryzor]

@AMSDOS: so we should have a voting system with actual reviews?


@Egotrip: good tip about the timing, I think I agree... Well, September is too soon perhaps, how about November to April/May? And yes, I touched upon the originality issue myself, one to keep in mind...

[TFM]

After reading a number of recent "related threads", I believe the easiest (and best) thing to make next year's competition better is for EVERYONE TO STOP TAKING IT SO F*CKING SERIOUSLY!  .... bla bla bla...

Why don't you participate instead of bringing people down, troll around and insult others - and yes, I also talk about other threads. Your behavior is very destructive and furthermore you lack to provide an entry. So why don't you XXXX XX?