Game Development Contest

[waterburn]

Game developers, listen up! This is an opportunity for you to use the best of your abilities in this competition for fame and prizes. In this game development contest participants will be given two months to create a game. Game entries will be posted on our website, http://www.time2play0.tk/. The contest will begin on October 1st, and end on December 1st. After the contest ends, three judges, all members of the Time2Play0 team, will decide on the best game based on specific criteria and our level of personal satisfaction. We will require at least 10 submissions. The winner of the contest will receive $15 dollars CAD into their Paypal account. The grand prize winner will also get their game published on our front page, mentioned on our forums and other social media locations. You may create a game of any genre you wish (some examples are strategy, shooting, action, adventure and racing), using any tools/programming languages. The game may be downloadable or embedded on the webpage. We accept only one submission per person/group.

For more rules and details please visit: http://www.time2play0.tk/time2game.php. For questions, concerns and submissions please email contests@time2play0.tk. Make sure to check the specific submission format on the contest page.

Feel free to ask questions about the contest at any time. Good luck to all participants!

[charlie]

Is that a joke? A CA$15 prize?

[waterburn]

Our focus is amateur developments and not in any way professional. We also accept games developed in the past. We just want to start some good game development interaction. If this goes well we will increase the prize for future contests. Adobe denied our sponsorship request at this time due to shortage of funds.

[Knitter]

Our focus is amateur developments and not in any way professional. We also accept games developed in the past. We just want to start some good game development interaction. If this goes well we will increase the prize for future contests. Adobe denied our sponsorship request at this time due to shortage of funds.

Even so, $15? Really? It would be better if you didn't mention any prize and just asked for participants for the "spirit of the competition" or something like that. Offering that amount of nothing will most likely drive submissions away. The first thing I thought was that this was a bad scam to get some work done for free.

I don't know the size of your team, but if you are really serious about this you could have just given the money yourselves, or get some better sponsors, any small sponsor would gladly give 100$-200$ for some weeks worth of publicity. But if you couldn't get money to sponsor the contest don't offer such an amount.

[waterburn]

Knitter, thank you for your advice. However, if people think $15 is cheap, who would want to do it for nothing. Trust me on that one. If you are willing to help us out we would be really appreciated! We are looking for sponsors!

[mdwh]

Knitter, thank you for your advice. However, if people think $15 is cheap, who would want to do it for nothing.

If people's only incentive is money, then no one's going to do it for $15. If there are other incentives, then the $15 prize is irrelevant.

True, $15 is still better than nothing, but I do think it's a case where offering a trivial amount as the main prize is more likely to come across as a joke... It's also very unlikely to attract people to write a game just for a competition. I mean, sure, give coverage and a monetary award to a good game that people submit, even if the money is just a token, but people aren't going to decide to write a game specifically just for the possibility of a $15 prize!

Your website seems to be down?

[waterburn]

What do you suggest then?

Our site is also back up. Apologies.

[mdwh]

I guess I would drop the prominence of the $15 prize - focus on it being a competition for fun, and a way for open source games to receive extra awareness. If you offer money, make it more of a token rather than being the prize.

Indeed, I note:

Time2play0 reserves the right to publish all submissions on its website and partner websites. Developers will be credited.

For open source programmers such as myself, we'd be glad for anyone giving extra awareness (so long as you follow the licence of course). So sure, you're not doing a bad thing here, and I guess if someone gave me $15, I'd consider it a nice bonus ... though I wouldn't expect anyone to write a game just for this (I know you say you accept past games, but the style of the competition still implies people will write something just for this?)

I'd also be concerned if this is aimed at non-open source programmers too (e.g., I see you posted on Gamedev) - are you claiming that someone entering will give you the right to host the entry on your website, or do you just mean mentioning the entry? The legal/licensing stuff is unclear here. For someone wishing to retain rights to their work, and not releasing it under a free licence, $15 is a trivial amount to get such rights - especially if this applies to all entries, not just the winner.

I don't think anyone's saying you're doing a bad thing, I think people are just amused at the $15 If you want games for your website, you can already take and host whatever open source games you like, if you stick to the license. You can even sell them. But I'm not sure you'd get people writing a new game just for this.

[waterburn]

Just to clarify: all entries will be published on the website and listed on our forum whether it is the winner or not. Also these games are not being sold.
In fact, posting these games on our website should help the developers gain awareness. And that is why this is specifically aimed towards beginners. If the developer plans to sell their games.. then this contest would definitely not be for them.

If anyone wants to provide their games (ie. not for the contest) we would be more than happy to publish them and credit them. If you enjoy making games for the fun of it, we also accept volunteers. The Time2play0 team will help test the creations. This would be aimed to open source developers. Contact me weilanh@time2play0.tk if interested.

[waterburn]

Entries still welcome. Check out our promo vid:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2otBFAZZx9w

[waterburn]

Contest closed. Check for results within a week.