Why we dont have GAME development contests

[Cammy]

It takes a very long time to make a game worth playing on the Amiga, much of the time people give up after offering to help, lose motivation, or their Amigas blow up and they never find a replacement.

I wish the Amiga had a super active game making scene, I've been trying to motivate people to help out with the Amiga games that are currently being worked on, but so far no one has offered any real help, or they offer to help then never speak to you again.

Here's the current state of the Amiga games development scene - http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?t=41556

[Cammy]

I don't know if it's such a good idea to host a competition. There might not be enough entries. I'm sure the people who actually want to make Amiga games will want to make them without needing to be offered the chance of a reward from a competition. If someone makes a decent game for an Amiga system these days, we just need to promote and digitally distribute it successfully to earn the authors enough money to buy themselves an Indivision or a RAM expansion or whatever they need for their Amiga. This is why we've been working hard to build Underground Arcade, it will be a place for any Amiga games makers to hook up with artists, musicians, coders and playtesters, then promote and distribute their game from the one united site.

[Cammy]

I forgot to mention, there HAVE been Amiga games comptitions held over the last few years, and as far as I know no one entered them. What ever happened to the competition to win $1000 for simply creating a single-level demo of a platform game featuring DiscreetFX's character Hottie? I'm pretty sure that's what the deal was, if you won they'd turn it into a full game or something.

[Cammy]

If anyone wants to make an Amiga game quickly but doesn't know how to code, you should check out Backbone on Aminet (provided you have a hard drive set up). With it you can make platform games like Turrican and overhead shooters like Alien Breed. It has an easy to use interface, you make the games with your mouse!

It's so easy, a small group of us made a single level demo of a game in less than a month. Check it out here if you want to see the results - http://aminet.net/package/game/demo/HalloweenNightmareDemo

So maybe a Backbone competition would be easier for people to join in on. You can easily download sprite sheets from thousands of Sega, Nintendo and arcade games on the net and use those to make a quick game. Same thing goes for music (Backbone uses soundtracker mods) and sound samples (convert wavs or mp3 sound effects to iff, it's easy).

[Cammy]

I'm not sure if this thread is finished now, or if I should get back on topic. I was feeling enthusiastic about it for a while...

[Cammy]

smerf, people like you make me not want to come to amiga.org.

[Cammy]

Fine, let's do it then. How's this for an idea?

You have two weeks to make a Christmas themed game using Backbone. It only takes a few hours to understand the program, it's easy to install, and games will run on any classic Amiga system (RAM permitting, depending on the bulk of the game), or through UAE.

The theme is Christmas. The limitation is Backbone. The time you have to complete it is two weeks. Whoever makes the best game at the end (we'll have a poll in the forum so people can download the games and vote for their favourite) wins some prizes that we can donate to the prize pool. I have a few spare bits and pieces I don't mind giving away for prizes, like doubles of a couple of CD32 games, some new control pads, Amiga/Aros/MorphOS-compatible USB Missile Launchers, a box of unopened floppy disks... You get the idea. I think from all our left-over junk we can come up with some nice prize packs.

I know not everyone is into Christmas, but the game you make doesn't have to be religious or anything, it's just for fun, and you've got some good royalty-free characters to use like Santa Claus, Christmas Elves, Snowmen, or just a kid in winter clothes. Collectables could be presents, toys, candy canes, tree decorations, roast turkeys. If you want to be a smarty pants and give Santa a machine gun and have him riding an angry mutant reindeer feel free, be creative.

So, how about it? It's just over two weeks until Christmas, and seriously you CAN make a few levels of a game in that amount of time with Backbone, it's that easy!

If others like this idea, we'll make a new thread about it and everyone can get to work.

Imagine having a few extra games to play on Christmas day on your favourite computer!

[Cammy]

Just in case you missed it, I posted about a games competition in my last post. I hope that some of you had the time to read it.

For those who don't know much about Backbone (nearly everyone), Rebel wrote a good review of the program which goes into detail about several of its features, and would be a good introduction to learning more about the program. His review can be read here - http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?t=36338

If you would like to download some example games made in Backbone to try on your Amiga (or UAE) to give you an idea of its capabilities, get this pack - http://www.spin.net.au/~amiga/BackboneGames.lha and this quick demo of a Sonic type game - http://www.spin.net.au/~amiga/Sonic030.lha

If you like the sound of Backbone, why not give it a go and try making a simple, fun game in time for Christmas.

[Cammy]

Hey everyone, we have set out some rules for the contest and started a new thread for it. I hope that you will all find the competition fair and fun.

http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?t=50652