The First Annual Festive Amiga Game Making Competition

[Cammy]

Seasons Greetings! In the spirit of Christmas and due to popular demand, we are hosting the First Annual Festive Amiga Game Making Competition!

Here's the deal: You have two weeks to make your own Christmas-themed Amiga game. All entries must be uploaded by Christmas Eve, December 24th, when we can all download and play them on our Amigas (or emulated Amigas). We will set up a poll for people to vote for their favourite games, and the winners will receive prizes donated by the Amiga community. As a bonus incentive, all runners up (all entrants) will receive a printed and packaged CD containing all the entries, bootable on any Amiga with a CD drive (although there's no guarantee ALL the games will run on all systems, they will be provided on the CD nevertheless).

The rules of the competition are simple:

1. You have two weeks to finish your game. If your game isn't finished by December 24th, you should still upload your incomplete entry anyway, but at least try to make it playable.
2. Your game must run on a classic OCS or AGA Amiga. This way, anyone should be able to play all the games, either on their old hardware or through UAE. Unfortunately OS4, Aros and MorphOS specific entries at this stage wouldn't reach enough people and couldn't compete for votes.
3. You can create your game with any software you like. This includes programming it yourself too. If you have no coding knowledge, feel free to use any of the available game making software such as Backbone, SEUCK, GRAC, GRAAL, Reality, Game Engine, or anything else you can find.
4. Your game must be themed around Christmas and the festive season. It doesn't necessarily have to contain religious references, but it must be identifiable.

That's it! The rules are pretty lenient, we just want to give as many people the opportunity to join in as possible. Further details on where to post finished games, as well as a list of prizes will be posted over the next week or so.

So, what are you waiting for? If you're up for a challenge, have some free time, and really dig the chance to win some fantastic Amiga prize packs, have a crack at it! We'll make this the best Amiga Christmas in years!

[tonyyeb]

Great idea! Can't wait to try out the entries!

[persia]

[Cammy]

Oh man, I hope someone makes a Festivus game! Then we can all take part in the Airing of Grievances, the Feats of Strength, and worship the sacred pole!

[Skippy]

Maybe of use:

Seuck:
http://www.seuck.retrogaming64.com/
http://www.seuckvault.co.uk/

Amos:
http://amos.condor.serverpro3.com/AmosProManual/6/623.html
http://aminet.net/package/dev/amos/AmosProManual_HTML

Reference material:
http://amigarealm.whdownload.com/computing/nkb6e.htm

[Cammy]

Thanks, Skippy! If anyone else has links to Amiga development software, please post them.

Here's an essential application that all Amiga users should have installed, it's perfect for importing GIFs and PNGs of sprites and graphics found on the web, editing them, and saving out as Amiga IFF/ILBM format to use in your games:

Personal Paint - http://aminet.net/package/biz/cloan/PPaint

Something else I think I should mention is that people don't necessarily have to make a FULL GAME, just a demo of a game with at least one playable level or challenge would be good enough to enter before the contest is finished. You can always continue to develop the game after Christmas, because we would love to collect ALL the full games people make together some time next year once everyone is happy with their finished product, and compile them together onto a bootable Amiga/CDTV/CD32 CD, packed with other Christmas and holiday themed extras, and make the full CD available both for free as a downloadable ISO, and to purchase for a small fee on a fully printed and packaged CD. Any proceeds can go towards charity and helping Amiga developers. Anyone who enters a game in the competition will receive a packaged CD free of charge.

If you like the idea of an annual Amiga festive games making contest, but you don't have the time to make a game yourself, perhaps you'd like to donate something towards the prize pool? For any of you in the Amiga business, it could be a good way to promote your company by giving away one of your products to the best Amiga talents, and it would certainly provide more incentive for people to have a go at the competition.

As an example of their dedication, the team at Underground Arcade is kindly donating the following prizes to the winners of first, second and third place. We hope to build the list of prizes over the next couple of weeks.

First Prize
A new, boxed AmigaOS3/Aros/MorphOS-compatible USB Rocket Launcher
An unopened A1200/A600-compatible PCMCIA 5-in-1 Card Reader (SD/MMC/SM/MS/MSP)
Two brand new control pads compatible with all 1-button and 2-button Amiga games
An original Oscar/Diggers game for CD32/AGA-CD/UAE (or HDD-installable with WHDLoad)
A sealed box of 25 floppy disks in assorted colours
A packaged copy of the first Amiga Christmas Contest Compilation for CDTV/CD32/Amiga-CD/UAE

Second Prize
One brand new control pad compatible with all 1-button and 2-button Amiga games
An original Oscar/Diggers game for CD32/AGA-CD/UAE (or HDD-installable with WHDLoad)
A sealed box of 25 floppy disks in assorted colours
A packaged copy of the first Amiga Christmas Contest Compilation for CDTV/CD32/Amiga-CD/UAE

Third Prize
A sealed box of 25 floppy disks in assorted colours
A packaged copy of the first Amiga Christmas Contest Compilation for CDTV/CD32/Amiga-CD/UAE

Does that help convince anyone it's a worthwhile cause? I think just being able to play some new Amiga games during the holidays is going to be the best. And while they may not be too complete this year, imagine downloading or buying the full compilation to play or give as a gift next Christmas, during which time we'll be holding the SECOND festive game making contest!

[Skippy]

http://amigarealm.whdownload.com/index2.htm

Rigamortis of that website is evident, however, the software directory section maybe useful for classic users seeking pointers to music and graphics development tools.

JetSetSkippy.

[cpfuture]

Great initiative! Wish I had some spare time to enter the compo, but alas, it's all work for me the coming weeks.

But thanks for pointing out BackBone! That's definitely something I will look into as soon as I have some time and hopefully I'll be able to contribute some other time.

I agree it would be fantastic to see at least a handful of submissions of fun new OCS/AGA Amiga games to play with! Furthermore, it is nice to see this sort of positivity in the Amiga scene!

[Cammy]

No problem, I love bringing good Amiga software and hardware to peoples attention, a lot of it goes unnoticed without any cheerleading :p

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

[Skippy]

No problem, I love bringing good Amiga software and hardware to peoples attention, a lot of it goes unnoticed without any cheerleading :p

I wanna be a cheerleader too ;p Gimme an "S", "K", "I", "P", "P", "Y...?" because don't forget resources like Aminet, Funet and Back2roots.

http://aminet.net/search?query=sampledisk+for+tracker when you need instruments for making music and be sure to visit http://ftp.funet.fi/pub/amiga/ for more great Amiga stuff.

More instruments: http://ftp.funet.fi/pub/amiga/audio/instruments/
More apps: http://ftp.funet.fi/pub/amiga/audio/apps/
More AMOS: http://ftp.back2roots.org/back2roots/disks/amospd/

PD Paradise.

..now where's my pom poms...