Here we go!

The Goal: Make Top-Down Car Racing Game
The Inspiration: Micromachines, GTA 2
The Rules: This contest is open to all game developers, with the following requirements and/or conditions:

1. No more than 3 people per project
2. You may submit as many projects as you like
3. I prefer SDL / C/C++ (optionally can use OpenGL with SDL); SDL must be used. Other languages allowed: Delphi, VC++.NET, Java. New: lwjgl is allowed to substitute SDL for Java Programmers.
4. Project must compile/work on at least one major operating system (Windows, Mac OSX, *nix); extra bonus points for cross-platformy*
5. You give SDLtutorials.com permission to use any and all submitted resources, code, and/or files for non-commercial use. Submitter retains the rights to his/her project. (SDLtutorials.com will most likely use the winning project as the basis for a tutorial)
6. All code, resources, and/or files submitted must be the submitters original work, with the exception of use of 3rd party open-source libraries, and/or royalty free resources. No commercial libraries and/or resources are allowed, and will result in immediate disqualification.
7. No plagiarism is allowed, with the exception of the “minor”** use of code from tutorials. Code used from tutorials cannot make up more than 20%** of a submitted project’s code. You may use the framework provided on this website without limitation.
8. SDLtutorials.com has full discretion to accept/reject any projects submitted, and can cancel this contest at any time.

* No actual points are involved in the judging of entries.
** This, obviously, is hard to determine. Be fair, do your own work; if you use code from online, make it your own.

The Details:

• The game should play / look like a top-down racer – other than that, be creative.
• You must provide at least one fully playable racing track. Doesn’t need to be a timed race, but should at least track your time.
• You must provide a basic menu (Start, Exit at minimum)
• The game may be 2D or 3D (using OpenGL), and may use scripting

The Prize:

• $20.00 (PayPal)

The Deadline:
November 1, 2010

Once all entries are received, I will post ALL complete projects. The community will then be able to voice their opinion (which should help weed out any plagiarism) and vote. The poll to vote will be up for 1 week, and then will expire. This poll will determine the winner.

Please send all completed Projects to: tim [at] metacipher.com

You may send your project multiple times up to the deadline. The last project I receive before midnight is the one that I will use.

Good luck everyone!

Terms are subject to change at any time; I will give notice to such changes.

The following are some guidelines for when you submit projects. A real quick note first: by submitting your project multiple times up to the deadline, I can give you feedback and/or help. Please note, I will not give you any code, or any links to code. All I will simply do is point you in the right direction. This should even the playing field a bit for newbies.

1. Please provide a project file and/or makefile for me to compile your code depending on the target platform.
2. Please include any and all libraries involved with your project; already compiled. I don’t want to have to sit here for hours compiling libraries that are used in your project. Exceptions: if the library is easy to grab myself, simply let me know in a ReadMe.txt or something (i.e., being able to apt-get what I need, or simply download).
3. Please compress your project into a single file, and email it to me with the subject: CONTEST – [My Project Name] ; remember, email to: tim [at] metacipher.com
4. Though you can submit projects ahead of time for help, please do not submit your project more than once a week to me. I will provide help, but very limited; remember, this is a contest. I would only ask for help if you really need it; it’s very likely I’ll give more kudos to a project that asked for very little to no help, v. the person that asked every week.
5. Please…. please! Comment your code. Please.

Okay, okay, I know. I fell off the face of the planet for the last 4 weeks or so. Sorry. To get things rolling along again, I want to narrow down what we should do for this next contest. Either, a 2D Fighting game, or 2D Racing game.

Let me know your thoughts in the comments.

Examples:
2D Fighting Game
– Street Fighter
– Mortal Kombat
– King of Fighters

2D Racing Game
– Micro Machines
– Super Off Road

The new tutorials are well under way (I’ve decided to make a side-tutorial for game states, but it’s tightly integrated into the space shooter tutorial). But while we’re waiting for that, I think I’d like to run another contest. But before we get to any sort of contest announcement, I’d like to get everyone’s ideas out there on what we should do. Donations are also welcome that will be pooled directly into a contest prize.

» Read more: And the Tetris Contest winner is…

So, for the next few days or so I’ll be reviewing the entries. I’ll put some quick videos together, executables (for people to test), and a poll for all of you to participate. To confirm, I received the following entries (in no particular order):

Blockzorz
Zeetrix
Falling in Pieces
Bloc
Yage

Time is almost up, you have about 8 hours left. My timezone, again, is UTC -5.

So, how is everyone doing? Are you going to finish in time? Not a whole lot of activity in the forums this time around, just 1 person (but there’s been an increase in the number of people seeking help). At this point I encourage people to polish what you have, and not worry about additional features.

My timezone:
UTC -5 (EST)

So, how is everybody doing on the contest? Did you give up already? If you have, I encourage you to get back in it – push through! If you haven’t started yet, there is still time.