Here it is! The first (possibly annual) SDL Game Contest. Woo hoo!
The Goal: Make a side-scrolling shooter.
The Inspirition: R-Type
The Rules: This contest is open to all game developers, with the following requirements and/or conditions:
- No more than 2 people per project
- You may submit as many projects as you like
- I prefer SDL / C/C++ (optionally can use OpenGL with SDL); SDL must be used. Other languages allowed: Delphi, VC++.NET, Java
- Project must compile/work on at least one major operating system (Windows, Mac OSX, *nix); extra bonus points for cross-platformy*
- 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)
- 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.
- 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.
- 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:
- You must make one complete level that has at minimum 3 minutes of game-play
- You must provide a scalable structure that allows players to easily add additional levels
- You must provide a basic menu (Start, Exit at minimum)
- You must provide lives, and score at minimum
- You must provide at least 3 different weapons
- You may make the side-scroller shooter any theme you would like (i.e., a banana flying through the air with a machine gun)
- It is not required to provide any sound effects/music, but this would be a major plus
- You must provide at least 3 basic enemies, and 1 boss
- The game may be 2D or 3D (using OpenGL), and may use scripting
The Prize:
- $200 (PayPal) (Thanks Sergey Tikhonov for the donation!)
- Permission to help moderate SDLtutorials.com (if the winner wishes)
- SDLtutorials.com email address (if the winner wishes)
- Has first grabs at joining (as a developer) Tim’s upcoming Indie Game Development Website.
- Free Copy of Half Life 2 (via Steam)
The Deadline:
September 1, 2009
Once all entries are received, I will post 5 of the top projects received. The community will then be able to voice their opinion (which should help weed out any plagiarism). A week after the deadline, I will post who is the winner. If I cannot contact the winner within 30 days, the 2nd place project will become the winner (and so on).
Be creative as possible. If you want 30 enemies, that’s fine. If you want 30 bosses, that’s fine. “The Details” section is sort of a general guideline, but aim to go above and beyond it.
Please send all completed Projects to: kizare [at] gmail.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.
Update (6.5.2009):
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.
- Please provide a project file and/or makefile for me to compile your code depending on the target platform.
- 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).
- Please compress your project into a single file, and email it to me with the subject: CONTEST – [My Project Name] ; remember, email to: kizare [at] gmail.com
- 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.
- Please…. please! Comment your code. Please.
Did you like this tutorial/blog post? Feel free to donate to keep more comin', and have more contests.
The game can scroll either horizontally or vertically, correct? I’m thinking of making something inspired by Ikaruga. Still learning SDL, so this should push me to really delve into it. Thanks for this opportunity!
Yeah, but I was giving myself a week to review all the projects – I thinking that’s way too short. Especially if want to make sure all projects work from the source.
Shouldn’t be too difficult. You understand C and you understand Delphi, and C# is basically just Delphi rewritten in C syntax…
Heh ok thanks. It wont be too crazy as the languages are somewhat similar.
Fernando,
That’ll be fine – try not to do anything too crazy that I’ll have a hard time translating over to C++. If you can, I’d prefer you to use C++ instead.
Atridas,
This is tricky. I’m going to have to say no – because, 1) I already told someone else with this same situation no, and 2) I don’t want unfair advantages over someone who is submitting a project solo.
How “strict” is the limitation of “2 people per project”. I mean, I’ll do this contest with my girldfriend, but also we have a friend ho may make us Music and so on (the music, not the code for it to run). Will this apply to the limitation?
Just figured I’d ask if we could use C# with SDL.NET
I had started to build a bit of an engine in there for another project, but I never really took it anywhere, and this would be a great reason to go back and finish it up.
Thanks,
Fernando
hmm what about code quality?
Lets say someone could hack together a game that meets all the contests guidelines in a few days, but the code is badly documented or not documented at all, the use of SDL or the programming language itself is abusive and the project is a bad practice at best. Such a project would be nigh useless if you want to get part/all of that project translated into SDL tutorials, so I think you should at least add some code quality requirements(use standard language features, consistent coding style etc) to the contest.
Mason,
I’ll make an exception for Delphi as I am semi-familiar with it. You may submit projects written in Delphi (and any other Delphi people out there).
Ulrik,
That’s fine.
Is it OK to include a bat/sh file for compiling? I have yet to find out how makefiles works.