2015 Indie Game Maker Contest - What would you do differently?

[whitesphere]

From NickMakesGames:

> The contest was poorly set up for newcomers, which is a real big problem since *everybody* was a newcomer for this specific contest.

To be fair to the judges and hosts, this is also the first time the IGMC contest was ever run.  I'm sure the judges weren't expecting 800 entries and I'm sure it was a lot more work than they initially expected.

It sounds like it was a huge success for the indie gaming community, and very lucrative for both Humble Bundle and Enterbrain, but we'll see if the judges would be willing to judge another IGMC type contest next year, and if the other contributors would be willing to fork over the cash for prizes, back-end, etc.

If it is hosted next year, I'm predicting it will be an even bigger success.  And, even if it's not, it's always great to get your game development skills up.  Even if you never ever publish a commercial game, it improves your writing ability, perhaps your other artistic abilities and a host of other qualities.

 

[Ksi]

Yup, even we judges were new-comers to big name judging~ ;p

Polish is where it's at, honestly. I'd recommend people tone down the length of the games and focus on polishing them up. It was pretty easy to tell when a game had been added last minute in a rush to get it in, as opposed to games that had been given the ol' spit-shine.

Also, for a short game contest like this, don't feel you have to aim for the full length of time. Sometimes a half-hour game is better than a full-hour game. Cutting the fat can leave you with something smaller than you intended but more compact, which isn't a bad thing for a contest like this.

Lastly - more coffee, more sugar, more sleep. >.<;

 

[Milena]

Seeing such amazing entries, what are you going to do differently to go above and beyond what you did this year?

Avoid making crappy games like others do?

 

[Cabygon]

So much caffeine. so so much caffeine.

Also on the subject of challenge in games: I know for a fact that 3 of the 4 in house judges are fans of challenging (not necessarily punishing) games. I could ask Deckiller, because I don't know as much about what he likes, but I know Liberty and Archeia and myself all lean towards more difficult games for personal play.

Granted, I didn't take difficulty level into account at all during judging, unless that difficulty actually caused interesting gameplay decisions. Except one, because it was literally so hard that I couldn't stay alive for more than 3 seconds. It was like Flappy Bird ridiculous.

Was that...was that us? =D *glee*

I don't think we'd do anything too differently next time except maybe cut down the scope abit, we ended up not being able to cram everything we wanted to in the end which was really frustrating. Would rather spend the time to polish up what we're able to do instead o_o.

Edit: ...and maybe add easy modes. Eeyup. Easy modes.

 

[defunct-user]

Another note: I'd team up with a friend.

 

[Archeia]

The contest was poorly set up for newcomers, which is a real big problem since *everybody* was a newcomer for this specific contest.

Cope Island is a 3rd placer and basically a 'newcomer.'

And was virtually unknown until the results. It's not as bad as you make it to be.

 

[NickMakesGames]

Cope Island is a 3rd placer and basically a 'newcomer.'

And was virtually unknown until the results. It's not as bad as you make it to be.

do you mean newcomer in the sens that the developer was new to RPG maker?

I was using the word in reference to people who were new to the IGMC, which was everyone. By that definition, all of the winners were newcomers, as were all of the losers.

The problem isn't that anything about the contest was disadvantageous to new programmers, but rather that the contest assumed that many people would automatically know exactly how to be active in the community. Seeing as there were 700+ entrants and only about a couple dozen active community members in the forums and Disqus comments, it's clear that the IGMC wasn't set up in a way that made it easy for people to communicate with their peers.

 

[DoubleX]

I'd try to see if I could write and post some more scripts(especially those not demanding users too much and having wide applications) right after the 2015 IGMC begins to see if at least 1 of my scripts is used by at least 1 entry