IGDM 'made in a month' question

[Paladin-Cleric of Awesome]

I've been thinking, in regards to the game has to be made n a month.

Say, for example, you have a book you are working on, or a short story, or your basing your game off a fairy tale. Would using the dialogue from any of those things in the game be counted as 'before the month begins' if it was written before.

I ask purely because I started writing a book a while back that I feel would be good as a game (and I'd like to make it next year during igdm, i also intend to try and finish the book during na no wri mo month as my own challenge) and there are bits of dialogue that I'd like to import across.

Would this be considered as against the rules as technically the dialogue for the game would be done, just not incorporated into the game itself?

You can use premade graphics (thank goodness otherwise I'd really be in trouble) but can you use premade dialogue?

 

[Silvestre]

I believe so. From what I understood about the rules, the game has to be made within the month period, not the story or dialogues.

How can we tell if someone has developed the plot for months, years, or simply splurted out the game's storyline originally during this month's time?

 

[mlogan]

Interesting question. I asked about using stories because my entry was based on an a Ideas in Ink piece I'd started and told that was fine. However there wasn't really any dialogue in it, however the person answering my question didn't know that. Of course this is all assuming there will be another contest next year.

 

[Paladin-Cleric of Awesome]

I'm hoping there'll be something similar next year. Doesn't have to be a competition like this, but I do like the structure of trying to make a game in a month, if if I usually fail. Lol.

Because if it would be ok then at least I can plan better and see if I can make something really good and polished, lol. Because the gameplay mechanics always eat so much of my game making time,

Thing is, it isn't like your not making the game from scratch, after all, you still have to put the dialogue n and create cutscenes and stuff. Your just not writing it all out for the first time. (And hey, if your doing it from a story you still have to covert the dialogue from story to game type)

Dunno, the question is still just stuck n my head, lol.

 

[mlogan]

I'm hoping there'll be something similar next year. Doesn't have to be a competition like this, but I do like the structure of trying to make a game in a month, if if I usually fail. Lol.

Oh me too, I would love another shot at this! I've just seen so many people talk about "next year's contest" when this one is not even finished and there has never been mention of another one.

As far as month-long contests, this site usually does a couple of them with different themes throughout the year and likely will again. Of course, the prizes are never quite the same as this one, but it's still a fun way to challenge yourself.

And while it's not an official answer, I would think that if you can use a story, then you can use the dialog in the story. It would get too tricky and time consuming for the judges to sort through all of that. However, this year may have taught them a lot (most assuredly it has) and they may have much more specific rules *if* they repeat this contest next year.

 

[Paladin-Cleric of Awesome]

Just goes to show how much fun people had. Lol. I'm already planning the holloween one that happen on rpgmaker.net normally.

I think I'm going to have to start imposing deadlines on my non competition games, otherwise they'll never get done. Lol.

 

[whitesphere]

Personally, I don't have a problem with taking, say, a plot or story written elsewhere and making a game from it.  To me, the key is not to use pre-made game-specific resources.

I also agree that, if they choose to hold a similar contest next year, the rules will be much more specific about what is and isn't allowed.

But, even if there is no official for-cash contest, anyone can hold an RPG making contest at any time.

It would be interesting to have an "RTP Only" contest where you can only use the stock resources.  This way we can see what game developers can do with a constrained set of resources.  And it would be very easy to verify that only RTP resources are used.

 

[Geoff Moore]

Yeah, I'm a typical non-finisher too. Whenever I make a game from now on I'm going to give myself a month to get through the whole core story, and then I can spend some time on the details without losing sight of the goal.

I'm pretty sure a contest official said they wanted to do another contest next year if this one was a success (it was on the disqus comments on the contest site, so fat chance of finding it now! ) And I'm pretty sure it can be counted as a success. So here's hoping!

 

[nhubi]

Well they did call it the 2014 IGMC, which leads the mind to believe there will be a 2015 and beyond, otherwise why include a year at all?

In regard to the OP, I don't believe that a pre-written story would be a contravention of the rules, or the rules as they currently stand, it states that pre-made assets are acceptable, as long as you have the rights to them. As it is your story you are well within your rights to use it. The only thing I think could lead to a problem (though it is a good problem to have) is that games appear to be disqualified for being homage games, off-shots of existing media be that other games, films, books et al. If your short story actually got published and became existing in the real world then you might disqualify yourself.

Now I know at least one game, Little Briar Rose is based on the Grimm fairy tale of the same name, which is the basis for sleeping beauty. However as that is long out of copyright (and if fact that didn't exist back when the Grimm's were around) and they took it from an older work, who took it from an oral tradition there is no issue with it being used. In addition the devs didn't take any dialogue or passages from the Grimm story they simply used the premise. So I really can't see an issue with you using your own, unpublished work as the premise for yours.