Let's play judge! Top picks for the IGMC.

[Sailerius]

Probably because it's the only way he could have the game read the player's system. As well as keep it so the player only had one shot. 

That would be even easier in XP+ than 2k3.

 

[Cinnamon]

That would be even easier in XP+ than 2k3.

Exactly, haha.

 

[dinkledaberry]

That would be even easier in XP+ than 2k3.

Really? Then yeah. They should have used XP/VX/Ace. I imagine they're more experienced and comfortable with 2k3 then. And not to experienced with scripting. 

 

[Matseb2611]

Since I've only played some of the games in the contest, I'd prefer to simply divide them into groups of those I enjoyed a lot and those not so much.

Games I've enjoyed a lot:

 - Aesparia: The Fallen

 - Goblin Noir

 - Unraveled

Games I've generally enjoyed but thought a few minor aspects were limiting the fun:

 - Earth Under Attack

 - Sunken Spire

 - It Lurks

 - Ashworth

 - Recurrence

 - Beyond Reality

 - Crimson Story

 - Darkness Ascension

 - Vultures

Games that weren't bad but either need some work or weren't so much my thing:

 - Jungle Rescue

 - Egbert

 - World Remade

 - Rozen

 - Disaster on Aero VI

Games I thought were terrible:

 (none)

From those I played, I honestly didn't think anything was terrible. Even those on the 'OK' list I've each played for at least half hour, some even to a full hour. I think every game got at least something right.

 

[Jesse - PVGames]

Games I thought were terrible:

 (none)

From those I played, I honestly didn't think anything was terrible. Even those on the 'OK' list I've each played for at least half hour, some even to a full hour. I think every game got at least something right.

I pretty much feel the same way. Even games that I did not particularly enjoy, I would not classify any of them as terrible.

The simple fact of the matter is that 30 days is not a lot of time to make a game. Nothing is going to be perfect in 30 days. Hell, most AAA games developed over 3-5 years with a team of 100+ people aren't perfect. I think it is great though that so many people were able to actually make a game within the time frame, and that alone means a lot. It shows commitment and perseverance. 

I feel bad for some of the people who's entries were disqualified due to some bug or another that prevented the game from being eligible. Some of these games had some great concepts.

I think many of the games in this contest could certainly have successful lives beyond the contest. Most of the games I played suffered from the "made in 30 days" syndrome - meaning that the game would probably be really awesome if it had more development time. I hope people run with their projects and continue to build on what they have already created here.

 

[mathewvq]

This is incorrect. Rm2k3 was NEVER free to use and modifiable. It was pirated and abused.  You used an illegal maker to create the game. Therefore you have no rights to make a game in it and send it to the contest. This is almost an unspoken rule to any contest as it breaches that program's EULA, but we also have stated it in the game contest page. There was never a legal English version for RPG Maker 2003. IF you had used the legal Rm2k3 that is Japanese, that's another story. Even the RTPs themselves have a separate EULA. Except in RM2k3's case it's in Japanese so people think it's 'free' for those who don't speak it.

I wasn't referring to the editor at all, but the RPG_RT.exe runtime binary, which was patched to allow Latin characters for name entry. As far as I'm aware (and I could be wrong), it's not against the EULA to modify that exe.

Even so, if we're disqualified, then that's that. I really wish we had been officially notified instead of finding out on a forum post, since I only knew about this topic from GIR. Next time I'll be sure to email my question about engine/category sooner to avoid this situation.

 

[Faye Valentine]

   I'm pretty sure the rules said that you could use assets that were created prior to the start of the contest, in fact more than half of the entries would be disqualified if that wasn't true. I enjoyed both In search of immortality and Sunken Spires equally and thought both were great games. sequels/spiritual successors have existed almost as long as games have, why should it be okay for big companies with millions of dollars and hundreds of employees to copy their own engine and sell it to you if it isn't okay for small dev teams who aren't even charging you (for either of those at least) to do the same? Demons-Dark Souls, Assassin's Creed, and hell, Bethesda has reused the same core engine for all of their elder scrolls/fallout games since Morrowind and still haven't bloody changed it. If we're condemning games because they are sequels then we'll lose a lot of good games in the process.

   As to the topic, I won't select any winners, both because I haven't played all of the games and because I like to many of the ones I have played to make such a judgement. I will, however mention a few that I really enjoyed.

Peace of Mind: Really shocked me with how the story went, quite easy to get into but the atb seemed unnecessary.

Lost Spires: Already covered above.

The Alchemist's son: Not really at all in the running but I enjoyed it just the same, the holographic puzzles were especially fun.

Ashworth: The closest thing to an actual horror game I've seen in a while, sadly the genre is fairly void of anything worthwhile these days and it's refreshing to see someone try.

Don't get me wrong, pal. I'm not saying that they were cheating, that was just my opinion of the game. I didn't liked it, you know, there is not much more. I felt so dissapointed when i opened the menu and saw the same stuff as In Search For Inmortality. You know, all Assasin's Creed are different in their own way, God of War also, but i don't think Sunken Spire was different. I MAY be wrong because i played like 10 minutes (the dissapointment man) but as far as i saw, it was the same system, same gameplay. So as Cinnammon said, i'd prefer a game with new mechanics, new, fresh ideas. Like Little Briar Rose!

 

[Cinnamon]

I pretty much feel the same way. Even games that I did not particularly enjoy, I would not classify any of them as terrible.

The simple fact of the matter is that 30 days is not a lot of time to make a game. Nothing is going to be perfect in 30 days. Hell, most AAA games developed over 3-5 years with a team of 100+ people aren't perfect. I think it is great though that so many people were able to actually make a game within the time frame, and that alone means a lot. It shows commitment and perseverance. 

I feel bad for some of the people who's entries were disqualified due to some bug or another that prevented the game from being eligible. Some of these games had some great concepts.

I think many of the games in this contest could certainly have successful lives beyond the contest. Most of the games I played suffered from the "made in 30 days" syndrome - meaning that the game would probably be really awesome if it had more development time. I hope people run with their projects and continue to build on what they have already created here.

Agreed. But I do wonder: what games are you referring to that have been disqualified but had a "great concept"? Unless you have access to some insider information the only game I know that most likely got eliminated is Oneshot. All the other ones I've played and seen were eligible.

 

Don't get me wrong, pal. I'm not saying that they were cheating, that was just my opinion of the game. I didn't liked it, you know, there is not much more. I felt so dissapointed when i opened the menu and saw the same stuff as In Search For Inmortality. You know, all Assasin's Creed are different in their own way, God of War also, but i don't think Sunken Spire was different. I MAY be wrong because i played like 10 minutes (the dissapointment man) but as far as i saw, it was the same system, same gameplay. So as Cinnammon said, i'd prefer a game with new mechanics, new, fresh ideas. Like Little Briar Rose! 

 

I never played Search For Immortality so I enjoyed Sunken Spire quite a bit, but I did wonder how on earth the game was so polished and long with just 1 month of work. All my questions were answered when I discovered Search of Immortality and the other prequel, oho.

 

[Matseb2611]

In regard to Sunken Spire, I haven't played In Search of Immortality either, so maybe some stuff was copied from there, but also let's remember that it was done by 4 people, none of which are new to the engine and all of which have at least one distinct skill they're good at as far as game development, so they could just concentrate on their aspect of the game and leave other aspects to the other team members. When you're concentrating solely on the aspect you're good at, you can get a lot done in short time and to a good standard. It's when you have to do something you're not so good at, you might find yourself spending ages and ending up with something average at best.

 

[Ratty524]

Wait a minute, how are people knowing which games are disqualified or not (Though Oneshot is obvious. Too bad, I've heard that game was excellent).

 

[Cinnamon]

Wait a minute, how are people knowing which games are disqualified or not (Though Oneshot is obvious. Too bad, I've heard that game was excellent).

I was wondering the same thing myself, haha.

By the way, has anyone played Remnants of Isolation? The game only has 5 votes and I never heard of it but it's pretty fantastic so far. I find it very enjoyable. Not too many battles, interesting story, some custom art. Makes me wonder how many "unknown entries" will be winning Awards. I'm sure there are a few over looked gems. Who knows, the Grand Prize winner might be one none of us has played? Maybe it was even set to Private?

 

[Makio-Kuta]

Don't get me wrong, pal. I'm not saying that they were cheating, that was just my opinion of the game. I didn't liked it, you know, there is not much more. I felt so dissapointed when i opened the menu and saw the same stuff as In Search For Inmortality. You know, all Assasin's Creed are different in their own way, God of War also, but i don't think Sunken Spire was different. I MAY be wrong because i played like 10 minutes (the dissapointment man) but as far as i saw, it was the same system, same gameplay. So as Cinnammon said, i'd prefer a game with new mechanics, new, fresh ideas. Like Little Briar Rose!

Alma (from Immortality) and Elsa (from The Grumpy Knight) actually have very different game mechanics from their original games. Ooze, an entirely new character, had a game mechanic that was different than anyone else in Immortality or Grumpy Knight. Also, I can attest to the fact that the character art was not hawked from older games; I was not involved with Search for Immortality or The Grumpy Knight. I also remade the sprite for Elsa, and the behaviour sprites for all characters were made specifically for this game.


I understand you only played 10 minutes, so you really shouldn't be throwing around such claims. I am perfectly fine with the idea that you did not enjoy the game, but I take slight offensive to slandering the amount of effort myself and my teammates put into the month.

 

[Fomar0153]

Because it wasn't made in one month. Sorry, but it's the truth. It's an almost (not to say) an exact copy of In Search of Inmortality. Hang on... hang on... i know the creators are the same that made In Search of Inmortality, but it is still a copy. Of course it doesn't have the same plot. In fact, i don't even know if it has the same plot because i just played the first 10 minutes and just closed the game because the gameplay was the same... wear mods, battle everyone... i really liked In Search of Inmortality but with Sunken Spire i feel like i'm playing the same stuff. The starting character is even THE SAME that In Search of Inmortality (am i repeating in search of inmortality too much? xD) which is Alma. So... i don't know, i didn't liked it not even a single bit. They could have done better.

I don't get the exact copy bit, we had two returning characters from In Search of Immortality and one from The Grumpy Knight all of whom came with new systems. Mods were just a fancy name for equipment stemming back to Dead Moon Night. The battle system was CTB again as me and Indrah have found we enjoy working with them but so far the three games that we've used CTBs in have all had differences. In Immortality turn order was affected by the speed of your skill and the order itself could be manipulated. In Search of Freedom had the stamina and stock mechanic allowing you to store up additional actions. Sunken Spire held back on the extras as it already had a large number of character systems to learn.

It's fine that you didn't like it but the way you word it sounds like we started by copying and pasting Immortality and then changed the maps and dialogue. I would estimate 90% if not higher of the content in Sunken Spire was original and developed for this contest.

 

[Archeia]

I wasn't referring to the editor at all, but the RPG_RT.exe runtime binary, which was patched to allow Latin characters for name entry. As far as I'm aware (and I could be wrong), it's not against the EULA to modify that exe.

Even so, if we're disqualified, then that's that. I really wish we had been officially notified instead of finding out on a forum post, since I only knew about this topic from GIR. Next time I'll be sure to email my question about engine/category sooner to avoid this situation.

It's not allowed. The runtime.exe is part of rm2k3 and therefore part of the EULA.

I'm confused as to why you used RM2k3 as an engine considering it is illegally distributed. I thought that was a given.

 

[Cinnamon]

I don't get the exact copy bit, we had two returning characters from In Search of Immortality and one from The Grumpy Knight all of whom came with new systems. Mods were just a fancy name for equipment stemming back to Dead Moon Night. The battle system was CTB again as me and Indrah have found we enjoy working with them but so far the three games that we've used CTBs in have all had differences. In Immortality turn order was affected by the speed of your skill and the order itself could be manipulated. In Search of Freedom had the stamina and stock mechanic allowing you to store up additional actions. Sunken Spire held back on the extras as it already had a large number of character systems to learn.

It's fine that you didn't like it but the way you word it sounds like we started by copying and pasting Immortality and then changed the maps and dialogue. I would estimate 90% if not higher of the content in Sunken Spire was original and developed for this contest.

In that case my apologies for jumping to conclusions without doing further research first.  I thought the prequels had the exact same development / skill systems. Obviously a very talented and diverse team worked on the game resulting in such a polished and long product. Kudos to you! ^^

 

[mathewvq]

It's not allowed. The runtime.exe is part of rm2k3 and therefore part of the EULA.

I'm confused as to why you used RM2k3 as an engine considering it is illegally distributed. I thought that was a given.

I've seen so many modified runtime exes for XP+ games that I honestly, truly thought this was a term within the EULA of RPG Maker 2003. We misunderstood the terms and apologize.

 

[Ratty524]

Easiest way to know you are violating TOS: When you are using an engine you know you got for free.

 

[??????]

The Ed, Edd and Eddy within your sig made that all the funnier imo 

 

[_Shadow_]

Easiest way to know you are violating TOS: When you are using an engine you know you got for free.

[SIZE=12.222222328186035px]Let me rephrase this a little, cause it is a little inaccurate. I still got what you meant:[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12.222222328186035px]Easiest way to know you are violating TOS: When you are using a commercial engine you know you got for free.[/SIZE]

 

[dinkledaberry]

Easiest way to know you are violating TOS: When you are using an engine you know you got for free.

Pretty much a good guideline for life in general right here.