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dislekcia
02-09-2009, 01:55 AM
Comp 22 Results: Genre Benders!

Ask any gamer to imagine their favorite games cross-dressing as different genres and you'll have yourself an entertaining waste of an afternoon. Turn that into a drinking game somehow and you'll have some of the best ideas that nobody can remember ("Hey! What about Bejewelled as a drinking game! You'd have a grid of colourful shooters...") and probably the most fun hangover ever. There would probably be rules to where and how you could feel bad and an inexplicable set of text parser puzzles to solve. These things happen.

Ask the Game.Dev forum regulars to do the same thing and you get this ton of stuff to play through. Each one a fragment of a parallel universe where Team 17 were german boardgame designers, Valve had paper instead of the Source engine or Cliffy_B grew up a hikkikomori instead of a disco pirate with a scanner.

Then you have to judge them... Well, I do. You can, but mine's better. Whatever. Those of you that are boring and want to go straight to the results and play the top 3, click here.

REVIEWS:

Alien vs Predator: The Dating Sim (http://forums.tidemedia.co.za/nag/showthread.php?t=10934) - Nandrew
http://www.gamedotdev.co.za/images/comp22/AvPDate.jpg
If you're anything like me, you've asked yourself what it would be like to french kiss a Predator. AvP: The Dating Sim is as close as you're ever about to get without raiding Arnie's secret diaries. Surprisingly enough, the game has you assume the role of an extremely sexually liberated Marine in search of <3 with either a fellow Marine (ooh) an Alien (ahh) or a Predator (eep - and probably illegal). Once you pick an *ahem* target, you are presented with no more than three dialogue choices at a time with which to woo them. In the ancient tradition of dating sims everywhere, certain choices have a positive effect on your would-be fanfic fodder whilst others send you on a one way trip to heartache-ville. Or death. Dating in the future is dangerous!

The object of your affection's current emotional state is shown via state of the art pheromone tech. If you don't have a functioning Jacobson's organ, you're going to have to make do with various forms of super sarcastic smiley as your only entertainment. That and that razor sharp wit that permeates every single glorious status update or corny dialogue choice. If you've ever enjoyed Alien vs Predator ANYTHING and simultaneously enjoy laughing, this game represents ten minutes of your life well spent.

DDR the top-down shooter (http://forums.tidemedia.co.za/nag/showthread.php?t=11031) - SkinkLizzard
http://www.gamedotdev.co.za/images/comp22/DDR-top-down-shooter.jpg
While certainly a creative blend of genres and the game itself being eminently playable, the combination of DDR matching mechanics and a dodge-based shooter don't gel with the elegant simplicity that either of their progenitors are known for. You're told to dodge explosive arrows (or moves, as the game calls them) and can switch the type of ammo you fire to counter each type. Incorrectly matching ammo and a move results in health loss on par with simply flying into the explosive little bugger.

Here's why it feels odd: The rules concerning what you can shoot don't feel kinesthetically constrained the way DDR's arrow pads clearly are; Plus you tend to spend a lot of your time cycling through different types of shot while herding clumps of moves. Perhaps if the game simply tied movement to the cursor and allowed you to fire the 4 different types of ammo with the corresponding WASD keys, or if it gave you a sequence of shots that you had to fire in order with no switching, it would feel more in tune. There's also little to no rhythm element to the gameplay, which is a real shame - rhythm-based shooters are a small but really enjoyable genre, the world could do with more of them.

That said, the game does handle the task of giving the player feedback on their continuous mode switching very well and you're never left wondering exactly what ammo you're going to fire and you know when something went well or badly for you. It's also just a little odd that a game with DDR as an inspiration doesn't use the DDR arrow configuration (which starts with left instead of up).

Fallout: EezeE-Wasteland Outpost Creation Kit (http://forums.tidemedia.co.za/nag/showthread.php?t=10958) - Aval4nche
http://www.gamedotdev.co.za/images/comp22/Fallout_E-WOCK.jpg
Fallout has already gone through somewhat of a metamorphosis already: Transitioning from tactical, turn-based RPGs into an FPS/RPG hybrid with Fallout 3. Aval4nche wondered what would happen if the game went through yet another phase-change, this time into the management genre.

You're tasked with re-establishing civilisation out in the Capitol City wastes after being disgorged by your vault. Unfortunately civilisation requires a ready supply of food (via Brahmin farms), places for people to live, protection from marauding raiders and an all-important place to do science. Because without science, where would we be? That's as far as the game has really gotten: You build up a bit of an outpost and then bloody dogs gnaw your carefully run farms to pieces. Sniper towers help until the supermutants arrive, but eventually you're overrun... Perhaps that's a statement about the futility of survival after nuclear war, or maybe it's just a symptom of me getting confused by the interface. Either way, it's certainly one of the cooler concepts of the competition: Who doesn't want to run a wasteland town, stockpiling bottle caps so that you can buy enough mercs to wipe the grins off those smug bastards over in Megaton?

Gears of War: The Minesweeper! (http://forums.tidemedia.co.za/nag/showthread.php?t=10996) - Nandrew
http://www.gamedotdev.co.za/images/comp22/GearsSweeper.jpg
Starting out our trifecta of Gears of War re-imaginings (Hah! I've always wanted to use that word) in this competition is perhaps the most abstract of them all: Play Marcus and our lovable Delta Squad heroes as though their entire world was... A Minesweeper game?

To be fair, there aren't really mines that need to be defused. Instead you have to dispatch Locusts that the game gives you two sets of information about: Each square revealed tells you how many Locusts neighbor it and the colour of a square tells you the most powerful type of Locust nearby. Clicking on a known "mine" square doesn't end your game, you end the Locust and take damage according to the type of Locust you've just curb-stomped. Drones don't hurt too much, but Boomers and Elite Guards take a concerted jab at the crimson omen that represents your closeness to death. Explore squares that aren't Locust infested and your health regenerates. So far so good, sounds interesting, right? Oh but you haven't run into the ITEMS yet.

That's right, items. Scattered around the map are items that could help you out in your quest to destroy Locusts and maximise your final score (because that's how wars a really measured!). Some are passive and always active, others need to be used to function and have limited charges. These items aren't indicated by any numbers or colours, so finding them is sheer luck, but it's the best kind of fortune when you do. Especially when you've just found Cole, whose jubilant whoops scare nearby Locust so much they actively become weaker. The wide range of items is what really makes the game: Everything from finding Colonel Hoffman and his awesome hax, to Betty's Locust crushing wheels, or even "finding" a torque bow bolt protruding from your armor... This is an amazingly well done evolution of Minesweeper's play mechanics with Gears of War's mythos and elements. It's synergistic, even. The "just one more go" feeling is strong with this one - This time you might even find Maria!

Jazz Jackrabbit the fighting game (http://forums.tidemedia.co.za/nag/showthread.php?t=10940) - Kolle Hond
http://www.gamedotdev.co.za/images/comp22/JazzJackrabbitFighter.jpg
Creating a 2D fighter presents a large array of problems: How do you define hit areas and calculate when someone has been damaged? How do you handle player input so that the game's movement feels natural and doesn't degenerate into pressing a "win" button fastest? How do you animate all of those attacks? The truth is, it's a tricky thing to get right, which is why there are certain game studios that specialise exclusively in fighting games.

I'm sure Kolle Hond will be one of the first to attest to the height of the hurdles surrounding fighting game nirvana... While turning Jazz Jackrabbit from a platformer into a fighter is an amiable goal, the truth is that the systems needed were just too complex for the month the competition ran over. While there's definitely something to the idea of seeing Jazz and co beating the snot out of each other, it's not going to be happening any time soon. Chalk this one up to experience, I think.

Left 4 Dead: The Card Game (http://forums.tidemedia.co.za/nag/showthread.php?t=10911) - Fengol
http://www.gamedotdev.co.za/images/comp22/L4D_card_game.jpg
A card game? What? This is the first card game anyone's entered into these competitions in (counts fingers) 5 years! Awesome. Hang on, double-awesome - it's a re-imagining of Left 4 Dead, Valve's frantic zombie-destroying co-op "accidental" teamkill fest. I hope that made you curious, because now you get the game explained to you:

As a card game, Left 4 Dead has you all drawing cards face down from a central pile - each turn it's one player's lot to be "the difficulty" and draw anything from 1-3 cards extra, depending on if you want to play easy, normal or expert. (A card game with difficulty settings? Novel!) Once you've all drawn, the cards are flipped over at the same time and you find out if you've got zombies, special infected or - if you're really lucky - some kind of weapon or item in front of you. Some cards have on-flip actions: The Horde card makes you draw 2 cards face down when it's flipped, for instance (these 2 extra cards are only flipped next turn, another nice touch). Zombies deal damage at the end of a turn in which they haven't been killed (with the exception of Smokers, who damage on-flip)... The players kill zombies by matching a zombie's hit point total with their gun damage, which can be augmented by special cards like Molotovs or "There's Ammo Over Here" - which gives everyone +1 damage this round. Picking up different weapons is an important part of the game as each has its own strengths and weaknesses, similar to the way they work in the game itself. Players need to work together to take down the zombie hordes in their way, there's a great deal of strategising between flips - as well as conservation of med-kits and general panic should a Tank, Witch or (heaven forbid) both appear.

To top it all off, the card game echos the video game's Finales by having a finale mode that triggers once you've run out of cards to draw, turning an already tricky game into a tense final few rounds that either kills everyone or sees you all emerge as survivors, battle-scarred, weary and raring for another round.

Minesweeper Puzzle Platformer (http://forums.tidemedia.co.za/nag/showthread.php?t=10954) - Ramperkash
http://www.gamedotdev.co.za/images/comp22/MinesweeperPP.jpg
What a great question to ask a game designer: "What if, instead of being a disembodied mouse cursor, you put the person back into Minesweeper?" The idea of a puzzle platformer leaps into the conversation. Well, that and a top down "don't step on a mine" dexterity game with lots of explodey giblets. But still, how do you do a puzzle platformer with Minesweeper's rules?

First step, remove the auto clearing of areas with no mines in them. You don't want those precious blocks disappearing away from you when they could very well be the only way to get out of a hole. The platform mechanics dictate that you've got to be able to clear selectively, except that's a bit of a problem with a mouse... You can simply click anywhere to open a path for yourself, especially when there's no real penalty for hitting a mine other than more blocks being cleared. So nice start, but the game needs more of a puzzle angle - more to sink your teeth into and really take it away from Minesweeper Pathfinding and move it towards those evil little puzzles that are gloriously satisfying when you finally figure them out...

What if there was no mouse cursor, meaning your little man had to clear things himself? What if, instead of killing you, detonating mines flung said little man around, all ragdolled up? What if you took away the jump key and spent some time designing a few fiendish levels (or 20)? I, for one, would be keen to find out.

Starcraft as a brawler (http://forums.tidemedia.co.za/nag/showthread.php?t=10914) - DukeOfPrunes
http://www.gamedotdev.co.za/images/comp22/Starcraft_brawler.jpg
This has to go down in history as one of the coolest ideas ever. People always want Starcraft as an FPS, or these days, as a new-fangled team-centric FPS/RTS-hybrid or some other related bull****. DukeOfPrunes knows deep down in his heart what these fancy-pants sissies don't want to admit: Starcraft is about hitting things. Lots. Possibly also slobbering on them as well, but mainly about the hitting.

In the glorious tradition of games like Double Dragon, Golden Axe and the like, you basically spend your time pounding away at a button in lieu of actually being able to hit things in the face physically. Except this being, y'know, STARCRAFT, there's an amount of strategy to things as well: You build units and then make those units hit other units (I know, right?). Build order being all important and only being able to control the Protoss for the moment, you're pretty much told to build a probe immediately or else. Said probe goes off and does nasty things to minerals, the kind you require more of. Soon you'll be able to afford a combat unit (or three) which you can select with the spacebar and then you'll probably die as bastardly red Protoss zealots and dragoons destroy you. Yes, the game is hard, but it is possible (and actually rather rewarding) to win, provided you figure out how to knock enemies down (hit Z a lot) and control nearby friendly units (hit R a lot).

The game's not finished, but it damn well should be. Not only is the concept worthy of an ultralisk boner, it's fun too. There's enough unique cross-bleed across the genre gap to make it different and exciting, especially if you'd be able to spend resources (vespene, maybe?) to trigger special attacks like reaver drops or psi-storms. That would be badass! But the main reason this thing needs to be completed is that I want to see what DoP's Zerg units look like! His side-on zealots are kickass and he's drawn quite possibly the happiest dragoons in the history of ever. No pathing woes for them...

Super Gear of War XD Advance Alpha III (http://forums.tidemedia.co.za/nag/showthread.php?t=10928) - Gazza_N
http://www.gamedotdev.co.za/images/comp22/GearsRPG.jpg
Gears of War + JRPG. There you go, you've already imagined the game better than I could lay it out for you in an introductory paragraph, there's only one problem: You're not imagining it AWESOME enough.

If the name hasn't given it away, this is a rather humorous take on the game. You start out with some scene-setting random tongue in cheek dialogue, which works at least as well as those annoying parts where Marcus can't walk fast because there's a finger in his ear. Then all the members of Delta Squad - including the perpetually crying "Emodom" - inexplicably climb on top of Marcus and disappear... If that didn't make you immediately go "ZOMG JRPG-feel!" then you're really not doing this right. Marcus/Delta runs around, collecting COG tags and generally trying to grunt the Serran national anthem right up until you get too close to a locust, then you're trust into the combat screen. Yay, combat screen! (Again, if you're not gleeful at this, why do you even pretend to care about JRPGs?)

Combat proceeds in well-worn turn-taking fashion until either everyone in Delta or all the enemies are dead. Popping out from cover to fire at an enemy exposes you to damage and you only regen while in cover, making managing your squad quite simple, yet interesting. Especially when you pick up weapons: Equipping a sniper rifle or torque bow really does make a difference (and I personally love the way the torque bow works, taking a whole turn to crank up before it fires) and you can level up different stats to make you more accurate as a sniper, less prone to dying, do more damage, etc. Standard stuff so far. Standard until you get to active reloads.

Yes, Gears of War's seminal addition to the TPS milieu is represented wonderfully in Super Gear of War XDAA3: Every time a character has to reload their weapon, you're given the active reload minigame. A perfect reload gives you SP and a slight damage boost, a fluff costs you SP and probably makes Dom cry more. SP can be spent during combat for neat attacks, things like chainsawing one of the enemy, lobbing a grenade, calling down mortar fire or targeting the hammer of dawn. It's also a relatively long game, but please do note that as soon as you give it a try you'll finish wanting more of it. I'd kill to see the whole Gears saga redone this way. I really would.

TF2: Goldrush the puzzle game (http://forums.tidemedia.co.za/nag/showthread.php?t=11011) - Dammit
http://www.gamedotdev.co.za/images/comp22/TF2-as-a-puzzler.jpg
Team Fortress 2, you say. A hugely successful re-imagining of an ancient mod, itself initially an attempt to do the unthinkable to traditional FPS gameplay, you continue. Finally, what do you call a re-imagining of a re-imagining of a mod, you ask?

"Fun" springs to mind. "Strangely compelling", "A puzzle game?" and "Filled with TF2 in jokes" would also probably be on the tip of your tongue. You're tasked with guiding a lone Blu pyro around multiple levels (all themed after the TF2 "Meet the ..." videos, nice touch), each with a Payload-style bomb-on-a-track that you have to push toward the level exit. Death respawns you, but doesn't erase your progress so far, turning the game into a race against the ticking "level timer" and forcing you to take more risks, very clever. As you progress through the levels, the game introduces new characters, each of which kills you in a different way: Snipers jiggle left and right, firing arrows randomly; Scouts never bloody stop bleeding moving so they're hard to dodge; Heavies hog medics and spin around firing randomly, etc. They're all very true to the way the classes behave in TF2 itself, turning the game into an abstract take on the life of a pyro, on Goldrush - which is exactly what the game is called! OMW, utter hax!

I'd go further and imply that Dammit must be totally haxxoring due to this being her first foray into Game Maker and her first friggin game EVER, but that would be unkind. The long and the short of it is that guiding your little pyro around, trying to not get killed, pushing your cart feels absolutely great. All we need are more levels to play through (with some different characters working together, for example) and some liberally applied polish.

"Meet the Scout. He's a ****."

Wormies The Boardgame (http://forums.tidemedia.co.za/nag/showthread.php?t=10930) - Insomniac & DarthPenguin
http://www.gamedotdev.co.za/images/comp22/Wormies_boardgame.jpg
Besides arriving via courier in an honest-to-goodness handmade box, the effort that's gone into Wormies The Boardgame is obvious from the word go. Slotting the enormous map together is done in a bemused haze as one of you reads the rules aloud in a silly voice (like you do). Setting up your wormy figures on the top-down map grid and handling all the other little doohickeys is rad. Or tubular. Or whatever the cool words were when Worms first came out. Once you're done setting up, the game pretty much plays like Worms. If you'd imagined Worms 3D, removed all the suck and as a 2D topdown game. If you know the franchise you'll be cackling as you murder worms (usually in brine, heh) and pick up crates around the map.

Eventually though, you realise that the game is a bit lacking in terms of that final punch. It's worms, but it's too close to worms and expects you to know the source game really well: What happens when a worm is poisoned? I have no idea, the boardgame's rules don't say. The slider-bar weapon counter card is neat, but it feels like a feature for feature's sake and not good game design: Weapons would be much better served as a hand of cards, each with their own rules on them, thus doing away with a whole extra printed page to constantly refer back to. It feels like the question of "What IF Worms was a boardgame?" has only been started to be explored, there's more to be asked and more gameplay to be found here, I really hope DarthPenguin and Insomniac find it. They certainly found a gem with the random placement card system - not to mention the sheer brilliant elegance of the random movement rules! If only the whole game felt as slick as that.

"WHERE'S MY WIFE?" - A Gears of War dating sim (http://forums.tidemedia.co.za/nag/showthread.php?t=10991) - Nandrew
http://www.gamedotdev.co.za/images/comp22/GearsDate.jpg
Hot on the heels of his previous excursion into dating sim territory (and sporting a large collection of Hello Kitty merchandise), Nandrew steps up to the true blockbuster video game love story that shook the heavens: One man's quest to recover his love for his estranged wife in a ruined world; The true story of Dominic Santiago, a man on several missions.

Having found Maria (OMG SPOILERS), the love of your war torn life, you are now tasked with finding out if she truly can love again after what she's been through at the hands of her Locust spinster friends. As is now standard, you're given three choices of action to take per step along the way to Maria's heart, everything from impersonating Cole to juggling Locust heads (and other popular dating activities on Sera). The game is a heartfelt exploration of the human condition and an expose of the love that shook the gaming world, or maybe it's an ironic poke at overwrought story scenes and heavy-handed writing. You be the judge, you heartless bastard.


RESULTS:

This came down to a battle of completeness: All three top entries took turns being first in my mind, but in the end the games that felt the most like a complete experience won out.

First place: Left 4 Dead as a card game - Fengol
Print the cards out on heavy stock paper and start playing. That's all you need to do to have a great evening. Valve needs to know about this little gem.

Second place: GearsSweeper - Nandrew
I've lost count of the amount of hours I've sunk into this game. STEP on mines, er, locust. Brilliant!

Third place: Super Gear of War XD Adventure Alpha III - Gazza_N
It looks like a JRPG. It plays like a JRPG. It feels like Gears. Gotta be a bloody winner. Played from start to finish in one sitting, didn't care what else happened. Serious about the full Gears saga like this, you'd win internets for sure.

Honorable mention:

TF2: Goldrush the puzzle game - Dammit
This is such a cool little action puzzler, lots of little TF2 nuances, great concept. Would have been top 3 in any other comp. If this is her first game ever, Dammit has serious Nandrew-esque potential!

Wormies The Boardgame - Insomniac & DarthPenguin
THEY MADE A COMPLETE PHYSICAL BOARDGAME! If that doesn't deserve honorable mention, I don't know what does. Come to rAge and play the game :)

...

These are the best competition entries that Game.Dev has produced so far, bar none. Seriously, I don't think I've ever enjoyed myself this much playing through everything before. I love this concept and it's pretty clear you all do to. We're going to do this again at some point, let's see what amazing stuff you all produce then!

dislekcia
02-09-2009, 02:08 AM
So dead. Comp 23 announcement tomorrow! ... Today. Argh. Thing, whatever.

(Also, special shoutout to Gaz dans la podcast earlier)

vii
02-09-2009, 03:31 AM
These totally need to be on display at rAge. Print out a few versions of the L4D game to be played at the game.dev stand and you'll have trouble getting people to go away.

edg3
02-09-2009, 07:14 AM
Congrats to the winners! Also Dammit's game was awesome. s'all.

Luke
02-09-2009, 08:41 AM
Some super cool stuff everyone... congrats to all, and congrats++ to the winners!

Insomniac
02-09-2009, 09:37 AM
Congrats to the winners!
Thanks for all the feedback dislekcia, unfortunately we ran out of time near the end so that's why our printed rules seemed a bit rushed ;)
Darth and I should hopefully be making the trip up to rAge from Durban this year so we look forward to playing Worms with all of you :)

DukeOFprunes
02-09-2009, 10:12 AM
Well done gais, the boardgames have been looking especially sweet and deserves a fairly hard pat on the back for breaking moulds. Or making them... or something to that effect. Youknowwhaddimean.

FyreWolfe
02-09-2009, 10:24 AM
gratz guys!

Fengol
02-09-2009, 11:20 AM
WOW! Thanks everyone and congratulations to the other winners and everyone who entered. I need to give a special thank you to all the people who helped playtest the game to get the mechanics right

Cyberninja
02-09-2009, 11:54 AM
Congrats to all the winners. :)

dammit
02-09-2009, 01:23 PM
^___^ Glee!

Also, congrats to the winrars!

Oh, and thanks to disleckia for putting such a huge amount of work into each and every review :)

DukeOFprunes
02-09-2009, 01:46 PM
Yes, thanks D. The reviews and screenies make this possibly the best thing I've seen online this month.

Sismrnoth
02-09-2009, 02:18 PM
Thanks for making all these inspired games, everyone!

An awesome comp. I really want to do it again. :)

Nandrew
02-09-2009, 02:21 PM
Awesome! Screenies! I shall duly invest the meggage to see this page in its full glory. Thorough reviews which, as always, leave people feeling all fuzzy and accomplished inside. ;) Dern gewd jerb!

I'm really excited about the increasing standard of the competition entry list, as well as the considerably increasing number of completed projects! I hope this bodes well for Comp 23.

ONWARD AND UPWARD TO THE NEXT GAME CREATING CHALLENGE!



... you've also just taught me the term "hikkikomori".

Gazza_N
02-09-2009, 02:57 PM
Wooooo! \o/

I'd like to point out some honourable mentions of my own. Kudos to Azi for her kickass sprites (done while she was crunching over magazine deadlines, no less), and Sismrnoth, who spent the last week of her precious vac doing the level art, the status screen portraits, as well as helping me out with level construction and testing. I'm sure anyone who's played the game will agree with me that both of them did a damn good job on the art side of things. If I'd've done as good a job on the code 'n' gameplay side, perhaps I would've finally beaten Nandrew. :P

All the entries were really inspired, and I'm frothing at the mouth to see what'll happen in Comp 23. I'm also frothing at the mouth for rAge, so that I can finally get my grimy mitts on Fengol's game. ;)

In closing, WOOOOOO! AGAIN! \o/

Tr00jg
02-09-2009, 05:20 PM
Congrats guys!

Bonezmann
02-09-2009, 08:23 PM
Congrats to all the winners! I really need to enter the next comp... :\

Aval4nche
02-09-2009, 08:27 PM
Well done to the winners and everybody who entered! I can't wait for 23...

FuzzYspo0N
09-09-2009, 08:50 PM
good job fengol, and the rest. Good ideas all round for the most part.