20% only for gameplay seems a little harsh and unbalanced to me. Especially when how easy it is to install gets fully half as many points as gameplay! Shouldn't gameplay be the single most important section?
I agree here.
20% only for gameplay seems a little harsh and unbalanced to me. Especially when how easy it is to install gets fully half as many points as gameplay! Shouldn't gameplay be the single most important section?
I agree here.
@d000hg: I don't think that gameplay is necessarily the most important element in all game types: consider traditional point-and-click adventure games, for example. (I'm also dubious of placing audio below graphics: should an entry that blinds the player, asking them to rely on sound, be at a disadvantage against one that has no sound at all?)
I think that, if I were to weight a single element in the scoring list above the others, it would probably be "theme": after all, that would seem to be the central point of comparison for the various likely-disparate entries that I would expect. We might argue about how to score an adventure game against a shooter, or a game set in the silence of space against one that depicts the experience of blindness, but all are expected to follow the theme.
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I think that, if I were to weight a single element in the scoring list above the others, it would probably be "theme": after all, that would seem to be the central point of comparison for the various likely-disparate entries that I would expect. We might argue about how to score an adventure game against a shooter, or a game set in the silence of space against one that depicts the experience of blindness, but all are expected to follow the theme.
I agree that gameplay shouldn't be elevated too highly over the others, but I also disagree that theme should be elevated higher than the others. With the theme, in past competitions, usually the judges almost make theme a boolean equation. "Is the theme present? Yep? 100% in that category.", "Is it not present? 0% then!", with maybe a, "Okay, it's sorta present. 50% then.", so making the theme give 30% of the equation might would most likely end up with almost all the games having a full 100% in the theme category, and then you'd be competing in the other categories but with a smaller scoring range (0-70%) to differentiate, making it harder to determine winners based on score, and leading to more ties.
Personally, I'm in favor of polish contributing to your overall score.
I do like the idea of including a "polish" scoring element.
It's perhaps a little rough for a competition that only provides a week in which to work, but I do think that polish is something worth encouraging from developers (myself included).
With the theme, in past competitions, usually the judges almost make theme a boolean equation.
Hmm... On the one hand, that seems to me to be an issue in the judging--perhaps better guidelines for judging the "theme" element might be called for? However, if it's a problem that's not reasonably easy to solve for this competition, then I do concede your point; in fact, in that case it might even be worth reducing that element's weight.
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I'm always interested in programming competitions, but sadly my personal life doesn't allow me the time to take part in any. I wish everyone good luck in this competition:).
I was leaving 5 points for Judge Discretion, i was just so upset with Audio getting 15% i lost track, thanks for catching it.