Description
Everything on the programmer challenge here
Sumea Programmer Challenge
Tsumea 1000 ai challenge entry "Paper Zombies"
i had a go at the 1000 ai challenge. you can read the journal entry on what i came up with.
click here to download the executable demo in a rar file (~6 MB).
if you are not a developer, or are having trouble with the rar file, download an installer (~8 MB).
So who's got an entry?
With so few days remaining I'm wondering who here has actually developed an entry worth submitting?
I myself am kind of doubtful if I'll get mine finished in time, as I only really started working on it solidly about two weeks ago.
And so far I've only seen Manix's work, so does anyone else have an entry that would be ready by the (new) deadline?
Submitted by StephenWade on Wed, 10/12/08 - 6:42 PM
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I've got something
Yeah, I've got an entry but have been lazy over the last month so probably won't get everything that I wanted working, but gezzz, you learn a lot doing these kind of things.
No Entry
Okay, so I've decided that I don't have enough time to complete an entry now. I gave it a good shot but three weeks (of about 12-16 hour days) was not enough time to create an game engine/framework and a game with interesting AI.
I did manage to create a decent game engine (fairly no frills though), and I learnt/refreshed a lot of mathematics that I hadn't used for a while.
So I'll write about the experience on my blog (www.dominikgrabiec.com) and I'll be building a proper game with what I've got now.
Good luck to the remaining entrants!
Submitted by StephenWade on Mon, 15/12/08 - 6:51 PM
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mmm
Darn!
I really wish I had done something for this, every programming contest ever suffers from a lack of entries :(
I would have loved to have entered...
but i only saw it 2 weeks ago and have been really busy (not to mention 2 weeks prolly wasnt long enough so even though i started work on an entry it would never have been done in time =)
I will keep on eye on this site for future contests XD since it sounds like a lot of fun
but i must mention that starting it in september does seem like a bad time of year (exams anyone? :O)
-queries possibility of extension until end of january? :P!!!-
Submitted by StephenWade on Tue, 16/12/08 - 8:13 AM
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i don't know if there is
i don't know if there is ever an "ideal" time, lots of competitions suffer a big drop out rate regardless of the time of year. Just be sure to get some resolve to have a crack at the next one!
Yeah, at least now I havee
Yeah, at least now I havee some sort of base game engine/framework to work from for the next competition.
Language Clarification
I posted this on the announcement comment thread but have received no replies, so posting here as well.
Just a little clarification on the rules, does the whole thing, including all AI have to be done in C++? Or can we write our own little AI language and use that for part of the entry?
Submitted by WilliamDocherty on Tue, 14/10/08 - 5:44 PM
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Language Clarification
HI
It is preferred that the entire application is written in C++.
If your AI language uses C++ as a core for a scripting style language, then that is also an acceptable solution.
Cheers
William Docherty
Technical Director
THQ Studio Oz
Competition Objective
Okay so i'm a little confused as to the actual objectives of this competition.. from what i've gathered, we're making a game and also programming the AI controlled units in the game. Of which there are to be over 1000+ AI controlled units.
But how are we we being judged? Is the goal of the competition to make a game that is better than everyone elses with smarter AI, or the goal to make the smartest AI you can make?
If the latter it doesn't really make sense since we're all making different games anyway.
Basically i'm just a little confused as to how we are going to be compared to everyone else in order to judge the winner? What does our game have to achieve?
Taken straight from the
Taken straight from the challenge brief:
The Judges will be reviewing your work with the following criteria:
- Quality of code framework
- Code & data efficiency
- Levels of player interaction
- Unique & clever uses of AI
You will not be judged on the graphics quality of the work submitted.
- Quality of code
- Quality of code framework
- Code & data efficiency
but how could you compare those two when the 'game's we make will be vastly different?
Doesn't matter what you
Doesn't matter what you make, if the code is poor its poor.
Maybe you create a game that is the most fun to play but in the end if it doesn't score well in all the judging criteria then it won't win.
Ok first of all, i'm
Ok first of all, i'm assuming people doing this competition are competent enough programmers to be able to code cleanly, so your statement about the code being poor just seems irrelevant to me.
The first two clauses of the judging criteria just don't seem to be things you can compare in this competition because they way you code it is unique to the product/game you're making. We haven't been told that this game is to support extensions or comply to standard X or standard Y or anything of the sort; thus the first criteria is the most generic criteria possible.
The second criteria i'm going to assume is related to resource usage, ie. CPU and memory. And also slightly more generally to say you won't need the 100% resource usage of a top-end computer just to run Snake.
The second two criteria seem to be related to gameplay, but it is not clear how this is going to be judged? Thats really what i'm trying to find out in this thread. Is player interaction measured by how fun it is to play? the UI? What players have the ability to do? Its just that the more I look at it its sounding like a Game design competition not an AI programming challenge.
And as for unique & clever uses of AI, what does this mean? Is it a measure of how intelligent the AI are in the game? Are we programming bots that play like humans or is AI here defined as how intelligent the units in an RTS game are at carrying out their tasks? its so broad! an extra-intelligent AI could have more knowledge about its environment than the human player and also be able to cheat...
The competition brief is quite vague isn't it? Making it more specific at this stage wouldn't be possible but i'd like to have some sort of a better idea as to what they want and how they will be judging it.
For example you could create a chess game with a chess player AI (which could be coded cleanly, efficiently, have a good UI and the AI opponent could be pretty smart), but you could also create a whacky game of your own design where you're shooting things in the most complex world ever, where the physics of every object accurately reflects science on earth and the AI is so smart it recursively knows the next 5 branched levels of possible game state and acts accordingly. But how would you compare the two?
If this is an AI programming challenge, how do you compare two AIs when the game they are being played on is not common?
From what i'm guessing, it seems like a Game Design competition with a specified focus in its AI components where we have to make a Fun (? does it have to be) game (how complex?) where there are 1000+ (quoted) AI controlled objects/units/whatever that doesn't take up excessive ammounts of resources (but what is considered excessive?)
Actually, regarding the 1000+ AI unit requirement, what does that entail? do a thousand units that move forward or left depending on the colour of the square they're standing on count as 1000+ AI units?
Sorry its so long, and I would really like to enter the comp but what are we measuring :(
I'm not going to comment on
I'm not going to comment on the design stuff, because I think one of the organisers could answer it better, but in regards to the quality of code it is quite easy to measure (in my opinion).
In my job I frequently look at code written by other programmers who are all 'competent enough' but their code is not always easy to follow, easy to debug, well commented or particularly well written! The code still works, obviously, but it can take a little while to figure out what it is doing (or trying to do!).
With that in mind, I think it makes sense to add it as a criteria to be judged against. If the reviewer can't look at your code and understand what you are doing then you aren't coding cleanly :)
Hope that helps.
Submitted by StephenWade on Tue, 07/10/08 - 1:35 AM
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I say
I know I will come across as a grumpy old man, but let's face it. I am one
Brief answer to a few of your inane quandaries
1. Does it have to be a game?
In the competition specification it says "player interaction". Player implies the verb play, and play means game. At least, this is my take on it.
2. Player interaction ?
Fun may not be the top priority. My initial understanding is that it would be likely that this is more about the AI having not only a level of reaction to player input, but some 'perceivable consequence' - probably making it both a design and programming consideration.
3. Unique/clever use of AI ?
Two things I can think of that might come into the judging process. First is that AI already has many established methods, although it might seem like a 'design challenge' it's also true that to apply these solutions to new problems requires thorough understanding of the behaviour of the method. Judging whether the AI 'appears' smart is how I am going to look at it.
I think, regarding say your chess example that I would think that an AI being 'successful' is not equivalent to an AI being 'smart'. Knowing more branches of the game than a human can see is a dull, boring, obvious method for AI.
4. How complex a game ?
I think this is only implicitly part of the judging criteria, I'm not sure. It's likely (although not necessarily true) that a simpler game will have simpler AI requirements, and hence may effect what you can actually achieve AI wise. Hence, affect your result.
5. What is considered excessive ?
My logic :
We are given that we will be able to use DX9. Most systems that support the features of DX9 are probably 2-3 years old at least. If it doesn't run in real time on that kind of system, it's probably excessive. I am fairly sure it'd be a bad idea to write for a target platform of a mobile phone.
Okay - I will now spend less time responding, and more time coding
I suggest we all follow suit :)
Submitted by WilliamDocherty on Tue, 14/10/08 - 6:04 PM
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Competition Objective
HI
As someone was already kind enough to point out, the submissions will be reviewed using these criteria:
- Quality of code framework
- Code & data efficiency
- Levels of player interaction
- Unique & clever uses of AI
Some additional notes:
Quality of code framework
- Has nothing to do with coding standards or coding style
- Has everything to do with the architecture & quality of implementation
- This criteria will reward solutions that are architecturally sound
Code & data efficiency
- Solving unique code challenges within reasonable CPU performance bounds & memory restrictions is an every day task when developing games It is very easy to solve many problems by ignoring real-time aspects & reasonable memory use.
- This judging criteria will reward solutions that recognise the importance of code & data efficiency
levels of player interaction
- In game development it's all about player interaction for the end user
- This criteria will reward solutions that show good use of player interaction
Unique & clever uses of AI
- In game development a unique/clever feature may become a USP for your title. Pushing the boundaries of what's being achieved before or implementing an old system well using a new technique.
- This criteria rewards solutions that offer something new
Regarding some of the other questions:
A solution that moves 1000 units forward and left based on the colour of the square they are standing on, will not fulfill the criteria outlined above, for example, being unique or clever.
Proving a solution that plays chess, would be clever and may score well, however it wouldn't be unique or demonstrate 1000 units.
The specification for the task is deliberately open to interpretation, but is closed enough to limit the solutions that can be presented.
Cheers
William Docherty
Tehcnical Director
THQ Studio Oz
Month to Go
How is everybody going with the challenge???
I'm not going to repeat myself so this is what I'm up to:
http://www.tsumea.com/journal/manix/111108/update-thq-challenge-entry-m…
Submitted by StephenWade on Wed, 12/11/08 - 1:10 PM
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Deadline extension
I may have to extend the deadline to match the modeller challenge's finishing date. I'm going overseas and won't be back in the country until the 13th or 14th of December. So yeh, you may get an extra few days :o
THQ Challenge Entry - Kyin
Okay, I've figured out what I want to do
Overview:
The NPCs will attempt to reach a goal area by crossing over hills and valleys. Going uphill slows them down and going downhill speeds them up (within limits). The Player can drop bombs which deform the landscape and kill NPCs, or Terraform to create difficult terrain.
NPC Behavior:
NPCs will have basic flocking behaviours and no pathfinding. Their direction of movement will be largely determined by the goal, and the terrain.
There will be three distinct NPC types: Engineer, Shielder and Soldier.
- Engineers will stop and attempt to smooth out steep uphill slopes.
- Shielders will stop and deploy shields in areas that the player has recently bombed.
- Soldiers are the only ones that will score points for the NPCs when they reach the goal zone.
My goal is to see some emergent cooperative behavior among the NPCs. e.g. Shielders protecting Engineers as they smooth out a slope for the Soldiers.
Development Environment:
I will be using Visual C++ 2008 Express Edition and the Truevision SDK for this project.
THQ Challenge Entry - Squashed_Bug
Hi all,
Here's my entry ...
Overview:
AI Agents have to make it to the goal zone before the time runs out and without being shot by the sniper. The player takes the role of the sniper and must shoot as many agents as they can.
A Little More Detail:
- The scene is created with the goal zone in the center and the sniper positioned a few meters above it.
- The scene gets populated with a random set of objects.
- Agents are placed randomly.
- The scene is analyzed to find where it safe for an agent to hide from the sniper and where the agent is able to walk (This will be hardest step).
- A set of waypoints will then be generated to lead the agents through a clear path to the goal zone.
- Edges between each waypoints will be assigned some weight, which will be updated frequently and based on a number of variables (i.e distance, time left, where the sniper is looking, number of agents on the edge, does the edge lead to cover?).
- The A* algorithm will then be used to find the best path to the goal zone.
Development Environment:
This project will be developed in Visual C++ 2008 Express Edition. I'll be using Ogre for the graphics and the Bullet Physics for collision detection.
Submitted by squashed_bug on Mon, 22/09/08 - 6:08 PM
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First Screenshots
I created a scene where objects are randomly placed and now I'm working on analysing the scene. So far I've managed to mark where it is safe for agents to stand, which has hopefully ment a lot the math is out of the way. Next will be finding where the waypoints will go and then I can start concentrating on the AI.
An early screenshot showing some objects for agents to hide behind.
A debugging screenshot showing where it is safe for an agent to stand. The green areas are safe and the red areas are where objects are.
THQ Challenge Entry - Helo
Hi all,
Just trying to thinking of an idea at the moment. Will post more when I have a solid idea.
Good luck to everyone.
Ok so I think ive got the
Ok so I think ive got the idea im going to go with.
Its a human vs AI war game where you control huge army's into battle. A lot of emphasis will be put towards group formations and tactics.
If time permits ill also put in some more advanced individual/unit behaviors to give them each different personalities.
The game in dot points:
*Each army will start at each end of the map.
*The terrain will vary so archers/snipers could take advantage of higher grounds.
*Formations can be as large(within the size of your army), or as small, as you like. Different formations include rectangular, defensive circles, triangles, etc.
*Tactics such as flanking and group dividing can be used. The book "the art of war" will be used as reference for AI tactics.
I think ill use the Irrlicht engine.
THQ Challenge Entry - Manix
Ok, Well the idea I have is still being worked on so I don't know if I can do it in the time given, or if I will just make a simpler one but here is my idea:
It is a god sim where you influence your followers to advance the tribe. Think Black and White with less direct interaction with your people. For example, you will have a leader of your tribe, and depending on attributes that they have (E.g. Warmonger, Poet) will depend on what your tribe focuses on (E.g. Killing everything in sight, trying to build a prosperous community). Your influence comes in the for of 'God Abilities'. E.g. If your leader is a Warmonger and you want a Poet, you can strike them down with lighting and hope the new leader is better.
What I'm hoping to see is that if you start a game, and walk away, you little people will just continue on evolving without any input.
That's kind of it.
THQ Challenge Entry - StephenWade
Well I thought in keeping with the concept of half decent development I thought I would put up a small time-line and plan
Basic Concept :
Try to implement a 'herding' game. Rules should be very simple,
* Goal is to herd a large number of sheep into a pen
* Player interacts by giving commands to helpers (sheepdogs)
* Time is constrained
Timeline :
5th October
* 'Low-level' DirectX code governing device input and window to be completed.
* Basic prototype of the sheep flocking mechanism probably in Matlab, some kind of 'cellular automata'
* Full specification of rules of play
31 October
* Complete and tested sheep flocking mechanism, with good performance for up to 5000 sheep
* Prototyped 2D interface and 2D graphics
* Prototyped sheepdog AI, prototyped sheepdog command system
31 November
* Completed and tested 2D interface
* Completed and tested sheepdog AI and command system
Optional tasks
3D graphics, higher performance flocking and/or AI to scale the play to larger than 10,000 sheep and more sheepdogs
Programmer challenge announcement coming soon
Hi folks,
We're just ironing out some small details, but hopefully this challenge will commence fairly soon. Once the guidelines and details are finalised, I'll be sending the news to as many locally game related sites as I can.
Submitted by StephenWade on Fri, 05/09/08 - 9:26 AM
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Submitted by StephenWade on Sun, 14/09/08 - 4:24 PM
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Should we post up our
Should we post up our progress here or in the other programmer challenge thread ?
Submitted by StephenWade on Tue, 16/09/08 - 10:06 AM
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Well ... I tried to create a
Well ... I tried to create a new forum topic and it had some error :(
Says this at the top of the page
* warning: reset() [function.reset]: Passed variable is not an array or object in /home/tsumeaco/public_html/sites/all/modules/og_forum/og_forum.module on line 712.
* warning: key() [function.key]: Passed variable is not an array or object in /home/tsumeaco/public_html/sites/all/modules/og_forum/og_forum.module on line 713.
* warning: array_key_exists() [function.array-key-exists]: The first argument should be either a string or an integer in /home/tsumeaco/public_html/sites/all/modules/og_forum/og_forum.module on line 714.
Give it another shot
Ok, that's not supposed to happen! Give it another shot, I'm sure it'll be fine this time.
New challenge ?
I notice Souri has created a programmer challenge group, and apparently a new programmer challenge is coming up.
I wonder what this is all about !
Can't say much more...
except that it's a programmer challenge like our modeller challenge, and our sponsors are writing up the guidelines right now. It should be pretty cool!
Submitted by StephenWade on Tue, 12/08/08 - 8:21 PM
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It's getting close
There's been a bit of back and forth with the sponsor with some small refinements, but I think we're getting real close now.
Mini Programmer Challenge #1 entry
Here's my simple entry for the challenge:
http://www.mechanicalcat.net/tech/sudoku_solver.py
You'll need [url="http://www.python.org/"]Python[/url] installed to run it.
Apparently won't solve puzzles of fiendish complexity, but I've not found one it doesn't solve yet. The addition of some furher solving rules, or possibly just a brute-forcer at the end, would fix that. I'm not interested in brute-forcing Sudoku though - that's just too easy.
Mini Programmer Challenge #1 - Soul
Here's my entry:
[url]http://users.on.net/~kachizmu/Sudoku.zip[/url]
Syntax is Sudoku.exe
Hope this is enough to get everyone inspired to have a go. This is a simple a brute force method, unoptimized (as there's little point, seeing as a better algorithm would be so much faster). Only works for order 3 puzzles though.
I haven't seen it crash yet, but it might - no guarantees!
Written in C - I've included the source and some example puzzles to play with.
Good luck everyone!
Submitted by J I Styles on Wed, 16/08/06 - 5:26 AM
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Mini Programmer Challenge #1
The first Mini Programmer Challenge will start on July 31! You will have a week to complete the challenge and submit it. Subscribe to this thread to be kept up to date (I know how slack you guys are...) and I'll give more information closer to the date.
What's the challenge?
Write a program that can solve sudoku puzzles. The input will be a text file (9 rows of 9 digits, 0 being an unknown cell). The output can be displayed on screen (text console or a gui) or saved to a text file.
Why should I do this?
These challenges are an easy way to brush up on your coding skills. They may or may no be directly game related, and it's a good chance to do something you might not normally do. There is no "winning" as such.. but by participating and learning we all win!
How should I do it?
I guess there's no reason to restrict it to any language, but if you want others to use your program it's probably best not to use some obscure language with a 20MB runtime :)
When do I start?
Now!
When do I finish?
We'll make it the end of next week (13th). Work on it by yourself until the end of this week (6th), and then after that everone can discuss any problems they have encountered and/or solutions they have found.
Why didn't it start when you said it would?
I'm busy with work. And sleep.
48 hour challenge #3?
The summer holidays are nigh and i've been unable to take part in the previous two 48 hour comps...
who's up for a 3rd?
I'm against having a public "stock content" thing... I don't think all the games sharing the same graphics is a good thing. The programmer art in the first challenge was not a major issue.
Perhaps an alternative is to have artists involved in the challenge and they're allowed to work before the deadline. So in this way, perhaps we might allow all audio/visual game assets to be constructed ahead of time, but no code is made till the clock starts?
Is there any chance we can have more than 48 hours?? Something like a week would be nice, and would (probably) result in more polished entries.
When you consider that the last modeller challenge went for about 2 months, while we have to design a game, code it, test it and create the art & sound content in only 48 hours!! It's a tight squeeze for even the most mighty of caffeine-powered code monkeys.
quote:Originally posted by Soul
Is there any chance we can have more than 48 hours?? Something like a week would be nice, and would (probably) result in more polished entries.
When you consider that the last modeller challenge went for about 2 months, while we have to design a game, code it, test it and create the art & sound content in only 48 hours!! It's a tight squeeze for even the most mighty of caffeine-powered code monkeys.
Well.. i'd like to see more pollished entries too, but I have 2 other projects to finish over the next 3 months and at this rate I couldn't enter if the compo was much longer than 2 days.
If the comp was a week long (or more), couldn?t people who only have one weekend to spare still enter? Previous modelling challenges have been 2 months long, and while most people take all the available time, some people get their entry done in just a couple of days.
Theoretically, the programming challenge could be a couple of weeks long, but those psyched for a 48-hour challenge could just do a 48-hour caffeine induced marathon?
Wouldn?t the end result be more polished entries, and more challengers competing?
Of course I?m just sticking my nose in where it doesn?t belong because I have no intention of entering (certainly not in a 48 hour challenge anyway), but it just seems logical to me to have it over a few weeks.
Going back to the idea of having a set of graphics to work with, what if we have a couple of weeks prior to the challenge of artists submitting art based on the theme, then programmers could use whatever they want from the archive. Maybe afterwards the artists could make specific pieces on request, based on what pieces the programmers want to use?
quote:Originally posted by Kezza
Perhaps an alternative is to have artists involved in the challenge and they're allowed to work before the deadline. So in this way, perhaps we might allow all audio/visual game assets to be constructed ahead of time, but no code is made till the clock starts?
This sounds like a good idea.
However it's achieved, it would be cool to somehow have a challenge involving both artists and programmers.
Submitted by Barry Dahlberg on Wed, 17/11/04 - 8:51 PM
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Perhaps the question that we should be looking at is what exactly the competition is to be judged on. Having artists working with purely a coding competition could actually distract people from the technical challenges which should be our focus IMHO.
The modelling challenges are being used to improve peoples skills and get them some exposure to the industry, can we somehow use a programming challenge in the same way?
quote:Originally posted by Barry Dahlberg
Perhaps the question that we should be looking at is what exactly the competition is to be judged on. Having artists working with purely a coding competition could actually distract people from the technical challenges which should be our focus IMHO.
The modelling challenges are being used to improve peoples skills and get them some exposure to the industry, can we somehow use a programming challenge in the same way?
Hmm, we'd have to be careful not to turn it into a tech demo challenge. [:D]
I didn't pay close attention to the second competition, however i don't think that quality of artwork was a huge factor in the marking of the first challenge.
Although the winner wasn't the one with the most complex gameplay, but it was the one that seemed most "finished".
Submitted by Barry Dahlberg on Wed, 17/11/04 - 11:00 PM
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Nah speed as in amphetamines. Could make up lots of fun games oriented around that...from truck driving to being a bikie gang :D
If it's a game development challenge then I dunno if I CBFed - all the art/design/ideas stuff is too much of a pain in the ass to accomplish in such a small time frame - I'd never be totally satisfied with it!
quote:Originally posted by Maitrek
Nah speed as in amphetamines. Could make up lots of fun games oriented around that...from truck driving to being a bikie gang :D
If it's a game development challenge then I dunno if I CBFed - all the art/design/ideas stuff is too much of a pain in the ass to accomplish in such a small time frame - I'd never be totally satisfied with it!
well you see, ideas/design/music has always been done before the compo... that's why we called it a programming competition before, because the main work was always coding the game.
As for the art, this time round we may also let that be done ahead as well.
hmm not a lot of movement here is there ;)
so whats the consensus? 48hr comp? longer comp? a less comp structure but more of a all in "lets just write a game by a date and see what everyone else did" type of thing?
all it needs is a decision really. maybe a quick poll? technology is another biting point, with a small number of entrants its not like you can have a hardcore and open leauge (as was touted with LD last time). maybe using the rules from the last comp (anything with a binary) could work. although it rules MDIP v2 stuff out :P
ideas?
Matt D
48 Hour Challenge #2 - Soul/Maitrek
Well, just posting up a brief design doc/description. It's so patchy it's almost retarded. Should be fun to make over the next 34 hours -> tea/coffee/coke here I come.
Well, we're pulling out...yes, we aren't men enough to code what we wanted in the time frame. Having said that, I have at least 3 good excuses as to why :)
1. I was working at the pizza store till midnight on friday, meaning we had no time to prepare anything
2. I was rostered on for a further 10 hours at the pizza store over sat/sun and soul was on for 4
3. I'm a total pansy :P
Considering that for the last 48 hours I've had only 9 hours sleep and every other hour has been spent working I don't feel too bad.
I have to say sorry to, and a good luck to Kane. Looks like you are set to win if you hand up anything! But don't drop your standards because of that, go for it boy!!! *cracks whip*
48 Hour Challenge #2 - Kane
Well, I have never made a side scroller before, but I'll give it my best shot!
After recently buying and becoming addicted to the stake-gun antics of Painkiller, I have decided to base my side scroller on it. I really doubt that I will get it working properly before the challenge ends, but I will do as much as I can... [:D]
ok, here we go people!
keep in mind this is my first side-scrolling type game, even though it has limited scrolling abilities...[:p]
Name: Painkiller 2D : Aspro Clear
[url]http://home.graffiti.net/dinomedia:graffiti.net/Painkiller.zip[/url]
Size: 302KB Zipped
Requirements: Java VM or SDK. I have only tested it on a Windows XP machine, but should work fine on a Mac.
Installing and Running: Unzip the contents of the zip file to a desired location. Open a command prompt and navigate to the directory in which you unzipped the game. At the prompt, type the following;
java PainRun
Then hit the enter key. With any luck it will appear on the screen.
Controls and Instructions:
RIGHT = right arrow key
LEFT = left arrow key
SHOOT = space
JUMP = j (use at own risk!)
You have to be at least 2 spaces from enemies to shoot them.
You will get hurt if you run into an enemy.
There is currently only the one level, and provides a maximum of 20 seconds gameplay!
Bugs: There are plenty of bugs in this baby...
The first major bug is with the repainting of the window. At first only some or none of the graphics will be displayed, but if you minimize the window, them open it again, it will correct itself.
Secondly, there is no animation in the game at all, so basically you will see a man sliding across the ground.
Thirdly, enemies have no AI and basically just stand there waiting to have a stake shoved through their head.
Fourthly (?), the avatar can jump onto the one platform that is in the game, but unfortunately defies all laws of physics and remains airbourne when he walks off the platform. So jump at you own risk. Also, he can't jump onto it unless he is directly underneath it.
And finally, at least to my knowledge, if you walk to the edge of the level, (the level is about 20 tiles long...), the game will have a spaz attack and the graphics will go haywire. Just walk back the way you came and it will correct itself.
Yes nice job Kane,
I downloaded it first thing this morning at work.
Yes, its buggy buy hey you tried.
I was almost going to compete but was put off by the 2d nature of the topic. Could I suggest that for the next comp. we get people to submit their on ideas on a topic and we vote for the most interesting.
All I wont to know now is what does Kane win?
Wow, someone actually dug up this old piece of junk!
I had never attempted anything like this game before, and I had very very limited programming skills at the time, but I was quite proud of I managed to do in that short amount of time! I am surprised to see that you were amazed by it, but I suppose it was the winning entry. [;)]
48 Hour Coding Challenge #2, Rules and Guidelines
48 Hour Coding Challenge #2, The First: Rules and Guidelines (based on Blitz's original guideline for the first challenge)
Overview
The goal of this challenge is to make a game in 48 hours. The game should follow the theme for this challenge which is a 2d side scrolling platformer conversion of a 3d game title/franchise of your choice. Use elements and ideas of that game and transfer it into a 2d platformer title. For example, in Half Life, the main character used crow bars, smashed a lot of crates, jumpig puzzles, fought alien creatures etc... other titles you can consider: Splinter Cell or Metal Gear Solid (stealth), Max Payne (bullet time) etc It's up to you..
You can see this gives you quite a bit of freedom to do what you want. Described below are the specific rules regarding content, timeline, submission etc.
Competition Timeline
Begins at 0:00hrs on Saturday 2nd July.
Ends at 23:59hrs on Sunday 4th July.
Entries should be submitted by the competition end to avoid any penalties (like nasty red letters saying you're late!). See below for exceptions to this.
Time is based on Australian EDT (Eastern Daylight Savings Time), and the Sumea clock (note that the sumea forum clock may not be EDT if you have set it as a different time zone).
If you live in a different (non-EDT) timezone (such as NZ or WA), you can start and finish the competition on your local time, be sure to note in your submission that you are in a different timezone to avoid late penalties.
Design and Concept stage
You MAY design your game, design your program layout (not in code though), concept art, etc. and most general pre-production stuff before the competition starts. Anything (code, art assets and other resources, sound etc.) that are in the submitted version of your game must be developed inside the competition's 48 hour timeframe.
Entry Rules/Guidelines
All code must be written during the 48hours of the competition. that is, between midnight friday and midnight sunday. You may not use any pre-existing code that you have written (such as engine or framework code). All to be done from scratch.
Any resources (such as textures, sounds, graphics) must also be your own work and also must be created in the 48 hour timeframe. No pre-existing work to be used. However, you may use music that is not of your own creation (or is pre-existing). You must either have permission to use the music if it is not public domain, or it must be public domain.
You can use any external libraries (ones you haven't created yourself) to develop the game. You can also use any programming language you wish (be wary of anything that does not compile to a win32 executable however, you may need to include appropriate interperator programs etc.).
The completed game archive, including all resources and any non-standard libraries (see below), must not exceed 5Mb.
Source code may be submitted in a seperate archive. It does not count toward your 5Mb limit.
Standard Libraries
The following "standard" libraries may be assumed to be present on the end-users system, and are not required to be included in your game archive.
DirectX 9.0, OpenGL, Windows libraries (winmm etc.). You can also assume the end user has the latest *decent* (ie. Sun, not microsoft) Java Virtual Machine.
Any other libraries (such as SDL, OpenAL, FMod) must be included in your archive to ensure they will run on the end users system. Also, if you require an emulator to run the game (such as GBA or mobile), you need to include the emulator in your archive. Use of emulators is discouraged due to the extra setup etc. required by the user. Standalone win32 executables are highly preferred.
System Requirements
As a minimum you can assume that the end user has the following:
A reasonably fast cpu (500+).
At least 128mb system memory.
A reasonable 3d graphics card (TNT2+ or so).
A sound card.
Mouse + Keyboard.
Windows 98 SE (people won't be penalised much if they are unable to test on older OS's than what they develop on though).
DirectX 9.0, OpenGL, JVM support.
Submission
Entries should be posted as a message in the official (when it's created) challenge submission thread. This thread will be for submissions only, no discussion. The entry should give a brief description of the game, and provide a link where it can be downloaded from. The link should point to an archived ZIP file containing your entry. The entry should extract into it's own folder. The entry (archive) should be no larger than 5Mb. If your entry requires doing more than deleting the folder to clean up (such as removing registry entries), then you should provide an appropriate uninstall process.
If you wish to provide source code for your game (and you should!) you should post this (once again ZIP archive) as a seperate link in your submission.
You may work in a pair of two programmers if you wish (the intent that a less experienced programmer can work with a more experienced programmer). No artist+programmer teams allowed! The result should be a single entry submitted by one of the team members, just note that you are a pair in the submission, and who you worked with.
Judging
The most controversial bit...
The games will be "judged" by a vote from sumea members who have played the games. Basically this will just come down to peoples favourite games, but people playing them should try and keep the following in mind (imo):
Completeness - How "finished" does the game seem. Please don't be *too* harsh on our poor programmer art :)
Theme - How well does it capture the ideas of the original game and transfer it across as a 2d platformer?
Gameplay - Most importantly, is the game fun to play, or is it worse than slipping over and landing face first in cow crap.
Please post any questions you have about these rules in this thread. Hopefully they sit well with everyone, the competition rules, themes etc. were discussed for a couple weeks and no-one objected at the end, so it's too late if you want to object now! :)
If you wish to discuss your own game, you can start a new thread for your game, you can discuss other peoples games in their threads!
If you have any queries/comments related to the rules, please post them here!
When it comes time to submit your entry use the submission thread or your entry may get lost!
*Edit: 14/3 - Added Java Virtual Machine to standard libraries.
48hr Competition #2 - Discussion
well, its about that time isnt it? who's up for another one in the upcoming uni break? ideas on format/libraries/topics?
MattD
This is just a crazy idea, but what about having something where programmers and artists team up? Of course then it isn't a programmer challenge, so it would probably mean changeing it into like a 7 day game dev challenge or something, but the results would be pretty cool.
Or if not, what about having a programmer challenge that goes for a bit longer? Say 4 days or something?
Or, it would be really cool to pick a free game engine of some sort that everyone has to use. Though it takes time to learn an API...
...still, that could be part of the challenge?
-Just thought I'd throw around some ideas. [:)]
as for the date, i dont know, when does uni finish for you uni student types?
quote:
This is just a crazy idea, but what about having something where programmers and artists team up? Of course then it isn't a programmer challenge, so it would probably mean changeing it into like a 7 day game dev challenge or something, but the results would be pretty cool.
could be fun, but uless you know an artist it makes it a little hard.. :) anyone else like to comment?
quote:
Or if not, what about having a programmer challenge that goes for a bit longer? Say 4 days or something?
i think too many people work fulltime for a longer comp unfortunately. unless theres a 4 day weekend anytime soon ;) (although itd be fun)
quote:
Or, it would be really cool to pick a free game engine of some sort that everyone has to use. Though it takes time to learn an API...
...still, that could be part of the challenge?
any particular engine you had in mind? theres a lot of talk on ludumdare at the moment about open and hardcore entry streams and all that, but i dont think we quite have enough entrants to split the field.
perhaps using a standard API or toolset might be a better option rather than using an entire engine?? especially for things like 2d games?
Matt D
quote: am i wrong in saying that it was open to use artists in the last programming test ?
From the rules of the last one:
quote:?You may work in a pair of two programmers if you wish (the intent that a less experienced programmer can work with a more experienced programmer). No artist+programmer teams allowed!?
I was thinking of something where an artist and a programmer from Sumea team up, and over a period (like a few of weeks maybe), develop a game ? more like the modeller challenge then the programmer challenge in implementation. The benefit being that at the end we would have a cool game that could be added to a portfolio if desired.
This idea isn?t really for a programmer challenge though; it?s a hybrid artist/programmer challenge ? something new for Sumea.
To organise teams, we would just start a thread where people state their skills (what they plan to do) and try to team up with interested people. I think it would be interesting to work with new people, and team work is good experience. Of course, it?s always a problem bringing artists and programmers together! [;)] And it could bring up issues if someone doesn?t pull their own weight.
I guess another option could be just to have a straight programmer challenge that is implemented over a few weeks, like the modeller challenges are. Wouldn?t need to rush so much then! I guess the programmers like the 48 hours thing though.
But the more I think about a Hybrid programmer/artist game dev challenge, the more I like it. Anyone else think so?
GBA development is quite simple as long as you're not worried about performance too much (which shouldn't be a problem with simple games that aren't using much memory etc.).
However, the time required to learn the system would vary depending on peoples experience, which is one of the reasons we allowed the first comp to be done in any language etc.
So, if you wanna do GBA stuff it should be optional IMO.
Artist/programmer teams is a nice idea, but it runs into trouble when communication comes up. I can't really see a 48hr artist/programmer team working unless (like Kane) you actually can talk to the person in reality. Trying to communicate this stuff over the net in such a short period would be difficult.
As far as having competitions over an extended period of time, i think that is a fine idea. I understand that some people dislike this idea because of school/work etc. but i think really you just would have to bite the bullet and resolve that you may not be able to spend every waking minute on it, and just deal with it. With these sorts of competitions it's just not easy to be entirely fair to everyone :) Howver, i think the other problem with longer term competitions, and particularly a group one, is that they do require a certain commitment, which people may be unwilling to do. They may just get bored of the project, or completely run out of time, and they don't want to let other people down etc.
I actually have some fairly crazy off the wall ideas about a next comp which i'll elaborate on in a later post, after oiling them up with a bit of indy conference tomorrow :)
CYer, Blitz
I think teaming up like maybe an artist and a programmer or two or something could work quite well. GBA wouldn't be too challenging, the best thing we could do is to decide on the platform early enough that people could research a little on the GBA without actually knowing what kind of game/theme that they will make.
I *strongly* advise that it be set to the Uni holidays (hehe)
The dates for me and daemin's uni are
7th June -> 20th June is SWOT-VAC (study!).
21st June -> 4th July EXAMS (argh!!)
5th July -> 25th July mid year break (woot!!!).
Cool, another programmer challenge. I'd be up for a side scroller theme this time.
Artist/Programmer team would be cool but we'd need some design time prior to the competiton to coordinate tasks, etc. It can be very frustrating trying to make artists and programmers play nice together, especially under these sorts of time constraints.
As for a date I'd suggest somewhere in the first half of July. All Unis should be on holidays by about the 5th of July (most people will finish earlier if they don't have exams on that date).
The 5th of July (just under a month away) seems like a nice time for everyone, I think. With the modeller challenge coming pretty soon, I'm not sure if the artists are free enough to do two projects if the two challenges run at the same time.
And how long do you reckon the next challenge to be? A weekend or more? A month long challenge?
48 hour challenges are better. Makes you think of what's really needed in a game instead of what you think would be cool tech to research and trying to fit that in to a game that doesn't need the tech. Especially if you find out about the challenge 24 hours before it starts and work out the design and what's needed in that time :)
I like the idea of themes for the programmer challenge, where the programmers can come up with any sort of game to suit that theme and it's really open. Of course, I think we have to be a bit more strict when it comes to voting to stick to the theme this time [;)] Anyway, let me know what you think.
Can you programmers who will be taking part give me a yay or nay on 48 hour, 2 week, month long, topic/theme ideas?
ahahahahahaha
unfortunately i have been faaaaaaaar too busy, exams, thesis, research projects.
I won't be entering in spite of my best intentions :( I did come up with some ideas though that I might write up and make a demo out of to put up sometime this summer