Hi everyone,

As many of you (probably ) know, uDevGame is a competition held yearly by (url="http://"http://www.idevgames.com/")idevgames(/url) to promote gaming on the Macintosh, increase resources, knowledge bases, and generally have a bit of fun. Now, Carlos Camacho has posted here recently that they were considering including Coldstone in the allowable engines this year (last year, we decided against it). Anyway, he's been in contact with me and I'm delighted to announce that anyone wishing to enter uDevGame with a Coldstone created product is more than welcome to do so.

For more information, pop on by (url="http://"http://www.idevgames.com")idevgames(/url) where they have terms and conditions, etc. The competition starts in August, so if you'd like to enter, more announcements and information will be made available around then.

Enjoy!

-Andiyar

------------------
"Any good that I may do here, let me do now, for I may not pass this way again"

I search over at the iDev forum and found 0 info on Coldstone being allowed in this years contest. I advised last year against allowing it but haddent really thought about it this year. So what changed?

i do plan on entering this year but i will enter a java developed game. as this has been my plan for awhile but a coldstone entry for me might be a better bet.

stray

------------------
Coldstone_Dev Resource: (url="http://"http://homepage.mac.com/straytoaster/")Coldstone_Dev Resource(/url)

See Coldstone_Tips at: (url="http://"http://coldroom.150m.com/CGE_Stuff/CGE_Tips.html")CGE_Tips(/url)

straytoaster sez:
**I search over at the iDev forum and found 0 info on Coldstone being allowed in this years contest. I advised last year against allowing it but haddent really thought about it this year. So what changed?
**
i guess they just plan on springing it on people and pissing everyone off.
I get the since that the contest/site/community is changing directions to, just bringing out quality content regardless of the tools used to produce it...which is a great and joyous thing. Afterall, tools such as M eta /Hyper/Super etc. have things such as click scripts involved and they're just about every bit as challenging as RB which hasn't been a tool in question since the contests inception, despite the fact that you can spend about 3 hours designing an interface that would take a week or better(not if you're using a good gui library in JAVA).

Basically go Forth and conquer 'STONERs, may UDG'03s blood run.. cold.
still, someone throw a little ditty into the competition.

i think the competition runs from AUgust till November, no projects announced before the competition was announced may be entered...blah blah, all materials must be licensed/legal/used with permission.

Its really not about winning
::stiffled laughter, regains composure::
Its about creating an inventive product that will get you known over the past tourney years, i've found myself visitng more indy game sites than ever, its great to know that they're out there.

------------------

• (url="http://"http://www.geocities.com/ellrx/index.html")eLL' softWare: Wood...Last Updated 06.27.03(/url)

• (url="http://"http://ellrx.web1000.com")eLL' Walker: 'ƒolio(/url)

• ' RPG Cliché Dictionary ' ..
  

... bwahhaaaaahaaaaaugh fooooolish sammurai.
{ edit : phantom censure, apparently m eta is explicit and will be rooted out at all costs }

(This message has been edited by ellrx (edited 07-21-2003).)

Hello all,

I did ask Andiyar to post about CGE being allowed in uDG 03 since I'm pretty busy these days getting ready to start the contest. But I thought it best to post here about "what has changed."

uDG was launched as a contest to increase the amount of SOURCE CODE for Mac devs to look at/learn from and so on. So far, it has been very successful and I feel it will continue to fullfil this need. From 2003, we will open the contest to what I refer to as "Game Wizards", and thus the contest will be dubbed "Mac Development Contest" rather than "Mac Programming Contest."

The reason why I think now is the time to slighty alter the mission of the contest is that:
1. As stated above, we will continue to get good source code from traditional tools
2. I want to extend a bridge between people who use CGE and our community
3. Providing a contest where CGE users can participate in will help its community

I explained #1, about #2 -- many artists, designers, musicians want to make games. For many one of the few choices available is CGE. Over at iDevGames, the large majority of visitors are coders. I think if we can bring both communities together then ALL of Mac gaming wins. About #3... I've always like the concept of game wizards, since I was a HUGE fan of Shoot'em Up Construction Kit on the Amiga, and feel that they are a good way to make gamers into game makers. The next step of course is to take them into the territory of C/C++, ObjC and so on. So I think having CGE people join uDG will provide an incentive to make good CGE games and to expand each developer's horizon.

I hope the above all makes sense.

Please keep in mind that CGE games won't be excluded from our requirements, and that they too must meet the rules of entry. (These will be posted once the contest starts up) In a nutshell, the DOWNLOAD must be no larger than 10MB.. no exceptions. That means, after uncompressing, the playable and associated files would be around 30MB. For some, that will present a challenge, since I recall my own attempts with CGE to make even a small game resulted in 40MB worth of data. Next, copyrighted art/music,/etc may NOT be used. You can use public domain game assets, freeware, game assets from iDevGame. If you plan to use stock art from CGE or Ambrosia, you had better check with them as to their copyrights. That ties in with the last point, ALL SOURCE CODE or in this case PROJECT FILES (and game assets, well programmer-art is OK), and associated files required to compile (in this case EDIT) the game must be made available. (That is why we don't allow things like "ripped" sprites.) If this confuses you, then please wait until we put up the rules, or feel free to ask questions in iDevGames' forum.

Now, one thing that troubles me...

straytoaster mentioned that...
"a bug in the user inte face make it impossible to open up somebody source and see what they did ie how they scripted the game so releaseing CGE source is pretty worthless right now."

If true, then this presents a problem for CGE entrants. I'd like to hear more on this issue, and whether AmbrosiaSW/Beenox is planning on releasing a patch to fix the problem. (If you can find out for me, then I would appreciate it.) uDevGame isn't just about winning prizes, or making games -- it's about making the Mac game dev scene stronger by sharing knowledge.

Cheers,
Carlos Camacho
Editor-in-Chief
iDevGames

------------------
Editor-in-Chief
www.idevgames.com