Game Physics Competition

Havok(TM) and the Intel(R) Software Network start a game physics competition. Through the use of the Intel-sponsored versions of Havok Physics and Animation for the PC, you must demostrate an innovative use of physics in a game. Your game demo could earn you $40,000 in cash, a gaming PC and great exposure.
There are two caterories:

1. Most Innovative Use of Physics in a Game. Your entry must be a playable PC game demo that includes new or unique uses of Havok technology. They're looking for new ways for the player to interact with the game through physics, showing different uses of physics than what can be found in PC games today. This can be a FPS, sports game, casual game, or any other type of game.
2. Best Physics Knowledge Base Entry. They're looking for the best contributions that can benefit the game developer community. This can be a code sample, optimization tip, technical whitepaper, a technical abstract of your demo, or any other technical content that shares your knowledge of game physics with the community.

Submit your demo or application concepts by November 15, 2008 to be eligible for the finalist round of competition. Submit your entries to the Best Physics Knowledge Base category by January 16, 2009 to be eligible for the top prizes in this category.
Check out our Official Rules at SoftwareContests.Intel for more details about this contest.

Retro Remakes Contest 2008

When I heard of interesting competitions that involve the game development, I'm very happy to post news about them.
This one in particular is very intriguing because there are a lot of prizes, but also because the task is the development of games that has something to do, resemble or even clone, glorious games of the past.

The contest is divided into several categories, but all the entries partecipate also to the Grand Prize Competition. The categories are: 1) Retro Remakes, 2) Games That Weren't, 3) Sequels that weren't, 4) A Game For Helen, 5) 8 Bit Mashup, 6) We Like It Retro.
Here you can find the direct links to the categories, the rules and, finally... the prizes, just to wet your appetite.
The competition has already started in the past days and the submission line is around the beginnings of December, so you'd better to visit the site of RETROREMAKES for more info, if you are interested.

Lost Garden Bronze Award

The results of the latest Lost Garden's Prototyping Challenge (Shade) are finally available. My entry was one of recent APOCALYX demos: Mushroom's Ride.
Unluckily I released it without implementing the main design requirement: take advantage of the shadows to bring the mushrooms at home (read the release post).

This design requirement was fundamental, that's why the entry received the bronze award instead of the silver one, that I tried to achieve. Anyway, seeing the quality and variety of the one and only entry that deserved a silver award, the result is not so bad.
Thank you Danc (the owner of Lost Garden) for your interesting game design ideas and your great graphics.

CDN Speedgame Contest

Just a fast news to let you know that the CDN Speedgame Contest 2008 has started yesterday.
The goal is to create quick, fun games focused on different aspects of Christian teaching (either moralistic, theological or both) to promote Christ, Christian Games and Fun!.
This years theme is: PROVERBS!
Create a game based on the point of the Proverb or create a game based on the Proverb itself! Dig through your Brains and Bibles and come up with a Creative and especially FUN idea.
PROJECTS MUST BE SUBMITTED BY OR BEFORE MIDNIGHT AUGUST 17TH TO QUALIFY, so you have two weeks to release your entry. Hurry up!
To download the entries of the last yers visit the CCN Speedgame Contest 2007 site.

Mushroom's Ride

First screenshot of Mushroom's Ride, a prototype in development written for the Lost Garden's Shade Compo (read the original post about the Lost Garden Awards).

As you can see, to fast prototype the game I'm starting from the sources of Dragon's Ride because there is no time to reinvent the wheel again and again. In place of all the models features in Dragon's Ride, I simply put two fairies: they are going to lead the mushrooms to their goal, moving along fresh shadows and avoiding the hot sun.
Now I'm going to model a few mushrooms. As you know, my modelling capabilities are very poor, but I must admit that mushrooms are not the most difficult thing to model in the world... or, at least, I hope so.

Lost Garden Awards

Lost Garden is one of my preferred blogs. The owner, Danc, always posts interesting articles about game design and also provides nice 2D graphics to developers who want to prototype his designs. From time to time, Danc also launches game prototyping challenges and assigns virtual bronze, silver and gold awards to the best works.
Now it's the time of Shade, the latest game prototyping challenge, the first that is not designed exclusively for 2D, in fact shadows play an important role in the game.

Since the game is based from the beginning on a 3D environment, I can finally develop a prototype based on APOCALYX, instead of my less powerful TooDee engine. As you can read in the article that describes the game, all the necessary features are already available. Shade needs a flat terrain, a simple HUD, several moving objects (the player avatar, the mushrooms etc.) and blocks that cast shadows. Since APOCALYX is completely scripted, it's the perfect tool to develop a fast game prototype: a challenge that one has no excuses to refuse.
Danc describes the basic gameplay as follows: "You play the part of a rugged mushroom rancher who must collect adorable sentient mushrooms living in the shade. All you need to do is run up to a planted mushroom and touch it. It will pop out of the ground and start following you around. Lead it back to the start location and you'll be awarded multiple point based off its size.
Unfortunately, it is a scorchingly hot day. You can meander about the landscape of giant grassy blocks with impunity due to your meglo-awesome wide brimmed hat, but the mushrooms wilt quickly in sunlight. To lead them back successfully, you'll need to keep to the shadows and plot the optimal path home."
For more details, read the complete article at Lost Garden.