Community:Competitions/Game Engine - 2008 Q4

Game Engine Competition

This competition is being run to encourage developers ( or teams of developers ) to create fun, cool looking content for the Game Engine built into Blender.

With the release of 2.48, the GE has received a HUGE boost in terms of speed, functionality, and more importantly kudos.

Prizes

At the moment, the prize fund consists of Euro 500 donated by mal_CanDo / CanDo 3D.

Erwin ( main coder of Bullet physics ) is also working on additional prizes.

Note - Other prizes may be added at a later date. If an individual or company wishes to sponsor a prize, please let us know. If the prize is substantial, there may be scope for the donator choosing a separate category based on their individual wishes.

Major Categories

Euro400 of the prize fund will be split into two categories...

Category 1: Best Graphics

Prize: Euro200

This prize will be awarded to the best use of graphics. While using GLSL might seem to be the best way to achieve this for some effects, if someone enters a great looking entry that doesn't use GLSL, this will be taken into account during the voting.

Entries could be walkthoughs, graphical demos as in scene.org, and of course full on games.

Category 2: Best Gameplay

Prize: Euro200

This prize will be awarded to the game that is the most fun to play.

• Anything goes ( well, check the few rules below ). You can have more than one team member, you can use GLSL, you can use external libraries such as PyGame. As long as the 3D engine being used is the Blender GE engine, and the game will run from within Blender by pressing P, then your entry will be valid.

Minor Categories

Note: These categories do not exclude entry to the above main categories.

Category 1: Best content created using only logic bricks ( no Python scripting ).

Prize: Euro100

This prize will be awarded to the best content created using just Logic Blocks. The Blender GE Logic Block system is a very powerful way for artists with no coding skills to create interactive content. This prize awards artists using Blender in this way.

Rules

1) The content should be appropriate for viewing by a 16 year old. If you're creating content that you *think* might not be suitable, then that might be a pretty good indication that it *wouldn't* be suitable.

2) Games entered for a previous Blender / Bullet competition can't be entered for this one. This is to encouage new content. Note - games that have been WIP for a while before this competition can ben entered.

3) The content will have to run on at *least* Blender 2.48a ( the latest official release ). However, if a new feature is added to the in-development version of Blender ( for example video textures ), this feature can also be used for the competition.

4) In theory, one game *could* win all categories if it uses Python, has the best gameplay, and the best graphics. In practice though, that would have to be a VERY cool game!

Timeline

Entries should be submitted for end of March 16th, the day before St Patricks Day, March 17th.

Games can be submitted now, right up until March 16th, at the thread below.

http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?p=1315416

Game submissions at the above link should include a Game Name, Brief Description, Team Overview, Category ( Graphics / Gameplay / Logic Bricks Only - you can enter for more than one of these categories ) as well as a few In-Game Screenshots.  Any additional information is optional at this stage ( such as a work-in-progress download link, or a video etc ).

When all of the game descriptions have been submitted for the March 16th deadline, there will then be an additional month during which updates may take place.

By April 16th, final download links will have to be made available for each of the entries ( in at least Windows .EXE format, but preferably in a way that can be viewed across platforms ). 

Update - The deadline for final submission will occur 1 week after the 2.49 release ( very soon! ), which has a number of GE enhancements.  A thread will be created on the Blender Artists forum as soon as 2.49 is released, allowing entrants to upload their final games at that time.

Developers can enter more than one GE project.

Judging

The judging will be a mix of community judging, with a board of judges making the final decision to award the prizes.

If additional categories are added by prize sponsorers, they may choose to judge their category separately.

Licensing

I'd like the final choice of whether to submit a .blend, or a closed stand-alone .EXE, to be up to each entrants own personal choice. If someone has created a cool piece of Python Scripting to make their entry do something to stand above every one elses, they shouldn't need to have to release this script to everyone else if they don't want to. If they do want to, then they can release the .blend.

Licensing, LGPL, and distributing a Blender GE run-time application as a closed application seems to be a gray area.

If submitting a closed stand-alone, a Windows .EXE would be a must - although it would be preferrable that an OS/X and Linux player be made available also, to maximise the number of users that can test the content and vote on it.

I don't know how to use the Game Engine - Help!

You're in luck - here are some links to help...

Introduction to the Game Engine If you have never used Blender before, or have used Blender but have never pressed P for Play Game, then this is the tutorial for you. It should take around 1 to 2 hours to complete, depending on your previous knowledge of Blender.

Click here to download the latest version of Blender