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MAIN

The IdeaHack competition is a game programming competition with a difference - namely, it is defined by its entrants. Each participant submits one 'requirement' before the competition. The requirements may govern gameplay and game design, but not technical issues, and genre must remain free.


RULES

The entrants then have one week in which to write their games. A large part of the score will depend on how many requirements they meet and how well they meet them. The overall quality of the game will constitute the rest of the score.

Here are examples of the kinds of requirement that will not be accepted:
  • "The game must be 3D." (This is a technical issue.)
  • "All graphics must be generated in run time." (Likewise.)
  • "The game must be a high-speed action game." (This relates to genre.)
  • "The game must be better than Quake 3 Arena." (Do you know any games that aren't? ;)


Some technical requirements have been laid out in order to ensure that everyone can play your game. They mostly relate to portability and hardware issues. If you wish to add to this list, and make a good case, in good time, your wish may just come true Here are the technical requirements:
  • Use a recent WIP of Allegro, and do not use any OS-specific stuff. conio.h is out of the question.
  • Release full source code.
  • Do not rely on 3D acceleration. Remember your game must run in DOS!
  • Do not assume the user's graphics card can do true colour graphics in resolutions below 640x480.
  • Source code and data must be 1337 KB or smaller when zipped. We do not all have 128GB/s connections! Note that this number has been chosen according to a complex mathematical formula.
  • Any other libraries must be included in the zip file.


Reasonable efforts will be made by the judges to resolve unforeseen portability issues when the competition concludes.

Please indicate what you did for this competition and what you ripped from older projects or other places.

You may work in a team if you like. If you do, everyone in your team should come up with one requirement. Having a team discussion about the requirement would not be a very satisfying activity :) If we get too many requirements, we'll split the participants alphabetically into 'sections' (without splitting the teams of course) and keep the requirements from one section within that section.

The competition will run from Saturday 15 September 00:00 GMT to Friday 21 September 24:00 GMT - so you can get a good start on the game during the weekend and add the finishing touches in the evenings after school or work. Remember that many time zones have the clocks set one hour later in summer than in winter; for instance, the UK is in GMT +1 at the moment, not GMT, so the competition starts and ends at 01:00.



ENTRANTS
INDIVIDUAL ENTRANTS

Brabbas "The game should have earthquake(s) in it."
CJ "Put a bald man's head, severed from the body with the neck shod in blood and a tobacco pipe in the mouth, somewhere in your game."
Clayton "The games creator must make fun of or compliment one of the following from these categories: boy band, girl band, male singer (any music type, creators choice), female singer (again music type is creator's choice), actor, or actress."
Entheh "You must spoof some well known film, genre or other culture."
Frag "The game must have a dog in it."
Gnudutch "Game should feature a special guest star from this board(he means the forums on allegro.cc), and spew catchphrases/sig lines."
Networm "The game should take place on an island."
Stevenvi "There must be a heavy usage of "Cheeze", whatever that's interpreted to mean by the creator."
White door "Include some sort of post nuclear theme in to your game."
X-G "Include a cameo of a character from a well-known computer or console game."
X-Viila "Your game must have some random elements in it which encourage people to play the game repeatedly."
Zaphos "The game must involve at least twelve drugged squirrels."

TEAMS

No team name yet
Dosbert2001 "You must mention claustrophobic ferrets at least twice in your game."
Ook "Your game must bash Microsoft (and/or any other evil monopolistic companies, state institutions, leaders of states, whatever you want)."
Mattias "At least 50% of the text in the game must LOOK LIKE 1337, Japanese or Ancient Egyptian."
Master Goodbytes "The game must feature a weapon called the 'Relatively Harmless Rubber Ball Launcher.' If applicable, this weapon must be necessary to complete the game."

PEOPLE LOOKING TO JOIN A TEAM

None!

A note to people with JavaScript disabled: you are unable to see the e-mails, because J1z0k gave me a script that should protect the e-mails listed here from spambots.

If there are any mistakes, errors or whatever that's wrong then mail me.



RESULTS

 This place is reserved to put the games made during the competition.



CONTACT US

 If you are interested, please e-mail us with your proposed requirement and any other information you want to give us. Remember, IdeaHack will not run without your participation!