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(Results out!) CodeWalrus Programming Contest II: A Game about Walruses

Started by Dream of Omnimaga, December 09, 2015, 08:22:41 AM

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Dream of Omnimaga

UPDATE: The deadline has been reached. Vote for your favorite entry at https://codewalr.us/index.php?topic=1017 .

Since CodeWalrus opened, there are many members who became fans of our walrus mascot called Walrii, which takes the form of a 24x24 sprite. It quickly reached the point where our users became united to create fan art of it. While there were some hand drawings of the mascot at first, the main fan art came out in the form of different variations of the original sprite, keeping the original eyes, tusks and flippers, but editing the rest to allow Walrii to take the form of almost anything, including popular characters from video games and TV shows (Pokémon, Mario, Star Wars, etc), zombies and even some unlikely objects. Eventually, all of the fan-made walrus sprites that kept elements from the original were placed in the first post of the related topic and that topic became the largest and most viewed of all CW forums.

A few weeks ago, the Walrii fan art thread has reached 151 different walrus sprites based on Walrii. To celebrate this commitment from our members, today we are officially launching our second official CodeWalrus contest: A Game About Walruses!


Description
Basically, you have to create a video game that includes one or more of the sprites located in the first post of the Walrii Fanart topic (a zip file with the animated ones is also available there) and the game must be themed after walruses. It can be anything, like a puzzle game, platformer, RPG, racing game, whatever... as long as Walrii or one (or more) of its 149 other relatives are in the game.

The goal of this contest is not to showcase your programming skills in particular, but rather to show what kind of game you can create under this theme. In other words, be creative!

Who is allowed to participate?
-People who have a CodeWalrus forum account, except the 5 staff members.

What platforms are eligible?
-TI-73, TI-82/+/Stats, TI-83/+/Premium CE, TI-84+/SE/CSE/CE
-TI-85, TI-86, TI-89
-TI-Nspire Clickpad/Touchpad/CX (game must be OS 3.6 compatible)
-Casio 9750GII, 9860G, fx-CG10/20 or ClassPad II
-HP Prime
-PICO-8
-Windows (as long as it can run on Windows 7)
-Linux (Linux entries will be judged by a different staff)
-Android
-Web browsers (as long as it runs in the latest stable release of Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari or IE)
-We also accept NES, SNES, N64, Sega Genesis, Game Boy, GBC and GBA homebrews (in ROM format), but we do not accept ROM hacks.

Which programming languages are eligible?
Everything. But keep in mind that all entries compete against each others regardless of the platform and language, so ClassPad II BASIC might not be the best idea. Libraries are allowed, but no game engines such as RPG Maker that literally make the code for you.

What are the contest rules?
-You must use at least one of the following sprites (or the extra ones in the first post of the fanart thread) during gameplay (they can be animated and/or mirrored/rotated, of course. See the Walrii Fanart thread linked above for animated versions):

-The deadline is January 19th 2016, 11:59 PM, GMT (make sure to not confuse time zones). All entries will be made public afterward. Avoid starting at the last minute. Backup often as well.
-You must create a topic showcasing your entry (description, screenshots, progress) on the CodeWalrus forums at http://codewalr.us/index.php?board=34
-The source code must be provided if it's not already viewable by default in the binary.
-A readme explaining the game controls and what is needed to run and compile it must be included with your entry in .txt format.
-You cannot use other people's code, unless they are libraries. Same for pre-made engines (eg Game Maker).
-If you re-use code or ideas from your previous projects, your originality score will decrease considerably.
-Participants cannot release code or binaries of their entry before judging and voting begins.
-Judging will be performed by me (except for Linux entries, since I don't have Linux). More judges might be added later, depending of if they own all the electronic platforms we got entries for. Once judging and voting are done, the scores will be converted then merged together to design the winner.
-You will be asked a working e-mail address if you win, so that we can send you your prize.
-Grading will be done as follows:
Quote from: Grading*(20 pts) Originality: Is it just an old game of yours where you just replaced sprites with walruses? Is it just a guessing game (we never know)?
    *(20 pts) Walruses: How well did you integrate Walrii and/or its relatives into your game? Was your game choice reasonable?
    *(20 pts) Gameplay: How well does the game play? Are controls well-chosen? Is it too slow to be playable?
    *(15 pts) Fun: Is the game fun? Would you play it again in the future?
    *(15 pts) Graphics: How great the game looks like? How easy is it to distinguish stuff?
    *(10 pts) Size, speed, installing & bugs: Is the game file size reasonable for what it offers? Is it too slow? Is installation easy? is the game bug-ridden?

Prizes
This time, there will be prizes for the 1st and 2nd place, in the form of gift cards for Steam, iTunes or Amazon, depending of what you choose and country availability. The first place gift card will be $70 and second place $30, both in Canadian dollars.

Where to submit your entry
Zip up the source, binary and readme, even if it's a web page, and send it to the following address:
c o n t e s t @ c o d e w a l r . u s

So what are you waiting for? If you feel you are up to the challenge and want to give walruses their moment of fame, then start coding now!


UPDATE (Feb 2nd 2016): The final results are out! http://codewalr.us/index.php?topic=1074.0
  • Calculators owned: TI-82 Advanced Edition Python TI-84+ TI-84+CSE TI-84+CE TI-84+CEP TI-86 TI-89T cfx-9940GT fx-7400G+ fx 1.0+ fx-9750G+ fx-9860G fx-CG10 HP 49g+ HP 39g+ HP 39gs (bricked) HP 39gII HP Prime G1 HP Prime G2 Sharp EL-9600C
  • Consoles, mobile devices and vintage computers owned: Huawei P30 Lite, Moto G 5G, Nintendo 64 (broken), Playstation, Wii U

DarkestEx

Nice!
I'll will be in.

About the walrii, does it have to be 24*24 or is scaling allowed?
  • Calculators owned: TI-84+, Casio 101-S, RPN-Calc, Hewlett-Packard 100LX, Hewlett-Packard 95LX
  • Consoles, mobile devices and vintage computers owned: Original Commodore 64C, C64 DTV, Nintendo GameBoy Color, Nintendo GameCube, Xbox 360, PlayStation 2

Dream of Omnimaga

It can be any size, but preferably scaled up, not down. Else a 11x18 scaling of the 24x24 sprites will probably result into a poor score for graphics :P
  • Calculators owned: TI-82 Advanced Edition Python TI-84+ TI-84+CSE TI-84+CE TI-84+CEP TI-86 TI-89T cfx-9940GT fx-7400G+ fx 1.0+ fx-9750G+ fx-9860G fx-CG10 HP 49g+ HP 39g+ HP 39gs (bricked) HP 39gII HP Prime G1 HP Prime G2 Sharp EL-9600C
  • Consoles, mobile devices and vintage computers owned: Huawei P30 Lite, Moto G 5G, Nintendo 64 (broken), Playstation, Wii U

semiprocoder

Will using a library that has nothing to do with games(just a small graphics library I may not even use and a process library derived from a screen library from a tutorial that I now use in pretty much everything) result in a loss in originality? Because it isn't really for gameplay, its just useful things that help a lot, and rewriting it would result in very similar code
  • Calculators owned: ti nspire, ti 84 plus se
My cemetech username is awesommee333.

alexgt

Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on December 09, 2015, 09:00:34 AM
It can be any size, but preferably scaled up, not down. Else a 11x18 scaling of the 24x24 sprites will probably result into a poor score for graphics :P
* alexgt uses 8x8 sprite

Fun aside great contest idea!  will definitely participate
  • Calculators owned: Ti-84+, Ti-Nspire, Hp Prime, Broken HP Prime, HP 48SX

aetios

Quote from: semiprocoder on December 09, 2015, 12:33:42 PM
Will using a library that has nothing to do with games(just a small graphics library I may not even use and a process library derived from a screen library from a tutorial that I now use in pretty much everything) result in a loss in originality? Because it isn't really for gameplay, its just useful things that help a lot, and rewriting it would result in very similar code
I can't really speak for DJ but I guess using e.g. graphics or input libraries will not hurt your score.
ceci n'est pas une signature

c4ooo

Quote from: semiprocoder on December 09, 2015, 12:33:42 PM
Will using a library that has nothing to do with games(just a small graphics library I may not even use and a process library derived from a screen library from a tutorial that I now use in pretty much everything) result in a loss in originality? Because it isn't really for gameplay, its just useful things that help a lot, and rewriting it would result in very similar code
Well, TBH, in the end you will always end up using some library, unless you are programming a Kernel from 100% scratch :P
Quote from: alexgt on December 09, 2015, 01:02:47 PM

Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on December 09, 2015, 09:00:34 AM
It can be any size, but preferably scaled up, not down. Else a 11x18 scaling of the 24x24 sprites will probably result into a poor score for graphics :P
* alexgt uses 8x8 sprite

Fun aside great contest idea!  will definitely participate
That may be a problem for me. I dont really have the opportunity to program for PC much, so that leaves me with the TI84+ and 8*8 sprites <_<

alexgt

well the spites for the ti 84+ are bigger than on the prime's 320x240 screen so that would be fine ;)
  • Calculators owned: Ti-84+, Ti-Nspire, Hp Prime, Broken HP Prime, HP 48SX

novenary

#8
Quote-You cannot use other people's code, same for pre-made engines (eg Game Maker).
-If you re-use code or ideas from your previous projects, your originality score will decrease considerably.
I think this should be modified slightly as it excludes the usage of libraries and it's also pretty annoying/harmful for eg C programmers. Making a game in such a language requires a lot of structure code and not allowing someone to reuse his existing backbone to focus on contents is counter productive. I have a wip game engine that is 500 lines with no contents yet, just to give you an idea of how annoying this would be. And it took me over a month to write. Of course I can't enter the contest but if I could and would enter, I'd be very frustrated if I wasn't able to use this code.
Reusing chunks of code from other things is common practice for pc programmers, probably less so for calculator games.

DarkestEx

#9
Quote-You cannot use other people's code
So this would mean I had to write a whole operating system from scratch and build a graphics library on top. Including all the drivers as these are coded by others too.
Oh of course would I also need to rewrite the whole set of C libraries or do it in assembly entirely.
Pretty doable in a month :P
  • Calculators owned: TI-84+, Casio 101-S, RPN-Calc, Hewlett-Packard 100LX, Hewlett-Packard 95LX
  • Consoles, mobile devices and vintage computers owned: Original Commodore 64C, C64 DTV, Nintendo GameBoy Color, Nintendo GameCube, Xbox 360, PlayStation 2

p4nix

Even some other guys who want to program everything from scratch use Javascript :D
  • Calculators owned: fx9860GII (SH4)

DarkestEx

  • Calculators owned: TI-84+, Casio 101-S, RPN-Calc, Hewlett-Packard 100LX, Hewlett-Packard 95LX
  • Consoles, mobile devices and vintage computers owned: Original Commodore 64C, C64 DTV, Nintendo GameBoy Color, Nintendo GameCube, Xbox 360, PlayStation 2

novenary

All the staff can run Linux with the exception of DJ and Juju and Ivoah also have access to OSX, no reason why they shouldn't be supported.

DarkestEx

Quote from: Streetwalrus on December 09, 2015, 03:51:06 PM
All the staff can run Linux with the exception of DJ and Juju and Ivoah also have access to OSX, no reason why they shouldn't be supported.
Great, now I don't have to use slow .NET Framework and use C :)
Getting C and graphics to run on Windows is a real pain.
  • Calculators owned: TI-84+, Casio 101-S, RPN-Calc, Hewlett-Packard 100LX, Hewlett-Packard 95LX
  • Consoles, mobile devices and vintage computers owned: Original Commodore 64C, C64 DTV, Nintendo GameBoy Color, Nintendo GameCube, Xbox 360, PlayStation 2

Dream of Omnimaga

#14
If you guys don't mind that Linux entries are judged by a different judges, potentially skewing the results a bit (eg some people might use 6/10 for good graphics and others will use 8/10 for the same quality of graphics), then yes Linux support can be added


The reason why Linux was not added is because I, the judge, knows zero thing about Linux, let alone have it installed anywhere. Only platforms I own were added. But if you don't mind seeing Linux entries judged by someone else then you can use Linux now.

OS X is ruled out until further notice because none of the CW staff might have access to a non-broken Mac computer on January 20th . we need to ensure that @Ivoah is interested to judge OS X entries


Edit: rules edited to allow Linux and to specify that libraries are allowed (they were, but didn't take them in account). Just not 100% premade game code like with RPG Maker and the like
  • Calculators owned: TI-82 Advanced Edition Python TI-84+ TI-84+CSE TI-84+CE TI-84+CEP TI-86 TI-89T cfx-9940GT fx-7400G+ fx 1.0+ fx-9750G+ fx-9860G fx-CG10 HP 49g+ HP 39g+ HP 39gs (bricked) HP 39gII HP Prime G1 HP Prime G2 Sharp EL-9600C
  • Consoles, mobile devices and vintage computers owned: Huawei P30 Lite, Moto G 5G, Nintendo 64 (broken), Playstation, Wii U

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