SyntaxBomb - Indie Coders

We have our winners

Very well done indeed to everyone that took part

The top three winners are :

		1st place winner :   Title : Validius   Author : Xerra   Link : Take me there / itch.io link   Vote points : 1st = 4 | 2nd = 2 | 3rd = 2 ( Total = 550 )
		2nd place winner :   Title : Treasures of the planet Ziberiumo   Author : metamorpho   Link : Take me there   Vote points : 1st = 3 | 2nd = 3 | 3rd = 1 ( Total = 475 )
		3rd place winner :   Title : GenusPrime II: Droid Revolt   Author : iWasAdam   Link : Take me there / itch.io link   Vote points : 1st = 3 | 2nd = 1 | 3rd = 1 ( Total = 375 )

How was the scoring done :

1st place awarded 100 points
2nd place awarded 50 points
3rd place awarded 25 points

Complete voting breakdown :




Winners, PM me your PayPal address and I'll magic over your winnings ( Many thanks to Qube, iWasAdam, Matty & Xerra for their donations )


Comments about the games ( if sent with voting ) :


Xerra Notes :

Genus Prime
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I would have liked an option to switch the mouse zoom to the opposite directions when using middle wheel.

Presentation is great. Droids talking to introduce the game and the star wars credits etc.

Love the droid designs on the information screens. Reminds me very much of using a terminal in the game Paradroid on the C64.

I was generally a bit lost following the game as I seemed to be able to go to the cartography screen, pick any planet and start playing on it, even if another one is in progress. On these games some planets were conquerable (with the green cursor) and some not. It's rather confusing.

As I've played the original game that this is based on a fair bit, I had a bit of an advantage of having a general idea of how to play the game. It's a far bigger project than the original game, and a proper reboot of someone else's game. That was brave considering how great the original game was, so credit to Adam for that.

This game does win the competition for me but I do think I'd go back to the original if I felt the urge to play the game more, because it was just that good. I think technically this game has blown it into the wind with with improvements but the simplicity of the originals actual game-play, due to the nature of the competition theme, was also part of its charm. Just wanted to get another applaud in here for Derron's original game really.


Ziberium
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No sound for me. I'm running it on parallels so it could well just be my issue so i've ignored the fact when judging the game.

I do like the graphics style. Suitably offbeat character and enemies compared to the rocks, earth and diamonds. They moved smoothly enough considering there's a v-synch option which i didn't try as it all seemed fine. Expanding the window to full screen gave a little too much black border for my liking, as I'd have liked to have had more screen real-estate to see the areas I'm scrolling into early and plot out routes not to get trapped.

However, what wins with this game, and why I'm rating it so highly, is it's very pick up and play, with small maps you can play a few at a time and then come back later when you want more. And the gameplay itself works just great. Now I'm maybe being a bit biased here because I wrote the game this reboots from but I gotta say that the game is a perfect example of taking a concept and making it better.

Rockman had 20 screens - not sure if this game has any more as only 20 stages are visible but maybe more unlock on completion. In Rockman I used the original maps so that the few devious areas that you had to be really careful to move the rocks around correctly and lock yourself in were already there. I didn't have to design my own as a result. Ziberium has its own maps and the ones I've seen are all set up so they can be completed and work very well with one part of this game that expands upon Rockman - which is the gravity switch. It's a simple toggle in coding to probably do this but it completely makes the game so much better for it.

Ziberium doesn't have the map system that Rockman had but I think, again, this is a better approach because you can pick up and play at any stage and not have to go for completion in one go because Rockman didn't save anything.

Of all the games I've done so far, Rockman is probably the one I've most considered doing a sequel to, and even did a blog post and start some work on the original game to potentially do that. Now I've played this I'd probably find I'd end up using a lot of the ideas you've done here into it.

So this game takes second place for me. A very good debut for the Syntax Bomb competitions. Just a pity you had to go up against Adam's game, else you'd have got first place for me.


The Ginger Ninja 64
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Impressed right from launch with the Nintendo style logo, music and the 3d title screen. Can tell this game's been a labour of love for the N64. Also a game with a sense of humour. I do not wish to meet Fu-kINO U-GU-RI in a bar, that's for sure.

I think I got through most of the first level of the game and I can say that I'm well impressed with it. I so want to continue and get further into it but I came to a complete stop because of not being able to get out of the water.

I can't bear the control system in the game and just can not get used to it to be able to play. I've not played the original Mario N64 but obviously, with a gamepad, it probably worked just fine. However trying to use keys WASD for turning and also moving forward at the same time in the turn while trying to make platform game type of jumps just became impossible for me.

This game is crying out for gamepad support. With the aliens obliterating me with fireballs while I tried around 100 times to jump onto the box and try to get to the middle bit of land for the star and then jump again onto the other side was too frustrating and I had to give up. Perhaps with other control options selectable - such as maybe turning without moving forward as well, and having back actually move backwards rather than jump, then it could work a bit better for people like me.

I really wanted to see how much more game there is in there but it's too late to do it for the competition judging now. Perhaps after the competition has finished you will go back to it and do something with this part of the game?

Mainly due to my frustration with the controls this game gets third place for me. I think I would have given it second otherwise because it's such a good game to play otherwise. Wish I could have seen more of it.


Tiny Tales 2
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Firstly, I'm not a fan of pixel-fine platform games - mainly because I absolutely suck at them, and I did at this one. I did my best to complete the game but it beat me as I got stuck in the end, even after getting a few hints from Daniel.

Small graphics are very cute. Creative design to put the game all onto one screen.

Death scene was an exercise in frustration. It's really slow and you can't skip it to move straight onto the next life.

Music is a nice little tune but does start to grate after a while. Could find no keys for stuff like pause, sound or music. The game also seemed to just restart after lives all lost rather than go back to the title screen. Not sure if it's meant to do that.

I played this a fair bit more than I actually planned to as I was convinced that, being a single screen game, I should be able to nail it. I don't think it's too hard and I can see that it's really going to appeal to a lot of people going forward.

A good effort, overall. I'll definitely go back and have another crack at completing it, even if it's not the type of game I'd normally play.


Trial Dungeon
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First of all, this game should have some kind of instructions built into it. I did work it out (mostly) I think, due to the fact that I played a fair bit of the original game but I can imagine some people have probably played it and thought, wtf!

Playing the game I found the cat annoying (if the red thing wandering around is a cat. The original is one so i'm guessing this is too). That's not a criticism though, because it's meant to be. I played a fair bit of the game so I was blocking it by walls wherever possible, which I also think is the general idea, but it does illustrate my point about instructions in the game being helpful. After I'd played a few games I worked out that the different tokens you pick up on the ground are different traps to lay down to catch these nasties and the game instantly got a lot better to me.

The collisions are poor in the game. I got myself unfairly caught by the walls more than I needed when I was expecting to kind of slide across or down them when catching with a diagonal movement. This cost me many games.

The chest timers seemed a bit excessive but it does give it a gameplay boost being forced to watch in panic as enemies come towards you but you hold out just that little bit longer so you don't have to run off and come back via another route. I'm glad you kept a game flag for how much you had already unlocked of that timer for when you return to the chest after avoiding the enemies again. That's a great example of the difference between making a game fun and challenging, rather than just frustrating the player, and shows me you were thinking it through. Well done for that.

The graphics are very small and the game plays in a small window which doesn't help players with eyesight as rubbish as mine. Some option to boost things up would have been good here, I think.

In conclusion, my initial thoughts were that I wasn't impressed. Small graphics, no firm idea of how to play, very simple sounds and the game was quite frustrating. Almost all of this was shoved to one side once I gave it a bit of time and worked out how to play and then the most important part of it stood out for me. It may not be a very well presented game with stunning graphics, amazing music and completely wow you over. But it does have gameplay and play very well when you give it a chance. I just hope other people do as well.

For a first entry this is a good start. Well done. Sorry you didn't make my top three but you can see the standard was very high this time around.


Warlock
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Liked how you can rename characters and the graphics are very neat and ornamental around the UI.

This game has a very Bards tale feel about the character set up which is no bad thing at all. The isometric parts are very Wizardry and I was particularly impressed with the way the walls build around you as you move.

Nice to have a tutorial to introduce the game and also a much-needed save game.

Insta-death during tutorial where the first square I moved to got me murdered by 3 brigands. I appeared to have no control in this.

Music was grating a bit after a while and the constantly getting robbed for food was annoying.

I mentioned the movement system where the squares roll up as you move around and also liked the fact that you can't see the bad guys unless they would normally be in your view, as in there were no walls between you. This attention to detail reminded me of playing Paradroid on the C64 back in the day, even though it's a totally different game.

Control with mouse and clicking on squares is useable but I think a control system like diablo would move better where you hold left button down and the player moves towards that area all the time as it's scrolling. Less of the clicking when going through larger areas.

Trying to keep up with health potions and first aid when you're in a fight is way too random for my liking. Hitting them too early or too late often happened to me. This was very frustrating.

Overall it's a very competent game but it just didn't grab me due to not liking the combat system and the random nature of insta-deaths. I also couldn't get on too well with the movement using a mouse.

I would say that it looks like an extermely competent bit of coding, however. There's even a demo mode. It always surprises me that Matty, like Adam, can get games developed to such a standard so quickly.


Asterocks
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Initially confusing how some of the screens are set up. When going from title/game/game over for me. The game asked me if I wanted to play again after one game and then prompts me to enter my name for the score from previous game. A bit of a minor quibble but keeping a player in a game doesn't need to ask them if they want to play again. Just fire to restart.

Rotation of ship to shoot compared to the speed of asteroids appeared too slow for me. As was the movement of the ship itself, I thought.

Also thought the game was a bit difficult. That's not always a bad thing but there's only one life here and its not really playing fair. It's often impossible to avoid the incoming rocks as they move faster than you ever can without a complete loss of control.

A bit more variety in gameplay could have improved it a lot. The shield is a cool idea in giving you a bit of protection but the page up/page down keys are awkward one to reach for in a panic so i died more often than not looking at the keyboard to reach for it.

The only way the game moves on from beginning until players eventual death is due to more and more rocks being in play. Maybe a breaking scene between levels just to give player a bit of a rest every so often. I know this game plays like asteroids but the idea is to reboot the game you're recreating.

Music seems a bit faint on the title screen and doesn't fit the game.

I did like the speed and amount of bullets to give the game a faster pace.

It's an ok Asteroids game but I just think a bit more could have been done with it.



johnno56 notes :

Tiny Tales 2 - I'm a sucker for "old style" platformers. Very nicely made and a joy to play.
reasure of Ziberium - Reminds me of the old Dig Dug games. A fun 'thinker' of a game.
Validus - Love a good asteroid game. Although it ran slowly on my Linux machine I still think it's well made and and visually appealing.



iWasAdam notes :

Validius - Very polished and keeps you coming back for more.

Tiny Tales 2 - I liked the use of very small graphics with this, used to very good effect

Warlock - Although not the best in playability, I thought this should be third because of the effort taken with the graphics and the way it progressed the original concept

runners up

The Ginger Ninja 64 - how to take a concept and run with it, maybe needs more work to make it into a proper game, but the core is there are it works very well

Treasures of the planet Ziberium - very pretty



Imerion notes :

Treasures of the planet Ziberium - The overall polish for this title was fantastic and I really enjoyed playing it. Gravity shift was a fun mechanic and the graphics were excellent and very uniform.

Warlock - This title really grew on me. I was impressed with how complete and content-filled it was and both exploring and combat was fun.

GenusPrime II: Droid Revolt - Excellent concept and a very enjoyable and complete game. I also appreciated the fun and polished presentation.



metamorpho notes :

GenusPrime II: Droid Revolt (liked: very atmospheric)
Validius (liked: dynamically and unexpectedly)

Congrats guys.
I'm very sorry i didn't get to vote on them and i do look forward to playing them

Congrats guys, the top 3 scores look pretty close to me.

The competitors produced some great artwork, technical skill as well as putting in some real good playability into their games.   

<Stunned>

I really thought either Genus Prime or Ziberium was going to win but I'm elated that I've won one of the Syntax Bomb competitions.

I know I did it before for the Xmas 2018 one but there were only three entries then, so this time feels much better.

Validius is the best bit of coding I've done to date. I spent a fair bit of time watching tutorial videos and playing other asteroid games during the time I was working on it. I had to really got my head down towards the end to get it done as I'd already started working on a different game idea originally. I think i did it in around 5 weeks so it's possible I could have done even more had I gone that route from the start.

I think it's also the last time I'm going to use my crappy framework that I've made all my games with since Bah, Humbug! because it's more of a chore now to get a game developed with it than it probably is to start from scratch. I'll start with something new and create a better system for making new games in future.

Thanks to everyone who voted for me and liked playing my game. I'm very proud of how it turned out and I was certainly hoping it might at least place because I still like playing it myself, even straight after finishing the coding. Normally I don't touch a game for a couple of months after finishing unless there's something to fix.

It was a good competition and fun to be a part of.

I want to thank you all for allowing me to compete.

When I was asked, by my website administrator, what I was going to make... "Maybe a simple Asteroids game." He mentioned to me that this type of game is quite hard to code from scratch... (especially for a 'first game') Perhaps I should have listened. But I am glad that I did not... Otherwise, I would have missed out on competing, and missed out on some great advice on how to make it better...

Thank you for the honour and a huge congrats to all our winners!!

3rd - I'm stoked. Thankyou, thankyou. I'd like to accept this honour...  <- This isn't the oscars you know?

But seriously, Congrats to everyone who entered and voted. For me there is much to learn, but slowly things are getting better.

Sorry to not have voted. Congrats to all contestants for finishing aa game. Thanks to Adam for choosing my game to reboot.

Applause to the winners. Hope their download counts go high and the games reach many players.



Bye
Ron

Thanks to the organizers and sponsors for the contest !!
Very happy for Xerra. Victory is a surprise that is always pleasant.
Xerra, thanks for the detailed description of the different moments of my game during the evaluation.

When is the next contest ?? !! 

Congrats to the winners and well done to those who entered, this was a really fun comp to honest.

Nice! Congrats to the winners and thanks for all nice response regarding my game! Also thanks to organisers and sponsors as well as all participants who made nice games for us to play!

Looking forward to the next competition!

Congratulations to all winners (and participants - it's not easy to finish your jam games)! Next time I'll try to participate as well.

congratulations!!!! i never particpated in one competition, i wish to do in the next one

congrats to all!

Kudos to the winners, well deserved  ,

My entry might be done by oktoberfest at this rate.... 😁

Well done folks, some cracking looking entries. It's tough going to complete a game in 8 weeks so great effort.

Apologies for not getting a chance to test and vote. I'll hopefully get a chance to play them all this weekend.