SyntaxBomb - Indie Coders

We have our winners

Congratulations to everyone that took part.

The top three winners are :

 		  1st place winner :   Title : DASHTARDLY DAVE   Author : STEVIE G   Link : Take me there   Vote points : 1st = 6 | 2nd = 3 | 3rd = 1 ( Total = 775)
 		  2nd place winner :   Title : Grimly grim   Author : MrmediamanX   Link : Take me there   Vote points : 1st = 3 | 2nd = 2 | 3rd = 1 ( Total = 425 )
 		  3rd place winner :   Title : Christmas Capers   Author : Qube   Link : Take me there   Vote points : 1st = 0 | 2nd = 5 | 3rd = 2 ( Total = 300)
 		  3rd place winner :   Title : Essscape!   Author : Alienhead   Link : Take me there   Vote points : 1st = 1 | 2nd = 1 | 3rd = 1 ( Total = 175 )

How was the scoring done :

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

Complete voting breakdown :

<img width=1000 src="https://www.syntaxbomb.com/GameComps/015/15-IAAY-Scores.png">


Winners, PM me your PayPal address and I'll magic over your winnings

Comments about the games ( if sent with voting ) :


Xerra

Christmas Capers:
Very festive chrimbo music.

Think shadows and reflections on the drone may be broken. Sometimes can see them on the wall, sometimes not.

Not too comfortable with the controls. Would have liked the option to swap the down/up keys. Drone felt a bit sluggish to move around and often you could cheat the door.

Bit tough for 15 minutes. Had a few goes and managed to get maybe 7 or so before batteries run out but I was pretty shit at avoiding the nasty cars.

Probably should explain the Mac version needs to be tagged n/a for security checks else other players wont be able to run it. xattr -d com.apple.quarantine /Applications/ChristmasCapers.app in shell.

Overall it's a fun game that I'll definitely play some more.


Essscape:
Nice graphics. Good speech and also an often-missing tutorial.

Player moves so slooow. I know it's part of the gameplay but it was frustrating.

Not really my type of game but obvious that it's been very well done.

4th level seemed a lot harder than the first three. Got confused how to play through it.

Bug when you have dual monitors in full screen. If you move across to use the other screen (as i did here to make notes) then it scrolls the screen into a load of
corrupted garbage underneath and you need to restart the game.

Good game which needs someone that will appreciate it more than me.


Fire of Inspiration:
Very pretty game. Nice music but some annoying sound effects.

Timer is tight for those levels - and i mean tight. I don't have the reactions i used to.

This is a fun little game. Controls are nice and simple and the player char is very responsive. Gameplay is good fun.

It's a bit harder than it needs to be at the start. Stick a level selection in there and make that timer bar go a bit slower for some of us.

Spelling mistake on the Help screen. Full screnn on/off. Not much else i could see that was buggy.

Good little game. Really liked playing it.


Festive Burglar:
No obvious option to go full screen. Annoying with eyesight as poor as mine.

Player control does not feel good. Left/right movement in the air seems to quick compared to the slow walk speed. really struggled to position myself to get to
the platform i was aiming for.

Bad guys dissapear behind the presents. you can't help but lose an unfair life when one of them does that as you can't see them.

Can't work out if the game is just too hard, or i just am too crap to progress in it. I never even got off the first level and my jaw aches like hell.


Dastardly Dave:
Nice sense of humour. I got the tradesmans entrance reference.

Disco dave dancing on title screen gave me a giggle.

Suffers from the irritating progress-reset when you lose a life. Very frustrating, as it's not easy to play with a control system like this. Mostly the acid
bath kept reminding me i was rubbish.

Despite the above it really is a fun game to play. I know Stevie likes to play around with novel control systems and have to say this one, despite my poorness at it,
works pretty well.

Not sure why but when i press esc to quit the game the red lines all come in to close the screen, but don't open up again, and the game crashes.

Overall a good game.


Feel the Fear:
Loader needs to have a skip option.

Text layout is poor for a game like this. Suggest stats at bottom of screen, description at top, and input cursor underneath so you can work out where you are
and what you need to do.

This suffers from the same problem your previous adventure had, where you type in one command and then it does a shed-load of other stuff at the same time causing you
to lose your bearings really. I typed in light on and i swear half the game was completed judging by the amount of actions that the game told me i'd done with it.

Images should be shown on screen with the text under it, rather than scroll up and off-screen for a room. You're using a really small window as a play area which is
doing the game no favours.

Life status and hunger level seem to go down really quick, even if you're just looking around. This seems really excessive. If you're going to have to eat and drink
this much, just to be able to play the game, then you're going to end up fatter than me.

Directions you can travel in. North. Press n and return to go north. Not recognised. It's standard for an adventure game to let you just use the first letter of
a direction to move that way. N = north, s = south etc. I typed north to go north, after n didn't work. I was still in the same location, even though the game is
telling me that North is the only exit I actually have.

I think you might need a bit more work on this one.


Grimly Grim:
Nice retro 80's arcade game look.

Game timer is a bit tight.

Collisions are very poor between the enemies and the player scythe when you are jumping to get a bad guy on a platform slightly higher than you.

Player should appear in front of platforms he is jumping to.

Controls feel a bit off. Would prefer a move left/right, jump button and fire key all configurable, rather than using four cursor keys.

Sound/music ok.

Nice little game.

Congrats everyone, another highly fun comp under wraps.
As per usual with the winnings for me can go back into the next pot or split between the other winners.

Congratulations everyone!!!

@Xerra, ROFL:

Quote.Life status and hunger level seem to go down really quick, even if you're just looking around. This seems really excessive. If you're going to have to eat and drink
this much, just to be able to play the game, then you're going to end up fatter than me.   

Yeah fair one,  and youcan Skip the loader with the S key, think it mentions it on the title screen - although there is a lot of info there. I hear you on the other points to, yeah implementing the n, s, e and w options is an easy fix (you have to type the Verbose 'go north' at the mo, and as for the light on command, I'll have to sack my test team, (erm.... Me), that shouldve been disabled.


Very well done to the winners, really well deserved and a broad range of genres! Kudos to Qube and the mods for facilitating yet another compo. Roll on the Sweet 16th Compo, (maaybe.... As an option) don't think 16 months would be acceptable (shy kids dont get sweets), 16 weeks finishing 12 days after May the forth be with you......

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all!!!!!

Quote from: 3DzForMe on December 24, 2022, 09:37:51
Congratulations everyone!!!

@Xerra, ROFL:

Quote.Life status and hunger level seem to go down really quick, even if you're just looking around. This seems really excessive. If you're going to have to eat and drink
this much, just to be able to play the game, then you're going to end up fatter than me.   

Yeah fair one,  and youcan Skip the loader with the S key, think it mentions it..... Sorry, double post!

Congratulations to all of you for submitting a game, not just the winners. We all know how hard it can be to get something completed and out there. The last 10% is 90% of the effort when you make games. I'm sure all of you would agree with me on that.

Surprised Fire of Inspiration didn't place - I was pretty sure that was a top three game. This is why these competitions can be so interesting at judging time.

Just remember, you're all lucky that I didn't enter this time, else you'd all be having coal in your stockings tomorrow morning, and I'd be in the pub spending Qube's money :-)

Well done Qube for doing another competition. I'll get off my slack butt and be back in the race next time. If I make a grand return then we might find even Stevie Elliot gets to submit one next time.

Merry Xmas to all.

Well done everyone, some great games this time although clearly none as great as Dashtardly Dave. 

Joking aside, I think it's important (and should be mandatory) to give everyone constructive feedback so I took plenty of notes. Unfortunately I don't have access to a comp atm, and my fingers are too fat for this tablet, but will post asap after Xmas.

All the best folks!

Quote
If I make a grand return then we might find even Stevie Elliot gets to submit one next time.

 

Winnings sent via PayPal. Thanks to MrmediamanX for donating his prize back to the pot, 1st and 3rd places have been sent £150 each. Many thanks MrmediamanX 

Quote. Joking aside, I think it's important (and should be mandatory) to give everyone constructive feedback so I took plenty of notes. Unfortunately I don't have access to a comp atm, and my fingers are too fat for this tablet, but will post asap after Xmas.     

I agree with Stevie G, things is with such a wide array of genres I ignored totting up my scores for each aspect of all the games and just docused on ganeplay in the end. Which makes mockery of my spreadsheet 

Well done all again. Who knows, I might submit a bug free entry one day..... (fat chance!)

Fat fingers on fine, u get the gist!

As a believer in at least one version of the Multiverse Theory, I take comfort in the knowledge that, in at least one parallel universe, I came first in this contest! 

Well done to everyone who entered. It was fun and bloody stressful as the deadline approached. Some good games - Stevie G's offering was the standout IMO.

As for my entry, well I'll try harder next time...

Taking on board Xerra's excellent feedback, I'm gonna go play some real 'pro' platform games and may use the new-found experience to improve Festive Burglar.

Now's the time to reveal that a bunch of characters that I had spent many hours drawing and animating didn't make it into the game due to the sands of time running out on me...  Jack Frost, the 3 Ghosts of Christmas, Giant Elfs, and of course Santa himself. All drawn and animated, but no time for insertion into the game. Bugger.

Merry Xmas all... 


P.S. If anyone's interested here's a YouTube vid of me playing and completing all 4 levels of my game:

https://youtu.be/UY71NNBVyL4

Congrats to everyone!, Merry Christmas and happy New Year.

The results are a bit cryptic
1st place is clear - no comments - this is the best game.
But the 2nd place I'm curious what is the secret of success. You can give me a hint. Is it retro style or something else?
After all, I want to make the same successful game
All  wish well....

All games are high-quality! Good job!!!!!!!!!!

Well done again everyone, roll on new years for it is time to destroy my liver.   

Congrats to the contestants - and the winners.


Was not even able to play a single entry in the last weeks - nor doing something on my compo project.


bye
Ron