We have our winners
Congratulations to everyone that took part
The top three winners are : |  | 1st place winner :
Title : Axonite
Author : iWasAdam
Link : Take me there
Vote points : 1st = 5 | 2nd = 0 | 3rd = 2 ( Total = 550 ) |
 |  | 2nd place winner :
Title : The Running Van
Author : STEVIE G
Link : Take me there
Vote points : 1st = 3 | 2nd = 0 | 3rd = 5 ( Total = 425 ) |
 |  | 3rd place winner :
Title : Tommy Gunn
Author : Xerra
Link : Take me there
Vote points : 1st = 2 | 2nd = 3 | 3rd = 0 ( Total = 350 ) |
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, Xerra and GarborD for their donations )
Xerra has very kindly donated a brand new C64 mini to the winner ( or 2nd / 3rd place depending ). Please PM Xerra to arrange delivery.There was only one prize money donation ( thanks GarborD ) ( excluding Qube ) which makes a total pot of £200 + C64 mini
Comments about the games ( if sent with voting ) :iWasAdam :1. TommyGunn
This was the game I had the most fun with. maybe a bit sparse but it was engaging both visually and sonically. Not long, but what was there was well used. I would like to see what could be done with this as a concept piece, and made into a full game. Very enjoyable \o/
2. CandyPop
Absolute superb presentation. in some ways the game itself was the let down. although visually is was stunning, Definitely NOT a candy crush clone, but maybe could have been reworked to give it a slightly different feel and better gameplay.
3. RunningVan
Another stonker from StevieG. Sonically the music and sound all went together with the visuals. I was expecting some chatter with the babes and presenter but didn't get any ;( A great game if you like this sort of thing. in some ways I would have liked to see something slightly different as this is very close to StevieG's other games. I know he's got the chops... I want to see what else is hiding in his cold cabinet...
4. Starblock
Yep a solid entry. nothing I haven't seen or played before. music was hyper annoying so i quickly turned that off. Game play was as expected. a suggestion would be to go back to basics and find some form of gameplay that really hooks you and use all the graphics skills to flesh it out well
5. Treasures
Although well presented and played smoothly. There were a loads of controls which sort of spoiled things pushing a solid entry into the 'should have thought more about simple controls first'. The amount of control just ended up getting in the way. a suggestion would be to look back at classic arcade games like bubble bobble and especially solomons key. They show how to use 4 directions and 1 or 2 buttons to maximum effect.
my thoughts in general were graphically every entry really stepped things up a notch. sonically was where things didn't go too smoothly. particularly some badly chosen music that just didn't do the games any justice. StevieG used music that fit with the game the style and the story. Xerra chose to use effects and not use a music track - this worked very well.
It does point that more care should be used when picking music for games. just because you can have music playing doesn't mean it's going to make your game better - in some cases it can ruin an otherwise ok game.
I have no idea where people sources their graphics and sound. but care should also taken with any bought in graphics that the whole thing doesn't become some sort of asset flip.
Having amazing graphics and a poor game is a sort of indication that more time should be taken with the core concepts. I know it is a trap that I have repeatedly fallen into.
But great fun was had with all the entries and kudos to everyone who took part
XerraAxonite
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My game of the competition. I put quite a bit of time into playing through this and moaning about bugs. I bought Xenon 2 way back when I was 21 and had many days playing it all those years ago. I never did complete it though but really loved the game. This was a throwback to those days again. Although I'm too bloody old to ever imagine being that young again. Great fun and this was an easy 1st place choice for me.
CandyPop
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I helped Aaron out with testing this game so I'm not voting for it in the spirit of the competition. In all honesty I wouldn't have had it in my top three despite it being a good effort, as I thought the gameplay was lacking compared to the games I am voting for.
Starblock De Pon
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Interesting game name.
Not hot on the title music but like the stars in the background.
Looks pretty enough, even though the colours are pretty garish to me. Then again I'm the kind of bloke who won't wear anything unless it's dark coloured so these kind of colour schemes are never going to appeal to me.
Small window to play the game in. I know - Parallels on Mac running on a stupid hi-resolution. Upscaling the window to full screen width does make it a huge blur that gives me a headache. That's more my poor eyesight and the colour scheme possibly, however.
Game over is too harsh. It's over before you have the top line occupied but I did think the power meter letting you erase a few lines was a cool idea.
At the end of the day this is a rehash of Tetris with the difference being changing the blocks colour pattern while it's still moveable and removing the rotation mechanism. I think that takes away one of the most fun elements and replaces it with one that doesn't work quite as well. Triss was a competition game a couple of years back that did something new with Tetris and made it even more interesting because of it. As nicely presented as this is, I do prefer the original game.
The Running Van
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Really like the music for this game.
The multiple chars on the title screen looked a bit odd as they are all talking at the same time.
Playing the game with a mouse seemed alien to me but I tried it anyway and I actually feel it works really well. I'm a bit uncomfortable doing it as I'd never play a game like this normally that way but I was able to last for a couple of mins without issues playing that way on first game. Very nice to see that the game caters for mouse/keys and gamepad. Covering all the bases is always a good idea although when you select keyboard I shouldn't still need to use the mouse for navigating the menu and options.
The vehicles moving around seems to have been done really well. They slide around in pursuit of you but don't cheat, and the rules of friction, slowing down and sliding hinder them as much as you. AI is spot on for this as so many games you feel are cheating as the game gets harder by making them less affected by these things than the player. It feels great when you trick two enemy vehicles into hitting each other.
Procedurally generated levels give the game a random element that makes it interesting each time you have another go, as you don't know what to expect and it's nice to have the option to use the arena you last played in, should you want to.
I dithered and dithered with deciding between this and treasures for second place and I had to go with treasures as there's a bit more variety, with multiple levels, puzzles. It was a tough choice, though.
Treasures of Terphozen
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Striking graphics on this game. Liked the style of the whole package.
20 levels to play - I think I got to 7 so another game to pick up on later to try and finish.
Didn't like the controls at first but gradually got used to them. I was advised a while back to avoid using control and shift keys for any kind of input as sticky keys can be a pain in the butt, if it's not turned off. As I was playing on Mac it also had the added bonus of shifting screens away whenever I tried to jump a hole but Parallels has a game mode where it disables all that, so I was able to play it just fine in the end. This, of course, is not the fault of the game as it is windows only, but worth mentioning because of the potential sticky keys issue.
I watched a play through of some of the levels of this game before playing it myself because sometimes it's easier to get a good look at what's going on in the game when you're not just focussed on working through it. Frankly I'm boggled at how you managed to get it all done in two months. I really enjoyed playing it as well. And that's the most important bit really.
