Well, I finally got around to making a decent MinorHack website. For those of you who don't remember, the first thread is here. The difference between the old one and this one is that now there is a rule-o-matic. 1 rule is arbitrarily selected to govern entries.

Anyways, I want to run a few of these. I want to do 2 this weekend, and I'm hoping, if I can get enough interest, that I can get one in today also. Anybody up for it? Give me times, and I will schedule it!

Also, spend some time at the site and add a few rules. We need rules to get the competition interesting!

[edit]
Current competition is scheduled for 2100 GMT on September 3.

Do you mean "have a competition in 6 hours" or "competition will be 6 hours long"?

Anyway, I'm hosed today/tonight, but I'd be open for doing them this weekend any time. Whoo-hoo, 4-day weekend!

I mean it would be 1 hour long, and start at 6 p.m. EDT

It would be nice if the site allowed every entrant to start when he wants to. Once logged in, he would have option "enter the compo" for every compo that's open at the moment, which would give him access to the rules, but at the same time it would start the countdown and close submission for him after 60 minutes.

Yeah, but that takes the social aspect out of it Plus it allows cheating. Not that we really care about that

Okay, let's get some more rules in the system, okay?

Okay, I've added a bunch. I may add something more later, when I'll have some more ideas.

I'd like to on Sunday night or something, but I wouldn't be able to tonight. I need more notice!

Eh. Too short to produce anything meaningful.

How about 72 hours? No, wait....

Hey, I wrote one of my "best" games during the last one... a simple snake game. Most of my games I have the problem of overengineering, but with 1 hour, I just hacked up whatever works.

I don't think I'm good enough to hack something in one hour

If this happens, i think I'll give it a shot.

OTOH, I enjoy a good challenge every now and then

What times, guys? Sunday at 2100 GMT sound good? Anyone else?

Hmmm...on the Rules section of your site, I don't see any rules. Or...has none been approved yet? Browser: Opera.

At the time that you posted (and now), there are 14 rules. If you can't see them, try the xml.

I can see the rules in the xml, but there all smashed together in one long paragraph.

Opera sucks So what does the rules page look like normally then?

That's it, I'm going to make my own internet browser and it shall be named: sUcks (Super URL Connecting at Killer Speeds).

Anyway, the rules page looks fine now...odd.

[edit] - Added some really zany rules.

I just had to write a test-game to see what i could do in one hour. I think it turned out pretty well. The code is horrible, but that is to be expected i guess
GAME!
or just the source Sauce!

Download, run, tell me your scores!

Impressive! 3761 after a few tries.

EDIT: 4343!

Btw, you should have limited the placement of the green circles more to the centre of the board. If you get one in one of the corners, you can't even get to it. And you could make a minimum distance from the last green circle, otherwise if you're lucky, you can get three or four in a straight line.

Good point with the corners, didn't think of that.

I put this code in eat_treat() instead of the two lines that calculate the new x/y:

  while (1) {
    newx = (rand()%460)+80;
    newy = (rand()%320)+80;

    if ((treat.x - newx)*(treat.x - newx) + (treat.y - newy)*(treat.y - newy) >= 150*150) {
      treat.x = newx;
      treat.y = newy;
      break;
    }
  }

Got 5758 points the first time.

Thanks =)
You could probably have used the "is_overlapping" function to do that.
Also, you can increase/decrease the speed of the snake (with the up/down arrows)

I'll put up an alternate version (over one hour of work) with some updates.

EDIT:
Here is version "2" ("real" version still in the previous post):
GAME!
or just the source Sauce!

So does that mean you're in for this weekend, Jonathan?

Aye, if i can. My girlfriend has her family over, but i should be able to squeeze in an hour of coding there.

Nothing like a time constraint to fuel productivity =)

Okay, I set it up for Sunday at 2200 GMT (if I did that correctly). It's Sunday at 6 p.m. for you EDT'ers like me. If anyone has a problem with this time, let me know!

Another bunch of rules from me is on the way.

in your first post that was 2100 UTC. Make up your mind =)
2100 would suit me better, but both would probably work.

Rescheduled I don't like all this converting between time formats >_< In the first post, by the way, 6 p.m. is 2200 GMT Anyways, it's 2100 GMT now, which is 5 p.m. Sunday, EDT.

[append]
By the way, I am rephrasign the rules as I approve them. Let me know if I miss the point of the original.

Good. You should probably edit the first post to reflect the changes so people won't have to read through the entire thread =)

GMT+1 Here, so it's not gonna be a problem. Unless I'm unavailable

Play my game! Tell me I'm pretty and smart!

Then just put them as GMT. Even better - make a countdown timer. The way it is now, "Times are in EST/EDT (GMT-5/GMT-4)" is completely confusing.

OK, so:

- "The game must feature high number of autonomic "creatures" driven by some kind of AI in a swarm fashion." - "Swarm!" was only a title of the rule, but I didn't require "AI in a swarm fashion". As long as there is large number of creatures with similar behavior they can be considered some kind of swarm. Of course swarm AI is fine, too, but it wasn't compulsory in my version.

- "The game must be turn-based. Anything that allows player to think before making his move will do (try avoiding making multiplayer games with no optional AI, as second player isn't always at hand)." - Multiplayer with optional AI sounds a bit difficult to make in one hour, so it wasn't in my version. If you think that good AI replacement for human player can be written in one hour you can leave this way, but I'd prefer more games, where computer has advantage over he player than games where poor AI makes everything too easy.

The rest seems to be fine. I'm waiting for the second batch of my rules to be added.

Hmmm, I'd like to think I could make a snake game in an hour. But I'd try to do something a little better than just a snake game, and I'd fail.

Clicka de link. I'm also adding the other rules right now. I'll make those changes you pointed out.

Yeah, I failed my first one You should play anyways

Great. Look forward to seeing your entry

[append]

I'm not going to change this one, because the actual rule simply states that the game must be turn-based, and nothing more. Remember, everything past the first sentence is just suggestion or clarification. And I strongly encourage bending the rules as much as possible.

Oh, and I had to not approve a rule: The one that said all variables must end in ++, because I'm not sure int i++; is valid syntax.

Showing minutes and seconds in remaining time may come in handy when the compo will get closer.

- "The player's representation in the game must be a circle drawn with circlefill. That is, the main character must be drawn with circlfill." - a typo in the last word.

The rest looks fine.

I'll try and participate!

Did anyone else here participate in BlitzHack? I thought that was a lot of fun. It was 6 hours though, so you were able to add quite a few features if you managed your time well.

I'll deal with that issue, once, say, the number of days reaches 0

Also, I don't know what the Halting Problem is.

Derezo: Glad to have you! No, I didn't participate in BlitzHack. Wasn't that one-time-only?

Any chance on lifting the c++/allegro restrictions?

Marcello

There's no C++ restriction, but you must use C or C++, and can only use Allegro and the standard C library.

How much frequent it'll be? One time per year? One time per month? One time per week? Just once and nevermore?

I think you should allow standard C++ library (including STL). Also allowing WinAPI would be cool, although the only function there that doesn't have Allegro replacement is timeGetTime() and other high resolution timing functions.

Yeah, standard C++ library also. Personally, I don't care what you use so long as it is Allegro or comes with the compiler. And it had better compile on Windows and Linux

This is the second time in 2 months. It can be as often as people want it Just drop me a line and I can add it to the DB.

How many rules will be selected? By your rule-o-matic? (or maybe rule-o-human)?

1 rule is used per competition.

I denied the "argc/argv" rule. Users in Windows (and Linux, et al.) should be able to double click on an executable without passing parameters

Added some more rules...

It would be nice to say that in the site.

If you added the rules about California and politics, then congratualations! Those are the most brilliant rules I have ever seen

Done

It's a pretty informal competition, right -- we're just posting our results in a forum thread? So I don't see how or why there should be any restrictions like that. If it's a pain to get a game to run, you can always just not run it. Just let people do whatever -- it's all for fun.

edit: on a similar note: I also have no idea why you'd disallow media files. Seems like you're just arbitrarily reducing the potential quality of the entries.

You're right. There are only two rules that are actually enforced. The 1-source-file limit, and the rule-o-matic's selection. I just set that as a rule to enforce that it be as easy to run as possible. It should compile for everyone, and the only things that they should have to have are a C(++) compiler and Allegro. I need to re-write the main page of the site to clarify this and other rules, as it is written very porrly right now.

[append]
Okay, good thing I did that, because I uncovered a rather serious bug in the rule selector. Anyways, I think everything is written much more nicely now, and the current competition page will reiterate the rules when the time comes.

Media files are disallowed to add a restriction to the competition, which is to keep it simple. Just personal preference, I suppose. By the way, rule submitters, I am not opposed to requiring entries to use a certain media file that you provide.

It's a 1 hour competition, how much media do you need? I personally like just being able to do simple programmers art without having my entry stick out like a sore thumb.

A main character bitmap and an enemy bitmap would be nice.

I kind of doubt that, with an hour to do the code and the media, anyone would have much more than simple programmer's art. All allowing media files would do is enable graphics a bit more 'flavorful' and versatile than colored circles and squares.
Also, I'm generally opposed to setting rules of a competition with the purpose of dragging down the quality of everyone's entries just because I can't get that quality myself ... ie, removing drawing just because I can't draw.

How does that "keep it simple"? I don't see any particular extra trouble in running entries that include a few media files along with their single source file. And allegro makes bitmap loading and rendering totally straightforward. Making bitmaps is pretty trivial, too -- just spend a minute clicking in MS Paint, and you get comically bad media files for the cost of a bathroom break. Easier than trying to make anything interesting out of circles and squares, probably.

It says you need to make sure it compiles on Linux and Windows. But I do not have access to Linux for compiling, and probably won't for another week or two.

Just write ANSI code + Allegro and no #pragma's etc and you should be ok i think.

And don't include conio.h, winalleg.h, and windows.h. There are others, but I think these are the most common ones.

Well, I wanted to write a proper response to this, but I guess I won't have time:

I think the biggest reason for disallowing extra media is that it really hits home the fact that gameplay is everything. If you can use blank bitmaps each with an X on it, generated at load time, you can focus on your game's mechanics instead of art in your hour. If you so choose, you can enhance your entry later with real bitmaps loaded in place of the placeholder bitmaps. This won't count as part of your entry, but it allows you to have a nicer finished product.

This competition is about straining creativity to design a game meeting the rules in as little work as possible. The goal of this competition is not to have a finished product; it is to put forth an innovative idea that is fun to play.

Personally, I added the rules "just the mouse", "no text", "bananas", "something undestructible wants to kill the player who must destroy something". "upside-down", "l33t", "politcs" and "pig and cow".
I added "argc/argv" too, but you declined.

Hmmm... I can't seem to agree with this... art is part of the creativity too, isn't it? And considering media production is generally a larger time factor than coding, polished art will be expensive anyway. Or am I missing a point here?

I always was forced to include <winalleg.h> whenever I wanted to use STL, as its implementations I was using were including <windows.h> indirectly, which conflicted with Allegro (especially BITMAP structure). Also Allegro doesn't have high resolution timers, so they can't be easily replaced.

I'm not sure whether I'll have time to enter the compo when it starts, but I'm planning to include compatibility version of "winalleg.h" for Linux users (included below), so dropping this file to compile directory will hopefully solve all problems.

#include <sys/time.h>

unsigned long long timeGetTime()
{
        timeval T;
        gettimeofday(&T,0);
        return ((long long)T.tv_sec)*1000+T.tv_usec/1000;
}

Or, in your source file:

#ifdef _WIN32
#include <winalleg.h>
#else
#include <sys/time.h>

unsigned long long timeGetTime()
{
        timeval T;
        gettimeofday(&T,0);
        return ((long long)T.tv_sec)*1000+T.tv_usec/1000;
}
#endif

(add _WIN64 at your leisure)

I find that disallowing media will encourage more creative use of code. After all, this is primarily a programming competition. However, as I have said before, the bonus rule for a competition could be to use a specific media file in your entry, and that would be fine.

I think the only thing that can really be said on the matter that (hopefully) we can agree on is this: A competition is such because it has rules. These rules may be arbitrary, but they are in place solely for the purpose of limiting competitors. The challenge of a competition is putting out a good effort, despite the rules set in place.

You can do that whether art is allowed or not. Actually, the time limit alone pretty much requires it -- if you were to 'focus' on art, you probably just wouldn't finish.

Adding art gives more room for creativity, and doesn't add any more work than an entrant wants. I'm sure anyone entering this will have to be quite good at managing their time anyway: No need to pretend to manage it for them, and go banning things because you think they wouldn't have time for it.

And adding media files opens up the range of ideas that can be coherently represented ... with no drawbacks, because everyone is still free, of course, to not use media files.

Do you? Really? Are you sure it doesn't just encourage use of circle() instead of blit() ...

I thought it was about making games, not just code.

A good competition would choose rules that improve the competition, and would be able to justify those rules. Just adding completely arbitrary restrictions, well, it might make the competition arbitrarily worse.

There is no size limit... store the raw bitmap data in your source.

If that's fine, it just emphasizes how pointless the no-media rule is ...

I guess we can't agree then. I am going to keep this rule for the purpose of simplicity. I hope this doesn't discourage you from participating.

If you are interested in modifying the competition's rules, let me know. I will supply you with the source code for the web site and you can host your own.

I think the "one source file only, nothing else" is good. I think it's very suitable for such a short competition. It's also fun to work with something else than bitmaps. It gives you the opportunity to express yourself in a way that in any other game would look bad.

It also feels 1337.

I rest my case.

I think it's time I try hacking myself, and I guess this would be a nice competetion to get me going. Though I'm not sure I can drop in for this particular one (coding in 1:00-2:00 AM when school is on is no good...)

Well, if all goes well I should be in this one! This could be really nice, as it is possible to convert games made for this into finished products eventually.

[EDIT]
is END_OF_MAIN(); still necessary on Linux?

I've made this one just to see what can I create in one hour. Done in 59 minutes.

Pretty neat! A little long though, might tweak the physics a little.

It's END_OF_MAIN() and you should use it anyway for platform compatibility.

No -- it's all good. It'll still be a fun competition, and I'll put in an effort as long as I can be around that hour. Glad you're going through the trouble of hosting it!

(I'm way too happy to get argumentative ... really, I think the media thing is a pretty minor point. There's no time to do art anyway!)

I'm going to participate if I'll be able to. However, 23:00-0:00 before a Monday is pretty evil for the majority of Europe that lives in CET.

I've had a similar idea for a hack, and maybe I'll still execute it... But meanwhile, yours sounds interesting .

And please, remove the rule about bananas . One banana infested compo is enough.

Okay, glad to see so much participation! Personally, I will have a lot of trouble playing. I am presently on vacation at some resort, and the rooms don't have internet. I have a phone with the internet (how I am typing this), and a laptop. I'll be playing, of course, but it might take me a while to finish my judging.

Speaking of judging, I think we should use the Borda method of voting. First place gets n points, second gets n - 1, ... last gets 0 points.

Also, as soon as I get some free time, I'll be writing a "past entries" page on the site, with everyone's progress at the end of the hour.

Hook your phone to your laptop???

I imagine I could write software to do that, but the provided software uses the OS's features, which make sure that "data service" and "tethered dial-up networking" are not active at the sae time. I know that's a single bit in the config, but it's a 30/mo bit. Anyways, I can transfer data over the storage card.

+

=

NaN

Unless I've gone bonkers, the competition starts at 2200 GMT according to the page.
I will assume the page is right, which is a shame. I might not be able to participate that late (one hour is a lot when you have your girlfriend's sister sleeping in your computer room). But I'll do my best =)

I have a comment about one of the bonus rules: How would a game be played inside it's own source code? It doesn't make much sense, if any.

Also, a quick question: If I submit an executible file, could the source be put in a project so I can use the linker? I don't have a makefile for it yet.

You could use the possibility of including your own source file to include some data hidden as comments.

It sounds like a silly thing to have in a one hour game... Actually, it sounds like a silly thing period. But so are some other rules (i don't even know how the state of California looks!)

Get a map of the US. California is on the lower-left. And, I still don't understand the source code thing, just hope it doesn't come up.

I realize that it's not a big deal to find out how the state of California looks, but it's so arbitrary. Also quite hard to do without bitmaps (like the banana theme).

You can generate bananas using a pair of circles (one yellow and one transparent) or even just using a single arc. As for shape of California, just draw arbitrary random shape and state that it's post-apocalyptic version of it.

Hehe .. I made the bananas with two arcs, and I experimented for about 15 minutes until I got the right radii, positions, angles ...

MinorHack starting in 20 min. twitch, twitch

Kikaru: for instance, load your source code and render it to a bitmap using textprintf. Then scale this bitmap up and use it as a background image. There are more creative things you can do, but this is the simplest. Okay, I might check this page one more time before the compo, but I doubt it (it's quite a pain). Just put your source in this thread when your entry is done. Good luck Allegroites!

The competition is running, but I don't see the bonus rule listed anywhere ...
edit: oh, I see it now (sorry 'bout that ... just a bit of blindness + panic)

I guess i'm "done".
Better turn it in now and not try to add last minute stuff
pick up the... green ... coins and avoid the big evil grey .. ball.
meh.

The gold ball (you) tries to move towards the mouse, while the big evil ball (the grey one) tries to crush you. If it hits you - game over.
you bounce of the walls.

Here is mine. Code here and attached, readme included .

The game gradually gets harder so try for your high score . Try to reload as little as possible and hit those coins for maximum points.

Also, a little balancing after the contest: replace "randomFloat(0, 48 - level)" with "randomFloat(0, 46 - level * 2)" and "level += 0.0012" with "level += 0.0017" to make it less boring.

here attached

Dodge the Blocks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Scores are formed by where the blocks land. The higher the block, the better the score!

Dodge the Blocks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Finished! Move the blue dot to pick up the gold coins.

Well, crappy rule to get on a development environment with only a trackpad, but I have my entry! It's tron, I guess. I finished with about a minute to spare, but uploading this is slow.

Oh yay. My phone doesn't support the attachments tab... Emailing my entry to Baf...

************ BUG *********************
I added some code in the last 3 minutes that kind of messes up the gameplay. Just comment out lines 213 to 218 and it's quite a bit more fun.

[edit] Also, the game crashes after so long...

About the mine:
Got tons of codes from my SH2006 game: Rambanana.
It leaks a lot memory.
just move the mouse and run away from the asteroids.

PS: My crappy dialed internet connection almost made i lose the deadline. I posted in 20:59 (GMT), just a few seconds.

[EDIT: It inherited some cool thing from Rambanana (which was inherited from my SH2005 Game: The attack of the space bugs). This include passing "F" as a argc/argv command to make it fullscreen. It inherited other things to handle sound, music and joystick, but doesn't use these.

Oh, i found a serious bug: After some time, large white strips start to appear in the game. These are asteroids with something really wrong in their math (and very letal to the player). Maybe some overflow or division by zero bug? ]

Okay, I've got all the entries so far compiled, I'll wait for CGamesPlay's if he does post it, and then attach a binary pack for Windows . Looks good, seems everyone who participated did finish something, we're better than Speedhack .

Victor: Hm, I didn't know if code reuse was allowed... I did everything from scratch, but it's OK, it was more fun that way. I felt like my fingers were on fire .

CGames: BAF doesn't seem to be around, just e-mail it to me at krajzega@kalamburos.gov.net, without the gov. I'll include it with the binaries and post source here.

Done. Simple RTS with Starcraft-like controls. As default settings are quite hard (or maybe impossible), you can play with AI difficulty and hive health settings (difficulty 10 and hive health 1000 is doable, but I doubt you can save at least one hive at any difficulty). Entire game is a bit pointless, but one hour doesn't leave much time for gameplay tweaking.

For Linux people, here is "winalleg.h" compatibility replacement to run this game (also don't forget to change <winalleg.h> to "winalleg.h" in the source code).

#include <sys/time.h>

unsigned long long timeGetTime()
{
        timeval T;
        gettimeofday(&T,0);
        return ((long long)T.tv_sec)*1000+T.tv_usec/1000;
}

Can't get any of the source codes to compile. I keep getting errors like "textout_ex undeclared," or "invalid conversion from int to float," and even "confilcting definitions of BITMAP". More recent version of Allegro should fix the 'textout_ex' error though.

Maybe attach some .exe files later?

I'll post the binary pack in my next post, whether CGames makes it or not.

Late .

Baf doesn't seem to be available. I can email it to anyone who asks me... PM me, I guess.

Oh, I will also email the entry to cgamespla@mailinator.com. Go to http://mailinator.com and log into to cgamespla's mailbox. Not cgamesplay's, but cgamespla's.

Oops. Didn't get to test the final thing, so two changes: replace 'doline' with 'do_line', and on line 98, change 'cointime' to 'score'.

There is CGames's entry.

As you've said, textout_ex in newer Allegro version. "invalid conversion" is just a warning and you should be able to get rid of "conflicting definitions of BITMAP" by adding "-DNOGDI" to compiler parameters (it prevents <windows.h> from defining it's own BITMAP type).

On time. The code you've got in my post is a snapshot taken just before the compo ended. I've spent additional time before posting it playing it a bit with different settings, so I could make the suggestion, but the code you've got is pure compo version.

Off-topic:

Nice way to fool e-mail harvesters.

The binary package is attached.

Steven Silvey's code is patched with the change he mentioned to remove a bug.
My code is patched with the two-constant tweak I mentioned.
Kikaru's is corrected with the "doline"=>"do_line" change.

The rest is left untouched. All exe's require alleg42.dll.

Okay, now that I am not so worried about getting my entry up:

Click to start the game. The blue circle is where the next node will appear. Make the snake as long as possible without crossing itself. I had no time to experiment with different difficulties, but the magic number 15 in the code can be lowered to make the game harder. (countdown is 15 at the beginning of adding a node.

I had fun doing this one, finished with about a minute to spare, so I'm happy that I did better than last time.

I'm going out for a few hours now. If Jakub gets his binary pack together, I can play tonight, otherwise, probably not till Tuesday (when I am back at home).

I need the alleg42.dll. Anyone have it handy?

All in all, the competition was fun! When is the next one?

Here.

The next one will be after the judging for this one is over Just put them in your favorite order, from first to last.

Let me know what weekend would be best for everyone, and I can schedule another.

Wow, some nice entries. I'd say either Jakub or Johnathan for my first vote.

@KK: I couldn't get it to compile. timeGetTime couldn't be found (linking error) and M_PI was undefined.

Unfortunately, I could not attend. There was a really vehement thunderstorm, and I didn't want to push my luck, so I unplugged my PC.

For the first thing, link with the winmm lib (-lwinmm for MinGW), for the second, I don't know. Maybe try including <cmath> instead of "math.h"? It should be defined there. If that doesn't help, just add #define M_PI 3.141592 and be done with it .

M_PI should be defined in <math.h>, but if it isn't, you can define it yourself. timeGetTime() is Windows high-frequency timer, which declaration is in <windows.h> (included indirectly via <winalleg.h> (you may also have to pass "-lwinmm" linker option if it doesn't include this library by default). If you are running Linux, try compatibility timeGetTime() Linux replacement I've posted together with my code.

Very well done everyone! 7 entires is not bad i think.

EDIT: fixed

Okay, I got to play all of the games. Here are my notes:

Jakub: good game. No way to restart, and games are really short I could quit without the keyboard though.

Jonathan: very creative game. Hard to control the ball though. I can quit and restart without the keyboard

Kikaru: cool concept. The score display is broken, though, and there is no end-game screen, either.

Krzysztof: Neat idea. I don't really know how to win, and the game never seems to end, but it was cool. Also demonstrated the ability to make a strategy game in 1 hour. No way to quit or restart with the mouse.

Onewing: good game with some bugs. I eventually found a pocket I was invulnerable in My score seemed to restart, too. No way to quit or restart using just the mouse.

Victor: fun game with nice graphics. For some reason, my ship diappeared in a flash of light. No way to quit or restart using the mouse.

I'm not holding the quit/restart issues against anyone. Here is my ranking:

Krzysztof, Kikaru, CGamesPlay, Hedborg, Onewing, Jakub, Victor.

This was hard to rank. I like Krzy's the best, but the rest were all pretty close. I put Kikaru's second because it was a neat idea. Hedborg's had control issues, and was hard. Onewing's had some bugs. Jakub's was like impossible to play for long because I guess you have to shoot ammo to gain ammo And Victor's was last, even though it had the best graphics, because there was no score or way to quit.

Good effort participants! I think I may want to switch to a quantitative judging system in future competitions. It was really hard to place my own entry

Another thing to note is what rules these entries also followed. For instance Krzy's and strategy. Just think about that before saying a rule is impossible. Okay, now I am out for the day. When I get back, I expect your ratings, guys. I will put up a winners page on the site, too.

Jonatan: You mean good, right?

Other than that, I can't wait for the next one (I hope it will be earlier than this, or on Saturday/Friday evening). Congratulations for those of who did manage to get something done!

Uh yeah. Fixed. I have no idea why that said "bad" I think it was suppose to be "not bad"

Also; Are you allowed to vote for your own game?

The flash of light is an asteroid distorted by an overflow bug.

Oh, ih got the last place?

kk, Victor Williams, Onewing, Jonatan Hedborg, CGamesPlay, Jakub Wasilewski.

KK: Your game was awesome! You should consider turning it into a full project.

CGamesPlay: It was good, maybe the most polished of them, but very slow, and a little boring.

Jakub: The reason I rank your game last is that the max score possible is 6, and after you fire 6 times you just wait until you die.

(the score display can be fixed by changing "cointime" to "score" on the textprintf. It was a testing thing, and I guess I hit 'undo' after I fixed it.):P

I will withdraw some internal points for using the keyboard.

From best to less best:
- Krzysztof Kluczek: Very ambitious. No way to win (or score) brings the score down a bit. A bit easy.

- Jakub: Very nice graphics and polish. Gets old kind of quick.

- Jonatan Hedborg: Well, cant really objectively comment this, but i think i did pretty well =) Perhaps i should have made the player-ball a tad faster. But then again, i like it this way - nice and difficult >: )
Note: You cant quit prematurely - but it's not really a problem as you tend to die within a few seconds anyway

CGamesPlay: A neat puzzle-style game with a nice UI. No real challenge in the game however. I can imagine it takes quite some time to die from space-exhaustion.

Steven Silvey: A nice concept, and the graphics are quite good. The blocks seems to fall quite "choppily" however, and they don't seem to stack well all the time (some of them got stuck half-way down the screen). Not much interactivity is needed to stay alive for the first few minutes, then you need to keep alive for a while and after that you can just hide in a "cave" and never die. So it's a bit easy =)

Victor Williams: Beautiful, especially the background. No way to win or compare results. Quite easy as well. Works as a screen-saver after you die.

Kikaru: The graphics are flickering (might just be here) and you can't quit the game early. The score system seems broken.

I think we all did a very nice job with the games! Man did i feel the pressure at the end there
One hour is not a lot of time.
Great job all!

EDIT:
Uhm, you reload the gun with the right mouse button in Jakub's game
Also, we need a better voting system.

For my game, I was finishing coding my enty, watching the on-site time limit, and typing a quick description all at the same time, during the last 2 min of the competition, and barely got it submitted. I did not install keybourd or use any mouse buttons, and didn't have time to code hotspots.
However, this was also the first program I ever wrote in under a week of casual programming and testing, so I think I did okay.

I am going to make an update to it, showing what it was supposed to be.

Oh yes, don't be offended by my comments
Getting anything that runs in one hour is great.

Comments (ordered by name):
- CGamesPlay: Nice, a bit improved, Snake clone, although gameplay can get boring after a while (adding "beans" instead of continuous growth and increasing the speed could help a lot).

- Jakub: Well done and polished classic. It's sometimes physically impossible to survive some waves, but other than this, it's OK.

- Jonathan: Simple and playable, with some polish.

- Kikaru: The idea is simple, but after some improvements it can be quite nice tool for testing someone's reflex (eg. coin value could decrease over time). Too bad it just quits after time has passed.

- Steven: Simple idea, which works quite nice, but not without some problems (scores above 9999 are displayed incorrectly, blocks don't collide properly and sometimes stop and hover above the field). There is also a gameplay problem: once some boxes form a kind of "roof", you can hide the mouse there and be completely safe (aligning boxes before dropping them should would solve this problem).

- Victor: Simple idea, but done nicely, but looking at the code makes me really doubt it all was written from scratch during 1 hour.

(on a second thought, I should probably have left all "simple idea" comments)

My vote goes as follows:
Jakub, Steven, Victor, Jonathan, CGamesPlay, Kikaru

The game itself uses just the mouse. It's just exiting it that doesn't - other games sometimes even don't have this feature.

I find it strange you've included yourself in the ranking.

Thanks! (you can just call me KK)

You can destroy enemy "hives" with your units. Destroying all enemy activity in the zone while saving at least one "hive" can be considered complete victory. Destroying all enemy activity while loosing all own "hives" can be considered partial victory. Loosing own "hives" while allowing enemy "hives" to continue spawning is clear failure. I don't think achieving complete victory is too easy (it's doable, although it probably requires more luck than strategy).

People who ranked my game last because of "only 6 rounds of ammo", please do read the source file. There it is clearly on the top of the file - "press RMB to reload, each reload costs 200 points" or something like this . Just in case you want to change your mind .

Well, here is my order:

Jonatan, Krzysiek, Steven, Victor, CGamesPlay, Kikaru.

Jonatan - original concept, challenging controls, simple gameplay. Nice touch with the graphics, they look almost acceptable . Most fun factor earns this entry a win.

Krzysiek - a strategy game in 1 hour is always impressive, even if as simple as that one. It's nicely executed, the display is clear, and it takes some skill to win (I was able to rescue 2 hives after a bit of practice, default settings). Pretty fun.

Steven - pretty complete, somewhat original. The bugs ruin it though, and there is ga gameplay flaw where you can find a closed pocket and wait there until your score... well, restarts from 0 .

Victor - well, pretty complete, though dull - at first it's nearly impossible to die, and then some sort of ray usually kills you without a chance of avoiding it.

CGamesPlay - somewhat original concept, though it actually doesn't turn out to be all that fun.

That's my take.

Thanks for the vote there =)

Also, feel free to remove my name from my own list. I just added it in there because CGP did.

KK: Oh yeah, i "won" it two out of three times, once with one surviving hive and once with two. It's quite fun (but would be more suitable as a "real" game. Please make it one ). I just meant that it would have been nice with a "Yay, you crushed the enemy ants/xenomorphs/bees like a melon shot by a gun!" screen.

Here is what my game was supposed to look like. Requires alleg40.dll. Not to be used for judging.

[edit]
Jakub: game is ok, a little wierd though. My vote now goes:kk, Victor Williams, Onewing, Jonatan Hedborg, Jakub Wasilewski, CGamesPlay.

Hmm, when I tried out the game I always won. Are you sure you didn't change something re the difficulty at the last minute?
(My strat was to cluster my guys at the hive they emerged from until I had lots and lots of guys, then take a small group from the side of each hive's cluster, and form a new, large cluster in the middle (but not in a stream of enemies), then send that new cluster to each enemy hive. After you destroy, eg, the top enemy hive, you can send all the units defending your top hive to attack the middle hive.)

Anyway, great entries all around. My favorite was Jonatan's

Thanks for this post! It seems that I've actually managed to create a game where strategy plays certain role.

EDIT: You are right. Your strategy works really well.

I agree. It's quite possible to play it in a good or a bad way. I managed to win it without loosing any hives just now. You need to make sure you have sufficent defense and attack them with a large force, then spread out your defenses a bit

This is why you deserve to win.

Ahem. Yes. And vote for me!

Thanks Zaphos =)

You didn't know? Neat -- emergent gameplay!

Maybe these competitions should have two vote categories; one for "most fun" and another for "most interesting". I could rank things quite a bit differently depending on how I weigh those two criteria, and it'd be nice to encourage both solid gameplay and 'risky,' unique designs

edit: Just noticed this comment:

Victor said it inherited a bunch of code from his speedhack entry. Perhaps the MinorHack rules should be clarified here -- it seems some of the contestants thought it was an 'all from scratch' deal, and some thought code re-use was fine.

I knew that it's surely possible to do something stupid, but the strategy I was using all the time was just sending all my units to middle enemy base thinking that it should work better than AI splitting forces into three streams, but it heavily depended on luck whether my hives managed to survive, or not.

Okay, I've played them all now. Here's my order of choice (me included):

Johnathan, Jakub, KK, Victor, Onewing, CGames, Kikaru.

The first three were hard to place, since I liked them all. For those of you who gave Jakub a low score, play it again, and keep in mind that you reload with the right mouse button.

For graphics, the award goes to Victor.

My votes

Me - I just loved my game. Just that f*cking ray overflow bug spoils it. (I know, maybe my own vote just doesn't count, ok)
Jakub - Very creative, but a bit too hard.
Jonatan - Very creative.
KK - Nice idea, i liked it. Very original.
Onewing - Good, but not much fun.
Kikaru - I didn't understand your game.
CGamesPlay - The game should run faster to get some fun.

That's all the votes i think?
I think it's pretty reasonable to not be able to vote for yourself (pretty standard behaviour in competitions).

How are the scores calculated?
N-(placing-1)?

For this one they are N-placing, since you can't vote for yourself.

By the way I am back at a proper resolution now

OK, I've summed it up, considering this rule. Actually, in my version the last place gets 1 point, but it gives exactly the same ranking (every entrant gets exactly 6 points more). I've removed selfvotes from the lists to make it fair (voting for self-made games will never be truly unbiased).

The votes I've gathered look like this: (in order of voting)

* points:  6  5  4  3  2  1
CGamesPlay:   KK  Kikaru  Jonatan  Onewing  Jakub  Victor
Jonatan:  KK  Jakub  CGames  Onewing  Victor  Kikaru
Krzysztof:  Jakub  Onewing  Victor  Jonatan  CGames  Kikaru
Jakub:    Jonatan  KK  Onewing  Victor  CGames  Kikaru
Kikaru:    KK  Victor  Onewing  Jonatan  Jakub  CGames
Onewing:  Jonatan  Jakub  KK  Victor  CGames  Kikaru
Victor:    Jakub  Jonatan  KK  Onewing  Kikaru  CGames

And the results are:

* results:
Krzysztof:  6 6 5 6 4 4 = 31
Jonatan:  4 3 6 3 6 5 = 27
Jakub:    2 5 6 2 5 6 = 26
Onewing:  3 3 5 4 4 3 = 22
Victor:    1 2 4 3 5 3 = 18
CGamesPlay:   4 2 2 1 2 1 = 12
Kikaru:    5 1 1 1 1 2 = 11

Congratulations for all entrants.

Congratulations KK!
Also, hooray!

Great job everyone.

Great effort! After re-playing Jakub's entry, I want to put it above Jonathan's, which affects the results... Up to you guys whether or not you want to accept this new ranking or not:

KK, Kikaru, Jakub, Jonathan, Onewing, Victor.

Okay, on the topic of this competition's future:

I will be adding a winner's page ASAP, and may also contact Mr. Leverton about getting Allegro.cc's SSO on the site, and allowing uploads. I'm thinking the following:

Allow entries to be uploaded for the hour after the competition. The entry will be timestamped. Then the user can enter a description of his game, any notes, etc, as well as a new version of the game. The first version will be used for judging, but the later ones can be displayed just for posterity's sake. There will also be a page displaying the number of medals each person has received.

I like Zaphos' idea of two categories of games. Please, offer your opinions on what the grading system should be ideally.

Code reuse: In my opinion, code reuse is fine. I wrote my game from scratch. I think code reuse should be allowed, but stated with the entry. Again, offer opinions.

I think we should make MinorHack a weekly competition. After all, it's quite automated already, and with the necessary addition of SSO and uploads it will be even more so. With the addition of online voting it could in theory run weekly without any supervision.

And I like it so much I would probably participate every week . This time around the bonus rule wasn't too good, at least in my opinion - it was very unrestricting, but also didn't offer any clues as to what game to develop (anything can use only the mouse). I made my decision in about 15 seconds, and it was the first thing that popped up in my mind when thinking of simple mouse-only games. There was no time to wait for the second thing to pop up .

On the topic of code reuse, well... After consideration, I'm going to be against. One hour is hardcore, and it is supposed to be hardcore. Disallowing code reuse allows to keep it that way. Of course, I'm against disqualifying people for reusing a 3-line function generating a random number, but reusing larger parts of code should be prohibited or at least discouraged.

As for the revised votes, use whichever set you feel expresses your opinion better. Of course, I'm not impartial (I would benefit from the change) so I'd better shut up. As far as I'm concerned, Jonatan deserves the second place as much as I do .

What I am planning right now is the ability to set a "I want to be in any competition of x people or more". Then anyone can add a competition time to the list, and anyone can say "I want to be in that one". Once there are enough people who will participate, the competition is scheduled.

If I have time and interest, I will also add voting on rules, to completely automate everything.

Well, I feel the the second one does, of course. When I put the votes into the site I will use that set, then.

Unless anyone else disagrees, I guess I will make it a no-no, with something like "The code should all be original. Please write as much of the entry as possible during the hour without copying from other projects. You are allowed to copy, but try to limit the amount. 10 lines is a good guideline."

Meh. That's a shame. But i guess you deservered it as well.

next time, let's make votes final so i dont get my hopes up

Yeah, sorry to disappoint I hope you aren't too mad at me for my attempt to participate even though I was out of town and didn't have internet Well, you have incentive to participate next time then

I think the way it is now is OK. You can add extra categories as long as there is "overall" category, but having too much categories for 1 hour compo sounds a bit crazy.