Lexima Lols IV Contest
While I was talking to Valath on MSN, I wrote down Nemesissy. Those of you who have played CP know that the main antagonist is called Nemesis. And at that point I had a glorious idea: A contest!
What is it about?
Lexima Lols IV is a parody of
Lexima Legends IV. In this contest your task is to create a parody of Lexima Legends IV in any segment you like. Those of you who have played the game will have an advantage so before the contest begins and before any rules have been laid down, there will be a suspense giving other members the time to play through the game. The sign-ups will be open until Monday. If there are no members who haven't played the game, the rules will be laid down right away and you can start working on it.
Feel free to do some brainstorming in the meantime and think of something for the game.
General Rules
Anything goes. Take a segment of the original game and make a complete parody of it. Take the whole game and make a parody of it. But there are certain rules that should be followed:
- The development time for the game is 20 days.
- The name of your game must be Lexima Lols IV - YOUR_SUBTITLE_HERE.
- Your game has to have elements from the original game. Elements can be considered almost anything. You can take the story or only parts. You can take the characters or use parody versions of the characters. You can take skill systems (the ones that are available publicly). And so on.
- You are allowed to use ANY kind of external resources and scripts.
- Your game has to be made in RMXP.
- Your game should have at least 30 minutes gameplay. For shorter games, there will be score penalties.
- Your game should not be longer than 3 hours. For longer games, there will be score penalties
- Games with hardlocks will not be disqualified. You are allowed to fix them if a judge reports your bug. Even though bugs and glitches will not affect your score directly, it will almost definitely lower the game experience and the judges will probably lower your score for that.
- Your game must be submitted to the judges unencrypted. The public version will be encrypted.
- Your game must not be released to the public until the end of the contest or until you decide to give up. After the contest is over, your game will be released.
Your game will be judged on the following segments:
- Entertaining Value: 40% (how entertaining the game is in general, how well the game is balanced, how well the eventing is executed)
- Comedic Value: 40% (how well executed is the parody aspect of the game including story, plot and relation to the original game)
- Graphics: 20% (how well you made use of the given resources, how well your mapping is)
Nobody expects you to make CP. You don't have to copy every feature CP has such as the day-and-night system. It's better if you make the story fun than make the game look nice.
Hint: Blizz-ABS is a good choice to make a game fun and challenging at the same time. Besides, many people are longing for a CP-themed Blizz-ABS game. xD
To make things interesting
Since some people can't keep their own schedule and others can, I had an idea how to give everybody more equal chances by setting up a schedule myself which you have to fulfill or you will be losing points. There will be 4 milestones.
- after 3 days (2011-02-15, 20:00 GMT): General Game Plan (includes story, game structure, game features)
- after 10 days (2011-02-22, 20:00 GMT): Game Prototype (meaning you have a playable demo even if it's only 5 minutes of gameplay)
- after 17 days (2011-03-01, 20:00 GMT): Alpha Version (meaning you have the complete game but it is not tested yet)
- after 20 days (2011-03-04, 20:00 GMT): Gold Master (meaning that the game is done)
You have probably noticed that there is no Beta Version. Here is why:
By definition the
Alpha Version is the internal development version which is already the full game. It may be missing really minor features (such as game balance, some GUI elements or an unfinished version of the GUI). Alpha Versions can contain critical bugs and hardlocks (meaning that you can't finish the game). A Beta Version IS the full game. It has all features implemented, it has all content already inside and it has no hardlocks, only softlocks may appear (which means you can circumvent them somehow and finish the game anyway).
Beta Versions usually go out for testing by a second party (often called Beta Testers) and then the final adjustments are made in the game including bugfixes.
After the Beta Version the usual thing is a
Release Candidate which is basically Beta Version plus bugfixes and changes that appeared to make sense.
After that comes the
Gold Master which is the full game ready for release.
You are expected to deliver a report/demo after each milestone. If you do not deliver it, you can still continue in the contest, but you will lose points i.e. you will immediately lose a certain number of points for being late. If your game gets a score of 95 and you have been late on one milestone, your game might just lose 20 points. See how your score of 95 points suddenly went down to 75? You don't want that to happen.
The only milestone that you must respect is the final one: the deadline for your game entry in this contest.
Prize
The winner of the contest will get $15 sponsored by RoseSkye and a free copy of
NAMKCOR's Colorful.
Participants
- The Niche & Power Hungry Midget
- Subsonic_Noise & Branden
Judges
Including myself, there will be 3 more judges. I will not judge directly, I will only add my input for the game. But be aware that my judging can affect your final score to some small degree.
Disclaimer
By entering this contest:
- You agree that your game cannot be used for commercial gain.
- You agree that your game can be distributed freely.
- You agree that all the authors rights still belong to you.
Basically you can't sell your game, anybody is allowed to share and copy the game and nobody is allowed to take credit for your game except you.
Everything else
You can ask me for resources from CP after you are done with your gameplan (1st milestone). Basically your gameplan is supposed to have a list of resources that go with your game and that you need from CP.
If you ask after that, I might not give them to you. And obviously you can't simply ask me for all resources. The resources should be listed in your gameplan. It's ok if you forgot something, I don't mind sending you an additional character-set or something like that.
You will be provided with further instructions and information once the contest begins.
Here are a few game name examples for the uncreative:
Lexima Lols IV - The Search for Lexima Lols I, II and III
Lexima Lols IV - Nemesissy's Revenge
Lexima Lols IV - Cardboard Productions
And feel free to name your main villain Nemesissy.
