genericuser:
I finished my game RIGHT before The Escapist released the art assets. DAMMIT. (If Yahtzee decides to review my game, expect him to rage about how the art and the fonts are wrong -_-')

OTOH, I managed to finish a game in 72 hours. Woot.

Holy cow are from Ludum Dare or Speedhack? I Salute you.

I just got my first character to walk across the screen, and here I was hoping my 30 day development plan would land me the coveted title of first one done.

Steve the Pocket:

Hamster at Dawn:
One question: What font does Yahtzee use?
I'm trying to create a true Zero Punctuation experience here.

Definitely Arial Black. Thought it might also be Helvetica Black, but I compared both to one of the titles. The "G" was a dead giveaway.

Thanks, I haven't got such a good eye for these things.

TSW:
So, I'm a bit confused. When you say it's supposed to be a game based on Zero Punctuation, are you basically implying that the main character should be Yahtzee or something? Do we have the game be about going around and destroying games? I'm just curious.

Nope, it can be whatever your heart desires. We want it to have a ZP theme but you can be as creative as you want with that.

Spinwhiz:
Nope, it can be whatever your heart desires.

In that case, I intend to develop a Cho Aniki parody starring Yahtzee as the main character.

Okay, I dont have time to read all the pages at the moment, and I would like to know several things.
So yeah, I started making my game (well, only title screen and first "level". So here is what I want to know.
"representations must remain unmodified", does this mean i am not allowed to crop the head of characters and the body etc. to make a person. Also, in ZP, he uses pictures of other games and companies, are we allowed to do so too?
And, are we allowed to use voice clips by Yahtzee?

Oh, last thing, are we allowed to show off what we have so far with vidoes or screenshots?

Thats it, thanks in advance.
sorry for tl;dr

i wish people could/would post links to thier finished games on newgrounds or something... i really want to see what comes up

Oh yes, thats quite a good question, if we lose, can we still post it?

RageandGrace:
Oh yes, thats quite a good question, if we lose, can we still post it?

Spinwhiz answered this on page 5:

Spinwhiz:

*snip*

In short, you are welcome to re-skin the game and use any underlying materials as your own. It was never our intention here at The Escapist to take your IP. We only wanted what was necessary to protect our IP and publish contest entries.

They don't want you posting a game with Zero punctuation logos and art assets outside the escapist, but if you strip those things out and put in your own art assets they could care less where you post it.

Edit:
Oh yeah "brand representations" in the rules I think only refer to the logos of the Escapist and Zero Punctuation, however I don't remember any escapist official making direct comment about this so I could be wrong. Still I think it is pretty silly to provide us with screen shots for a flash game and not allow us to cut, paste, and rotate them to our hearts content.

hamster mk 4:
Still I think it is pretty silly to provide us with screen shots for a flash game and not allow us to cut, paste, and rotate them to our hearts content.

Damn, we cant?

AAAHHHH, i already started my game, using them, damn, gonna have to replace em then

I was speaking rhetorically. I have already cut, pasted, and modified several imps and Zero punctuation heads and bodies for my game. It would be silly if they didn't allow us to do this. The escapist is silly some times, but not that silly so it must be ok. I just can't find the exact quote from Spinwhiz where he explicitly says it is ok.

hamster mk 4:
I was speaking rhetorically. I have already cut, pasted, and modified several imps and Zero punctuation heads and bodies for my game. It would be silly if they didn't allow us to do this. The escapist is silly some times, but not that silly so it must be ok. I just can't find the exact quote from Spinwhiz where he explicitly says it is ok.

You can cut, paste and modify all the assets we have given you, just not the logos.

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Now this is a serious kick in the crotch, I have flash, but I don't know how to code anything with it, So the most I can get is frame by frame animations.

That being said, If anyone needs a concept artist (although it'd have to be some-what part time) then give me a shout, I may not be able to make games, but I can at least help out someone with creative support.

Everybody better hurry up. I've got a menu screen, a basic gameplay screen, level loading, collision detection, basic controls, and even the first animations for the main character. Already in early alpha, and trucking along quite nicely toward beta. Going to be fleshing out story elements and scripts tonight.

I'm just a little miffed that we don't get to show off our titles in-production. Working in an internet vacuum like this can be a little trying. I can still show off my work to friends and family, but their expertise at game development is painfully limited. They can give me ideas, but they can't catch anything that I might be doing wrong. (unless I'm doing it REALLY wrong, in which case I would probably notice it myself)

If you don't have some progress already, you'd better step on it.

Dark Link:
Fuck, makes me wish I knew some sort of coding language.

Ah well. Make a point-and-click adventure about Yahtzee trying to stop companies producing gunmetal-grey FPS games.

Or Dystopia Brown.

I might be doing things backwards, but I am making the character animations first, then incorporating them into the code. Thus far I done all the bad guy animation and incorporated them with their basic movement into a test harness. I want to make sure they interact properly with each other and simulated player actions. I am leaving off menu screens for last, and my story will be pretty non existent.

I'm no flash expert and I can't really draw on the computer well, but if anyone needs help (opinion on ideas, suggestions, etc.) I'm happy to give it. Just PM me.

hamster mk 4:

genericuser:
I finished my game RIGHT before The Escapist released the art assets. DAMMIT. (If Yahtzee decides to review my game, expect him to rage about how the art and the fonts are wrong -_-')

OTOH, I managed to finish a game in 72 hours. Woot.

Holy cow are from Ludum Dare or Speedhack? I Salute you.

I just got my first character to walk across the screen, and here I was hoping my 30 day development plan would land me the coveted title of first one done.

Haha, thanks :D (I've planned to enter LD, but I've never actually done it.)

I probably spent more time than that making the game(bugfixing and prototyping), but most of the work was done during those 72 hours. It kinda helped that it was pretty simple to code- I could've done it in a day, if I arsed myself to do that.

Don't worry, though- I think your game will benefit from having a good amount of dev time ;)

I'm really interested in taking a stab at this... Though it'll be tricky to get everything together what with college coming up and everything.
My only questions are:
1) Can we use the game as part of a portfolio, and would we have to take out the ZP content in order to do so?
2) If the game were to include an original soundtrack by one of the designers, would we be allowed to redistribute the tracks of said soundtrack? For that matter, could we re-use the other non-ZP assets elsewhere? Would we need to get permission to do so?
3) [Appended] The game is supposed to be a Two-Player game, correct? Will we be downgraded if the game doesn't support a single player mode due to a lack of any AI? Or would it be better to just slap together something that can only play the game terribly?

MaxTheReaper:

pigeon_of_doom:
As a non-coder, and not one enamoured of Zero Punctuation, I have little to add to this. However, disqualifying Zero Punctuation games on the grounds of it containing:

Excessive vulgarity, lewdness or profanity

seems a tad ridiculous.

Not to mention

Acts prohibited under law in any national, state or local jurisdiction in which The Escapist website may be viewed.

Don't...all videogames involve murder?
Or at least killing of some kind?

It's illegal to play chess in a few (well ok only 1 now I think) countries. I'm sure you can be fined or harmed for showing the bottom of your shows in a few as well.

camkitsune:
The game is supposed to be a Two-Player game, correct? Will we be downgraded if the game doesn't support a single player mode due to a lack of any AI? Or would it be better to just slap together something that can only play the game terribly?

What!? Where on earth are you getting that? That's not in the contest rules. Why would they require that a Flash game be two-player? Most Flash games don't support multiple players because of the flash player's security restrictions. (which require a considerable amount of legwork to support networked gaming)

If you are just needing some help in developing some AI, it's not that hard. Here are the basic categories of game AI.

Stupid AI - This is the easiest kind of AI to develop. It basically follows set patterns, and does not deviate from them. Reactions are usually limited to the environment. Think Goomba-level.

Smart AI - Smart AI reacts to the player's actions. This kind of AI has access to the player's input or properties, and will change how it behaves based on those values. Smart AI usually follows Stupid AI's basic patterns whenever it is not responding to the player. Think the Ropes from the Legend of Zelda.

Spastic AI - Spastic AI is based on random chance. It isn't very hard to develop Spastic AI. All you need to do is define a list of possible behaviors, and then select from those behaviors using a random number genarator. (most programming libraries have one of these, I know that Flash does) Think the Darknuts from the Legend of Zelda.

Genius AI - Most games don't both going this far. Genius AI will not only react to what the player does, but will anticipate what the player is most likely going to do next. Think the guards from the first F.E.A.R. game.

quick thought: I hope that at least some games *avoid* portraying Yahtzee as an ultimate-protagonist-akimbo-chainsaw-minigun-wielding-game-reviewer-badass.

Heh. I was planning on putting a minigun where his dick ought to be. (clearly I have watched this show far too many times...curse my boring day job)

camkitsune:
I'm really interested in taking a stab at this... Though it'll be tricky to get everything together what with college coming up and everything.
My only questions are:
1) Can we use the game as part of a portfolio, and would we have to take out the ZP content in order to do so?
2) If the game were to include an original soundtrack by one of the designers, would we be allowed to redistribute the tracks of said soundtrack? For that matter, could we re-use the other non-ZP assets elsewhere? Would we need to get permission to do so?
3) [Appended] The game is supposed to be a Two-Player game, correct? Will we be downgraded if the game doesn't support a single player mode due to a lack of any AI? Or would it be better to just slap together something that can only play the game terribly?

All of our art assets must be stripped from the game prior to you doing anything else with it after the contest. Just reload your own art for further use of your game.

The game does not have to be 2 player.

I'm kinda curious as to why Java based games aren't allowed?

To me they seem to fit just as well as flash based games.

Both can be run from within a browser.

Java has the benefit of not having to spend ridiculous amounts of money for the program to develop.

Java is also much more friendly to alternative browsers. ie; Opera.

So could anyone give me an answer as to why Java isn't allowed?

Bluntknife, BECAUSE RULES.

Well, my guess as to why it's Flash-only is;

Narrowing it down. If Java is allowed, then the Silverlight enthusiasts arrive and whine; then the people who wants X arrives etc., resulting in a less than user-friendly contest where you have to download a truckload of plugins to try out the games.

(Oh and the "ridiculous amount of money" is zero; FlashDevelop is free!)

A big motivation for the use of Flash is most likely that The Escapist website uses Flash for all of its multimedia. That means that the Escapist is familiar with Flash, and how to get it to work. They probably have someone on staff who can code AS3, and would be able to effectively test and appraise the submitted games. The Escapist already "knows" Flash, so they wanted the games submitted in a medium that they are comfortable dealing with.

After all, Zero Punctuation itself is shown using the Flash player, despite the fact that it is constructed using Microsoft Movie Maker. There is also the fact that the Flash player is the most widely distributed on-line multimedia solution, more so than Silverlight, or even the Java run-time.

And as many of us have pointed out, you no longer need the Flash IDE to construct Flash games. You can download the FlexSDK, and use it in conjunction with other free programs like FlashDevelop, without dropping a single penny. That's the route I'm going for my entry, and it is working out magnificently.

Will we, the non-game developers, be allowed to play these games?

lwm3398:
Will we, the non-game developers, be allowed to play these games?

We are currently looking into allowing people to play the entered games, along with the winner.

Spinwhiz, "looking into"?

I'm kind of surprised that this isn't a definite YES.

I believe that most people who make games want to show them to people- if the games are only sent to the judges, then there's essentially no purpose for making a game for this contest, besides a vague promise of being featured on ZP and a neat little pack of stuff.

I also believe that the contest in general would benefit greatly from having the games freely available- the best games of contests often get linked to from other websites, and the opinions on the games would go from "they're bad, we'll just have to take their word for it", to "they're bad/good, and I know because I played them".

I am excited to PLAY the game... It will have to be pretty good if ah, Yahtzee approves.
I think a point and click adventure game where you control Yahtzee, and maybe the imps are like little helpers?
Perhaps I should knuckle down and put some effort into this.

Only about a month left now before submissions for the contest close down. I hope everyone is hard at work on their entries. I'm not quite as far along as I would like to be, but I have made considerable strides in the past few days.

The code for two of the playing sections of my game is ready to go. I still need to add enemies to both of them, but the player movement and camera handling are done. I've also rigged up the camera to properly allow for animated cutscenes, so I'll probably start work on that this evening. (I wanted to make me an intro sequence) The main menu needs to be expanded with more options, but the graphics and animations for it are already in place. (I do still need to incorporate the intro music though) I found a good application for producing sound effects, so I'll start incorporating those this weekend.

The graphics for the first section are already complete, and mos of the graphics for the second section are also ready to go. Still need to finish up the main character's animations in the second section, but the source graphics are ready and waiting. The code for the third section's gameplay won't be as difficult, it is much simpler in concept. The last section could prove something of a challenge, but I'm not too worried. The z-sorting is the one big hurdle.

I've already scaled back the scope of my game. (I had originally planned for five sections, and a menu to move between them) Depending on the level of challenge in the fourth section, I might have to nix the third section. (although I'd rather not)

Dark Link:
Fuck, makes me wish I knew some sort of coding language.

Ah well. Make a point-and-click adventure about Yahtzee trying to stop companies producing gunmetal-grey FPS games.

You and me both