The Fourth Creation Game Competition.

Heretic · Post by **Heretic** » Wed Jun 21, 2006 2:34 pm

Okay, here's the not-written-at-2-a.m. description of Break-In.

The game is Break-In. Think Breakout, but we've removed the paddle. Instead, just the blocks are rotated around the ball(s) to create a frantic gameplay experience. Also this simple control mechanism allows break-in to be played with just the Left and Right buttons, to spin the board Counterclockwise and Clockwise. Different powerup blocks can do things such as add an extra ball, blow up surrounding blocks, or even send the ball spinning like a whirling dervish!

To get the simple Break-In experience, begin with a few rounds in classic mode. After, you can enter the standard mode and try out some of the powerups. Missions mode will take you through 10 missions where an objective must be completed, such as clearing 80% of the field, or keeping your ball in play for over 50 seconds. Finally, the Custom mode allows you to create your own Break-In game rounds on your computer using the supplied editor (runs on .net platform, so windows only).

Any updates or new custom rounds will be posted on http://omegagames.netfirms.com and if you think you've made a cool round mail it to [email protected] and we will host it for you!

Thanks again oobles, sorry I was a bit sleepy when I sent the first time...[/b]

harleyg · Post by **harleyg** » Wed Jun 21, 2006 4:14 pm

Sorry for not entering... a few days before the competition ended my servers hd died and i lost all my work on my game, and pretty much everything ive done for around a year including nearly 3k emails.

:(

wilhel1812 · Post by **wilhel1812** » Sun Jun 25, 2006 7:49 am

when will we get the results?
cant wait :D

Post by **Drakonite** » Sun Jun 25, 2006 9:34 am

While there is no official word as to when the results will be out, they will probably be announced sometime in the next week.

I'm anxious too, but you just gotta be patient and give the judges time ;)

LionX · Post by **LionX** » Mon Jun 26, 2006 8:48 am

whats there to judge? :D

Teggles · Post by **Teggles** » Mon Jun 26, 2006 2:02 pm

Here's my prediction for the best rated PSP games. I couldn't even run BreakIn or jumpgunnar jump, which is a problem, since the games were supposed to be for 1.5. I can still judge their originality and graphics though >_>

Gameplay: Droplets
Originality: Tie between Droplets and Break-in
Graphics: Meeku's Quest (although PSPtris looks nice)
Sound: Meeku's Quest
Polish: Tie between PSPtris and Meeku's Quest
Winner: Meeku's Quest (oh how I hope that's what happens)

Just to make it clear, I'm not a judge.

Heretic · Post by **Heretic** » Mon Jun 26, 2006 2:30 pm

What sucks is that Break-In was developed on a 2.0 system... I was reading the compatibility requirements from 1.5 to 2.0 and it seemed that 2.0 was just a more restrictive 1.5.

Now while I realize that I'm almost guaranteed to be DQ'd for that nice compatibility restriction... if anyone can get a build of break-in working for 1.5 (cause I really don't know how) all the source and makefile can be found here: http://omegagames.googlepages.com/bi_source.zip

edit: I guess it does work on 1.5... maybe not for everyone though? (we currently have one confirmed 'good' and one confirmed '...no')

Teggles · Post by **Teggles** » Mon Jun 26, 2006 2:37 pm

Just to explain the problem, FileAssistant will not load it plainly and Sei PSP Tool claims it is invalid. I'm assuming it's a plain DATA.PSP file. I'll try making an EBOOT with the file in it.

edit: No worky :(

Heretic · Post by **Heretic** » Mon Jun 26, 2006 3:02 pm

Bah... I give.

It works on 2.0 for anyone who cares :)

edit: as i read the following post, I guess it does work... and I guess I'm not DQ'd yet... that's always good :)

AnonymousTipster · Post by **AnonymousTipster** » Mon Jun 26, 2006 3:17 pm

Break-in worked fine for me on 1.5
I quite enjoyed it too, it's the most innovative of the bunch, and the only one still on my PSP.

junkmonkey · Post by **junkmonkey** » Tue Jun 27, 2006 1:10 am

BreakIn worked fine for me on firmware 1.0.

Teggles · Post by **Teggles** » Tue Jun 27, 2006 5:07 am

junkmonkey wrote:BreakIn worked fine for me on firmware 1.0.

Of course it did, 1.0 is relatively the same as 2.0 in the fact that you don't need KXploit. I'm assuming AnonymousTipster used the official KXploit tool, which I refuse to use.

AnonymousTipster · Post by **AnonymousTipster** » Tue Jun 27, 2006 5:29 am

Yes I did.
Why do you refuse to use the KXploit system?

junkmonkey · Post by **junkmonkey** » Tue Jun 27, 2006 7:36 am

Teggles wrote:Of course it did, 1.0 is relatively the same as 2.0 in the fact that you don't need KXploit. I'm assuming AnonymousTipster used the official KXploit tool, which I refuse to use.

Well "of course" it will work on 1.5 then if you're capable of repacking it. I thought the author might want some confirmation that he'd done nothing wrong, that's all.
Anyway, if he'd only ever tested on 2.0 then he could have used some 2.0 only functions and never known.

wilhel1812 · Post by **wilhel1812** » Tue Jun 27, 2006 8:04 am

Teggles wrote:I couldn't even run jumpgunnar jump, which is a problem, since the games were supposed to be for 1.5...

really? we tested it on 1.5 and 2.6 before the release, and it worked whitout problems.

Teggles · Post by **Teggles** » Tue Jun 27, 2006 2:11 pm

I refuse to use KXploit because it brands the EBOOTs with crap. It's annoying. I assume the use of KXploit is why JumpGunnar Jump works for others as well.

Well "of course" it will work on 1.5 then if you're capable of repacking it.

The EBOOT.PBP could be invalid and therefore unable to be stripped of it's DATA.PSP. Since 1.0 and 2.0 don't really follow alot of standards, it's possible for them to run an invalid EBOOT.PBP. Same goes with KXploit, which doesn't have good error detection, unlike Sei PSP Tool.

Unless of course this whole fiasco is from corrupted data on the Memory Stick. Who knows. I can't say, so don't listen to me :)

hardhat · Post by **hardhat** » Tue Jun 27, 2006 2:36 pm

Code: Select all

I couldn't even run BreakIn or jumpgunnar jump, which is a problem, since the games were supposed to be for 1.5.

Not that it matters, but I bought a special 1.5 PSP to test it with, and in the readme, I recommended NoKxploit as the method to run it. I actually have still not learned the more traditional method with the % folders and everything. I'm just a 2.6 user, I guess.

Anyway, to keep AnonymousTipster happy, I implemented all of his suggested changes from his QJ post, and have a version 1.1 of Jump Gunnar Jump now available.

See list of changes

jumpgunnarjump1_1.zip now with 17 levels, and smooth scrolling.

How was I to know that variable jumping was important. I didn't play any of the Nintendo SNES 2D platform games . :-)

wilhel1812 · Post by **wilhel1812** » Wed Jun 28, 2006 9:03 pm

isn't it time for the results now??
i really cant wait for theese results.
will you make a list from 1 to 10 (or 20 if 20 ppl submitted) or will you only announce the winner?

Heretic · Post by **Heretic** » Thu Jun 29, 2006 1:33 am

http://ps2dev.org/The_Fourth_Creation/

Theres only 7 entries... but still, it would be cool if the detailed scoring for each was given.

wilhel1812 · Post by **wilhel1812** » Thu Jun 29, 2006 1:40 am

i was on the psp, so i didn't have the time to check out how many there was ;)

AnonymousTipster · Post by **AnonymousTipster** » Thu Jun 29, 2006 3:27 pm

hardhat wrote: jumpgunnarjump1_1.zip now with 17 levels, and smooth scrolling.

Much improved, feels much more like a platformer now, loving the sound effects too.

wilhel1812 · Post by **wilhel1812** » Thu Jun 29, 2006 3:56 pm

thank you for that!
we are much more staisfied whit the results aswell. The smooth scrolling made it very much better.

the sound effects was made by WernherVonBraun. He had alot of fun with his mic lol

Any1 knows when we'll get the results?? its been a week now

Post by **Oobles** » Thu Jun 29, 2006 10:00 pm

The Results are in....
------------------------

Before we get to the results I'd like to thank everyone for entering. It was a big risk to put on such a competition that requires such a lot of hard work from the entrants. I'm really happy with the turn out and the quality of work. Hopefully it will mean that we can do more competitions in the future. I'd also like to thank Gamefreax for putting up the prizes. I don't think it's possible to give away prizes that compensate for the amount of hard work that goes into these games. However, having some prizes is a great way to atleast say thanks for the hard work. Hopefully we can get other competition sponsorships in the future.

Now to the results. All scores are out of a possible 50 points. Scores listed are an average of the results between all judges.

PS2 Competition
---------------

We had two judges in the end for the ps2 competition. With only two entries the winner was clear. Well done to Jbit for his PS2 Racer entry.

PS2 Racer: 28.0
PS2 Space Invaders: 21.5

PSP Competition
---------------

We had three judges in the end for the psp competition. With five entries it was a close competition between everyone. I want to mention that both Break-In and Jump Gunnar, Jump had no sound. Having any sound at all would have brought up their result considerably. In the end Droplets nudged out PSPTris with some extra points for originality. Well done to Drakonite for winning this entry.

Droplets for PSP: 34.6
PSPTris: 31.5
Meeku's Quest: 25.6
Break-In: 23.5
Jump Gunnar, Jump!: 19.6

Once again, thanks to everyone involved, and congratulations to Jbit and Drakonite on their entries.

David. aka Oobles.

wilhel1812 · Post by **wilhel1812** » Fri Jun 30, 2006 2:45 am

well, we tried :P
its so irritating that the sound was made the day after the submission :(
well, we had fun and the competition was great! i want to thank ps2dev for making it. whit out the competition, there would be no JGJ. I hope you will make more of theese competitions.

BTW, you said that "Entries will be judged on Gameplay, Originality, Graphics, Sound and Polish. Scores will be out of 10 for each." i'm very curious, will it be possible to get the results fro the divverent parts?? plz :P

Last of all, Congratulations Drakonite and Jbit!

Teggles · Post by **Teggles** » Fri Jun 30, 2006 5:23 am

I'd like the congratulate the makers of these great games. With that said, I'd like to know exactly how these scores were achieved. The scores seem to be a little unfair for some entries, so that'll be cleared up when we see the seperate scores.

sandberg · Post by **sandberg** » Fri Jun 30, 2006 7:54 am

Congrats Drakonite .. You beat me by 3.1 points :-) .. And to be honest you deserve it, I've been quite addicted to Doplets, so I hope you develop it further ( or release the sources :-) ) ..

Hope to see you again in the next competition (QJ.net Summer Homebrew Competition ? ) .. This is almost like coding demos on the Amiga again :-)

hardhat · Post by **hardhat** » Fri Jun 30, 2006 12:05 pm

Congratulations Drakonite and Jbit!

This contest was a lot of fun thanks to everyone who helped organize it. For me forming a team was my biggest challenge. My project really started to come together too slowly.

In other programming contests I've seen/participated in, we were allowed to submit early, get comments, and resubmit. It didn't feel like that was the format for this competition, but my entry would have benefited from that approach. Something to consider, anyway.

Next it's time, it'll be some 3D for me.

Post by **Drakonite** » Mon Jul 24, 2006 9:04 pm

Thanks for the congrats everyone (and sorry for the late reply, things are busy). A big thanks to everyone that worked hard to make the compo possible, and to gamefreax for sponsering...
And since the readme that got included was not the full copy, MindDruqks deserves an extra special thanks for all the work he did helping to create all the graphics used in Droplets.

Congrats to everyone who entered. I can now honestly say I've played the TFC entries more than all other games I've played on my PSP combined ;)

Hrmm.. That sounded a lot more like an acceptance speech than I intended...

sandberg:
I do indeed have plans for further development, including some new additions and maybe some response to feedback I have gotten. It might be a while before I can finish everything I have planned for the next release though.

I have some ideas for the next compo, it's just going to be a question of if there is enough time.. if so I'll see you there ;)

jainischalverma · Post by **jainischalverma** » Wed Nov 15, 2006 7:12 am

Let me think of what I can enter. I am pretty new to these things.