Rule-O-Matic

Don't read too much into the results of these sample spins! The method of picking rules is yet to be tweaked to its full potential, and until a good selection of rules have been added, it's rather meaningless.

Once the Rule-O-Matic has been spun for a final time, the authors of the selected rules will be contacted in order to add clarifications and last minute twists. They won't be allowed to do anything drastic, and to limit their advantage of a heads up, they won't know for sure which of the rules atually were selected. (For example, they may be notified that one of three specific rules have been selected.)

Here is a sample spin, with the following rules being chosen:

1. Genre requirements

   Insanity! (Good)

   Your project should either be about insanity or have a featured character who is insane.

2. Technical requirements

   There is 1 technical requirement:

   Dynamic music (OK)

   The game must have background music, and it must change on-the-fly, according to the current situation. This can be as simple as speeding the music up when the time is running out, and as complex as smooth progressions from one tune to another when you enter another room.

3. Artistic requirements

   There are 2 artistic requirements:

   Schizophrenia (Good)

   The main character must have two personalities. The personalities must be represented by different a different sprite / model for the character for each personality.

   Don't pick this item! (Great)

   There must be getable items in the game that are bad to the player (like cursed items).

4. Bonus rules

   There is 1 bonus rule:

   Schizophrenic Levels (Good)

   You may forgo one artistic requirement if the area of game play (ex: the levels, the map, the planet, etc) change randomly over time during play UNRELATED TO the actions of the player(s), or ingame events.

5. Other Important Info

   All entries must comply with all requirements except where nullified by Act of Dog.

   All entries must be submitted on or before 12:00 UTC on Monday 25th July without fail. All entries must be supplied in a ZIP file equal to or less than 250 KB in size. All source code, makefiles, documentation, and references to additional libraries used must be supplied in the ZIP file.

   You can assume that everyone will have a copy of Allegro (standard installation) installed. You do not need to supply one. It is okay to use a more recent version of Allegro, but if someone is unable to compile your game because of that, it's your fault. You should consider uploading binaries for people who have problems compiling the source onto your own website. I will be checking that the binary and source match up, so adding enhancements to the 'competition binary' is not permitted..

   If source code is reused from legal sources (your own, GPLed, public domain) you should declare this and what changes have been made, so that your work can be assessed for the voting.

   People should keep a informative and interesting account of their development through the competition. This can be sent after the competition for those people with no Internet access over the weekend. This does not affect your space requirement.

   A web-based "blog" update page will be available. This will allow spectators to see what is going on :-)

   You can make use of all information sources, mailing lists as you see fit. This is not an exam! :-)