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

   Seedlings (Great)

   Your game must involve caring for something that, for better or worse, is under your guardianship. Care for a garden, watch children in a daycare, mentor a mentee. The outcome of the game should revolve around the decisions you make and the guidance you give.

2. Technical requirements

   There are 2 technical requirements:

   who cares about numbers? (Good)

   How many games have no numbers in it?
   Not many,I think!
   Let's increase the number of games without any number in numerical form. Kudos for programs without even written numbers!

   Rock Paper Scissors (Great)

   One of the gameplay elements must include three (or more) choices that beat each other circularly in the conventional rock-paper-scissors fashion.
   

3. Artistic requirements

   There are 2 artistic requirements:

   The Paperclip (Good)

   There must be some sort of character that appears every now and then to give help or important information about the game, much like Microsoft's paperclip is supposed to do.

   Eye Candy as Objects (Great)

   Your game must use some of the graphical eye candy as objects, for example:
   
   - using a speech bubble as a weapon
   - running along the score meter
   - holding onto the mouse cursor
   - jumping into the bushes in a parallax background
   
   And so on.
   

4. Bonus rules

   There is 1 bonus rule:

   Act of Leonardo (Great)

   You may take any one rule and reverse it. This only applies to relevant rules. Meaning said rule should have an obvious reverse situation associated with it.
   
   However, if the rule has no obvious reverse situation associated with it, come up with a really good explanation as to why your new rule is the reverse of the original rule. Your new rule is subject to much scrutiny, so whit and humor may be the key element to approval.

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! :-)