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

   Ridiculous and romantic (OK)

   Give your game some honey. It would be nice to have a romantic game. Include hearts, princess, frogs or something almost ridiculous romantic.

2. Technical requirements

   There are 2 technical requirements:

   Gamepad Limitations (OK)

   The input is limited. No mouse support, A single 4-button direction pad, an 'A', 'B', 'Select' and 'Start' button.
   
   The buttons must behave according to standards as well. For menus 'A' is always "select" or "choose", and 'B' is always "escape" or "exit". 'Select' may pause, cycle items, or assist in navigating menus. 'Start' must pause the game action, it may however bring up a menu or a 'safe' screen. (i.e. you will not game over) Pushing 'start' while paused will always continue gameplay.
   
   If there is support for two or more players, the player who pushes 'start' is the only player with the ability to interact with the program until he/she pushes 'start' again.

   No Graphics (OK)

   Your game may not include any pre-made graphics. You must generate all graphics at run time (using Allegro's primitives, rect(), circle(), etc). You also may not just have an array of the bitmap and use putpixel from that.

3. Artistic requirements

   There are 2 artistic requirements:

   Physical Criminality (Excellent)

   Your game must have, and flamboyantly reject, an opportunity to obey the laws of physics. For example, you could distort space-time, invert gravity, make a world where it's impossible to create a perpetual motion machine that doesn't keep getting faster and faster, or simply decree that water is flammable. Bonus points if you can make your penchant for illegal behaviour an integral part of a fun game.

   Boy, girl, whatever! (OK)

   The main character must be either androgynous (meaning that it's impossible to tell if it's a boy or girl) or a hermaphrodite (a person who is both male and female). This also implies that you can't refer to the character as "he" or "she" in text or do anything else that would give it a gender. No transvestites or cross-dressers!

4. Bonus rules

   There are 2 bonus rules:

   Act of Pacifism (Great)

   You may opt out of one rule if your game involves no violence whatsoever (cartoon or otherwise)

   Act of Sequel (Great)

   Pick a game from the previous speedhack competition and make a sequel to it! Pick up to two rules in this competition and replace them with rules from that year's competition.

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! :-)