The Big C Game Competition

Thanks to Slamdance for its submission. Coming up at The Slamdance Film festival in Park City, Utah - Jan. 21 to 28 2005, programmers can compete in The Big C Independent Game Competition. "The Big C is calling for entries of all new games from emerging talent. Selected games will compete and be judged by festival attendees, with a Jury Award and Audience Award that include cash and prizes presented at the end of the festival. Game submissions should have an early-postmarked deadline of Oct. 1, 2004 and a final postmarked deadline of Nov. 14, 2004. Entrants may submit games on disk or provide a URL for judges to download." The event has an entry on the Gamasutra Calendar, for additional info.

Comments

Gah

[GigsVT]

Who writes games in C anymore?

You'd think they could have picked a better language.

Re:Gah

[UnknownSoldier]

> Who writes games in C anymore?

Console programmers with a legacy codebase.

We don't have a choice for bindings to the thin-vineer of an OS, so it's either C or C++. Most C programmers switch over to C++ because of the new paradigms the language lets you express natively, and fortunately the language is backwards compatible. (Its strength is also its weakness.)

I'm not sure why you got modded down as flamebait. Any language is unsafe. Some just make it easier to use & abuse then others :) Calling C safe shows that the mod doesn't understand (or have a clue) exactly what dangerious low level programming C allows, and obsviously they never had to spend any time tracing through (malloc) memory leaks. Blah.

Oh well...

--
Original, Fun Palm games by the Lead Designer of Majesty!
http://www.arcanejourneys.com/

Re:Gah

[RQuinn]

It's not a competition to use the C programming language to make games. It's the "BIG C" which stands for Bawls Independant Game Competition. Stupid name, and I had to look through the pdf press release to figure it out, but what do you expect from a film festival?

They really don't seem to know what they are getting into. They say if your game needs extra hardware (like vr glasses) then you need to supply it, but they don't say if the game is to be run on a Windows machine, or an OSX machine, or anything. There is just a field on the entry form for "System Requirements."

The lack of information was enough to scare me off from it, let alone the 49.99$ entry fee. I'll give them points for trying to branch into something new, though.

Re:Gah

[Evan Meakyl]

They say if your game needs extra hardware (like vr glasses) then you need to supply it, but they don't say if the game is to be run on a Windows machine, or an OSX machine, or anything

Oh! You don't get it! For example, if your game need to be run on a Pentium computer with Windows , you have to supply it :D!

These guys are genius : 200 entries = 10k$ + 200 computers!!! Why didn't I think about that before ? :D

Re:Gah

[GigsVT]

It was just a joke, because the organizers named it "big C", and idiots that they seem to be, they don't realize that is a programming language, and thus a confusing name for a programming contest.

Sigh.

Platform?

[American AC in Paris]

The rules make no mention of what platform the game should run on. Are we to assume that the contest is open to OS X games, Linux games, and Commodore 64 games--or are we to assume that the game must run on Windows XP?

Re:Platform?

[slashrogue]

The application has a spot for "System Requirements" as well as the rules-mentioned "Additional Hardware" so I would guess it's whatever you want to write it in.

Re:Platform?

[CodeWanker]

Oh, sweet mother of Buddha! A use for all my "Java Game Programming" books at last!!!

Re:Platform?

[merlin_jim]

For that matter, what about Flash? J2ME? Compact Framework?

And no I didn't RTFA...

Mod authors?

[Bret540]

The rules mention nothing about mod submissions, am I to assume they are legal submissions?

Re:Mod authors?

[Gothic_Walrus]

While it doesn't say anything in the rules, I'm assuming that they would have issues with the fact that the engine and (potentially) tools and concepts aren't original. It seems like they're looking for games that are completely original, and mods build very, very heavily off of material that has had millions of dollars and thousands of hours poured into it.

You'd have to e-mail them and ask them, but I'd say "no."

Re:Mod authors?

[niteice]

But then what if the engine is GPL? (a la Quake 2)

How to make money in games fast!!!

[ghostlibrary]

Wow, there's a $50 entrance fee. If they get 200 entries, that's a neat $10k, plus they get to be judges and see what's really cool so they can hire the people.

With writing and poetry, this is an old scheme (not quite scam, but scheme). Charge for a contest and sell the results.

What's next-- for-pay music auditions for the RIAA? Ooh, I know-- submit your stories to slashdot, just $2 per submission, and if yours is chosen as the best submission of the year, you win! No dups allowed.

Re:How to make money in games fast!!!

[JMandingo]

Yeah, I was interested too until I read about the entry fee. "Our objective today is to recognize and support new, independent creators in all aspects of moving image including filmmakers, screenwriters and now, electronic game developers." Replace "support" with "get supported by". I think I will pass this year, thanks but no thanks. I'm surprised there wasn't something in the small print out the games becoming property of SlamDance.

Re:How to make money in games fast!!!

[hai.uchida]

Amen... The contest/festival business is a big cash cow, the odds are defitely stacked against you

I made a short film a few years back and went through the process of entering it in all the major fests-- Sundance, Slamdance, SXWS, and about fifteen to twenty more. Each one had an entry fee of $25-$65. Each one sent me back a polite rejection letter, usually not even signed by a human. I had no guarantee that anyone even watched the damn thing, especially anyone in a position to decide to put it in the program (from what I understand, screening the submissions is usually an unpaid intern's job-- so if you don't appeal to the taste of a random 22-year old film student, good luck making it out of the pile.)

I eventually hooked up with a friend-of-a-friend who worked for the New York Underground Film Festival. I showed it to her directly, she liked it and put it in the program. No fees paid. The screening was attended by programmers from other festivals, and a few of them asked to show it too. Since then it's played around the country and in Europe and Asia-- each festival usually leading to another, and no submission forms or fees paid each time.

That's why I think the system is pretty screwed-- it's completely arbitrary, and I'm convinced the programmers rarely draws from the submissions piles. I'm glad festivals exist, but I don't think its right for the lesser ones to charge entry fees. At least the major film fests are attended by the "right" people, and getting your work in there is great exposure. They also have massive staffs and production costs, and the fee is a good way to limit the submissions. On the other hand it's almost criminal for these no-name festivals and contests to operate the way they do-- charging entry fees on the promise of fame and exposure that they really can't provide. It's kind of like those "we set your poetry to music" ads in the back of Parade magazine.

So who wants to...

[Austerity Empowers]

...write a game in a week (or hell a month and a half)?

I volunteer to be the giant publishing exec who will beat around "my" coders and artists with a large spiked club. I need a few coders, artists and middle managers to man-handle. Pay is optional (my option), and if I make any money on the product, I reserve the right to obligate you to another year.

If interested let me know.

(Attention Electronic Arts Exec's, I would really like to work for you. Consider this post my cover letter!)

Cancer?

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't that the "Big C"?