6 replies to this topic

[kaos]

Hello,

I thought of an idea that can perhaps increase productivity for aspiring game developers. This involves a personal rivalry or competition between game developers where progress in personal learning and game projects are monitored on a weekly basis. This isn't a full-scale competition involving 100 developers with an economical prize; just a professional competition to see who could outshine one another.

http://talithastar.c...aceToSaturn.pdf

Note
Please keep an open mind; this is a long-term project so working on a commercial game isn’t necessary. In fact, we encourage all of our contestants to develop various game or graphical demos prior to working on a commercial game. If you’re currently learning a particular API or language, you’re encouraged to participate in this project. You don’t need to be a programming expert to apply.

Note 2
This is targeted towards individuals and not groups.

[kaos]

It should be noted that I'm in this competition myself. I've been programming in c++ for several years and aspire to become a game developer.

Entry into this competition doesn't require you to drop all of your projects. In fact, you could continue doing whatever it is you were doing but as a contestant you should monitor your progress on a weekly basis to measure your own progress against others.

You don't need to quit your job or drop out of school, you don't need to quit your current project or break up with your girlfriend. This is just a way to integrate all of our personal activities as it pertains to game development into a competitive environment which will conceive motivation and inspiration.

[anubis]

Whatever helps people learn but imo if you can't be in a contest withyourself over how much you learn, you won't be getting far. Not that I think your idea is bad or anything. I just have no problems with motivating myself.

Also why would it be a competition ? Learning is - again for me - inherently a group activity. It works out much better if you can discuss what you are doing with others and get external input, which is probably why boards like this or Gamedev.net are popular.

[anubis]

Also I don't think that you can come up with any comparative norm for such projects. And if you don't have that where would be the competition ?

How would you judge the value of learning A over learning B on another timescale ?

I think it's natural that people want to show off, what they are doing but aren't things like the daily images or code gems enough to show what you can do ?

Also I'm not sure if I'm interested in what you have learned this week. If you tried to learn vector algebra for the last month I might not want to know. If you've written a raytracer with that knowledge and have some good looking renderings to show... yes I'd like to see that.

I'm not trying to put your idea down. It's just constructive criticism.

[TheNut]

Heh, reminds me of the old days back in school. You write up an exam and boast you got an A, while someone else got a B and felt like s**t on a stick.

Truth is, if you want to become a game developer you have to work like a donkey to achieve it. More so if you have no idea how to do it. That means no girlfriends to bother you ;)

I would consider establishing a website for this competition if you're interested in attracting people to it. Post screenshots of your own work to give people incentive to compete. The more visual you make your website, the more likely you'll attract people. A PDF file is hardly attractive ;)

[kaos]

Hello,

So far we have five entries and three blogs already started on.

http://sharedillusions.blogspot.com/
http://vedran.blogspot.com/
http://sirsteveman.blogspot.com/

[kaos]

It's unfortunate that many people are misreading the contest information with the common, "Er..sounds cool but I'm currently working on a project sorry". All you have to do in this contest is make a blog and have weekly entries pertinent to the competition to monitor your own progress. You do not have to quit your job or stop working on any project you're working on.

This competition is for everyone, and if everyone understood the competition fully then we would have more entries.