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

   A funny thing happened... (Good)

   Remember that time you went to the corner store to buy a bottle of your favourite cola, but the list of ingredients the company used had been stolen by an evil warlock and you had to travel across a hostile magical land to retrieve the recipe from his warlocky clutches?
   
   Start with a real situation from your life, add a twist, and play it out in game form. You're the protagonist.
   
   Of course, this doesn't have to restrict the genre; this could easily be anything from a puzzle game to a brawler.

2. Technical requirements

   There is 1 technical requirement:

   Custom death (Great)

   The game must feature a weapon with one or more settings that are configurable. For example, a gun that has a power/spread - you can choose to cover more area, or to deal more damage at a specific point.

3. Artistic requirements

   There are 2 artistic requirements:

   Mutation (Good)

   Something needs to mutate.

   upside down (OK)

   Your game must entirely or mostly (just sprites) play upside down. You can go all out and have a sidescroller where you fall up and climb down or just sprites who seem keen on walking on their heads. Either way it must be noticeable.

4. Bonus rules

   There is 1 bonus rule:

   Act of Punk (OK)

   Instead of following all the rules, you can break all of them! You need to do your best NOT to meet any of the requirements (of course standard rules still apply, like the size and time limit). For example, if a rule says your game needs to be inspired by outer space, your game can not FEATURE anything related to outer space, and not just not be inspired by outer space.

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! :-)