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

   Insanity! (Good)

   Your project should either be about insanity or have a featured character who is insane.

2. Technical requirements

   There are 2 technical requirements:

   Gauges! (Good)

   There should be a gauge in the game that when full gives some special ability to the player.
   
   Ex: In Zelda, when your hit points are full you can shoot your sword. You could have a special gauge that fills up over time (or turns) and allows you to change the weather, cast spells, or deploy an legion of tanks that were sent as reinforcements.
   
   The gauge does not have to be visible. But there should be an indication to the user when special abilities, etc, are active.
   

   Inversion (Great)

   At specific times inside the game, something becomes inverted. For example, the screen flips, or gravity changes its direction.

3. Artistic requirements

   There are 2 artistic requirements:

   Let the player decide (Good)

   Give your players the chance of decision. In some moment of the game, if the player decide some way to go, or some potion to drink, something like that, then the game changes in some way.

   Copyright shmopyright (OK)

   Fill your game with clever parodies of famous corporate logos.

4. Bonus rules

   There are 2 bonus rules:

   Act of Babel (Great)

   You may take one rule and, using an automated online translator, translate it into a different language and then back into English as many times as you like. Interpret the result as a replacement rule. You must document the steps you took, which must be reproducible and deterministic.

   Senior Discount (OK)

   You can't teach an old dog new tricks! If you add Senior Citizens to your game, you can switch out ONE of the rules for a rule used in a previous speedhack.

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! :-)