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

   Seedlings (Great)

   Your game must involve caring for something that, for better or worse, is under your guardianship. Care for a garden, watch children in a daycare, mentor a mentee. The outcome of the game should revolve around the decisions you make and the guidance you give.

2. Technical requirements

   There are 2 technical requirements:

   Inventory (Good)

   The player must be able to only carry/posess a limited number of usable items. To pick up new items when the inventory is full, something has to be dropped/used up.
   

   Easter Egg (Great)

   Your production must contain a subgame or hidden effect within that can be accessed through some unusual method - a particular sequence of controls or unlocked through ability. The means of access should be described somewhere in the source code so that I can determined that is has been added, but you can keep it a secret in the compiled binary version as you wish.
   
   This effect is not to be malicious in any way and should not damage or compromise the host machine or installed software.

3. Artistic requirements

   There are 2 artistic requirements:

   Growth (Good)

   Growth:
   
   Things have to grow inside your program.
   
   Growth can be aging, evolutionary, biological or genetic. This could be applied to game play, game objects, game AI or any other aspect of the game.
   
   

   Don't pick this item! (Great)

   There must be getable items in the game that are bad to the player (like cursed items).

4. Bonus rules

   There is 1 bonus rule:

   Schizophrenic Levels (Good)

   You may forgo one artistic requirement if the area of game play (ex: the levels, the map, the planet, etc) change randomly over time during play UNRELATED TO the actions of the player(s), or ingame events.

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! :-)