Indie Game Making Contest 2018!

@Yulia get a team :c

@Touchfuzzy can we use profanity?
I mean a few words here and there like "@ssh0le" or something, so the dialogues can be more realistic, wouldn't hurt. Or would it be a bad idea?
I don't mean making a dialogue full of profanity. Just a few words here and there.

@Yulia you could just offer your services to someone making a game with your art (which is aesome btw), personally I suck at art, but love doing story and mapping and stuff, but art, and databasg is my worst things.

Or you could make a game using what you can do, and of course there are plenty of people happy to help you with spell checking your writing and stuff.

@Dreadshadow yeah profanity is fine.

Maybe it's already stated or written somewhere, or I'm reading over it. But when will the winner(s) be announced?

That date is never set, as it depends on how many entries and RL for the judges. One year it took 3 months though, so once it is over just be patient.

If all things go as planned we are looking at mid to late January for winners announcements. Hopefully we stay on schedule.

A question from me. The contest mentions prototypes, expecting the first hour of something larger, and possibly working with winners to develop full games. With that in mind, what's the view on placeholder assets?

As long as they don't detract from the game (style clash that kind of stuff), and you have the rights to use them, I don't see it as an issue. Just remember we won't know what is a placeholder asset.

Ok nice, somehow I thought it would be half December but that is as good as impossible. I actually wonder if most games will be send in the last few days to extend development as much as possible, at least that's what I'm doing.

Usually 90% of entries are in the last few days. Speeding up judging time is difficult, especially cause if the judges start playing too many games too fast it starts to all blend together.

Plus remember there's only 168 hours in a week. If we assume judged can only play 6 hours a day (a generous figure even, as most have to still work and sleep and eat and do other things), that means only 42 games can be judged in a week. That's assuming they can't DQ any quickly or end 5 minutes in on a few.

I recall the 2014 IGMC had over 500 entries, it took them 3 months to judge them. 2015 was over 700, and I think that one was 3.5 - 4.5 months. So it can take a while.

Oh wow that's a really long time. I would love to help check them all out, but I'll probably be disqualified (not something I want condering developing the demo is all I've done since I said I would make one).

2014 I actually played around 160 entries over 2 weeks while also doing the rest of my job plus moving and staying with my parents (there was a 2 week period where I had moved out of my old place but couldn't move into my new place).

I wish to never, ever do that again. I don't remember sleeping all that much.

Last year we actually did manage to stay on track and it took under 2 months iirc.

Does our game *have* be to 1 hour long? I'm not sure if this has been answered or not... but I don't think when I'm done my demo is going to be that long. Is that going to disqualify/lessen points?

It doesn't have to be an hour long. If it is long enough to communicate what you think needs to be communicated to the judges, that is long enough.

"Games MUST be submitted by the deadline (Midnight PST, November, 29th 2018)."

I'm pretty sure what that means is that I can submit my game any time before or during November 29th. For example, if my game was submitted on November 29th at 11:59 PM, then it would be accepted. Right?

Strictly speaking, "midnight, November 29th" is the moment that November 29th begins. Taken literally, that would mean that any entry submitted at, say, 12:01 AM on November 29th would be disqualified. Midnight is the beginning of a day, not the end.

I just want it to be absolutely clear, now that the deadline is looming.

I think the best option is check the timer on the itch.io page, otherwise the timezones get all screwed up. I suggest you make sure your game is uploaded and well before the timer runs out.

It says Thursday 11:59 on the itch.io page, btw. (And yes, it has a helpful countdown timer as well.)

Oh. I didn't notice the timer. That simplifies things. Thanks.