Hello Community! I would to get people's opinions on a small handmade game competition for newbies (so me :D). The main reasons I thought of doing this are as follows.

1. To have a little friendly competition.
2. To keep myself (and hopefully others) motivate to finish projects more often.
3. It would be fun!

There are some questions that need to be answered before anything can happen.

1. How long will it be? (I was thinking something like a month?)
2. How will people vote?
3. What/will there be a prize for winning? (probably just bragging rights)
4. What themes if any
5. Does anyone actually want to take part in this?
6. Should their be weekly updates on everyone's games progress?

So, what are your thoughts?

- Connor

Intriguing idea, Connor.

I wonder if Miblo will want to enter his Mibloids game into the competition.

For my part, I have an idea for a small experimental roguelike. Not a complete game, but an exploration of a certain set of mechanics.

We'll have to see what the rest of the staff reckons about the game compo, but if there's enough interest in it, we can help organise it. If it's successful enough, it could be our 'Summer of Code' thing, except maybe a month during the summer and a month during the winter where members can enter a side project they put together over that month.

Highly speculative, of course. First let's see what level of interest there is, but provisionally speaking, I'm game.

Well, Ludum Dare's October Challenge is coming up (or, usually; Mike is still working on the new site). Piggybacking on that, but focusing our developer's games here seems like a start?

• Following the October Challenge, you'd have the month of October to finish a project and make $1.
• You could have voting through sales--each sale, one 'vote'--but if you didn't want to tie those together, leaving reviews in comments would be fine.
• Bragging rights seem fine
• I don't think you want a theme for a month-long contest?
• I would.
• Asking for weekly updates is probably a good idea too.

1. I like a month long comp too.
2. I fear that using money as votes could get hairy, but many artists have anecdotes about earning only a few bucks on a work making real in their minds the things they were creating, and further motivating them.
3. Yeah, bragging rights would be nice, maybe pinning the winner's post for a bit?
4. Maybe a suggested theme? With no requirement to adhere? Many good works in a themed competition stand out because they think outside the box in terms of theme anyway
5. Meeeeee
6. Maybe even a subcontest for best dev thread? :P

Pretty much anyone can create a game jam on Itch.io and it's a platform to sell/give away your game. If some motivated individual were to create a Handmade Jam and actively promote it to our community and the interwebs, it might gain some traction and it could be fun... just saying.

If you want to do something official that is hosted here or ran by our admins, that's a different story.

Just wanna post saying, im in when / if this happens

CaptainKraft
If you want to do something official that is hosted here or ran by our admins, that's a different story.

Right, hosting a competition sounds great, just not for the time being! Everyone is welcome to host unofficial contests, but we're nailing down the last bit of features required to complete site v1.0, as mentioned here. I also threw a curve ball that must be handled after e-mail notifications are in place (I'll discuss in October News), so that'll keep us busy for a little longer.

After this though, we may look into recurring activities to strengthen us as developers. Appreciate the suggestion Connor!

EDIT: Regarding "staying busy for a little longer", I'm referring to a feature that can be incorporated after we complete site v1.0, but will still warrant not hosting any competition or extra activites in the meantime.

-Abner