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[Cammy]

Seasons Greetings! In the spirit of Christmas, and due to popular demand we are hosting the First Annual Festive Amiga Game Making Competition!

Here's the deal: You have two weeks to make your own Christmas-themed Amiga game. All entries must be uploaded by Christmas Eve, December 24th, when we can all download and play them on our Amigas (or emulated Amigas). We will set up a poll for people to vote for their favourite games, and the winners will receive prizes donated by the Amiga community. As a bonus incentive, all runners up (all entrants) will receive a printed and packaged CD containing all the entries, bootable on any Amiga with a CD drive (although there's no guarantee ALL the games will run on all systems, they will be provided on the CD nevertheless).

The rules of the competition are simple:

1. You have two weeks to finish your game. If your game isn't finished by December 24th, you should still upload your incomplete entry anyway, but at least try to make it playable.
2. Your game must run on a classic OCS or AGA Amiga. This way, anyone should be able to play all the games, either on their old hardware or through UAE. Unfortunately OS4, Aros and MorphOS specific entries at this stage wouldn't reach enough people and couldn't compete for votes.
3. You can create your game with any software you like. This includes programming it yourself too. If you have no coding knowledge, feel free to use any of the available game making software such as Backbone, SEUCK, GRAC, GRAAL, Reality, Game Engine, or anything else you can find.
4. Your game must be themed around Christmas and the festive season. It doesn't necessarily have to contain religious references, but it must be identifiable.

That's it! The rules are pretty lenient, we just want to give as many people the opportunity to join in as possible. Further details on where to post finished games, as well as a list of prizes will be posted over the next week or so.

So, what are you waiting for? If you're up for a challenge, have some free time, and really dig the chance to win some fantastic Amiga prize packs, have a crack at it! We'll make this the best Amiga Christmas in years!

[VingtTrois]

Originally Posted by Cammy

2. Your game must run on a classic OCS or AGA Amiga. This way, anyone should be able to

No ECS games ?

[Cammy]

I was wondering how long it'd take for someone to say that.

Of course if someone feels the need to take advantage of ECS' 4-colour Super High Res mode or any of the other useful ECS enhancement, go for it.

Also, if anyone would like to donate any prizes to the prize pool, that would be great! Once we have a few items to choose from, we'll make packs for first, second and third place.

[skurk]

Count me in :-)

[Rebel-CD32]

I'm up for it, too. I'll be using Backbone, with the newly released public keyfile, available on Aminet.


Here are some useful links to help people get started:


Backbone - Easily build your own platform games and overhead multi-directional shooters.

The full Backbone game making package - http://aminet.net/package/dev/misc/Backbone_Full
Final update for Backbone - http://aminet.net/package/dev/misc/Backbone_Upd
Free keyfile to unlock all Backbone's features - http://aminet.net/package/dev/misc/Backbone_Key


GRaphic Adventure Creator and GRaphic Adventure Authoring Language - Create your own Point & Click Adventure games.

Full GRAC 2 package - http://aminet.net/package/game/role/GRAC2
Extras for GRAC 2 - http://aminet.net/package/game/role/GRACUser1
Intro creator for GRAC 2 - http://aminet.net/package/game/role/IntroCreate
GRAAL 2.3 A - http://aminet.net/package/game/role/graal2a
GRAAL 2.3 B - http://aminet.net/package/game/role/graal2b
GRAAL 2.3 C - http://aminet.net/package/game/role/graal2c
GRAAL 2.3 D - http://aminet.net/package/game/role/graal2d


3D Game Creator - Create your own three dimensional game worlds.

3D Game Creator - http://aminet.net/game/shoot/DBIB.lha


Some nice Christmas sprites to rip and use in your platform or horizontal shooter - http://www.nes-snes-sprites.com/Daze...Christmas.html
Some Christmas mod music to use in your game - http://www.westnet.com/Holiday/mod.html

[Bezzen]

If I can get my UAE setup going I'll probably give it a go too.

[leszeka33]

Originally Posted by Cammy

2. Your game must run on a classic OCS or AGA Amiga. This way, anyone should be able to play all the games, either on their old hardware or through UAE. Unfortunately OS4, Aros and MorphOS specific entries at this stage wouldn't reach enough people and couldn't compete for votes.
make this the best Amiga Christmas in years!

Point 2. in 2009 should be removed. Games should be made for Amiga OS.

[SamuraiCrow]

@leszeka33
If you want a next-gen Amiga contest, go start one of your own on AmigaWorld.net.

[Radfoo]

Cool. Will give this a go with Backbone. Not sure how successful i'll be but hopefully it will be fun trying :-)

[ami_junki]

Excellent, you can count me in as well!

[Beast96GT]

Two weeks? I realize it's for Christmas, but for me, that's an unrealistic deadline--then again, I'm not native to Amiga programming (only usage during my high school years). I think I'll try and do some more investigating and wait till the next one.

-Beast

[hbarcellos]

I'm trying to convice the guy who did this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDWv_ErSndw

to participate!

Or maybe this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqjZZqgt7Pw
hehehhehe...

[Cammy]

Wow, those homebrew games look really cool, it'd be great if those guys wanted to make Christmas versions to enter, or even write something new from scratch!

Browsing through YouTube, I came across these compilations of Amiga SEUCK games. Anyone can work out how to use SEUCK (Shoot Em Up Construction Kit) and make their own game with it in a couple of days, it's simple and fun. Check out what other people have managed to make with it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCjWOrT83mU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yo72mA9CxqU

I particularly like the one where you play an angel, flying upwards in a side-viewed level, and the game where you play a fireman putting out fires with your hose.

[Cammy]

Here's an essential application that all Amiga users should have installed, it's perfect for importing GIFs and PNGs of sprites and graphics found on the web, editing them, and saving out as Amiga IFF/ILBM format to use in your games:

Personal Paint - http://aminet.net/package/biz/cloan/PPaint

Something else I think I should mention is that people don't necessarily have to make a FULL GAME, just a demo of a game with at least one playable level or challenge would be good enough to enter before the contest is finished. You can always continue to develop the game after Christmas, because we would love to collect ALL the full games people make together some time next year once everyone is happy with their finished product, and compile them together onto a bootable Amiga/CDTV/CD32 CD, packed with other Christmas and holiday themed extras, and make the full CD available both for free as a downloadable ISO, and to purchase for a small fee on a fully printed and packaged CD. Any proceeds can go towards charity and helping Amiga developers. Anyone who enters a game in the competition will receive a packaged CD free of charge.

If you like the idea of an annual Amiga festive games making contest, but you don't have the time to make a game yourself, perhaps you'd like to donate something towards the prize pool? For any of you in the Amiga business, it could be a good way to promote your company by giving away one of your products to the best Amiga talents, and it would certainly provide more incentive for people to have a go at the competition.

As an example of their dedication, the team at Underground Arcade is kindly donating the following prizes to the winners of first, second and third place. We hope to build the list of prizes over the next couple of weeks.

UPDATE!!!

Thanks to Amiga Maniac (www.amigamaniac.com) for helping to sponsor our contest. They have kindly donated a brand new v2.0 PAL/NTSC RGB S-Video adapter which works on any classic Amiga (except CD32, which already has S-Video) and allows you to plug your Amiga into a new LCD TV or any TV with an S-Video input.

First Prize
A brand new V2.0 RGB S-Video Adapter for classic Amigas
A new, boxed AmigaOS3/Aros/MorphOS-compatible USB Rocket Launcher
An unopened A1200/A600-compatible PCMCIA 5-in-1 Card Reader (SD/MMC/SM/MS/MSP)
Two brand new control pads compatible with all 1-button and 2-button Amiga games
An original Oscar/Diggers game for CD32/AGA-CD/UAE (or HDD-installable with WHDLoad)
A sealed box of 25 floppy disks in assorted colours
A packaged copy of the first Amiga Christmas Contest Compilation for CDTV/CD32/Amiga-CD/UAE

Second Prize
One brand new control pad compatible with all 1-button and 2-button Amiga games
An original Oscar/Diggers game for CD32/AGA-CD/UAE (or HDD-installable with WHDLoad)
A sealed box of 25 floppy disks in assorted colours
A packaged copy of the first Amiga Christmas Contest Compilation for CDTV/CD32/Amiga-CD/UAE

Third Prize
A sealed box of 25 floppy disks in assorted colours
A packaged copy of the first Amiga Christmas Contest Compilation for CDTV/CD32/Amiga-CD/UAE

Does that help convince anyone it's a worthwhile cause? I think just being able to play some new Amiga games during the holidays is going to be the best. And while they may not be too complete this year, imagine downloading or buying the full compilation to play or give as a gift next Christmas, during which time we'll be holding the SECOND festive game making contest!

[hbarcellos]

Well, I never made anything for amiga except very small cracks using AmigaMON and/or some weird stuff on Amos.
So, is there some C libraries somewhere to help game development? I would really like to use C. BTW, which is the best compiler? Sas C, Storm C, etc...
And, is there an easy way to use libraries to draw shapes, use bobs, collisions, double buffer and etc??