Video Game Development at the University of Michigan

Wolverine Soft 48-Hour

Game Development Contest 6

Logo
 Theme   Schedule   Rules and Registration   FAQ   Libraries   Submission   Judging   Prizes 

The theme is "Switch"

You can include the theme in any manner, form, or sense that you wish. Just make absolutely sure that you are able to explain how your game relates to the theme, because you will be judged on it.

Results

  1. Super Zen Dragon by Mark Bosko, Don Li, and David McAllister

  2. Cerebral Conquest by Brian Clark, Dan Demp, and Bill Stoffel

  3. Duality by Curt Lawrence, Ryan Meier, and Doug Strait

  4. Tower of the Stone Curse by Will Liu, Andrew Pinson, and Dale White

  5. Planet Bomber by Matt Gomez, Adam Kidder, and Jiefu Yuan

  6. Particle Attack by Zach Renner

  7. Vertigo by Edward Chen, Sean Sheehan, and Thomas Thiem

  8. Plumber by Bryan DeGrendel, Sirius Gu, and Roy Zhang

  9. Switch Witch by Michael Butler, Nick Henton - Left Sick - and Christopher O'Grady

  10. Triune by Chris Boguslawski and Artun Kircali

  11. Pulse by Steve McDonald, Nick Seltzer, and Alex Soule

  12. Hat the Magic Muffin by Martyna Alexander and Nate Slottow

Alumni Contest Results

  1. Polarity Switch by Alex Kerfoot

  2. Switcheroo! by Vishnu Desaraju

  3. Season Switch by Hayden Cacace

  4. Lights Out by Pete Knepley

  5. Watt Switch by Paul Oppenheim (did not finish)

Schedule

WHEN: Friday, January 16, 2009 -- 6:00:00 pm EST
WHERE: Windows Classrooms 1 & 2, 3rd Floor, Duderstadt Center, North Campus
WHO: Contest is open to all current students and alumni (graduated in the past 6 years) of colleges in Southern Michigan (excluding those who have entered the video games industry).
WHY: Fun, Fame, Fabulous Prizes!

Details:

Registration, Suggestions and Questions

email: 48hour AT umich DOT edu

Contest Rules

Rules are subject to change. (especially lists of allowed libraries and platforms.)
Contest Coordinators will have final say in all disputes.

Theme

A theme will be announced at the beginning of the contest. Contest participants must incorporate this theme into their games and will be scored on how well they accomplish this. Entries which do not incorporate the theme as a central part of development will be disqualified. Contest Coordinators will be available to consult on theme usage.

Participants

Contest is open to all current University of Michigan, Michigan State University, Wayne State University, and Eastern Michigan University students. Alumni who have not entered the video games industry are also free to enter if they have graduated within the past 6 years. You do not have to know how to program computers; we strongly urge artists and musicians to enter. Those who wish to participate are urged to pre-register.

Registration

All entrants must register with the Wolverine Soft Contest Coordinators before they can enter the contest. Registration is open from now until the start of the competition. You may sign up with 1 teammate. A third teammate will be assigned to you so that we can accomodate less traditional contestants and team preferences. You may register with a coordinator onsite during the contest, however participants are urged to pre-register. To pre-register, send an email to 48hour AT umich DOT edu with the following information:

Please be as accurate as possible. Also, feel free to include any libraries or platforms that you would like to submit for approval (see lists below).

Teams

The size of teams may range from 1 to 3. Coordinators will help create teams for individuals who want to work in a team, but did not pre-register with a teammate.

Individual entrants inexperienced at game development may choose to be assigned to existing teams by the Contest Coordinators. The Contest Coordinators will decide if an individual is "inexperienced".

Frequently Asked Questions

"Do I have to be present the entire 48-hours?"
No. You only have to create most of your code and artwork on-site. Feel free to go home to sleep, shower, eat, etc.

"I'm an artist and/or musician, can I still enter?"
Yes! We are definitely looking for artists and muscians. The best thing about video games is how they are such a convergence of so many different aspects--art, science, technology, music, creativity and entertainment-- and we're really trying to promote that during the contest. Hence, all of these aspects will be considered as part of the overall game evaluation.

"I would like to work on a team, but I don't have a team.  What should I do?"
No problem! Just let us know that you want to be paired up with someone when you (pre-)register.

"I don't know how to program games, how can I participate?"
Don't worry! We can put you on a team of veterans, so that you can get some good experience and guidance. Think "Lead/Assistant Programmer" paradigm from The Mythical Man Month.

"What software do the Media Union machines have?"
PC Training Rooms
Advanced Graphics Room

Onsite Development

Most programming and art must be created onsite, during the 48-hour period. Music that is developed during the 48-hour period can be produced and recorded off-site. Participants may bring in laptops, desktops, consoles, or any other development environment that they wish.

Participants must keep a development log as they work on their entry. This should include development milestones, TODO lists, major design decisions, etc. A simple text file is sufficient. We need to know what you were working on when, what you wanted to do but couldn't fit in, what went right and what went wrong. Keeping this log is mandatory. You will be required to turn a copy in to 48hour AT umich DOT edu with a current build of your game every 8 hours. It will also assist you in giving a post-mortem for your game project. For more information on post-mortems, see the "Supplemental Events" section at the top of this page.

A dev-log template file is available here (right click and "Save As...")

Platforms

Entrants may develop games for any platform they wish, provided that they can be played in the Duderstadt Center, use approved libraries, and that the platform is available to all participants for playing (judgment of) their final game. In the case of a MOD, a copy of the original game must be available to install. (MAKE SURE THE INSTALLER WORKS ON A CAEN MACHINE, OR MAKE PLANS WITH THE CONTEST COORDINATORS!)
If you are willing to provide a non-Win32 PC platform (e.g. dev-ready Xboxes, PS2's, GBA's w/flash cartridges, etc.), please let us know.

Available Platforms Onsite:
Win32
Mac
Linux
Solaris
Flash
PC Training Room Loadset
Advanced Graphics Classroom Loadset
... (more as wsoft members/contest entrants provide more platforms)

Outside Assets

All significant libraries and pre-made code must be submitted to the contest coordinators by January 9th, 2009. After that, any exceptions made may impact the scores of the participants.

Otherwise, all code and assets must be created within the 48 hours of the competition, with the following exceptions. Outside music and sound effects will be allowed. Copyrighted music may be used as long as the entrants ask for permission from the copyright holder. They do not have to receive a response within the 48-hour period, but they must receive permission before we can post the game on the WSoft website. (If they are unable to receive permission, they must remove or replace the copyrighted materials.) Sound libraries (outside sound effects) may be used, as long as they are publicly available, and listed below.

Publicly available code libraries will be allowed, provided they are approved by the contest coordinators and listed below. If you have some personal, general code that you would like to use (e.g. DX or input device initialization routines, collision or physics routines, etc.) package your code as a library, and send a .zip file to the coordinators for approval.

Things that will help your library be accepted: clean code, informative comments, additional documentation, submitted before the contest begins, the more generally useful code, the better, and make sure it compiles without error! Remember, it has to be available to everyone else to use.
Submit http links and .zip files of libraries to be approved to 48hour AT umich DOT edu

Libraries and Engines

General

Graphics

Audio

Miscellaneous

Console

Mods of Commercial Games

Submissions

Submissions must be downloadable .zip archives.
Submissions must be under 50 MB. Final product - not including starting ingredients. (but try to keep them small, don't use uncompressed audio, use .png's instead of .bmp's, etc.)
Submissions must include a copy of or link to ALL "starting ingredients" including SDK's, libraries, etc. (a separate .zip file from submission, or hyperlinks)
Submissions must include an HTML or text info document containing:

Submission forms will be available at the event.

Judging

The final game submissions will be judged by a panel selected by the Wolverine Soft Contest Coordinators.
Additionally, each participant will write down and submit his/her top 3 (not including his/her own) favorite entries. These votes will be factored into the evaluation.

Judges Include:

Entries will be judged on the following criteria:

Prizes

Prizes will be awarded to participants based on performance, and rest assured that prizes will be 1337er than years past.

Donated by

EA
Microsoft
THQ

Ed Baraf
Dave Ratti

Contest Coordinators

Warren Michael Bame
Mitchell Keith Bloch
Paul Skowronek

email: 48hour AT umich DOT edu