Open Source Game Competition - Let the Voting Begin

[squamulus]

A number of Spring engine games have made it onto the list of nominees, and now...

The day has arrived.

Voting for the best open source game on the web has begun. We've broken the list down into 10 genres. Vote on the art, innovation, storyline, and overall gaming experience to decide what games from the 10 genres will go head to head in the final round.

I'll post some results every day so you can see how your game, and gaming community, stacks up against the rest.

*dons battle cap*

Let's do this.

-samuel

[Jazcash]

We'll probably get best game in genre. You just can't beat most Spring games when it knuckles down to pure gameplay, flexibility and user control.

[Pxtl]

I'm thinking this whole thing is meant as viral marketing for their new game downloading service.

[knorke]

Judging racing games on "art", "story" and "inovative Gameplay" Oo

Voting best "Best Story/World" on Armagetron Advanced, Frets on Fire, Blobby Volley and Pink Pony?
It will be tough!

In Simulation not 2 games are similiar enough to compare.
A simcity like transport economy game might win "Best Game of the Genre" over a flight simulator. wait wat?

I'm thinking this whole thing is meant as viral marketing for their new game downloading service.

I feel the same...
If this was done by some "respected" site (happypenguin.org or sourceforge or something) I would not mind but this really looks like a pure marketing thing?

well i might just vote for some spring game in hope spring get more players.
oh wait:
Winning games that are compatible with our new platform will then be ported into our digital distribution system.
so i should not vote for spring because if it wins i must download it via some client in the future?
explain please :)

[Pxtl]

Exactly. If this were a contest for prime placement on something with a reputable backer like Desura (the new Steam-like tool of Moddb and Indiedb).

[Jazcash]

so i should not vote for spring because if it wins i must download it via some client in the future?
explain please :)

Don't worry, Spring refuses to allow itself to be compatible with anything unless several man hours are inserted.

[squamulus]

HEYOOO OH!

I'll try to address everything that's been said so we don't seem like some sketchy tech site.

First, let me clarify the thinking with the 4 different categories of judging. Because we ended up having more nominations than we expected, we decided to shift the criteria from being individualized per genre to being blanketed across all the genres. This is certainly not ideal, as knorke pointed out, but it will allow for the second phase of the voting to be more honed, which takes the top games from each genre and pits them against one another based on those 4 categories.

It's hard to compare apples to oranges.

As for this being a marketing idea, it goes both ways. The WorldKi platform is similar to ones that are already around, like Desura and Steam, but offers something a little different. The problem with our launch being that, unlike with Desura and Steam, we lack a start-up following (ModDB and the Valve community). So yes, we are trying to 'market' the idea and the platform, but the greater purpose is to begin building a community of developers and gamers. The end goal of the worldki platform is to increase collaboration among independent developers and to provide a community hub.

Porting will only be done with the permission of the game developers. We'd like to bring the relevant communities into the fold, rather than 'steal' the game they've been building together.

It would certainly be aggravating if you had to download the platform to access Spring games. The idea is to offer porting onto the platform to allow people who get the platform in the future to play spring straight from it, along with the other winners and, eventually, the games created by other developers.

I apologize if it comes off as a pure marketing scheme, but the motives behind it are less evil than it seems. You can checkout the worldki website here if you want to get a better understanding of the platform and what we're trying to do.

If you have any more questions feel free to toss them up and I'll get to them as soon as I can.

Thanks,
samuel

[hoijui]

that other approach that was talked about in the past, about making spring lobby (protocol) compatible with other games, or say, create an inter-game lobby protocol, seems a better idea to me (even doh, probably much more time intensive).

[SwiftSpear]

HEYOOO OH!

I'll try to address everything that's been said so we don't seem like some sketchy tech site.

First, let me clarify the thinking with the 4 different categories of judging. Because we ended up having more nominations than we expected, we decided to shift the criteria from being individualized per genre to being blanketed across all the genres. This is certainly not ideal, as knorke pointed out, but it will allow for the second phase of the voting to be more honed, which takes the top games from each genre and pits them against one another based on those 4 categories.

It's hard to compare apples to oranges.

As for this being a marketing idea, it goes both ways. The WorldKi platform is similar to ones that are already around, like Desura and Steam, but offers something a little different. The problem with our launch being that, unlike with Desura and Steam, we lack a start-up following (ModDB and the Valve community). So yes, we are trying to 'market' the idea and the platform, but the greater purpose is to begin building a community of developers and gamers. The end goal of the worldki platform is to increase collaboration among independent developers and to provide a community hub.

Porting will only be done with the permission of the game developers. We'd like to bring the relevant communities into the fold, rather than 'steal' the game they've been building together.

It would certainly be aggravating if you had to download the platform to access Spring games. The idea is to offer porting onto the platform to allow people who get the platform in the future to play spring straight from it, along with the other winners and, eventually, the games created by other developers.

I apologize if it comes off as a pure marketing scheme, but the motives behind it are less evil than it seems. You can checkout the worldki website here if you want to get a better understanding of the platform and what we're trying to do.

If you have any more questions feel free to toss them up and I'll get to them as soon as I can.

Thanks,
samuel

We've had a similar idea for the Spring lobbies for a while now but we've never been able to implement due to lack of talent/time (those who have the coding talent don't have the time). If you can get it working to any degree of success I wish you the absolute and total best of luck. Hiding the technical aspect of the projects from in the player's perspective and having effective advertisement out there so the players who are interested are finding the projects they find interesting is something that has been a HUGE HUGE failing in the open sourced community, and as such I think is heavily holding us back from being taken seriously, even when put up against titles we could be competing with, like indie games.

[squamulus]

Thanks for the support. If one or more of the spring games ends up being voted to the top we'll want to talk with the people who have tried with spring lobby to pick their brains about the failings and successes they found.

The hardest part with this is that, unlike steam or desura, we don't have a pre-made fan base to pull from, so we have to do this semi-shady posting. I very much appreciate you guys taking the time to ask questions instead of opening the flame gates. It's been great for us, having to define and defend our idea against the interwebs, so please keep any questions or comments out there so I can do some serious thinking about them. If you have anything else about the spring lobby project feel free to let me know. We'd be fools to not try and learn from people who've tried something similar.

Thanks,
samuel

[zwzsg]

For Kernel Panic, maybe http://www.moddb.com/games/kernel-panic looks more pro than http://springrts.com/wiki/Kernel_Panic ?

Though it has less information (in particular it doesn't mention Linux).

[squamulus]

Yes, that is a much sexier version. I'll slap it up once I finish this current rankings update. Kernel's art is ridiculously awesome, by the way. Great game.
Thanks,
samuel

[AF]

Looking at the worldki site, your running a major risk of failing at marketing simply because I want to read content and instead Im presented with pseudo marketing speak.

I only know what worldki actually is because of the comparison made on this thread to steam, if I had come across the site on my own I would have had to make an effort to figure out what it actually was, since it's not said in plain English on the front page, or the about age, or the etc etc etc

To get a message across you need to be able to articulate the basic premise in a short sentence.

About the same size as he above paragraph. You have a whole site there and it's struggling to do what your meant to be able to do in a single sentence, a whole website!

[squamulus]

Thanks for the feedback. The site is currently being anesthetized and prepped for a Joan Rivers style epic facelift.

The boss and I looked over your statement and both let off nervous laughs, and then said "cool." With all the questions I was getting on the forums, it seemed the best place to send people was the website, despite its transitory stage. Though I don't like the thing currently, the Product part of it does a pretty good job of explaining what the platform does, if you can take out all the salacious descriptors. ^^

If you have any more feedback let me know here or shoot me an email at samc@worldki.com. It's always nice to have someone else checking our project and saying "YAY" or "NAY."

Thanks,
samuel

[Pxtl]

So just to clarify, is this site is going to be a steam-like system for distributing open-source (and thus free) gaming stuff which you'll charge a small fee for... and presumably you will add value by polishing up the install system and providing the Steam-like interface, support, and possibly some front-end work to make those projects a little more user-friendly (since OSS stuff is notoriously user-hostile)??? Or will the OSS things distributed on WolrdKI simply be free, and you're planning on using your distribution of OSS games to entice retail-indie developers onto an existing, full catalogue?

Sounds nice. Good luck on it, although I'm generally pessimistic about these things.

[AF]

For every thing you have, ask yourself, is it really critical that it's said? If not, lose it! Glad you found what I said useful, best of luck!

[squamulus]

To clarify, the platform operates as a digital distribution system, similar to things like steam, but with a few important differences.

WorldKi sells both games and middleware. Developers can make tools and sell those to fellow developers, as well as license out parts of their games, like physics engines or specific character designs.

WorldKi is truly cross platform. You make one version of your game, tool, or what have you and it is available wherever WorldKi is.

Feel free to ask questions!
Thanks,
samuel

[AF]

So you would be selling any nominated spring games that manage to win?

[hoijui]

does that mean, you run buildbots for all the projects you host?

or say.. the way you said it, it sounds like i give you an exe, and it would be available under linux too then. of course it can not be like that so... ?

[zwzsg]

No, you'd recode Spring on WorldKi middleware!