Sorry your browser is not supported!

With the advent of the latest Acoders Indie Game Making competition, I have some advice that I would like to share with you that I have learned from the last competition.

Put your focus on what the judges really want to see.
Many contests can claim that the games will not be judged on graphics alone, but experience tells us the opposite. I showed the Room War game to a friend, and before he even began to play, he was drooling. Get the players hooked on the graphics. Include special effects! You might even have to spend some money and buy some already done 3D models if you have to.

Focus more on the first parts of the game instead of on the last parts of the game.
I put tons and tons of hours on my last competition entry on scenes that would take the player 30-45 minutes to get to. For a contest, maybe we should scale our games down a little. With lots of games to play, many judges aren’t going to play our games for 30-45 minutes.

I remember the Vergaz game from the last competition. This game had multiple levels, each uniquely designed with different layouts and monsters. You can tell from the review that the judges gave to the game that they never even passed level 1, which was the plainest level. The action and adventure really started on levels 2 and on, but the judges never even made it that far. They didn’t spend enough time on the game to figure out how to beat level 1. I admit, I didn’t figure out either on my first play. It took me about 3 tries to figure it out. The judges won’t play your game 3 times to try to figure anything out – they must move on.

Menu
Some people will advise you to do the menu system last. I advise you to put a lot of time into the menu system. The winners all had very good menu systems! Some people save the special effects for the game, but judges are impressed when they see special effects implemented on the menu system!

Be prepared for some all-nighters
I have played several of the Alienware games, and I have noticed the last compile time on the final EXE was from 4 AM. Mine included! We all work until the very end!

Get a Webpage
I run my own website, and I put my game online. Yahoo and Google are both hooked up to my website, so I put in the right text words on my webpage, so that when people did a web search for “darkbasic alienware compo�, my page comes in the top few hits. This can help direct people right to your game.

Put some money down and get a real website. I would avise against a "FREE" website of any kind.

Very Stupid Trick to get more hits
When people list the games alphabetically, sometimes people just click on the first game on the list. Games that are alphabetically on the top of the list may get more hits, simply because they sort to the top of the list.
Abducted – 1503
Alien Gunslinger – 1387
Alien Invaders – 721

Use music!
A game without sound simply will not win.

Put screenshots and demos on this forum!
I didn’t post any info about my game last time until the end because I thought people were going to steal my game idea. I didn’t see anybody steal any other game ideas, so I will post very early on. The people on this forum are eager to test out games for others! They love demos – give them what they want.

Remember – it’s a contest. There will only be one winner.

LOL!

My game was 'Abducted' and I am stunned that 337 people have downloaded it off this site and few more from my website.

It was completely accidental that it was first alphabetically in the list.

I agree with all your points about getting the judges on your side. Specially the bit about making the menu as good as possible and squeeze as much jazzy stuff as you can within first 30 seconds of playing main game.

i agree with the first 30 seconds thing and to build on that...the things that they first see are the intro(if you have one) and the menu(if you have one ) so make sure those are very nice

Some good advice, don't know about the relevance of a website and getting hits though. I'd rather aim to win, if you're a winner then you're going to get more downloads then being first in the list anyway.

Yup, some great advice. Now I just need to figure out what kind of game I'm going to make.

Here's another one:

Make the name of your video game Unique
Many people may take your game and put it on their website without asking. That may not be that bad, since you may not be selling it anyway.

It is very easy to find your game online if it has a unique name. My last competition entry was called "Invaders From Earth". While it worked for a title of my game, it was also the name of a book from the 60's, and it is probably also a term that may be used from time to time. I cannot find it on the internet as easily as I can find my last game title which has a unique title, "Town Hall Toaster".