Castle Paradox

[Fenrir-Lunaris]

Opening

The time has come again for the Official Terrible Games contest. This year, there are a few additions and alterations to the rules, which should streamline the process of entry and also voting. I'm looking forwards to the entries this year, and have additional prize money to hand out as an incentive.

Entry Divisions

There will be three divisions this time around, consisting of "Original Games", "Remakes", and "Expansions". I shall explain the details of these 3 now.

*Original Games*
An original game is just that, an original entry into this contest that has never been released before. So long as the game is new, it may be released under this division.

*Remakes*
A remake is defined as taking an existing game and either altering it extensively to make it a practically new game or literally remaking a game to either improve or spoof it. An example of this would have been to completely redo Walthros as Walthrus. Another example would be to take FFH and change all the NPC sprites into pixelated copies of DER SLIME, and replace much of the text with ~LELELELE. A third example would be to entirely revamp any of the "Mr.Triangle's Shitty Adventure" games. A final Example would have been what happened with the Original Final Fantasy and its numerous OHR remakes. Pac-Man OHR counts, as does an OHR Gradius ripoff. The point of this division is essentially to take a "Magnus" and turn it into a "Crescent Dream", or perhaps the complete opposite. If you choose to remake a game that is not your own, you MUST get its original author's permission to do so. For clarification, a game submitted in this division may not have been submitted previously in another Terrible Games Contest.

*Expansion*
An expansion is defined as a previously existing game having an update to it - so this is the "Previous Entry" division in simpler terms. As last year, if you decide to enter a game that you submitted in a previous Terrible Games Contest, then there are a few rules it must abide by. Specifically, it must contain an amount of new content equal to the original release's. For purposes of defining new content, this will be taken to mean a filesize equal to at LEAST 200% of what the original release had. If the original release was 1 MB, then your entry must be AT LEAST 2 MB. If your entry has been in two terrible games contests before, this rule still applies. Ie: 1mb -> 2mb -> 3mb or 60 kb ->120 kb, and so on.
IF, however, your entry is considerably longer in playtime, yet does not have a significantly larger filesize, then its eligability need not be invalidated. Remember that I am defining the expansion requirement as an inflation of FILESIZE, and not actual content or gametime. Use this to your advantage.

Contest Rules

In addition to the above rules regarding each division, there are OTHER rules that MUST be followed:

*1* You may only submit ONE game per division, for a maximum possible number of entries of 3. This is intentionally designed to limit and control a flood of intentionally bad games hitting the Castle Paradox Gamelist, especially by our newer members who may actually excel at this contest. If you intentionally enter more than one game in a single division, ALL YOUR ENTRIES WILL BE INVALIDATED. Therefore it is in your interest to also state what division your entry will be going into.

*2* The actual opening date for the contest shall be April 1st, and will last an entire month until April 30th. If you begin work on your game within this timeframe and submit it before the deadline, you will not be penalized (obviously). However, there is a catch, and that is why I am announcing the opening of this contest NOW, instead of in late March. You may begin your game before the contest begins provided you note 2 things:

*2A* If you begin your game before April 1st, then you must notify us with a disclaimer in your game, along with the month you began actual work on it. You may also post when you begin on your project in this thread, if you wish to be on the safe side of things. It makes no difference whether you begin on the first day of a month, or the last, or in the middle, it will still be counted as a month's head start.

*2B* For every month before the contest begins that you are working on your game, a deduction of one point will be taken from your game as a penalty. The above rules all apply in determining what a 'month' is. For the purposes of this contest, the month of April will not be counted against you.

*2C* If you've been working on your entry before this point, you won't be penalized, since that would be akin to punishing someone for breaking the law before a law had been made. I will however begin deducting points starting now.

*3* You are only allowed to release your completed abomination to the public on April 30th. This is primarily to allow everyone an equal shot at the prizes, and also to not intimidate potential contestants into dropping out. You may however post spoilers, and screenshots, etc., so long as you do not leak your game early. If you pass it to a few friends/rivals/whatever ahead of time, then I'll be officially taking a "Don't ask, don't tell" policy, but your game must be released on the 30th of April. IF you release your entry ahead of time, then for every month ahead of the due date, it will be penalized one point.

*4* You're not restricted to using the OHRRPGCE to create these games. If you'd prefer to create it through some other method, that's fine with me.

What is a "Terrible Game"?

I will not be judging what constitutes a "terrible game". For example I like Final Fantasy 8, which other people abhor like a Wisdom Tree game. Therefore, I am continuing last year's practice of allowing the community members to vote for which games were the "best/worst/whatever" in each division. Beauty, or in this case Ugliness, is entirely in the eye of the beholder.

It should also be noted that though the contest name is officially the "Terrible Games Contest v1.PWNED", this should in no way be construed that the contest has a particular theme, though if you wish to construct your game around one it might work to your advantage. It is your obligation to construct your game according to your own notions on what makes a game good or bad.

A final point concerning the entries. All the previous winners of the contest actually put effort into their games - they were fun to play (more or less). This is your opportunity to make the game that you'd have to be criminally insane to produce otherwise, or for which no other contest exists to release one.

Voting and Scoring

Voting this time is a simple, straightforward ordeal. You will be voting in three categories, depending on which division a game is placed in, and listed as 1st 2nd or 3rd place in that division. Your voting sheet will be set up like so:

New Game
-1st
-2nd
-3rd
Remake
-1st
-2nd
-3rd
Expansion
-1st
-2nd
-3rd

1st place is worth 3 points, 2nd - 2, and 3rd is 1 point. You may only vote ONCE, and I will not be accepting PMs or Emails about your votes. Yes, you can vote for your own game. I will officially be taking your votes on a thread to be created at some point in the future in Castle Paradox, and in CP-Games since some of the entrants may be exclusive to one or the other. Voting shall begin May 1st and will end on the 7th, to allow people enough time to play the games and vote on them.

After the votes have been tallied and the points added up, any deductions incurred on your behalf will be subtracted form your score. At this point, a maximum number of deducted points can be four, so if you feel you can beat out your competition by a wide enough margin then more power to you.

Prizes

The 1st Place Winners in the NEwgame, Remake, and Expansion divisions will recieve $25 USD sent by mail to your home adress. I will be coordinating with you personally regarding this. If there is no entrant in a specific division, then I keep the prize money. If you are the only entrant in your division by the time the contest is over, then you get the prize just the same as if you had won. I fully expect the bulk of the entries to be in the New Game, followed by the Expansion catagories.

I will no longer be sending things directly from the CP store due to mailing issues, however there MIGHT be something worth looking into there by the time this contest finishes.

Good luck, and godspeed.

[Moogle1]

If it weren't for the release date rule, I would win Gilbert's, Rinku's and your contest with a single game.
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Slime Salad :: Independent Game Design

[Shadowiii]

What's your position on just using old graphics? I have an idea for a remake, but I'd probably end up just using lots of older graphics I've made before (mostly hero sprites).
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But enough talk, have at you!

[Machu]

Oh good, it's in April. That'll give me plenty of time to find extremely violent images. So far, the only material I have is from Snatchers and Melty Blood React.

[RedMaverickZero]

This is gonna get in the way of Fool's Day... But is it possible to submit an expansion to a horrible game I made, dispite the fact that it wasn't in the contests? It got two F-'s. If that doesn't work, I can always remake it.
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---------------Projects----
Mr.Triangle's Maze: 70%
Takoyaki Surprise: 70%

[Sephyroth]

I couldn't get permission to do a remake of FF6. The Squaresoft executive replied to my request with a lengthy retort involving such Fyrewulff-ian phrases such as "copyright laws", "character rights", and "rape you over in court".

Not that this is going to throw a wrench in my contest entry at all, but I'm going to have to flee the country shortly after. Just thought you might want to know.
_________________
im realy ded

[Fenrir-Lunaris]

Shadow: Yes. Assuming that if the graphics are taken from another game that you have their permission to do so. Of course if its your own game, you've obviously got their permission.

RMZ: If it was never submitted, it would technically be a new entry, right?

[Orion]

Count me in! I've allready got a good idea for a game.

(Inner Orion: "They're all doomed! Mwa-ha-ha!")
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Yo.

[Tsunamidog]

I already have mine fugured out. And I have it's title! "Holy Crap On A Stick! A Bad Game!" Sounds original, huh.
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The Following Statement is True.

The Above Statement Is False

[Redmage18***]

Can I use a game I already made but never placed in the worst game contest?

[Fenrir-Lunaris]

[RedMaverickZero]

You mentioned remakes... And with examples, which of course is helpful, it also may confuse other people. For instance, I am confused. You tell people they can remake other games. However, won't they need to be getting permission? Like no offense to anyone, but I am the only one who would be remaking Mr.Triangle's Shitty Adventure. But all the same, it is courteous to ask for permission before using their ideas.
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---------------Projects----
Mr.Triangle's Maze: 70%
Takoyaki Surprise: 70%

[Setu_Firestorm]

Hrm....I would love to make a game, but I know I wouldn't have the time to.
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Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/georgerpowell
Newgrounds: http://setu-firestorm.newgrounds.com

[Fenrir-Lunaris]

RMZ: If you choose to remake a game that is not your own, you MUST get its original author's permission to do so. (In the odd event that I wanted to do this with STOP, I'd kindly ask Shadowiii for his blessings. This is similar to how I used the ARFENHOUSE!!!1 cast in a few games - I asked Misteroo. Most people will let you use their stuff if asked nicely.)

Setu: Too bad, though you do have 5 months or so.

[venxz]

terrible games contest shadowii will win that.
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and for frames like this ya must use the saw tooth picture hanger.