There is no question in my mind that more time should be invested playing the entries before judging. Especially if you are playing a bunch of games in a row. It may not be intentional, but I'm sure that an equal amount of gameplay isn't being dedicated towards each entry. It's true that some entries don't have a ton of gameplay, while others can have such a learning curve that you don't have time to progress before you need to move on to the next game. Maybe reducing the barriers to play the games might help. Having the games playable and judgeable in a browser would probably be useful. You wouldn't need to download a rom, unzip, read a text file, etc before playing. You could have it all onscreen at once.
I realize that we are still relatively small compared to a lot of software development competitions, but if this years showing has told me anything, it is that we are growing. It has already gotten to the point where doing things manually probably isn't the best option. It has probably also gotten to the point where we should start thinking about having an independent website devoted to the competition. There has been a lot of confusion about who hosts, who owns the competition, etc. The reality is that while the idea started on this forum, it has never been a competition just for NESDev. There are other sites besides NESDev and Nintendoage that have people who program for the NES, and I think a central gathering point for information would be useful. We would obviously have to do some cost analysis and see if the competition can self fund this, or if this is indeed the right direction to head. I have big plans, but sometimes I feel like I need to step back and remember that it isn't MY contest, that it was started by the community. I only make the decisions I am forced to by no one else giving other suggestions
Feedback is very important. This is the main reason we encourage people to make build threads or have a dedicated group of friends to do testing. I think with some tweaking to the control of your game it would help it out a lot. That being said, everyone who submitted their games, PLEASE keep working to improve them. The more polished you can make your games the better. We can't exactly put a game with a bunch of bugs on a production cartridge.cppchriscpp wrote:Thanks for the scores; that was exactly what I was looking for. It... well, it hurt, but it's what I wanted to see.
@Tepples Would I be right to assume you will be taking the reigns with your custom mapper again this year?
@Moderators Can we please get a 2017 subforum started for brainstorming?
), the difficulty issue was noted but we didn't think it was "unplayable". It is certainly unfair sometimes though. It's not a well designed game, the rushed development really shows. Thanks again for the feedback.
