Accepting nominations for Linden Lab's Arcadia Game Expo

I nominate Blood 21 created by Sephiroth Raven

Blood 21 rocks! I was pleased to be the first venue to offer it and it has been very widely received.

Will LL provide a hook into the money event from the voting machine. My point being how can a game know that a person has paid to play the game?

I think at the very least that we should be able to submit code to be run on the money event (of course reviewed by LL). That way we can pass the UUID of the agent and or amount paid to the UUID of the game. There must be some way to allow/prevent play of the game based on the voting prim buy in?

I also don't see how games with pots can be used such as tringo. Do you pay to play the game and THEN contribute to the pot. I don't see how pay for games that pay a percent out could be used either. For instance winner takes 90% of the pay in and 10% goes toward the vote.

I'd create a brand new game for this if I could see a way to hook into the voteing process.

I could even create a pot game that does a payback of 90% out of "My" pocket for which I know I'd be reimbursed at the end but that would be one hell of a float for that much time and would totally skew the amount voted as only 10% shout count toward the vote in those circumstances.

Since there will only be 4 or 8 participants? Maybe LL should work with those selected to customize the vote process such that if the game calls for a payback then reviewed code/hooks into the voting process could be realized to accomplish such things as % to payback and % counted toward vote as well as some type of communication between the voting prim and the game itself so it knows who did a buy in.

Honestly I don't know how any game can know who to allow play if there are no hooks into the voting prim.

I nominate Rifkin Habsburg's game called "Danger Zone".

It's a game where you can ether stay or run at the right time to get the most gems possable. Each roll will give you gems or a danger. If that danger comes up a second time, everyone left in the round dies.

I second this nomination!

This pool table is the most affordable and well built of the any I have seen in game.
It plays well and is glitch free, as well as allows you to set money per game. It also has an auto land flat feature the physics requires for real time effect.
I hereby nominate this.

Wow, some neat games mentioned here! I have one too but I'm going to save it for this years Game Dev competition!

I'll second the nomination for the following entries:

Les White's RC Indy Game
Eckhart Dillon's Tech Warfare
Ushuaia Tokugawa's Bling-Man

I think the way they are setting it up is to vote for a game, you have to pay. This is going to be an attempt at preventing people from just randomly voting and such? The games themselves I think will be allowed to be played regardless of voting or not. I mean, if you had to vote in order to play, it wouldn't really be a vote. If you charge for the game, then you make money off that and might not get many people voting for you as they'd have to pay extra to say they like your game. If you have to pay to play, it better be a good game if you want them to dish out extra $L to vote for you as well. The cost of voting I think is determined by the game creator as to what they feel is an acceptable amount due to if the game requires money to play and other such related matters.

So I don't think you'll be able to do your payout from pocket to get re-imbursed idea. Plan your payouts from the pot you have them donate towards or what you're willing to let fall out of your pocket in hopes of winning and keeping a quarter sim for free for a year.

But, I'm not a Linden so I can't say for sure. That's just my $L2 understanding on how it's going to work out.

As I read the rules, payment is for play, and not just voting. This would hopefully lead to a group-based decision on "most playable" game. If a bunch of people are paying to play a game over and over, that's a good indication it's a worthwhile game. It might be better than just one vote per person, because it measures enthusiasm.

And it opens up an interesting dilmena for the developers. Should you charge a low amount, to try and get as many people as possible to play? Or should you charge as much as the market can bear, and try to maximize your income?

But, as has been pointed out, there's some problems with this approach. Gambling games, with a payout, could easily game the system by paying people for play. Also, this setup is somewhat biased towards shorter games.

I would like to enter Danger Zone in the competition, but I think some clarification of the rules are needed.

Agreed ... the way I am reading it as well is it's a pay to play scenario. Otherwise why not just have a voting system that has nothing to do with paying?

Below is out of the first post on the fist page:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Hints and advice for developers

1 - Since winners will be selected according to the amount of L$ accumulated in their voting machine, developers should consider how to make their games maximally re-playable. Consider prizes, or a ranking system, a tournament, regular Events listings, or other elements that encourage replayability.
2 - How much you want to charge Residents to play your game is up to you.
The challenge is to make a game that's compelling enough, for example, to pay a small amount over and over again (the arcade model) or deep and involved enough to pay a lot up front.
3 - If you're a developer with an already existing game you'd like to submit, consider how it can be refurbished to succeed in Arcadia.
4 - Keep It Simple, SLer! Design a game that's easy to learn and enjoy within minutes, and does not require complicated instructions or commands to play.
5 - With such a short timespan, marketing and promotion and fostering a community of players is just as important as gameplay quality.
---------------------------------------------------------------------

So it seems the games are to be pay to play and the "voting" box is where you pay.

My original question (along with many others) is how does your game know someone paid to play it???

I'd like to nominate

Combat Cards by Doc Boffin
AND
Castle Wars by RacerX Gullwing
AND
DarkLife by Mark Busch

I played soo much SicBo in college. I used to head down to the Casino with $100 in my pocket, and when it got to $5 I would head to the SicBo table and slowly work my earning back up to the point where I could play BlackJack again I'd second this nomination just so I could see it.

Is this competition this year's Game Dev contest, or is it a separate thing? Soulds like a replacement to me.

Placing in each year's Game Dev contest -- with Arito Cotton's outstanding artistic abilities both years, Michi Lumen's sounds in year one, and Lucah Solvang's amazing card art last year -- I do want to jump in the ring yet again.

I always want to do something new, and this time I have three game ideas I could run with, but have yet to decide which to use.

One is a multi-player space trading and combat game not too unlike TradeWars2002, the old BBS door game, but gone 3D. Another is a race game reminicent of the time honored Mile Bornes card game. And the last is a collectable creature battle game similar to so many collectable creature battle games, but hopefully a whole lot more fun AND in 3D.

For now, I'd call them: "Galactic Sludge Merchants", "RC Wacky Rally", and "Amalgamates" as working titles.



But I haven't decided which would be the most fun.

I see no indication that this is a replacement for the Game Dev contest.

It looks more like Philip needed some game related content (because SL itself is not a game ) for use during his presentation at the Game Developer Convention in San Jose in late March and the folks at LL cooked this up in a relatively last-minute manner to aid him in that persuit.

Hamlet's post in New World Notes does imply that this is the '06 Game Dev contest.

"Temporarily scrunching my game designer hat on top of my embedded journalist beanie, I recently helped Linden Lab architect this year's game developer contest, The Arcadia Game Expo. It's a lot more streamlined and grass roots than the last two contests (2005's competition featured here, 2004's, here), with no veteran game developers like Harvey Smith or Doug Church to judge it. (As cool as it was to have two guys I admire hugely come in to do that.) Instead, the idea this year was to create a format where the competitors develop their games with Residents first and foremost in mind-- games that are so addictive, fun, and easy to learn, they'd pay L$ on the barrel to play them. Which is why this year's contest boils down to ruthless efficiency of the market: the developers who make the most Linden Dollars, win."

Interesting! Thank you Satchmo.

I hate to be negative but if this is indeed a replacement for the Game Dev competition then I have to agree with the concerns posted earlier in this thread regarding the potential for gaming the scoring system.

I second the nomination for the Collective

What rocket scientist dreamed up this way of 'voting'?

I nominate my new game. It's called: Look How Much Money My Friends are Happy to Pour into My Voting Machine so I'll Win This Competition

I imagine that the Lindens can, if necessary, compare the game operator's transaction history to the usage of the voting systems to detect "Here's L$10,000,000... Go put it in my voting box."

If you want to nominate one of my game ideas, just vote here for "Tiger & Arito's New Game" and say which one you think you'd like best.

I would also like to nominate SLictionary. Fun game, automated. Good Stuff.

Ooo I would like to nominate a game. The name of the game is Slictionary and Salem Penguin is the creator.

I'll put one in for Doc Boffin's Combat Cards

I support the nomination for the Collective.


Harvest

I would like to nominate Doc Boffin's " Combat Cards " game.
I had a chance to try this game out recently.
If you like Player vs Player combat strategy, then this is a well developed game.


A.N.

Ug-hey, ,me, i vote for Doc Boffin's Combat Cards
Gug'ye,
Weave Farina, orc

> the potential for gaming the scoring system

The question is, what would be gained by attempting to game the system? There's no L$ or US$ payout from Linden Lab at stake. The only prize to be won is the L$ earned by other Residents during the Expo, promotion of the game during the Expo, and for the top games, 1/4 of a sim for a year for free-- with the stipulation that they must keep the game running on that land throughout the year. There's little incentive to game the system, except perhaps for developers who are genuinely serious about creating a popular and successful game in SL.