Video Game Development at the University of Michigan

Wolverine Soft 48-Hour Game

Development Contest Extravaganza

Logo

The theme is... FREEDOM

You can include this theme in any manner, form, or sense of the word that you wish. Just make sure you are able to explain how your game relates to the theme.

Prizes

Wolverine Soft is very grateful to the following companies that have agreed to provide prizes for this contest:

Updates...

WHEN: 6:00pm April 2nd to 6:00pm April 4th
WHERE: PC Classrooms 1 & 2, and Advanced Graphics Classroom, 3rd Floor, Media Union, North Campus
WHO: Contest is open to all current University of Michigan students, and current Wolverine Soft members
WHY: Fame, Fortune, Fabulous Prizes!

Supplemental Activities (optional)

Registration, Suggestions and Questions

email: wsoft-contest AT umich DOT edu

Frequently Heard Concerns

"Do I have to be present the entire 48-hours?"
No. You only have to create your code and artwork on-site. Feel free to go home to sleep, shower, eat, etc.

"I'm an artist and/or musician, can I still enter?"
Yes! We are definitely looking for artists and muscians. The best thing about video games is how they are such a convergence of so many different aspects--art, science, technology, music, communications, creativity and entertainment--and we're really trying to promote that during the contest. Hence, we are going to have special awards for the games with the best visuals and best audio, in addition to considering those aspects as part of the overall game evaluation.

"But I don't have a team..."
No problem! Just let us know that you want to be paired up with someone when you (pre-)register.

"But I don't know how to program games..."
Don't worry! We can put you on a team of veterans, so that you can get some good experience and guidance. Think "Lead/Assistant Programmer" paradigm from The Mythical Man Month.

"What software do the Media Union machines have?"
PC Training Rooms
Advanced Graphics Classroom

Contest Rules

Rules are subject to change. (especially lists of allowed libraries and platforms.)
Contest Coordinators will have final say in all disputes.

Theme

A theme will be announced at the beginning of the contest. Contest participants must incorporate this theme into their games and will be scored on how well they accomplish this. Entries which do not incorporate the theme as a central part of development will be disqualified. Contest Coordinators will be available to consult on theme usage.

Participants

Contest is open to all current University of Michigan students, and current Wolverine Soft members, with the exception of the Contest Coordinators. You do not have to know how to program computers; we strongly urge artists and musicians to enter. Those who wish to participate are urged to pre-register.

Registration

All entrants must register with the Wolverine Soft Contest Coordinators before they can enter the contest. Registration is open from now until the end of the competition. You may register with a coordinator onsite during the contest, however participants are urged to pre-register. To pre-register, send an email to wsoft-contest AT umich DOT edu with the following information:

Please be as accurate as possible. Also, feel free to include any libraries or platforms that you would like to submit for approval (see lists below).

Teams

The size of teams may range from 1 to 3. Participants may form teams of two before entering the contest, but must leave at least one slot empty. Coordinators will help create teams for individuals who want to work in a team, but did not pre-register with a teammate.

Individual entrants inexperienced at game development may choose to be assigned to existing teams by the Contest Coordinators. The Contest Coordinators will decide if an individual is "inexperienced".

Onsite Development

All programming and art must be created onsite, during the 48-hour period. Music that is developed during the 48-hour period can be produced and recorded off-site. Participants may bring in laptops, desktops, consoles, or any other development environment that they wish. Participants may attend the pre-contest workshop on Thursday to familiarize themselves with the computers and software available. For more information, see the "Supplemental Events" section at the top of this page.

Participants must keep a development log as they work on their entry. This should include development milestones, TODO lists, major design decisions, etc. A simple text file is sufficient. We need to know what you were working on when, what you wanted to do but couldn't fit in, what went right and what went wrong. Keeping this log will also assist you in giving a post-mortem for your game project. For more information on post-mortems, see the "Supplemental Events" section at the top of this page.

A dev-log template file is available here (right click and "Save As...")

Platforms

Entrants may develop games for any platform they wish, provided that they can be played in the Media Union, use approved libraries, and that the platform is available to all participants for playing (judgment of) their final game. Wolverine Soft may be able to provide a television, for use with consoles. In the case of a MOD, a copy of the original game must be available to install. (MAKE SURE THE INSTALLER WORKS ON A CAEN MACHINE, OR MAKE PLANS WITH THE CONTEST COORDINATORS!)
If you are willing to provide a non-Win32 PC platform (e.g. dev-ready Xboxes, PS2's, GBA's w/flash cartridges, etc.), please let us know.

Available Platforms Onsite:
Win32
Mac
Linux
Solaris
HP-UX
Flash
PC Training Room Loadset
Advanced Graphics Classroom Loadset
... (more as wsoft members/contest entrants provide more platforms)

Outside Assets

All code and assets must be created within the 48 hours of the competition, with the following exceptions. Outside music and sound effects will be allowed. Copyrighted music may be used as long as the entrants ask for permission from the copyright holder. They do not have to receive a response within the 48-hour period, but they must receive permission before we can post the game on the WSoft website. (If they are unable to receive permission, they must remove or replace the copyrighted materials.) Sound libraries (outside sound effects) may be used, as long as they are publicly available, and listed below.

Publicly available code libraries will be allowed, provided they are approved by the contest coordinators and listed below. If you have some personal, general code that you would like to use (e.g. DX or input device initialization routines, collision or physics routines, etc.) package your code as a library, and post it on your AFS webspace or send a .zip file to the coordinators for approval.

Things that will help your library be accepted: clean code, informative comments, additional documentation, submitted before the contest begins, the more generally useful code, the better, and make sure it compiles without error! Remember, it has to be available to everyone else to use. We can host a few .zip's on this website, but we have limited space.
Submit http links and .zip files of libraries to be approved to wsoft-contest AT umich DOT edu

Libraries

Permitted libraries:
(suggest additional ones!)

General
DirectX/Direct3D
DX Framework (Engin Engine)
MFC (Microsoft Foundation Classes)
Quicktime
Cocoa
SDL
PyGame
ClanLib
CDX
Allegro
PLIB
KnepleyLib (DX8/mouse/keyboard inits, simple 3D collision, interface to BASS lib, max plugin for texturing, max script for outputing geometry)
DrattLib - Download the .tar for a MSVS solution with all the stuff you need to get started. (singleton class, dot & cross products, openGL code for sphere, box, and skyboxes, ODE code for ball, box, and camera)
libalexniws (framework illustrating basic calls to SDL/SDL_mixer/OpenGL, including initialization, basic 2d geometry with texturing, uncompressed TGA loader, SFont support)
BlickLib (starts a rendering loop in the MVC paradigm, like dxframework. Uses OpenGL and GLUT)

Graphics
OpenGL
OGRE (3D API)
Crystal Space (3D API)
Blender Game Engine (3D API)
PyOpenGL
PIL (Python Image Library)
GapiDraw
Lightweight Java Game Library (OpenGL/OpenAL wrapped)
DevIL
GLUT(OpenGL Utility Toolkit)
Open Scene Graph(Cross-platform graphics stuff)
OpenGL Performer(More cross-platfomr graphics stuff)
Demeter(3D terrain engine)
libpng(read/write PNGs)
libmng(read/write Multiple-image Network Graphics)

Audio
fmod (audio)
BASS (Audio API)
DUMB and DUMBOGG (audio)
<sound effect libraries?>
OpenAL
Core Audio (Mac Audio API)
libmikmod(.mod, .s3m, .it, and .xm library)

Miscellaneous
Boost (C++ Libraries)
TinyXML (XML Load/Save API)
INFORM (Text-adventure engine)
Adventure Game Studio (graphical adventure game engine ala King's Quest or Monkey Island)
ODE (physics lib for rigid body dynamics)

Console
HAM (GBA)

Mods of Commercial Games
Unreal Tournament
Neverwinter Nights

Submissions

Submissions must be downloadable .zip archives (wsoft is not responsible for hosting (yet!)- use your umich space)
Submissions must be under 50 MB. Final product - not including starting ingredients. (but try to keep them small, don't use uncompressed audio, use .png's instead of .bmp's, etc.)
Submissions must include a copy of or link to ALL "starting ingredients" including SDK's, libraries, etc. (a separate .zip file from submission, or hyperlinks)
Submissions must include an HTML or text info document containing:

Submission forms will be available at the event.

Judging

The final game submissions will be judged by a panel selected by the Wolverine Soft Contest Coordinators.
The following judges are confirmed:

Entries will be judged on the following criteria:

Prizes will be awarded to the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Overall Best Games, and special prizes will also be awarded in the Best Visuals and Best Audio categories.

Contest Coordinators

Alex Kerfoot
Jonathan Voigt
email: wsoft-contest AT umich DOT edu