The Featured Games Section

[Eli Delventhal]

The Featured Games section includes showcase-able work, as decided by the moderators. Please do not post here (I can't lock it globally).

Your moderators are:
Chrism
Markus_Persson
Demonpants
kapta
princec

We will use the following criteria to determine which games belong in Featured Games
Installation: +1 point if the game installs and uninstalls correctly
Stability: +1 point if the game doesn't crash ever
Presentation: +1 point if the game is slickly presented
Graphics: +1 point if the game has "good" graphics that suit the game
Sound: +1 point if the game has "good" sound that suit the game
Style: +1 point if the game's overall style is "good"
Innovation: +1 point if the game is original or brings a great new original twist
Fun Factor: +1 point if your judge enjoyed playing the game
Completeness: +1 point if the game is complete enough that doesn't feel anything is missing
Freebie: +1 point if you don't whine and you demand nothing of the mods (simply saying "can you rate my game please" is fine)

If you score a 7/10 or higher, then your game can be moved to Featured Games. However, the content must be useable legally and morally (no copyrighted materials, extreme hate is unacceptable, etc.). Also, if a moderator has a good reason not listed to either move your game to Showcase or not move it, then that's just the way it is. Either way, when your game is rated you will have a new post in the topic which contains your scoring decision.

Please note that the scoring criteria can (and probably will) change at any time as we figure out what works best.

Also, most importantly, when a moderator makes a decision, that decision is made. There is a chance that another moderator might contest it, but that will all be done privately. You personally cannot change a moderator's mind and should not attempt to do so.  If you do, you're likely to lose the "whining" point mentioned above (if you haven't already), or if you complain enough we may just ignore your game forever onward.

Please remember that your moderators are trying to be as objective and fair as possible.

[CyanPrime]

I don't think it's right to force someone to use an installer for an extra point. .zip files are better than webstart as explained by me here: http://www.java-gaming.org/topics/moderation-or-no-moderation/20874/msg/170034/view.html#msg170034

[Eli Delventhal]

I don't think it's right to force someone to use an installer for an extra point. .zip files are better than webstart as explained by me here: http://www.java-gaming.org/topics/moderation-or-no-moderation/20874/msg/170034/view.html#msg170034

Yeah, I don't mean to impose that restriction. "Installs" can mean "applet starts" or "webstart works normally" or "jar executes easily" or anything like that. "Uninstalls" means essentially that it is not at all difficult to remove all game-related resources from your machine - no hidden directories or anything, and if there are you include an uninstall option. Basically the game needs to start and run clear and easy, and erase without a trace without having to do a bunch of grep searches.

Games published by our own members! Go get 'em!

[princec]

Personally I don't mind if it leaves a bit of junk lying around, so long as the bulk of it is gone and the rest is in an easily zappable directory, and my start menu is cleaned up.

But for me - if you supply a .zip or a .jar or .bat or .sh - I won't be giving it a point and in all probability won't even bother trying it. I'm a lazy sod with a lot of stuff to do. Make my life easier. I represent a pretty typical consumer. I want a game to be a proper first class citizen on my platform of choice and that means it gets a start menu icon, puts an entry in the Applications list for Windows, and installs itself in Program Files. For Mac OS X, a .app file is what I want to see, and it has to work on my G5. And I don't care about Linux because rarely anything works properly on Linux, but webstart is cool, provided you sign your app with at the least a Thawte freemail certificate, which being free, shouldn't be too onerous.

<edit>8/10 is a bit of a steep score... maybe 6/10 or 7/10 or the showcase is going to be lamentably empty.

Cas

[Eli Delventhal]

I was looking at the +1's to decide why the 8/10.

given --> +1 point if the game installs and uninstalls correctly
given --> +1 point if the game doesn't crash ever
easy --> +1 point if the game is slickly presented
easy --> +1 point if the game has "good" graphics that suit the game
easy --> +1 point if the game has "good" sound that suit the game
earned --> +1 point if the game's overall style is "good"
earned --> +1 point if the game is original or brings a great new original twist
earned --> +1 point if your judge enjoyed playing the game
easy --> +1 point if the game is complete enough that doesn't feel anything is missing
given --> +1 point if you don't whine and you demand nothing of the mods (simply saying "can you rate my game please" is fine)

In my opinion, only 3 of those +1's are really earned and hard at all to get, so you could get a 7/10 score for something that's just decent and passable. I was thinking an 8/10 so that you need to get at least one of those earned points, distinguishing your game from the scrap.

That being said, 7/10 might make a lot more sense anyway if we're just looking for solid entries. Think so?

[princec]

Good graphics and sounds are hard to come by.

Cas

[gouessej]

It is not fair. People using JOGL are penalized because Sun's servers are sometimes a bit slow (this really slows down the installation of my game) and Webstart is sometimes buggy, it does not mean that the game is buggy.

Also, most importantly, when a moderator makes a decision, that decision is made. There is a chance that another moderator might contest it, but that will all be done privately. You personally cannot change a moderator's mind and should not attempt to do so.  If you do, you're likely to lose the "whining" point mentioned above (if you haven't already), or if you complain enough we may just ignore your game forever onward.

It is not democratic, I'm really sad.

[kappa]

It is not democratic, I'm really sad.

gouessej, i'm sorry your unhappy, but the majority voted for the current change, so it is a democratic decision.

[gouessej]

gouessej, i'm sorry your unhappy, but the majority voted for the current change, so it is a democratic decision.

I don't think so. These are the summer holidays for a lot of people, this is not the best moment to vote, no election is currently organized in my country for this reason.

[ChrisM]

I don't think so. These are the summer holidays for a lot of people, this is not the best moment to vote, no election is currently organized in my country for this reason.

  **SIGH**

And Demonpants, you should be able to globally lock now.

Games published by our own members! Go get 'em!

[Eli Delventhal]

Good graphics and sounds are hard to come by.

Cas

Point made, I changed it to 7/10. I think you're right that even 7/10 might be difficult to achieve.