Results!!!

[appel]

http://java4k.com/


Congratulations to all the authors, and especially the winner(s)!

[SimonH]

Thanks Guys! (I'd like to donate my prize to charity!)
Fair result I reckon - Spiderball was clearly the best in show; great simple idea, very well implemented.
I would have liked a community vote though (despite all the past problems) because I think it would have raised the interest level and we'd have got more feedback from casual JGOers if they thought they could take part in the voting...
Whatever! If I could have voted I'd have voted for Spiderball too - big cheer for Måns! Yaaaaay!

[appel]

Thanks Guys! (I'd like to donate my prize to charity!)
Fair result I reckon - Spiderball was clearly the best in show; great simple idea, very well implemented.
I would have liked a community vote though (despite all the past problems) because I think it would have raised the interest level and we'd have got more feedback from casual JGOers if they thought they could take part in the voting...
Whatever! If I could have voted I'd have voted for Spiderball too - big cheer for Måns! Yaaaaay!

Yes, I think the reviews/grades were reasonably fair, although personally I would have liked to see "t4kns" maybe a bit higher up in the "Technical Score". Hopefully the review text from the judges provides some insight to those scores. Other than that it is hard to find a game with a undeserving score.

The original plan was to include community voting, but for many reason (mainly lack of activity/interest and practical reasons) we decided to skip it.

Games published by our own members! Check 'em out!

[CaptainJester]

Thanks to all the judges for their comments and their judging.  I can't say that I disagree with my own scores.

Great job.

[Morre]

Thanks! Congratulations to Markus and Simon as well!
Good games everyone, lots of fun to play them!

Also, a great thanks to the judges - I can tell you've put a lot of effort into this, very nicely commented judging. Good work!

[g666]

thanks to appel and the other judges.   

You lose points for not making your JNLP 1.5+ and making me have to install 1.5 in addition to 1.6.

i have to mention this is because the sound doesnt work in 1.5 - i did ask if the judges would be using 1.5 to test - http://www.java-gaming.org/forums/index.php?topic=17958.msg141481#msg141481 

the judges did do a good job (despite some of them not seeming to understand my game ) i would also like a community vote next year, to get more interest in the contest - maybe allow anyone to vote so long as they write a short comment to accompany it.

[sunsett]

Perhaps we could go a half-and-half route?  Community voting is half the score and judge voting is the other half.  That keeps things a little more fair in case someone has a crappy game but goes and gets all their friends to come in and vote for their game anyway.

[CaptainJester]

I completely disagree with community voting.  The best 2 games I have made in all the 4Ks so far were in last year's competition, but they weren't even looked at because most people looked at half or less of the games.  And with the list in alphabetical order mine were in the second half.  I am sure there are a lot of other people whose games were not looked at either.

The only way to make community voting fair is not to count anybody's scores unless they provide a score for each game.

[SimonH]

Oops  - can of worms reopened!
I say keep things just as they are (judges only) but also have a 4th 'community award' winner based solely on public votes (and this is from someone whose games began with 'S' & 'Z' CaptainJester!  ).
If some idiot wants to put in a rubbish game and get all his pals to vote for him, so much the better - no publicity is bad publicity!

Dangnabbit! It's only a bit of fun after all!

[DzzD]

too bad... cant believe that "FkConflict" is only 8th.. I loved this game  

there are my personal winner  
FkConflict
MiniGolf
Spiderball4k
Thief4k
Z4rch
t4kns
Pinball 4K

Games published by our own members! Check 'em out!

[g666]

Perhaps we could go a half-and-half route?  Community voting is half the score and judge voting is the other half.  That keeps things a little more fair in case someone has a crappy game but goes and gets all their friends to come in and vote for their game anyway.

i agree good idea

I completely disagree with community voting.  The best 2 games I have made in all the 4Ks so far were in last year's competition, but they weren't even looked at because most people looked at half or less of the games.  And with the list in alphabetical order mine were in the second half.  I am sure there are a lot of other people whose games were not looked at either.

The only way to make community voting fair is not to count anybody's scores unless they provide a score for each game.

i agree that is a problem, there is no reason it cant be done more fairly though - ordering randomly for example, and not showing the currently number of plays or votes for any game until the end of the contest. There could also be a buffer time between the submission deadline and the results to allow for community votes to be a bit fairer.

[nullterm]

too bad... cant believe that "FkConflict" is only 8th.. I loved this game 

there are my personal winner 
FkConflict
MiniGolf
Spiderball4k
Thief4k
Z4rch
t4kns
Pinball 4K

Thanks man.    I think it just shows that there were some great contenders this year.  I think I placed respectably in a very competitive pack. 

But I'm really enjoying the fact that people (myself included it) enjoy playing it.  I loved hearing stories from people that they wasted hours playing it heheh.  On slow days at work, I'll play it 2 or 3 times.  Based on that, I'm more proud of it than my Metro4k entry from last year.  If I can give someone a few hours of fun, then I know I did my job. 

[Markus_Persson]

Neat, third place! =D
I'm very happy with that, considering I kinda bit off more than I could chew.


Oh, and grats to the other winners. I would've liked to see FkConflict slightly higher up as well, as that one really felt like a real "game", whatever that is. It was actually FUN. =)

[ulfjack]

Some comments are odd. For example, 'no audio' is sometimes a technical lack, then a presentational, then it's in the overall column.

And I think it's unfair that one game wasn't properly judged (Scala Pong 4k). I know it violated rule gamma of the rule handbook, but since you can't verify whether a game is written in Java or any other language that targets the JVM, maybe that rule should be changed. For example, how can anyone say that spiderball4k was written in Java and not in Scala?

I'm rather satisfied that Thief4k got a good overall score despite lower technical and presentational scores. People liked it, but it didn't appear overly technical or presentational. I think that's a good sign.

[sunsett]

Some comments are odd. For example, 'no audio' is sometimes a technical lack, then a presentational, then it's in the overall column.

And I think it's unfair that one game wasn't properly judged (Scala Pong 4k). I know it violated rule gamma of the rule handbook, but since you can't verify whether a game is written in Java or any other language that targets the JVM, maybe that rule should be changed. For example, how can anyone say that spiderball4k was written in Java and not in Scala?

I'm rather satisfied that Thief4k got a good overall score despite lower technical and presentational scores. People liked it, but it didn't appear overly technical or presentational. I think that's a good sign.

So, because a rule is potentially easy to break without being found out it should be changed?  The rule is there because it's a Java4k contest.

[Abuse]

So, because a rule is potentially easy to break without being found out it should be changed?  The rule is there because it's a Java4k contest.

I don't think it's relevant what language you write the app. in, so long as it is compiled down to legal Java bytecode for the submitted binary.

The 'must be java' rule was originally intended to prevent people submitting a Java app. that simply acted as a stub-launcher for native code.

[kevglass]

Java4K - is it about the platform Java, or the language Java?

In this case it doesn't really matter much, since above and beyond the fact the game was written in Scala, it wasn't really a game - it was sort of a half attempt at Pong to prove that it was possible to write 4K games in Scala. The description says as much:

"The key point here was that it was done in Scala rather than Java, just to see if it could be done."

For my money that makes it a tech demo, not a game.

Kev

[ulfjack]

Well, the rule isn't clear. Are games not written in Java disallowed? In that case, Scala Pong should have been disqualified. Or is it just about the platform? In that case, Scala Pong should have gotten a fair judging, even if it's not much of a game. The problem I see is that the judging is not uniform (apparently the judges couldn't agree either). And I think that's unfair.

I'm in favor of allowing games written in other languages, because I think it would be cool and since a rule regarding the implementation language cannot be enforced anyway. I would propose a rule change that submitted games must only contain executable bytecode, no native code, and omit the language.

Alternatively, I would clarify that rule to say that games written in a language other than java are not allowed, and (retroactively) disqualify Scala Pong from the 2008 competition.

[kappa]

Rule 3 for the Java4k Competition is pretty clear

3. Must be pure Java (no JNI)

[Abuse]

Rule 3 for the Java4k Competition is pretty clear

3. Must be pure Java (no JNI)

I think that's the point - it isn't pretty clear, the term "Java" is ambiguous.
It could be referring to the Java language, or the Java Virtual Machine specification.
 
Given that Rule 3 specifically mentions "no JNI", I would interpret "pure Java" to be referring to the JVM spec, NOT the JLS.

[sunsett]

How about a ruling here Appel?

[appel]

How about a ruling here Appel?

Oh, I was enjoying just standing on the sidelines

I would ask the judges to review Scala Pong again if I believe it would have any affect on the results. Perhaps since it got through the *filters* we should have given it a more fair review.

In the footnote of the rules there is "The administration reserves the right to reject games that do not follow the spirit of the 4K competition, e.g. try to cheat or bypass competition rules.". The "spirit of the 4K competition" is a the question here IMO.

The reason we're all here, writing these games, is because of Java. The competition is about writing these games in Java. It wouldn't be fun if most of the games were written in other languages, then what's the point having "java" in the name of the competition?

But, the fact is I let Scala Pong slip through, wasn't really thinking much about this issue... after the game ran in JavaVM, I probably should have disqualified it and we wouldn't have this discussion. But this is still a interesting debate, I really didn't anticipate 4K games written in another language that runs in JavaVM.

But this competition isn't mine, it's yours (the community). Personally I think we should only allow Java-written games in future competitions.

[Abuse]

But this competition isn't mine, it's yours (the community). Personally I think we should only allow Java-written games in future competitions.

You've got to be very careful with such a restriction - it would preclude the usage of jasmin, or other java bytecode assembler languages. (something that could be considered the holy grail of 4k java programming)

As you don't need to submit the source-code, it seems to me to be a pointless and ultimately unenforceable restriction.

Also, as there is no restriction on what bytecode manipulations are performed post-compilation, you could easily circumvent such a rule by submitting the source to an empty class ("class A{}") and declare that the game functionality in its entirety is injected in a post-compilation step.

[ChrisM]

Some comments are odd. For example, 'no audio' is sometimes a technical lack, then a presentational, then it's in the overall column.

Because the lack of audio in a game means different things to different games.  A game like the "Simon" clone requires audio to be complete whereas a pinball game is less so.

And I think it's unfair that one game wasn't properly judged (Scala Pong 4k). I know it violated rule gamma of the rule handbook, but since you can't verify whether a game is written in Java or any other language that targets the JVM, maybe that rule should be changed. For example, how can anyone say that spiderball4k was written in Java and not in Scala?

Sorry.  Not only could I get it to run on my Mac, but the developer said they went out of their way to do this in Scala and submit it to the Java 4K comp just to see if he could do it.  Out on principal.

I'm rather satisfied that Thief4k got a good overall score despite lower technical and presentational scores. People liked it, but it didn't appear overly technical or presentational. I think that's a good sign.

The mark of a solid game.  You have the foundation for a great mini-game, now polish it up some.  16K comp perhaps?

[appel]

You've got to be very careful with such a restriction - it would preclude the usage of jasmin, or other java bytecode assembler languages. (something that could be considered the holy grail of 4k java programming)

As you don't need to submit the source-code, it seems to me to be a pointless and ultimately unenforceable restriction.

That is true. I talked shortly with jojoh about this, that was after I posted my earlier reply, and realized this problem then. It may be impossible to enforce it anyway. Perhaps this isn't really a problem? As long as it is a java bytecode and runs on consumer JRE's then I guess it should be fine. If people want to spend their jolly good time on hacking through bytecode then fine by me

[sunsett]

Or if you make a requirement that it be 1.5 compliant code then it's a non-issue as well.

[Eli Delventhal]

Wait... why is the 2008 contest done already? I was going to enter. 

[moogie]

the competitions usually start around December and finish the end of February... thus '08 competition was from dec '07 to feb '08.