The full results are available at:
http://www.nostarch.com/game_contest_results.htm
Here are the winners and honorable mentions:
First place, with 488 points… LBreakout 2, by Michael Speck!
This is easily the best Arkanoid-genre game we have ever seen. This game features excellent sound efffects, slick graphics, detailed brick animations, a variety of powerups, a smooth menu system, and an integrated level editor. Well polished and incredibly addictive.
Second place, with 457.5 points… Tower Toppler, by Andreas Roever!
A very unusual but highly enjoyable tower climing game. Graphics are old school with just the right amount of 3D.
Third place, with 438.5 points… Vectoroids, by Bill Kendrick!
Another incarnation of the classic Asteroids game, Vectoroids’ unique appearance and fast paced gameplay makes it stand out. Vectoroids was originally implemented as an Agenda VR3 palmtop game, but has since been transformed into a full color PC game.
Although we cannot award prizes to every deserving hacker who entered this contest, I would like to take a moment to point out a few other entries that caught our attention. Consider these Honorable Mentions.
Rock Dodgers (a close call, with 437.5 points) is a side scrolling game in which the player must navigate a ship through an asteroid field. Though simple, this game is a lot of fun, and we hope to see it developed further. (Please turn down the difficulty level a bit, while you’re at it!)
GLTron LE is a streamlined version of Andreas Umbach’s game GLTron. This version features an Ogg Vorbis soundtrack and a renderer tuned to work without a 3D accelerator. This game is a blast, especially with more than 2 players. GLTron LE received 416 points.
Yanoid, with 410 points, is an Arkanoid clone written in Python. We were especially impressed by its input handling (superior to LBreakout 2’s, in fact), creative selection of powerups, and general flashiness.
Wok is a bizarre but oddly attractive ball tossing game. It’s hard to describe; have a look for yourself. (Contest entries will be posted here in the next few days.) Wok received 409.5 points.
Penguin Command (409 points) is a Missile Command clone. Like GLTron, this game has been around for a while, but the implementation leaves little to be desired. Penguin Command is a worthy successor to the original Missile Command.
Dead Meat (408.5 points) is a 2-player Bomberman clone, with chickens instead of people. This game is extremely well polished, and its development team appears to be quite active. A single player (AI) mode would be a nice addition.
Catapults (399.5 points) is perhaps the most unusual interpretation of Connect Four that we have ever seen. Catapults on hilltops fire boulders at the game board. This game looks great, and has an enormous amount of potential. However, it appears to have some stability problems in its current version.
54321 (396.1 points) is a mind-twisting 4-dimensional puzzle game, with perhaps the most remarkable source tree I have ever seen. The author used the Noweb documentation system to generate detailed documentation for the entire source tree. I wish more programmers would do that. If you’re in to puzzle games, this game is dangerously addictive. This game directly supports Mac OS X as well as Linux.
E-Type (389 points) is a neat typing tutor program. Although typing tutor software is usually somewhat boring, E-Type is remarkably enjoyable. The open source/free game development community really needs more of these “useful” games; I could easily see E-Type replacing a commercial typing program in a school environment.
See ya!
-Sam Lantinga, Software Engineer, Blizzard Entertainment_______________________________________________
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