Mini-competitions have been removed due to lack of interest so developers can feel free to concentrate solely on the primary and secondary competitions.

Feel free to post your works in progress over at: Reclamation WIP

Looks like some good stuff, keep it up! :)

edit: Thanks for the sticky <img src="smileys/smiley4.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

This is fantastic stuff

The 'official' thread for the works in progress that will be entered into the Fun Chowder Games competition. This gives developers a chance to share their work and get feedback before entering the final product.

Just mention whether your game is for the primary(reclamation)competition field, or the secondary (free-for-all) field.

Looking forward to playing the games <img src="smileys/smiley1.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

And just to shamelessly plug the Fun Chowder game competition, there is a competition field for games of any sort to be entered. At the moment there is no prize for this field, but it could bring some attention to your game.

If you were interested you have up until December 2nd 4pm GMT if you wanted to make any tweaks before entering.

Fun Chowder competition

Edit: When writting this post it never even occured to me that the game may not be made using construct 2 :P If that is the case please disregard this post. <img src="smileys/smiley2.gif" border="0" align="middle">

I would say that you can still have a game that ends up being difficult and still appeal to a broader market then just the hardcore/oldschool gamer...although there is a market for hardcore games, don't think you have to appease a broader market of casual gamers.

I'm not sure what type of game you are making, but one of the more important things is to make sure that players have the basics down properly before throwing the massive difficulty at them, this way, as Wastrel mentioned, it would be viewed as a player skill issue, not a game issue.

So perhaps add a few more levels at the beginning to gradually raise the difficulty and make sure the players get the basics down properly.... also if you introduce more game mechanics later on, you can ease up on the difficulty for a few levels to make sure the player has the new mechanic down, and also makes it feel like they are making some progress. After the player has had some practice, re-introduce the brutal difficulty.

This gives the games 'peaks and valleys' and not just a constant upward trend in difficulty. Which may be the way to go if trying to appeal to broader audience without compromising how difficult the game would be to ultimately beat...

Extra credits had a good episode on pacing, which applies to many things: Pacing

a game where you punch and kick the bad guys

Yeah, could do a whole double dragon-esque thing. Except maybe you're the one kidnapped and she is the one that has to kick butt to come save you?

Gammabeam did have a fantastic approach with "The Convergence"...as in you are both going through life's obstacles together. It doesn't need to be a gravity switching game, or have the other character mirror your movements. You could do some sort of puzzle game where you still have the two characters on screen, but you can control each one independently, switching control between the two.

Gammabeams worked so well because the visuals and game mechanics explained everything without the need for words. The backstory he gave in posts certainly added impact to the player, even without it though, certain conclusions the motivations could of been drawn.

Another idea could be doing some type of visual novel to tell a semi-fictional story...could be a good excuse to put in old photographs of the two of you...or even dig out photos from before you met. A bunch of things you could do with this...tell an origin story about yourself then how when you met your significant other, and the feelings that upon meeting, and after going on many adventures together...

For an example using a semi-fictional story with photos, I made a "slideshow" for my best friend's wedding over the summer. check it if you want:

.

Although some pandering to the audience of 150ish was done, most of the jokes used only the groom or the people that knew him best would get it...the trick in this was to make sure many things had a double meaning...now since you are only pandering to an audience of one (no one else should matter), you could be as overt as you like <img src="smileys/smiley2.gif" border="0" align="middle">

A dating sim where every other option turns out ridiculously wrong and you end up with your significant other no matter the course you take in the game? ...could be risky approach... could always make characters spoofs on celebrities <img src="smileys/smiley2.gif" border="0" align="middle">

...ultimately you need to use your special knowledge of that person to know what would be appropriate and what they may find romantic...or even awesome. <img src="smileys/smiley4.gif" border="0" align="middle">

edit: Music and sound selection from something she really enjoys can also aid the experience.

Note: Sorry for the long post, I tend to ramble sometimes :)

The Convergence definately has wide appeal, its even on a german HTML5 gaming site :)

http://html5games.de/spiele/the-convergence/

Also, if there are any moderators on that would like to re-sticky this thread, to make it easier to find during the course of the competition, that would be fantastic! <img src="smileys/smiley4.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

edit: Thanks for the sticky! <img src="smileys/smiley1.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

Wink Given the popularity of the last competition on the forums, we decided it was safe not putting a minimum. However, if it adds pressure to create, we can certainly add one <img src="smileys/smiley2.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

I wish we had competitions like this for CC..C2 is so hard to work with right now. Anyway, I might join..got some ideas brewing already :)

Part of the reason for the competition is to help encourage and familiarize developers with construct 2, and help give them insentive to stick with it while it continues development.

And for all those creative people who cannot code/script, this is really their best option for making HTML5 games. Which by the looks is the next big thing in gaming <img src="smileys/smiley1.gif" border="0" align="middle">

Another great game making tool still in development is Spriter, by the folks over at BrashMonkey. If you plan on doing a lot of 2d animation in games, its definately worth a look.

Quite impressive, actually. Time to do some designing.

Edit: Reading on, the logo and avatar bits do seem to steer into the evil swamps of crowdsourcing, but then, perhaps, a good chance for some young designers to get some practice.

Yeah, those bits can always be dropped if there is no interest, just figured there may be some bored artists or something on the forums :P