js13kGames competition 2014

[end3r 196]

The third edition of the js13kGames competition will start in a month on August 13th, so I wanted to create a topic for everything related to the compo. I'll start announcing the judges and prizes soon and if you have any questions feel free to ask them here.



You have a month to create HTML5 game that fits into 13 kilobytes limit, see the Rules for details, forum topic from 2013, games from 2012 and games from 2013 for reference. Follow @js13kGames on Twitter for all the news and announcements about the competition.

If you want to sponsor the compo or offer prizes please get in touch.

So, who's going to participate?

[Amaan 0]

I hope I'm not too busy to participate this time. Maybe I'm just good at making excuses. But I'm excited!

 

Thanks so much for doing this, though!

[kuuuurija 16]

cool!! This will be my second time participating..
looking forward for it!!!

[Felipe 10]

Cool! I really like this competition

 

We'll see how Jack Rugile kicks our asses again, hehe.

[gregmax17 5]

I want to try this out, I can't wait!

[Aurium 4]

How about the Server category?

[end3r 196]

How about the Server category?

 

The Server category wasn't popular, there was only 9 entries last year. It was also quite problematic for the particpants: how do you count the 13k size limit, what you can use and what you can't - 90% of the questions were asked about that category. I just thought it will be easier to just drop it.

If the demand will be higher in the next years I don't see a problem to have it back

[Amaan 0]

Are multiplayer games disallowed then? Or have we just removed the category?

[end3r 196]

For this year, yes - I want to focus only on single player games (especially mobile) this time. I'll see how it goes in the next years.

[remvst 84]

I'm in

 

Hoping to perform better this time

[Aurium 4]

end3r, I would love to participate with a multiplayer game.

May we start a topic in this forum to discuss the rules about the server side code, for 2015?

First point: I think that must run in a server built to the competition, inside Node.js sandboxes. That will help to control the features allowed on server side.

What you think?

[end3r 196]

To be honest I didn't play much with multiplayer games, so I had a lot of problems answering people's technical questions last year, I had someone who helped me with this later on. If I could have someone this year too, who could take care of everything related to multiplayer games, answering questions etc, then I could bring back the category even for 2014. I just didn't want to run something I'm not good at, which could do more harm than good.

Feel free to discuss it here - if we come to a conclusion, or the rules from 2013 are ok, then I'm more than happy to accept multiplayer games, it's just that getting prizes could be hard if the interest in Server category is rather small compared to Desktop/Mobile.

[Aurium 4]

end3r, do you have the list of "server questions" sent to you through the multiple channels? I want to start a discussion with all recognized problems. Thanks!

[end3r 196]

That would be quite hard to track and collect, but most of them were answered already and are available in the 2013 Server FAQ.

Do you have any ideas or improvements for 2014? Do you think there shouldn't be any problems or unclear things in the Server category with this FAQ? I can bring the Server category back if there can be someone who could answer tech questions about multiplayer games if any of them comes to me this year.

[Aurium 4]

end3r and all interested ones, please read: http://www.html5gamedevs.com/topic/7866-rules-proposal-for-js13kgames-server-category ;-)

[end3r 196]

Aurium, thanks for the detailed post about the Server category!

In the meantime, I started posting the prizes:
- 10 × PlayCanvas Pro account for 12 months
- 5 × Construct 2 Personal Edition game engine
- 10 × Making Money with HTML5 ebook

 

More coming soon.

[end3r 196]

I'm glad to support this for a second year. I wish I could compete myself but I use an engine that doesn't grasp the concept of small file sizes

Thanks for the prizes once again! Yeah, I'm getting more and more comments like this and thinking about trying a spin-off with 13 Megabytes or js13k Unlimited someday

[d13 104]

I wish I could compete myself but I use an engine that doesn't grasp the concept of small file sizes

The beauty of this competition is that it encourages us to get away from bloated engines, get back to basics and see what we can do with some core tools and creative coding.

[TatumCreative 0]

This sounds like a lot of fun, I might give it a whirl. It's in my calendar at the very least.

[xem 0]

Even if there's no server category, could you allow to make 2-player games powered by TogetherJS ?

TogetherJS can be enabled on any webpage using a simple bookmarklet ( like this ) and makes it easy for two players to use their mouse and keyboard at the same time..

[gregmax17 5]

The beauty of this competition is that it encourages us to get away from bloated engines, get back to basics and see what we can do with some core tools and creative coding.

 

I couldn't agree anymore. Personally, I use an optimized version of ImpactJS (custom, and literally every line rewritten).

 

But this competition intrigues me in ways to come up with crafty coding techniques. I can't wait!

[end3r 196]

Even if there's no server category, could you allow to make 2-player games powered by TogetherJS ?

TogetherJS can be enabled on any webpage using a simple bookmarklet ( like this ) and makes it easy for two players to use their mouse and keyboard at the same time..

There's "no external libs" rule, so it's not allowed unless you can fit TogetherJS into 13 kilobytes of your code.

[cojohn 0]

This looks great! First I'm hearing about the competition and I think I'll try to create a game; love the constraints.

[jackrugile 21]

Can't wait for this. I'll try to stay away from a space aesthetic this time, we'll see though Thanks end3r for all your hard work!

[codevinsky 84]

I'm in so hard on this.