GENERAL TOPIC VALOR SPECIFIC TOPIC ORGANIZED CRIME |
The first official Day of Zeux, hosted by Wondercow, was held in late 1998, under the premise that solo competitors and teams formed beforehand are given a topic and have 24 hours to create a game in MegaZeux from scratch based on the topic. This was based on the earlier Blitzkriegzeux, where games took place in a much shorter period of time and had solo competitors only. The competition was a huge success, and it soon became community tradition to hold them every six months. Variants on the timeframe of the Day of Zeux were also held, including the Weekend of Zeux. In the summer of 2001, a new twist was added to the Day of Zeux in the form of two separate topics - a general topic, and a specific topic, intended for those who had trouble with ideas. The introduction of this modification created the Dualstream Day of Zeux, and was met with much praise, encouraging future competitions to become Dualstream. This page will have up-to-date information on the Christmas 2005 Dualstream Day of Zeux, which is being hosted by Kuddy. It is scheduled to begin on Monday, December 26, at 1PM EST/6PM GMT, which of course means it ends 24 hours later on Tuesday, December 27. Stay tuned to this site for further details. |
December 11, 2005 The signup form is now online! November 24, 2005 The DoZ has been pushed back an hour. It will now take place at 1PM EST/6PM GMT on December 26. November 21, 2005 Judges chosen. #doz is no more due to lack of interest and technical issues. October 2, 2005 Rules updated - specifically, #doz and the removal of the anonymity rule. Please read both. September 23, 2005 Added section for IRC, including #doz rules. September 20, 2005 Hey, good news for people who are banned from and/or hate #mzx: I have a channel set aside for DoZ announcements. That channel is, appropriately, #doz on Espernet. Though the channel is moderated, you can seek out and /msg your team members there if you have to form a channel at the last minute or anything. People who are looking for a team beforehand can go there too I guess. I'll also post hourly notices stating how much time is left in the DoZ while it's in progress. What more could you ask for? April 4, 2005 Page created. |
When the topics are announced, they're usually announced on IRC first. If you do not have an IRC client, some good options are mIRC and XiRCON for Windows, Ircle for MacOS, and xchat for Linux (there is also a Windows version available). The server you'll want to join is EsperNet, and among the channels in which the topics will be announced are #mzx |
The DSDoZ hasn't taken place yet, so no games are available. |
Teams. Teams will consist of one to three people. If necessary, you may also appoint an alternate member who can take the place of any member of your team should they be unable to attend the Day of Zeux. This alternate member can only be added to your team at the start of the DoZ, before the topics are announced. Signups will be accepted from the time the form goes on the page until the Day of Zeux ends (for obvious reasons, the alternate member field will be removed at go time). Topics. When the Day of Zeux starts, two topics will be presented: a general topic and a specific topic. These are going to be posted pretty much everywhere - DMZX, IRC, and here on the DoZ site. You may only use one topic as your game's theme. If the average score in the theme category for your game is below 10 (33%), your game will automatically be disqualified. NO ANONYMITY. Each team will receive a number prior to the start of the competition. No anonymity rule will apply during this DoZ. However, the ZIP/RAR file you submit must have a filename that matches your team number. External Material. All material except music, sound, and the default MZX charsets/palette must be created within the 24 hour period. If any evidence of material such as engines, character sets, palettes, and artwork having been created before the topic announcement is found, your team will be disqualified. Use of external programs such as CharWorks and Palzor during the Day of Zeux is permitted, as long as it is done within the 24 hours. Game Submission. Before submission, make sure that the ZIP has the same filename as your team number (ie. 424.zip for team 424). The game will be expected to run as intended when it is unzipped, so make sure you include all music, WAVs, and, of course, the .MZX file. You have three choices for entry submission: e-mail (kurushimi@comcast.net), IRC (DCC to Kuddy), or AOL Instant Messenger (Kyou Kurushimi). E-mail submissions will always be accepted, but the latter two options may not be available if I'm asleep at the keyboard or whatever, so prod me to make sure I'm alive before starting the transfer. ^_^ Grace Period. Following the end of the 24 hours, a one hour grace period will be in effect for late submissions and patch submissions (see below). Any games submitted in the second half hour of this period will receive a score penalty depending on how late it was received. Any games submitted after the DoZ and grace period have ended will be judged, but disqualified.
MegaZeux Version. The judges will be playing your game in MZX 2.81c, so please make sure it runs well in that version before submission. SMZX mode will be permitted, but no bonus will be given just because you are using SMZX, so if you're going to use it, use it right. |
(Scoreset and text by Wervyn) Gameplay - 75/400 The meat and potatoes of any game, if you don't have gameplay, what DO you have? This encompasses how well the game works as a whole, how fluid the play is, and most importantly, whether it's FUN or not. Graphics - 60/400 All this emphasis on graphics over game these days is sickening! But even so, graphics are an important part of the game, since without them, we'd just be playing text adventures (not entirely a bad thing, but still). So, does your game look nice, have you made good use of space and color, or do I want to stab out my eyes as soon as I load the title screen? Innovation - 45/400 Mother is the necessity of innovation, or something like that. We at the DoZ value creativity and new design concepts highly. Of course, make sure your brilliant idea WORKS, first. Innovation that makes the game new, interesting, on basically makes me go "hmm, never thought of doing that before" is a good thing. Innovation that crashes my computer, not so much. Plot - 40/400 Me, I'm a sucker for a good story, I can almost forgive a game for being buggy as hell and for looking like my monitor threw up, if the story sends me into raptures of ecstacy. Almost. Story is important, but it's not going to carry your game any more than your nifty sword engine will. Also, plot will be scored according to how important the judge thinks plot is to the game. You probably won't get a perfect score here without a perfect plot, but you might get a decent score here for no plot at all, if your game is designed to be a mindless arcade shoot-em-up. Music/Sound - 35/400 Music does for the ears what graphics do for the eyes. Humans being (by and large) visual creatures, this category is only worth about half as much, but it's still important. Music creates ambience, and sound effects heighten the atmosphere. If they don't work with the game, then they might as well not be there. For this reason, you may be awarded a few pity points for having no sound or music , since we firmly believe that no audio is better than bad audio. Theme - 30/400 The purpose of the theme category is more to ensure that you're following the rules than it is to get you points. That said, you'll be sorry if you completely neglect this, since as outlined in the rules, if three or more judges score your theme less than 33% (less than 10 points), you automatically lose. Discretion - 15/400 For all the niggling little details that just don't seem to fit in any other category. Mostly, this is about using common sense and good taste. Loads of pointless obscenity, obvious pandering to the judges (as opposed to subtle pandering, which can be a good thing if done right), and sometimes particularly addle-brained bugs, all will get you counted off here. Rank Weighting - 100/400 This is a special score for the judges, so that they can incorporate their gut instinct into an otherwise methodical system. Unlike the other scores, which are directly designated by the judge, the rank weight is awarded proportionally based on the judges personal ranking of the games from best to worst. What happens is the judges favorite game receives a full hundred points, the judges least favorite game receives no points, and the games in between receive a percentage of the points based on how high they are on the list. For those interested in the formula, RW = (N - R)/(N - 1) * 100, RW is rank weight, R is the judge's awarded rank, and N is the total number of entries. IMPORTANT: This is NOT simply a restatement of the games' ranks as calculated from their other categorical scores. This is so that the judge can express their personal feelings on the submissions as a whole, independent of any other scoring they might have made. Four judges, 400 points each, 1600 points total. Late penalties incurred during the grace period described in the rules will be deducted from this final, 1600 point score. The judges for this Day of Zeux are:
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Sign up for the DoZ by entering in the name of your team, team members and team e-mail address here! Your team number will automatically be given to you after signing up. DO NOT SIGN UP MORE THAN ONCE. (note: your e-mail address will not be shown publically; ensure that you enter a real e-mail address because it will be used to send your team the team number in case you lose it)
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