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GENERAL TOPIC MEMORY SPECIFIC TOPIC FLIGHT |
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 2006 Dualstream Day of Zeux, which is being hosted by RoSS. It is scheduled to begin on Saturday, December 16th, at 2PM EST/7PM GMT, which of course means it ends 24 hours later on Sunday, December 17th. Stay tuned to this site for further details. |
December 10, 2006 Major revision with details on judges, submission , patch submissions and penalties updated. November 26, 2006 Page recreated. |
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 games are available through the game torrent. |
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. The theme you choose will be important this year, since the themes will have slightly different rules and scoresets. The major difference between the two will be different weights on the "theme" score and disqualification rule. For the general topic, there will be no disqualification due to lack of theme, but a specific-themed game with an average theme score of 5/20 or less will 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 (ross.friedberg@gmail.com), IRC (DCC to RoSS), AOL Instant Messenger (RoSSMZX), and an FTP server, which will be ftp://devzero.co.uk/. FTP will be recommended, but any of the other choices will also be acceptable (especially email since I might not be available if you are submitting before the end of the competition). Grace Period. (NB: Grace Period and Patch Submission rules are subject to change for now.) 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 after the first fifteen minutes 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.
When you upload a patch to the game, please use the following naming: ######-N.zip, where ###### is your team number and N is the number of the patch. MegaZeux Version. The judges will be playing your game in MZX 2.81d, 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 mostly by Wervyn) Theme - 100/400 (General) 20/400 (Specific) For the general theme, this should be the most important category. You'll be scored on how well you interpret and use the theme, as well as how much the theme can be felt in all elements of the game. For the specific theme, 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 you receive an average of 5 or less, you will automatically be disqualified. Gameplay - 90/400 (General) 120/400 (Specific) 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 - 70/400 (General) 90/400 (Specific) 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? Technique - 60/400 (General) 80/400 (Specific) This is a game-making competition, and so each game is expected to use at least some Robotic. However, all code is not created equal: some code is cooler, faster, shorter and generally just better than other code. Does your code make movement feel slow or smooth? Is your entire game spread out over many, many boards with a lot of repetition, or is it modular and on one board? Is the programming generally impressive? Story - 50/400 (General) 50/400 (Specific) 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, story will be scored according to how important the judge thinks story 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. Sound - 30/400 (General) 40/400 (Specific) 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.   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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Apparently we are having some issues with PHP's emailer not working at all. If you would like to sign up, email me at ross.friedberg@gmail.com or just give message me on your favorite discussion medium with the following information:
The following teams are competing in the Day of Zeux:
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Questions or comments? Send an e-mail to RoSS. (ross.friedberg@gmail.com)