Game On C

[JojoCho]

When you guys are told the game TOPIC how do you usually approach it as you come up ideas of the game that you will make. I usually lose a lot of points for the science of theme portion of the rubric

also for the game TYPE, lets say it is maze. Does not being able to go through walls be a scientific concepts because of the normal force that the wall applies back, or is that silly?

1. This really just comes with practice. Usually I will have someone on my team give me a random topic to work with. The topics given at competitions should typically be very broad so you'll have lots of choices. The more you practice the easier it will get to come up with ideas. A tip I have though is if you have many ideas for a topic, don't pick the first one that comes to mind. Most likely many other teams have the same idea and you won't stick out. Think outside the box a bit! At a competition once everyone created an ocean game but my partner and I made a "desert" game and we won first, so be creative.

2. Depends on the topic? If the topic is "forces" then yeah it works. If you have a topic like "jungle" though it won't work. You could have scientific concepts such as predation, competition for food, food web, life cycle, etc. Those things count as scientific concepts. Just make sure to include your explanations of those concepts in your instructions page.

for the game explanations would 1 sentence be enough?

Yep! As long as you are specific enough then it should be fine. Something like "The fish needs to return to its correct home which is the epipelagic zone" would work.

[terence.tan]

1. This really just comes with practice. Usually I will have someone on my team give me a random topic to work with. The topics given at competitions should typically be very broad so you'll have lots of choices. The more you practice the easier it will get to come up with ideas. A tip I have though is if you have many ideas for a topic, don't pick the first one that comes to mind. Most likely many other teams have the same idea and you won't stick out. Think outside the box a bit! At a competition once everyone created an ocean game but my partner and I made a "desert" game and we won first, so be creative.

2. Depends on the topic? If the topic is "forces" then yeah it works. If you have a topic like "jungle" though it won't work. You could have scientific concepts such as predation, competition for food, food web, life cycle, etc. Those things count as scientific concepts. Just make sure to include your explanations of those concepts in your instructions page.

for the game explanations would 1 sentence be enough?

Yep! As long as you are specific enough then it should be fine. Something like "The fish needs to return to its correct home which is the epipelagic zone" would work.

so if you include the 4 explanations in the instructions page then you get 4 points for having 4 themes and 4 points for the explanations. But what is the criteria for having the theme incorporated in the game?

[kenniky]

for the game explanations would 1 sentence be enough?

Yep! As long as you are specific enough then it should be fine. Something like "The fish needs to return to its correct home which is the epipelagic zone" would work.

so if you include the 4 explanations in the instructions page then you get 4 points for having 4 themes and 4 points for the explanations. But what is the criteria for having the theme incorporated in the game?

Well if it didn't need to be incorporated in the game then you could just throw a bunch of random stuff on the title screen and never use them

I guess just make it so that the grader can see "ok, that's where that applies"

[terence.tan]

what do you guys do for sound. Also what counts as complex sound?

[Riptide]

what do you guys do for sound. Also what counts as complex sound?

If you look at the Game On Rubric Decoded (https://www.soinc.org/sites/default/fil ... lained.pdf), you will see that there are 4 different points given for complexity of sounds. Typically, I just use the default sounds for background music (something like drip drop for the title screen and techno for the game itself). By having 2 sounds, you get the variation in sound and background music point. If you have an extra minute or so you can record your own voice with a sound effect such as 'dun dun dun' or something along those lines for when you 'lose' the game. That would probably get you the creativity of sounds point. I'm not really sure how the graders would qualify sounds appropriate for the given theme. The music library is relatively limited in its variety, so unless thee game theme given is like space or something, you'd be hard-pressed to find a good song that would fit the theme. My advice would be just to not worry about that part and focus on getting the rest of the requirements.

[Snarknado]

Looks like I'm going to be going into this event for the first time tomorrow, but with (real and scratch) programming experience. Any last-minute first-time advice?

[terence.tan]

Looks like I'm going to be going into this event for the first time tomorrow, but with (real and scratch) programming experience. Any last-minute first-time advice?

remember to manage your time.Not finishing would be really bad

[Skink]

what do you guys do for sound. Also what counts as complex sound?

I tell my team to beatbox (as that's all that 8-bit music really is, anyway), but they won't do it. I still think that's the best bet here.

[megan_scioly]

What are themes and what are the possible themes?

[kenniky]

What are themes and what are the possible themes?

themes can literally be anything even remotely related to science

themes I have encountered are:

mechanical springs (MIT 2016)
dinosaurs (Yale 2016)
hide and seek (MA States 2016) [this one is pretty garbage]
light (Nats 2016)
enzymes (Nats 2017)

so, almost anything. Game On is one of those events where you have to know a little bit about every field in order to do well