The official announcement of winners is here.
Below is the full set of scores and reviews for each of the games. Enjoy!
Pirate Hell - @ceiphren - Overall : 73%
Judge 1: A nautically themed game that lets you take control of your very own vessel! I thought the learning curve was perfect for the length of the game. Gameplay was kept simple while becoming more challenging over the course of the game, culminating in a boss. Aesthetics made good use of the engine's features as did the UI system. Notably missing was sound, the lack of which detracted from the experience. A few hearty explosions and pirate chuckles would've been both amusing and appreciated.
graphics - 90%
gameplay - 95%
sound - 0%
difficulty - 90%
storyline - 75%
overall - 70%
Judge 2:
Pirate Hell is a charming little game involving naval battles with unique, fun, but simple gameplay. In the game, you steer your ship with the mouse cursor and press the left or right mouse button to fire from your left or right cannons. The graphics are simply wonderful. The ocean surface reflects the sky and your ship, as well as the cannonballs your fire and has nice looking ripple effects. The only downside I saw to the graphics, or rather the programming, is that the enemy ships lacked collision data, and were ghosting through each other.
The structure is a simple one-- destroy a set number of ships in each level to advance. The story isn’t anything to sneeze at, but there is one, and it’s punctuated by “arr!”s and other nautical piratey language.
Graphics : 90
Gameplay : 80
Sound : 0
Difficulty : 70
Storyline : 60
Overall : 80
Judge 3: Pirate Hell doesn an outstanding job in Graphics. It's visuals are nothing short of amazing, with very detailed ships during Gameplay and very nice Menus. It boasts a very useful UI system and the fire effects are very good. Maybe the only downside to the Graphical part is that Pirate Hell must be played in a 1280x720 resolution, or else, part of the screen doesn't show up properly.
In regards to Gameplay, Pirate Hell makes another good impression. Pirate Hell offers Patrician-like naval battles. The controls are very simple, and yet do the job perfectly. And what is better than simple controls? Users can even modify them to suit their needs, even with a gamepad. Once again, there is only one small downside to the Gameplay, which is collisions. Sadly enough there are no collisions between ships, although this could be over-looked as collisions in naval battles are not that common.
This game also offers a short storyline which does its job very well. With each mission comes a short yet amusing debriefing which helps boost this simple storyline.
This game's difficulty can't be changed at will. However there is a gentle difficulty slope which helps keep the game a challenge.
Perhaps the game's major disappointment comes with sounds and music. Surprisingly, this game lacks both. It is very disappointing, seeing as some naval music could have made this game almost perfect.
Graphics : 95%
Gameplay : 90%
Sound : 0%
Difficulty : 80%
Storyline : 85%
Overall : 70%
The Cove - @thetoucher - Overall : 86%
Judge 1: Another game set on the water where you begin as a small fish trying to find your way around the cove. The game is extremely polished and offers different objectives with a clear delineation between levels as your character grows and gains new capabilities. The compelling storyline, beautiful visuals, and playful but appropriate sound makes the game a real joy to play.
graphics - 95%
gameplay - 80%
sound - 85%
difficulty - 80%
storyline - 90%
overall - 86%
Judge 2: The Cove is a game reminiscent of Spore and E.V.O., in that you start out as a young, weak creature, eventually evolving and growing until you’re near the top of the food chain. While the graphics are simple, they are charming and effective, and just plain look good. The gameplay is also just as wonderful. Swimming around feels simple, and while it’s not exactly natural, it works. There are currents and sea life to account for as you swim around and complete simple objectives that increase in difficulty steadily. Of the games in the contest, it feels the most complete and professional, and is definitely fun to play as well.
Graphics : 9
Gameplay : 9
Sound : 7
Difficulty : 7
Storyline : 5
Overall : 9/10
Judge 3: The Cove is truly an outstanding game in all area, and Graphics is no exception. In the different reefs, there is a wide variety of not just fish, but also of sea flora. The menu also lets users change Graphical settings, which are very useful. Why? Sadly, the game's poor memory management could restrict the user from playing on the Full Graphical settings. Maybe better memory management could help a lot of users enjoy this game to its fullest, yet even on lower Graphical settings, this game creates a wonderful underwater atmosphere.
Gameplay is also very good. You start off as a little fish, and by completing short quests you get bigger and bigger. The bigger you get the more things you can do. This keeps the game lively even in the latter stages of the game. The Gameplay is very diverse and keeps revealing things right to the very end. A downside to Gameplay is that despite the long storyline, there is no saving facility. So yeah, if you must go to sleep, you either keep your PC on until the next day, or start the game again the following day.
This game isn't that hard in terms of Difficulty. During quests, users are helped with a bar that shows how far the player is from his goal. Further more, at the beginning of each quest, users are told what to do. If that is not enough, tips during quests are only a key press away. Maybe a little more challenge would have been appreciated by some users, yet this game would still satisfy players as it is.
A simple yet long 'Storyline' keeps the game alive and gives the game a goal for playing.
The Cove has quite good sounds and music that are well-placed. Well chosen underwater-themed music gives this game a cutting-edge.
Graphics : 90%
Gameplay : 90%
Sound : 95%
Difficulty : 85%
Storyline : 75%
Overall : 87%
Alone - @gbluntzer - Overall : 34%
Judge 1: The visual styling reminded me of Christian Teister's Grappling Hook (another jMonkeyEngine based game, released in 2009). The seemingly incomplete game is in serious need of a storyline and some visual cues to the player. All I was able to garner after a few minutes was that I was alone on a space station!
graphics - 65%
gameplay - 15%
sound - 70%
difficulty - 50%
storyline - 15%
overall - 43%
Judge 2: Alone is just strange. It is a First-person adventure/puzzle game with no direction, and feels incomplete. There’s really nothing to do, no explanation, or anything of the sort. It’s plain looking and offers next to nothing.
Graphics : 3
Gameplay : 3
Sound : 2
Difficulty : 2
Storyline : 4
Overall : 1/10
Judge 3: Alone is a game that comes short of a lot of things. Graphics is one of them. There are no 'real' graphics. The place where you start is just a maze full of blocks... and yeah, sadly all of the blocks have the same texture - grey boxes with a black border.
In Gameplay, this game doesn't go that far either. After playing the game for five minutes, I had to close it down as there was nothing I could do. This game is a pretty good base, yet needs a lot of work if it wants to be considered a game. On the good side, this game has very good collisions - especially considering this game was made on a week-end.
There is no Difficulty whatsoever in this game. You just walk around. That is for one block which says "YOU'RE DEAD" when you walk too close. The game closes if you walk into it, and if you back off, the message disappears.
There is some background music in Alone. It is creepy, which does give a good effect to the general theme of the song.
Graphics : 60%
Gameplay : 65%
Sound : 60%
Difficulty : 10%
Storyline : -%
Overall : 50%
Salvage Team: Rush - @Conzar - Overall : 71%
Judge 1: With mechanics similar to the classic game, Asteroids, I had a great time zipping my space ship around the small map that makes up Salvage Team: Rush. I found the music perfect for the type of game: futuristic and fun. I found myself quietly nodding my head as I played and re-played trying to best my time. Don't let the looks deceive you, this game is tough!
graphics - 80%
gameplay - 95%
sound - 90%
difficulty - 85%
storyline - 40%
overall - 78%
Judge 2: Salvage Team: Rush is a simple game that involves piloting a ship to collect tokens. It has simple asteroid-style controls and simple graphics. There’s a catchy song, too, but it isn’t really impressive. It’s essentially a one-level time attack game where you see how quickly you can collect all the tokens.
Graphics : 7
Gameplay : 7
Sound : 7
Difficulty : 3
Storyline : --
Overall : 5/10
Judge 3: Salvage Team: Rush is a wonderful example of a minigame. Right from the moment you see a screenshot of this game, you just know it's a minigame. The Graphics are simple, yet well chosen and a wonderful backdrop gives this game a wonderful feeling. The only problem there is is textures. Surprisingly, all walls or blocks have the same texture and a little diversity would have been much appreciated.
In this game, all you must do is collect space trash... in as little time as possible. You have a minute to collect all the junk and in the end, you have a chance of entering in the highscore list. The controls are nothing short of perfect. The ship's movements make it challenging to steer yourself in the way you want and this feature makes this game even better.
This game, as minigames should be, is hard at first, but it gets easier with experience.
Salvage Team: Rush features a soundtrack for the menu and another pacey in-game soundtrack. This selection of music is very good and enriches the Gameplay experience.
Graphics : 85%
Gameplay : 85%
Sound : 85%
Difficulty : 80%
Storyline : -%
Overall : 84%
MonkeyMania - @ndebruyn - Overall : 79%
Judge 1: I blame this game for my current urge to dig up my Super Nintendo and play Donkey Kong Country (I know, I know it doesn't make much sense). The overall styling of the game feels very much like playing Donkey Kong or Crash Bandicoot. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to see the game through to the end because I kept being killed by ants at a certain point in the game. I can't hold this against the game though, a very nice effort.
graphics - 90%
gameplay - 90%
sound - 95%
difficulty - 85%
storyline - 65%
overall - 85%
Judge 2: Monkey Mania is an odd shoot-em-up reminiscent of Konami’s classic “Knightmare” in that you are a man on foot rather than a ship in space. Your goal in Monkey Mania is to rescue the caged monkey emblems while shooting giant bugs and collecting tokens. It’s rather enjoyable at times, but your character moves so slowly that it’s frustrating, and the jumping leaves something to be desired. As your character approaches enemies, he will lock on to them automatically, leaving you to just fire at them with your space bar. The graphics are decent. The models are fairly competent, and the textures’ repetition is only noticeable on occasion. However the menus are rather awful looking, and there is only one music track that is roughly 10 seconds long and while it’s not annoying, it isn’t very impressive.
Graphics : 7
Gameplay : 6
Sound : 6
Difficulty : 5
Storyline : --
Overall : 7/10
Judge 3: Monkey Mania is almost perfect in the Graphical aspect. The visuals are very nice and make this game stand out from other games. However textuers are the same for crates and other stuff. Another small problem is that bullets have no particular shape or textures. Another thing that doesn't feel right is that the character doesn't rotate while walking, but just moves sideways, backwards or forward. Despite these small problems, this game still is excellent in the Graphics departement.
In Monkey Mania, your job is to hunt down giant ants, stay away from cliff falls and beat the clock. In this arcade shooter, those are the only enemies you face, yet are enough for this game. The aim in this game is to collect coins, health crosses and save some monkeys. This game boasts very good level-design which keeps the game lively right until the end.
Despite having music and sounds, sometimes you might feel they just don't fit in. The music is clearly out its place and doesn't help much in creating a good effect.
In regards to Difficulty, in the beginning the game explains all controls. However, a slight let-down is that this game is quite easy. Because of the shooting ability, you can kill the giant ants before they even notice you. However, this game is quite challenging in close-combat with the ants, especially if you are out-numbered.
Graphics : 90%
Gameplay : 85%
Sound : 75%
Difficulty : 75%
Storyline : -%
Overall : 81%
Zombie Math Hunter - @batkid - Overall : 71%
Judge 1: I found Zombie Math Hunter to be a great callback to the educational games of yesteryear like the Math Blaster series. I found the mechanic of typing numbers to kill the zombies a meaningful one as it provided enough distraction to cause me to flub some pretty simple arithmetic. The technical details, however, still need some working out as controls seemed to sometimes function incorrectly.
graphics - 85%
gameplay - 80%
sound - 90%
difficulty - 95%
storyline - 65%
overall - 83%
Judge 2: Zombie Math Hunter is a simple game, most likely inspired by Sega’s “Typing of the Dead”. In the game, you are inexplicably planted into a rather bland looking village filled with zombies. Armed with a gun and a sword, your job is to kill them all, but there’s a catch-- when you attempt to fire your gun or shake the zombies off of you, a simple math equation pops up. Solving the equation allows your gun to fire or sword to swing, killing the zombie.
However, it doesn’t work quite as well as it should. The zombies still wanted around aimlessly while the math prompt is visible, so if the zombie you intended to kill wanders out of your sight, you’re out of luck, as you can’t reposition your gun until you solve the math problem.. It also doesn’t help that the math prompt lags a little when it comes to inputting numbers. Often times the second number you type pops in first, and occasionally your numbers won’t even appear at all.
The audio consists of an eerie music track and simple sound effects, as well as the expected grunts and moans from zombies.
It’s nice as a distraction but chances are you won’t spend much time playing it.
Graphics : 6
Gameplay : 8
Sound : 7
Difficulty : 5
Storyline : --
Overall : 5
Judge 3: Zombie Math Hunter is quite an average game. In Graphics, it doesn't perform as well as expected. Textures are the same for every zombie, the same for every house. However, the game still offers a good experience.
The Gameplay is pretty simple. You move around, and shoot zombies when you see them. Before you shoot, you must first answer a simple equation. This does the job quite well for a mini-game. However, more Gameplay diversity would have been much appreciated. In regards to collisions, the game is a let-down. Sometimes you might find yourself passing through cliffs and other times you might find yourself blocked by something invisible.
In regards of music, the game does quite a good job. The choice of music goes well with the game itself.
In terms of Difficulty, the game is rather simple and easy to understand. This game can be quite challenging at times despite the fact that it is relatively simple.
Graphics : 75%
Gameplay : 75%
Sound : 85%
Difficulty : 80%
Storyline : %
Overall : 79%
NabyBallMaze - @survivor - Overall : 66%
Judge 2: NabyBallMaze is a game that involves tilting a ball through a hedge-maze. Doesn’t seem hard to mess that up, but unfortunately this game comes so close to being a competent game but just trips at the finish line. The game uses realistic physics for ball-movement, as in, instead of moving the ball directly, you instead tilt the maze around it. However, the game is viewed from a top-down perspective, rather than a diagonal one, which is rather off-putting. Second, the ball tends to actually bounce around and get stuck into corners, especially when it comes to the letters cleverly built into the walls of the maze. I personally spent about a minute trying to get the ball unstuck between the feet of a giant letter “A”, and later found myself stuck on other letters.
The maze is actually very cleverly designed and complicated, though it looks very plain. The walls are a textureless green and the floor a blury cobblestone pattern. There is also a nice catchy music track, but you probably won’t hear it over the obnoxious knocking noise your ball will make over and over as it bumps into the walls.
Graphics : 7
Gameplay : 5
Sound : 5
Difficulty : 4
Storyline : --
Overall : 5/10
Judge 3: NabyBallMaze is a game which is quite successful in Gameplay, yet comes a little short in Graphics. The walls of the maze are just green with no texture. The ground, on the other hand, has a picture which seems too stretched and doesn't look good at all. The ball has a texture which performs better, yet it still is not satisfying. From the menu, most display settings can be altered, which is quite a good thing for a mini-game.
Gameplay, on the other hand is much better. The controls are very polished and smooth. Collisions are perfect and the game is quite a traditional mini-game - forcing you to try it multiple times to get the hang of it. The aim is simply to find the exit as fast as possible.
Sounds and Music are also a fine choice for this game. They both make the Gameplay experience better. Some Sounds and Music settings can also be altered from the menu.
When it comes to Difficulty, this game is like most other mini-games. You must play it multiple times to get the hang of it. However, this game is very enjoyable. This game shows the controls on-screen at all times, so no one should have any trouble in getting the hang of it.
Graphics : 70%
Gameplay : 90%
Sound : 85%
Difficulty : 80%
Storyline : %
Overall : 81%
Kinetrax - @glaucomardano - Overall : 44%
Judge 2: Kinetrax is a music/rhythm game where you either press keys in time to music or, if you have Microsoft’s doomed peripheral Kinect, swiping your arm in time to music. Sounds simple, but it’s implementation is nothing short of sad.
During gameplay, a bar atop the screen has red circles traveling across it. You’re expected to hit a key or move your arm as the circles reach the center of the bar, but they key you’re to press is randomized, and you’re told what key to press as soon as the circle reaches the center of the bar.
The music is at least bearable, but even it can’t make up for such a poor job at everything else. The graphics are plain and blue, and words are a clear, grafiti-style font that is difficult to read and plain ugly.
Graphics : 2
Gameplay : 2
Sound : 8
Difficulty : --
Storyline : --
Overall : 1/10
Judge 3: Kinetrax focuses on Music and Sounds as its base. Graphics are not very important in this game, yet thankfully the style stays constant throughout.
Gameplay is relatively simple. You hear a song playing and you must press the key that appears once the circle hits the circle. The key appears a little too late, however, just like any other mini-game, with practice, this becomes easier. Settings can't be modified as of yet, yet maybe most disappointing is the fact that it comes short in what it's supposed to focus on - music. There is only one soundtrack in this game, and thus, gameplay is relatively short.
Difficulty is quite good, yeah, but the fact that the key only appears in the last second makes it insanely confusing and hard to new players. Oh, and it says that the difficulty setting is 'Easy' :P
Sounds and Music are what make this game, and this game has a good in-game soundtrack for the task at hand. More soundtracks would have made this game much better.
Graphics : 80%
Gameplay : 75%
Sound : 80%
Difficulty : 75%
Storyline : -%
Overall : 78%
Petabot - @kernproblem - Overall : 47%
Judge 1: I liked the graphics and overhead map. Didn’t know what to do with it!
graphics - 80%
gameplay - 50%
sound - 0%
difficulty - 50%
storyline - 15%
overall - 39%
Judge 2: While it certainly looks nice, I couldn’t actually figure out how to do anything in the game.
Graphics : 8
Gameplay : 1
Sound : --
Difficulty : --
Storyline : --
Overall : ?
Judge 3: Petabot has very nice visuals, which make up for disappointing Gameplay. Petabot's Graphics are very simple. However, they are very well executed. The ground's textures are very nice and vary. The game also has a small mini-map on the top-left corner which helps the user. But maybe the best part is the smoothness of the animations. Explosions are very nice, menus are smooth... everything is executed to perfection. This game also prompts you to choose from two display settings at the beginning. A thing which could have been improved is the walls' smoothness.
Gameplay comes short in some ways. Movement is look-one-way-walk-another type and is very smooth. Collisions work very well. There are two ready-made maps in which you can play, however you can also play in a generated map. The huge downside to this game is that the AI was not finished in time - and thus there is nothing to do.
There are no Sounds or Music whatsoever, and this is another disappointment.
There is no Difficulty either, as there is nothing to do. However, in the main menu, you are told the controls needed to play.
Graphics : 90%
Gameplay : 80%
Sound : 0%
Difficulty : 50%
Storyline : -%
Overall : 55%
Minigame Multitasking Madness 3D (MMM) - @wezrule - Overall : 39%
Judge 1: I love the idea of this game but remain confused about how to control it (a concern I actually had at one point in the work in progress thread). The graphics were fun and with some wonky sounds would’ve contributed greatly. What remains to be seen though is how to actually control the thing!
graphics - 75%
gameplay - 35%
sound - 0%
difficulty - 50%
storyline - 0%
overall - 32%
Judge 2: Minigame Multitasking Madness is a mess. The idea behind it sounds good on paper -- play two minigames at the same time, and try not to lose-- but it’s implementation was shockingly poor and directionless that the game falls short.
The screen is split into two sections. There’s a minigame on the left and right, and your job is to try and win them both. However, there is almost no instruction on how to win the games, and the games themselves are so confusing that guessing how to do them correctly is a miracle. Out of all the minigames in this game, about only half of them are able to be figured out, and worse yet most of them are played with the mouse, which wouldn’t be a problem in its own right if the game didn’t try and make you play two mouse games at once.
There are moments of fun hidden beneath the shoddy textures and low-poly models, but not much. No audio either.
Graphics : 5
Gameplay : 3
Sound : --
Difficulty : 7
Storyline : --
Overall : 3/10
Judge 3: Minigame Multitasking Madness 3D (MMM) is a game with simple Graphics and Gameplay. The Graphics are simple, maybe too simple, really. The textures just don't look too good on the objects and ground textures are, more often than not, too flat to look realistic.
The game's aim is to test the player's multitasking abilities. You must play two mini-games at the same time. There are a wide variety of mini-games to play and the race against the clock makes this game even more amusing. The game also boasts impressively implemented physics.
There are no sounds or music in this game, which is a real shame.
This game is not easy at all in terms of Difficulty. There is little and rare help on how to control the game, and in a fast-paced game like this, experimenting is not an option!
Graphics : 75%
Gameplay : 85%
Sound : 0%
Difficulty : 60%
Storyline : -%
Overall : 55%
