Start with the same prompt and the same resources and use the power of your words to make something that's not-so-samey.
The Prompt:
You lived an unexceptional life, until one night you saw what appeared to be a falling star. Tracking it to its landing spot, you found a young woman lying on the ground. This girl is not human, but a spirit... the spirit of disaster!
The Resources:
Download this zip and unpack it as a folder in your RenPy projects directory. Contains sprites, backgrounds, and music. The sprites and backgrounds are already set up with names in the script.rpy file.
The Competition:
Write a story that lints to a minimum of 1000 words and a maximum of 10,000 words. This story may be in any genre, and may or may not include branching, but it must relate in some way to the prompt.
To create your story, rename myentry.rpy to whatever you want to call your entry. Write all of your story and all of your code within that one rpy file - that is the only thing you will be submitting. Leave the rest of the supplied rpy files alone, other than putting a link to your own story into the script.rpy so that you can launch and test your game.
Before the end of September, 2012, you must email your rpy file to owner@hanakogames.com along with the name of your entry. I will reply to confirm receipt. If you're having trouble reaching me by email, you can PM me on the forums.
The Prizes:
$50 USD payable via PayPal, supplied by papillon
$50 USD payable via PayPal, supplied by ThisIsNoName
An anime figure, supplied by Sapphi
1 Hanako Games CD (see list of games available here) sent by mail
(If you cannot receive paypal payments, I can send it to a person or cause you nominate. If mail in your country is extremely unreliable, a downloadable game can be substituted for a CD at your choice. Customs and taxes and the like are your responsibility.)
First place winner gets first pick of prizes, and so on down the list. More prizes may or may not be added to the list as the competition continues - anyone want to donate something?
The Rules:
You do not have to use all the supplied resources, or any at all, but you may not add any more resources. No external graphics or sound. Only what you are supplied, and what you can create from that using RenPy's functions.
Whatever code you use, your entry must be able to run under RenPy 6.13. It is your responsibility to test this if you develop under a different version.
You may enter multiple stories in the same contest if you so desire. You may work with a partner if you want, but a winning entry will receive only one prize sent to one person, so splitting any winnings will be your responsibility!
Contest entries must be publicly anonymous and unreleased. Please don't tell people which game is yours or post it publicly elsewhere, I don't want to have to mess with disqualifying entries!
By entering you vouch that the story you are submitting is the original work of yourself and/or any partners. (And I'm vouching that the resources supplied are, afaik, okay for use in this contest. They will be fully credited in the final package release.) The sprite, music, and backgrounds are NOT necessarily available for use outside of this contest and anything made with them cannot be sold. Just in case anyone had ideas.
The final release will have all the games packed together into one download. I may have to edit some entries slightly in order to avoid namespace collisions, I will do my best not to break anyone's game.
The Judging:
Sometime after the entries have been submitted, I will create a special release with all the stories included and put it up for the public. That will begin the Discussion Period.
During the discussion period, people should talk about individual entries, discuss what they do well/badly, compare them to each other, etc.Trying to guess who wrote what is rude and should be avoided.
The discussion period will last for at least one week, possibly more depending on how the discussion is going.
At the end of the discussion period, anyone (OTHER THAN ME) who has taken part in the discussion will be allowed to vote on their top 3 entries. Votes should be sent to me by PM. Lurker votes will be discarded!
You are allowed to tell people what you are voting for if you want to. (But still, don't identify yourself as a particular entry's author, if you are one.)
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I am a very scatter-brained person at times. If I have left out the obvious or put in dead links, PLEASE TELL ME SO.