Torque 2D Political Satire Contest - Contest #2
by Geoff Beckstrom · 02/08/2012 (1:10 pm) · 47 comments
We had a great response to our hour long zen garden contest. This week we are listening to community feedback and giving everyone a bit more time.
For this contest we are switching gears to Torque 2D and current events.
Provide a video or a screen capture of your best political satire using Torque 2D to create the scene or game. Post your entry as a comment to this blog no later than 11:59 AM PST Friday February 10th.
We will announce the winner by the end of community power hour at 1:00 PM PST that Friday and award $129 in store credit for first party products.
Just a quick note – we are going for humor, satire, and a display of Torque 2D capabilities. We are NOT looking for anything offensive or illegal (IE – threating to any politician or candidate). Any entries that are deemed to be offensive or potentially illegal will be removed and disqualified from the contest.
Finally for our international community members – feel free to take some fun shots at US politics OR give us some insight to your local political fun.
Game On!
For this contest we are switching gears to Torque 2D and current events.
Provide a video or a screen capture of your best political satire using Torque 2D to create the scene or game. Post your entry as a comment to this blog no later than 11:59 AM PST Friday February 10th.
We will announce the winner by the end of community power hour at 1:00 PM PST that Friday and award $129 in store credit for first party products.
Just a quick note – we are going for humor, satire, and a display of Torque 2D capabilities. We are NOT looking for anything offensive or illegal (IE – threating to any politician or candidate). Any entries that are deemed to be offensive or potentially illegal will be removed and disqualified from the contest.
Finally for our international community members – feel free to take some fun shots at US politics OR give us some insight to your local political fun.
Game On!
About the author
Las Vegas studio director and operations manager.
#2
Question -- is it OK if the assets used are already done? I may be able to get something interesting out of our in-progress game's cutscenes... if I tweak the text.
Also -- can we enter more than one?
02/08/2012 (4:12 pm)
Well it didn't have a "like" button... so I had no idea what to do. :)Question -- is it OK if the assets used are already done? I may be able to get something interesting out of our in-progress game's cutscenes... if I tweak the text.
Also -- can we enter more than one?
#3
Unless Eric feels differently I am going to say that yes you can make multiple entries as our goal here is to showcase Torque 2D and to allow our community members to show off their skills, imagination, and in this specific case their cynical knowledge of current events!
02/08/2012 (4:52 pm)
@Tim (and for everyone else) you can use whatever you have available to you between now and 11:59AM PST Friday. Unless Eric feels differently I am going to say that yes you can make multiple entries as our goal here is to showcase Torque 2D and to allow our community members to show off their skills, imagination, and in this specific case their cynical knowledge of current events!
#4
We can clearly mark that it was done in T3D so you can feel free to disqualify.
BTW, I really like these contests you are running. It makes the whole atmosphere a little more fun.
02/08/2012 (5:36 pm)
So, if we don't own T2D can we enter the contest using T3D, but use just the GUI? We can clearly mark that it was done in T3D so you can feel free to disqualify.
BTW, I really like these contests you are running. It makes the whole atmosphere a little more fun.
#5
02/08/2012 (7:38 pm)
A 2d community activity? I am SO gonna do something! Brace yourselves for Paint sprites people. 
#7
Let's see your best wit...
02/08/2012 (9:09 pm)
"Although satire is usually meant to be funny, its greater purpose is often constructive social criticism, using wit as a weapon."Let's see your best wit...
#8
@orb - Epic!
02/08/2012 (9:12 pm)
@Luis - I know! I'm just as happy about 2D getting the spotlight as you =)@orb - Epic!
#9
02/09/2012 (12:00 am)
I just realized how lame my question was. I can just use the "demo"! Doh!
#10
02/09/2012 (8:16 am)
@Ronny: Thank you for the early morning laugh! Excellent start.
#11
02/09/2012 (4:53 pm)
I made a re-skin of a game I'm working on. The goal is to accept as many bribes as possible before the FBI reaches your office! 
#12
Ban This Game www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSWu8AyR3B
Harpooned www.youtube.com/watch?v=VylUBbOgoQo
02/09/2012 (11:05 pm)
These were made a long time before this contest, so they aren't entries, but I thought I'd post them here to give you guys some ideas.Ban This Game www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSWu8AyR3B
Harpooned www.youtube.com/watch?v=VylUBbOgoQo
#13
The play screen. You see 6 mega corporations that are all too big to fail! Their capital starts going down fast, if it goes negative they will start firing employees. If they run out of employees, you lose.
Every time you click on one of the MegaCorps, you take away 5000 of your Bailout funds and give them to the company, if you run out of Bailout funds you can always print more money! Be careful though, printing more money increases the debt and if it goes to high....
It's a fun game for everyone!
Now you can download it! With Script!
dl.dropbox.com/u/6759878/BailoutRelease.zip
02/10/2012 (12:28 am)
I created a mini game for the contest. It's fully working. I have two screenshots of it I will post here. I can link it for download but I couldn't find a torque or GG logo that looked halfway decent for me to put on a splash screen at the beginning. I'm not sure if that is still required for release.The play screen. You see 6 mega corporations that are all too big to fail! Their capital starts going down fast, if it goes negative they will start firing employees. If they run out of employees, you lose.Every time you click on one of the MegaCorps, you take away 5000 of your Bailout funds and give them to the company, if you run out of Bailout funds you can always print more money! Be careful though, printing more money increases the debt and if it goes to high....
It's a fun game for everyone!
Now you can download it! With Script!
dl.dropbox.com/u/6759878/BailoutRelease.zip
#14
Since I am not eligible for the contest and I don't have time to get a prototype of my idea done up in T2D this morning Ill share in hopes it might help spur some more last minute submissions:
"Politician Magic 8 Ball"
The satirical point is to poke fun at the fact that politicians (particularly ones running for office) talk a lot without really saying anything.
The game would have a generic politician in a suit and tie at a podium (think South Park card board style maybe) with a microphone. The player could type in any question ala a google/bing/yahoo search and the politician would provide a long winded, verbose response that had nothing to do with the actual question asked.
I am excited to see what we get in these last few hours and I will check back in during community power hour!
02/10/2012 (9:23 am)
Deadline is in about 2.5 hours for submission.Since I am not eligible for the contest and I don't have time to get a prototype of my idea done up in T2D this morning Ill share in hopes it might help spur some more last minute submissions:
"Politician Magic 8 Ball"
The satirical point is to poke fun at the fact that politicians (particularly ones running for office) talk a lot without really saying anything.
The game would have a generic politician in a suit and tie at a podium (think South Park card board style maybe) with a microphone. The player could type in any question ala a google/bing/yahoo search and the politician would provide a long winded, verbose response that had nothing to do with the actual question asked.
I am excited to see what we get in these last few hours and I will check back in during community power hour!
#15
I can't describe how delighted with this contest we are. It's been just few days since we announced a game that will try to present the main points of ACTA (we're Europeans) but also SOPA and PIPA agreements in an attractive and entertaining way. The game is titled Monopoly Monster, is intended to be completely free and published for Mac, Windows and maybe even Linux.
The game itself is in its very beginning. We have the main theme and the concept of gameplay ready and now we're putting it together.
Theme:
Player plays for V (Anonymous) who's fighting huge Monopoly Monster with tentacles. Monopoly Monster is trying to reach Government and Media using its tentacles in order to influence them to act to its liking. V runs around and cuts the tentacles in order to stop it. The point is that tentacles keep growing and no matter how player tries, it doesn't lead to success. The only way to beat Monopoly Monster is to get behind him where it becomes clear that it's sort of Frankenstein figure animated and kept alive by recording companies, pharmaceutical concerns and super corporations. When behind, player will have to cut its energy supplies to make Monopoly Monster weaker. With every supply cut he can elevate to another level all the way to the top where he finally faces Monopoly Monster itself.
Technical background:
The game is being developed in Torque 2D using pre-rendered backgrounds, objects and animations. The whole fights goes on during a huge thunderstorm with heavy rain. The rain is handled via particle emitter, the storm in background will be animated using images. The only difficulty we're facing right now is how to properly display Monopoly Monster's tentacles. Right now, we're using image maps that changes its frames as the tentacle grows. It's not bad but in order to make them look really cool, it will need A LOT of frames. We also thought of some particle driven mechanism but couldn't come up with anything satisfying.
The game is supposed to be simple and straight forward. We work on other and bigger Torque powered projects right now so we can't afford wasting too much effort on this one but the situation around these agreements really pushed us towards some "real" action.
We hope you'll find our concept interesting, perhaps give us some feedback and stay tuned for the release. Our official website is www.nitromsoft.com where you can find some stuff we do and also read our official statement on ACTA, SOPA and PIPA agreements.
One last note. The images in the post were reduced in order to display correctly in the post. Here are links to high-resolution versions that you can open in your browser.
Cheers,
Frantisek
Splash Screen
Game screenshot
Editor screenshot
02/10/2012 (9:44 am)
Whoa! Nice one GG...and we "almost" missed it!!!I can't describe how delighted with this contest we are. It's been just few days since we announced a game that will try to present the main points of ACTA (we're Europeans) but also SOPA and PIPA agreements in an attractive and entertaining way. The game is titled Monopoly Monster, is intended to be completely free and published for Mac, Windows and maybe even Linux.
The game itself is in its very beginning. We have the main theme and the concept of gameplay ready and now we're putting it together.
Theme:
Player plays for V (Anonymous) who's fighting huge Monopoly Monster with tentacles. Monopoly Monster is trying to reach Government and Media using its tentacles in order to influence them to act to its liking. V runs around and cuts the tentacles in order to stop it. The point is that tentacles keep growing and no matter how player tries, it doesn't lead to success. The only way to beat Monopoly Monster is to get behind him where it becomes clear that it's sort of Frankenstein figure animated and kept alive by recording companies, pharmaceutical concerns and super corporations. When behind, player will have to cut its energy supplies to make Monopoly Monster weaker. With every supply cut he can elevate to another level all the way to the top where he finally faces Monopoly Monster itself.
Technical background:
The game is being developed in Torque 2D using pre-rendered backgrounds, objects and animations. The whole fights goes on during a huge thunderstorm with heavy rain. The rain is handled via particle emitter, the storm in background will be animated using images. The only difficulty we're facing right now is how to properly display Monopoly Monster's tentacles. Right now, we're using image maps that changes its frames as the tentacle grows. It's not bad but in order to make them look really cool, it will need A LOT of frames. We also thought of some particle driven mechanism but couldn't come up with anything satisfying.
The game is supposed to be simple and straight forward. We work on other and bigger Torque powered projects right now so we can't afford wasting too much effort on this one but the situation around these agreements really pushed us towards some "real" action.
We hope you'll find our concept interesting, perhaps give us some feedback and stay tuned for the release. Our official website is www.nitromsoft.com where you can find some stuff we do and also read our official statement on ACTA, SOPA and PIPA agreements.
One last note. The images in the post were reduced in order to display correctly in the post. Here are links to high-resolution versions that you can open in your browser.
Cheers,
Frantisek
Splash Screen
Game screenshot
Editor screenshot
#16
Next time!
02/10/2012 (10:02 am)
I love this contest and hope to see more like it in the future... unfortunately 'real work' prevented me from having the time to make an entry. :(Next time!
#17
02/10/2012 (10:27 am)
OMFG, I knew this thread was going to keep getting more interesting! THANK YOU Geoff Beckstrom for coming up with this idea! You all are actually fulfilling one of my longest held, but least acted upon, ambitions - making political satire games with Torque - right here before my eyes! Frantisek Smrcka I absolutely cannot wait to play your game. I don't think I'm the only one who would find it entertaining, either, it would likely get a _lot_ of hits in the states right now! Ryan Roper, also awesome. Wish I had time to put in my own contribution (maybe next time), meanwhile great work everybody!!! 
#18
Come, let's play who's is bigger once again. This crap never gets old. :)
02/10/2012 (10:35 am)
I think I may have missed the deadline but it was fun to knock together nonetheless...Come, let's play who's is bigger once again. This crap never gets old. :)
#19
Keep em coming and we will announce a winner by the end of community power hour!
02/10/2012 (10:38 am)
There is still a little more than an hour left to the deadline. Chris thanks for the kind words - Eric gets credit for the idea - I wanted to do a valentines theme (think the Alien or Zombie getting ready for a date) but I agreed that Eric's idea was better.Keep em coming and we will announce a winner by the end of community power hour!
#20
02/10/2012 (10:50 am)
We still have time right? Pacific Time correct? I'll be posting soon. I had to much fun actually making it. 
Employee Eric Preisz
GarageGames