Post by ChristopherMerriner in About rule 4 - technical problem

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ChristopherMerriner2 years ago (2 edits) (+2)

4.1 We'd like all games to become available for playing at the same time, after the submission window has closed, to ensure a level playing field for participants during a defined judging window. To this end, the organisers will: keep submissions hidden on the ParserComp submissions page until the submission deadline has passed and we expect entrants to: a) keep their game hidden, i.e. in draft, on its individual game page (over which the organisers do not have control) until as close to the deadline as practicably possible, and b) not promote or encourage players to find and play a game on its individual game page until the deadline has passed. We realise that entrants may be in different time zones and it may therefore be necessary to unhide a game on the individual game page several hours before the deadline; that is acceptable as long as the spirit of this rule is observed.

I think that's a clear as we can be with this one - and should cover everyone in different time zones.

Thanks for picking up on this point everyone. Your feedback is appreciated!

Andrew Schultz2 years ago

Thanks for clarifying this! Certainly for me I was worried about when I should set a game to fully visible. It was enough of a trick to figure how to put it into tester-only mode the first time.

I wondered if I was just being a nitpicker when I suggested it so I'm glad this happened.

As an IFComp entrant it's neat to have stuff done automatically. When it's manual, stuff is tricky.

It's likely I won't be entering this year, but if I did enter, I'd be grateful for a brief (opt-in) email that would 1) remind entrants with 8 hours to go to set things to public and 2) double-check with people after the deadline that, yes, they did indeed make their entry public.

Doing so should of course be on the writer, but all the same, if we have 20 entrants and everyone is 95% sure they'll check off, one is expected to forget. So it's a potential nuisance for the organizer(s) but one worth taking.

As someone who has entered an itch.io jam, I know to check itch.io in a browser where I'm not logged in before making something public. But it just seems like the sort of thing someone can forget.

I don't know how much leniency you'll want to give anyone who submits a game and leaves it private--I don't know if that's in the rules. But I do think it's worth checking with a day left to say "Hey, make sure the game is public." It might even be worth checking if there is an automatic way to set a project to public without going through the web interface.

These thoughts may be a bit long, but I wanted to share anything that might be useful, since when to set a project to public has always nagged me a bit. EctoComp tends to be very forgiving, and it looks like ParserComp's rules are too. But I'm convinced there are bumpers competitors may be able to use to make sure that the rollout is smooth and their projects go public at the right time.

ChristopherMerriner2 years ago(+1)

Thanks Andrew - those are good points. We'll ensure that there are reminders up to the deadline, and at the other side. We are, of course, happy to extend benefit of the doubt in genuine cases of oversight or misunderstanding; we're not going to rule out someone's hard work just because they forgot to make their game public within a few hours of the deadline.

Andrew Schultz2 years ago

Thanks again, Chris! I always worry I'm nitpicking, and I figured that you and fos probably had a general "we don't want to use the rules to exclude someone" philosophy, so I'm grateful to be able to sort out my questions here.

I have to admit I'm acutely aware/worried of what can go wrong, and I suspect others will be glad to know you guys have some flexibility in the event of some weird case popping up. It really helps to know you all considered it in advance, so during crunch time there is one less thing to worry about.