Open GL - Yes/No

[FRex]

So why the restrictions?

Because it's fun making pointless rules that are not needed in the first place and don't change the outcome.

I said same thing for the most part with exception that(to satisfy paranoid people who fear GL will take over just because it can) it should be rather not OK to bring too much GL code into competition because someone can bring entire own engine and then it really isn't about SFML anymore but that is extremely unlikely someone with skills like that would care about this competition to the point where they want to win in such dirty way.

http://en.sfml-dev.org/forums/index.php?topic=12740.msg89167#msg89167

You're getting into politics at this point, that's why I don't even post here except above long post and jabs at SFG using GL thus being possibly rule breaking, there's no point in 'discussion' like that, just let someone authoritative make a decision, any decision.

[Grimshaw]

Can't we rely on people's common sense and ditch all those technology rules?

I think it would be ideal to force every submission to be open source, so in case anyone thinks that game is "cheating", that person would just look through the source code and the community would consider disqualifying that submission if appropriate.

Other than that, I don't see any benefit in imposing rules about not being able to use low-level API's such as OpenGL. Following that thought, why allow STL? Why not force everyone to write their own container classes in those 48 hours? As long as no one drops a massive engine on top of SFML, its pretty fair to use some extensions to aid in getting a better game, faster. We have nothing to lose if we get better games than we would by imposing these restrictions.

Things like the SFML user interface extensions are a great thing in order to allow people to make a nice game in 48 hours. What these extensions usually do aren't trivial things we can just replicate in 48 hours. Just let people do their best game without imposing such hard barriers, allowing them to focus on the creative side rather than technical details. Just my opinion!

[Jebbs]

Although I haven't chimed in until now, I have been reading the new posts. It really is a tricky thing since I feel like both sides have good arguments. I feel like a bit of a flip-flopper that can't make up his damn mind, but right now I am kind of agreeing with Nexus and his suggestion.

I still think the SFML Game Jam would be the opportunity to show to the world how much one can achieve with SFML within a very short time. It demonstrates that even without OpenGL knowledge, it's possible to develop nice games. This is the whole point behind the SFML Graphics module: Abstracting low-level operations and OpenGL while still remaining very flexible.

Since OpenGL was allowed last time, why don't we make a test run without OpenGL this time? Then we have two scenarios to compare and to take our lessons from.

The reason I am coming around to this is because, well, it is called the SFML Game Jam after all! We really should be using as much SFML as we can.

Like I have said in the past, I don't really like the idea not allowing OpenGL only because I think it would be silly to not let someone make a 3D game if they wanted to. That said, if we change it to only being able to use SFML(At the core. Frameworks/libraries built on top of sfml are still ok), then everyone is on the same level and has to use the same set of tools to make their game.

Can't we rely on people's common sense and ditch all those technology rules?

Maybe we should!

Kind of an interesting idea, really. An honor-system jam?

[Grimshaw]

I guess the question to ask is:

Is this jam about game development or about showcasing SFML?

For the first answer, limiting technology is silly and it will only limit people's creativity and SFML will be used anyway!

For the later, if this is about showing the world what SFML can do, which I don't feel like it is, since the jam games are not highly featured by SFML website itself, the technology barriers make all the sense.

You guys decide

[Mercy404]

So last year I was of the opinion that if someone wanted to use OpenGL, it would be silly to tell them they can't participate because of it.

This year, my opinion has evolved somewhat. Let's be honest: there are a lot of game jams, just go look at Compohub. The SFML game jam is never going to be as big as events like Ludum Dare and the Global Game Jam. As Grimshaw said, there are basically two reasons to even run the jam at all:

• To have a small jam among community members for fun and an excuse to work with each other and see the fruits of everyone's labor at the end.
• To demonstrate the variety and quality of games made under tight time constraints with SFML to the game development community, and to provide good examples of interesting SFML uses or best practices.

The last jam very clearly fell under the first scenario. There was no publicity, and the whole thing was contained to a couple threads on the forum. Restricting the use of OpenGL in this setting doesn't do a lot of good.

If we were operating under the second set of assumptions, at the very least entries should be clearly marked as to whether or not they use SFML for rendering. I would argue that if we're really trying to showcase SFML, then there need to be some changes:

• Featured Games: Several (1-3?) of the entries should be "featured" by the SFML community and website. What do I mean by featured? Well, I'm really trying to avoid using the concept of "winners", but these games should essentially be the "best" entries. How is best defined? Well, if we're going to show these entries off on the front page, or bring some other form of prominent attention to them, they should be good examples of what can be done with, or how best to use SFML. That sort of leads me to a few other ideas...
• SFML Requirement: In order to be considered as a game to be featured, the entry must use SFML for rendering. Not to say that games using OpenGL don't belong in the jam, they just wont be eligible to be chosen as featured entries.
• Open Source Requirement: In addition to using SFML for rendering, games that want a chance at being featured must be open source so that others have good examples of how to use SFML, or how that awesome visual trick was done in just a few simple lines, or whatever.

So, really, it's a question of who we're doing this for. Ourselves (the SFML community), or others (those who don't know about or haven't used SFML). Personally, I would prefer to see the jam focused on showing off SFML to others since there are a bunch of other general game jams to participate in.

tl;dr:
What Grimshaw said.

[Grimshaw]

On a side note, do we have a theme or a pool of themes already? I'm not sure if I ll be able to participate, but I'd like to

[Jebbs]

On a side note, do we have a theme or a pool of themes already? I'm not sure if I ll be able to participate, but I'd like to

The website only needs a few more things before it has all the functionality I want it to have, but once I have the poll stuff finished I'll get the ball rolling on picking a theme. I just  got a little overwhelmed due to homework during the last few days, but it should be ready before the weekend.