What if what if? was theme for CGDC7?

But... we just had one?

I can't wait! What if there is a "Small Worlds 2"? What if Bonte enters again? What if I finally get the initiative to code something myself?!

What? You haven't even finished with CGDC 6!

You guys must have gotten a lot of time on your hands all of a sudden. This is fantastic!

What if the three themes they couldn't decide between were actually going to be the themes of 3 close together competitions?

Sorry to double post, but is there going to be another logo design contest to go with this CGDC?

[Edit: Sorry, not this time. -Jay]

Alright, now I'm totally confused. Maybe we're supposed to wait for another teaser a week later?

Okay, no logo design contest... I'm pretty sure that means you're going to use a simple logo like these two teaser logos. Perhaps even the very logo of this teaser is the logo for the competition... though it'd be more likely to be something like the What If? logo from earlier with "November 16" replaced with "cgdc #7".

Oh wait, duh, the logo design contest was before the theme was revealed? Of course, the earlier statement of "What If?" could apply to either Breaking The Fourth Wall (oh boy, another ResetButton) or Failure (What if you fail? ... For that matter, what if you fail to fail?)

What the...?

Awesomecakes!

Mmmm.. miam miam.. :-)

JIG and teasers, at least we some idea what this one is about haha.

Alright, this is a teaser I can get behind. That whole "What if" post was kind of silly and useless. Now I have a general idea of what I'm looking forward to, and I'm actually curious about the details. Isn't that what a teaser's supposed to accomplish?

Also, a tangentially related question: You said in a comments section that there might eventually be a downloadable game competition, which would be great considering the only coding language I know so far is GML. Any more word on this?

I smell gimmick! But, that's okay, I think I'm happy about it.

Oooh, maybe it's a really limited time span one... Yes please!

I hope the theme is the name the game must have. Something very open to interpretation so we can have more sorts of different games all based on the same idea. I know it won't be that, a man can dream though, a man can dream.

Ooooh crikey!

China Game Developers Conference?

I discovered something. If you click one of the tags, you'll find all the posts with that tag. That posts say:

and

Creative Gold Diggers Committee?

Actually that was brilliant. They've NEVER had CGDCs so close together, and the weird what if teaser let us know in advance that something unprecedented would happen.

Now, what is the theme going to be???

Youse a sneaky man Jay ;D

good news

I hope desperately that the theme is "What If?" and that everything is multi-path (I'm thinking Minoto games style).
Or what if it was all interactive fiction? Not quite as exciting.
I am, however, fairly disappointed. It would seem that my "evil cheesemen and mind-controlling ducks" theory is completely wrong (see my 2nd post in the comments of "What If?").
Even so, I'm quite excited. I'm not sure if any 2 CGDCs have been held so close together.

This is actually quite exciting. Seeing as how we loves the game competition so much! Happier still because I think a great number of 6ix's entries were subpar. I'm thinking a destruction theme would go great for 7even!

MOAR!!

Ok, I'm thinking it is an IF comp, mainly because I distinctly remember someone (Jay?) saying earlier in the year that there was going to be an IF competition. If I'm right, yay! There can never be too much IF in the world.

Is this a tie-in to the San Fernando valley "As If" competition?

Personally I think that either tigrita is right on the money, or that what if IS the theme for CGDC #7, where it is not just about Interactive Fiction Games, but whatever you can come up with that fits "what if".

Which actually makes me think of Grow clones. "What if I use this object first, and then that other object?"

And I completely agree with StephenM3.

I'm thinking interactive fiction... with the previous clue, the closeness of the two competitions, and the lack of a logo design competition. To bad that is my least favorite genre of game :P
I'm a terrible speller/typist and always get frustrated when I rewrite 'Go Suoth' fifteen times.

[Edit: Why "go south" when "s" will do the same? ;) -Jay]

Classy Grandma's Design Corporation?

I'm thinking Interactive Fiction as well, and am looking forward to it.

IF is broader than the old "go north, use key on door" style of games, or even the "IF 2.0" games like Photopia, which are more about story and choices, and not much about mapping and guessing the verb.

Dead Frontier got a good response when it was reviewed here, and it's basically a short choose-your-own-adventure game about zombies.

I believe the possibilities for Interactive Fiction are vast and largely untapped. Instead of thinking of Zork or Colossal Caverns, think of your favorite novel, and being able to influence it. You could switch between character's viewpoints and thoughts as events unfolded, even change how they reacted to events. Another story could have simulation elements of running a business or planet your characters lived in. A time travel story could compound all the choices your character has made in the past. You could get meta-gamey and explore free will versus the sovereignty of the author, or how trying to avert a fate merely accomplishes it. Our minds interlink our memories so that one leads to another and to another -- much existing hypertext fiction works this way, with vignettes from a character's life which can be explored in a freeform linked way, gradually forming a full picture of the character.

Even within the Inform/TADS/etc. systems of IF, authors have broken the conventions that turn some people off. For example, in Gun Mute, there is no "go north," only forwards and backwards along your journey, from scene to scene. And Blue Lacuna is a full-length interactive novel which has very few commands -- players type in highlighted topics, objects, characters, or locations, to examine or go -- and the non-player characters evolve according to the gender and sexual orientation you chose at the beginning and how you treat them, and can become a father-figure, close friend, lover, or enemy, among others. The game also guesses when you are stuck and sends a character to hint at what you might try next.

Here's hoping "what IF" is interactive fiction, that they allow many formats of fiction including hypertext, and that entrants break conventions with original ways to tell stories.

I second the comment made by jim le fevre
and would like to add ....Crivens

regardless of the actual theme, does anyone else think the two logos used so far look like 'got milk?' stickers?

Hubay: And you're right, they do.
Jay: Sneaky, but I'm not complaining.
*waits patiently for 18-ish days*

You know, "what if" can be anagrammed into "wtf hai".

JAYISLOLCATS OMG

Ooh, I hope it is IF! I love interactive fiction and despite the variety here, there's still room for more in my books!

Can't wait~

The fact that the date given is the day after the annual IF Comp judging period ends may be a red herring.

So many head games!
You're a sneaky man Jay Bibby...A sneaky, sneaky man...

IF certainly is a topic that needs a lot of time for preparation. Because the deadline is so near (and no sane man can write a complete story in two weeks) I think most of the authors are already working on this.
Hope no one gets a writer's block...

[Edit: Just to clarify: CGDC7 doesn't begin until November 16th, the day we will announce all the details about our next competition, including the theme. -Jay]

Hmmm...This competition is being announced right after another competition is ending.

Coincidence?

Another competition!? This one isn't even midway through yet!

Here are a few guesses of what this CGDC could be about:

a)

b)

c)

d)

I can't wait to see how this is going to turn out!

I think these discussions are part of the reason he even puts these things here. He likes to laugh at our ignorance. And applaud us when we figure it out.

oooooooooooooohmygod.

seeing as cgdc #6 is happening now, cgdc may stand for something else here

Too soon. The last time two CGDCs were held so closely together the entries in the following one were sorely lacking. Not that there weren't any good games, it was just that they weren't nearly fleshed out. I'd say wait three months at the least.

Jay tells no lies...

I like the strange Halloween atmosphere of this all.

heh. I didn't get the connection between Interactive Fiction and "what if" until I read Strangelander's long post. "What I(nteractive)F(iction)?"

Well, this clears things up a bit. Nice one, Jay. =)

Of course, if you can work out how to make the theme work, there's nothing stopping anyone from doing a piece of IF for the "normal" CGDCs... ;)

(You'd have to program it so it could be played in a browser, of course, but with Javascript, that's easy enough.)

I agree with the notion that the competition is gonna be IF, and I think Jay has it set to start the day AFTER the 15th annual IF competition is that anyone who is a good IF writer will have their work submitted in that competition and can't use it for cgdc7 because it, after being submitted for the IF competition, would no longer be original.

A very clever way to level the playing feild and make everyone start fresh.

Don't you all relize that is is probobly some joke? although this does expalen that WHAT IF? thing a while ago. WHAT IF CGDC 7 CAME RIGHT AFTER CGDC 6?

awesome.. right at my birthday too :)

What if its November 16th next year (2010)......

They never said November 2009...........