PyWeek - What is essential to a good production score?

I am going to be using only pygame.draw for a my graphics, so I am wondering what I need to make sure I have a good productions score.
for example is music a must?

— eugman on 2007/04/02 02:24 of Awesome block game 2 -- return of the block : The story of one block against the world

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By RB[0] on 2007/04/02 02:45:

Music is not a must for me, just look at the winning single-person entry last time(Richards bouncy), it had no music or sfx, yet it did well.
And I generally dont even have my music turned on ;)

For me good production come from polish of the game
menus(buttons are better, keys are acceptable)
graphics
And how well I feel the game "flows".

Those are my criteria, ranked form most important down

By Mikle on 2007/04/02 10:16:

What do you mean by "buttons" and not keys?

By Smight on 2007/04/02 16:38:

He means having clickable buttons on the screen instead of having to use the keyboard and memorize what the keys do. I don't have a problem with mostly keyboard interfaces as long as there is an easily accessible reference guide or it's using the old WASD keys and the like when the camera is tied into your mouse.

By Mikle on 2007/04/02 16:50:

I have made my own buttons, that even change cursor on mouse up. But what I don't have is keyboard binding (up / down) to move in the menu because my game will be using mostly the mouse. Is this good or should I make up/down bindings?

By tsmaster on 2007/04/02 17:06:

Mikle: In my opinion, keyboard control over the menu is a very small thing. Add it if it's easy, because the crazy folks who like keyboard bindings will be pleasantly surprised.

By RB[0] on 2007/04/02 17:49:

Sorry, I thought I had posted, but must of not clicked submit ;)

By buttons on the menu I mean clickable buttons, by keys I mean having something like...
"Press 'e' to start an easy game", etc.

I totally dont mind game controls being keys, its just menus are nicer with buttons IMO

By Smight on 2007/04/02 18:10:

oh yeah for menus there's no beating buttons. I thought you were saying game controls should also be in the form of buttons, which doesn't work out very well if you have to do more then one thing at a time. Cheers!

By saluk on 2007/04/02 20:02:

When I grade production, I definitely add a point if they have decent sound effects and/or music, but if the graphics and animations are good enough, then that sound/music bonus point won't matter. I'm looking for games with a consistent feel, if there is a badly drawn background with amazing sprites on it, it won't get a high production score. Consistent well drawn yet low quality graphics are better than inconsistent higher quality ones.

The interface is a huge part of the score also, not just what keys you choose, but how the physics of the game behave, or how balanced a simulation is.

In general, any game that makes me want to look away from the screen will receive a low score; any game that makes me go "wow" will get a high score; and everything else will get a middle one. Bad sound/music won't lose points (I can just mute it), good sound/music can help a lot if other aspects aren't up to par.


Stickman walking across room = production:1/10
Stickman walking across room with awesome footstep sounds and creepy music = production:5/10

By Mikle on 2007/04/02 20:10:

k...What about a normally drawn guy (pretty one) without sound?
with stupid elevator music?
with annoying footsteps without the ability to turn it off in a mostly walking game?

By RB[0] on 2007/04/02 20:19:

I wouldnt mind that, you can ALWAYS turn the sound off ;)

By saluk on 2007/04/02 20:28:

normally drawn guy without sound: probably a 5/10
stupid elevator music/annoying footsteps: no effect on score

By Mikle on 2007/04/02 21:59:

saluk - than what will get a 10/10 from you?

By saluk on 2007/04/02 23:19:

Nice looking guy, nice looking floor, guy looks like he fits with the floor, smooth animation (that is important). It would have to be extremely good. In general, if it looks like a game that could be found in a store, either in modern times, or in ancient times, depending on where it seems the game would fit, I will give it somewhere in the range of 7-10. Since the category to me seems like the "professionalism" category, I am just trying to grade how professional it seems, and how much effort and care the developer took in making the game appealing. Sometimes the simplest details can make a game seem more professional, such as animated transitions between screens rather than just cutting between them, or buttons that highlight when the mouse is over them.

By simono on 2007/04/03 01:27:

for me.. good production means
  • the game is accesable (not to be called with cmd-line args or something like that) and
  • most have a consistent look&feel
  • has some polish...
.. that how i think i'll rate :-)