Announcing the Official GAGS Game Contest May 26, 1986 ----------------------------------------- ------------ Users of the Generic Adventure Game System (GAGS) now have a chance to enhance their reputations and income by writing a game using GAGS. The author of the best game submitted to the Official GAGS Game Contest will receive $100 or 100 floppy disks, and his or her game will be included with all copies of GAGS for at least a year. Depending on the number and quality of entries, other entries showing merit may receive Honorable Mentions and token prizes of some kind. GUIDELINES FOR SUBMISSIONS: To be considered for the contest, your game must work with version 1.06a or later of the Generic Adventure Game System. The game should be playable (i.e. it must be possible for a reasonable player to complete it in less than 5 years, and not require that the player save the game status before every step). Please realize that the line between cleverness and cruelty in game design is a fine one. The winning game need not use the standard "adventure game" format; any interesting and enjoyable script for GAGS will be considered for the contest. It is not necessary to use any particular feature of GAGS, and the game can be as large or small, or as simple or complex, as you feel appropriate. Games which rely on IBM-specific features (such as the IBM graphics character set) will be considered, but games requiring specific features of other computer systems will not be considered. Keep your game clean. If your game were a movie, it should be rated PG-13 at the worst, since GAGS is aimed at a wide audience including pre-teens. It should not contain explicit or offensive language, and should certainly not require obscene or offensive behavior on the part of the player. The game should not infringe upon any copyrighted material or upon any trademarks. In other words, while you are welcome to base your game upon a fantasy-role-playing environment, or a space travel scenario, you cannot legally use names like "Dungeons and Dragons" or "Star Trek," which are registered trademarks. It might be acceptable to use modified trademarks if the game is a deliberate satire. All text must be original to the game author(s), who must own all copyrights to the game. Entries may be written by an individual, a team, or, if desired, by an artificially-intelligent computer program. PRIZES: The author of the best game submitted by September 30, 1986 will receive his or her choice of a check for $100 or 100 double-sided, double-density floppy disks for the IBM PC. Depending on the number of entries and the disposition of the judge(s), other prizes may also be awarded, either as additional prizes for the author of the best game or as less valuable prizes awarded to games considered worthy of an Honorable Mention. RULES: No purchase is necessary: You need not be a registered user to enter the Official GAGS Game Contest, and registered users will have no advantage in the contest. All entries should comply with the Guidelines for Submissions listed above. The winner of the contest will be the game that, in the opinion of the judge(s), is most interesting and enjoyable to use. The contest will be judged by Mark J. Welch, or by one or more person(s) chosen by him to judge the contest. All decisions of the judge(s) will be final. The winning game file will be included with all copies of GAGS distributed by the author from October 31, 1986 to October 31, 1987, and possibly thereafter. Other than the $100 prize, the winner will receive no additional compensation from Mark J. Welch; however, the winning game may include a "shareware" contribution request within the game itself. The winning game may be edited for style and grammar before release. All entries may be individually copyrighted by their authors, and may be distributed as "shareware" or as "public domain" works independent of the Official GAGS Game Contest. Entries which are copyrighted and distributed as "shareware" by their authors, including the winning submission if appropriate, may include requests for contributions to their authors. Submissions should be sent as an ASCII text file, on a 5-1/4 inch floppy disk, formatted for use with an IBM Personal Computer. Entries which include a return mailer and sufficient postage will be returned; no other submissions will be returned. All submissions must be mailed to Mark J. Welch, P.O. Box 2409, San Francisco, CA 94126. All submissions must be postmarked by September 30, 1986, and must be received by October 10, 1986. The winner of the contest will be announced on or before October 31, 1986. ---------------- Sorry, games may not be submitted electronically. WelchNet (Fido 125/459) has become a private node with an unpublished phone number. I have moved to Berkeley, California effective June 1, 1986, and will become a Poor Law Student in August, so I'm trying to cut back on expenses. My new voice phone number is (415) 845-2430. ---------------- For those who don't already know, the Generic Adventure Game System (GAGS) is an adventure-game authoring system for computers that use the MS-DOS operating system (such as the IBM PC, DEC Rainbow, PCjr, and the Amiga with Transformer). It's distributed as Shareware, and is available from many bulletin- board systems, users' groups, and other sources of public- domain software nationwide. An unregistered program disk can also be purchased from the author for $10. Registration is $15 more; and registered users can buy the Turbo Pascal 3.0 source code for $25 more. ---------------- Good Luck, everyone! Mark J. Welch P.O. Box 2409 San Francisco, CA 94126 (415) 845-2430 (tm) GAGS and "Generic Adventure Game System" are trademarks of Mark J. Welch. IBM, IBM PC, and IBM PCjr are trademarks of IBM. MS-DOS is a trademark of Microsoft Corp. Amiga and Transformer are trademarks of Commodore Business Machines. DEC and Rainbow are trademarks of Digital Equipment Corp. Turbo Pascal is a trademark of Borland International.