A Flash 4k Game Competition
Inspired by Iain Lobb’s commentary on the seminal 25-Lines competition, I was thinking of having a gamepoetry sponsored 4k game competition.
Off the top of my head, I was thinking something along the lines of:
- 30 day window
- Your .swf file has to be sized 4k or less (yes, disqualified if it shows up as 4.2k when I right-click properties). That’s “size” not “size on disk.”
- No theme or constraint at this time (future ones, I imagine, might have some sort of theme).
- A prize. It’ll be something worth competing for, but I’m not sure exactly what just yet. It could end up just being some cold hard cash, but I’d prefer it to serve two purposes, for example a grab bag of indie game purchases so that not only do you get something fun, some deserving indies get some money in their pocket too.
If Java developers can make kick ass games with 4k (like the amazing Left4kDead), then we have to be able to do something even more awesome with Flash!
If there’s enough interest, I’ll figure out what the prize is and then make it official. 
Comment if you think you would like to participate.
Richard Davey
Count me in! I much rather a 4KB challenge than 25 lines. You could do some amazing things with 4KB in Flash. My only question is will you allow FP9 and FP10? I’ll stick to FP9 myself, but it might be fair to distinguish.
January 30th, 2009 at 10:21 amurbansquall
I don’t see any particular reason to limit which of the two to be used, so, no I guess FP9 and FP10 is fine.
January 30th, 2009 at 10:41 amKelvin Luck
I’d be up for it… Sounds fun and I think the filesize limit is a cleaner restriction than lines of code…
January 30th, 2009 at 12:11 pmwonderwhy-er
Good to see more Flash competitions coming to stage. I have one questions tough: For 25 lines posting the code was one of rules at least for finalists and how such things are here? What bout external libraries and resources then? Flex? haXe?
Anyways it seems I will pass first one as it is possible that field of possibilities could end up being very big and as a result gap of quality of entries could be as big…
January 30th, 2009 at 12:33 pmurbansquall
I have to be able to build it to verify that no external libraries/resources are used. That means probably Flash CS3, Flex Builder and Flash Develop will be supported out of the box.
I probably will require that the winner be willing to post source code. Non-winners will have the option to opt-out for this one.
January 30th, 2009 at 1:07 pmJohn Cotterell
I’d be up for this for sure.
I’m much happier working with filesize resrictions than code length.
January 30th, 2009 at 1:07 pmP.Svilans
Count me in!
January 30th, 2009 at 1:22 pmurbansquall
That’s enough interest to make it worth doing. I’ll kick it off next Friday but people who want a head start, feel free to get working now (consider it a bonus for being a regular blog reader!).
January 30th, 2009 at 6:34 pmsubstance
Sounds good, If I can come up with a concept I will definitely give this a shot.
January 30th, 2009 at 7:07 pmbL
Sounds like a good idea for a competition. Better than restricting lines of code IMHO. I will try to submit an entry if I have time to code something.
January 31st, 2009 at 5:21 amRon
I’m in
January 31st, 2009 at 7:49 amSquize
I really want to be in this but I’m loathe to say yes for def and then have to pull out. I’m a rather lame maybe at the moment then.
January 31st, 2009 at 1:38 pmAdrian
so in
February 1st, 2009 at 11:21 amFilipe Silvestrim
For sure I’m in
February 2nd, 2009 at 5:45 pmRic Moore
Can we be very exact about this – 4Kb = 4096 bytes. That should be the precise limit?
February 3rd, 2009 at 7:40 pmRic Moore
Allow me to get the ball rolling. It’s not as impressive as that Left 4K Dead but here’s my entry:
http://www.bedroomlab.com/games/4k/
It’s an R-Type style shoot em up in a mere 4080 bytes.
February 3rd, 2009 at 8:23 pmurbansquall
4096 bytes is the precise limit.
Ric, I’m not going to look at that game because I want to keep things anonymous. When the submission page goes up, be sure to use that.
February 3rd, 2009 at 8:31 pmfilipp8
as i said on fk: what about giving useful programs in the flash development affair instead of games? i. e. you can give some swf encryption tool, or northcode swf studio… just an idea my game is ready…
February 5th, 2009 at 9:45 amurbansquall
As a part of the submission process, I’m going to be asking competitors for suggestions for prizes for the next competition, but for this one, I’ve already settled on something I’m happy with.
February 5th, 2009 at 3:24 pmurbansquall
It’s official: http://www.gamepoetry.com/blog/2009/02/06/flash-4k-game-competition-prizes-and-rules/
February 6th, 2009 at 8:49 amFlash Oyunlar
Anyways it seems I will pass first one as it is possible that field of possibilities could end up being very big and as a result gap of quality of entries could be as big…
April 15th, 2009 at 7:42 amOkey
Thank you very good
June 8th, 2009 at 1:45 pm