About
SizeHack is a game programming competetion using the Allegro game programming
library. The object of the competition is to make the best game you can, within
a limited amount of space.
Rules
- Entries must be emailed to (contest is over) before the end of April,
2000. The archive should contain program source code and data files, but not
program binaries. Zipped, tar/gzipped, etc are all ok. I will probably put
both zip and tar.gz archives up at the end of the competition.
- Entries must be less than or equal to 10K (10240 bytes). This includes all
source code and data. Data can be compressed with the Allegro data/packfile
routines. Source code can't be compressed in any way. White space and comments
in source code won't be counted, so there is no point making your code
unreadable by stripping them to save a few bytes :-). "README" files or other
documents won't be counted either. Makefiles and batch files to compile the
program won't be counted, but they must be there only for convenience (ie, the
program must be compilable without them). The program must execute properly
without the documents and source code around, so you don't get sneaky and hide
data in them ;-) You can snag a simple C program to count the size of your
source code here
- Games must be written in C or C++. Your game must use Allegro. The only
libraries you can use are Allegro, and any standard C/C++ libraries (math,
iostream, stl, ...).
Tips
- Try to avoid platform specific features if possible, so people on all
platforms can enjoy your game. For example, conio.h is available in DOS but
not Unix, so try not to use it.
- Try to use descriptive variable, function, and macro names. If you are
running really short on space and need to cut down on the length of these, put
comments in the source describing what the variables are used for, so people
can follow the code. Comments are not counted toward the total size of your
entry.
- Including a README that documents the game controls, and gives a brief
description of the game would be great.
- Focus on gameplay! Photo-realistic graphics and high quality digital music
aren't really an option when you've only got 10K to work with.
- Nobody's expecting Quake 4 here, so just have fun with it!
