Welcome once again, devs and devettes! Welcome to the spine-tingling, creepy crawly, spooky scary DevSoc Hallowe'en Game Compo of 2016!

The theme this year is...

Haunted House!

(Take a look at some inspirational pictures here!)

While horror games are an ideal genre for this submission, you are perfectly welcome to submit a game with any genre you like. Simply ensure you stick to the theme of something spooky and halloweeny.

What's a Compo?

An excellent question, as always! A game compo is a competition where a number of game developers, artists, musicians, programmers, writers and all the rest either stand alone or get into teams, and make a game in a short timespan.

Any game compo worth its salt will have a theme, which devs abide by as inspiration for their games. Overall, this means you not only get a consistent series of games, but an interesting spread of some unique takes on the theme, so creativity is encouraged!

In summary, a good time for everyone, a chance to rev up your dev skills, and a chance to walk away with a cool game that you made all on your own! What's not to like?

What do I do?

You, my dev, will be tasked with taking the compo theme (revealed on Wednesday night!) and building a game from start to finish based on that theme. Of course, you're allowed to work in groups to lighten the load and include talent in facilities you might lack, such as art or coding. Just remember to list your team altogether for the submission!

Once you've finished, before the ever-approaching deadline on the midnight of Friday a week later, you'll have to submit your game to this compo's entries on Itch. Make sure to make an itch.io account beforehand!

After this, all the games will be judged and winners will be decided. Unless you don't want us to show off your game, we'll be showcasing all of the entries on the site and in the Tuesday after, and finally announce the winners on the Wednesday straight after! Glorious prizes await!

Wait - Judging?

Yep, judging. All entries will be entered into judging to find what we think qualify as the 'best entries'. Obviously, this is a very subjective matter, and one judge's bug might be another's design choice!

In general, however, you should be aware of the following to up your chances of victory:

• Make sure your concept is well thought out. A game with a strong idea at its core will naturally be more appealing to the player than something badly thought through.
• The rules for board and card game submissions should be considered carefully, ensure there is no unintended ambiguity or loop holes.
• Play to your strengths! Programmers should work on ensuring gameplay and controls are tight and responsive, artists should deliver something visually striking and terrifying!
• Polish, Polish, Polish! Your game will only truly begin to shine if you spend that little extra time stomping out bugs and adding extra little details.

Rules

1. You, and any teammates, must be paid members of the University of York Game Development Society.
2. You may participate by yourself or in teams of no more than four people. All individuals who contributed to your submission should be credited in the project.
3. Your submission may be either a video game, board game, card game or detailed game concept.
   1. Video Games: Submissions may be for any platform. In the case of games created for emulators, please note the emulator used and its version in the game description.
   2. Card & Board Games: Submissions should be provided in PDF format, which can be printed out and cut into the relevant game pieces/cards. Due to the size of the committee (who are judging), games should require no more than four players.
   3. Game Concepts: Submissions should be provided in PDF format and should be a complete Game Design Document. Additionally, and at the descretion of the submitter, concept art, technical prototypes or similar additional content may be submitted.
4. All submitted content must be the original work of the submitting individual/team and must be created within the time frame of the competition. The use of derivative work and publicly available libraries, frameworks and engines are permitted. For further details, see the Ludum Dare COMPO rules (ie not the jam) on special exemptions and derivative works
5. If you do not wish for your/your team's work to appear in the showcase on the website or newsletter, contact a member of the committee or email the society when you submit your game, providing the name of your game.
6. While members of the committee are permitted to enter, they are automatically ineligible to win.