$12256 / $11500
Hello! I had a few questions about the art phase of the contest. To your relief, I'm sure, they do not involve misunderstandings or complaints about licensing. However, I may have overlooked something already stated on the website - excuse me if I did.
1. The FAQ and rules state that code written prior to the start of the coding phase must be made open before the start of the coding phase, but does any similar requirement exist for the art phase? Or are we free to start working on art early (or submit older work predating the announcement of the contest) as long as we're unconcerned about the risk of not complying with the style guide?
2. Will the style guide pertain to non-visual art as well, such as sound effects or music? Are such works even enterable in the art phase of the contest? (The 'format' section of the rules implies that they are, but it isn't explicitly stated anywhere that I saw.)
3. Just to make sure, if music can be entered into the art phase, can it be released in sequencer file formats? I myself am hoping to use the original Amiga MOD format, but S3M, IT, XM and MIDI are other popular formats that it might be helpful to make an official statement on. Of course, any music can just be recorded from its original format into OGG/FLAC or similar, but it seems more 'open' in spirit if people are able to create derivative works of sequenced music by editing the instruments or note patterns.
I'm looking forward to this contest and would like to get started on it as soon as possible, because I'm a slow composer and optimistic (though not insofar as the contest is concerned) that I'll be working full-time by the time it actually starts in June. If starting early would be considered cheating, I may just keep my music to myself as non-contest music for use in my own game entry, but I'd love to make it available to anyone competing in the coding phase so it can be taken into consideration when judging my game.
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I'm not an official voice on this, but maybe I can help answer your questions.
The way that the code phase rule is written is that the code written before the beginning of the project must be made available and can be used by anyone else entering. I would guess that this means any art worked on before the beginning of the contest can be used as long as it's made available to everyone else, but you won't get any credit for that work during judging.
As for music, I don't know if that will be part of the contest. There's not going to be any sounds in the style guide, so I doubt it. I think a lot of the people making games would appreciate any music made available though.
Actually, the plan on music is that we'll accept audio entries in the art phase. We won't be doing an audio style guide, though.