LudumData

Bring Your Own Artwork & Music

[raw] LD27LD #27 03. Sep 2013 · 20:32 UTC · 11 days after compo start by udo · 3

I have played and rated about a hundred games by now (by the way, is that a lot? I have no idea). Overall, the quality and creativity are impressive. Almost every single game has at least one aspect that totally rocks!

However, I don’t know what to do with entries that don’t use their own music or their own graphics. These may sound or look good, but do they really deserve a good rating for something that was not in any way made for Ludum Dare? I don’t think so. In a way I feel like these people are gaming the system with content they didn’t make themselves. Am I being too harsh here?

Comments

03. Sep 2013 · 20:38 UTC
is that so? this is news to me, i have been playing through them extremely quickly though.

i havent came across any games that seemed particulary suspect in that regard,

got any examples?
03. Sep 2013 · 20:39 UTC
Are they in the jam or in the compo?!?

There are different rules for the both of them, jam rules being more liberal …
03. Sep 2013 · 20:41 UTC
I’d rather not expose them, but there are at least a handful where it’s obvious with the music (in two cases they even included the credits), and more than a handful where it seems at least doubtful. I’m not even sure this is actually against the rules, seems like this is OK for the Jam at least, but I’m still hesitant to give ratings for music and/or graphics in these cases.
X-0r
03. Sep 2013 · 20:42 UTC
tbh, I’m also interested in what others think about it… Creating music and graphics take time, time which you could spend polishing, if you took already existing stuff… I believe the correct way might be to N/A the affected section, but since I don’t want anyone not to make it to the actual final rating, I try to give stars in an unbiased way. After all, they still had to search for and choose what fits in, which also affects the overall quality.
03. Sep 2013 · 20:45 UTC
X-Or, that’s just the thing though: including a piece of external music does make the game feel more high-quality, more polished. But at the same time, I don’t think it’s fair to give that entry a high music rating compared to other entries which may not sound as good but are “handmade”.
Aslai
03. Sep 2013 · 20:46 UTC
The way I see it is if they use a resource that wasn’t made in Ludum Dare, they need to openly declare it as such. If I recognize something that’s obviously stolen, I’ll usually rate the entry lower for that type of resource, unless they specified it in their description, and it’s a jam. An exception I make is when all resources in the game are lifted from elsewhere and only maybe one or two graphics were actually made for the submission. Then I just rate it low for the resources.
03. Sep 2013 · 20:48 UTC
Aslai, that’s what I’ve been doing as well. Only I’m not actually concerned with theft per se but rather if a resource was actually made by a contestant or not.
03. Sep 2013 · 21:01 UTC
I think borrowing resources runs against the Spirit of the Ludum Dare, but if it’s going to happen, people should at least accredit all non-original media on their project page. I think we should look for a Ruling From Above on this, and put something in the Rules and Guidelines that deals with how to handle non-original content; either judge the media by how well it fits the project whether it’s borrowed or original, or always give that category an N/A rating. But we need some kind of clear way to handle it, definitely.
03. Sep 2013 · 21:08 UTC
I agree, I too find myself judging based on the perception of effort, accomplishment, and intent.
03. Sep 2013 · 21:09 UTC
For Compo entries:

I’ve only come across and flagrant violations of the rules so far, and I’ve rated those with 1 star in the respective categories. For a lot of the graphics in the comp, I’ve been giving people the benefit of the doubt. The fact that game engines are allowed definitely blurs some of the lines of acceptability, as many come with preexisting textures or audio. For any clear usage of in-engine graphics, I’ll rate a star or so lower than someone who clearly put in all the manual labor.
X-0r
03. Sep 2013 · 21:14 UTC
Yeah. Exactly my point, Solifuge… If someone has not the capabilities to create fitting music, they could never reach good ratings that way – if they get N/As for the music they chose. I agree that everyone NOT doing all by him/herself is supposed to declare it somewhere, but the amount of points deducted (be it graphics or audio or overall) just can’t be estimated that easily. I think it’s somewhat “unfair” to use assets from elsewhere, but look at all the frameworks / APIs which are being used.
03. Sep 2013 · 21:17 UTC
Atmospherium, it’s certainly not an all-or-nothing principle.
03. Sep 2013 · 21:20 UTC
Okay, a tricky example from this LD:
03. Sep 2013 · 21:20 UTC
X-Or: it’s obviously not possible to rate completely fairly (=that means, for me, to rate based on individual accomplishment). But I do find myself rating entries lower if I feel that for example much of the graphics have been provided by the engine. This is of course difficult to judge at times, but yes, in that case a completely minimal 3D environment would get more stars from me than an excellently shaded prefab made from a Unity tutorial.
03. Sep 2013 · 21:24 UTC
Solifuge, I see what you mean with Rude Bear Radio. But this may be a special case :) However, I’ll probably not score it as highly at graphics and music as if they had all been done by the dev.
03. Sep 2013 · 21:29 UTC
The rules are extremely clear for compo entries:
03. Sep 2013 · 21:33 UTC
voxel: that’s already clear. The point was how to rate them.
03. Sep 2013 · 21:36 UTC
In the case of Jam Entries though… and even Compo entries that contain blatant copies of art assets or music. How should we handle them? Should we treat content the same, whether it’s original or borrowed? Or should we treat borrowed content as though the author hadn’t created the content at all (IE vote it N/A)?
03. Sep 2013 · 21:44 UTC
It seems to me that a 1-star vote would be more appropriate than voting N/A. 1-star would impact their ratings, while a N/A would not. Is that accurate?
03. Sep 2013 · 21:50 UTC
And while you’re at it, three more questions for you:

– Will you rate a Jam entry made by one person the same way as a jam entry made by a team of six?

– And where is the voting difference between the team lucky enough to have a dedicated composer or the one-man-team that had to take CC-licensed music from the internet?

– If a song is fitting perfectly, but was made with a generator and didn’t involve much work from the game author, can it be rated highly?
DreamTeam
03. Sep 2013 · 21:52 UTC
That’s accurate, @Atmospherium.
03. Sep 2013 · 23:38 UTC
I came across one entry (can’t remember if it was jam or compo) that clearly used the Castlevania theme as the background music. They could have re-created the Castlevania theme themselves, but I highly doubt they work for Konami or own the IP rights to that melody. I simply didn’t rate the entry and left a note in the comments stating my concern.