Well, Christmas is nearly upon us again, and to encourage those into the festive spirit, The Daily Click is running a competition. The theme: Mario Style Platformers Starring Santa! Basically, you must create a platform game. Santa Claus must be the main protagonist, and it must play as close to a Mario game as you can make it. The main prize? 100 Daily Click Points PLUS either a copy of Multimedia Fusion 1.5 Standard, Install Creator Pro or Patch Maker. These prizes were donated to The Daily Click by the generous folk at Clickteam. The competition details follow. It is strongly advised that if you are to take part in this competition you read and fully understand the rules, regulations and restrictions.

Mentioned earlier was the Mario style theme. This does not mean a Mario fan-game! Eurgh. Think about the qualities that Mario games have. The inertia. The ability to run. The immaculate and inventive level design. The power-ups. The collectables. Think hard about what makes the Mario games so great and try and employ the techniques used in your own game.

Before you consider applying for the competition, you need to be aware that if any characters or graphics look even remotely similar to those of Nintendo's games, then your game will instantly lose all potential points under the Marioish-ness category (see further down). This includes sprite ripping, sprite editing, sprite copying. Come up with your own characters and ideas. But don't forget the strict rules below:

RULES

-Must run in a frame of 320x240, FULLSCREEN or WINDOWED
-Must star Santa Claus as the main hero
-It needs to be as Mario-esque as you can make it... that means the engine, gameplay, etc
-Must feature at least TEN levels
-Must have sound and MIDIS only
-The game must NOT have any save features
-Must be uploaded to a RELIABLE host as a ZIP file, not an installer
-Game MUST be finished. No demos allowed!
-Final game MUST be sent to me by DC mail ONLY
-All graphics MUST not be ripped, and none must NOT be modelled on any Nintendo character
-You CANNOT work on a game as a group. Each game must be individually submitted.
-The game must NOT have any save features; however, an ingame password system would be acceptable

FINAL ZIP PACKAGE MUST BE UNDER 3MB AND INCLUDE:

- The Game (Open Source)
- Full Name, Address, DC Username and E-Mail Address, and Game Instructions
- Necessary .DLL Files
- One Ingame Screenshot, JPG or GIF

THE ONLY OBJECTS YOU CAN USE:

- Active Object
- Background Object
- Background System Object
- Display Properties Object
- Window Control Object
- Counter
- Quick Backdrop
- Clock Object
- String Text
- Fast Loop Object
- Formatted Text
- Text Blitter

JUDGING:

JUDGES: Pete Nattress, Shab, and Chris Street

JUDGING CRITERIA:

Graphics: /10
Christmassiness: /10
Gameplay: /20
Marioishness: /10
Storyline: /10

Total: /60

FINAL DATE FOR SUBMISSION:
December 23rd at 9pm GMT.

PRIZES:

1st Place: 100 DC Points + MMF 1.5 Standard OR Install Creator Pro OR Patch Maker, very kindly donated by the wonderful people at Clickteam
2nd Place: 50 DC Points
3rd Place: 25 DC Points

RESULTS:
The results, depending on the amount of entries we receive, will be revealed (hopefully) during the first half of January 2005.

DISCLAIMER AND EXTRA NOTES

DISCLAIMER: Although Clickteam are very generously supplying the first prize for this competition, it should be noted that they are not officially or unofficially running or endorsing this event, and henceforth have no responsibilities to accept.

NOTE 1: All these rules and restrictions regarding the competition MUST be strictly followed. Should an entrant not meet the necessary requirements by the final deadline, then they risk disqualification.

NOTE 2: The judges will not download any game before the alloted deadline. This gives you time to fix any flaws you might discover, or to create improvisations if necessary

NOTE 3: In the event of a tie-breaker, the judges will deliberate and play the games in question again, before trying to come to a conclusion. Hopefully this will not happen, but you never know.

NOTE 4: The winner will be notified by e-mail, and his or her prize request will be sent on to Clickteam, along with his or her address. All addresses will be kept confidential.

NOTE 5: Reliable hosts do not include Freewebs, Angelfire, Tripods, Geocities or anything like that. Please find someone generous enough to host your game if you don't have any decent hosting yourself.

NOTE 6: Please do not put yourself in a situation which might annoy the judges. For example, don't send contant e-mails asking if we've played your game yet. All games, as mentioned earlier, will not be played until the competition deadline. You'll only irritate us and risk disqualification. Do, by all means, ask us a question which may not be found here and which is relevant to the competition.