Okay, let’s try this again, in the appropriate category this time …
ShuffleComp: Disc Two will be very similar to last year’s ShuffleComp. Entrants will receive a playlist of eight songs and eight pseudonyms, drawn and shuffled from playlists contributed by other entrants and interested bystanders. Entrants will write a game inspired by at least one of the songs and using one of the pseudonyms as their byline.
Most of the rules that applied to last year’s ShuffleComp will apply again this year. Judging will be the same yes/no system, with the top third games being deemed “commended.” Any review, positive or negative, published during the judging period will give the reviewed game an extra “yes” vote for commendation.
Entrant Playlists
Entrants will submit an A-side and an optional B-side playlist, each with up to eight songs. B-side songs will be used to fill A-side playlists that don’t have eight songs. Each side can have at most two of the same artist.
Anyone who wants to participate without writing a game can also send up to eight songs. The songs will only be used to fill entrant playlists after all entrant B-sides have been used.
Entrants cannot submit any more songs outside their A- and B-sides; entrants won’t be able to submit more than 16 songs.
Anyone submitting a playlist can also send pseudonyms that entrants can use as their byline. The number of pseudonyms you send cannot exceed the number of songs you send.
The complete song must be available to hear for free in a browser on a public website accessed via a static URL without requiring any signup or registration. Each playlist can have up to two songs that were submitted last year, but none that were made into games. Ineligible songs over the limit will be replaced with either songs from the respective B-side, another entrants B-side, or, lastly, from non-entrant playlists.
Dates
March 1 - Formal announcement. Everything you need to know about this year’s ShuffleComp, hopefully available on a website.
March 16 - song submission window opens. Entrants can submit their playlists, which is your intent to enter the competition, and those who want to provide inspiration without making a game of their own can submit their playlist as well.
April 2 - submission window closes Midnight PST
April 3 or 4 - authors receive their shuffled playlists
April 25 - midnight PST authors send the organizer a version of the game that can be played to the end.
April 26 - testing period begins. Test your game, either yourself or, preferably, with testers.
May 5 - midnight PST, deadline for final version of the games.
May 6 - start playing the games and voting.
May 26 - playing/judging period ends.
May 27 - commended entries and any other awards announced.
The problem with Youtube is that it doesn’t have every song that would be available somewhere else, and some songs that are there are region-limited. There’s also no way to tell (that I know of) if a video is restricted. Were there problems with non-Youtube sources last year?
None; I don’t recall that there were any problems with YouTube songs either (and a cursory sweep of my email doesn’t reveal any requests for replacements), but I wouldn’t swear to it. This doesn’t mean it wasn’t an issue, of course: if participants found the song they wanted immediately, they’d have no reason to seek replacements and I wouldn’t have known if they could only play five songs out of eight.
I’d still prefer the ‘available online for free and without registration’ standard of last year; some of my favourite tracks from last year were only available on Bandcamp.
I really don’t like forcing someone to sign up for access to songs. Youtube is free, accessible, and doesn’t require any unusual music players. So Youtube it is. If an entrant can’t listen to a song because of regional restrictions, we can make other arrangements to make the song available.
Yes, only the A-side is required. I should also mention that the same artist can be used at most twice on each side.
The official ShuffleComp: Disc Two webpage will have links to a list of all of last year’s songs and to the games and songs that inspired them.
I’m looking forward to some great playlists and games again this year.
You don’t need to sign up to listen to SoundCloud though. Nor BandCamp, unless they’ve changed that recently. It’s just “go to page, click play, listen”.
Okay, I can change the rule to “songs must be available for free and without needing to sign up to listen to them.” Does anyone think that Youtube-only songs should remain the rule?
“The complete song must be available to hear for free in a browser on a public website accessed via a static URL without requiring any signup or registration.”
FWIW I went ahead and created ShuffleComp: Disc 2 on the ifwiki. Update: Ooh, and I figured out how to edit the “Template:Comp news” page to make it show on the front page.
Just checking: Neil, you are Neil Butters on the IF wiki, yes?
I tried to add a list to Maga’s Google doc with all the 2014 entries, but the IF wiki firmly believes that all Google Docs are spam and doesn’t seem to allow it.
Just to be clear: I should be making the official ShuffleComp announcement on March 1, when the webpage is available. It will have everything you need to know. The rules shouldn’t contain anything surprising, but let me know if you see something suspicious.
I think that Maga’s Google document only contains songs that were sent out in playlists for authors. So if you sent in a song last year and it doesn’t appear on that list, you can send it again this year without it being considered a song from last year. The restriction will be to those songs that appear in the Google document.