About one year ago, I started the first ever CODER KING comp mainly for fun, also to see which user would be considered the most talented at coding using makecode’s open source coding software. It became the first SUCCESSFUL unofficial makecode coding comp. And ever since then, many new coding competitions began to sprout across makecode. Some such as @Unique UAT competitions became quite as successful as coder king. Others weren’t as much. Here, makecoders, is a (I won’t try to sound elitist, you don’t exactly need to follow my advice to be successful) guide to hosting a successful coding competition. lets begin:
Now, my first piece of advice would be to find the perfect time to start the competition. By that, I mean, a time where no contestant would suffer through mass burnout and have tons of time on their hands. A time where fun is infinite for hopefully quite a while. Usually, the recommended date would be somewhere in summer, where everyone could enjoy a 3-month break from schoolwork. It is not a good idea to start a comp during a school year, now contestants would have to combine coding-on-a deadline and balancing schoolwork all at the same time. Usually, they would need a long time extension to avoid forfeiting. Only few competitions managed to stay successful during the school year, although most of the time, every single contestant needed an extension in the progress. School would be considered more important than a game jam, and there is a near infinite amount of reasonings on why a contestant would need to dropout.
My second point is mainly regarding the whole thing about making prompts and themes for all of your challenges. This may seem easy, however it isin’t as easy as you expect, it turns out to be hard and you need to narrow down a lot of things in the process. When you do this, you want to make a challenge that can sprout a ton of game ideas instantly for contestants. The theme should be broad and have an endless amount of possibilities for contestants, otherwise they would be quite limited in terms of ideas. A hard theme is considered a themed challenge that sprouts multiple game ideas that are all hard to execute well, not a theme that just strengthens something named an idea block, no, thats too cruel. Usually, it will only result in submitted games that you will feel don’t match the prompt you gave, whether you made it specific or not.
My third point is mainly regarding judging, obviously the civilized will be fair and give no blatant favortism and bias when it comes to dis very serious job. Plus, it is usually considered obvious on when a judge is showing HUGE BIAS while judging the competition. However, what if, you do judge fairly, but people still accuse you of bias? you might want to give the reasons for your decisions. In other words, how do you make your final results? For example, Coder King uses a 100 point grading scale for each of the contestant’s submissions, @Unique UAT uses a voting booth to show who wins or loses.
My next point is that you might want to find some people to nominate before the competition officially begins, now I am not trying to tell you that you should follow what I did in Coder King all the time, although this will speed up the contestants-finding problem, especially if your topic doesn’t garner much views from users. Usually you should @ing the people you want to nominate to get them to view your topic and make their decisions on whether they will attend or not.
My next + final point is mainly regarding the whole idea of giving deadlines and extensions to your contestants. During a challenge, contestants would have to code a game under pressure within a specific time limit. They should have plenty of time to code their games, enough time to keep them under pressure yet give good submissions, They should have at least a week to do it all. Also regarding, extensions, they should only be given to those who actually need it. For example: someone goes on vacation in a foreign country yet left their gaming computer at home? Usually, you would want to give that extension to that person only. The other contestants will only benefit from the man’s losses if they too get an extension, no bias or anything.
Welp, I hope this was useful for the readers after reading a huge amount of words. As said before, following my advice isin’t exactly neccasary to host a successful coding comp, although these points may prove useful (once again, not trying to sound elitist). Once again, I say: Good luck on your future endeavors.
