Instead of ridiculing Newbies, or making them feel unwelcome, I have decided to create a list of pit-falls to avoid when creating and submitting games to the DC, so they can avoid flaming and learn how to be more professional.

First off, Create a Personality
I think it’s better if your games have something that will create an identity for you. This is why ripped graphics, fan-games, and especially fan-games with ripped graphics are generally not good to personalise yourself, no matter how good they are. An amazing Mario fan-game with a flawless engine and authentic graphics and features is still a Mario fan-game, and will invoke the kind of pre-emptive feelings that are associated with crap, badly made fan-games, no matter how good the game actually is.

Ripped Graphics and Library Graphics
Bad bad bad. It’s all bad. If you can’t draw for shit, it’s still always best to try your hardest to make your own graphics. Library graphics scream Newbie, as do ripped graphics. Many people will notice them straight away, and it distracts from the game. It’s back to the personality thing I mentioned.

Shading Graphics
Shading your graphics seriously makes all the difference. Whether it’s only a shadow drawn down one side of the sprite, or multiple shades of the colour that get darker the further out they are, it creates depth. That is, if it fits your graphical style.

Mixed Graphics
Mixed graphics will also make the game look unprofessional. This is especially common when ripped graphics are used, and the different sprites do not match each other's styles. Try to make all your sprites fit the same style and any background objects too.

Default Menus and Screen Sizes.
Now, I always think it’s best to have the game change resolution to full screen, but there are other who disagree, and some who have problems with it. Whatever, the game should always be full screen, and in my opinion, fill all the screen. If you are dead against using Change Resolution Mode, then at least the game should be full screen with borders. Also removing the Menu Bar at the top of the screen makes for a more professional looking game. It’s all really about removing the obvious signs that show a Click program was used, by an amateur games creator. Also, an Exit option should be added whenever possible, because not everyone knows the Alt+F4 combination.

MIDI Songs
I’m not at all against using MIDI music, original ones can sound great. But I am against using MIDIs of songs such as Pop songs, etc. No real game would have this, a sub-standard version of a chart song, and it sounds extremely unprofessional. Use an Mp3 if you have to, or get a good quality original MIDI or MOD file to use.

Button menus
Now I never think it feels right if a game that is controlled by the keyboard, and features no mouse control during gameplay, has a menu screen that uses mouse-click buttons. A arrow key controlled menu adds to the polish, making everything seem right and balanced, and keeps the flow from menu to game.
A simple way of doing this is to create Text Strings for each option you want, and a counter. Say we had three options. First off the counter is set to 0, and the events for the condition of Counter=0 is Option One text colour is white(r255,g255,b255), and Option Two and Option Three’s text colours are red (r255,g0,b,0). Now the player presses Down, and one is added to the counter (don’t forget to put Only one event when looped). If the Counter=1, then Option Two becomes white, while Option One and Option Three become red. And the same for if Counter=2, Option One and Option Two are red, and Option Three is white. Now have conditions for Counter=0 and Player Presses ENTER, and Counter=1 and Player Presses ENTER, and Counter=2 and Player Presses ENTER events, doing whatever you want when the player presses ENTER with an option highlighted. It’s that simple.

The dreaded default counter
Now there’s one thing that I see in many submitted games, the default TGF/MMF counter font. Now it’s not at all difficult to change the look of the counter, in MMF, I’ve only just found how to import a new font, not that I ever used it, I always imported Bitmaps for my counters, which makes for a more professional look. But in MMF, to change the counter font, you only have to go onto Edit on the counter, and there’s an A icon (with the Mirror X and Mirror Y icons) which handles the font importing.

Now, I hope some people have taken note, and we'll have more polished games, and less flaming.