After some positive dissection and gentle nudging, the 2011 Game Engine Contest is rolling its way to the starting line! It looks to be quite a unique experience from previous contests; From what I can tell, it's sure to appeal to both coding gurus and casual developers alike, so long as they're up for a little bit of a challenge. ^_~ The contest has two "stages," and users are free to enter either or both stages.

Stage 1 involves building your own unique engine from scratch. Users will then vote on the engine that they believe is the coolest, cleanest and most easily customizable. Sketchy has offered to personally award 1000 DC Points to the most popular engine, so Turtle Power to whomever emerges the victor! In addition to the grand prize, the entries with the most votes will also be eligible for use in Stage 2.

Stage 2 is where things get even more interesting. In this stage, contestants are required to build a game based on one of the winning engines from Stage 1. The more people who enter Stage 1, the more choices there will be. Rules for this stage are still a bit fuzzy, but more information is sure to come as the competition progresses.

As Sketchy put it, "The overall goal of the contest, is to have fun, and to create a number of engines which may be used by members of the community (especially the less experienced klikers), to make games and to learn from." What better way to spend the summer than by opening the floodgates for new games to pour in? ^_^