Level Up 2009, Intel® Visual Adrenaline Game Demo Challenge
Official Rules
Contest Description
Level Up 2009, Intel® Visual Adrenaline Game Demo Challenge, is a worldwide competition providing developer’s greater exposure to the gaming community. Submissions from professional, aspiring and student game developers will be accepted starting March 23, 2009 until July 1, 2009. The games will be judged in three categories: Best Threaded Game, Best Game-on-the-Go, and Best Game Optimized for Intel® Graphics. Valuable prizes will be awarded to help jump start the success of the winning games. Official rules and full details are available below.
To Enter
To enter, you must complete the online web registration form with your game demo details and submit it electronically by 3:00 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time (PDT) on July 1, 2009. During this phase, the contest will be open in two languages, English and Russian. There is a Chinese homepage, but the entry link leads to the English site. Intel reserves the right to choose the submission in which an entry is submitted in more than one language. When your registration form is accepted, you will receive an email containing information on submission deadlines and procedures.
All participants will be given the following Intel® Software Products, subject to accepting a limited-duration end-user license agreement for these software products:
- Intel® C++ Compiler 11.0
- Intel® VTune™ Performance Analyzer 9.1
- Intel® Thread Checker 3.1
- Intel® Thread Profiler 3.1
- Intel® Threading Building Blocks 2.1
- Intel® Integrated Performance Primitives 6.0
Licenses are valid from March 23, 2009 through September 15, 2009. These tools will be especially useful for the Best Threaded Game category. Use the Intel® Thread Checker and Intel® Thread Profiler to correctly thread your game demo for maximum performance.
The key contest deadlines are below:
All deadlines will occur at 3:00pm US Pacific Daylight Time (PDT). Throughout the duration of the contest, visitors to the site can rate the submitted entries. Judges will not be bound by the visitor rating.
March 23, 2009 through July 1, 2009: Contest registration is open. Participants may submit abstract details, screenshots and movies of their game demo during this time. Otherwise their contribution will not be considered or judged.
May 25, 2009 through July 1, 2009: Every Monday a Weekly Prize will be awarded to the entry with the highest average users rating and number of user votes done at http://software.intel.com/en-us/contests/levelup2009/viewall_entries.php during the prior week (Monday through Sunday).
July 1, 2009: Contest registration closes. By this time, all participants must have uploaded detailed abstracts, screenshots and movies of their entry to the contest website. All contributions must be submitted by 3:00 pm US Pacific Daylight Time (PDT).
July 2, 2009 through July 17, 2009: Judging takes place to identify ten finalists in each category. Judges will also evaluate screenshots and movies of all entries from each language-specific site combined. At the end of the judging period, the top ten scoring entries in each of the three categories will proceed as finalists for final judging. Intel reserves the right to pick alternate finalist entries if any of the chosen entries are deemed ineligible to compete for a category prize.
July 20, 2009: Finalists will be notified by email.
July 24, 2009: Finalists will be announced on the main contest page. Finalists will be required to submit their game demo executable program as well as an article on their work. The article should be at least 2,500 words and address the following:
1. Please give a brief description of the game.
2. How long did your game development take?
3. Describe your development environment? Did you use Intel tools? If so, which ones?
4. Please describe the mechanics behind the game. For instance, how did you handle states? Memory management? Did you use a game engine?
5. What challenges did you encounter in creating your game? How did you overcome them?
6. What are your next steps with the game?
August 10, 2009: Finalists executable programs and articles are due.
August 11, 2009 through August 28, 2009: Final judging takes place.
August 31, 2009: Winners will be notified by email. Winning entries will be announced publicly at the Intel booth at the Austin Game Developers Conference on September 14, 2009 and on the contest website. In order to claim a prize, winners will be required to sign an affidavit of eligibility and release that grants Intel the right to use their executable program and their name and likeness for advertising and promotion without further compensation.
September 15, 2009: Winners announced at the Austin Game Developer’s Conference.
Submission
Participants may submit as many contributions as they wish. All contributions must be participant’s original creation. The content of the contributions must not be subject to the rights of any third parties, other than Intel. The contributions may not be offensive or otherwise unsuitable for use, as determined in Intel’s sole discretion. Participants must comply with Intel® Visual Adrenaline Game Demo Challenge Official Rules, the Intel Terms of Use and the Intel Privacy Policy.
Prizes
Each category has first through third place winners. Winners will receive prizes as outlined below. All winners may be featured on the Intel® Software Network site.
First Place Category Winners will receive:
• A meeting with a lead game developer or executive to have game demo reviewed at the 2009 Austin Game Developers Conference. Travel expenses not included.
• Marketing exposure which may include and not be limited to a spotlight in the Intel® Visual Adrenaline magazine, a spotlight on the Intel Visual Adrenaline website, featured profile on Intel developer community, featured articles in several software/developer Intel e-newsletters and dispatches.
• A high end gaming desktop selected by Intel Corporation from a local OEM or retailer with the highest performing Intel® microprocessor available at that time. Up to US$4,000 (four thousand US dollars) retail value.
• A game developer software package including Adobe* Creative Suite 4 Production Premium, Autodesk* Maya Complete 2009, and Cakewalk* SONAR 8 Producer. US$4,300 (four thousand three hundred US dollars) retail value
• A one-year license of Intel® Thread Checker, Intel® Thread Profiler, Intel® VTune™ Performance Analyzer, and Intel® Threading Building Blocks, Intel Compiler and Integrated Performance Primitives. US$2300 (two thousand three hundred US dollars) retail value.
• An All-Access Pass to the 2010 San Francisco Game Developer’s Conference at a ticket prize value of US$2,200 (two thousand two hundred US dollars). Travel expenses are not included.
• An All-Access Pass to the 2009 Austin Game Developer’s Conference at a ticket prize value of US$1,200 (one thousand two hundred US dollars). Travel expenses are not included.
• US $500 (five hundred US dollars) Visa or American Express cash gift card
• A coupon code for Pro Art content packs for US$250 (two hundred fifty US dollars) from Frogames, www.frogames.net.
• A one-year membership to the International Game Developers Association (current membership price at US$48 (forty eight US dollars).
Second Place Category Winners will receive:
• One (1) Boxed Intel® Core™ i7-940 Processor (8M Cache, 2.93 GHz, 4.80 GT/s Intel® QPI) FC-LGA8 or equivalent model. Up to US$1,000 (one thousand US dollars) retail value.
• A game developer software package including Autodesk* Mudbox 2009 and Cakewalk SONAR Studio Edition. US$890 (eight hundred ninety US dollars) retail value
• A one-year license of Intel® Thread Checker, Intel® Thread Profiler, Intel® VTune™ Performance Analyzer, and Intel® Threading Building Blocks, Intel Compiler and Integrated Performance Primitives. US$2300 (two thousand three hundred US dollars) retail value.
• US$ 250 (two hundred fifty US dollars) Visa or American Express cash gift card
• A coupon code for Pro Art content packs for US$ 200 (two hundred US dollars) from Frogames, www.frogames.net.
• A one-year membership to the International Game Developers Association (current membership price at US$48 (forty eight US dollars).
Third Place Category Winners will receive:
• A game developer software package including Autodesk* ImageModeler 2009 and Cakewalk Rapture. US$1,200 (one thousand two hundred US dollars) retail value.
• One year license of Intel® Thread Checker, Intel® Thread Profiler, Intel® VTune™ Performance Analyzer, and Intel® Threading Building Blocks, Intel Compiler and Integrated Performance Primitives. US$2300 (two thousand three hundred US dollars) retail value.
• A coupon code for Pro Art content packs for US$ 150 ( one hundred fifty US dollars) from coupon code for Pro Art content packs from Frogames, www.frogames.net.
• A US$100 (one hundred US dollars) Visa or American Express cash gift card.
• A one-year membership to the International Game Developers Association (current membership price at US$48 (forty eight US dollars)
Weekly Prize Winners will receive:
• A US$100 (one hundred US dollars) Visa or American Express cash gift card.
Except to the extent any of these prizes are prohibited by local law substitute prize of equal or greater value will be awarded.
Values of prizes for hardware and software products are based on the average retail prize in the United States of America at the time of the start of this contest. The value of the prizes may be higher or lower in the country of winner’s residence and prize value will be adjusted accordingly.
Judge's Choice Awards
In addition to the category prizes, there is a special judge’s choice award which will be awarded to a qualifying entry, purely at the judge's discretion.
Judge’s Choice Award – Visual Computing Developer Community
Win the opportunity to present your game to gaming industry leaders at an upcoming Intel Visual Computing event. Attendees at the 2008 event included Will Wright, Gabe Newell, and Rich Lawrence, among many others. The winner of this prize will receive the opportunity to demonstrate their game and talk about how it was developed and plans and desires for marketing it on-stage in front of major developers, distributors and publishers from the gaming industry. This is an amazing opportunity to gain contacts, and to receive feedback and help from the experts.
Criteria
Level Up 2009, Intel® Visual Adrenaline Game Demo Challenge has prizes based on the utilization of the features of Intel® based platforms. Judges’ selections will determine the ten finalists in each of the following categories. For final judging, a panel of Intel and game industry judges will review finalists and grade them according to the criteria below.
Category Information
Best Threaded Game
Your entry must run noticeably better on an Intel® Core™ 2 or Intel® Core™ i7 processor based platforms, and scale the thread usage over the amount of available cores. Entries will be scored based on frames per second, thread scaling, and use of available cores to enhance the user experience via physics, Artificial Intelligence, or perceptible improvements. Innovative uses of the extra processing cores will be rewarded. From 1 to 10 points will be awarded in this category.
Entries competing in the Best Threaded Game category must install and run on a Microsoft* Vista Ultimate 32-bit OS and DirectX* 9.0c or DirectX* 10.1 with:
• Intel® Core™ 2 Extreme processor QX9650 OR
Intel® Core™ i7 Processor
• Intel® X38 or X48 Based Chipset
• 2GB DDR3-1333 memory in 2x1GB configuration
• ATI* Radeon HD3870 OR NVIDIA* 9800 GX2
Entries competing in the Best Threaded Game category will have their frame rate speed-up measured from two- to four-cores when running at resolutions up to 1920x1200, with and without Intel® Hyper Threading technology active. A minimum target of 30 frames per second is recommended.
Best Game-on-the-Go
Laptops provide special challenges and opportunities for games. Entries in this category will demonstrate features unique to the mobile gamer by leveraging the Intel Laptop Gaming TDK. Power and Connectivity monitoring, platform changes, or peer-to-peer ad-hoc networking demonstrates a mobile-aware entry. Score will be based on how well the mobile features are demonstrated. From 1 to 10 points will be awarded in this category.
Entries competing in the Best Game-on-the-Go category will be evaluated on a default Microsoft* Windows* XP installation with Service Pack 2 (SP2) and DirectX 9.0c on a Lenovo* ThinkPad* T43 with an ATI* Mobility Radeon* x300 graphics card. The Intel Laptop Gaming TDK version 2.1 will also be installed. A minimum target of 15 to 20 frames per second is recommended.
Best Game Optimized for Intel® Graphics
Intel® Integrated Graphics are the largest selling graphics chip solution for the mainstream audience. Design games that would be compatible and playable on Intel® Integrated Graphics chipsets – Intel G43/G45 Express Chipsets and/or the Mobile Intel® GM45 Express Chipsets. Example of games in this category could include games that have optimized their shader model and memory accesses for Intel® Integrated Graphics as well as those that scale according to the graphics capabilities between Integrated and Discrete graphics solutions. From 1 to 10 points will be awarded in this category.
Entries competing in this category will be evaluated for performance and features on a Microsoft* Windows* Vista Ultimate 32-bit edition with DirectX 10.1 on a platform with an Intel® Core™ 2 Dual-Core processor and an Intel® G45 and GM45M (Mobile Edition) Graphics Chipset. A minimum target of 20 frames per second is recommended.
Best Weekly Entry
A Weekly Prize will be awarded each Monday to the entry with the highest average users rating and number of user votes done at http://software.intel.com/en-us/contests/levelup2009/viewall_entries.php during the prior week (Monday through Sunday).
Further Judging Criteria
In addition to the entry meeting the requirements of its category, each participant will be judged based on the following subjective criteria:
- Game Play: Is the game fun to play? Is it engaging?
- Original Idea: Is the game unique or has it been done before?
- Well Done Game: Is the game ready for production? Does it have the finish of an actual production game?
Judging Matrix
Best Threaded Game, Best Game on Intel Graphics, and Best Game-On-The-Go:
Category Requirement Score (1 to 10) (1 to 10) (1 to 10)
Game Play (1 to 5) (1 to 5) (1 to 5)
Originality (1 to 5) (1 to 5) (1 to 5)
Well Done (1 to 5) (1 to 5) (1 to 5)
Total:
Please see our Frequently Asked Questions or visit the contest forum for more information.
Legal Documents
Privacy Policy, http://www.intel.com/sites/sitewide/en_US/privacy/privacy.htm?iid=ftr+privacy
Terms of Use, http://www.intel.com/sites/corporate/termsofuse.htm
1. These rules (including the Intel Privacy Policy and the Terms of Use) govern the Level Up 2009, Intel® Visual Adrenaline Game Demo Challenge (the “contest”) and set out the terms and conditions between Intel Corporation and its affiliates (“Intel” or “us/we”) and each participant (“participant” or “you”).
2. You are eligible to participate in the contest if you have registered with the Intel® Software Network (Intel® SN) at www.intel.com/software and/or if you have registered for the contest.
3. You must speak, read and understand English and you must be aged 18 years or over or you must obtain the consent of your parents or legal guardian before you participate in the contest. If you apply to register for the contest, if you contribute to the contest or the Intel® SN community once you are registered or if you accept any contest prizes, you accept these rules. Employees of Intel Corporation, its affiliates, subsidiaries, advertising and promotion agencies, and the immediate families of each may not enter. This limitation is void where prohibited.
4. The contest is open to participants worldwide. All national and local laws and regulations of the resident’s country of residence apply. Residents of countries under U.S. embargo are not eligible to enter. The contest is void wherever else it is restricted or prohibited by law.
5. We may refuse your contribution for any good reason.
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7. You agree to submit contributions to the contest on www.intel.com/software under the following conditions:
a. Intel does not claim ownership of your contributions to the contest in form of sample code, content, videos, articles or any other contributions you submit to Intel® SN. By submitting your contributions, you are granting Intel and its affiliated companies the following worldwide, non-exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, unconditional, fully paid-up rights: (1) to make, have made, use, copy, reproduce, modify, and create derivative works of the contributions, (2) to publicly perform or display, import, broadcast, transmit, distribute (directly and indirectly through multiple tiers), license, offer to sell and sell, rent, lease, or lend copies of the contributions (and derivative works thereof), (3) to sublicense to third parties the foregoing rights, including the right to sublicense to further third parties, and (4) to publish your name or alias in connection with this contest and your contributions.
b. Your contributions to the contest will be available to other participants and to ensure they are safe and freely usable by other participants, you warrant that:
• you own or otherwise have all rights necessary for you to provide the contributions and grant the rights described above and you do not disclose any information which would constitute a violation of a confidentiality obligation;
• your contributions do not contain any viruses, worms, spy ware, or other components or instructions that are malicious, deceptive, or designed to limit or harm the functionality of a computer; and
• your contributions are not subject to license terms that require any software or documentation incorporating or being derived from your contributions to be licensed to others.
c. Apart from prizes offered as part of the contest, no monetary compensation will be paid for any of your contest contributions.
8. Intel is not responsible for contest entries not received due to lost, failed, delayed or interrupted connections or miscommunications, or other electronic malfunctions. Intel is not responsible for incorrect or inaccurate entry information, whether caused by you or any other persons or by any of the equipment or programming associated with or utilized in the contest.
9. You may be required to provide Intel a Taxpayer Identification Number ("TIN") prior to the awarding of any prize. You may be required to sign and return releases of liability, declarations of eligibility, and where lawful, publicity consent agreements, within five (5) days of acknowledged notification. If a selected potential winner cannot be contacted, is ineligible (under these rules or due to a failure to comply with any of the other applicable policies, licenses, rules, and terms of service, fails to claim a prize, or fails to timely return the completed and executed releases/agreements as required), prize may be forfeited and an alternate potential winner may, at Intel’s discretion, be selected. Physical prizes awarded for the winning contributions will be sent to participants within six (6) weeks from the date of the notification email or confirmation of the winning participant’s physical address, whichever is later.
10. Prizes are personal to the participant submitting the winning contribution and cannot normally be transferred. All prizes are subject to availability and they may change at any time and Intel may award substitute prizes of equal or greater value. A cash alternative is not available. The winner accepts responsibility for all federal, state and local taxes and fees in connection with the prizes. Taxes, if any, are the sole responsibility of the winning participant, and participants may be issued an IRS Form 1099 for the ARV of any awarded prize. This contest is void where prohibited or restricted by law, and subject to applicable federal, state provincial and local laws.
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Physical address:
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Intel Corporation
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Carlos Camacho