Dobbs Challenge Deuce Modding Contest Announces Winners

Organizers have announced the winners for Dr. Dobbs Challenge Deuce, a game modding competition from Gamasutra sister website Dr. Dobb's and Microsoft's Visual Studio. In this competition, the second of its kind following a similar Windows-based one last year, $5,000 in prizes awarded to winners in Silverlight browser game categories including Best One Button Game, Best Total Conversion and Best Game. The challenge asked entrants to use Microsoft Visual Studio to code a mod of the Silverlight-based Dr. Dobbs Challenge game, co-created by game developer Adam Saltsman of Semi Secret Software (Wurdle for iPhone, Fathom, Gravity Hook), and itself an in-browser playable platform game with custom level creation software. However, for these more complete mods, winner of the Best One Button Game category was Shinguru the Ninja by Mattias Thell. Chosen by the judges as a "well accomplished one button entry" the title is a platform game that requires the use of only the space bar. Through this control scheme, a combination of tapping and holding, players of the title can attack, jump and wall jump. Thell received a $1,000 prize for his efforts. Shinguru the Ninja Best Total Conversion -- awarded to the game that takes the Dr. Dobbs Challenge Deuce core but uses it to create an entirely different game -- went to Kevin Bacha's Dot Killer, a Geometry Wars-esque multidirectional shooter, for which Bacha received $1,000. Dot Killer The Best Game Starring Dr. Dobbs and the Defy All Challenges Crew was declared to be Dobbs Explorer, by Georg Rottensteiner. Rottensteiner, in fact a veteran of the Dobbs Challenge as an entrant to the original contest held in 2008, won with a Zelda-like dungeon exploration game, receiving $1,000. Dobbs Explorer The big winner of the contest, winning best game and a $2,000 prize, was Block Rogue, developed by Stan Patton. Singled out by the judges for "going out of his way to create a new genre", Patton's title is an amalgamation of the "roguelike" genre and a block-moving puzzle game with a surprisingly deep story mode. Block Rogue You can freely play all of the Dr. Dobbs Challenge Deuce winning games at the Dr. Dobbs Challenge website, including excellent quality runners up such as James Paulin's Day of Ape Redux and Hermanto Kurniawan's weyoweyo. (You can also continue to create new levels for the original Silverlight-based Dobbs Challenge Deuce game, although the competition period has now ended.)