Cheat Engine

Montycarlo

Good evening Ladies and Gentlemen,

Hosted by Swinburne University, a somewhat local tertiary education-level institution, a competition named SwinGame was designed to encourage secondary students to enter the programming side of Information Communication Technology. Given a Application Programming Interface, which all entries had a requirement to have incorporated use of it, we were given the choice of participating in the main event, Arcade, or the secondary event, Open-Category. Being the challenge-seeking guy I am, I instantly went for the major event, striving to beat all others.

Initially alerted to the competition by my year 12 ICT teacher, I misunderstood the official website, and thought I was out of the elegible age group to participate. Two months later, I attended Swinburne's High Acheiver's day, and found myself in a seminar with the competition creator who over-sees the competition, Andrew Cain. The seminar was introducing the SwinGame Application Programming Interface in Visual Basic: a form of advertising. Of course, at the end Andrew informed us all that we could enter the competition. Extremely happy and somewhat inquisitive, I started blabbering random questions about the competition. Andrew listend and answered intently.

Starting two months late from the competition being opening and one month from the end, I became frantic. I had to quickly evaluate what I could do, and how I would approach the task. I decided to re-create my all-time favourite arcade game, Tyrian. Tyrian, being a 1995 game, far ahead of it's time, was a very smart choice as I wouldn't have the create original graphics, just use the old, crisp pixel-art in the original. After contacting te original artist, I was pleased to read his reply stating that I was allowed to use his art, but insert his name in the credits. I was overjoyed. I instantly began to work, building base classes, extending them and learning a new programming language (To a low to intermediate level) in two days, before I started on the project).

Every day, in all my spare time, I would work on my submission. In the middle of my month development duration, I was browsing the SwinGame forums attempting to learn of my competition and enemies. I came across a team called HAAT, a group of three year 12's. Being in year 11, I became a little concerned. These three students had years of previous programming experience, in the language their game was being submitted in. I had no such advantage, as the languages I generally use were not accepted in the competition. A very nice person closeto me kept encouraging me, telling me I was more advanced than them. Thanks to their help, I was able to continue wholeheartedly. I continued my usualy schedule of development, and injected more time, with sacrifice of sleep with the aid of energy drinks.

The last day had come. Extremely tired from my 39 hour programming session, I sent in my submission.Then I had the joy of going to school, and then to work! At school, I noticed a major glitch in two-player mode which disabled a fairly large amount of a player's firepower. Rushing home afterschool, I quickly fixed the glitch and sent off the new one. My kind brother, Keith, then drove me to work. Two weeks later, I attended Swinburne's open day. Today was the day. With my best friend sitting next to me, we listened eagerly to Andrew Cain as he was announcing the winners in an ever-so suspenseful way. With each position closer to first came, I felt my heart rattling around in my ribcage. Suddenly, after second prize, a screenshot of my game was projected onto the screen. My friend and I instantly and almost violently rotated our heads towards each-other with a most stunned expression. Jmping up to claim my prize, I was all smiles. I had won $2,500 and a fantastic trophy. In two weeks, I will be presented with a novelty cheque from the competition organiser at my own school.

gogodr · Posted: Sun Aug 23, 2009 11:56 am Post subject:

congratulations n.n!
is there any chance to get a copy of your game? or the contest organizers got all rights reserved of the submissions?

Cryoma · Posted: Sun Aug 23, 2009 4:12 pm Post subject:

That's awesome, what language were you using?

Fantasy · Posted: Sun Aug 23, 2009 10:38 pm Post subject:

Congratulations, very nice work. But yea, it would be great if we atleast could see your result of the game. Even better to try it, if possible. Never the less, I intend to participate in such event myself in one or two years.

Montycarlo · Posted: Sun Sep 06, 2009 5:39 am Post subject:

Video here.

hcavolsdsadgadsg · Posted: Sun Sep 06, 2009 8:48 pm Post subject:

Was there not a Tyrian years and years ago? I was fairly sure I'd played it before, until Google confirmed this...

So basically you're trying to tell me that you developed a 14 year old game?

Slugsnack · Posted: Mon Sep 07, 2009 5:44 am Post subject:

funny, looks just like the original

Montycarlo · Posted: Mon Sep 07, 2009 5:46 am Post subject:

hcavolsdsadgadsg · Posted: Mon Sep 07, 2009 6:15 pm Post subject:

I wonder who owns the IP? If they care enough, they can easily threaten you to change it.

You better be careful with your naming.

Montycarlo · Posted: Mon Sep 07, 2009 11:14 pm Post subject:

~Lurker · Posted: Thu Sep 10, 2009 7:21 pm Post subject:

http://www.swingame.com/wiki/index.php?title=2009_Winners

It seems they really liked your submission! Also, is second place the team you were talking about?