Reminder: One Month Left To Enter The Dobbs Challenge

Gamasutra sister site Dr Dobb's Journal has announced that The Dobbs Challenge, a $10,000 prize competition for the best games produced by modding a Dr. Dobbs Challenge game, is to close in less than one month's time on June 13th. Categories still open for entry include Best Windows Game, with a $4,000 prize, and Best Windows Mobile Game, with a $2,000 prize. Other categories still open include Best One Button Game ($1,000), Best Game Starring Dr Dobbs And The Defy All Challenges Crew ($1,000), and Best Total Conversion ($1,000) -- for making something that's completely different in genre/style from the original Dr. Dobbs Challenge, but still keeps 'collect Visual Studio icons' as the mechanic and starts from the same codebase. The contest organizers have already awarded their first prize, for The Dobbs First Month Challenge ($1,000) which closed on April 14th - from a set of challengers that are downloadable for potential entrants to check out. The First Month Challenge prize went to entrant Punkle for his One Button/Total Conversion mod Dobbs Derby, which turned the original platform game Dr. Dobbs Challenge into a slot car racer with all new graphics -- including a particle system. To participate, interested parties can firstly download the specially created 'Dr. Dobb's Challenge' games for either Windows and Windows Mobile. Then they can win from a remaining prize pool of $9,000 by modifying the games using a trial version of Visual Studio 2008, in association with competition sponsor Microsoft. "The Dobbs game did so much out of the box," said First Month Challenge winner Punkle. "I was surprised how flexible it was and that it let me make a totally different game quite so quickly." Full source code and art for the games are freely provided for programmers and artists to 'mod' the results and win prizes, and all you need to know to participate is available on the official website.