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Alibaba Cloud Web Game Challenge Alibaba Cloud Web Game Challenge

Alibaba Cloud Web Game Challenge

The possibilities are endless!

Challenge Status: Live
Submissions Due: April 27, 2025 23:59 PT

We are thrilled to partner with Alibaba Cloud for a new DEV challenge.

Running through April 27, the Alibaba Cloud Web Game invites you experience the power of Alibaba Cloud services and push the boundaries of browser-based gaming.

There is one prompt for this challenge but three opportunities to win. Each winner will receive:

Please note: Alibaba Cloud services have regional availability limitations and are not directly accessible in some regions, including India and Australia. For participants in these regions:

  • You may consider using global cloud access solutions to participate (such as secure remote access tools).
  • You remain eligible for all prizes, and we are committed to fulfilling prizes worldwide.
  • International collaboration teams with members in supported regions are welcome.

Happy Coding and Good luck!!

Sponsored by Alibaba Cloud

Alibaba Cloud, founded in 2009, is a global leader in cloud computing and AI technologies.It provides scalable and secure cloud solutions, including computing, storage, databases, and AI tools. The company is renowned for its cutting-edge innovations, such as the DAMO Academy and the M6 and Qwen series of models, empowering industries with advanced AI capabilities.

Learn More

Key Dates

  • Contest start: April 02, 2025
  • Submissions due: April 27, 2025
  • Winners announced: May 08, 2025

Badge Rewards

Alibaba Cloud Challenge Completion Badge
Alibaba Cloud Challenge Completion Badge
Alibaba Cloud Challenge Winner Badge
Alibaba Cloud Challenge Winner Badge

Challenge Prompt

Build a Web Game

Your mandate is to build a robot-themed web game that utilizes Alibaba Cloud services.

Your game should feature robots in some creative way while showcasing the many products Alibaba Cloud has to offer. Whether you're creating robot battles, robot-building simulations, robot-assisted puzzles, or any other robotic-themed adventure, we want to see how you leverage Alibaba Cloud's infrastructure to create engaging gaming experiences.

Need Help?

Get to know Alibaba Cloud by utilizing their resources. We recommend starting with:

Additional resources:

How to submit

In order to participate, you will need to sign up for Alibaba Cloud with this specific link and input credit card details to access your free trial.

When you're ready to submit, publish a post using the submission template provided and ensure your game is deployed on Alibaba Cloud.

We encourage you to utilize ECS for hosting, ApsaraDB for RDS, and OSS for asset storage. If your game has global players, consider using their CDN to optimize asset delivery. For lightweight backend needs, you can explore SAE or Function Compute.

Submission Template

Judging Criteria:

  • Aesthetics
  • Gameplay
  • Utilization of Alibaba Cloud Services

Alibaba Cloud Web Game Challenge FAQ

Can I submit to a prompt more than once?

Yes, you can submit multiple submissions per prompt but you’ll need to publish a separate post for each submission.

Can I work on a team?

YEs, you can work on teams of up to four people.

  • If you collaborate with anyone, you’ll need to list their DEV handles in your submission post so we can award a badge to your entire team! Please only publish one submission per team.
  • DEV does not handle prize-splitting, so in the event that your submission wins the shop gift, you will need to split that amongst yourselves. Thank you for understanding!

How old do I have to be to participate?

Participants need to be 18+ in order to participate.

If I live in X, am I eligible to participate?

For eligibility rules, see our official challenge rules. Please note that Alibaba Cloud Services has regional limitations and is not directly accessible in some regions, including India and Australia. However, participants from these regions are still technically eligible to participate in the challenge itself.

Submission

Can my submission include open source code?

Riffing on open source code and borrowing and improving on previous work/ideas is encouraged but it’s important your changes are significant enough to ensure your submission is valid.

When does riffing become plagiarism?

It will depend, but transparency is important, license compatibility is important. You can use someone else’s code to give you a jumpstart to demonstrate your ideas on top of someone else’s base, but not just re-package the base. It should be clear to the judges what you added to the project in terms of the code and conceptual inspiration. This means, you should clearly state what you were building on and what elements are original to this new submission. When building on existing code, we expect a significant change that adds something tangible to the output. i.e. a new animation, and new sprite, a new function, a new presentation. Not just changes to the source - i.e. changing colours, changing one sprite, changing one function.

What happens if my submission is considered plagiarized or invalid?

Anything deemed to be plagiarism will not be eligible for prizes. Incidental plagiarism may simply result in your disqualification from the challenge (regardless of the number of other valid submissions you have published). Egregious plagiarism will result in your suspension from DEV entirely. Any non-generic, non-trivial usage of prior work, including open source code must be credited in your submission.

Do submissions have to be in English?

Non-english submissions are eligible for a completion badge but not eligible for prizes due to the current limitations of our judges. We will not be judging on mastery of the English language, so please don’t let this deter you from submitting if you are not a native English speaker! We hope to evolve this in the future to be more accommodating.

Do I need a license for my code?

You are not required to license your code but we strongly recommend that you do. Here are some you may consider: MIT, Apache, BSD-2, BSD-3, or Commons Clause.

Can I use AI?

Use of AI is allowed as long as all other rules are followed. We want to give you a chance to show off your skills in realistic scenarios. If you use AI tools to help you achieve your submission, all the power to you.

Judging and Prizing

Can there be ties?

In the event of a tie in scoring between judges, the judges will select the entry that received the highest number of positive reactions on their DEV post to determine the winner.

How will I know if I won?

Winners will be announced in a DEV post on the winner announcement date noted in our key dates section.

When will winners receive their Forem Shop gift?

The DEV Team will contact you via the email associated with your DEV profile within, at most, 10 business days of the announcement date to share the details of the shop gift.

When will I receive my DEV badge?

Both participation and winner badges will be awarded, in most cases, the same day as the winner announcement.

When will I receive my prizes? The DEV Team will contact you via the email associated with your DEV profile within, at most, 10 business days of the announcement date to share the details of claiming your prizes.

What steps do I need to take to receive my cash prize?

The winner (including each member of a team) may be required to sign and return an affidavit of eligibility and publicity/liability release, and provide any additional tax filing information (such as a W-9, social security number or Federal tax ID number) within seven (7) business days following the date of your first email notification.

Alibaba Cloud Web Game Challenge Rules

NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. Open only to 18+. Contest entry period ends April 13, 2025 at 11:59 PM PDT. Contest is void where prohibited or restricted by law or regulation. All entires must be submitted during the content period. For Official Rules, see Alibaba Cloud Challenge Contest Rules and General Contest Official Rules.