I'm in if Maruno's in. I agree with pretty much all the points he's (she's? man idk, sorry if I'm assuming wrong) made in his last post - it's really important, especially in this forum, to make the rules as clear and as non-biased as possible. hey, if you wanted to go all the way, you could have it so that people send their games to the host, who just posts them all in one entry, no names on any of them. that way people won't be voting for the makers of the game, even subconsciously - they'll be just voting on the merits of each game.
I'm male, although it's not really important here.
I do like your suggestion of making the games anonymous, for all the obvious reasons.
For the contest guidelines, I would actually recommend going for a one month time period instead of the two week time period recommended earlier. I recommend this because I have seen similar contests on large RM* sites that have died because their time period was too short, and because most of the entrants in the longer contest had trouble with even a full month to build, and still had trouble when more time was given.
The simple themes recommendation is a good idea, although making specific limits like RTP only hinders creativity, since some people won't be able to show their true creative talents. (You mustn't forget the spriters, music composers, or scripters, since all images, music, and even the scripts can be counted as part of the RTP)
A game, even a short one as will be made here, contains a whole range of factors, including characters, enemies, maps, events, plot, etc. etc. I think that allowing people to use whatever resources they want will just add to this list of factors, which in turn will increase the complexity and build time of the game.
Also, putting the same restrictions on everyone will force everyone to begin at the same place. The contest, after all, is to create a game, not to show off the pretty tiles you can make or songs you can write (and certainly not everyone is talented at that). I think the contest should be a test of general game-making skills (mapping, eventing, plot, character design, pacing), and putting restrictions on things like tilesets and music will help concentrate the makers' attention on those aspects, since they won't also need to worry about writing music/drawing sprites. Being able to create music/artwork isn't a test of game-making skills, it's a test of artistic skills, and I don't think that's what the contest should be about. Not to mention that these restrictions make the contest more accessible to people (i.e. non-artistic people might be put off entering if they knew other entrants would/could use custom sprites).
I disagree with the "hindering creativity" point Glitchfinder made. If you're allowed to use whatever tiles you want, you can just throw together anything easily, but if you're restricted to a particular set, you're forced to be
more creative with what you've got in order to make a better map that stands out from everyone else's.
My suggestion of "RTP only" is just one possible restriction - someone could compile a bundle of assets that allow for a greater range of ideas, and that bundle would be the restriction instead (I only suggested "RTP only" because it's the easiest restriction to organise). My suggestion of "RPG Maker XP only" is based on the fact that most people here at least know how to use it (because many of them are using Essentials) - I think (e.g.) Java games would be marked up more, purely because they're Java and they required more work to create (rather than being marked based on how good the game is).
Basically, keep it simple and you'll get more entrants. And I think restrictions like the ones I mentioned would do this.
Note, of course, that we could have several different kinds of competitions (an "anything goes" one, a restricted one like I prefer, etc.). But multiple contests would detract from each other, particularly in a small section like this.
