iDevGames was a wonderful community of the rarely-seen mac game developer. I grew up using the board myself, and it was their patient explanation of vector math, stack frames, and gcc compiler errors that allowed my early ambitions to succeed (sadly, I don't have any remnant of those years). I don't develop games anymore and I was sad to see the site had come down when I visited.
There was also another forum that ran similar contests, I remember some theme to do with swarming, but I can't remember it now.
In retrospect, it was inevitable. You can see the activity decline over time that suspiciously coincides with a rise in Unity development. However, that decline came after it saw the launch of, among other things, Humble Bundle (out of Wolfire—these were founded by brothers, I believe) and I think some of the people on the original Unity team. It's truly a community I will miss.
I have especially fond memories of 2004 (https://www.macworld.com/article/1041232/udevgames.html), and I'm surprised to see that you can still see my favorite game here: https://apps.apple.com/in/app/kill-dr-cote/id659232023?mt=12
There was also another forum that ran similar contests, I remember some theme to do with swarming, but I can't remember it now.
In retrospect, it was inevitable. You can see the activity decline over time that suspiciously coincides with a rise in Unity development. However, that decline came after it saw the launch of, among other things, Humble Bundle (out of Wolfire—these were founded by brothers, I believe) and I think some of the people on the original Unity team. It's truly a community I will miss.