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I have been thinking about that, instead of having money etc as prizes for our next compo, we would take the top 5-10 entries and make a "multi-game cart" and produce, say 500-1000 real cartridges and boxes etc (Read: an unlicenced gba game).

Why you ask? Because it's a fun and exciting project! I'm sure there are many people on the boards wanting to have a published GBA under their belt.....now they can...just not a licenced one :P

A 32mbit cartridge is probably the most viable option so: 32/ 5-10 and you know what the game sizes will be. I will look into prices for 64mbit carts because it would be nice to be able to fit more stuff in there...

I was thinking we would sell most of the copies via certain online shops to recover the money spent on the manufacturing. Either so we just go even or the price could be raised with say 1-2$ and the developers behind the games on the cartridge can split the profit.

Please post suggestions and ideas in this thread.

If you're going to publish a cart, I think it sets a whole new level of expectation for the quality of a compo game.

Games that are just proofs-of-concept or have no sound won't cut it if you're asking someone to part with money.

Ripped graphics, sound or title may fly under the radar in free forum such as this, but once you start charging money for it, you'd better be sure it's all original work or you, the publisher, might have lawyers knocking at your door.

That said, I think this is a really interesting idea. I don't know how much a manufacturing run like this would cost, but if I were running the show, here's how I would structure such a compo:

1. 3 month minimum development window, to give new projects a realistic chance.
2. No restrictions on using previously developed code. If a kid in his bedroom has been working on a game for the past year, let him have a shot. It should not be about speed-coding, it should be about recognizing talent.
3. No genre. Write the best game you can, without being restricted. Put a judging panel together who can appreciate all genres.
4. For people who use Apex or Krawall, try to get a license from the authors to cover the compo. Maybe an advertisment splash screen or cut of the profits. Do the licensing work for the entrants. Sound is hard, but mandatory.
5. Same for HAM and Dragon BASIC. Do it all up-front, so people know going into the competition what licensing has been worked out and what hasn't.
6. Make all entrants sign a disclosure statement, affirming that they have not used copyrighted materials or unlicensed code in their game. Entrants must be 18 or older. This is CYA legal crap.
7. Winners must sign a notarized disclosure and release prior to publication. This is CYA #2. You might want to dispense with (6.) and combine this CYA for winners only.

Here's the kicker:

Top prize, if the judges agree that the game meets a certain level of quality and gameplay so as to be able to stand up alongside professional efforts, is a marquee cart release. A solo run. Your own game, published in its cart and sold. Not a combo release.

This is at the judges discretion, so it's not a promise. It's giving someone a solo shot: if the winner is a real gem... if a real talent emerges, then they get something really really cool. But if the winner is just a ho-hum compo-typical creation, they get first billing on the combo-run with the other runners-up.

The marquee winner, if there is one, decides whether they want to be on the combo cart as well as the marquee cart. That's a choice between standing alone as a star example, or getting the exposure of more carts.

There should be at least 3x more marquee carts than combo carts.

Finally, try to get in touch with an editor from a GBA related print magazine and try to get a story on the home-brew GBA scene. Send them the combo and marquee carts. The marquee winner should feature prominently in the article. This is gravy. It would be so cool if it happens. You think having a 1000 carts published and sold through on-line retailers is cool? How about having your face in print?

Those are my thoughts.

M.

Marciano wrote:

If you're going to publish a cart, I think it sets a whole new level of expectation for the quality of a compo game.

Games that are just proofs-of-concept or have no sound won't cut it if you're asking someone to part with money.

Ripped graphics, sound or title may fly under the radar in free forum such as this, but once you start charging money for it, you'd better be sure it's all original work or you, the publisher, might have lawyers knocking at your door.

That said, I think this is a really interesting idea. I don't know how much a manufacturing run like this would cost, but if I were running the show, here's how I would structure such a compo:

1. 3 month minimum development window, to give new projects a realistic chance.
2. No restrictions on using previously developed code. If a kid in his bedroom has been working on a game for the past year, let him have a shot. It should not be about speed-coding, it should be about recognizing talent.
3. No genre. Write the best game you can, without being restricted. Put a judging panel together who can appreciate all genres.
4. For people who use Apex or Krawall, try to get a license from the authors to cover the compo. Maybe an advertisment splash screen or cut of the profits. Do the licensing work for the entrants. Sound is hard, but mandatory.
5. Same for HAM and Dragon BASIC. Do it all up-front, so people know going into the competition what licensing has been worked out and what hasn't.
6. Make all entrants sign a disclosure statement, affirming that they have not used copyrighted materials or unlicensed code in their game. Entrants must be 18 or older. This is CYA legal crap.
7. Winners must sign a notarized disclosure and release prior to publication. This is CYA #2. You might want to dispense with (6.) and combine this CYA for winners only.

Here's the kicker:

Top prize, if the judges agree that the game meets a certain level of quality and gameplay so as to be able to stand up alongside professional efforts, is a marquee cart release. A solo run. Your own game, published in its cart and sold. Not a combo release.

This is at the judges discretion, so it's not a promise. It's giving someone a solo shot: if the winner is a real gem... if a real talent emerges, then they get something really really cool. But if the winner is just a ho-hum compo-typical creation, they get first billing on the combo-run with the other runners-up.

The marquee winner, if there is one, decides whether they want to be on the combo cart as well as the marquee cart. That's a choice between standing alone as a star example, or getting the exposure of more carts.

There should be at least 3x more marquee carts than combo carts.

Finally, try to get in touch with an editor from a GBA related print magazine and try to get a story on the home-brew GBA scene. Send them the combo and marquee carts. The marquee winner should feature prominently in the article. This is gravy. It would be so cool if it happens. You think having a 1000 carts published and sold through on-line retailers is cool? How about having your face in print?

Those are my thoughts.

M.

I was doing pretty nice until I came to number six on your list... Damn, why do I have to be so young!! :(
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Quote:

6. Make all entrants sign a disclosure statement, affirming that they have not used copyrighted materials or unlicensed code in their game. Entrants must be 18 or older. This is CYA legal crap.

I was doing pretty nice until I came to number six on your list... Damn, why do I have to be so young!! :(

Yeah, when I was young I would have given my right arm to get a shot at something like this. No... my left arm. Hmmm... my right... umm... maybe a small toe - one of the less important ones.

It's up to these guys how they want to do things. I think someone has to sign something as a CYA move if they're going to sell the result. A parent will do. I dunno. Maybe I'm too paranoid :-)

i'd buy it defenitly! you can still erase the cart right? lol

sounds pretty sweet. itd certainly motivate the developers more and thats always good. good thinking man....
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foog wrote:

i'd buy it defenitly! you can still erase the cart right? lol

sounds pretty sweet. itd certainly motivate the developers more and thats always good. good thinking man....

Erasing the cart would jack up the price to about $40 each. It will probably be one-time only flash process.
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N may object to this...they normaly do.

But keep it small and only moderately marketed and they may let it slide.

This is a great idea Simon. I agree with pretty much everything Marcio says above as well...I am not sure about the top prize getting his own cart but if there really is one worth it, it would be cool as hell.

And dont worry all you underage game creators...you parents can sign just about any legal agreement needed.
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dovoto wrote:

N may object to this...they normaly do.

But keep it small and only moderately marketed and they may let it slide.

This is a great idea Simon. I agree with pretty much everything Marcio says above as well...I am not sure about the top prize getting his own cart but if there really is one worth it, it would be cool as hell.

And dont worry all you underage game creators...you parents can sign just about any legal agreement needed.

And when those underage game creators tell there parents about those prizes, perhaps they will be reluctant to say anything to them. I'm speaking hypothetically of course.
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This is a great idea, hope you can make it happen soon.

My only worry is that you could never sell enough carts, but then again i don't know what they will cost so yeah.
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MumblyJoe wrote:

My only worry is that you could never sell enough carts, but then again i don't know what they will cost so yeah.

I don't think people on this board will be buying carts (what's the point of that?). Selling through online shops, and perhaps getting some press to generate interest, means the public are the customer.

Not using existing titles as a basis means no Sonic, Rayman, Mario. No Spiderman, Pokemon, X-Men. No Final Fantasy. No Donkey Kong, Asteroids, International Karate or Pong. Excellent clones like Arkanoid, Elite, Thrust and Nebulus are not allowed.

This raises the bar compared to previous compos considerably. Coming up with a unique game, with graphics, sound and (if appropriate) music, intro, high score, saved game all polished to production quality - that would make YOU buy it, is a real challenge.

It's an opportunity to prove that homebrew development is more than blocky sprites moving around a screen with mozaic effects and pseudo-3D sheer transformations. More than scroll text with music playing. More than walking through a raycaster demo.

It's very exciting in theory, but it's up to the talent on this board to bring it.

So who is going to pay for this? Would there be an entry fee?

It's a cool idea from a developer's point of view, but unless there's some secret manufacturing alternative to buying $30 EZF carts I'm not aware of, I'd say there's a funding problem with the proposal.

Not to mention a legal one... but we've all had that argument before. ;)

And ol' Mumbly is right... I doubt that the membership of this forum would generate more than a handful of sales, so you're looking at a big marketing challenge to reach an audience outside the homebrew community. I'm not saying it's impossible. I'm just predicting that finding someone to do the considerable amout of work to "make it happen" simply won't, uh, happen.

But the core questions you raise are great ones:

1. What kind of creative compo could one come up with that would really raise the bar?

2. What kind of prize would energize people to really try something big?

3. Could such a prize ever materialize within the considerable fiscal constraints of a loose, not-for-profit group such as ours?

Well I created an original concept for PD Romz; so it's not completely impossible. But people need to work as a team; we need a few artists working on more than one project so that we can all benefit from decent graphics.

I think we should prepare for at least a few months; and just make it homebrew public. So on all GBA homebrew pages we have a link to the main info and make it stand out on your page.

We should also provide information on how to make a successful game; in terms of peoples job roles and what is the minimum required for a successful project.

I think a few tools need to be created for a few genres, such as beat em ups so that we could have an animation editor that can cater for various different sequences from a finite state perspective. Maybe when we have the appropriate tools we can begin to create great games. I personally hand wrote the music for Sabinov because there were no sequencers, some people don't have my musical talent to do so.

Well that's my two pennies.

Two questions:

- since it?s gonna be an unlicensed cart, does it mean that we are not under some of Nintendo?s guidelines here? Can I make a Carmaggedon Advance?

- what happens to the submitted ROMS that don?t make it to the cart?

Cesar

Marciano wrote:

Games that are just proofs-of-concept or have no sound won't cut it if you're asking someone to part with money.

Of course, they would have to be good and complete otherwise it wouldnt be any idea. I was thinking more in the lines of nice and small games that you can pick up at any time and play for a few mins rather than big RPGs etc.

Marciano wrote:

Top prize, if the judges agree that the game meets a certain level of quality and gameplay so as to be able to stand up alongside professional efforts, is a marquee cart release. A solo run. Your own game, published in its cart and sold. Not a combo release.

Could be done but the minimum run for the carts are 500 and 1000 for the manuals and boxes so that would mean 500 carts for the best game and another 500 for the multi-cart. Also, unless you want to use the same box for both titles, it would mean having 1000 + 1000 made. Im not saying its a bad idea but the investment would be...err...double

Marciano wrote:

The marquee winner, if there is one, decides whether they want to be on the combo cart as well as the marquee cart. That's a choice between standing alone as a star example, or getting the exposure of more carts.

If the marquee winner's entry is 3-4mbit and thus able to fit on the multicart I think it would be a little bit unnecessary to put it on it's own 32mbit cartridge.

Marciano wrote:

Finally, try to get in touch with an editor from a GBA related print magazine and try to get a story on the home-brew GBA scene. Send them the combo and marquee carts. The marquee winner should feature prominently in the article. This is gravy. It would be so cool if it happens. You think having a 1000 carts published and sold through on-line retailers is cool? How about having your face in print?

The carts would be so cheap that we could easily send 1 to any semi-respected game magazine/ online game site for them to have a look at.

Marciano wrote:

Those are my thoughts.

Many thanks for the input :)

foog wrote:

i'd buy it defenitly! you can still erase the cart right? lol

No you can't.

dovoto wrote:

N may object to this...they normaly do.

They can bitch and moan all they like, it doesnt bother me. GBADEV.ORG will take full responsibility for the cartridge so the authors of the games need not worry.

dagamer34 wrote:

And when those underage game creators tell there parents about those prizes, perhaps they will be reluctant to say anything to them. I'm speaking hypothetically of course.

What prizes? In case the carts are sold with a small profit and shared between the authors I don't expect them to get much more than 100-250$
each so we're not talking about anything huge here...having your game on the cart is the real "prize". I would rather sell the game so we break even, because Im sure people would rather want to sell as many copies as possible rather than make a few $$$ as this is all for fun...but if you disagree feel free to leave your opinion right here.

ScottLininger wrote:

So who is going to pay for this?

I will.

ScottLininger wrote:

Would there be an entry fee?

No.

ScottLininger wrote:

It's a cool idea from a developer's point of view, but unless there's some secret manufacturing alternative to buying $30 EZF carts I'm not aware of, I'd say there's a funding problem with the proposal.

The carts will be regular ROM carts like any published real gba game, not flash rom carts. I'm expecting the end-customer price will be 10-15$usd complete with box and manual.

ScottLininger wrote:

I'm not saying it's impossible. I'm just predicting that finding someone to do the considerable amout of work to "make it happen" simply won't, uh, happen.

Maybe your right, maybe your wrong. Either way it will be fun having a go =)

keldon wrote:

I think we should prepare for at least a few months; and just make it homebrew public. So on all GBA homebrew pages we have a link to the main info and make it stand out on your page.

Also very good ideas. Thanks.

cappeca wrote:

- since it?s gonna be an unlicensed cart, does it mean that we are not under some of Nintendo?s guidelines here? Can I make a Carmaggedon Advance?

If you own the rights to Carmaggedon I can't see any problem doing that. You only have to comply with the compo guidelines.

cappeca wrote:

- what happens to the submitted ROMS that don?t make it to the cart?

I guess they can either be released on the site or returned to the developers?

Simon

SimonB wrote:

Marciano wrote:

Top prize, if the judges agree that the game meets a certain level of quality and gameplay so as to be able to stand up alongside professional efforts, is a marquee cart release. A solo run. Your own game, published in its cart and sold. Not a combo release.

Could be done but the minimum run for the carts are 500 and 1000 for the manuals and boxes so that would mean 500 carts for the best game and another 500 for the multi-cart. Also, unless you want to use the same box for both titles, it would mean having 1000 + 1000 made. Im not saying its a bad idea but the investment would be...err...double

... and...

SimonB wrote:

Marciano wrote:

The marquee winner, if there is one, decides whether they want to be on the combo cart as well as the marquee cart. That's a choice between standing alone as a star example, or getting the exposure of more carts.

If the marquee winner's entry is 3-4mbit and thus able to fit on the multicart I think it would be a little bit unnecessary to put it on it's own 32mbit cartridge.

The marquee cart idea is the grand prize, if a game is good enough to stand alone. It's not a case of a 3MB game fitting on a 32MB cart, it's an outstanding game deserving its own cart - with its own packaging, being sold as a single - because it has earned it.

I don't know the odds of actually getting a compo entry of that quality. Looking at the archives on this site and others, I know that there are people out there who have the talent, but a lot of talent is manifested in remakes and clones. The technical ability to write working software for the GBA is a very different to the ability to design a fun game that someone would spend $15 on, or to create graphics, or to create sound. I read reviews in print magazines every month with games from obviously talented people getting slammed because, whilst technically well implemented, bug free, polished and functional, they just aren't worth playing (or paying for) because they're not fun. They're not differnet enough. Just another platform. Just another shooter. Just another Tetris.

I also see the financial side. If it's going to cost you $5K - $7K for a 1,000 cart run (that's a guess - I'd be interested in knowing the real number), then that's a fair chunk of money considering that the carts may not sell at all. That's very different from a compo where the prizes are semi-donated from the vendors as a promotional thing.

I think I may be promoting an unrealistically grand challenge, and maybe the prudent thing to do is to limit the scale of the 2004 compo to, as you said, small games you can pick up and play for a few minutes, and if the carts sell this year, then that itself is a proof of concept for the future.

M.

Marciano wrote:

...and if the carts sell this year, then that itself is a proof of concept for the future.

I've got something to say about the future...

I believe that the GBA is a games platform in the style of the old Commodore 64 and other machines of that mid 80s era, in that it's available to a generation of homebrew coders and the programming and art requirements are such that the it's possible to realistically produce games on par with commercial efforts.

I was a teen when the Commodore 64 was around, and my friends and I used to write games in 6502 assembly language. Little things, nothing commercial, but it was fun and we learned about machine code, raster interrupts and sound. It was a great time. We were excellent programmers, but we never considered the possibility of being able to actually release something. This was in England, before the Internet, and the games market was a mystery. We were kids in school. We could code, but we didn't know anything real. Now, of course, we're all in our mid-30s with careers outside of games, but out of nostalgic interest I wonder what we could have done if we knew the right people, or had access to an audience.

Back to the plot, what happened then, after the Atari STs and Amigas was the VGA PC. Then Doom. Quake. The whole FPS genre. Then 3Dfx arrived with the first hard-core 3D accelerator. John Carmack wrote glQuake to run on it. Then nVidia came along, and 3D has proliferated everywhere.

Modern game producers spend more money on artwork (models, levels, sound) than on programming. Most teams are predominantly artists. Homebrew kids in their bedrooms and dorms don't have a chance, and now the best opportunities lie in the Mod community (e.g. Counter-Strike for Half Life).

I see things going the same way with hand-helds. I think the march of technology is inevitable. 3D is coming big-time, and with it the art volume and the production costs are going to grow beyond the homebrew crowd again.

The GBA, and this generation of homebrewers, may be the last time such a community comes together with a real ability to demonstrate talent at a commercial level. As such, a compo like this is a real gem. It's an opportunity to raise the profile of a handful of really talented kids who might want to get into the industry. And if we can raise a bit of press (as I said, like a print magazine article), and get the best recognized, that would be truly outstanding.

I'm really coming at this with hindsight of an era long gone, and thinking about what sort of competition would have made me salivate when I was a kid.

:-)

M.

Marciano wrote:

they just aren't worth playing (or paying for) because they're not fun. They're not differnet enough. Just another platform. Just another shooter. Just another Tetris.

"Just another Tetris"? Was that an insult?
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tepples wrote:

Marciano wrote:

they just aren't worth playing (or paying for) because they're not fun. They're not differnet enough. Just another platform. Just another shooter. Just another Tetris.

"Just another Tetris"? Was that an insult?

Not at all.

In order to give more entrants a chance, would it be possible to separate the compo into two brackets by size? I'd suggest a 640 KByte ROM-based bracket (because that ought to be enough for anyone, even the developers of the first round of SNES games) and a 160 KByte multiboot bracket. This way one could have the top five for each bracket on one cartridge.
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tepples wrote:

I'd suggest a 640 KByte ROM-based bracket (because that ought to be enough for anyone

...

I thought you were supposed to have Asperger's or something?

Dan.

I do have Asperger syndrome, but I either have or can fake enough of a sense of humor to fool most of the people most of the time. Normally I try to keep it toned down in order not to offend (for instance, no jokes about somebody's name in the presence of a relative), but jokes whose variations repeatedly get moderated up on Slashdot typically tend not to offend programmers.

The 640 KB joke came in only after I divided the cart size by 5 (4096 KB / 5 = 819.2 KB), rounded the result down to a nice round number (800 KB), and cut off the size of my own flagship multiboot game (800 KB - 160 KB = 640 KB). Then I saw 640 KB in my calculator and thought first of the size of Super NES games and second of an urban legend.

I guess the Asperger reference in the thread you're thinking of was just an excuse for the fact that sometimes, I just can't think of a joke.
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Well, no more excuses from you after that little peach!

Dan.

So it seems to me that all of the major questions about the feasibility of this compo have been answered. SimonB is willing to put up the time and money to organize the thing and make it happen.

This is tremendously cool.

The only questions remaining are the little logistical ones: What are the entry criteria, how many winners are there, who are the judges, what is the timeline, etc.

Another question that might be important is what "third party" tools will be allowed? I'm a big fan of Krawall, and I even own a developer's license for it, but using it might be considered an unfair advantage over the "real coders" who have built their own sound system. ;)

I would like to offer my services to help, so long as I can still compete! I'd be happy to do any web design, manual or box graphic design, illustration, logo design, etc.

-Scott

Maybe there should also be a contest for best frontend. Because if this is going to be a package deal, wouldn't it be good to have all the games launch from a snazzy menu screen like they do with other compilations (Midway's greatest, Activision Anth., etc.) Making that as a category would give homebrew devr's another chance to be featured on the cartridge.

I don't even know how you launch roms from within a rom. Hafta have a look at Pogoshell or PocketNES source probably.

ScottLininger wrote:

Another question that might be important is what "third party" tools will be allowed? I'm a big fan of Krawall, and I even own a developer's license for it, but using it might be considered an unfair advantage over the "real coders" who have built their own sound system. ;)

I think Scott has a point here, so I have an idea. Personally, I have no interest in making a full game for the contest. (I'm not that terribly imaginative, and for the most part I have no taste in gameplay. ;) ) On the other hand, I would not mind writing something that could potentially benefit everyone like say, a sound system. All I'd ask for is a little bit of recognition and possibly a few bucks if we get any profits. :P

Would anyone else consider writing tools just for this? I can see tile and map editors being an immensely useful resource.
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My only concern about this concept is, if it'll end up being a multiple-month deal with hopes of getting on a cart, than why wouldn't someone just spend that time making a game to pitch to a publisher instead?

Also, if someone were to try to push a winning (or non-winning) entry to a publisher, is there any way that being on this "indie cart" could make that problematic?

I think it's a great idea for a competition. Kudos to Simon for having the chutzpah to consider testing the licensing waters.

I probably don't have time to complete an entry, but would love to help out if I can. Probably doing some tools or libraries is about all I could manage around the evil job...

I'd also be willing to kick in some sort of extra prize for best entry or entries which released their source. Available source helps everybody get better and love to encourage it.

Perhaps open source should be a requirement of entry?

Another suggestion is that anyone who manages to win should get a small number of carts (for portfolio purposes,) or at least the option to buy some at cost.

-Scott

I think that the problem of originality in games might be negated when we consider that our product could be 'published'. I for one would not want my 'breakthrough' into licensed games to be a clone of anything. I would definitely spend more time on design than anything else.

I just want to say: GREAT IDEA! That will keep me up until 6am, instead of 2am during last year's compo! Bring on the espresso's;-)

I've got one tool that I've been too lazy for to share with the community, it's a file packer, but a lot better than the usual GBAFS (?). Support for directories and more important; it can call external apps (converters!) before adding (updated) files to the file pack. I'm sure many can benefit from it, so I'll get this into a decent package before the compo starts:)
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This is a real GREAT GREAT Idea... Maybe is possible some Publisher after looking are interested to buy the game or to contact the author...

Is Great if The compo starts soon and finish in time to release the carts on next Xmas...
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SimonB wrote:

Of course, they would have to be good and complete otherwise it wouldnt be any idea. I was thinking more in the lines of nice and small games that you can pick up at any time and play for a few mins rather than big RPGs etc.

So mabey you could even let the top five entries or something get published on the same cart? I mean, if you are thinking of rather small games, it would be an idea to make a "Travellers Collection"-catridge or something (mabey "Developers Collection" :) That way it might also sell more. A downside of this idea though is that we need to ensure the quality of the games.
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I was thinking about the same idea a couple of month ago...
If you make this kind of compo, i'm sure a lot of coders from Playeradvance (would do their best to be on this cart...)
Maybe i could help you SimonB for judging or organisation ;)
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Daniel Andersen wrote:

I mean, if you are thinking of rather small games, it would be an idea to make a "Travellers Collection"-catridge or something (mabey "Developers Collection" :)

I'm not sure I follow you....isn't that pretty much what I said in the original post?

SimonB wrote:

we would take the top 5-10 entries and make a "multi-game cart"

Simon

The game that gets first place should get more money from the sale, something along the lines like 1st 500, then 2nd 450,400,... 100.

Let?s not restrict it to 1 game per person or team.

To have the games that do get the top 10 and 2 runner up games to have time after the contest to edit the game better with comments by the GBADEV staff with small thing to make the game more presentable for the cart.

If the cart has room for more than 10 desirable games, then it probably should be put more games in.

The compo is a great Idea, which I was also thinking of doing it if I had around 10 games. ;)

Sounds like an awesome idea, if it's feasible... I know the compo admin has much more experience than myself, but it seems like a very ambitious undertaking. Although that will probably make the prize that much sweeter.

Do Nintendo have a legal leg to stand on with regard to stopping this compo?

Ben

SimonB wrote:

I'm not sure I follow you....isn't that pretty much what I said in the original post?

SimonB wrote:

we would take the top 5-10 entries and make a "multi-game cart"

Very much indeed. Sorry, I forgot about the original post! So, great idea anyway! ;)
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In a world without fences and walls you will never need gates and windows.

Another topic is how to judge the entries; because it is a multi-game card then the judges might want to pick the games that are most appropiate for publishing on the same card.

For instance, it might be an idea not to select five space shooters but select games from various categories (if possible, of course) so that there is a little for each taste, mood, time, etc. etc. In that way the buyer gets maximum value for money.
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In a world without fences and walls you will never need gates and windows.

The quality of the games is important, as many people has pointed out in the posts above me. This makes me think a bit about the content of the cart.

If the point of the cart is to put glory to the GBADev scene, then it should not be based on some compo entries, but selected entries from many different places, compos or noncompos. This means that we could pick out many goldnuggets from the scene, and then after the selection, these games should be polished up. An example could be if Neko the Cat (the last compo winner, I forgot it's name) is picked, more levels should be added, the GFX should be updated, and the game should be 100% welltested before it went through to the cart. This could take many months.

So, all in all, it would be wise to keep the compo away from the carts if it is expensive to create them.

I would say that there are basicly two oppotunities. 1) A normal compo with no games that have previously been "published" and 2) a compo where all games can be submitted regardless of previously publishment.

I would personally put in my vote for 2) since, as Lord Graga says, we want quality games on the cart. With enough time frame for the compo stunning games can be made from scratch equally well, though, so all homebrewers have a chance of getting famous. :)

I say, at least 3 months and even better 4 months of time frame as most of us have study or job to take care of also.
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In a world without fences and walls you will never need gates and windows.

I would also prefer to get an ongoing project sent in, instead of a complete new game from scratch, that way the game could be better quality then normally...
Though I doubt I'll be able to participate as I have so hard to focus on my programming long enough for anything to get completed!
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Open Solutions for an open mind, www.areta.org

Areta is an organization of coders codeing mostly open source project, but there is alot of sections like GBA dev, Language learning communities, RPG communities, etc...

1: I disagree with completely disallowing one game only per person/team; if the concern is with being flooded with a lot of unworthy games, the rule is that they only have to judge ONE, and will judge the other games if they are up to scratch

2: with this being such a large project involving the sale of cartridges; wouldn't it be much better to give the compo a long time for the entries to arrive - that way we will have more quality games that are more complete.

I'm going to agree with keldon on point #2 there.

I think that 3 months is too little to get a real GOOD game developed. I probably speak for a lot of homecoders over 18 when I say it can be hard to create a full game and carry a job at the same time.

I have four ideas for the time issue:
(1) Make it 6 months - allows for a real polished game
(2) Allow for complete working games that need graphical and music facelifts (within limits), then allow some extra time (a month maybe?) for the work to be completed
(3) Have 2 categories: #1- Multiboot, one person coding only, #2- ROM, team of at least 2 or 3 people
(4) Poll the people who are SERIOUS about entering as to how much time they would like. By serious I mean, take the poll and you're basically signed up.

I also think that on a poject of this magnitude, there should be a entry fee. This could discourage people who have little ambition from sending in their garbage and wasting the judge's time. If these games are published, we want them well tested AND judged, and I don't want to rush judges from testing a game I made with sweat and blood, taking more hours in the day than I have just so they can test someone's idea of a joke that they threw together in a week. Maybe poll on that?

I'm only talking ideas here, I want to contribute. I also want to join.

SimonB, is there some idea you can give us as to when you were planning to start this? I ask you 'cause it seems to me you'd be hosting this whole shindig.

Thanks

Since we're all just tossing in ideas...

I like mymateo's idea of allowing "mostly" complete games. That would allow feedback from the judges and some time to really clean it up and test.

Perhaps a "semi finalist" selection (8-10 games) could be made after 2-3 months, then the winners get chosen a month or two after that, based on improvements suggested from the judges?

One more idea: since not everyone is going to "nail" the size requirement down to the byte, it might be nice to allow the final winners some time to create an extra level or two if the cart space allows.

-Scott

I'm 100% behind you guys on this one.

There should be a system of knockout rounds where projects are submitted to the judges (and possibly the forum) for evaluation by a certain date. The most promising of these could then be selected to progress to the next round with an additional month or so before re-submission for the following round. This would allow fine tuning of game play etc. based on feedback, and would ensure only projects which were obviously progressing and likely to be finished on time would be considered.

As well as tweaking of game play etc., this approach would also be an opportunity for teams/individuals who have potentially good games but with weak graphics or sound to get assistance from other community members with the relevant skills.

I really believe this kind of approach will produce a better, more polished end product. Some of the best games of yester-year (I'm thinking C64/Spectrum here) had almost embarrassing graphics and/or sound, but the game play won through. Allowing entries from those who are able to design and implement a good game concept which can then be enhanced with the help of others is also likely to result in more original games.

Another point raised earlier in this topic was that of which libraries/tools to allow. If we're talking about producing something to showcase the homebrew scene, there should be no restrictions as to the libraries used. Existing developers will already be familiar with their preferred toolset, so restricting their use would be unfair. I personally have registered versions of HAM(lib), VisualHAM and Krawall, but aside from the HAM intro and the inability to use MODs (I use S3Ms anyway) the same features are available to non-registered users.

There would certainly have to be an agreement in place with the developers of these popular libraries to allow their use for this project as this kind of falls between home and commercial use, but I suspect they would be quite open to discussion regarding this.

I don't see any reason to limit entries to those written within the time-frame set aside for the competition. I think it perfectly legitimate that someone who has already put a lot of time into writing a good game could submit it for consideration. The idea is surely to make a compilation cartridge that is worth owning, so why make it a "this is the best we could do in 3 months" affair?

I'm quite excited about this, and have a few already fully developed ideas which I'll be whittling down to one at some point very soon in readiness. Might be looking for some help with the graphics and sound side of things though. I can put together what I need and am usually very happy with it, but it takes me way longer than in would someone with better skills in these areas, and my time is probably much better spent on the coding side of things. Any offers?

Last edited by ciw1973 on Tue Aug 03, 2004 9:19 am; edited 1 time in total

What started out as a simple concept sounds to me like it's starting to get out of hand.

mymateo wrote:

(1) Make it 6 months - allows for a real polished game

6 months is a long time to work on a game only to not make the cart... How about back-track from, say, having the carts available for purchase by December 15. Then working back from there to determine the submission date?

Quote:

(2) Allow for complete working games that need graphical and music facelifts (within limits), then allow some extra time (a month maybe?) for the work to be completed

I imagine it's hard to see a good game through crappy graphics and sound.

Quote:

(3) Have 2 categories: #1- Multiboot, one person coding only, #2- ROM, team of at least 2 or 3 people

Why not just let the games stand on their own merits, regardless of how they were created?

Quote:

(4) Poll the people who are SERIOUS about entering as to how much time they would like.

That's a good idea.

Quote:

By serious I mean, take the poll and you're basically signed up.

Or you'll go round to their house and beat them up?

Quote:

I also think that on a poject of this magnitude, there should be a entry fee.

Why not let everyone have a go?

Quote:

This could discourage people who have little ambition from sending in their garbage and wasting the judge's time.

I have little ambition (I have a real job), but I don't think my stuff is crap, and it would be a kick to see it on a cart.

Quote:

If these games are published, we want them well tested AND judged, and I don't want to rush judges from testing a game I made with sweat and blood, taking more hours in the day than I have just so they can test someone's idea of a joke that they threw together in a week.

You've got a very high opinion of yourself haven't you. Maybe other people's entries have an EQUAL right to be judged as yours does. Or would you rather just have a pre-assigned place on the cart, and not leave it to the clueless judges to critique your obviously superior creation?

I don't really mean to beat you up, dude. I can tell you're passionate about this, and maybe you think this is a chance to develop a career or something and you don't want your effort misjudged because the judges were overwhelmed or split the work and the one guy who saw your entry just had a bad day...

I just don't think artificial constraints should be placed on a competition that might discourage people from trying. GBADev is a community, and we should support everyone who wants to try out, no matter what their level. If your entry is as good as you think it will be, then you've got to trust that it will be judged well, and it will score what it deserves.

Passion is a good thing. Good luck, man.

Grumpy.

So, what has been agreed upon so far?
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Little kids and Playstation 2's don't mix. :(

dagamer34 wrote:

So, what has been agreed upon so far?

The compo is a great idea!

;-)

ScottLininger wrote:

I like mymateo's idea of allowing "mostly" complete games. That would allow feedback from the judges and some time to really clean it up and test. Perhaps a "semi finalist" selection (8-10 games) could be made after 2-3 months, then the winners get chosen a month or two after that, based on improvements suggested from the judges?

I prefer to have a fixed date for submission. If you have previous feedback from judges, it sounds like they're telling you what to do to get in the cart. What if they tell you "Sorry, kid, you're beyond any help"? Or, if you see a lot of feedback for a specific game, and none for the rest? It might work, but it's too complicated to work seamless. Judges shouldn't be involved in the process.

Instead, I think people should be allowed to post topics (if they want help and don't mind having their projects "revealed") about their on-going projects in a specific session of the forum dedicated for the compo, and only in their threads feedback will be allowed - and "not" from judges, but from everyone else.

I'm also concerned about the categories chosen to evaluate these games. If we're going to make a cart with great games, I don't want people giving less points for this game because it used hardware timers instead of Vblank, or didn't use some nice algorithm for image compression or was made in Cobol or anything like that, considering that the game runs smooth. The game is what matters: graphics, sound, gameplay, that sort of thing.

And every game should be tested and evaluated ONLY IN THE REAL HARDWARE, thank you very much.

Gee, you are a little grumpy, aren't you?

EDIT: Err, I should mention I'm referring to grumpycat, not cappeca.

Quote:

(2) Allow for complete working games that need graphical and music facelifts (within limits), then allow some extra time (a month maybe?) for the work to be completed

I imagine it's hard to see a good game through crappy graphics and sound.

Please do not quote me in context and then twist my words. I said "within limits" for the exact purpose of making sure people didn't send in crappy graphics, just graphics and sound that need work, for example adding animation to trees, grass, water etc, taking pops/clicks out of sound, re-mixing it, whatever.

As far as having the carts ready for december 15, I think the compo would need to start now. Do you know how long it would take, after the games were chosen, to make the box and maual for it, then wait for production? We'd probably have to start THAT now. PROBABLY. I could be wrong.

Quote:

Why not just let the games stand on their own merits, regardless of how they were created?

Because an MB rom is substantially smaller, in most cases, than a full ROM.

Quote:

Or you'll go round to their house and beat them up?

Sure, just leave your address. :) -- No, just kidding. I'm just trying to say that people with no intention of entering shouldn't get a say in what guidelines the people entering should follow. That's all.

Quote:

Why not let everyone have a go?

That's why it's just a suggestion. I'm not a judge, moderator, organizer, or anything, so what I say doesn't necessarily go. That's for SimonB to decide in this case :)

Quote:

You've got a very high opinion of yourself haven't you. Maybe other people's entries have an EQUAL right to be judged as yours does. Or would you rather just have a pre-assigned place on the cart, and not leave it to the clueless judges to critique your obviously superior creation?

Look, I'm not saying that I specifically make good stuff, I'm using me as an example, comparing myself as an imaginarily good programmer to an imaginary individual who makes crap, and saying it would be unfair in this kind of situation for people who aren't serious to make the judges wade through their garbage to get to the good stuff.

Again, this is something for someone who is not me to decide. I would think that SimonB should find the judges, then ask them what kind of work load they would like to take on for judging. But again, only a suggestion.

All in all, I'll take this as constructive criticism, and no hard feelings. I think we've both posted some good points, and if everyone does the same, then I think this compo will be all the stronger for it.

mymateo wrote:

Gee, you are a little grumpy, aren't you?

Yes, I am ;-)

Quote:

(2) Allow for complete working games that need graphical and music facelifts (within limits), then allow some extra time (a month maybe?) for the work to be completed

I imagine it's hard to see a good game through crappy graphics and sound.

Please do not quote me in context and then twist my words. I said "within limits" for the exact purpose of making sure people didn't send in crappy graphics, just graphics and sound that need work, for example adding animation to trees, grass, water etc, taking pops/clicks out of sound, re-mixing it, whatever.

My mistake.

Quote:

Look, I'm not saying that I specifically make good stuff, I'm using me as an example, comparing myself as an imaginarily good programmer to an imaginary individual who makes crap, and saying it would be unfair in this kind of situation for people who aren't serious to make the judges wade through their garbage to get to the good stuff.

Right, but just because someone is cra^H^H^Hqualitatively challenged doesn't mean they shouldn't be allowed to even try. This is all supposed to be fun. For everyone. Presumably everyone's entries will be downloadable from this site, even if they don't make the top 10 - and that's still a kick for some people.

Quote:

All in all, I'll take this as constructive criticism, and no hard feelings. I think we've both posted some good points, and if everyone does the same, then I think this compo will be all the stronger for it.

I agree. We don't have to agree. In fact it's fun to disagree. Gives SimonB (Mr Rules) some alternatives.

Rock on.

Grumpy.

SimonB wrote:

the minimum run for the carts are 500 and 1000 for the manuals

What are the prices for:
32 Mbit, 500 units
32 Mbit, 1000 units
32 Mbit + SRAM, 500 units

How much does it cost to have 1000 manuals printed?

I'm assuming that you don't want to spring for carts with SRAM. That means single session games or passwords.

I think this is a fantastic idea for the compo. If it works out, this could be a pilot project for future low production run compilation carts. (ie a bunch of people pool funds)

As far as quality control goes, there is 32 Mbit of space on the cart. This will be filled with the best 32 Mbits the community has to offer. Quality control will take care of itself.

My main concern is the market for this compo cart. Perhaps that will take care of itself?

-Brendan

Where would one go to get this kind of stuff produced(carts ect)?

That asside despite only been developing for about 3 days i'd give it a go!
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^thom(as)?
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warsong wrote:

The game that gets first place should get more money from the sale, something along the lines like 1st 500, then 2nd 450,400,... 100.

I think the game should be sold so we break even. After all, its all for fun. If we can sell 500 carts at break-even prices, maybe the next compo can seek to make some money, but I think we can worry about that later.

warsong wrote:

Let?s not restrict it to 1 game per person or team.

I agree.

warsong wrote:

To have the games that do get the top 10 and 2 runner up games to have time after the contest to edit the game better with comments by the GBADEV staff with small thing to make the game more presentable for the cart.

The games that are selected will probably have to be given time to alter the game to add a "return to game selection" option etc.

warsong wrote:

If the cart has room for more than 10 desirable games, then it probably should be put more games in.

Yes, there's no reason for leaving unused space on the cart. If there's only a small amount of space left though, the authors of the already selected games could be given a few kbytes each if they want to add anything.

Wriggler wrote:

Do Nintendo have a legal leg to stand on with regard to stopping this compo?

Stopping the compo? Not at all. They won't try it either. Manufacturing will take place in China so even if they wanted to stop that they would have a hard time trying :P Selling the games in the US might be a problem though. But I don't think it's anything to worry about...

keldon wrote:

1: I disagree with completely disallowing one game only per person/team; if the concern is with being flooded with a lot of unworthy games, the rule is that they only have to judge ONE, and will judge the other games if they are up to scratch

I think it could be wise to limit the number of entries, yes, but since it shouldnt take long to see if an entry is worth play-testing more or if it should be dismissed at once, I think we could set the limit at 5 entries or something. Yeah?

mymateo wrote:

SimonB, is there some idea you can give us as to when you were planning to start this? I ask you 'cause it seems to me you'd be hosting this whole shindig.

I have no problem starting this as soon as possible. However, even if we get this started "now", I do not think its likely to expect the game to be out before christmas.

ScottLininger wrote:

One more idea: since not everyone is going to "nail" the size requirement down to the byte, it might be nice to allow the final winners some time to create an extra level or two if the cart space allows.

Yeah, there's no reason for wasting space. space is precious...oh so precious *drool* erm..where was I?

mymateo wrote:

I would think that SimonB should find the judges, then ask them what kind of work load they would like to take on for judging.

I would prefer keeping judges to a minimum...ie 3 or something. People do have lives and I have noticed during previous competitions that some judges do not come through at all, despite promises. Actually I would prefer to do the judging myself because I know can trust myself but then again I don't think other people would approve :P (Simon Hussein)

mymateo wrote:

Because an MB rom is substantially smaller, in most cases, than a full ROM.

Well, the most anyone would get is 4Mbit...

sgeos wrote:

My main concern is the market for this compo cart. Perhaps that will take care of itself?

I have been in contact with several manufacturers willing to produce the cart and one of them have been willing to sell empty ROM carts. We could buy 500 of those and burn them "in-house". That way we haven't "wasted" a few hundred carts if only 100 sell..ie burn as many as is being sold. Could be an option...

If we go with this option I'm not sure how we should solve the box/manual/cart sticker situation though...

Thats all the time I had today. Thank you all.

Simon

SimonB wrote:

mymateo wrote:

I would think that SimonB should find the judges, then ask them what kind of work load they would like to take on for judging.

I would prefer keeping judges to a minimum...ie 3 or something. People do have lives and I have noticed during previous competitions that some judges do not come through at all, despite promises. Actually I would prefer to do the judging myself because I know can trust myself but then again I don't think other people would approve :P (Simon Hussein)

It's your competition, and your money that you're putting up for it. I don't see why you should care about other people's approval.

I'm sorry, I just get a bit annoyed in a thread like this when people presume to dictate the correct or incorrect way to do something. (Not to be confused with just offering their opinion/advice in response to your query.) It's your money; it's your compo; you should run it however the hell you please. If people don't like it, they can foot the bill for their own compo. :P

Just my two cents.

Dan.

poslundc wrote:

It's your competition, and your money that you're putting up for it. I don't see why you should care about other people's approval.

He cares because he's a cool guy, and he's pinging us to see what we think before setting the rules. Nice touch, actually.

Quote:

I'm sorry, I just get a bit annoyed in a thread like this when people presume to dictate the correct or incorrect way to do something.

One... two... three... breathe... one... two... three... and out.

M.

poslundc wrote:

SimonB wrote:

mymateo wrote:

I would think that SimonB should find the judges, then ask them what kind of work load they would like to take on for judging.

I would prefer keeping judges to a minimum...ie 3 or something. People do have lives and I have noticed during previous competitions that some judges do not come through at all, despite promises. Actually I would prefer to do the judging myself because I know can trust myself but then again I don't think other people would approve :P (Simon Hussein)

It's your competition, and your money that you're putting up for it. I don't see why you should care about other people's approval.

I think that he, like myself, believe that I cannot think of everything (although I usua...) all the time; plus it allows thoughts you wouldn't have considered - although the downfall is seiving though it all.

Marciano wrote:

poslundc wrote:

It's your competition, and your money that you're putting up for it. I don't see why you should care about other people's approval.

He cares because he's a cool guy, and he's pinging us to see what we think before setting the rules. Nice touch, actually.

I was referring to a specific quote, not to him asking others' opinions in general.

Quote:

One... two... three... breathe... one... two... three... and out.

You're cool.

Dan.

1) I think that it would be best to sell the game before or during Christmas since that?s the highest point of sales and after Christmas it is down hill and it would be better off to sell it 2 months later. It's like trying to sell food to someone that comes out of a restaurant.

2) Would it be ok to enter a remake of a game that was entered in another compo? For instance I entered once a strategy board game for the GP32 called gamasumo, so if a coder wants to port it to the GBA and change is a little for this contest will it be ok?

On a side note to just think about maybe have it that everyone that wants to enter has to present in writing a small design doc to you to say what kind of game it is, and the top 10 designs will be accepted to be made. The point of this is because some say they don?t want to work on something for a long time to just have their game scraped, but I guess that?s the point of a compo to get eliminated. Maybe this thing can help make bigger teams so that the games get made faster and better before Christmas which can boost sales and recognition to the independent games. This is just a thought.

PS ***Since more than 1 game is allowed, if any programmers do not have a winning game idea then drop me a line. Hey I see programmers in all compos that make clones and clones won?t cut it in this compo. Why I say this is because I was supposed to enter other compos but some coders seem to miss out.

Good luck to everyone

Would it be possible to get the compo 'endosed' or 'backed' by something like Game Developers for legal backing? Or would it be the same regardless?
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warsong wrote:

On a side note to just think about maybe have it that everyone that wants to enter has to present in writing a small design doc to you to say what kind of game it is, and the top 10 designs will be accepted to be made. The point of this is because some say they don?t want to work on something for a long time to just have their game scraped, but I guess that?s the point of a compo to get eliminated.

Risky. Some good games may be scraped right off because of a bad design doc (which is an entirely different subject), while good designs might not turn out to be nice games.

In the subject of docs, I don't know if these are already the rules, but I think that everyone should be responsible for sending the manual for their game and a JPEG for the boxart along with the ROM.

warsong wrote:

1) I think that it would be best to sell the game before or during Christmas since that?s the highest point of sales

Yes and no. Christmas is going to suck for many commercial developers this year. I've heard specualtion that competition is going to be so great this Christmas that the Sims 2 is only game that will safely sell. Everyone else is at the mercy of the competition. Some good commercial retail games will not even see shelf space! (Kind of hard for mom to find something that isn't on the shelf.)

In the retail world there is a holiday after christmas that that marks when people start spending money again. Does anybody know what it is off hand? I think it might be Valentine's Day, but I'm not sure. I think that might be a better time to release the cart from a tactical standpoint.

warsong wrote:

maybe have it that everyone that wants to enter has to present in writing a small design doc to you to say what kind of game it is, and the top 10 designs will be accepted to be made.

Why do so many want to put artificial limits on the entries?! There is no need for this. There are only going to be 32 Mbits on the cart. Competion for space will be very high.

cappeca wrote:

In the subject of docs, I don't know if these are already the rules, but I think that everyone should be responsible for sending the manual for their game and a JPEG for the boxart along with the ROM.

If a run of 1000 boxes is done, there is only going to be one cover design for the whole compilation cart. Even if somebody lets us use their nifty high quality printing equipment and we can print different cover designs, they would have to represent a compilation cart.

Sending manual info makes sense to me. First place winner is listed first in the manual and game select screen? =P

-Brendan

poslundc wrote:

SimonB wrote:

mymateo wrote:

I would think that SimonB should find the judges, then ask them what kind of work load they would like to take on for judging.

I would prefer keeping judges to a minimum...ie 3 or something. People do have lives and I have noticed during previous competitions that some judges do not come through at all, despite promises. Actually I would prefer to do the judging myself because I know can trust myself but then again I don't think other people would approve :P (Simon Hussein)

It's your competition, and your money that you're putting up for it. I don't see why you should care about other people's approval.

I'm sorry, I just get a bit annoyed in a thread like this when people presume to dictate the correct or incorrect way to do something. (Not to be confused with just offering their opinion/advice in response to your query.) It's your money; it's your compo; you should run it however the hell you please. If people don't like it, they can foot the bill for their own compo. :P

Just my two cents.

How dare you.

I am NOT trying to dictate the correct or incorrect way of doing ANYthing. Note the way I worded it? "I would think..." I am expressing my thoughts. I did NOT use a dictory (word I made up?) comment such as "You had better..." or "You should...".

"I would think" falls under the same category as "I think you should..." or "My personal opinion is..." or "Wouldn't the best thing to do...?". I am NOT dictating anything, simply expressing my views. And in fairness, I'm trying to provide common sense in this crazy world. It would make no sense for Simon to conscript people who had no time, desire, or any qualifications that would make good judges. Doesn't it make more sense to look for someone who is willing and able? Someone who can say that can take the time required to thorougly test several games?

Poslundc, I am grateful for the help you have given me in the past, but I do not stand for people labeling me. How dare you call me a dictator when I have done nothing to deserve it. Simon wanted opinions, I gave my opinion.

That's MY two cents worth, with a couple nickels to spare.

This is all starting to get a bit heated, silly and non-productive. SimonB is offering everyone in the community an opportunity to see their work distributed in the form of a proper cartridge, and it's rapidly turning into a bitching session. Everyone is entitled to express an opinion, but only those that are sensible enough to gain general approval are likely to be considered, so let's just play friendly.

My earlier post was basically suggesting that there is a monitored development schedule for all of the proposed entries, and I still think this is going to be very important.

I've a number of ideas already, and could produce a detailed spec and some basic proof of concept stuff which would (IMHO) look great on paper, but be unrealistic in the time-frame that's likely to be available.

A close eye needs to be kept on the progress of each game as individual projects can quickly fall behind schedule, and the whole cartridge idea starts to slip before you know it.

Having read through all the recent bickering here, I'd suggest that rather than leavnig things open to the entire forum, SimonB select a small group of judges to help him make decisions about which projects are selected and to check that things are progressing as planned.

For this to happen, each developer/group would need to submit a basic schedule for the project and provide assurances that it was realistic in the time available. Almost every project takes longer than anticipated, and having someone else review it may help identify possible issues in advance.

As the groups themselves are going to be busy enough developing games, it may be useful if someone externally were allocated to each project to help manage it. It's always handy to have someone keep an eye on things from the outside.

It may sound like I'm proposing a good deal of "unnecessary" admin, but with more than 20 years coding experience, having been involved with and managed some pretty big projects, and now running my own company, I know that once a project gets bigger than one or two individuals working together it quickly falls apart without good planning and management. There's no reason it should be any less fun, but it will help ensure our overall goals are achieved. If nothing else, this is what you'd be doing if you were a professional game developer anyway.

Regarding a release date and marketing of the final cartridge. It would appear many people are forgetting this is not going to be a commercial product. There will be no major chain-store distribution network, more likely a number of specialist internet shops and direct selling to the community. As such, the seasonal buying patterns of the general public are of little concern.

I know everyone will be keen to have the cartridge released ASAP, but a lot more needs to be established before a release date can even be considered. Let's see what games are likely to be available, it may be worth allowing more time than is being proposed at the moment to get the best games possible. I do think that to help keep everyone focussed, 3 or 4 months would be more desirable than 6 or more, but let's see what the general consensus of opinion is. Having a shorter timescale may also encourage individuals to work together which is usually a good thing.

Something which was mentioned earlier was a menu, and as it's the first thing anyone running the cartridge will see, it's going to be important. I think it would be an ideal opportunity for those on the homebrew scene who aren't interested or haven't the time to write a full game. Aside from some bank switching code needed to change games (which could be added later anyway) and maybe keeping an eye on the overall size, things should be pretty open.

mymateo wrote:

poslundc wrote:

SimonB wrote:

mymateo wrote:

I would think that SimonB should find the judges, then ask them what kind of work load they would like to take on for judging.

I would prefer keeping judges to a minimum...ie 3 or something. People do have lives and I have noticed during previous competitions that some judges do not come through at all, despite promises. Actually I would prefer to do the judging myself because I know can trust myself but then again I don't think other people would approve :P (Simon Hussein)

It's your competition, and your money that you're putting up for it. I don't see why you should care about other people's approval.

I'm sorry, I just get a bit annoyed in a thread like this when people presume to dictate the correct or incorrect way to do something. (Not to be confused with just offering their opinion/advice in response to your query.) It's your money; it's your compo; you should run it however the hell you please. If people don't like it, they can foot the bill for their own compo. :P

Just my two cents.

How dare you.

I am NOT trying to dictate the correct or incorrect way of doing ANYthing. Note the way I worded it? "I would think..." I am expressing my thoughts. I did NOT use a dictory (word I made up?) comment such as "You had better..." or "You should...".

"I would think" falls under the same category as "I think you should..." or "My personal opinion is..." or "Wouldn't the best thing to do...?". I am NOT dictating anything, simply expressing my views. And in fairness, I'm trying to provide common sense in this crazy world. It would make no sense for Simon to conscript people who had no time, desire, or any qualifications that would make good judges. Doesn't it make more sense to look for someone who is willing and able? Someone who can say that can take the time required to thorougly test several games?

Poslundc, I am grateful for the help you have given me in the past, but I do not stand for people labeling me. How dare you call me a dictator when I have done nothing to deserve it. Simon wanted opinions, I gave my opinion.

That's MY two cents worth, with a couple nickels to spare.

Chill. It was a response to SimonB's apparent belief that people had to endorse his actions in the matter. Your quote was left in there just so his had context. I'm sorry if you felt personally attacked; it wasn't intended as a shot at you.

Dan.

ciw1973, I agree with what you said. Especially the last bit. I could make a new game if i had to, but I have other PC projects at the moment and stretching on! I would, however, be able to put together a nice little selection screen.

Talking of those projects, I'm sure this won't interest any of you, but yesterday I made a nice calaculator on PC(took hardly any time, good project for a beginner c++-er(not me!)), and, just for a laugh, port it to GBA soon. I'll only run it on an Emulator (can't afford any cartridges at the moment, never have, hopefully will) and was wondering what you think I should do for it (v. simple I know, but..) Should I:
a) Make it look like it is running in Dos (command prompt thing)
b) Give it a nice new graphical interface with nice buttons and stuff or
c) Both. Choose which one.

ciw1973 wrote:

A close eye needs to be kept on the progress of each game as individual projects can quickly fall behind schedule, and the whole cartridge idea starts to slip before you know it.

Having read through all the recent bickering here, I'd suggest that rather than leavnig things open to the entire forum, SimonB select a small group of judges to help him make decisions about which projects are selected and to check that things are progressing as planned.

For this to happen, each developer/group would need to submit a basic schedule for the project and provide assurances that it was realistic in the time available. Almost every project takes longer than anticipated, and having someone else review it may help identify possible issues in advance.

In my opinion this is getting far, far too huge. Instead, I think that we should stick to the basic idea as proposed by Simon:

SimonB wrote:

I was thinking more in the lines of nice and small games that you can pick up at any time and play for a few mins rather than big RPGs etc.

I say that we should make this an ordinary compo just like the others held here. By taking it "too seriously" we loose the basic idea of finally having a "homebrewers community" for hobbyists; that is, many of us, as I can tell, have been around since the C-64 and now we have finally a chance of getting published without beeing professionals and "into business".

This (the GBA, as said earlier in this thread) may be the last chance for us hobby programmers to create small but interesting games in our spare time without using too much energy but having fun. Let's not scare too many people by making it too professionel. All should have their chance.

I think that we should use this chance, not abuse it. :)
_________________
In a world without fences and walls you will never need gates and windows.

I'm glad i didn't really get into this topic. Some people are taking things too personally.

From reading it, all I can be sure of is that there will be a compo this year. Everything else is still being speculated.

Some people want it to be a "professional"-like compo with all the bells and whistles while others prefer one with relaxed rules and such.

At this point, no one should be arguing with one another. I think I am the yougest one here(15 :) ), and yet some of you are acting like you are in high school. Please just calm down a bit...

One thing though, the most important thing is to have fun. No one is going to profit enough from this compo to make serious money from it. If we take away the fun factor, what is really left? :(
_________________
Little kids and Playstation 2's don't mix. :(

Daniel Andersen wrote:

In my opinion this is getting far, far too huge. Instead, I think that we should stick to the basic idea as proposed by Simon:

SimonB wrote:

I was thinking more in the lines of nice and small games that you can pick up at any time and play for a few mins rather than big RPGs etc.

I agree. What is wrong with setting a deadline and letting entries trickle in? If an individual or team wants to do things in a "professional" manner, nothing is stopping them. If somebody else wants to enter something simpler, fantastic. The more merrier. The "pro" project will probably do better- thats ok. People should be free to do whatever they feel will give their project an edge over the competition.

I don't care if people talk big. I do not want to see the compo restricted to people who talk big and/or produce paperwork. What next, ISO certification?

ciw1973 wrote:

It would appear many people are forgetting this is not going to be a commercial product.

I'd assume that it is a product that wants to maximize sales. (With perhaps a cap at 500 or 1000 units.)

ciw1973 wrote:

There will be no major chain-store distribution network, more likely a number of specialist internet shops and direct selling to the community. As such, the seasonal buying patterns of the general public are of little concern.

I thought that online stores would try to market the game to their clientele. My point is that Christmas may not be a good time to release the cart- it may even be one of the worst times. People only have so much money. I'm not sure if the community is the target audiance or not, but I suspect that members of the community who plan on buying the cart will do so regardless of when it is released. I doubt others will.

-Brendan

dagamer34 wrote:

Some people want it to be a "professional"-like compo with all the bells and whistles while others prefer one with relaxed rules and such.

At this point, no one should be arguing with one another. [...]

I disgree. :) -- I think it's good to argue (in a nice and relaxed tone, of course ;) because that way we will most likely somehow convience Simon on what to do with this whole compo thing. :)

dagamer34 wrote:

One thing though, the most important thing is to have fun. No one is going to profit enough from this compo to make serious money from it. If we take away the fun factor, what is really left? :(

Exactly my point. :)
_________________
In a world without fences and walls you will never need gates and windows.

ciw1973 wrote:

It may sound like I'm proposing a good deal of "unnecessary" admin, but with more than 20 years coding experience, having been involved with and managed some pretty big projects, and now running my own company, I know that once a project gets bigger than one or two individuals working together it quickly falls apart without good planning and management.

I think you're proposing a great deal of unnecessary bureaucracy that will absolutely suck the fun right out of this whole idea. With 15 years professional big-system (non-games) development, I can say I respect and fully utilize big software engineering methodologies and tools, but for God's sake, this is a hobby. Give it a rest already.

Quote:

If nothing else, this is what you'd be doing if you were a professional game developer anyway.

It's true that the move from a hobbyist programmer to a professional position can involve a level of culture and process shock. But again, this is a hobbyist crowd. Let's keep it simple, ok?

Quote:

Something which was mentioned earlier was a menu, and as it's the first thing anyone running the cartridge will see, it's going to be important. I think it would be an ideal opportunity for those on the homebrew scene who aren't interested or haven't the time to write a full game.

Yes, expos1994 had a great idea, here.

M.

Disclaimer (for all those sensitive types)
These are my opinions. No pressure on SimonB should be inferred by any statement. I bear no ill-will nor disrespect to any persons mentioned. No animals were harmed in the production of this message.

I must apologize, several times over.

I got a little carried away, and took things a little too personally. dagamer34 makes a good point, this is for fun, not profit. And if we (should I say "I"?) try to take the fun out, there's nothing left.

I therefore take back everything I've said, and contribute my newest thoughts:

Let's have fun. Let's wprk together. Whoever gets their games picked for the cartridge wins becuase they did well. Whoever doesn't get their game on the cartridge still wins because they tried and/or had fun. The only losers will be people (like me before today) who get uptight, and take things too seriously.

All I can say now, is that I am excited about entering, and I will be happy if I can make a game, and delirious if it makes it onto the cart.

dagamer, I wouldn't say you were the youngest ( I am younger!!)! Not gonna say how old though.. heh

Fatnickc wrote:

dagamer, I wouldn't say you were the youngest ( I am younger!!)! Not gonna say how old though.. heh

Spill da beans, man!! Spill 'um!

Anyway, I was thinking about this yesterday and here's my idea.

First, we have a regular compo, just like last year's. This one would allow anything to be done on the GBA, as long as it's your work. When that is done, the entries that are in the top 12 or so are given the chance to fix the bugs in their entries as there will probably be some and can re-submit them again for a "cart" competition. The entries in this one would probably be more restricted to actual games and such, demos are pretty to look at but probably won't interest the consumer as much as a game.

This way people who don't have 1+ years experience on the GBA can still have a productive showing at the competition, and those who have slaved hours over the computer to actually have something published will get their chance. Sounds good?

It's kind of like the best of 2 rounds.
_________________
Little kids and Playstation 2's don't mix. :(

I'm not 14.......................................
12 nor am I..

*toooo many long posts to read in one shot =). But No, it is never best to stay with an idea before being sure it is best and it is not easy to improve. IRC chat would be best to discuss this in.

But having a far deadline doesn't mean we should all spend a LONG time coding; it means that many newcomers have a chance to learn GBA; and gives us a longer time for people to see the project to take part - par example I did not know about PDRoms 2 until 2 weeks before.

Fatnickc wrote:

I'm not 14.......................................
12 nor am I..

I'm going to guess 13...
_________________
Little kids and Playstation 2's don't mix. :(

I have to say that this compotition is going to be something, it will also give a lot of hobbyiests a big motivation factor to complete their games :) The published carts will also do wonders for their CVs when looking for Jobs (well on mine at least :P)

Cant wait!
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Yep, you got it, dagamer!
My secret's out.........
Still, pretty good being able to code stuff at my age!

And, if we had a longer deadline (I think we worked out that Christmas wouldn't always be the best), we could go for a summer release. Easter if you are lucky.

So Simon,

Your goal was to get us all excited about the compo. It worked! I'm chomping at the bit to make some final decisions about my entry, as are others I'm sure.

Whatever rules you want to make, I'm certain people will be happy to comply. Like Dan said, it's your money, your site, your compo. I for one just want to get started! I'm itchin' to code!

[prod]

Thanks for the great idea.

;)

Scott

Hear hear!

I am personally very excited about starting this compo, but I need some rules to follow first! (Well, that's not true. I've already kinda started) But I'm eager to hear the final word about when, where, how etc. and what I'm allowed and not allowed.

I don't want to pressure you Simon, or anyone else, and I hope I didn't sound demanding just now. I'm just anxious!

I'm sure that if Simon released some "unofficial" data about the rules and when the details will be finalized, much stress will be released.

Again, no pressure, just my two cents to be taken at face value!

As long as there is a maximum size as Simon express no more then 4Mbit... Who are going to reach 4Mbit? I don't think I will with the current project I'm doing, so it will probably be more then 8 games on the cart...
However if I get my game finished and before the deadline, and hopefully enters the cart as well... Consider me a very interested to but a few carts for myself... My only concern is how to do this? I mean I'm not in Asia well perhaps I am in Asia, I'll be an exchange student this year. However my current location is Europe. So how do I get it, I mean would it retail or how would it be sold? I sure would like to get a few carts on my own and have at least one for myself and perhaps even distrubate to others through either auction site or selling to friends nearby.

How will the supply last if people would like to do as I would?
Perhaps those can make a pre-payment for additional carts to be produced.
Then again, would it be legal to sell them either through an auction site or to the friends?
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Areta is an organization of coders codeing mostly open source project, but there is alot of sections like GBA dev, Language learning communities, RPG communities, etc...

lordmetroid wrote:

Who are going to reach 4Mbit? I don't think I will with the current project I'm doing, so it will probably be more then 8 games on the cart...

Does your project have sound yet?

-Brendan

One way to add sound to a project without adding too much size, if you have lots of EWRAM free, is to compress samples with, say, GSM and then decompress samples to EWRAM as needed.
_________________
-- Where is he?
-- Who?
-- You know, the human.
-- I think he moved to Tilwick.

Hehe, no... No sound yet. And I doesn't have any experience dealing with sound in the past neither...
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Areta is an organization of coders codeing mostly open source project, but there is alot of sections like GBA dev, Language learning communities, RPG communities, etc...

Sound adds a lot of space. I'm sure it will be easy for many projects to hit 4 Mbit. That what, 512 kilobytes? IIRC I have a Shift JIS font that is over 200 kilobytes all by itself.

-Brendan

Super Mario World was 512 KBytes even with sound (compressed 2:1 using something along the same lines as 8ad). Its graphics were also compressed.
_________________
-- Where is he?
-- Who?
-- You know, the human.
-- I think he moved to Tilwick.

Yeah, I did some calculations... And indeed 512kB can be filled up quite fast indeed!

So how about using libraries for playing music and such? Or do one need to code those on once own?
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Areta is an organization of coders codeing mostly open source project, but there is alot of sections like GBA dev, Language learning communities, RPG communities, etc...

I like the idea. It's a little ambitious, financially speaking, don't you think?
I'd figure asking Nintendo or a couple of development companies for financial sponsership on this one, if it's up for consideration. There's no harm in asking, is there?

I think asking anyone outside could draw some unnecessary attention, but I'm biased and a little paranoid of course. I've seen so many innocent people receiveng C&D letters from big companies just because some silly piece of information slipped out, that sometimes I think these companies do it for fun.

And 4Mbit will be pretty small for me. <:'-{

I'm away on holiday but will return this weekend [with replies].

have fun

Simon

cappeca wrote:

I think asking anyone outside could draw some unnecessary attention, but I'm biased and a little paranoid of course. I've seen so many innocent people receiveng C&D letters from big companies just because some silly piece of information slipped out, that sometimes I think these companies do it for fun.

And 4Mbit will be pretty small for me. <:'-{

4Mbit is small for everyone. I am wondering what you can do in that tiny space. Even commercial single-pak multiboot games get around that limit by loading data on the fly. :(
_________________
Little kids and Playstation 2's don't mix. :(

4Mbit is pretty small (that's what, 512kb) for something like an RPG (which happens to be my current project, of course.) It means you have to be extremely conservative on sound and art.

That's what I get for having an RPG in the wings. Something like a 2-D shooter is easier to make small. Besides, Simon is probably right that smaller, pick-up-and-play-for-five-minutes games are a little better suited to this compo.

But hey, I wanted an excuse to learn more about compression, so it's a good thing, too.

I do think that "10" is a nice number for the total games on the cart. Makes it seem like you're really getting your money's worth. With 5 256Kb multiboots, that eats up 1280kb right there. That leaves 2816kb, or 563kb per ROM-based game.

We could get more space by allowing fewer games into the winner's circle, but then the end customer might miss out a some really nice games.

-Scott

dagamer34 wrote:

4Mbit is small for everyone. I am wondering what you can do in that tiny space.

Super Mario World is 4 Mbit. So is F-Zero for Super NES. So are Mega Man 5 and 6 for NES.

Quote:

Even commercial single-pak multiboot games get around that limit by loading data on the fly. :(

Commercial GameCube GBA cable unlocks, such as Puyo Pop, Nights, and Panel de Pon, all fit into about 1.5 Mbit or so and don't have to be connected to a Cube to run.
_________________
-- Where is he?
-- Who?
-- You know, the human.
-- I think he moved to Tilwick.

tepples wrote:

dagamer34 wrote:

4Mbit is small for everyone. I am wondering what you can do in that tiny space.

Super Mario World is 4 Mbit. So is F-Zero for Super NES. So are Mega Man 5 and 6 for NES.

I knew you would bring that up. The only difference is that Super Mario World was made by a commerical company, our games will not be.

Quote:

Even commercial single-pak multiboot games get around that limit by loading data on the fly. :(

Commercial GameCube GBA cable unlocks, such as Puyo Pop, Nights, and Panel de Pon, all fit into about 1.5 Mbit or so and don't have to be connected to a Cube to run.

I was talking more about single-pak multiplayer games like Advance Wars and such...
_________________
Little kids and Playstation 2's don't mix. :(

I'm considering to create such a game, a multiboot game that is...
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Areta is an organization of coders codeing mostly open source project, but there is alot of sections like GBA dev, Language learning communities, RPG communities, etc...

dagamer34 wrote:

The only difference is that Super Mario World was made by a commerical company, our games will not be.

So do you claim that for-profit corporations will do better at data compression than individuals or partnerships, given the comparison between Tetris for Game Boy (32 KBytes) and TOD for GBA (160 KBytes)? On the other hand, compare TOD to Tetris Worlds for GBA (4096 KBytes).
_________________
-- Where is he?
-- Who?
-- You know, the human.
-- I think he moved to Tilwick.

tepples wrote:

dagamer34 wrote:

The only difference is that Super Mario World was made by a commerical company, our games will not be.

So do you claim that for-profit corporations will do better at data compression than individuals or partnerships, given the comparison between Tetris for Game Boy (32 KBytes) and TOD for GBA (160 KBytes)? On the other hand, compare TOD to Tetris Worlds for GBA (4096 KBytes).

Hmm... now that I look at my library, I find that I haven't been compressing data(especially my text system data)! I thought I did and it only made little difference! Huh!

Thanks tepples. :)
_________________
Little kids and Playstation 2's don't mix. :(

I get my text data to only cover 1kB... why can't you use roman letters only?
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tepples wrote:

dagamer34 wrote:

4Mbit is small for everyone. I am wondering what you can do in that tiny space.

Super Mario World is 4 Mbit. So is F-Zero for Super NES. So are Mega Man 5 and 6 for NES.

Nevertheless, it's a small space, especially for us modern kids who are now used to test games in our gigantics 256 and 512MBits flash carts (not to mention emulators). I remember a time when programming for the GBC, when I had to study my .map file almost whenever I had a new idea, because I couldn't afford to even model anything that could go beyond those horribles ROM MBCs. I had nightmares, I tell you that.

With the GBA, I confess that I got a little lazy with ROM size, and I need to do some compression badly. BUT, I think some current designs, not only my own, will get severely cut because of this, and the play value - which is what the compo is about (?) - will suffer. Things like "Aw, can't have 3d morphing blocks in my Tetris clone because I got so many sprites for animation. Well, I'll just cut out a dozen and it will fit. The animation will be ruined, and the precise innovation I thought about will not exist, but it will fit." will surely happen. These games will then be judged by what they are not - crap. We'll have posts like "you should have checked out the FIRST version - it rocked!"

As a side note, I don't think smaller, pick-up-and-play-for-five-minutes games are directly associated with ROM size. That's the concept, but if you want to use mode-7, doublebuffering, 256 colors everywhere and maybe some nice cartoonish animation because it will give you the best tic-tac-toe people has ever seen, it's a valid point to make its ROM bigger than the average ZeldaDX. I looked at the sizes of the GBA ROMS I have, and all the smaller ones are 32Mbit, including FZero - as a game that once fit in 4Mbit. Either I'm not the only one who got a little lazy from then on, or the GBA offers more should one afford the space needed.

And all that to make this point: we need this size limit confirmed as soon as possible, so we can use the spare time to redesign what's needed, instead of cut our games at the last moment. Nobody wants to be left out, and it's indeed a nice incentive towards good design. But if there's some chance that this size can be increased, then we shouldn't dismiss it right off just because it's possible to fit some game in there as it is.

Cesar.

...Just read through all the posts of 2 weeks; a lot!

As far as I see it now, there is a lot of interest in the compo. I guess SimonB has quite some usefull feedback on his idea to set up the rules and once they're there it is up to all of us to decide to compete.

Personally, I just await the final compo rules and then decide what idea I'm gonna go for and tailor it to the set of rules. Be creative, that's what this is all about? 4MBit? Compress your graphics, make 'em stylish 16color, use chiptunes instead of big samples, generate levels, etc.

I'm still well up for it, whatever the rules will be!
_________________
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Im back from my holiday and have finished the first draft of the rules.
Keep in mind that they are just that, the first draft, and not the final one.

Ladies and gentlemen, you have ~115 days to finish your entries.

The rules can be found here...

Best of luck!

Simon

Cheers Simon ... you da man ;)
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I probably don't have the ability to make a game for it but if I did I would definitely do it. I think with the price that low I'll definitely buy the cart when it comes out. It sounds like a great compo.

The price does look fantastic!

-Brendan

sgeos wrote:

The price does look fantastic!

Yes, it's great, but people aren't gonna profit from it directly. I guess some people would prefer royalties.

At < $10 with 7 games on the cartdridge, even with just a little bit of marketing they are going to sell halfway decent.

Even if I had never heard of the homebrew scene and saw cart with 7 games for 10$ I'd pick it up out of curiosity.

Anyways, my question is: Is there a plan in place just on the outside chance these carts do sell out? Like another production run, only this time for a profit?
Will this be the first unlicensed game for the GBA? If so, there could be potential media coverage of it. A bunch of indie developers trying to swim with the big fish, a real feel good story.

Also, I could see these puppies going for $100 on Ebay one day. Since they'll be the rarest GBA cartridges there are. Some of those unlicensed NES carts bring in a lot of $$ on Ebay.

Lord Graga wrote:

Yes, it's great, but people aren't gonna profit from it directly. I guess some people would prefer royalties.

Is this the general feeling everyone has? Would you rather sell the game for say...13-14$usd and make a profit on it? Should we do a Poll?

expos1994 wrote:

Is there a plan in place just on the outside chance these carts do sell out? Like another production run, only this time for a profit?

If the games sell, it will be easy to do another run...

expos1994 wrote:

Will this be the first unlicensed game for the GBA?

I haven't seen any other unlicenced GBA games (NOT counting pirate carts)...

expos1994 wrote:

Also, I could see these puppies going for $100 on Ebay one day. Since they'll be the rarest GBA cartridges there are. Some of those unlicensed NES carts bring in a lot of $$ on Ebay.

All the more reason to buy several copies ;)

Simon

SimonB wrote:

Would you rather sell the game for say...13-14$usd and make a profit on it? Should we do a Poll?

I think a poll is a good idea. I'd only include options you (Simon) are willing do. I'd list the options something like this:
$10 (2 dollar loss)
$11 (1 dollar loss)
$12 (break even)
$13 (1 dollar profit)
$14 (2 dollar profit)

Using the actual figures. Nintendo has less reason to be bothered if fewer carts are produced and no profit is made.

-Brendan

Development competition 2004 Rules wrote:

You have 4Mbit (512Kbyte) to work with.
...
ALL selected entries are guaranteed the use of 4.5KByte of SRAM space.

Does this translate to a guaranteed 524288 bytes of ROM and 4608 bytes of SRAM? I'm mostly worried about the exact amount of guaranteed available SRAM.

If there is any spare SRAM, a couple bytes should be used for the game select screen. It would be nice if that screen remembered the last game played. =)

-Brendan

Poll created, please vote here: http://forum.gbadev.org/viewtopic.php?t=3885

sgeos wrote:

Does this translate to a guaranteed 524288 bytes of ROM and 4608 bytes of SRAM?

Yes.

Simon

So will this multicart have bankswitching, or will each winner have to modify the link script to start the program at 0x08080000, 0x08100000, etc? At the end of the compo, will the winners receive code to exit to the main menu, or will the player have to turn the GBA off and on?
_________________
-- Where is he?
-- Who?
-- You know, the human.
-- I think he moved to Tilwick.

I was thinking that entries would be submitted as a normal single rom 0x08000000 and selected entries would have to modify link script [Or maybe your own GBFS could be used?] and given information about adding a "back to menu" option.

I'm always open for suggestions.

Simon

tepples wrote:

So will this multicart have bankswitching, or will each winner have to modify the link script to start the program at 0x08080000, 0x08100000, etc? At the end of the compo, will the winners receive code to exit to the main menu, or will the player have to turn the GBA off and on?

How do you do that anyway? I've always wondered.
Also how would you execute code from that memory location?

SimonB wrote:

I was thinking that entries would be submitted as a normal single rom 0x08000000 and selected entries would have to modify link script

Then somebody would have to provide alternate versions of the common link scripts (such as Jeff F's and the modified version of Jeff F's used in DevKit Advance and devkitARM).

Quote:

Or maybe your own GBFS could be used?

Loading code from a GBFS archive works only with .mb programs, but .mb programs can read assets in ROM.
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tepples wrote:

Then somebody would have to provide alternate versions of the common link scripts (such as Jeff F's and the modified version of Jeff F's used in DevKit Advance and devkitARM).

Yes, in December.

tepples wrote:

Loading code from a GBFS archive works only with .mb programs, but .mb programs can read assets in ROM.

I guess next time Ill do my homework and actually read up about stuff before commenting ;)

Simon

So, we won't be able to use vham, will we?

The current compo rules say: "Your game may not use any splash screens. Titlescreen and intro is OK. Instructions is also OK. Credits
should be placed in the main credits."

Does this mean that I can't use ie. Apex Audio System as they require display of their splash screen ("Free for non commercial use")?
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You'll have to negotiate an appropriate license with the publishers of the libraries you're using.
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Im not sure if this is considered "non commercial use", but if it is, and a splash screen must be shown, it should be before the main menu and not a specific game. As tepples said, we will have to negotiate licences.

Simon

Realised that it might not be "non-commercial" myself right after I posted it. Sound is pretty much the only thing I'm not going to code myself. And I think many others with me.

If the cart's price will be at break-even nobody is making a profit (except maybe for the cart manufacturer). Is is considered non-commercial then? Both a funny and tricky subject, but as you said, there are definately some negotiations necessary with some parties to sort it out.
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Well, seeing as I use Vham with the hamlib sometimes, I may not enter because there is no way I can buy a licence, being 13..
If I wrote the code not using any of the Hamlib at all, would that be ok then? Or should I use another compiler....

A registered version of HAM allows for commercial use, and having had a look through the details, a single license would allow SimonB (or anyone else) to recompile all entries written with the non-registered version thus getting rid of the splash screen.

This does however seem rather unfair to HAMs author, Emanuel Schleussinger. I would therefore suggest contacting him and the various other development kit authors to get their opinions. Maybe purchasing a license for each kit specifically for this project would be acceptable.

Whilst falling somewhat short of what most people would consider commercial use, there is money involved, so it would be very much a matter of personal opinion as far as each author is concerned.

My thoughts are that credit should be given even if there is an agreement that library splash screens are not required. Possibly a single bitmap "made using" screen displayed once on startup showing the logos and web addresses of each development kit and library used. This would also help promote the superb software tools available for homebrew GBA development.

A great idea, but where would that money come from? The profit made on the games (If they are to be sold with a profit).
It brings me on to think that big companys should offer 'grants' to gte young people involved.

The costs are actually quite low. For example registering HAM which allows commercial use and removes the intro screen is only 29 USD.

As long as there is an agreement in place, games could be fully developed with the non-registered libraries and then simply recompiled for the final cartridge. This way individual developers need not pay the licensing fees just for this project.

Naturally, it is entirely up to the original library authors whether they allow the use of their tools, but as this is a community based project, I would like to think they'd be behind it, and maybe make an exception in terms of licensing.

As soon as you get backing from commercial sources the distinction between community and commercial use starts to get somewhat blurred, which could be dangerous with what's being proposed here.

"ALL content must be original."

Bummer! I was planning on using the white, red, and black mage character designs from the Final Fantasy series for an overhead game.
Guess that's ruled out.

phrax wrote:

"ALL content must be original."

Bummer! I was planning on using the white, red, and black mage character designs from the Final Fantasy series for an overhead game.
Guess that's ruled out.

I can't imagine Square-Enix breathing down our necks. They spend so much money on their games, their lawyers will be well paid too!
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Does anyone already own the licence to hamlib, then they could compile it with that, and not have the flash screen.

yes, I think this should indeed be considered a commercial useage... money is involved in some way or the other someone except the lib maker will gain on this!

Now about the useage of sprites not made originally by you or your associates, don't use them... It's not yours and so it's not right to use material you or your associates didn't create in the first hand!
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I haven't read the whole thread (getting rather big) so please excuse me if it was already mentioned. Is it ok to do a remake of an old arcade game? Or does the game have to be 100% original?

I don't intend to use ripped graphics at all. Every bit of code and graphics would be custom made.

isildur wrote:

I haven't read the whole thread (getting rather big) so please excuse me if it was already mentioned. Is it ok to do a remake of an old arcade game? Or does the game have to be 100% original?

I don't intend to use ripped graphics at all. Every bit of code and graphics would be custom made.

Games don't have to be 100% original. But you might want to throw in something new to make your version really unique. It will probably increase your chances of winning too.
_________________
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bearing in mind we're showcasing the homebrew community; we would be better off with something original

keldon wrote:

bearing in mind we're showcasing the homebrew community; we would be better off with something original

I want something fun. So long as it's not pirated, I could care less if it's original. Keep in mind that I'm not willing to pay even $5 for "a game I've played before".

-Brendan

dagamer34 wrote:

Games don't have to be 100% original. But you might want to throw in something new to make your version really unique. It will probably increase your chances of winning too.

Yeah, thats what I mean, an "improved" version of an old existing game. And I'm not talking about a Tetris clone ;-)

isildur wrote:

dagamer34 wrote:

Games don't have to be 100% original. But you might want to throw in something new to make your version really unique. It will probably increase your chances of winning too.

Yeah, thats what I mean, an "improved" version of an old existing game. And I'm not talking about a Tetris clone ;-)

I don't even think Miyamoto could make Tetris any better. It was good the way it was back in the 80's. No offense tepples.
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tepples wrote:

You'll have to negotiate an appropriate license with the publishers of the libraries you're using.

I emailed today with Krawall about using their non-commercial licence (costs $17) for our competition entry and this is not a problem if no profit is made. I had asked them since the cartridge will be sold and I wanted to know if this wouldn't violate the non-commercial licence agreement.
Here the email with what they agree to...

Quote:

Hi,

That's right!

Regards,
Sebastian

XXXX wrote:

> Hello Sebastian,
>
> Thanks for your fast response!
>
> Just so I get this right. You agree to the following?
> - I can use the $17 non-commercial licence for my competition entry as
> long as no profit will be made.
> - I don't have to show a Krawall splash screen.
> - I will list Krawall in the credit.
>
> Best regards,
> Leo

A few days ago I requested samples of different boxes/packaging materials so we can send out the games in a professional and safe matter. I received 6 different samples and have been testing them today. I have also been doing a lot of shipping calculations etc just to make sure we actually break-even at 12$usd. So far it looks very promising.

funkeejeffou wrote:

Anyway, it would be cool if SimonB or another Admin posted to tell us if the size limit could be changed. I'm sure that we could find a solution, I pretty much like the one where the profit will go to gbadev.org so we can have a 64MB cartridge.

I can have a look see. If I remember correctly it will add another ~4$usd to the total cost. So, if we would break even at 12$ with a 32mbit cart we would instead break even at ~16$usd. It would also mean having to send an extra 2000$usd upfront to have the carts made.

shenmansell wrote:

That said, if I enter some cool 4k games am I pretty much guaranteed a spot since space won't be a issue? ;-)

If the games are good and theres ample space they could be included. It will be a tradeoff I guess....give more space to the selected entries or add a few small games. It will have to be decided on a case by case basic I guess.

Simon

I'm bringing the other discussion over to this thread. If you guys find anything out of context, please refer to http://forum.gbadev.org/viewtopic.php?t=3885&start=30

poslundc wrote:

You probably couldn't fit 92, but with JPEG compression you could fit about 70 or so full-screen images (more assuming you don't use the entire screen).

Low quality images, abstract redesign and such might do it for you, but they do not reflect the problem at the hands of some of us. That's why you assume too much. You give suggestions for the sake of keeping your point of view - 4mbits is good for anyone. It's not.

Quote:

I don't expect anything so blindly automatic. But I do believe that in the aggregate a size limitation will result in better design, not worse design.

Size limitation results in design limitation, actually. As CATS nicely put it in the other thread: "Don't do it then".

Quote:

Or maybe, some games ARE that big.

Then, they will have to be made smaller.

That's precisely "it". By making them smaller you might come to a point where main features have to be cut. If one wants to do a DDR game with 28 musics, because the main feature of the game is to change the tempo in between, but he can only fit one or two musics in that ROM space, he might as well just not do it. "Oh, but the game would be so fun!". Well, too bad, if prices drop for bigger carts next year, you can try again. Your simple solution sees the problem of fitting X into Y, without considering what X stands for as a whole.

If that's what you're trying to say, then I agree. The rules are there, and one must go accordingly. The problem is that you and tepples share this vision that you can fit anything in 4mbits - just cut some limbs and "re-desing". It's not like that, some things simply don't fit in. Commercial games sometimes get cancelled because main features should be left out in order to make them fit - it's a documented fact, and as good as an argument as "F-Zero fit in 4mbits". But if the general notion for GBA developers is that everything should be either Small and Simple or cut right off - because anyone that tries it differently is plain wrong, newer programmers will never go beyond this virtual limitation. Haven't you ever done anything that actually needed more space?

Quote:

Revisit your design. Programmers do it all the time. If you don't want to have to do that, then plan better. In your example, a well-designed poker game ought not to be broken if it turned out to have more assets than could fit. You should be able to modify it to use fewer or simpler assets.

Yes. I could also make a TXT poker game and fit it in 32k. Will it fit? Yes. Will it be the same? No. Will I lose with that? Yes. Will that prove your point? Yes. Will it prove mine too? Yes. See?

Quote:

It's a shame that I don't care what your opinions about me are.

I see. Otherwise you wouldn't push your own opinions upon others. But I'll refrase it so it won't be about opinions: saying that anyone who sees ROM size limitation as a problem should do a research or "re-design" before complaining is being misinformed and offensive.

Quote:

poslundc wrote:

You probably couldn't fit 92, but with JPEG compression you could fit about 70 or so full-screen images (more assuming you don't use the entire screen).

Low quality images, abstract redesign and such might do it for you, but they do not reflect the problem at the hands of some of us. That's why you assume too much.

This tutorial demonstrates JPEG compression on the GBA. Are you saying that you require better quality photos than the JPEG output demonstrated there in order to make your game sufficiently enjoyable?

Quote:

You give suggestions for the sake of keeping your point of view - 4mbits is good for anyone. It's not.

That isn't my point of view. My point of view is that 4 is good enough for the compo.

Quote:

I don't expect anything so blindly automatic. But I do believe that in the aggregate a size limitation will result in better design, not worse design.

Size limitation results in design limitation, actually. As CATS nicely put it in the other thread: "Don't do it then".

Read what you quoted: "better design", not "freer design". Imposing limitations != worse design. In fact, as I said, imposing limitations can result in better design.

Quote:

That's precisely "it". By making them smaller you might come to a point where main features have to be cut. If one wants to do a DDR game with 28 musics, because the main feature of the game is to change the tempo in between, but he can only fit one or two musics in that ROM space, he might as well just not do it.

With tracked music using waveform instruments he could potentially fit several hours of music. Or less if he wanted something fancier. A central feature that inherently requires a lot of storage space is probably not the wisest choice for a compo like this one, but part of any design is making those tradeoffs: a DDR game with tracked synth music can easily be more fun to play than a DDR game with CD audio if it's better designed.

Is the main feature of your poker game lots of wastefully-encoded images? Do you lose your main feature to make it fun and challenging by scaling back or compressing them?

Quote:

If that's what you're trying to say, then I agree. The rules are there, and one must go accordingly. The problem is that you and tepples share this vision that you can fit anything in 4mbits - just cut some limbs and "re-desing". It's not like that, some things simply don't fit in. Commercial games sometimes get cancelled because main features should be left out in order to make them fit - it's a documented fact, and as good as an argument as "F-Zero fit in 4mbits". But if the general notion for GBA developers is that everything should be either Small and Simple or cut right off - because anyone that tries it differently is plain wrong, newer programmers will never go beyond this virtual limitation.

What are you going on about? Neither tepples nor myself has said that you can fit anything into 4 Mbits. What we appear to agree on is the belief that you can fit enough in order to make a fun game in the majority of "genres" that the GBA's hardware is capable of processing.

Quote:

Haven't you ever done anything that actually needed more space?

Sure I have. But they weren't designed for a compo with a size limit. If I were to enter this compo, I would not try to submit the 70-hour RPG I am creating. I would instead try to come up with a small, quick, fun game that the compo is geared towards. Something that can be fun to play without taxing the storage resources of the GBA. Like poker, for example.

Quote:

Yes. I could also make a TXT poker game and fit it in 32k. Will it fit? Yes. Will it be the same? No. Will I lose with that? Yes. Will that prove your point? Yes. Will it prove mine too? Yes. See?

A text-based poker game would be inelegant on the GBA. Fortunately, elegance is not something that requires vast amounts of storage to create. Just a keen sense of design. Do you really think you will have a better shot at winning by bloating the size of your game with fullscreen uncompressed images?

Quote:

I see. Otherwise you wouldn't push your own opinions upon others.

I'm not the one seeking to change the rules of the compo, and making assertions that 4Mbit is not enough to produce a sufficiently high-quality poker game, of all things.

Quote:

But I'll refrase it so it won't be about opinions: saying that anyone who sees ROM size limitation as a problem should do a research or "re-design" before complaining is being misinformed and offensive.

You're absolutely right. People should complain right away instead of researching what it is they're complaining about or exploring alternatives. How incredibly misinformed and offensive of me.

Good luck in the compo, by the way. I hope you've allotted yourself enough time to add a poker game to your graphics.

Dan.

I don't think this topic needs to be dicussed further... It's more flamming then anything else at the moment, if you wish to dicuss something like this inbetween each other make a thread in the OT section!
The rule is a rule... deal with it, if you can't deal with rules IRL, you become an outlaw and usually can't use the societies benefits if you decide to stand besides the rules!
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Why not creat full and stripped down versions if that is how things must be? Submit the full version, if the game wins a spot then the stripped version can be submitted for the cart. If it doesn't win, then the full version will be released for download on the main site.

I'd complete something and try to get it to fit before complaining. I'd also ask for advice on making it fit. Nobody likes a whiner.

-Brendan

I think it is part of the challenge to fit the best game you can in that tight space. It's a bit like those pc demo compos where you have to make something outstanding using only 64k.

which is a hell of a problem, as it kinda reuires from you to code asm, and that size asm code... ohh I don't want to think about debugging such code!
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Quote:

Are you saying that you require better quality photos than the JPEG output demonstrated there in order to make your game sufficiently enjoyable?

No, I'm saying that if I wanted to do more, 4mbits are not enough.

Quote:

That's precisely "it". By making them smaller you might come to a point where main features have to be cut. If one wants to do a DDR game with 28 musics, because the main feature of the game is to change the tempo in between, but he can only fit one or two musics in that ROM space, he might as well just not do it.

With tracked music <snip> designed.

You miss the point completely. The example above is not technical. Let's take your 70 hour RPG, instead:

Quote:

If I were to enter this compo, I would not try to submit the 70-hour RPG I am creating. I would instead try to come up with a small, quick, fun game that the compo is geared towards.

Now, is it because you're a lousy programmer? Or is it because the RPG game you're making is not for the compo?

I started this because of your arrogant early reply to someone else's complaint: "Go research and re-design". Is it still hard for you to understand that you were rude by assuming that anyone who says "boy, 4mbit is tight" is lazy and dumb? What makes you think you can do that and get away with it?

Quote:

Good luck in the compo, by the way. I hope you've allotted yourself enough time to add a poker game to your graphics.

Dan.

Man, go redesign your attitude.

This thread is over for me.

In the other thread, shenmansell wrote:

Maybe you can save space by storing all your music in some funky format, but if you were planning on using krawall, or some other music player that doesn't support the super compressed format, then you will need to code your own, which is a significant time sink.

Unless you build a sequence in the player's native format at run time, if your player can be coaxed into supporting this.

Quote:

If you have a musician you are working with, you can ask them to make their songs using only waveforms, or with samples as small as possible, but that will take more time, and it might mean the difference between 6 good big songs or 2 good small songs, since the artists are probably not going to be used to working with space constraints.

Have your musician use whatever samples he or she wants first. Then replace them with downsampled waveforms or generated waveforms (by pasting PC-side generated .wav files into the .s3m or .xm files in Modplug Tracker) wherever you think you can musically get away with it, and run the result past the musician for further tweaking.

Quote:

That said, if I enter some cool 4k games am I pretty much guaranteed a spot since space won't be a issue? ;-)

If you're good at making 4 KB games, then make a sequel to WarioWare.

poslundc wrote:

a DDR game with tracked synth music can easily be more fun to play than a DDR game with CD audio if it's better designed.

You try to put something with vocals like "Butterfly" into a DDR clone without just sampling the vocal (as in WarioWare). There's a reason DDR GB failed.
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Part of the challenge here is to write a good game within the criteria of the competition rules. As in this particular case one of the criteria is that the entire game must fit in 4Mbit, then that's where at least part of the challenge lies.

If you have it in mind to develop a DDR game with two dozen unique pieces of music causing the resultant ROM to exceed 4Mbit, it simply won't qualify for the competition and if you don't discover this until you've neally finished the game, then you should have given it more thought to begin with.

That said, SimonB has suggested that any unused space could be allocated for use by the games which have made the grade. If for your final game you had to leave (or take) a few nice-to-have features out to fit it into 4Mbit, then it may be that they could be included in the final cartridge, but it's not worth relying on having more space from the outset.

It's entirely possible to produce superb looking and great sounding games in 4Mbit, but size must be a consideration at all stages of the design and development. OK, so the super-duper, graphicaly rich manga-style RPG masterpiece you have it in mind to write and prove your design and coding genius to the world will probably never fit. Cut down the number of static cut screens and stick to the core of the game you may just be able to do it, but you'd probably be best just coming up with another idea.

Whilst not wanting to get involved in the little spat that was taking place earlier, I agree with cappeca that you can't simply optimise any game to get it into a specific footprint, and that trying to do so may in fact result in a game which falls well below its potential. That said, I'm certain (coming from an Amiga background, where disk size and memory juggling were often design factors) that all of the ideas I have could be implemented within the 4Mbit limit, whilst still keeping space available for the tweaking (and possibly extra eye candy) that will no doubt be needed after it's been thoroughly tested.

I was talking over a friend's game design last night, and to illustrate a couple of points, I downloaded Mayhem In Monsterland and Creatures 2: Torture Trouble for the C64 plus a copy of the VICE emulator to run them on. Both games are great examples of good design and implementation, with very effective graphics, superb presentation, sound and music. Anyone feeling they simply can't manage a good game within the competition size limit will no doubt find inspiration in these and many more old 8 bit computer games. Whilst I know we're talking about entirely different platforms, with vastly different capabilities, the examples I've given each fit on two 180k floppy disks.

Commercial GBA games have limits too. Don't you think developers would like to have more space also?
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dagamer34 wrote:

Commercial GBA games have limits too.

Not always. The first Castlevania for GBA was 64 Mbit, but it used only 52 Mbit of that.
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tepples wrote:

dagamer34 wrote:

Commercial GBA games have limits too.

Not always. The first Castlevania for GBA was 64 Mbit, but it used only 52 Mbit of that.

Damn tepples ... you're just a fountain of knowledge of ROM sizes aren't you! :)

Tetsuo wrote:

tepples wrote:

dagamer34 wrote:

Commercial GBA games have limits too.

Not always. The first Castlevania for GBA was 64 Mbit, but it used only 52 Mbit of that.

Damn tepples ... you're just a fountain of knowledge of ROM sizes aren't you! :)

I could have countered that but this thread already has enough hostility for me...
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I was really only kidding. Not meant to come accross as hostile at all.
Sorry if it sounded that way.
This forum needs smilies :)

It has been a week since SimonB posted the compo rules, so we no longer have ~115 days to go.... now we have ~108 days.

Flaming each other and moaning about the 4Mbit size limit is fun and all, but now's the time to get with the program, knuckle down and deal with the limitations in creative ways.

Unlike homework, it's probably best not to leave this till the last minute.

:-)

OK. So the planning is going well. I've been getting together with friends to talk through their ideas and I think we're all set to get started.

We're pretty much all programmers, and whilst a good friend is a superb musician and will hopefully end up writing music and putting together sound effects for the various projects, a couple of the guys are likely to be a little stuck when it comes to the graphics side of things. So......

I'd proposed starting a couple of new threads for musicians, graphics artists and possibly even programmers either wanted by or available to joins teams.

ciw1973 wrote:

I'd proposed starting a couple of new threads for musicians, graphics artists and possibly even programmers either wanted by or available to joins teams.

People are already doing just that in the Vocation section [Help Wanted/Help Offered].

Simon

Great.

Suppose I should have waited before starting the new threads.

Waited? that section has been there since the forum opened, 1.5+ years ago...

Simon

Will people get specific SRAM areas to write to with their games, or are there bankswitching?

SimonB wrote:

Waited? that section has been there since the forum opened, 1.5+ years ago...

Simon

Waited until I'd had a proper look at the rest of the forum.

I've only recently started reading the forum and was directed straight to this particular thread, so didn't appreciate what else was available outside of the "Announcements And Comments" section.

I'll be checking out the rest of the sections over the next few days, to make sure I'm better informed in future.

I've coded a game recently that has already been seen on gbadev (here). I understood I should modify all the gfx and add some sounds to fulfil the compo requirements; my question is: am I allowed to enter this compo despite I already released my game (with the source code)? Actually the rules say:

Quote:

******** RULES ********
[...]
You ARE allowed to send in updated versions of previously released games. The changes however must
be significant & clearly noticeable.

...but also:

Quote:

******** LEGAL ********
[...]
Selected entries may not release their game into the public until the
game cartridges has been sold, though at most no later than 6 months after the release of the game cartridges.

So, should I remove the current version from the web?? Sorry if such a stupid question has already been answered, I have to confess I didn't read the whole thread in detail (11 pages!).

Cheers,

Nrx

Note: the original ROM was 1M, but I have recompiled the game without all the secret gfx (that were accessible by pressing [select] at start): this lighter version is only 248k; I'm confident I could add some music and still be under the limit of 512k. By the way, you'll find it here.

"Selected entries may not release their game into the public until the
game cartridges has been sold, though at most no later than 6 months after the release of the game cartridges."

Highly unofficially, I take this to mean that you can't make the competition version of your game available to the public until 6 months later.
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tepples is correct. It is the competition version of your game/updates to this game that we must ask you to not release until we have sold the manufactured cartridges. OR, if we are not able to sell all the cartridges in 6 months, you can release it then.

Of course I would rather want you to be able to release your game right away but if everyone did that I think it would be much harder selling the cartridges. I hope everyone can understand this.

Simon

Just a small question regarding the rules.
it says credits should be in the main credits; but can't I have credits in the game's ending as well, or in the opening scnene for example. As long as it isn't another screen that takes time everytime you start the game it should be ok right?

just so I don't get disqualified for being a self-loving bastard wanting my name in as many places as possible. ;-)

I have a few questions as well:

1. Will the compo judging be done on an emulator or on hardware?

I'm wondering about which gamma to target. (And since parts of my game use mode3, I can't just do on-the-fly gamma correction... it's too slow when you have to do it for every pixel.) Obviously, if my game were chosen I would correct for hardware, but for the initial judging I'd like my game to look as good as possible.

2. If judging will be done on an emulator, which emulator?

I'm testing thoroughly on VisualBoy Advance and on hardware, but I'd obviously like to test on the judges' emulator.

3. If the judging will be done on an emulator, will you be using an LCD monitor or a CRT monitor?

My fonts are sub-pixel rendered, which means they're hard to read if not targeted for the correct type of monitor. Again, I just want to make it look the way it's "supposed to look" on hardware. Can you tell I'm a graphics guy? :P

Thankee,

-Scott

Most PC LCD panels are RGB order, unlike the iBook and GBA displays which are BGR order. If you want to use your LCD panel to evaluate, you'll have to put your video card into upside down mode (some video cards support it; others don't) in order to have subpixel fonts show up exactly as on GBA hardware.

BGR characteristic simulation would be better handled at the x2-filter level.
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Bertil: About game credits....I see no reason why you cant have credits in your own game, but I would like to see a common credits too, that can be reached from the main menu.

ScottLininger:
1. Hardware ONLY

I will try to make a website for the competition this week and update the rules etc.

Simon

"Hardware" can still be a CRT or an LCD. In front of me I have a Game Boy Advance system. Behind me I have a CRT TV with a GameCube and a Game Boy Player.

If you're not using blend effects, and you want to target both Game Boy Player and the original GBA, consider having a "brightness" option in your game that fades the screen to white a bit.
_________________
-- Where is he?
-- Who?
-- You know, the human.
-- I think he moved to Tilwick.

I will use a pearl-blue GBA SP (no dead pixels) and I will be indoors during the testing with average indoor lighting (GBA SP's light will be ON). Im pretty sure luna_s will test the games under very similar circumstances.

Simon

tepples wrote:

Most PC LCD panels are RGB order, unlike the iBook and GBA displays which are BGR order. If you want to use your LCD panel to evaluate, you'll have to put your video card into upside down mode (some video cards support it; others don't) in order to have subpixel fonts show up exactly as on GBA hardware.

Exactly. That's why for testing I just swap out my font. I'm not dynamically calculating the subpixel values... I simply use an RGB font for LCD testing on my PC and a BGR font for hardware. Now that I know the target test platform, I'll submit the BGR version. :)

tepples wrote:

BGR characteristic simulation would be better handled at the x2-filter level.

What do you mean by this? I'm not sure what x2-filter level is.

Quote:

f you're not using blend effects, and you want to target both Game Boy Player and the original GBA, consider having a "brightness" option in your game that fades the screen to white a bit.

I'll probably do this for the main game screens (mode0), but my equipment, dialog, and status screens are all mode3, which means I'd have to apply a brightness adjustment to every pixel as I draw it. Too slow.

Anyway, thanks for the clarification, Simon. Sorry to clog up the thread with pixel nerd discussion. ;)

-Scott

ScottLininger wrote:

tepples wrote:

BGR characteristic simulation would be better handled at the x2-filter level.

What do you mean by this? I'm not sure what x2-filter level is.

VisualBoyAdvance has numerous filters to scale the image size by a factor of 2. I'd guess that simulating the BGR characteristic of the GBA LCD within a PC-based emulator would be best handled inside such a filter.
_________________
-- Where is he?
-- Who?
-- You know, the human.
-- I think he moved to Tilwick.

tepples wrote:

ScottLininger wrote:

tepples wrote:

BGR characteristic simulation would be better handled at the x2-filter level.

What do you mean by this? I'm not sure what x2-filter level is.

VisualBoyAdvance has numerous filters to scale the image size by a factor of 2. I'd guess that simulating the BGR characteristic of the GBA LCD within a PC-based emulator would be best handled inside such a filter.

I never did get those special filters to work on my computer. Anybody know why?
_________________
Little kids and Playstation 2's don't mix. :(

Simon,

One thing that I think needs to be added to the rules are who holds republish rights for these games. I'm assuming that all rights are retained by the creators, but I'd like to know for sure.

In other words, are winners allowed to pitch their game to publishers, if they thing they're good enough? Do creators retain copyright on content and "trademarks" in their games such as characters, worlds, etc.?

For example, if the carts sell out and there is a call for more, does GBADEV reserve the right to do a "reprint," perhaps this time with a pricing model that allows for profit? Or if GBADEV wants to do a reprint with the same pricing model, can a winner demand that their game be removed from the 2nd cart for any reason?

Sorry if this seems anal, but I'm working through some intellectual property stuff with another company right now and these sorts of clarifications can save a LOT of headaches down the road.

-Scott

No Scott, it's not too anal. I have the same questions myself.

My current project is too large to be entered into the compo, and I don't want to sacrifice quality or gameplay options just to chop the size (so it won't be in the compo after all), but these questions concerned me as well, as I'm considering attempting to peddle it to publishers soon.
_________________
------------------
Gene Ostrowski

There is no need to worry. I will update the rules this weekend and I can assure you that I have no intentions of making any money or exploit any of the content from the games entered into the competition. The creators of the games retain all rights, we only reserve the right to manufacture 500 cartridges and sell them to break even.

In the event that all the cartridges sell, it is not impossible that we may contact the creators of the selected games and ask if they want more games manufactured. This would only happen if all creators of the selected games agreed to do this...and of course if we wanted/had the time to make it happen.

Simon

only 1 month to go!
working on a little site for the compo atm...check back later today.

Simon

yay! we have a compo site: http://2004mbit.gbadev.org

Keep checking back for updates

Simon

Is there any way to preorder a cartridge? I don't want to miss this... :) And are you sure, 500 are enough? Maybe you should at least keep the option to produce 1000 more if the feedback is huge...

Will it be possible to get Nintendo's agreement on this? Making this compo cart official? Maybe increase the prize of the game in order to be able to pay the license or whatever it takes to make it official.

OrR wrote:

Is there any way to preorder a cartridge?

We might be able to set something up...check back in January.

Cepheus wrote:

Will it be possible to get Nintendo's agreement on this?

No.

Cepheus wrote:

Making this compo cart official?

No.

Simon

A question about ROM size...

The rules state that entries must be 4Mbit in size. They also state that extra rom space may be given "if you need it."

My team is submitting an RPG. The main storyline fits into the 4MBit space, but there are multiple side quests (and cool bits, such as a fancy start screen) we'd like to include if space permits.

So should we upload the "main storyline only" version, then add in side quests and foofies during the tweaking period (assuming we're selected)? Or should we submit the full version then trim it down if cart space ends up to be at a premium?

Thankee,

-Scott

When you submit your entry it may not exceed 4Mbit. Dont count on getting any additional space either, but who knows, you might get a little more...

Simon

SimonB wrote:

When you submit your entry it may not exceed 4Mbit. Dont count on getting any additional space either, but who knows, you might get a little more...

Gotcha... Will do.

-Scott

If you need more space you could always add FXE3 compression :)

Graga,

I googled "FXE3 compression" with no useful results. Any hints?

I've already burned *huge* amounts of time working on compression for this project. It's been extremely educational, and I shudder to think that the same exact game could have been several megabytes had the rules not forced me to squeeze out every spare byte. (I'm using a frankensteined version of LZW combined with metatiles, by the way.)

Anyway, I think I'll be fine. My bigger concern is the crunch of polishing everything off in the next couple of days. A good night's sleep is but a memory... But I'm really having fun. :)

-Scott

ScottLininger wrote:

Anyway, I think I'll be fine. My bigger concern is the crunch of polishing everything off in the next couple of days. A good night's sleep is but a memory... But I'm really having fun. :)

-Scott

I feel that crunch too ;-) Wish we had a week more, but then again, a deadline is a deadline...

Ohh I should get the crunch tommorow. I'm working with a partner in crime, he's got the code at the moment but when it comes back tommorow I'll have to work hell for leather to get my new bits put back in. Can't wait, I'm loving every moment of this competition! :) It's the first I've entered, but I'll definately do it again...

Ben

Heheh - I guess I'm lucky (or, not) that i have school to go to in the days, meaning I *can't* stay up too late. I Really, really need to finish the game, and if I can't get it done Friday night/Saturday then I doubt It'll be able to be entered. Oh well.
It's my first big game (which is quite small) all done by myself, so it's pretty hectic. Coupled with the fact that i decided to enter the compo about a week ago, after my exams finished.
Good luck everyone (including me), and FINISH THOSE GAMES!

Well I checked in an initial entry, but i'll try to get an improved one in by tomorrow.

A simple (and small) game!
When will the curtain roll back and we'll be able to see all the entries? (it doesn't mention public availability in the rules)
Can you (simon) give us a clue as to how many entries are in already?

Going to be a blast to see what everyone has made this year!

Well we've got one completed entry in, and one which we're working on like crazy right now! :) I've uploaded a basic build of this second game, but this new one (when it's working) should be a lot better....

Good luck to everyone!

Ben

Over now. Gah.
I didn't finish it. I guess that is waht you get for starting very recently, and being in full-time education. Apart from when I'm at home ;0.

Whew! What a crazy last weekend that was. I guess I have a better appreciation of why commercial titles so often slip on their release date. :)

I didn't get everything done by a long shot, but it's certainly the most complete GBA game I've yet worked on. So if nothing else the compo has been an awesome experience from that perspective, and I'm a step closer to having a decent portfolio piece.

I'm really excited to see what the final entries came out like. (Though I guess it's going to be a month or two before we do.)

Good luck to everyone who submitted!

-Scott

I agree with you Scott. The game buying public don't realise how much work they're getting for their 40 quid.

Feels good to finish a project though. I think its good to have a set deadline. We went for the approach - aim low and complete everything to a high quality.

Would posting screenshots of competition entries be ok? Or should we wait for the final result?

Fingers crossed for everyone.

Chris.
_________________
Fruit Machine Games:
http://www.fmsoftware.info/

Hi everybody, just registered but been around during the competition period.

The crunch peroid was manic, we had so long to do sound but decided to leave it to the last day, (do I regret that decision). I was working on this with my housemate and we always seemed to busy on alternate days. But luckily we tracked down the sound error with about 10hrs to go. A few hours of testing all cases + a readme + an uploaded file.

What a feeling, Its my first game on the GBA and the first game that i consider finished (unlike all those unfinished PC games i have on my comp)

Anyways good luck to everybody. Can't wait for the results now.
_________________
"A lecture is a process by which the notes of the professor become the notes of the students without passing through the minds of either" - R. K. Rathbun

I can't wait for the results... i am hoping to see some good stuff!

Sadly i wasn't able to take part in the contest, i had too much personal stuff to do, but i had a very nice game idea =/

Well, but i guess that wasn't the last gbadev.org development compo =))
_________________
Team Pokeme
My blog and PM ASM tutorials

Note to self: Don't start 6 hours before the deadline.

As a lurker I would like to congratulate all of the people and teams who entered this competition for their enthusiasm and hard work. I will buy the cartridge as soon as it comes out (even though I rarely buy anything), because I support the homebrew scene, and I hope I am not alone.

splatty

splattergnome wrote:

As a lurker I would like to congratulate all of the people and teams who entered this competition for their enthusiasm and hard work. I will buy the cartridge as soon as it comes out (even though I rarely buy anything), because I support the homebrew scene, and I hope I am not alone.

splatty

Please buy the games because they're good; not because they're homebrew. Although homebrew ones will be good; I just don't support support for supports sake. Support is promotion not financial devotion as it keeps the scene in a single circle.

[/end_speech]

If the games aren't good, I'll go around the each programmer's house and give them a slap. ;)

Seriously, I will buy the final cartridge not just out of idealism - the idea of a handful of good games at a low price is also something which makes it tempting.

I sincerely do hope that this might form a precendence case of homebrewed catridges for the GBA, not unlike those of the Atari systems (www.atariage.com/store/). The greatest motivation of homebrewers is that their games are played by others - but having them "sold" on cartridge can only help, as well. And who knows - hopefully some good press can be made so that people who never visit gbadev.org or play homebrew games might buy the cartridges due to their low price, and introduce them to a new video game scene. I certainly hope it for the developers.

splatty

keldon makes a good point. If I wanted financial support I'd open an online casino not make gba games.
Support us by posting on the forum and looking and critising our work. That'll be recognition enough for me.

ps. splattergnome, if it's a supportive slap of cash into my hand, email me for my address! :D

Chris.
_________________
Fruit Machine Games:
http://www.fmsoftware.info/

My money won't go into the hands of the developers, it goes into paying off the costs of the competition and cartridge publishing - so in essence, I am supporting gbadev.org, which means I am supporting you all indirectly. ;) I think this competition was a good motivation for many of you to do your best, so... by making sure that SimonB doesn't lose money on it. And as I said, I can't wait to play the games myself. And as to commenting on them, I will try to do my best to do so in the future. :-)

splatty

gbadev.org forum archive

Announcements And Comments > GBA Development Compo

#24022 - SimonB - Mon Jul 26, 2004 7:50 pm

#24038 - Marciano - Mon Jul 26, 2004 9:43 pm

#24041 - dagamer34 - Mon Jul 26, 2004 11:02 pm

#24043 - Marciano - Mon Jul 26, 2004 11:18 pm

#24044 - foog - Mon Jul 26, 2004 11:23 pm

#24045 - dagamer34 - Mon Jul 26, 2004 11:34 pm

#24048 - dovoto - Tue Jul 27, 2004 12:33 am

#24049 - dagamer34 - Tue Jul 27, 2004 12:44 am

#24053 - MumblyJoe - Tue Jul 27, 2004 1:44 am

#24056 - Marciano - Tue Jul 27, 2004 2:29 am

#24059 - ScottLininger - Tue Jul 27, 2004 6:17 am

#24071 - keldon - Tue Jul 27, 2004 12:09 pm

#24077 - cappeca - Tue Jul 27, 2004 5:21 pm

#24079 - SimonB - Tue Jul 27, 2004 5:43 pm

#24086 - Marciano - Tue Jul 27, 2004 6:57 pm

#24099 - Marciano - Tue Jul 27, 2004 11:27 pm

#24105 - tepples - Wed Jul 28, 2004 1:33 am

#24106 - Marciano - Wed Jul 28, 2004 1:50 am

#24108 - tepples - Wed Jul 28, 2004 2:16 am

#24112 - poslundc - Wed Jul 28, 2004 2:29 am

#24115 - tepples - Wed Jul 28, 2004 3:21 am

#24141 - poslundc - Wed Jul 28, 2004 2:13 pm

#24153 - ScottLininger - Wed Jul 28, 2004 5:28 pm

#24166 - expos1994 - Wed Jul 28, 2004 7:11 pm

#24214 - captainsoup - Thu Jul 29, 2004 9:58 pm

#24223 - Abscissa - Fri Jul 30, 2004 1:16 am

#24225 - ecurtz - Fri Jul 30, 2004 2:16 am

#24230 - ScottLininger - Fri Jul 30, 2004 4:57 am

#24231 - Nyundi - Fri Jul 30, 2004 5:20 am

#24242 - Sweex - Fri Jul 30, 2004 1:08 pm

#24252 - batblaster - Fri Jul 30, 2004 5:52 pm

#24276 - Daniel Andersen - Sat Jul 31, 2004 8:54 am

#24277 - greeeg - Sat Jul 31, 2004 9:40 am

#24285 - SimonB - Sat Jul 31, 2004 5:56 pm

#24287 - warsong - Sat Jul 31, 2004 7:37 pm

#24288 - Wriggler - Sat Jul 31, 2004 7:52 pm

#24290 - Daniel Andersen - Sat Jul 31, 2004 9:25 pm

#24315 - Daniel Andersen - Sun Aug 01, 2004 1:00 pm

#24322 - Lord Graga - Sun Aug 01, 2004 3:41 pm

#24334 - Daniel Andersen - Sun Aug 01, 2004 6:16 pm

#24376 - lordmetroid - Mon Aug 02, 2004 3:49 pm

#24391 - keldon - Mon Aug 02, 2004 9:26 pm

#24393 - mymateo - Mon Aug 02, 2004 11:52 pm

#24396 - ScottLininger - Tue Aug 03, 2004 12:40 am

#24398 - ciw1973 - Tue Aug 03, 2004 1:54 am

#24399 - grumpycat - Tue Aug 03, 2004 2:09 am

#24402 - dagamer34 - Tue Aug 03, 2004 2:36 am

#24403 - Marciano - Tue Aug 03, 2004 2:42 am

#24410 - cappeca - Tue Aug 03, 2004 4:59 am

#24411 - mymateo - Tue Aug 03, 2004 5:18 am

#24413 - grumpycat - Tue Aug 03, 2004 6:22 am

#24414 - sgeos - Tue Aug 03, 2004 7:04 am

#24416 - thos_thom - Tue Aug 03, 2004 9:55 am

#24440 - SimonB - Tue Aug 03, 2004 8:09 pm

#24445 - poslundc - Tue Aug 03, 2004 8:28 pm

#24454 - Marciano - Tue Aug 03, 2004 10:24 pm

#24455 - keldon - Tue Aug 03, 2004 11:19 pm

#24458 - poslundc - Tue Aug 03, 2004 11:29 pm

#24462 - warsong - Wed Aug 04, 2004 3:13 am

#24464 - yaustar - Wed Aug 04, 2004 4:23 am

#24466 - cappeca - Wed Aug 04, 2004 6:14 am

#24467 - sgeos - Wed Aug 04, 2004 6:51 am

#24472 - mymateo - Wed Aug 04, 2004 9:24 am

#24476 - ciw1973 - Wed Aug 04, 2004 12:03 pm

#24479 - poslundc - Wed Aug 04, 2004 1:47 pm

#24483 - Fatnickc - Wed Aug 04, 2004 2:12 pm

#24484 - Daniel Andersen - Wed Aug 04, 2004 2:25 pm

#24488 - dagamer34 - Wed Aug 04, 2004 3:35 pm

#24494 - sgeos - Wed Aug 04, 2004 4:20 pm

#24507 - Daniel Andersen - Wed Aug 04, 2004 7:00 pm

#24509 - Marciano - Wed Aug 04, 2004 7:10 pm

#24523 - mymateo - Thu Aug 05, 2004 1:16 am

#24537 - Fatnickc - Thu Aug 05, 2004 12:34 pm

#24542 - dagamer34 - Thu Aug 05, 2004 2:43 pm

#24554 - Fatnickc - Thu Aug 05, 2004 6:13 pm

#24559 - keldon - Thu Aug 05, 2004 10:58 pm

#24560 - dagamer34 - Thu Aug 05, 2004 11:12 pm

#24563 - yaustar - Thu Aug 05, 2004 11:32 pm