I think limitations would do the trick. A palette restriction like 4 colors for example or size restriction like 512 KiB. I also like the 4 lines of code restriction, that would drive innovation real hard.
Me too and some sane size restriction for your *zipped* game. How about 4 colours, 16 lines of code and 64 KiB size restriction? Or isn't MMF able to create such little executable files? Anyways, I like everything lower than 512 KiB.
Well, in a couple weeks I'm going to open up voting for theme ideas for a 48 hour compo. Then the first weekend of June is when the contest will start. So look forward to that.
All platforming problems can be mostly solved here:
you could make balanced limitations to them then!
and they still could be "nes-ish", "n64-ish" and "snes-ish" consoles, just u dont have to stick to its real limitation.
Oops, sorry for that. I think I was mislead by the suggestive title and the fact that the limitations could imply consoles, but not necessarily have to.
Thankfully the GB has 4 grey values which could be a restriction for a console compo. It also has a nice tone generator for composing tunes which could be another useful restriction. The cartridge have sizes going from 256 Kib (that's 8 KiB) till 8 Mib (that's 1 MiB).
Anyways, not favoring the GB, but just to put out an example for a console compo. Sure, you should look up some more details from this system, like the number of sprites, backgrounds, screen sizes, etc... Too create a more accurate competition for this console.
Yeah I'm partly to blame for the confusion even though the topic was made some time ago shortly after my second attempt at a console wars competition was fresh in people's memories.