Yes, this is the third attempt. The basic idea involves the imminent release of a new console into the market. The competitors are software houses that have been given development kits for the new hardware.
The hardware is a late 8-bit machine trying to compete with the Nes, Sega Master system and the various 8 bit computers in the market in the late 80's and early 90's. It's incredibly ambitious but hopfully enough quality of the games will help the console gain a foothold in the market!
Of course as with any other 8-bit console, the hardware is fairly humble. It's up to the developers to make the most of the resources available.
COMPETITION RULES
Graphics
Choose two palettes of 8 colours from this palette. One for Active objects and one for Backdrop objects. Also choose another colour for the frame's background colour.
Each object can be up to 24x24 pixels. However all unique tiles must fit inside 96x96 pixels. One for the backdrop objects and one for the Active objects.
Tiles can be flipped without any extra cost and you can make use of Active object's animations and directions at no extra cost.
Text can be used at no extra cost.
No graphics extensions or resizing, rotating or ink effects allowed.
The palettes and tiles can change every level/frame etc.
Screensize can be up to 320x240 (but the smaller, the less problem tile limits will be!)
Music
Music can have up to 4 channels. It must sound '8-bit' so samples from SID or NES music are ok.
Preferably Mod formats only although I guess it doesn't matter too much so long as it sounds like a chiptune.
Sound should sound 8-bit too but do what you want with that.
Controls
2 action buttons only (and start and select) You can use the keyboard for a virtual joystick but no keyboard or mouse allowed. 2 player games allowed.
Submission
Submit a MFA, GAM, or CCA file with any extras under 2 Megabytes as a link here. Preferably compressed with Zip or RAR. If you don't want to submit something open source fine, but remember it will make checking your game impossible. The evaluation process will be decided upon later.
Games can be submitted to any other websites including TDC.
The only problem I have with this competition is that the challenge is graphics and sound related related rather than a programming challenge. The Christmas compo where we were forced to use tile based movements, or the 20 event type compos appeal much more to me.
What I think would help the competition is if it became an official TDC competition in order to stop it fizzling out. We did get some entries in the first two attempts and it was all really promising.
The first thing to discuss would be the structure of the competition, I think It would be good to have a single format with the competition being amongst the entrants to create the best game. Having more than one format makes things unbalanced, well unless you force a choice on people. Then having the winner decided by a combination of review scores and sales or money earned decided by a formula including the cost of manufacturing (smaller roms cost less to manufacture) and any additional hardware (battery backup etc) as well as popularity of certain genres.
Then of course we need to discuss what the limitations would be. It's basically not feasable to force a certain number of sprites per scanline/screen. But it is possible to have a limited amount of unique tiles and a limited palette or object size. Also the amount of buttons on the controller and what periphrals are supported.
The music can be limited to 3 channels or something with sounds being limited to square wave, saw, wav and noise. Or perhaps something like the Amiga (filesize limitations would probably stop OGG and MP3 i think.) Someone might have to create an example pack for that though.
Another idea I had suggested was 'perks' or a choice of unique hardware built into the carts giving the specific game a little extra power but making the game cost more. Some examples could be more unique tiles, extra sound channels, or support for a peripheral like a mouse or a joystick with more buttons.
Consider the competition official. I know some people think NES games are ugly, so you don't have to go with that suggestion. The main point behind it was that the rules shouldn't be all too rigid. Having all these criteria at once sounds less like a fun challenge and more like an irritation to me at the moment.
I despise this phrase (with a fiery burning passion), but "just my two cents". Since I don't have the time to make an entry anyway, what I think of the rules hardly matters!
It's a good idea to have dropped the two warring consoles and just focus on one. Let's be honest, there aren't enough active people here anymore to have a large competition.
We just need some solid rules (console specs) to get this going. Just choose a palette (Amiga, NES, whatever), max sprite size, music (4 channel mod chiptunes?) and max buttons. Not sure if I'll have time to enter but I've always been interested in this one. Hope it gets off the ground this time!
Originally Posted by nim It's a good idea to have dropped the two warring consoles and just focus on one. Let's be honest, there aren't enough active people here anymore to have a large competition.
We just need some solid rules (console specs) to get this going. Just choose a palette (Amiga, NES, whatever), max sprite size, music (4 channel mod chiptunes?) and max buttons. Not sure if I'll have time to enter but I've always been interested in this one. Hope it gets off the ground this time!
Keeping the rules simple and solid is a very smart idea. Don't make them to complex with different bonuses and penalties and restrictions. Nim nailed the essence of what the rules should be;
- palette (either a fixed one or a set number of colors)
- max sprite size
- music and sfx info
- max buttons
I would personally like to include a "max colors per sprite" rule too.
Try and keep it simple and you'll get more entrants. When the rules are decided OMC can make a huge front page post announcing the compo start.
I'm up for this but what sort of machine are you thinking of basing the limitations on?
Spectrum, CPC, Atari 7800 etc? There is a lot of consoles from this time period. Either that or create a fictional machine with similar specs .
As previously discussed I think the rules should include some screen palette limitation, sprite palette limitation (a lot of the old machines had a 16x16 limit, leading to colour clash), sound limitation (channels and types) and the number of buttons.
Making it an official TDC competition nowadays won't have much effect. It's like putting tinsel on a dead man's grave, it won't bring him back to life.
I will agree that is the most inactive I have ever seen TDC, and I have seen its annual trough (usually every summer) a fair few times.
To be honest it seems to have been in this state for some time now, the reviews, articles and download submissions are going at about the same speed as a milk float up an hill.
I do not think loose limitations is a good idea, basically because people have different ideas of what "NES-like" mean. The rules should be easy to enforce and understand though (both SMS and NES were limited to 8 sprites per line, but that's hard to enforce in MMF)
I think a 16 color background palette with a 15 color sprite palette would be reasonable, that is similar to what the SMS achieves
Both SMS and NES had a 64 sprite limit. Note that those system used 8x8 or 8x16 sized sprites so what we would consider a sprite is actually made up of multiple smaller sprites. To make it simplify it I suggest increasing the sprite size to 16x16 as suggested by hagar while halving the number of sprites allowed i.e. 32 on screen sprites.
- Ok, you must admit that was the most creative cussing this site have ever seen -
Sorry about the lack of posting yesterday. I'm finding it quite hard to decide on a palette actually.
Do we want a really small overall pallete with no 'hardware attributes' or a fairly large pallete but limited to, say 8 colours on screen.
Or something else like 4 colours per unique tile?
Also how do you guys feel about making your own music?
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COMPETITION RULES
Edited by OMC
but I've always been interested in this one. Hope it gets off the ground this time!
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