Tuesday 3 April 2012

C64 16KB Cartridge Game Development Competition!


The second RGCD C64 16KB cartridge game development competition concluded on the 30th of November at midnight with 10 new games and three cartridge re-releases for the C64.



RULES

So you can get started, the basic rules are laid out below:

  1. The competition deadline is midnight GMT on the 30th November 2012 (this gives you over 6 months of development time).
  2. There will be no competition unless a minimum of six entries are submitted by the deadline.
  3. All submitted games must be in working 16KB cartridge ROM format (help is available to test ROM files on real hardware). Compression is allowed (and encouraged) but the final file size must not exceed 16KB (.crt (VICE) at 16.0 KB (16,464 bytes) or .bin (C64) at 16.0 KB (16,384 bytes)).
  4. The games submitted do not necessarily need to be new, but must be your own work, not sold commercially or released in cartridge format previously. Cartridge ROM hacks will obviously not be accepted.
  5. PAL must be supported, with additional NTSC support optional (but encouraged). If possible, please consider GS compatibility.
  6. The maximum number of single entries from a person or group is set at three. If more entries are made, the applicant has the opportunity to replace a previous entry with a new one.
  7. All applicants that submit a valid entry (see above) will receive one physical cartridge copy of their game for free.
  8. The applicant owns their work, so therefore submitted games will *ONLY* be released for sale at an agreed price via RGCD if the coder expresses a desire to do so.
  9. There will be a panel of judges (announced in full over the coming weeks), and entries will be scored on a point distribution basis across several criteria. The decision of the panel is final.
  10. Judges *CAN* enter games themselves, but cannot self-vote (award points to their own release).



FINAL 2012 COMPETITION LINE UP

Here is an alphabetical list of the games that were submitted by the deadline.
















THE JUDGING PANEL

The panel of judges is made up of the following people:

Alex Ross-Shaw (Retro Fusion / RGCD)
Andy Jenkinson/Uglifruit (RGCD)
Enthusi (Onslaught)
Flemming Dupont (RGCD)
Frank Gasking (GTW64)
Heavy Stylus (RGCD)
John Dennis (RGCD)
Kenz (Psytronik)
Mayhem
Milo Mundt (RETURN Magazine)
Ruari O'Toole (RGCD)



SCORING SYSTEM

The scoring rules are very simple. Depending on the number of entries, the judges will award points to each game over several criteria (as discussed below). If there are 6 entries, 6 points go to the best, then 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1 to the worst.

If a panel member has entered a game themselves, then the number of points that they can award will be adjusted (in this example, to 5) and they will not score their own release. This may initially seem harsh (and disadvantageous), but is countered by fairly taking a mean average based on how many people judged each game.

The criteria that each game will be evaluated on are:

Originality/Concept (quality of game design, taking into account originality),
Execution (execution of design, taking into account controls, NTSC/GS compatibility),
Presentation (quality of graphics, audio and overall presentation),
Gameplay (a measure of how enjoyable the game is to play),
Lasting Appeal (replay value, addictiveness).

When the panel has scored each game accordingly, the totals for each criteria will be divided by the number of judges to produce a mean average. These averages are then added together for each game to give a final score.



PRIZES

As well as a free copy of their submitted game on cartridge, there will also be prizes awarded to the entrants behind games that place 1st, 2nd and 3rd (as decided by the judging panel). Many thanks to Titan Computers/LEDWatch, Psytronik Software, Retream, Daniel Krusenbaum and Gareth Darby for their sponsorship!

1st Prize
£150, Genuine 1970's Commodore LED Watch (RRP £90), a signed copy of Psytronik Software's PC conversion of Armalyte, a copy of Retream's excellent multi-platform game BOH & an Easy Flash cartridge complete with Mr. SID's C64 conversion of Prince of Persia (version 1.1).

2nd Prize
£75, Genuine 1970's Commodore LED Watch (RRP £90), a signed copy of Psytronik Software's PC conversion of Armalyte, a copy of Retream's excellent multi-platform game BOH & an Easy Flash cartridge complete with Mr. SID's C64 conversion of Prince of Persia (version 1.1).

3rd Prize
£25, Genuine 1970's Commodore LED Watch (RRP £90), a signed copy of Psytronik Software's PC conversion of Armalyte, a copy of Retream's excellent multi-platform game BOH & an Easy Flash cartridge complete with Mr. SID's C64 conversion of Prince of Persia (version 1.1).

4th & 5th Prizes
A signed copy of Psytronik Software's PC conversion of Armalyte and a copy of Retream's excellent multi-platform game BOH.



RESULTS

01 - Super Bread Box 16KB (Paulko64)
02 - Assembloids (Enthusi & iLKke)
03 - Wonderland (Endurion)
04 - Match-Buster (S.E.S./Crest)
05 - Get 'Em DX (Endurion)

06 - On The Farm III (Achim Volkers)
07 - Rent-A-Cop (Achim Volkers)
08 - SpaceChem Nano (P1X3L.net)
09 - Escape From The Laundry (The Mad Scientist)
10 - Spike Dislike (David Eriksson)
11 - Amazon Tales 75% (Richard Bayliss)
12 - Monkey Eat Milkey (Ron & Wolk / SOS)
13 - Little Sara Sister 2 (Ice00)

The full write-up of the 2012 competition results can be found here.

5 comments:

  1. Linking: http://retroinvaders.com/es/c64-16kb-cartridge-game-development-competition/cal:108

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for spreading the news Jose - Retroinvaders is a great site :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Just to let everyone know - Amazon Tales's graphics was created by Alf Yngve using SEUCK - but the game will NOT be a SEUCK game. :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Amazon Tales looks like Predator for the C64, With Alf and Richard working together this should be a Stormer of a Game :->

    ReplyDelete