nesdev.org

Guilty wrote:Aw, man. If there's no theme, I have no ideas then.

Ideas are never scarce: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=14117

Ideas are never scarce

I've been watching a lot of Let's Play videos on YouTube, looking for ideas. I also think it's useful to watch critics like AVGN, to get ideas about what NOT to do.

Also, I liked the original bee theme. If I make a submission, I was going to subtly put a bee in the background.

Again from a newcomers' perspective, i prefer either no themes or a 100% optional theme without any actual impact on the compo. I'm not even sure i can pull off a contribution, but i'd like to try. 'Still learning asm basics' is enough of a restriction for me, and i think this is more or less representative of the position of any newbie looking for a good opportunity to get into the scene.

WheelInventor wrote:I'm not even sure i can pull off a contribution, but i'd like to try.

I wouldn't be surprised if some coders needed help with art for their entries. That often becomes a limiting factor in homebrew projects.

I don't care if there's a proposed theme as long as it is optional and not directly associated to a category.

@tepples

What's the point in a 7k/8k restriction, when a CHR page alone takes 8kb (and neslib takes 4kb)?

You can't really make a fun game with any art in 3kb, including a decompressor / procedural generator for the art. At that point it's more about asm wanking than making a game, IMHO ("look at what I could do" - that's fine, you're skilled, but 99% chance I won't want to play that).

Definitely, a category or theme with such a restriction is directly aimed to skilled ASM coders. Being a C coder, it is not really an option to me.

Of course you can always trim neslib and only include what you need (I do it all the time to make lots of stuff fit in 32K!), but I guess that wouldn't be enough.

Unless the 7Kb category means "7Kb of PRG-ROM" with a separate CHR-ROM.

darryl.revok wrote:I wouldn't be surprised if some coders needed help with art for their entries. That often becomes a limiting factor in homebrew projects.

If there are any creative types looking for a coder, I'm game. I'm pretty sure I still count as a NES newbie, but I know my way around ASM at least.

7Kb category

I'm pretty sure there WON'T be a 7k category.

I think for now you can base it off the existing rules from the past compo with 2 categories. NROM and Anything Goes

64k

It sounds like you can make a game with NROM sized ($8000) PRG, and another $8000 with whatever you want (CHR)...personally, I would fill the extra space with compressed graphics, or perhaps the music data, if for some reason it doesn't fit on the other bank (DMC files, for example).

And a second category for...Anything Goes.

Hmm, missed the time to say No. but it seems everyone else did, so.

A couple thoughts.

How about an award for "best use of ROM space"?

The award could be judged in two categories, objectively by total ROM space used, and subjectively on quality by judging. Then there would be a formula to decide how much each score valued to decide the winner.

Also, how about labeling the compo winners and their categories on the cart? This would be a prize which wouldn't cost anything, and a nice little incentive. Plus I feel like players would like it.

darryl.revok wrote:A couple thoughts.
How about an award for "best use of ROM space"?

The award could be judged in two categories, objectively by total ROM space used, and subjectively on quality by judging. Then there would be a formula to decide how much each score valued to decide the winner.

I don't know if this would be best. We haven't ironed out the judging of the competition this year. The first year had a panel, and the second time was judged by the entrants. Depending on the number of entries, it would be difficult to judge, and it would take longer to judge. Obviously optimization is great, but in the spirit of this competition, we would rather see a complete entry, then a completely optimized entry.

darryl.revok wrote:A couple thoughts.
Also, how about labeling the compo winners and their categories on the cart? This would be a prize which wouldn't cost anything, and a nice little incentive. Plus I feel like players would like it.

Great idea!

darryl.revok wrote:A couple thoughts.

How about an award for "best use of ROM space"?

So, figure out how to write an algorithm encoded by Tepples's CHR compression that, when run, will then transform another entryTepples's CHR decompression code into one's own final desired code?

Beat the compression ratio by figuring out where one can snip from everywhere else. So, kinda Cheetahmen/Action Game Master it up?

darryl.revok wrote:Also, how about labeling the compo winners and their categories on the cart? This would be a prize which wouldn't cost anything, and a nice little incentive. Plus I feel like players would like it.

This is, in fact, an excellent idea!

NESHomebrew wrote:I don't know if this would be best. We haven't ironed out the judging of the competition this year. The first year had a panel, and the second time was judged by the entrants. Depending on the number of entries, it would be difficult to judge, and it would take longer to judge. Obviously optimization is great, but in the spirit of this competition, we would rather see a complete entry, then a completely optimized entry.

Hmm... this one took a different direction from what I was originally thinking. My thought was that some people wanted categories smaller than NROM, and I didn't know if there were any hold-outs for people who still wanted something like that. The thought was that the best of the little games could have it's own award, even if that's just a label on the cart.

Really, I'd rather see my second suggestion implemented than this one. This isn't even a category that I personally would try for. Just for clarification though, my thought was more of a focus on "best" rather than "use of space". Also to encourage more releases on the cart by having a judging category that would inspire people to make short entries over the course of a weekend or so.