Interest in a nesdev coding compo?

3gengames · Post by **3gengames** » Mon Jul 19, 2010 5:23 pm

I don't know if I would like to provide the source code, especially since I won't and can't comment for my life

And the fact that someone else could then assemble and change my game....uhhh....I really don't want that

Jeroen · Post by **Jeroen** » Mon Jul 19, 2010 5:24 pm

Hard to get around those points. Ok guess we can throw the size limit out. With nrom being preferred. Only mapper I REALLY dont want people using is mmc5. Or anything not supported by powerpak. As for a prize...well quitte frankly I suggest having the compo first and then figuring out a possible prize. (altough I suppose just winning would be neat) Sure its not the best motivator out there, but come on if all you care about is a prize you shouldn't be entering a competition

3gengames · Post by **3gengames** » Mon Jul 19, 2010 6:44 pm

So....the famous question.....Good game with bad code or bad game with good code, what would win?

These games in the end are going to be played, so thats why I think coding shouldn't matter as much if it gets the job done. I am sure we will all write some pretty good code, as many of use seem like decent programmers and wouldn't want stupid crap in our games that make us look dumb

Dwedit · Post by **Dwedit** » Mon Jul 19, 2010 6:53 pm

Throwing out size/mapper restrictions is a pretty drastic change. I suppose WRAM is okay now?

tokumaru · Post by **tokumaru** » Mon Jul 19, 2010 6:54 pm

Relax, nobody is gonna judge anything by looking at code, that makes no sense. What's important is that the game isn't all glitchy (full of visible programming errors) and that it runs perfectly on hardware. If something doesn't run well on hardware I don't think it should even qualify.

I don't agree with the "let's just get started and figure out the details later" philosophy. All coders have the right to know what they're getting into before they decide to take the journey. If you want this to succeed, it has to look professional.

3gengames · Post by **3gengames** » Mon Jul 19, 2010 6:59 pm

Yeah.....uhh......I only have NROM development board to test on a console.....oh well

EDITS: Saves question for later...

So well.....looks like this won't be a cart release anymore.....oh well it was a thought.

ivan · Post by **ivan** » Mon Jul 19, 2010 7:54 pm

why can't it still be a cart release?
it could just be a single-game cart for the top winner, like jero said in irc he actually didn't want a multicart even

Jeroen · Post by **Jeroen** » Mon Jul 19, 2010 8:07 pm

I could afford a single cart getting made vs a multicart that would be sold. (say what you want about making back the costs theres stil the initial costs)
Personally I think getting your game made into a cart is a decent prize. (by made into a cart I mean a single cart for you personally)

tokumaru · Post by **tokumaru** » Mon Jul 19, 2010 8:18 pm

Jeroen wrote:Personally I think getting your game made into a cart is a decent prize. (by made into a cart I mean a single cart for you personally)

Only if you can't make one yourself, but since many of us can that isn't much of a prize.

koitsu · Post by **koitsu** » Mon Jul 19, 2010 9:06 pm

Jeroen wrote:edit: and a prize. (koitsu..I like the money idea...but I dont think I can afford that much unless other people chip in)

I was proposing that the prize money be donated to the winners by Parodius -- nobody needs to chip in! :-)

3gengames · Post by **3gengames** » Tue Jul 20, 2010 9:19 am

Seriously? Thats good nobody is hurt and I don't feel so bad not being able to chip in now

And maybe there could still be a multi cart, but if anyone uses 2 different mappers, that would screw us all up

Atleast if they are all NROM though, then we could stick them on a cart and switch between....

Nah lets cross the bridge when we get there I guess....

Jeroen · Post by **Jeroen** » Tue Jul 20, 2010 10:07 am

koitsu wrote:
Jeroen wrote:edit: and a prize. (koitsu..I like the money idea...but I dont think I can afford that much unless other people chip in)
I was proposing that the prize money be donated to the winners by Parodius -- nobody needs to chip in!

Wow that'd be great! Yeah that shoudl work

thefox · Post by **thefox** » Tue Jul 20, 2010 11:46 am

I like the multicart idea (if the games aren't complete shit) so I'm fine with limiting to NROM only. I would think there's some market for a cart like that. The profits could be used in several ways, some of them could go in to the prize pool for the next compo (so we could make this a recurring thing without donated money) and some maybe to the authors of the games. Of course the cart manufacturer also takes a cut.

Drag · Post by **Drag** » Tue Jul 20, 2010 12:00 pm

The reason I was suggesting the size limitation was so there was an even playing ground. Everyone here seems to agree that 32k is plenty big enough for a game, so why don't we just use that? Otherwise, I'm worried that the "competition" will just degrade into "who has the most complex game?"

Besides, if you're worried about not having space to fit all of your supergiant levels, just look at SMB. There'd be the extra challenge in getting all of your data to fit within the size constraint, and having a huge game within 32k would be a lot more impressive then having a huge game within 1mb, wouldn't you agree?

miau · Post by **miau** » Tue Jul 20, 2010 1:18 pm

thefox wrote: - There should be no limitations for using pre-existing code (impossible to control)

Agreed.

I wonder what's the consensus on this matter.

Let's say I wanted to use my existing platformer engine and build a new game on top of it... while still extending the engine's functionality, effectively working on my main project AND the compo at the same time.
(That way I could probably convince myself to participate in the compo

)

It does feel a little unfair to me, since so much work has gone into this engine already. Then again, why write anything from scratch if you've got reusable code?