nesdev.org

edit: Visit the website! http://nesdevcompo.nintendoage.com

I'm not done editing this, but I'll post it for now.

NESdev Compo: The Rules

Tentative deadline for submissions is the end of April 2011. There is not an exact hour, just go by your local time.


3 categories:

1. NES Program
   1. No mapper (NROM)
   2. Can be 16kB or 32kB PRG
   3. May use 8kB of CHR-ROM, or CHR-RAM
   4. May not use WRAM
2. Freestyle
   1. Must run on NES, can be any type of program such as a game, demo, application
   2. Can use any mapper, any ROM size
   3. May use WRAM
   4. Must be previously unreleased (or with notable changes)
3. General
   1. NES programs that don't fit in the other 2 categories

Prize:
TBA
to 1st, 2nd, 3rd place in the NES Programs and Freestyle categories.


Fine print:

No ripped music, no ripped graphics, no ripped code (i.e., no "total conversion" ROM hacks). Contestants are encouraged to use music, graphics, and code created by others - if it can be used with permission. Cover songs are allowed! Note that for code (music engines for an obvious example), if the author released the source code, and it doesn't say otherwise, then permission to use it is implied.

Most project would have been NROM anyway but why include it a a limitation in the rules?

Memblers wrote:NESdev Compo: The Rules

3 categories:

1. NES Program
2. Freestyle
3. General

How many people are we expecting to enter the competition? Breaking the contest down into three categories may just have the effect of thinning out an already small body of submissions. Then again, if NA is getting behind this we might see some people jump into the NA tutorials and give it a try. Are we expecting a big turnout?

My suggestion is, go for the "NES Program" setup only. It's even more challenging.

Will there be WRAM?

I'm just going to throw this out there. How about June 1st for a deadline? I know it seems a ways away, but seeing as only a handful have started anything the original 6 month deadline would make sense. Also, if it is a yearly thing then it makes sense to move it to the middle of the year (instead of the arbitrary 4 months from today).

I personally don't think we need the 3rd category. Anything else will go into the second category.

I've set-up a gmail account and youtube account set-up for submissions "NESHomebrew" is the name of each. In case anyone can't tell I'm trying to organize this thing. I may not have a lot of posts here, but I've been a lurker for years. I'm also very active @ Nintendoage.

oRBIT2002 wrote:My suggestion is, go for the "NES Program" setup only. It's even more challenging.

I'd agree, except I think to many people have already started programs that utilize mappers.

June 1 sounds good to me. That gives room to have two competitions in the year:

1. Competition 1
   1. start: January 1st
   2. deadline: June 1st
   3. judging in June
2. Competition 2
   1. start: July 1st
   2. deadline: December 1st
   3. judging in December

MetalSlime wrote: How many people are we expecting to enter the competition? Breaking the contest down into three categories may just have the effect of thinning out an already small body of submissions. Then again, if NA is getting behind this we might see some people jump into the NA tutorials and give it a try. Are we expecting a big turnout?

Nah, not expecting a big turnout. The setup is hopefully to get the best results - most people want to do NROM, but if we limit it to that only, then we're only possibly reducing the number of entries in the end. IMHO, if "NES Programs" category has a bunch of entries, and the "Freestyle" has one entry that wins 1st place by default, I see a gain there - no loss. As I mentioned before, I'll foot the bill for the prize of the freestyle category (assuming the offer I was matching for the other category still stands - I'm sure it does, but I can't afford both as easily).

Hello Everyone. The following is just my opinion. I am certainly not trying to tell the contest leadership how things should be done. I just wanted to share my thoughts.


Although "challenge" (programming difficulty) deserves its place, I think that games should be judged by the following criteria (not all-inclusive, just my current idea list) and not how hard it was to create:

1. Originality or Novelty (yeah, I'll flunk this one for sure)
2. Player control (poor play control = teh suks)
3. Replay value (is it fun to play again after you've beaten it?)
4. Sound effects (bad ones suck more than good ones rock, imho)
5. Graphics - Do they match the theme of the game? Are they cool?

Is the goal of the compo to produce a good batch of fun homebrew games, or to show off programming machismo?

The judging criteria (and suggested game complexity categories) should reflect the intent of the contest.

For Graphics and Sound, it is tempting to judge based on how far one "pushed" the PPU and APU. That would be fine criteria for a tech demo, and would make a great category. However, I would hate to fail a great game because the graphics were blaze and not blazing.

-OR- have have multiple different categories that each game can be judged in. Maybe 1st, 2nd and 3rd places for each judging category (that spans all games entered) and then a "best of show" within each game type category?

For example, I would like my game to be judged on its replay value and player control, but because I'm trying to capture the 2600 retro feel, I am purposefully NOT pushing the PPU very far.

I guess that I'm thinking of this more like a professional dog or cat show. The animals are not compared with each other, but rather compared to a "breed standard". The top winners are the animals that most closely match the breed standard, not which is fastest, tallest, smartest, etc...

Dwedit wrote:Will there be WRAM?

For the non-mapper category I'd say not - NES can't access it without some helpful logic on the cartridge.

Sounds fine for freestyle though, I'll put that on the rules.

WhatULive4 wrote: I personally don't think we need the 3rd category. Anything else will go into the second category.

Yeah, I didn't finish writing the description for that, but the main reason for that is mostly to allow folks to show off their stuff that might not qualify otherwise. Maybe a previously released ROM from 5 years ago that has minor bugfixes since then, maybe cross-platform development apps such as trackers and map editors.

The hope being that the website will stay up long after the compo ends, after all of us developers had our fun then it will be a showcase for cool NES stuff.

Your help organizing it is much appreciated! I'm way too busy with stuff to handle it by myself (or I would have taken over a long time ago).

Memblers wrote:Yeah, I didn't finish writing the description for that, but the main reason for that is mostly to allow folks to show off their stuff that might not qualify otherwise. Maybe a previously released ROM from 5 years ago that has minor bugfixes since then, maybe cross-platform development apps such as trackers and map editors.

I like the idea, but I think stuff like that belongs here should it not? If desired, I can link to the tools each user used if they would like.

Memblers wrote:Your help organizing it is much appreciated! I'm way too busy with stuff to handle it by myself (or I would have taken over a long time ago).

I'm happy to help! Website is up by the way http://nesdevcompo.nintendoage.com

Memblers, please check your PMs. I've sent you three in the past few days and not gotten any replies (including one ~20 minutes ago or so). Thanks.

I like the 2 competition idea, the 2rd probably isn't necessary. And I like the idea of two deadlines.

clueless wrote: Although "challenge" (programming difficulty) deserves its place, I think that games should be judged by the following criteria (not all-inclusive, just my current idea list) and not how hard it was to create:

1. Originality or Novelty (yeah, I'll flunk this one for sure)
2. Player control (poor play control = teh suks)
3. Replay value (is it fun to play again after you've beaten it?)
4. Sound effects (bad ones suck more than good ones rock, imho)
5. Graphics - Do they match the theme of the game? Are they cool?

Yes, that's what I was thinking would be ideal. But - I want to run this by everyone before I put it into the rules:

Judging (by the mentioned criteria) would be done by the developers who have submitted an entry, and by a small panel of judges selected by the organizers (Whatulive4 and me, I suppose) - no volunteers. This is to reduce self-select bias, somewhat.

Public voting could be held on a simpler scale, maybe 1 thru 10 overall for each entry. Sounds dumb I know, but the point being that we want the public to vote, and I think more votes (by making it easier to vote) could be more interesting than a smaller number of detailed votes.

At the risk of a minor revolt, then the prizes would be award based on the judges' voting, and of course public voting results and comments would be available for informational purposes.

But maybe it isn't all that unreasonable to have everyone fill out a longer form. Guess it depends on how many entries there are. I don't know exactly how to code a PHP/database thing to accept the votes, I'm sure I could if I sat down to do it, but hopefully someone can help out with that.

If someone else wants to count the votes (I'm hoping I don't have to), then feel free to change that setup, just let us all know what to expect.

WhatULive4 wrote:

Memblers wrote: Yeah, I didn't finish writing the description for that, but the main reason for that is mostly to allow folks to show off their stuff that might not qualify otherwise. Maybe a previously released ROM from 5 years ago that has minor bugfixes since then, maybe cross-platform development apps such as trackers and map editors.

I like the idea, but I think stuff like that belongs here should it not? If desired, I can link to the tools each user used if they would like.

In a logical sense it does belong here, but it doesn't help that the main index page of this site is so outdated. Linking to the forums is discouraging because forums in general are about the worst place to download files (because of rampant dead links and "free download, wait 60 seconds" type of crap). Or maybe the version you want is only linked on page 25 of 37 of the thread, etc. Not that this forum is always like that, but that's what I expect to see on forums in general.

Since this type of compo has never been done before, that's a part of the reason for the general section. Obviously it shouldn't automatically have every ROM made in the past 10 years, but if someone wants to submit their old stuff, why not? If everyone here has seen it, and everyone on Nintendoage, that is still a very small percentage of the people who might stop by to visit the compo site.

I think a lot of people will want to see this compo, that don't even want to visit nesdev or nintendoage and probably never will, so the more the site can stand on it's own, the better. My line of thinking too is that it's not just attention whoring for it's own sake - it's to get more people interested in this stuff, whether they play the games, program games, or just think it's cool that there is a map/level editor or music tracker they can use without being a developer themselves.

Maybe my ideas are a bit overboard, I would accept that as an answer, haha. The website looks pretty cool so far.