ABBUC Software-Contest 2014

[snicklin]

For the 2nd year in a row, I have not voted as a member of ABBUC because the disks have turned up after the voting deadline.

[Heaven/TQA]

as an ABBUC member you could have downloaded the images on the abbuc website in the members area

[emkay]

I don't know which rules you mean... But if you are a member, go to the meeting, make suggestions about changing rules, discuss with other members and than the present members will decide it by voting. That is democracy.

 

But stinking here on AtariAge doesn't makes sense.

Democracy also allows to tell one's opinion. If my opinion is stinking in your sight of things, you should reconsider your own thoughts.

 

It is as it is! A game is played well with the fun that it gives to the player. So there never will be an objective part in the vote.

In other contests, you always have a central Jury that votes from a neutral point of view, to compensate that.

Oustanding stuff has to be gifted with an outstanding price . Otherwise you drop the best programmers , or make them doing worse stuff than they could do, because it doesn't make sense to "do better" .

 

And , btw. , I did not push the local ABBUC contest to Atariage. It's just that the main talking has moved to here, which makes it necessary to post such discussion in this thread.

IF we have a common point to discuss, we could move to the ABBUC forums then.

Edited October 26, 2014 by emkay

[Marius]

It is as it is! A game is played well with the fun that it gives to the player. So there never will be an objective part in the vote.

In other contests, you always have a central Jury that votes from a neutral point of view, to compensate that.

Oustanding stuff has to be gifted with an outstanding price . Otherwise you drop the best programmers , or make them doing worse stuff than they could do, because it doesn't make sense to "do better" .

 

But the big question is, is the goal of this contest to create the best software (I mean with best, the one that pushes the atari 8bit to the best performance) or is the goal to create the coolest games?

 

I think that THAT is the point of discussion, and although I really appreciate games that do fabulous things with my atari 8bit, the gameplay counts higher for me.

 

I think that the best programmers do not always make the best games. I remember a game called SMUS. It looks awesome... it sounds fabulous... but it plays terrible. That game is never touched again.

 

The audience (abbuc members) give points the way they want to give points. Person 1 perhaps appreciates the looks of a game and person 2 appreciates the gameplay more etc. So the overall results is right.

 

It seems here though that you can't imagine that Dimo's Quest ended on the first place, because it is NOT your first choice... so the entire voting of the contest should be different. I don't see why a central jury could decide better which is a winning game, and which isn't; I also don't see why that central jury should compensate the vote of the members. And besides that... the games that does not get on the first place, is that suddenly a less interesting game? I still LOVE RGB... it doesn't matter to me whether it was first, second or even last.

 

Every year I make the comment that it is far more interesting to investigate how long stays a game attractive. It is impossible to test, but a long term contest would be interesting.

 

Yoomp -> I never play that again, so for me this is absolutely not a winning game anymore, although it was a lot of fun back then.

Ocean Detox -> This game is in my top #5 (!!!!) of all time favorite games, so that is a real winning game for me.

Animal Party -> I still enjoy this game a lot. Very nice game indeed.

Eckn -> this game didn't win at all... I remember the author was a bit disappointed... but guess what -> I Still play this game! Very nice!

Battle Eagle -> this game was in 8th place (!) ... still play the game, it is nice!

 

And also from non Abbuc contest games... the games with the best gameplay are my real winning games.

 

1) Spy's Demise -> What a simple game... nothing fancy about this title... but how great is it?

2) Nerm of Bemer -> Omg... it is BASIC... it's amazing how much fun you can have with THIS game.

3) M.U.L.E. -> is this doing anything special? It could have been written in Turbo Basic -> This game rocks!

4) Millipede -> My atari doesn't get hot of this... It's an alltime classic, which never bores me.

 

And I can go on...

 

I'm trying to let you see that the program quality is not the most important thing to judge.

 

I think it is great to make a vote again for all the contributions of abbuc contest till 2013. Not for a money prize, but just for honour.

Which is after all this time, still a good, and favorite game!

[powersoft]

My two cents on this discussion:

 

I voted Dimo's Quest and RGB with same rate. For me (just to compare) RGB get's really difficult shortly, but it is on technical side sure the better game. Dimo's Quest it is fun for playing. And I guess, most people voting do not code anything themselfes, so they do care of having fun while playing. And if the voters think to have with Dimo's Quet for fun, it is ths way. For me ALL games participated got my biggest respect, as there are real A8-lovers behind and wanna give the last followers of our beloved system maximum fun!

 

I hope this discussion will end soon and we can expect GREAT new games soon from everywhere...

All those involved with coding to the contest: LOVE YOU ALL - really!!!

[emkay]

That't it.

It's named Softwarecontest, not Gamecontest.

In earlier time it has been easier, you always had a big favorite which made it to nr. 1.

Particular in the latest contests, there have been always more than "one" favorites.

 

If the contest will still be a Softwarecontest, there had to be different categories of software types.

 

Game

Tool

Utility

etc...

 

If the Contest will change into a Gamecontest, there had to be different categories of points to give.

 

Best Gameplay

Best Graphics

Best Sound

etc.

 

Otherwise it will not be fair.

[snicklin]

as an ABBUC member you could have downloaded the images on the abbuc website in the members area

 

I did, but I didn't know how to vote until I got the paperwork through.

[+MrFish]

I'm really curious what the final amount of points was for these two games.

 

You can see the totals for the games on AtariOnline.

[+skr]

Ah, ok, I see that. So for the future: A simple Email to software (at) abbuc.de will do fine.

 

 

 

 

I did, but I didn't know how to vote until I got the paperwork through.

[Irgendwer]

Feature request implemented. Now you can press Help during the game to switch joystick up/fire actions. Check Fandal's archive (http://a8.fandal.cz) this Sunday for the final release.

 

Just tried it and have to say the alternate control scheme plays much better! Only the jump when finishing the selection of the color chooser by trigger is a little bit 'surprising'...

I suspect you lost some points because of the controls - which makes me a bit afraid after the efforts you put into the game.

 

Very well done production!

[+CharlieChaplin]

That't it.

It's named Softwarecontest, not Gamecontest.

In earlier time it has been easier, you always had a big favorite which made it to nr. 1.

Particular in the latest contests, there have been always more than "one" favorites.

 

If the contest will still be a Softwarecontest, there had to be different categories of software types.

 

Game

Tool

Utility

etc...

 

If the Contest will change into a Gamecontest, there had to be different categories of points to give.

 

Best Gameplay

Best Graphics

Best Sound

etc.

 

Otherwise it will not be fair.

 

Well,

 

we could simply change the name into Gaming contest, but believe it or not we also WANT tools, utilities and other stuff to take part in the contest. We don`t split into categories like games, tools, etc., instead all programs enter one and the same category - the contest. It might be hard for a tool or a utility to win against a game or to score a high place, but this has already happened in the past (e.g. with XDOS, MyPicoDOS, etc.), so it is not impossible. And err, since we normally do not get hundreds of programs for the contest (nor dozens of tools and/or utilities), it does not make sense to me to split the contest into categories. We even discussed this at an annual Abbuc meeting and the Abbuc members decided there, that it is okay to have only one category where games, as well as tools and utilities (but no demos/intros) can take part.

 

Regarding unfinished games, well, if a game is totally unplayable and full of bugs, it surely would not take part in the contest. But if a game is playable and has "potential" we do allow it to take part in the contest and let the Atarians decide how good it is (or isn`t). That happened quite often in the past. Afaik, only two programs were disqualified in the ASC until today: Neo-Tracker 1.x (very early version) because we could not get that programming running back then and Amauro(u)te 128k, because that game already existed on the A8 before (and even an update for 64k machines was available before). Maybe these decisions were/are questionable, but the end result was that the programmers did not take part anymore in the Abbuc contest since then. That is something we do not want and thus we want to avoid disqualifying a program whenever possible. We want the users to decide which programs are good and which are not. Thus, even the simplest / most simplistic program can take part at the contest. And from time to time such simple programs score high places or win the contest, even if there are much more advanced programs...

 

And some programmers still forget, that we want to publish the programs on a real 5,25" diskette, which therefore must work on a real floppy drive and a real Atari (not only via emulation of the computer and/or the floppy)...

 

But we already had such discussions before, when the Abbuc software contests ends, there are always some programmers unhappy or unsatisfied - sorry, we cannot change this. Of course we know, that the voting is also influenced by PR (how many pics, videos, etc. are presented of a program; how funny are the pics or videos, etc.) and by personal liking of a programmer (do I know / like the programmer or not), as well as personal presence of the programmer at the annual meeting, but its hard to avoid these psychological and emotional effects. In the end, a contest can never be 100% fair, because we are humans, we have emotions, we are subjective,... or should robots/terminators/machines decide ?!? You know, they sooner or later decide against us...

[Bunsen]

If my opinion is stinking in your sight of things, you should reconsider your own thoughts.

 

 

 

I respect your opinion, but I don't like your behaviour.

[emkay]

Well,

 

we could simply change the name into Gaming contest, but believe it or not we also WANT tools, utilities and other stuff to take part in the contest. We don`t split into categories like games, tools, etc., instead all programs enter one and the same category - the contest. It might be hard for a tool or a utility to win against a game or to score a high place, but this has already happened in the past (e.g. with XDOS, MyPicoDOS, etc.), so it is not impossible. And err, since we normally do not get hundreds of programs for the contest (nor dozens of tools and/or utilities), it does not make sense to me to split the contest into categories. We even discussed this at an annual Abbuc meeting and the Abbuc members decided there, that it is okay to have only one category where games, as well as tools and utilities (but no demos/intros) can take part.

So, it's the best to put unfinished Games or Tools to the contest, make it somehow usable, so it can run from standard media on a standard machine. Not to forget to fill the screen full up with DLI colours (useful or not) and count the quality on that.

It saves time and guarantees a good money value.

Only 6 participants compared to the 14 participants of the last year... I'd call a dramatic reduction.

Looking some years back to 2007 , when Yoomp! won, and Crownland "only" made it to the 2nd place, the result of the following year tells words.

 

I wouldn't be surprised, if the "top" has been reached, and the quality of productions get rather low.

 

 

 

But we already had such discussions before, when the Abbuc software contests ends, there are always some programmers unhappy or unsatisfied - sorry, we cannot change this. Of course we know, that the voting is also influenced by PR (how many pics, videos, etc. are presented of a program; how funny are the pics or videos, etc.) and by personal liking of a programmer (do I know / like the programmer or not), as well as personal presence of the programmer at the annual meeting, but its hard to avoid these psychological and emotional effects. In the end, a contest can never be 100% fair, because we are humans, we have emotions, we are subjective,... or should robots/terminators/machines decide ?!? You know, they sooner or later decide against us...

 

Coders everytime get depressed , when a production, they have done, just don't get the result, as expected.

Looking through the history of the contests, you see that easily. With some cleaner voting sheet that shows more details of the voting, may help them to find the flaws and work on them.

 

Actually, without the contest, some games would have never been created, but , if you want to keep a good quality in the productions, you have to find a solution to get more fair, and to make people willing to do new stuff.

As you might have recognized, some members just signed to ABBUC because of the contest.

But same happens vice versa, if there is nothing valuable to expect.

 

To think outside the box, is the solution.

[emkay]

I respect your opinion, but I don't like your behaviour.

I'm pretty sure, you dislike - what you think - is my behavior.

[Mathy]

Hello emkay

 

I think Bunsen dislikes the way you behave here on AtariAge, in this thread. Maybe "attitude" would be a better word. At least that's what I dislike.

 

Sincerely

 

Mathy

[emkay]

Hello emkay

 

I think Bunsen dislikes the way you behave here on AtariAge, in this thread. Maybe "attitude" would be a better word. At least that's what I dislike.

 

Sincerely

 

Mathy

So you dislike a good working community? ... that's weird.

 

So all, who don't like a good working Atari community might add their "like" in the comment above ...

Edited October 26, 2014 by emkay

[Fres]

I respect Mathy's sincerity.

[Mathy]

Hello emkay

 

So you dislike a good working community? ... that's weird.

 

I said "attitude", not "message".

 

Sincerely

 

Mathy

[Thorsten Günther]

 

Run inside a "charblock" limitation , even on a free field... objects moving in the same speed and direction , and so on. If you like that, it's ok, it's the Atari's basic features.

 

Did you even bother talking to Thomas about the technical details of his game and what showstoppers he had to work around to make his demake as close to the Amiga version and as colourful as possible? Mind you: he managed to change a lot more registers between lines than easily possible on the A8 by using the VCS style "racing the beam" approach instead of using numerous DLIs (which proved to be too slow for what he wanted to achieve). It's Thomas' first A8 game, yet he already pushed the boundaries of the machine.

 

And BTW: it's the first time in several years that the winner was a) an ABBUC member and b) at the JHV - it seems it's not quite as easy to win just by being there.

[8Bitjunkie]

I borrow the words of Raster: (http://atariage.com/forums/topic/116421-thanks-miker/?do=findComment&comment=1407667)

Emkay, I'm sorry. I apologize to you for the existence of my game "Dimo's Quest in ABBUC Land". Please, don't play it.
That's all what I can answer to your verdict...

[emkay]

I borrow the words of Raster: (http://atariage.com/forums/topic/116421-thanks-miker/?do=findComment&comment=1407667)

 

Emkay, I'm sorry. I apologize to you for the existence of my game "Dimo's Quest in ABBUC Land". Please, don't play it.

That's all what I can answer to your verdict...

Du hast es ja echt faustdick hinter den Ohren.

Ich habe nie geschrieben, dass das Spiel schlecht ist, aber es ist nichts revolutionäres, und das scheint für Dich bereits zu rechtfertigen, Leute auf eine polemische Art und Weise zu beeinflussen.

Was bezweckst Du damit?

 

1. I didn't initialize the Thread, I'm trying to discuss , how to get mostly fair to all participants...

2. I never said, the game is bad. It's just that the game "Dimo's Quest" uses standard features.

Nothing new, nothing special for the A8. Also the gameplay is not very complex. Having a peek to the "Project-M" game(!) , it's almost the same. But while "Dimo's Quest" is the winner due to the great gameplay (?) , people still want Project-M completed.

3. The game is nice, and if people think, it is the best for them, it's also no problem for me, as I'm out of creating programs for the A8 for more than 20 years.

 

Why I always would prefer RGB over Dimo's Quest is that almost everything is better in the game.

 

What I like more with Dimo's Quest is the title and the Animations of Dimo.

RGB has the better concept, the better graphics, cool designed enemies, a cool gameplay that never has been on the A8, and the ingame sound is very good. It also uses more than 30 colours that belong directly to the needs of the gameplay. And the scrolling is at 48 Bytes... and so on.

 

Also Ransack, back in the 80s people would have possibly bought such a game for 100DM , if there had been one...

[Sleepy]

 

I did, but I didn't know how to vote until I got the paperwork through.

This should be a soluble problem; you could ask for the voting sheet per email (software(ad)abbuc.de respectively hardware(ad)abbuc.de) and get the sheets as pdf.

 

Sadly, this year, there was a little bit trouble with the printing company so that the magazine was beyond the usual hour.

 

Sleepy

Edited October 27, 2014 by Sleepy

[Sleepy]

 

...decide to give a point more to the "programmer" whom they "know better"...

 

Is this not exact what you´re doing if you give more points to RGB than DQ?

Or did you ever have any conversation about their game with 8BitJunkie or Holger Bommer?

 

Sleepy

Edited October 27, 2014 by Sleepy

[Creature XL]

Geeez...

I, as a developer and participant in that contest before, can totally understand why creators of a game/program are disappointed when they do not get the points they expected, because the audience doesn't see the game in the same way ( or hasn't have enough time to play it or what ever).

 

BUT, I can not understand why others complain about it?

The same discussion with "Yommph" and "Crownland". In my opinion "Crownland" is much better then "Yoomph", coding J'n'R isn't that easy as you all might think. And the composition of the graphics is (in my opinion) much better then "RGB" for example.

 

@unfinished:

I will not enter with an almost finished game in this contest again. Although I try to release the final version in the same year and do not start another project until it's done. And because I needed to finish "HitCEE" I could start with the next way to late, so I postponed it to (hopefully ) next year instead of rushing it to a beta state.

 

HOWEVER, if an unfinished game is liked more by the audience then a finished game so be it.

Normally, depending on the state they are in, they do not get many points anyway. I know what I am talking about

 

 

For the record, I haven't voted this year, as I played every game for 5 Minutes and I didn't want to judge them after that short period.

For me, technically "RGB" is awesome but gameplay not so much. (after 5 minutes worth of palying)

And Gamplay of "Ransack" is suprisingly fun, but technically not.(after 5 minutes worth of palying)

[Heaven/TQA]

to be honest... it's a virtual discussion... I appreciate every released game even the ones ranked lower... why? because finished in time for competition (wether "final" or not)... I know how hard it is to FINISH stuff... (Looking at the Gridrunner source being here unfinished or Beyond Evil or Boinxx)...

 

and if you don't like the genre you hardly will vote that game? not everybody in ABBUC has the knowledge, pation or whatever to decide if a game is a technical masterpiece or not? so actually a jury would be needed... or you let the members decide on your own...

 

I am not into RGB (sorry MaPa ) even it looks nice... and I liked (sorry again) Crownland more than Yomp (Sorry Fox )... even I know how hard Yomp was to do... (really? )... I played Crownland more and through several times because I really like plattformers and liked the sprite multiplexor.... And as I am a fan of Chips challenge I would have gave Dimo's Quest more points than RGB...

 

so what to say else? Let people decide in a democratic way and be a democrate and accept the voting... Amen