ABBUC Software Contest 2019

[Mr Robot]

17 minutes ago, toddtmw said:

For me, it turned out zip code was actually my state. I used the first letter of my state and it worked. 

I'm in, for me it was the first letter of my town, thanks.

[E474]

Hi,

 

   I have found a couple of bugs with ATR Maker Deluxe: 

 

   - it will only accept up to 7 characters for the output filename - if you enter an 8 character filename, the status bar (and main menu) get messed up when you hit "enter", and you have to hit system reset to get back to DOS

   - the lowest line of the screen isn't cleared when the program starts up, so there can be random characters on the lowest line.

 

   If you are writing ATR files to something like a 16MB disk hosted on a Raspberry Pi, SDrive Max, etc., you can copy off the files to the host OS if you run an emulator like Atari800, have   mounted the 16MB disk image containing the ATR's on D1 in the emulator, and copy them in MyDOS to H1:, using MyDOS option "C" - copy:

 

    D1:*.*,H1:

 

I'm guessing there are several other ways to extract files from a large disk image, but this works for me.

[freetz]

For those who still have problems logging in, please read what is written on the website:

Quote

Please note that the spelling is derived from the address sticker of the ABBUC magazine, including capitalization (and errors ), and that in some countries (such as the US and UK) the address line containing the street name begins with the street number, so if in the above address the spelling is "400 Atari Rd.", then the password would be 999JT46

In Germany, the "city" line begins with the zip code and the street address with the name of the street.  For 95% of the users, the instructions are therefore quite clear. For the remaining 5%, I tried to explain it as mentioned above. We have to somehow deal with address information that is irrelevant in Germany, such as in which of the 50 states you live in etc. Please excuse that we can't make a system that works based on the little information we have on each member and at the same time provides reasonable security and works with foreign addresses without making little adjustments here and there.

[gorgh]

just tried the programs, I'm really surprised how many good stuff was sent to this year's edition
Full House Poker- fun little game, intuitive steering
Train 3- very nice music, I used to play snake a lot during my studies during boring lectures
multi 10- original idea, 2 dimensional tetris
Dungeon Hunt II- oh boy this game is addictive! I must give it a longer try during weekend, I love the graphics
ATFILE 1.1,ATR Maker Deluxe- I don't really use physical disks with my Atari, so I can't really appreciate the effort, but those look solid
Block On Legs: First Steps- haha, funny game, reminds me of my first steps in assembler back in 1999, I like the oldskool feeling despite the fact the game is very simple
Castle Defender- I don't quite get the idea, but the execution is superb, this coloured hires is amazing!
Warriors-lovely graphics, too bad the game ends that fast

---
Thanks folks!

Edited August 8, 2019 by gorgh

[toddtmw]

6 minutes ago, freetz said:

For those who still have problems logging in, please read what is written on the website:

In Germany, the "city" line begins with the zip code and the street address with the name of the street.  For 95% of the users, the instructions are therefore quite clear. For the remaining 5%, I tried to explain it as mentioned above. We have to somehow deal with address information that is irrelevant in Germany, such as in which of the 50 states you live in etc. Please excuse that we can't make a system that works based on the little information we have on each member and at the same time provides reasonable security and works with foreign addresses without making little adjustments here and there.

Thank you for the clarification. It’s still unclear, however, why we cannot just use our ABBUC login.

 

after I paid my membership fee, I was asked to give my account ID and then was told that account has all member privileges now. 

 

Doesn't the ABBUC site know which accounts belong to members?

[tjlazer]

How can we create an account to test the games to vote?  I don't see anywhere where you can create a new account.

[Mr Robot]

1 hour ago, tjlazer said:

How can we create an account to test the games to vote?  I don't see anywhere where you can create a new account.

You go to here http://www.abbuc.de/mitgliedschaft/mitglied-werden and click "Be a member now!", fill in the form, pay your first years fees and wait for your membership pack in the mail.

 

Mine got messed up, I suggest you don't use Safari or any translate plugins when you fill in the form.

[freetz]

@toddtmw: You have gotten membership privileges on the general ABBUC website. This is a more or less closed content management system that runs the website where some sections are open to members only. However, we don't want to force members to register on the website with their e-mail address and all when it comes to voting as we want as many people as possible to participate in the voting process. That's why we're using a dump of the membership database and create login credentials based thereon for the contest portal which is a different system programmed from scratch. It's not possible to merge the two because we wouldn't know what forum username is connected with which membership number. So this way we can make sure that every member can vote, and not only those who chose to register in the forum.

[+Philsan]

8 hours ago, freetz said:

 

@Philsan There are so many temptations in life you have to resist. Take this one as another exercise, or fight it out with those guys who complained for so long that they want the games as early as possible in order to have enough time to come to a well-informed vote.

IIRC, the problem arose years ago when disks arrived late. I agree on the fact people should have enough time to evaluate programs but I think one month would be enough. Anyway, I'll try to resist but I think floppy disks will be delivered in a long time... ?

[freetz]

Ok everybody, it turns out that Wolfgang (the club's president) has sent me an updated password list where it seems that the last character is not the first digit of the zip code but the first character of the city. Probably the underlying membership Excel file has been changed and the password exporter reads now from a wrong row. We'll fix this asap, but for now you can just proceed as explained before but replace the last character of the password accordingly. Those who have changed their password before are not affected and the changed password remains.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

[popmilo]

13 hours ago, gorgh said:

just tried the programs, I'm really surprised how many good stuff was sent to this year's edition
...Warriors-lovely graphics, too bad the game ends that fast
---
Thanks folks!

Please try playing it multiple times with friends or even a wife or a girlfriend 
Sorry for the lack of content, it was a rushed job in last two days before deadline.
It will be expanded into a full beatemup with scrolling levels, weapons, items to pickup or buy in shops, boss fights etc

Cheers!
Vladimir

 

[freetz]

Ok, Wolfgang was really fast and generated a new membership password list where now the last character of the password is not the first character (digit or letter) of your zip code (some anomalies may stay as explained above).

[gorgh]

a small question for freetz. I'm running retro news webpage and I would like to share a footage of the games, of course with authors' permission, is it ok regarding abbuc rules?

thanks, kamil

[freetz]

Hi Kamil,

all authors are allowed to advertise their games prior to the JHV convention. This includes demonstrations at fairs, magazine articles or YouTube videos. So as long as the authors are fine with it, I'm too.

F.

[+KlasO]

On 8/9/2019 at 8:50 AM, freetz said:

Ok, Wolfgang was really fast and generated a new membership password list where now the last character of the password is not the first character (digit or letter) of your zip code (some anomalies may stay as explained above).

Despite trying all combinations I could think of, I cannot access the page. For the future, I would advise you to create a less confusing password mechanism. 

Edited August 10, 2019 by KlasO
Spelling

[freetz]

Send me your membership number, address and combinations you have tried and I'll check.

And fyi, passwords are meant to be safe and not easy to guess. But if you have any constructive contribution to make that takes the above mentioned constraints into account, I'm happy to listen.

[+KlasO]

I see that my previous comment appears rather surly, my sincere apologies for that. I did not intend to be an asshole towards people who put so my effort into something I get so much joy from. 

[freetz]

Thanks, and I meant it like I said - if there is a better way to do it, I'm happy to think about it, the thing is just that we actually did spend quite some time to figure out a way that enables people to vote without having to register again somewhere and not putting extra work on us to verify each member. And yes, for the forum users of the ABBUC forum, this is an extra "burden", but not that many of the 400+ members are members in the forum. That's what led us to this solution. Once you have logged in you can leave your e-mail address and next time you forget your password you can simply have a new one sent to you.

 

As for your problems logging in, there was an error that had nothing to do with the format of the password or anything. I'll have to contact Wolfgang about what went wrong there. I'll send you an interim password in the meantime via PN.

[Mr Robot]

@freetz you have a PM. Whatever you guys did, I could log in before, I can't now.

 

[freetz]

Thanks for the info, I did random checks with the new list to see if the entries are correct and those I checked were fine, but yours and KlasO's are examples where in the new list completely different passwords were generated. I'll have to check with Wolfgang what could have been the issue here. If you have problems, please PM me your membership number, your address as printed on the last address label and what kind of password combinations you have tried. This will help us narrowing down the error. Sorry for the inconvenience!

[darwinmac]

In my case, I noticed that the last letter of the password changed from the first letter of my city to the first letter of my state when the passwords were changed. I will definitely add my email address so I can reset my password in the future. I will also keep a copy of my ABBUC address label in case I have to guess my password next year.

 

I will say the instructions were clearer this year for those of us who are US or UK members. Unfortunately, it appears the password file did not match the instructions on the website.

 

@freetz If you want me to send you a PM with my ABBUC membership information, I am happy to do that.

 

Bob C

[freetz]

Ok, so Wolfgang has fixed the issues with his Excel file and now the password export seems to be working fine again; I checked with all the people who have sent me their membership details and now it should work as described on the website. If any problems persist, please send me your membership details alongside the combinations you have tried via PM, but I think that everything should work now (with the exception of some international addresses where you might have to experiment a bit regarding the street name and/or zip code...

[+Philsan]

On 8/1/2019 at 9:15 PM, matosimi said:

Little sneak peek

 

 

I didn't resist and I downloaded ABBUC disks.

 

Martin's game is fantastic, as usual.

 

43 colors 160x240 pixels titlescreen by Piesiu is one of the best pixel arts I've ever seen (inspired by BBC Micro titlescreen).

 

 

[freetz]

Just to clarify this to everyone who has participated in this contest: Some authors have contacted me regarding bugfixes to their programs and whether these would be conforming to the rules. After some internal discussions, we have unanimously agreed that

a) the disks as well as disk images will be distributed with the versions submitted to the online portal at the time of the deadline

b) patches / new versions submitted after the deadline will not be applied or included in the distributed disks

but

c) patches published anywhere on the internet that members can download by themselves if they want to are acceptable as there is no section in the rules that disallows them provided that

d) patches are not "replacement" of the sumitted programs, i.e. not standalone versions of the submitted program but rather a patch that modifies the file on disk as distributed by ABBUC to its members.

e) there is no 100% guarantee that the disk images provided in the online portal for members to download will be exactly the same as the physical disks distributed to the members. So any patch should better work based on the file submitted rather than access sectors directly. With boot disks it is more likely that a direct sector modification will work, but again, despite this unlikelyness we give no guarantee.

[freetz]

Because some people asked me: If you submitted a program that requires more than just one file, it is okay to offer, lets say, the main executable and not necessarily a patch, provided that main executable is not playable by itself. For example, if your game requires a main executable and separate level files, you can offer the main executable and thus you don't have to code a patch. For programs that just consist of a single file, you have no other option but to write a patch.