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ABBUC Software Contest 2019


freetz

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On 8/23/2019 at 4:21 PM, TheNameOfTheGame said:

Thanks, I have that link.  Although I tried that, it seems the issue is I haven't been assigned a member number yet.  Not sure why, but Wolfgang emailed me that I won't be in the database until next competition.  He's trying to get me a temporary log in to try out the entries.

Why doesn't he send you the images per email? If you have further problems send me a PM. I will send you the ATRs of the disks...

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Yeah, I don't understand why I can't get a member number.  I paid already.  They are saying the database needs to be updated.  So what, just update the database. What's so hard about that??

 

Wolfgang was nice enough to send me two different temp logins, but neither worked for me.  So I paid for a year's subscription so I could try out the entries and vote and I'm not going to be able to do that.

 

Edited by TheNameOfTheGame
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2 hours ago, TheNameOfTheGame said:

Yeah, I don't understand why I can't get a member number.  I paid already.  They are saying the database needs to be updated.  So what, just update the database. What's so hard about that??

 

Wolfgang was nice enough to send me two different temp logins, but neither worked for me.  So I paid for a year's subscription so I could try out the entries and vote and I'm not going to be able to do that.

 

Either is their backend proprietary or running on SAP :D

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Hello TheNameOfTheGame

 

Voting is open until the annual meeting of the members of the ABBUC on (IIRC) the 26th of october.  So you still have about two month to get your votes in.  If nothing else helps, you can even send in the paper voting sheet that will come with the magazine.

 

Sincerely

 

Mathy

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@TheNameOfTheGame: I was not going to respond to your post at first, but now that you removed the "upset" part of it, I assume it was just the heat of the moment. But seriously, guys, what do you think that ABBUC is? A commercial enterprise that collects your money for profit and thus has to "deliver" instantly, and if not you have the right to complain and make demands?

 

This is a club, an association run by people who do this voluntarily in their (little) free time. Wolfgang, the club's president, has a lot on his plate right now, but still he does everything he can to keep the club running. Without him, there probably won't be a club anymore. I myself am still dealing with the aftermath of a heart attack, as I mentioned before, but had to return to my job. No one of us is making a big deal out of this, but guess where our priorities lie.

 

To explain you the "database" problem: We're an old-school 8-Bit club, and not a really big one. So Wolfgang is handling the membership details with ... Excel (OMG!). As some of you are certainly very smart programmers, I'm sure you will be able to program an MS Access-based online portal that automatically and instantly receives updated membership information, so that everybody can have access as soon as they have clicked send on PayPal.

 

I can't. And as the online portal was my idea, specifically with you guys across the big pond in mind, I wrote a "proprietary" online portal based on LAMP (although P stands for Perl and not PHP). To get the membership details (which consist of the membership number and a password generated based on your address details, as you know) into MariaDB, Wolfgang has to export the Excel database as CSV, run it through a password generation program and upload it via a backend of the portal I wrote. Since there always may be sources of errors (as happend earlier this month where some fields got mixed up), we don't do this every day, but when both of us have time so we can check wheter everything works fine.

 

Again, the online portal is a bonus, and even if it fails completely, you will eventually get the games on disk together with the magazine sometime in September or early October together with a voting form, so your rights as a member are not restricted in any way. But don't worry, we will update the online portal membership database at some point before the voting closes, so you will be able to vote online and also download the disk images from there, but it's still two months to the convention, and you may forgive us if we don't go through this certainly inefficient process at once every time a member enters or leaves the club.

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Hey Freetz! Thanks for the detailed explanation. I assume it will all be taken care of in due time.  My only real issue was that money was exchanged and the service isn't rendered.  If the money was taken after the membership was ready to be applied it would make more sense. I'll just consider it a "pre-order" for now. ?

 

Also, no there was no "heat" of the moment situation.  It is just the manner of Internet forums. It's hard to express feelings and words can be misconstrued.  That's the reason I made another post to clarify.  I'm not nor have been "hot" or angry about the issue.  It's only Atari lol and I know you guys are trying your best and your work is very much appreciated.  I was just a little let down with the process.  It's all good though.  Have a great day!

Edited by TheNameOfTheGame
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Thanks for the clarification. But just to be clear: Yes, money was exchanged and service (i.e. club membership as defined in the statutes) was/is rendered. You will receive the next magazine together with the disks like any other new or old member and any other service that is defined in the statutes. The forum, the online portal and the early access to disk images, hell, even the ABBUC website, is not part of the statutes, it is "just" an effort provided by caring members. And as soon as these members decide to no longer invest their time in their respective project, it will "fall asleep" as long as another caring member finds it in his heart to take over. Yet at no point would that construe as a "service not rendered" by the association.

However, if at one point Wolfgang would no longer be able to send out the club magazine which, as defined in the club's statute, must(!) so far include a floppy disk, then this would be breaking the club's statute and someone of the club headship would have to take care that this is done one way or the other.

 

Maybe association/club rules in the US are different to the ones we have in Germany, but the latter ones are the ones that bind us.

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Hi all,

 

I have written a long blogpost about working on Castle Defender game, you can read it here if you are interested:

http://matosimi.websupport.sk/atari/2019/08/the-story-of-castle-defender/

 

Please keep in mind I did not go very deep in the topic however it is not very shallow either. Hope you enjoy reading it.

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17 minutes ago, freetz said:

Thanks for the clarification. But just to be clear: Yes, money was exchanged and service (i.e. club membership as defined in the statutes) was/is rendered. You will receive the next magazine together with the disks like any other new or old member and any other service that is defined in the statutes. The forum, the online portal and the early access to disk images, hell, even the ABBUC website, is not part of the statutes, it is "just" an effort provided by caring members. And as soon as these members decide to no longer invest their time in their respective project, it will "fall asleep" as long as another caring member finds it in his heart to take over. Yet at no point would that construe as a "service not rendered" by the association.

However, if at one point Wolfgang would no longer be able to send out the club magazine which, as defined in the club's statute, must(!) so far include a floppy disk, then this would be breaking the club's statute and someone of the club headship would have to take care that this is done one way or the other.

 

Maybe association/club rules in the US are different to the ones we have in Germany, but the latter ones are the ones that bind us.

Ok, got it.  My expectations were not aligned with the charter then (I never read the fine print lol).  I was anticipating the online access foremost and not the magazine delivery.  Things are much clearer now.  As I've derailed this thread way too much I'll leave it at that.  You've been very kind to get things through to my old brain and Wolfgang has been extremely nice in the emails I've had with him.  All the best!

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18 minutes ago, matosimi said:

Hi all,

 

I have written a long blogpost about working on Castle Defender game, you can read it here if you are interested:

http://matosimi.websupport.sk/atari/2019/08/the-story-of-castle-defender/

 

Please keep in mind I did not go very deep in the topic however it is not very shallow either. Hope you enjoy reading it.

As someone who has done a much more painful conversion (z80+spectrum basic to ST 68000 assembly) I can only congratulate @matosimi for his hard work knowing all the pains projects like these have :).

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  • 3 weeks later...

FYI: Online voting is open since 1 September, and Wolfgang has also sent me an updated membership list, so the five people that have entered the club since the last update should be able to vote (and download the disk images).

 

Also, since online voting is possible in the hardware contest as well since this year, @Sleepy has asked me to incorporate this into the online portal as well. This is done now, so you can vote for both contests at the same time.

 

Please bear in mind that you can only submit your vote once! There is no way to retract or alter your vote once it has been cast!

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On 8/27/2019 at 2:02 PM, matosimi said:

Hi all,

 

I have written a long blogpost about working on Castle Defender game, you can read it here if you are interested:

http://matosimi.websupport.sk/atari/2019/08/the-story-of-castle-defender/

 

Please keep in mind I did not go very deep in the topic however it is not very shallow either. Hope you enjoy reading it.

Just wanted to express my thanks for that write-up, I really enjoyed reading how you tackled this conversion, awesome work !

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Has anyone received their abbuc disks yet?

Has anyone voted yet?

When I looked at the voting page I can't see my game "Block on Legs: First Steps" listed?

>>>

Hardware
Frederik Holst - AtariDuino Interface     
Software
Florian Dingler - Full House Poker     
BAHA Software - Train 3     
Frantisek Houra - multi10     
James Wilkinson, Daniel Wilkinson & Bob Follett - Dungeon Hunt II     
Kamil Trzaska - 601F     
Holger Bommer - ATFILE 1.1     
e474 - ATR Maker Deluxe     
Martin Simecek, Michal Radecki, Piotr Radecki, Chris Bradburne, John Blythe - Castle Defender     
Vladimir Jankovic - Warriors

<<<

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@therealbountybob: I'm terribly sorry for this lapse, I have fixed this now. I think it slipped through because you uploaded your game three times, and twice with screenshots from last year, so as I had to reject the "wrong" uploads, but I must have missed to put the checkbox on the "correct" one (in the backend, the submissions all appear on one long page and I have to click a checkbox for each entry that is accepted). Again, I'm very sorry for this. So far, six people have voted (membership numbers 149, 204, 237, 357, 398 and 900). In order to re-cast your vote, please PM or e-mail me with your membership number and password, I will then remove your vote and notify you so that you can re-cast your vote.

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@freetz

yes I sent in a few test ones just to make sure the upload would work!

as there's only 6 people perhaps they can be contacted about this.

 

Submitted my vote!

 

There is an update for "Block on Legs" with some extra levels, and game videos here, plus information on final much improved version 1.1 which will be released after the contest with even more levels :)

https://atariage.com/forums/topic/295508-block-on-legs-first-steps-update-disk-for-abbuc-2019-game-game-video/

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On 9/23/2019 at 9:08 PM, therealbountybob said:

Has anyone received their abbuc disks yet?

...

 

abbuc mag arrived in the post today! Boy is it a long time since the deadline for entering the games and the voting! Yes I know copying the disks and organising everything!

 

I now have 15 levels for Block on Legs, will try and get this to 20 for the "final" update :)

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  • 2 weeks later...

Since the ABBUC annual convention is getting close, I just would like to remind those members with membership numbers 149, 237, 357 and 398 to please get in touch with me via PN or e-mail so that they can re-cast their votes due to the missing "Block on Legs" entry. Thanks!

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