Atari 8-Bit/5200: Best Homebrew - 3rd Annual Atari Homebrew Awards

[+ZeroPage Homebrew]

3rd Annual Atari Homebrew Awards

Celebrating the best in Atari Homebrew

brought to you by

ZeroPage Homebrew, AtariAge, Mark/Space | Argon and The Atari 2600 Homebrew Companion

 

 

Welcome to the 3rd Annual Atari Homebrew Awards, where YOU get to vote on your favourite homebrew games of 2020! The results of the 3rd Annual Atari Homebrew Awards will be announced LIVE on the ZeroPage Homebrew's Twitch channel on February 6th, 2021 at 12PM PT | 3PM ET | 8PM GMT during a special broadcast. We will be announcing the winners and runners up on the broadcast in each of the categories along with LIVE acceptance speeches from the winners, plus much more!!

 

INFORMATION: VOTING GUIDELINES AND NOMINATION RESULTS

FULL 2020 LIST FOR: Atari 2600, Atari 7800, Atari 8-Bit/5200

 

Atari Homebrew Awards Categories (VOTE IN ALL!!)

• Atari 2600: Best Homebrew (Original)
• Atari 2600: Best Homebrew (Port) (New!)
• Atari 2600: Best ≤ 4K Homebrew (Original)
• Atari 2600: Best ≤ 4K Homebrew (Port) (New!)
• Atari 2600: Best Graphics (Original)
• Atari 2600: Best Graphics (Port) (New!)
• Atari 2600: Best Music + Sound (Original)
• Atari 2600: Best Music + Sound (Port) (New!)
• Atari 2600: Best Packaging
• Atari 2600: Best WIP (Original)
• Atari 2600: Best WIP (Port) (New!)
• Atari 7800: Best Homebrew
• Atari 7800: Best WIP (New!)
• Atari 8-Bit/5200: Best Homebrew
• Lifetime Achievement Award (Voted by Nomination Committee)

 

Nominated Games: Atari 8-Bit / 5200 Homebrew (Completed)

• Biscuits in Hell! by Paul Lay @playsoft, Darryl Guenther @darryl1970, Jaden "JRH" Houghtons @Jaden (JRH) (converted from ZX Spectrum)
• Disc O' Pop by Christian Krueger @Irgendwer (based on "Gimme Friction Baby" flash game)
• Dizzy - The Ultimate Cartoon Adventure by Frantisek "Fandal" Houra, Christian Krueger @Irgendwer (converted from Commodore 64, requires 128KB RAM)
• Last Squadron by Janusz Chabowski @shanti77, Michał Szpilowski @miker
• Raymaze 2000 by Nelson Ramirez @NRV, Paul Fisher @MrFish, VinsCool @VinsCool, Bobby Clark @Synthpopalooza, Jason Kendall @therealbountybob (based on "Raimais" arcade game)
• Runner Bear by Paul Lay @playsoft, Darryl Guenther @darryl1970, Rob Schlortt @Schlortt

 

Edited February 7, 2021 by ZeroPage Homebrew

[Dionoid]

To run 'Last Squadron' in the Altirra emulator, you'll need this patched version:

https://atariage.com/forums/applications/core/interface/file/attachment.php?id=785185

[shanti77]

Last Squadron needs original atari bios, altirra runs on its own bios by default.

[+Muddyfunster]

downloaded all of these, looking forward to trying them on my pimped A8.

[ilmenit]

"Adam Is Me" is not included for voting? Released for free download in December 2020.

http://aim.atariscene.pl/

Edited January 20, 2021 by ilmenit

[+ZeroPage Homebrew]

10 hours ago, ilmenit said:

"Adam Is Me" is not included for voting? Released for free download in December 2020.

http://aim.atariscene.pl/

"Adam is Me" was on the Nomination Committee's list of 64 games they voted on this year but did not make it through to the top 6 games unfortunately.

 

- James

[CapitanClassic]

Had fun with my initial try of each of the games, although quite a few additional plays are going to be needed before I vote. I haven’t really kept up with Atari 800 homebrew. My 800XL is still in a box, and unlike the C64, no modern equivalent of a HDMI Linux box has come out to hook up to newer TVs. (I know I could just setup a RasPi)

 

Going to have fun playing these this weekend.

[michomis]

12 hours ago, ZeroPage Homebrew said:

"Adam is Me" was on the Nomination Committee's list of 64 games they voted on this year but did not make it through to the top 6 games unfortunately.

 

- James

It would be appropriate to ask some questions:

 

1. According to which rules the games were nominated?
2. Why only 6 and not 10?

 

There are many others (beside of Adam Is Me) which are great and well polished games that deserve to be at least nominated: Literally, Lasermania 2020, Oxygen Be etc.

[+ZeroPage Homebrew]

10 hours ago, michomis said:

It would be appropriate to ask some questions:

 

1. According to which rules the games were nominated?
2. Why only 6 and not 10?

 

There are many others (beside of Adam Is Me) which are great and well polished games that deserve to be at least nominated: Literally, Lasermania 2020, Oxygen Be etc.

Thanks for asking!

 

1. We have a Nomination Committee made up of community members that voted from a list of all the completed games in 2020. The six games with the most votes moved on to the public voting list you see now.

2. We had 10 games per category last year but it proved to be too time consuming for the voters to evaluate, so we're trying the top six this year.

 

There are a lot of great games put out each year and if your favourite games were not nominated doesn't mean they weren't excellent games, please continue to enjoy them!

 

- James

[michomis]

Thanks for explanation. But I will like to share my thoughts. In my opinion voting will be cloudy then.
Problem is gamers cannot vote on their favourites titles and are very restricted.
It should work like Kaz Kompo if you ask me - all titles nominated.
On list are many good other titles so it is unfair to just not take them under consideration because somebody decided there is only room for 6.

[+ZeroPage Homebrew]

2 minutes ago, michomis said:

Thanks for explanation. But I will like to share my thoughts. In my opinion voting will be cloudy then.
Problem is gamers cannot vote on their favourites titles and are very restricted.
It should work like Kaz Kompo if you ask me - all titles nominated.
On list are many good other titles so it is unfair to just not take them under consideration because somebody decided there is only room for 6.

 

I understand where you're coming from and thanks for your perspective on it. The Atari Homebrew Awards started with 2600 homebrew, of which there are usually over a hundred titles each year,  so there was a huge need to narrow down the categories as to not overwhelm the voters. As we expanded into 7800 and 8-bit in the following years we also stuck with the same formula and narrowed down the number of games when it came time to vote. This is a very common thing for award shows, such as movies and music awards. Not every single film and song released in the year is voted on by the final judges, there are just way too many songs and movies made in a year and they need to be narrowed down beforehand.

 

This year with all the homebrew platforms combined there are over 200 games! There's just not enough time for everyone to play 200 games in time to make an informed vote. If they don't have the time to play all the games it would drastically reduce the number of voters able to participate as that's just not a realistic expectation.

 

In terms of fairness, unfortunately there is a sense of unfairness built into every contest as not everyone is going to get the top prize, not everyone can be the winner. It wouldn't be much of a contest if every game went home with a blue ribbon for participation. If a game wasn't nominated doesn't mean it's not a good game, everybody has their own perspective on what is enjoyable and it shouldn't lessen your enjoyment playing the game. I'm sure there will be a number of people who don't agree with the games that win the top prize each year. Being the winning game doesn't mean that it's a perfect game and everybody loves it, it just means that it got the most votes.

 

It's great that the Kaz Kompo operates differently than the Atari Homebrew Awards, if they were the same then there wouldn't be much point in having both, the results would be exactly the same! ?

 

I hope this gives you a better understanding on why we operated the way we do!

 

- James

[CapitanClassic]

This is why when accepting their Oscar, every Actor and Director thanks the “Academy” (Academy of Motion Arts and Sciences, and their 6000 members), since it is those people who determine if they were nominated to be considered for a award.

 

What we really need to know is who we need to bribe to get in the top 6 next year. ?

[+ZeroPage Homebrew]

29 minutes ago, CapitanClassic said:

This is why when accepting their Oscar, every Actor and Director thanks the “Academy” (Academy of Motion Arts and Sciences, and their 6000 members), since it is those people who determine if they were nominated to be considered for a award.

 

What we really need to know is who we need to bribe to get in the top 6 next year. ?

Or even better, save your bribe money and be ON the Nomination Committee! We're always looking for respected and knowledgeable community members/developers to help us out each year.

 

- James

[michomis]

15 hours ago, ZeroPage Homebrew said:

 

This is a very common thing for award shows, such as movies and music awards. Not every single film and song released in the year is voted on by the final judges, there are just way too many songs and movies made in a year and they need to be narrowed down beforehand.

 

You are right about that with no doubt, but let me explain and point out where I think problem is.

 

It can be seen that the commission nominated couple games that are much less technically advanced and obviously took less effort to make, than many of the others titles. Maybe commission aproach it this way: "I choose position which I like more" - if so, then ok, but then all games should be allowed to vote. If aproach was different, and based on some professional analysis and solid rules, then there should be place for at least 4-5 more games. So I still think it is unfair.

 

Let's wait and compare results with others (for example Kaz Kompo) to make a conclusion out of it.

 

[Irgendwer]

33 minutes ago, michomis said:

It can be seen that the commission nominated couple games that are much less technically advanced and obviously took less effort to make, than many of the others titles.

Since when is technical achievement and production effort a criterion for an entertaining game with e.g. high replay value?

 

Bushnell's Law:

All the best games are easy to learn and difficult to master.

 

Edit: BTW, still waiting for the Kaz Kompo 2018...

Edited January 22, 2021 by Irgendwer

[michomis]

57 minutes ago, Irgendwer said:

Since when is technical achievement and production effort a criterion for an entertaining game with e.g. high replay value?

 

Edit: BTW, still waiting for the Kaz Kompo 2018...

So maybe it would be wise and fair to make this in more categories next time? Best Technical achievement and best replayability and more? Like in Oscars which was mentioned here before.

And by the way, technical achievement and high replay value can be done in one game - and that kind of game should be considered as the winner.

 

As for KK2018 - me too... but it is not up to me.

[EmuDan]

On 1/16/2021 at 10:25 AM, Dionoid said:

To run 'Last Squadron' in the Altirra emulator, you'll need this patched version:

https://atariage.com/forums/applications/core/interface/file/attachment.php?id=785185 130.02 kB · 84 downloads

Thank you! I had a very difficult time getting this to run with even the lr-atari800 emulator. Now it works like a charm with the non-libretro version!

[EmuDan]

I just got a c64 mini a couple weeks ago, and I'm happy to see that the quality of these nominated atari games is at least as good, if not better than those c64 classics.  Also, the included joystick works fine with retropie on my RPi 4, so I'm having a blast testing these games!