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2021 Atari Gamer game jam coming up!


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Hi All!

 

It's been almost a year since the last game jam that we've put on. The physical cart has been released and received very well (going by the number of sales so far). So...it's time for the next (now annual) game jam from Atari Gamer.

 

This is just a heads-up that the jam is coming up. As last year, there will be a theme, but the rest of the rules will be more or less the same (32k limit, etc). It won't be a ranked event again, so let's just have fun and make some games together.

 

The timing for this jam will be a little different. We're extending it by 1 week (a 3 week contest), starting on the 20th of November and going until the end of 12th of December.

 

Any feedback or comments are welcome.

 

Update - The itch.io page for the game has been created here - https://itch.io/jam/lynx-jam-2021

Update 2 - The theme is - "Let's make something scary"

 

1525424735_jamcover.thumb.jpg.883ee1f91aec9f525fa9381f97fdfc3d.jpg

Edited by Igor
  • Like 5
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1 hour ago, Nop90 said:

I don't know if I could complete something this time but, I'm in.

Fortunately the format is quite limiting as you cannot use the cart. I do have a rough idea. But of course it depends if it fits the theme.

  • Like 1
4 hours ago, karri said:

Was there a theme last time?

In any case this is likely a Xmas release. Right?
 

 

Yep, this is what last year rules had...

 

Your game must -

  • Have a holiday/festive season theme

 

All the ROMs will be available as soon as the jam completes but the physical cart will be released next year. In terms of theme...you will all have to wait and see :D  I did commission a digital artist to do the artwork for the jam cover art/theme, so hopefully the concept will give you some inspiration. We will probably target February for the physical cart release, depending on the number of entries we get. Sounds like there will be at least 3 already :D (I'm in)

Dates are clearly not optimal for me, but depending on the theme, we'll see... So it's more like a "no, but maybe".

 

(i.e. if the theme is christmas it´s a straight no :D)

Edited by LordKraken
  • Like 1

I can confirm that the theme has nothing to do with Christmas. LynXmas took care of that, I think this annual event is an opportunity to explore different ideas on the Lynx. In fact maybe as part of the submission I should request a suggestion for next year's theme. ?

Perhaps the theme should be generic enough to allow for different style games. So not a theme like "pong".

 

Is there any specific game style missing from the Lynx library?

 

One possibility would be to take some graphics sheet that all use.

What about a game with pirates. We could use a simple tileset like 16x16 Pirates Tileset by 0x72 (itch.io)

egvfV6.png.e18cf372880db7a51603c4ff82d6c49b.png

 

But the game could be anything. Pirate pong, card game, platformer, doom, mini rpg.

 

Or perhaps even a visual novel.

Novel.png.ef85d0464008ce4e86e792860e83e094.png

 

Use of the tileset could be recommended. You could be allowed to add graphics, animate, whatever...
The tileset would be the starting point. And the idea is to follow the visual style set by the sheet.

  • Like 2

The theme will be quite open, same as last year. I do not want people to be locked into a specific theme. In fact I might remove the 'single screen game' requirement since that clearly makes platforms not eligible. About a tile set - not a bad idea but not this time around as I've already got it worked out and the jam cover art paid for :D

 

1 hour ago, kamaleon70 said:

Will this jam be hosted on itch.io? I don't see it for November 20th on the list of the jams...

It sure will, I've not set it up yet, but I will be the end of the week.

Cool to see that the AtariGamer Jam/Contest is becoming an annual event! :)

 

I really love Karri's idea with at "starting tileset" as common theme. For one, it'll speed up development for people who are more comfortable with coding than drawing graphics (like me :p). But it'll also be very cool for a compilation cart to see many games with the same assets used in very different types of gameplay! So that'd be a cool idea for next year event maybe ;).

 

For this year, I don't think I'll have enough free time to make something in the jam duration, but I'm looking forward the theme anyway! :)

  • Like 1

Hey everyone! The jam's itch.io page has been created now here - https://itch.io/jam/lynx-jam-2021

This will be updated with this year's theme once the jam starts, so keep an eye on that.

 

Very excited to do this all again. A proper announcement will be made around the same time as when the theme is unveiled.

  • Like 3
On 11/11/2021 at 7:24 AM, Igor said:

The theme will be quite open, same as last year. I do not want people to be locked into a specific theme.

So my guess is that anything small and playable should be ok.

On 11/10/2021 at 6:31 AM, Igor said:

I can confirm that the theme has nothing to do with Christmas.

So obviously Christmas is banned.

  • Like 1

If the entry should also be available as a *.o file I seem to have some problems in using HandyMusic. A simple compile into non-segmented space and manually patching the addresses for the tune seem to provide a crashing game.

Has someone already ported HandyMusic to be included in a *.o compilation?

In case there is someone planning to participate but still wonders how to create the required *.o file. Here is how to run the linker to produce a game.o file using cc65 suite.

 

cl65 -t lynx --config lynx-bll.cfg -o game.o $(objects) lynx.lib

 

Running the command above links the object files to provide an executable game.o file for the jam. By using the default config file "lynx.cfg" you get a game.lnx file.

 

Padding this to become a game.lyx file requires a little more. Like running this in Python3:

 

fname='game'
with open(fname+'.lnx', 'rb') as f:
   raw = f.read()
data = raw
lyx = data[64:] + bytearray([255] * (1024*256 - len(data) + 64))
with open(fname+'.lyx', 'wb') as f:
    f.write(lyx)


 

4 hours ago, thefred said:

I just ran across this on reddit : https://www.reddit.com/user/PainterKira/

 

She has some pixel talent. maybe someone could commission her for some artwork.

 

She is really great. Her Street Café is incredible.
Changing it to Lynx resolution does ruin the image a lot.
But it is still good.

LynxRes.png.985b8375602a49c98c422defc38325c7.png

  • Like 1

Ok ok a few hours early but I am going to be in bed when the counter reaches zero, so here we go...

 

Just repeating what I wrote on the jam page...

 

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to make an Atari Lynx game within the next 23 days, to have fun and put a smile on players' faces. This is an unranked jam and we encourage collaboration and showing off your skills, but above all to have fun making a new game.

 

This year's theme is "Let's make something scary". So dig up your bodies, pull out the skeletons from the closet, unleash the monsters, spill some (pixelated) blood and maybe have a witch or two fly by. Let's make it the best scary game jam so far!

 

 

1858862437_jamcover.thumb.jpg.fd6e36b2193beb2ceeedf60c5e143401.jpg

  • Like 2

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