Atari Lynx Best Homebrew: 4th Annual Atari Homebrew Awards

[+ZeroPage Homebrew]

4th Annual Atari Homebrew Awards

Celebrating the best in Atari Homebrew

brought to you by

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

 

Welcome to the 4th Annual Atari Homebrew Awards, where YOU get to vote on your favourite homebrew games of 2021! The results of the Atari Homebrew Awards will be announced LIVE on the ZeroPage Homebrew's Twitch channel on February 12th, 2022 during a special broadcast. During the event we will be announcing the winners and runners up in each of the categories along with LIVE acceptance speeches from the winners, plus much, more!!

 

Voting Begins: January 21, 2022 @ 13:00:00 PT   1PM PT | 4PM ET | 9PM GMT

Voting Ends: February 6, 2022 @ 23:59:59 PT  12AM PT | 3AM ET | 8AM GMT

Awards Show: February 12, 2022 @ 12PM PT | 3PM ET | 8PM GMT on the ZeroPage Homebrew Twitch Stream

 

 

FULL 2021 RELEASE LIST FOR: Atari 2600, Atari 7800, Atari 8-Bit/5200, Atari Lynx

 

FULL NOMINATION RESULTS: LINK

VOTING GUIDE: LINK

GAME BINARIES & INSTRUCTIONS: DOWNLOAD LINK

 

Atari Homebrew Awards Voting Links (VOTE IN ALL!!):

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

 

Atari Lynx Best Homebrew

• Asteroids Chasers by Frédéric Descharmes @Fadest. Based on Cheese Chasers card game by Bran McMillin. Graphics by Templeton & Fadest. Musics by Sampo Rintanen/@Turbo Laser Lynx

• Raid on TriCity - Second Wave by Frédéric Descharmes @Fadest. Graphics by Daniel Horvath/@108 Stars. Musics by Sascha Lubenow/@Der Luchs

• Sky Raider Redux by Songbird Productions / James Higgs @jum / Team Jum

• Unnamed by Songbird Productions / Marcin Siwek @hikachi / Music: Carl Forhan @Songbird & Sascha Lubenow / English Editing: Igor Kromin @Igor

• Xump 2 by Nop90 @Nop90 (Code), Jonathan Dodd / Dulcahn (Graphics), Michal Szpilowski @miker (Music)

• YNXA by Frédéric Descharmes @Fadest. Graphics by Kronbits, Elthen & @Fadest. Musics by JP Garin/@rygar & @Fadest

[+jgkspsx]

I wish I could vote for each of these and the games that didn’t make the finals too. It was truly an amazing year for new Lynx software!

[neogeo1982]

44 minutes ago, jgkspsx said:

I wish I could vote for each of these and the games that didn’t make the finals too. It was truly an amazing year for new Lynx software!

Yeah it was, reason to play Lynx daily. I just wish it was broken into different categories. I like the music in one but the graphics in another. 

[Gulfman]

Look forward to seeing the final result. A great year for the Lynx. So many new games to enjoy. 

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Which emulator (Win10) should it use?

[MarcoJ]

Right, time to buy a Lynx. I've always wanted one!

[Fadest]

20 hours ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

Which emulator (Win10) should it use?

Mednafen and Handy are the most common options.

 

But I have switch recently to Felyx by @laoo

It is a brand new emulator, still in development, but I find it more accurate than Handy (last time I thought Felyx had a bug that Handy did not have, I realised my ROM was acting the same way on real Lynx, and Handy was a bit too permissive)

New emulator "Felix" - help needed - Atari Lynx Programming - AtariAge Forums

 

But right now, only Xump 2 is available as ROM (as it has not been released physical yet, but I hope Retroguru and @Nop90 will soon give us good news about this)

- Asteroids Chasers ROM is the WIP from 2020 contest. The core game is the same, the commercial game has new map (was useless in contest rom), reworked backgrounds/music/artworks, and some rework on achievements. I will probably put the commercial ROM on itch.io soon.

- Raid on TriCity available ROM is a demo, that features only the Arcade/scoring mode. Commercial game has a Story mode, where you have to complete objectives in a timely frame to continue your route.
- Ynxa available ROM is the one from the 30th birthday contest. Game has been heavily reworked (brand new level design, background graphics, characters animation, different music,...) but the spirit of the game is the same : it is a metroidvania like, more oriented on exploration/platform/puzzle than action, and the concept of the air/water/fire characters and the power they will get during the adventure is the same. I may release the ROM as digital download for sale, but still not decided when.

- Sky Raiders Redux is also heavily reworked from @jum 30th birthday coding contest version from my understanding. You may be able to find this preliminary version that will give you an overview of the game, but like for Ynxa, real game is far better than the contest version (which was very good also).

- I am not aware of any Unnamed demo ROM, maybe @hikachi or @Songbird can give us links to good youtube video about the game.

 

 Note: (don't read this spoiler if you plan to get an Evercade vs soon and don't want to be spoiled)

Spoiler

You can play Raid on TriCity Second Wave on your Evercade vs if you put both Atari Lynx cartridges in the console (it is the Atari Lynx hidden game), but this may be quite an expensive setup to test just one game

 

For my games (Asteroids Chasers, Raid on TriCity, Ynxa), they should be available very soon on Argon just sent them the ROM), for a limited time until the end of February (in order to give an option to people to play the games before voting, and let people play the games after the Awards if they discover there are new Atari Lynx homebrew games during the ceremony).

@ZeroPage Homebrew, I hope there is no problem with this ? This will be the same exact ROM I am using for flashing the carts for months, even if they were not available digital in 2021.

 

[Fadest]

@laoo just noticed that Raid on TriCity ROM does not have the EEprom flag (only useful for emulator compatible with EEprom support like Felyx and ???), so the game hangs with Felyx, unless you specify EEProm 93C46 in menu Cartridge/Properties (or download the version with the correct header from itch.io)

 

Sorry, the ROM was released months before first version of Felyx and as other emulator do not have EEprom support (or only in some alternative versions), totally missed this point.

[+ZeroPage Homebrew]

On 1/24/2022 at 12:00 AM, Fadest said:

 

@ZeroPage Homebrew, I hope there is no problem with this ? This will be the same exact ROM I am using for flashing the carts for months, even if they were not available digital in 2021.

Technically the awards are judged based on publicly released binaries between Jan 1, 2021 and Dec 31, 2021. If the above binaries you posted to Argon were publicly available during the year of 2021 then they are all fair game! If they've never been released before now, they should not be used for judging by the public, they should be using the binary downloads we link for the awards.

 

It's unfortunate but we have to have a cut off at some point, which is Dec 31 at 11:59:59PM PT. If there are continuous updates to the games, it would be an incredibly difficult task to keep track of and keep updating the voters every time a new binary comes out. The voters would also have to keep re-evaluating their vote each time each developer updates their game throughout the time they have to vote.

 

I hope you understand the reasoning behind a need for a cut off date.

 

- James

 

 

[Thomas Jentzsch]

7 hours ago, ZeroPage Homebrew said:

...between Jan 1, 2021 and JanDec 31, 2021.

Fixed.

[+jgkspsx]

7 hours ago, ZeroPage Homebrew said:

Technically the awards are judged based on publicly released binaries between Jan 1, 2021 and Jan 31, 2021. If the above binaries you posted to Argon were publicly available during the year of 2021 then they are all fair game!

I believe @Fadest is saying the ROMs were not available digitally but they were what were distributed on the physical games. Is that right?

[Fadest]

Yes, thanks you @jgkspsx

I guess it could be more convenient and clearly explained for me if I write in french, but would probably be more confusing for nearly everyone here

 

On Argon, this is the same binaries (byte by byte I mean) than the one that is on the physical carts. They are not available in download form. So they were publicly available in 2021, but only in physical.

I did not want to make an Ynxa demo or extract just for Argon because it would be a different experience than the one you can buy and can judge. But I should make one for show and fairs, because I need a more shorter prologue (usually people play 15-30 minutes and only go through the prologue and maybe some secret rooms).

But till, it would be far closer than the release from 2019 which can be considered as a very early WIP, or more probably than Ynxa 1, and the 2021 cart release is Ynxa 2: a nearly complete different game (but as some levels from the 2019 version are still here, I did not want to confuse people by calling it Ynxa 2). 

 

And the Argon release is not intended for judging, but mostly to let people try the games and maybe buy them. The limited time does not expire with the judging period, neither the Award ceremony but end of February. I hop many people will learn about the games during the ceremony then test them afterwards on Argon.

I think Argon is a great opportunity to let people try games that are only available in physical without letting the rom fly away too easily. AtariGamer online emulator is also for the Lynx but I guess it does not manage savestate or EEprom so is less convenient for games based on a story.

[+ZeroPage Homebrew]

Thanks for the detailed explanation @Fadest! From what you're saying it looks like the versions of the games now available to play on Argon were completed and released on physical media in 2021 but were never available to the public as binary downloads.

 

As the rules of the Awards stand right now, binaries provided for evaluation would have to be available for the public before 2022. These versions weren't available, for obvious good reason, as you wanted people to buy the full version on the physical media. Of course nothing is stopping people, or should stop people, from playing them on Argon and it's great you're putting your games out there to play so there's really nothing to be done or should be done in my opinion at this point.

 

It's an interesting situation and one we haven't run across before in the Awards. In fact this may be an excellent opportunity to have Argon be the way for people to evaluate the full experience of nominated games if they don't have access to the physical game! I actually never expected somebody to upload a full version of their game only previously available via physical media but this may be a great way to make this happen in the future. ?

 

- James