ABBUC Software contest 2022

[Beeblebrox]

On 10/30/2022 at 9:03 AM, LarsImNetz said:

Even from my side: Congrats to all the participants. It was a great fun to program for the Atari 8bit.
I will publish the Pacmen-Evolution source code, on GitHub next time.

 

Lars

Great version of Pacman! Love it! Thanks

[holgibo]

Hello everbody,

 

here are the official results of this years' ABBUC Software Contest:

 

 

Congratulations to the team of BUNNY HOP for winning the first prize!

 

..and thanks to everyone who has participated in the contest! We have many new great  programs for our Ataris!

 

Best regards Holger / ABBUC software ressort

[Beeblebrox]

Not intending to confuse but here is the "Other" WIP video (the non ABBUC version) Shanti posted 2 days ago which - having watched it again - is looking great:

 

Main differences with this WIP version compared with the ABBUC release at a glance is that this WIP has:

 

• Title screen music
• New speech synthesis, (in game and also in the level completion message)
• Some reworked sound effects
• Reworked landscape graphics with psuduo 3D feel (like the origina Chaos Engine) - loving the new look.
• Reworked dashboard
• Multiple bullet weapons which "spray" fire the bullets out. (IMHO much less frustrating than firing at enemies in a single line of bullets - especially given the way these games handle the firing whilst moving directional firing).

 

WIP version                                                                                                                         ABBUC release version: 

          

Edited November 1, 2022 by Beeblebrox

[+Adam+]

25 minutes ago, holgibo said:

Hello everbody,

 

here are the official results of this years' ABBUC Software Contest:

(...)

Thanks. We won't see any points given in these results, only euros? 

[Mathy]

Hello Adam

 

7 hours ago, +Adam+ said:

Thanks. We won't see any points given in these results, only euros? 

 

I'm not sure if the points given will be published, but this is what the rules of the ABBUC Software Contest say about the prices:

 

Quote

9.1 The ABBUC awards monetary prizes with a total of 2,850 Euro. Of this total, 850 Euro are shared among the first 3 places. 2.000 Euro are divided by the amount of points given to the respective entry in relation to the total number of points given to all participating entries. This will give a calculated share.

For example:
1.place: 500€ + calculated share
2.place: 250€ + calculated share
3.place: 100€ + calculated share
4.place and all following places: calculated share

The share of the prize money results from the percentage of the votes achieved in relation to the total number of votes.

 

From it, one could deduce how many points each entry received.

 

Sincerely

 

Mathy

 

Edited November 1, 2022 by Mathy

[TommyTomorrow]

Will Trax be able to take part in the competition next year if it was incomplete?

[+ZeroPage Homebrew]

ZeroPage Homebrew is playing ABBUC Entries: Part 1 on Friday's ZPH stream LIVE on Twitch, hope you can join us! We will be playing the rest of the games in Part 2 on Tuesday's stream!

 

Fri Nov 4, 2022 | LIVE @ 6PM PT | 9PM ET | 1AM GMT+1Day

WATCH LIVE: https://www.twitch.tv/zeropagehomebrew/
WATCH LATER: https://youtube.com/zeropagehomebrew/

 

Games:

• Retro Dschump (2022 WIP A8 Port) by Peter Hinz @RetroCoder (Code/Graphics) / Michał Szpilowski @miker (Music)
• Dark Keep (2022 WIP A8) by Vladimir Janković @popmilo
• PacMen Evolution (2022 WIP A8 Port) by Lars Langhans @LarsImNetz
• dye - Heritage Edition (2022 WIP A8) by Christian Krueger @Irgendwer
• Arcadia (2022 WIP A8 Port) by Amarok @amarok
• Bunny Hop (2022 WIP A8) by Frantisek Houra @Fandal (Code) / Zdenek Eisenhammer @pseudografx (Graphics/Music) / Vin Samuel @VinsCool (Audio Driver)
• Moon Quest (2022 WIP A8) by Michal Radecki-Mikulicz - stRing @michomis (Code/GFX/MSX/Story)

(WATCH AT 1080P60 FOR BEST QUALITY)

 

[+ZeroPage Homebrew]

On 10/30/2022 at 10:06 PM, Beeblebrox said:

Many thanks. Heads up - I've just tried to load in Altirra on my spare laptop (ver 3.90 is installed on this lappy) and it went to Altirra basic screen. (Standard PAL settings with 1088k emulated).  I found I was running Altirra Altirra os 3.26 with Altirra basic so I switched to Atari XL/XE ver 2 and Atari basic rev c and it loaded fine.

 

Excuse my ignorance of Altirra but I'm not able to get Trax working, usually everything I run on it just works right out of the box.

I'm currently using Altirra 4.01 and like you I was not able to get Trax working using PAL with 1088k. Do I need to run an older version of it or do I need to install/enable additional ROM images? If I need to install something, could you link me to them as I'm unable to find Atari XL/XE Ver 2 and Atari Basic Rev C when I search for them or look for them in Altirra. Thank you so much! 🙂

 

- James

[Beeblebrox]

3 minutes ago, ZeroPage Homebrew said:

 

Excuse my ignorance of Altirra but I'm not able to get Trax working, usually everything I run on it just works right out of the box.

I'm currently using Altirra 4.01 and like you I was not able to get Trax working using PAL with 1088k. Do I need to run an older version of it or do I need to install/enable additional ROM images? If I need to install something, could you link me to them as I'm unable to find Atari XL/XE Ver 2 and Atari Basic Rev C when I search for them or look for them in Altirra. Thank you so much! 🙂

 

- James

@ZeroPage Homebrew just pm'd you.

[+MrFish]

I was under the impression that entries for the contest were supposed to provide at least some simple instructions/descriptions with their games. Yet I only see instructions for a handful of those that were published (Arcadia, Retro-Dschump, Bunny Hop, Moon Quest). It would be nice to have some additional information for these others, even if the information is minimal.

 

[+MrFish]

On 10/30/2022 at 2:39 AM, popmilo said:

Here is Dark Keep with a small sfx glitch fix.
There's still occasional bluring of sounds, think I need to learn more about Pokey

 

Congrats to all participants !

darkkeep.xex 23.61 kB · 90 downloads

Thanks for sharing your game with us. I like it.

 

Are levels randomly generated or randomly selected from a pool of fixed levels?

 

An idea I thought of is: make gorgon sound volume proximity-based.

 

[+CharlieChaplin]

22 hours ago, ZeroPage Homebrew said:

 

Excuse my ignorance of Altirra but I'm not able to get Trax working, usually everything I run on it just works right out of the box.

I'm currently using Altirra 4.01 and like you I was not able to get Trax working using PAL with 1088k. Do I need to run an older version of it or do I need to install/enable additional ROM images? If I need to install something, could you link me to them as I'm unable to find Atari XL/XE Ver 2 and Atari Basic Rev C when I search for them or look for them in Altirra. Thank you so much! 🙂

 

- James

 

Hmmm, unsure if you executed Trax from the Abbuc diskette or not. The game requires a DOS to load, I have chosen Bibo-DOS by Compyshop on the Abbuc disk. Like many DOS 2.x systems  (except MyDOS)  BiboDOS completely locks up with 1088k RAM. The used menu on the Abbuc disk looks like a gamedos, but it isn't, it's a short DOS menu loader that works with BiboDOS and shows locked files only.

 

As an alternative you can either try to load the game from the Abbuc disk with MyDOS or switch down to less memory (576k or 320k). Afaik, DOS 2.5, BiboDOS, TurboDOS, Super DOS, Happy DOS II+D, XDOS and some other DOS 2.x will also lock up with 1088k RAM (or better XRAM using x blocks with 8 banks each, since they only support max. 4 banks per block it seems).

 

 

[+CharlieChaplin]

On 10/30/2022 at 7:39 AM, popmilo said:

Here is Dark Keep with a small sfx glitch fix.
There's still occasional bluring of sounds, think I need to learn more about Pokey

 

Congrats to all participants !

darkkeep.xex 23.61 kB · 90 downloads

 

Well, evil me, I played several levels without collecting the treasure(s) and simply leaving through the exit to the next level. Did this with four or five levels, so maybe you should include a check if the treasure was collected or not, otherwise the game and/or reaching the next level is much too easy.

 

 

[darwinmac]

1 hour ago, MrFish said:

I was under the impression that entries for the contest were supposed to provide at least some simple instructions/descriptions with their games. Yet I only see instructions for a handful of those that were published (Arcadia, Retro-Dschump, Bunny Hop, Moon Quest). It would be nice to have some additional information for these others, even if the information is minimal.

 

@MrFish - The instructions for each game are included in the ABBUC magazine. I assume each developer has the option as to whether to include the instructions in their uploads that they provide here. 
 

Some programs, like Binary Parasite, made much more sense to me when I watched Saberman’s YouTube video about it. 
 

Bob C

[+MrFish]

2 hours ago, darwinmac said:

I assume each developer has the option as to whether to include the instructions in their uploads that they provide here.

They have the option, of course, to do whatever they want with everything after the competition. Maybe in the excitement, some of them forgot about including that part of it.

 

Edited November 4, 2022 by MrFish

[popmilo]

19 hours ago, MrFish said:

Thanks for sharing your game with us. I like it.

 

Are levels randomly generated or randomly selected from a pool of fixed levels?

 

An idea I thought of is: make gorgon sound volume proximity-based.

 

Glad you liked it
It's far far from what I envisioned when I started in spring this year, but I got stuck on making that pm color underlay method, and when it was finally working I had like ten days till deadline and it was in middle of my vacation with family on seaside and mountains So devtime was like 1h per day and frantic couple days just before deadline...

 

Levels were generated with my python script that produces one of images like this. Then it's packed in 1 bit/tile map and takes couple kilobytes for 100 levels or so...

This method could generate huge levels, could be even made native in asm if memory was a problem.

 

Each room in level is indexed, so I can place whatever monster or treasure I like based on some rule.

 

This is how tilemap looked on night of deadline

All those black empty tiles were supposed to be filled with some other stuff, but that'll have to wait till next game I make

 

Good suggestion about sound levels ! I have to experiment more, pokey is a strange chip...

 

[popmilo]

19 hours ago, CharlieChaplin said:

Well, evil me, I played several levels without collecting the treasure(s) and simply leaving through the exit to the next level. Did this with four or five levels, so maybe you should include a check if the treasure was collected or not, otherwise the game and/or reaching the next level is much too easy.

As you've noticed, game isn't really polished and double checked

Yes you can go through exit early, but treasure gives you not only gold but health too. On later levels monster is so fast you simply can not avoid it some times. That's where balance between trying to collect more health and getting to exit is interesting.

 

[michomis]

I have watched @ZeroPage Homebrew part 1 of playing abbuc games. There were some issues with saving Moon Quest state. Let me explain how it works.

 

1. There are TWO independent save states. One for each part of the game. By the way, you cannot save AFTER you go to the Moon.

2. Player should save on first part of game, BEFORE going on rocket route and before loading second part of game. Then, when replaying the game he first loads first save and right away is able to go to second part of game.

3. Second save must be done similarly. Just before going to the Moon player should make an another save state.

4. AVG cart with latest firmware supports save on Moon Quest atr. Saves can be also done on Sio2sd and sdrive or real disk.

 

Save remembers your items, activities performed, parts of suit collected etc. So do that each time you've made some progress.

 

 

[+MrFish]

2 hours ago, popmilo said:

It's far far from what I envisioned when I started in spring this year, but I got stuck on making that pm color underlay method, and when it was finally working I had like ten days till deadline and it was in middle of my vacation with family on seaside and mountains So devtime was like 1h per day and frantic couple days just before deadline...

Don't wait 'til spring, next time.

 

2 hours ago, popmilo said:

This is how tilemap looked on night of deadline

All those black empty tiles were supposed to be filled with some other stuff, but that'll have to wait till next game I make

 

I'm always amazed at how much can be packed into 128 characters. Plenty left for other interesting components. You can always swap in portions or whole sets if needed for variations, etc.

 

[+ZeroPage Homebrew]

2 hours ago, michomis said:

I have watched @ZeroPage Homebrew part 1 of playing abbuc games. There were some issues with saving Moon Quest state. Let me explain how it works.

 

1. There are TWO independent save states. One for each part of the game. By the way, you cannot save AFTER you go to the Moon.

2. Player should save on first part of game, BEFORE going on rocket route and before loading second part of game. Then, when replaying the game he first loads first save and right away is able to go to second part of game.

3. Second save must be done similarly. Just before going to the Moon player should make an another save state.

4. AVG cart with latest firmware supports save on Moon Quest atr. Saves can be also done on Sio2sd and sdrive or real disk.

 

Save remembers your items, activities performed, parts of suit collected etc. So do that each time you've made some progress.

 

Thank you for the additional information, I understand how the double saving works now, it makes sense given that the game plays in multiple parts.

 

Excellent game, thank you for making it! Great story, characters and puzzles! Looking forward to finishing the game next time we play it. 🙂

 

- James

[pseudografx]

There is now a bugfixed version available at Fandal's site. More information in the game's thread.

 

[Aking]

is the arkanoid clone out or i am missing something ?

[José Pereira]

5 minutes ago, Aking said:

is the arkanoid clone out or i am missing something ?

I don't think it is.

YouTube review by @ZeroPage Homebrew ABBUC 2022 games doen't include it and on Fandal's website the update games from last month have others (ones that have/had executables untill end of October) but not it.

 

Edited November 7, 2022 by José Pereira

[Irgendwer]

2 hours ago, Aking said:

is the arkanoid clone out or i am missing something ?

https://abbuc.de/forum/viewtopic.php?p=10239#p10239

 

Edited November 7, 2022 by Irgendwer

[Beeblebrox]

1 hour ago, Irgendwer said:

https://abbuc.de/forum/viewtopic.php?p=10239#p10239

 

Thanks for the link. Nice version. Just had a 5min game. I will need to compare but it think it might be better than Unicum and Unicum 2, which IMHO were pretty good Arkanoid games 

 

Unicum:

 

Break it 22 certainly has some nice colours and a lot of special upgrades. Nice: