JetSetIlly Posted February 7, 2023 Share Posted February 7, 2023 I think the categories are fine as they are. The games should be judged on enjoyment level. The technical categories (best graphics, best music) is a place to judge non-game elements. My only suggestion would be a "best use of cartridge" category, or something like that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted February 7, 2023 Share Posted February 7, 2023 38 minutes ago, Keatah said: Totally valid because they fit in the slot. And all that. We all know our points of view very well. No need to repeat them. The problem is, that we have to somehow limit the number of categories. There are valid arguments for even splitting graphics and music and sound, because an ARM game can do so much more here than e.g. a stock 32K game (e.g. digitized music). So unless we split everything into numerous categories, these categories can never be 100% fair. Also we cannot assume that the majority of the public voters knows the differences or even cares for them. But if we split accordingly to compensate this lack of knowledge, in the end we will have little to none competition within the categories. And then the awards mean nothing. With the currently given number of categories (two), I think drawing the line at 4K is a very good compromise. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crash Posted February 7, 2023 Share Posted February 7, 2023 Is there somewhere that all of the items to be voted on are being showcased, such as packaging photos or game screens/videos, other than all of the individual threads? I can't seem to find it today. Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted February 7, 2023 Share Posted February 7, 2023 Just now, crash said: Is there somewhere that all of the items to be voted on are being showcased, such as packaging photos or game screens/videos, other than all of the individual threads? I can't seem to find it today. Thanks! There are links in each category. What are you missing there? BTW: For Packaging click "Game Binaries" too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crash Posted February 7, 2023 Share Posted February 7, 2023 I'm probably blind, but all I can seem to find on the voting pages are the items to vote for and the awards overview page "5th Annual Atari Homebrew Awards" with links to the other voting pages. I do see the links to the binaries, and I do remember seeing the packaging a couple of days ago, but I can't seem to find it now like an idiot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crash Posted February 7, 2023 Share Posted February 7, 2023 (edited) Thank you, it never would have occurred to me to look in binaries for packaging Guess I should have started with the binaries. Edited February 7, 2023 by crash Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
m.o.terra kaesi Posted February 7, 2023 Share Posted February 7, 2023 (edited) 6 hours ago, Thomas Jentzsch said: We all know our points of view very well. No need to repeat them. The problem is, that we have to somehow limit the number of categories. There are valid arguments for even splitting graphics and music and sound, because an ARM game can do so much more here than e.g. a stock 32K game (e.g. digitized music). So unless we split everything into numerous categories, these categories can never be 100% fair. Also we cannot assume that the majority of the public voters knows the differences or even cares for them. But if we split accordingly to compensate this lack of knowledge, in the end we will have little to none competition within the categories. And then the awards mean nothing. With the currently given number of categories (two), I think drawing the line at 4K is a very good compromise. I agree. It doesn't make sense to open up more categories, as the significance would drop to much for each split (imagine a winner game with less than, lets say 20-30 total votes). I would call myself a "majority voter" with not even basic tech knowledge, but I'm aware enough to take in consideration that a low kb-game might deserve my vote in terms of "sounds & graphics", even though there would be a more optical impressive game with high-kb's. We are defenitly at the maximum of sensefull categories now. One more thing: on the other hand, it is absolutely correct, that there are now two "best game" categorys for low- and high-kb games, because the philosophy and approach of a programmers in those two categories is very much different! Edited February 7, 2023 by m.o.terra kaesi Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+ZeroPage Homebrew Posted February 7, 2023 Author Share Posted February 7, 2023 12 hours ago, Thomas Jentzsch said: @ZeroPage Homebrew Maybe you should add this info to each entry next year. Not only the size but also the bankswitching type. Also it might be a good idea to create some info which briefly describes each uses bankswitching type. Maybe something similar makes sense for the other platforms too? I've deliberately avoided labelling games any further than the size of the binary and I've only done that so I know if they are 4K or under for those specific categories. When I'm playing the game I personally don't really care how much extra RAM it has, what bankswitching type it is or if it uses an ARM chip or not, all I care about is if the game is good and I enjoy it. From a technical standpoint, these things are interesting but we currently don't have any awards for 'Best Data Compression' or 'Most Colours Onscreen' and if we did, it's likely to be judged by other developers on the Nomination Committee. I've seen movies that cost $300 million that bore me and I've seen movies that cost under a million that are amazing. In a similar fashion, I've played 4K games that mop the floor with 32K games. For me it's about the gameplay and not the underlying technology. Like you said, it's easy enough for people to find out about the tech by pressing ALT-L if those kind under the hood type of things matter to them. 🙂 - James 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted February 7, 2023 Share Posted February 7, 2023 1 hour ago, ZeroPage Homebrew said: Like you said, it's easy enough for people to find out about the tech by pressing ALT-L if those kind under the hood type of things matter to them. 🙂 Definitely. And I agree with all your arguments. But the knowledge gap is still there. Without any knowledge I can maybe compare 8K vs 4K, but hardly anyone will know the difference between e.g. DPC+ and CDFJ. Or even know there is a difference. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Albert Posted February 7, 2023 Share Posted February 7, 2023 Are they fun games? Is the audio and video still generated by the hardware inside the 2600? That's all I really care about. I do appreciate the difference between <= 4K games and everything else. 4K is the size of the flat address space for the 2600, and all the original games were 2K and 4K in size. It wasn't until Asteroids came along that Atari introduced 8K bankswitched games. And squeezing everything you want into 4K (depending on the game, of course), can be quite the challenge! As if developing games for the 2600 wasn't already challenging enough. ..Al 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted February 7, 2023 Share Posted February 7, 2023 16 minutes ago, Albert said: Are they fun games? Is the audio and video still generated by the hardware inside the 2600? That's all I really care about. Be careful, that rules out the AtariVox. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Albert Posted February 7, 2023 Share Posted February 7, 2023 Just now, Thomas Jentzsch said: Be careful, that rules out the AtariVox. The AtariVox is not required to play any games, and any that use the AtariVox to add speech still use the TIA for sound effects in the game. ..Al Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+ZeroPage Homebrew Posted February 7, 2023 Author Share Posted February 7, 2023 2 hours ago, Thomas Jentzsch said: Definitely. And I agree with all your arguments. But the knowledge gap is still there. Without any knowledge I can maybe compare 8K vs 4K, but hardly anyone will know the difference between e.g. DPC+ and CDFJ. Or even know there is a difference. I think that might be the best thing about it! We have a wide array of people voting from the community, from expert developers like yourself to people who don't understand and don't really care about the technical background of the game. Everyone will evaluate games on their own criteria with the knowledge they have. I fear that if games are labelled with things like DPC+ and CDFJ, people might give or subtract "points" based solely on that criteria and not whether they like the game. This discussion brings up some great points and going forward I will probably only label games that are 4K and under. - James 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrZarniwoop Posted February 7, 2023 Share Posted February 7, 2023 1 hour ago, Albert said: Are they fun games? Is the audio and video still generated by the hardware inside the 2600? That's all I really care about. I do appreciate the difference between <= 4K games and everything else. 4K is the size of the flat address space for the 2600, and all the original games were 2K and 4K in size. It wasn't until Asteroids came along that Atari introduced 8K bankswitched games. And squeezing everything you want into 4K (depending on the game, of course), can be quite the challenge! As if developing games for the 2600 wasn't already challenging enough. ^ THIS! I think the ZPH categories are genius because I see the ≤ 4K categories as special mentions because the game "follows the tech limits at launch in 1977" and the other categories seemingly allow any innovation in bank switching, RAM, DPC, whatever, introduced anywhere down the line, or yet to be introduced. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Al_Nafuur Posted February 9, 2023 Share Posted February 9, 2023 PlusCart user can find the 5th annual Atari Homebrew Awards 2600 ROMs in the PlusStore folder: Public ROMs/Homebrew/Annual Atari Awards/5th annual Atari Homebrew Awards 3 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+ZeroPage Homebrew Posted February 9, 2023 Author Share Posted February 9, 2023 3 hours ago, Al_Nafuur said: PlusCart user can find the 5th annual Atari Homebrew Awards 2600 ROMs in the PlusStore folder: Public ROMs/Homebrew/Annual Atari Awards/5th annual Atari Homebrew Awards Thank you so much Al! 🏆 This is another great avenue for people to try out the games before voting. 🙂 - James 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+ZeroPage Homebrew Posted February 17, 2023 Author Share Posted February 17, 2023 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted February 17, 2023 Share Posted February 17, 2023 6 hours ago, ZeroPage Homebrew said: Two days? AFAIK today is the due date. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Al_Nafuur Posted February 17, 2023 Share Posted February 17, 2023 29 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said: Two days? AFAIK today is the due date. 🤔 In our time zone I think it's tomorrow Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted February 17, 2023 Share Posted February 17, 2023 25 minutes ago, Al_Nafuur said: 🤔 In our time zone I think it's tomorrow Yes, but still not two days, no? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Al_Nafuur Posted February 17, 2023 Share Posted February 17, 2023 2 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said: Yes, but still not two days, no? 🤷♂️ Even time is relative. And days is very imprecise if you do not specify the reference planet. Planet Day Length Mercury 1,408 hours Venus 5,832 hours Earth 24 hours Mars 25 hours Jupiter 10 hours Saturn 11 hours Uranus 17 hours Neptune 16 hours Pluto 154 hours 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted February 17, 2023 Share Posted February 17, 2023 We should warn people on Mercury and Venus then, else they will be too late. And we have to hurry for Pluto, else even the warning will come to late. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+ZeroPage Homebrew Posted February 17, 2023 Author Share Posted February 17, 2023 9 hours ago, Thomas Jentzsch said: Two days? AFAIK today is the due date. Yeah, time and days are all relative unfortunately. When I put up that post it was approximately 30 hours from the deadline, so not quite two FULL days. Right now there are still 14.5 hours until the deadline. Time zones make for fun scheduling and explaining when things are happening, especially around Daylight Savings time changes! In the top post I have the date and time relative to the Pacific Time Zone when the voting start and ends as well as when the Awards show is on. Just like on the ZPH schedule I've included a handy clickable link so you can find out what time it translates to in your time zone! 🙂You'll have to figure out how the day adjusts relative to your time zone as I haven't found a day specific page to translate that yet, only a time one. So if you're in Australia or New Zealand it's almost always the next day from the one I say. - James On 2/2/2023 at 6:00 PM, ZeroPage Homebrew said: Voting Begins: February 3, 2023 @ 6PM PT | 9PM ET | 2AM GMT+1Day Voting Ends: February 17, 2023 @ 23:59:59 PT | 12AM PT | 3AM ET | 8AM GMT Awards Show: February 25, 2023 @ 12PM PT | 3PM ET | 8PM GMT on the ZeroPage Homebrew Twitch Stream Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+ZeroPage Homebrew Posted February 18, 2023 Author Share Posted February 18, 2023 POLLS ARE NOW CLOSED! Thank you so much for voting everyone! See you at the 5th Annual Atari Homebrew Awards on February 25, 2023 @ 12PM PT | 3PM ET | 8PM GMT on the ZeroPage Homebrew Twitch Stream! - James 2 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+-^CrossBow^- Posted February 18, 2023 Share Posted February 18, 2023 I played most of these in emulation when making my voting decisions, but have just now found out that quite a few of these no longer load up on m Pluscart and just give me a black screen when loading? I did notice a firmware update on my pluscart last night that I went ahead and did so I'm wondering if something got messed up in the lastest FW releases? Other games are working fine including the ACE demnos still so definitely seems to be the games. Specifically Load Runner's demo doesn't load as an example. If this was already known about then I apologize, but the fact that they can be found in the plustcart online section seems odd if they didn't work? This was tested on a jr with both UNI RIOT and TIA chips in it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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