ABBUC software contest 2023

[adam242]

13 hours ago, popmilo said:

Time for more people to play new games
Here are two games from me. Hope you'll like them.

You can find both Inkspill and Double in attached zip file.

 

Till next time
Vladimir

         

abbuc2023_double_and_inkspill.zip 333.83 kB · 53 downloads

Enjoying both of these very much.. love puzzle games.

[LarsImNetz]

Inkspill was amazing, it took me less than an hour and all levels are done. Very nice game idea.

 

[popmilo]

10 hours ago, LarsImNetz said:

Inkspill was amazing, it took me less than an hour and all levels are done. Very nice game idea.

 

I'm glad you liked it

ps. If you have any game idea you would love to see realized on A8 just let me know

 

[Irgendwer]

15 minutes ago, popmilo said:

If you have any game idea you would love to see realized on A8 just let me know

[matosimi]

42 minutes ago, Irgendwer said:

I started working on that game 15 years ago, even before Ridiculous Reality...

[+Stephen]

3 hours ago, popmilo said:

I'm glad you liked it

ps. If you have any game idea you would love to see realized on A8 just let me know

 

Another note from USA here.  The wife & I absolutely played the hell out of both Ink Spill and Double.  I am much better at Ink Spill and I must say that even though I have severe colour blindness, the chosen palette made it so play was easy for me.  She asked that I send this note

[popmilo]

8 hours ago, Stephen said:

Another note from USA here.  The wife & I absolutely played the hell out of both Ink Spill and Double.  I am much better at Ink Spill and I must say that even though I have severe colour blindness, the chosen palette made it so play was easy for me.  She asked that I send this note

Thanks for nice words 

ps. I also have slightly reduced red color vision, so I tend to choose colors that are far apart for such games. Guess it worked

 

[Irgendwer]

13 hours ago, matosimi said:

I started working on that game 15 years ago, even before Ridiculous Reality...

so, what holds you back then? 😁

[Yautja]

What about "RetroMaze", "Rotor" and/or "Numeru"? Will they be also released to the public?

[darwinmac]

1 hour ago, Yautja said:

What about "RetroMaze", "Rotor" and/or "Numeru"? Will they be also released to the public?

An improved release of Rotor was released on cartridge at the ABBUC meeting. When I asked, it sounds like a digital download might be available later this year. 
 

As far as Retromaze and Numeru, it could be that the programmers are not here on AA (or too busy with their lives) so they haven’t bothered to release them yet. 
 

I have been looking for those two as well. As an ABBUC member, I already have access to all of the games, but I cannot forward the games to our Atari user group (SCAT in the Chicago area) until they are released outside of the contest. 
 

Bob C

 

 

[popmilo]

18 hours ago, Yautja said:

What about "RetroMaze", "Rotor" and/or "Numeru"? Will they be also released to the public?

 

[RetroCoder]

RetroMaze code and bin - https://github.com/CycoPH/Atari8bit-RetroMaze

Numeru code and bin - https://github.com/CycoPH/Atari8Bit-Numeru

retromaz.xex numeru.xex

[chad5200]

Is there a Fujinet site that is sharing these ABBUC winners?

 

[rdefabri]

On 11/5/2023 at 8:27 AM, RetroCoder said:

RetroMaze code and bin - https://github.com/CycoPH/Atari8bit-RetroMaze

Numeru code and bin - https://github.com/CycoPH/Atari8Bit-Numeru

retromaz.xex 30.47 kB · 16 downloads numeru.xex 11.35 kB · 15 downloads

Apologies if you mentioned this previously, but dumb question - are these written in C?

[RetroCoder]

On 11/8/2023 at 10:37 PM, rdefabri said:

Apologies if you mentioned this previously, but dumb question - are these written in C?

The logic parts are written in C. All drawing is done in asm

[matosimi]

DotA source:

https://github.com/matosimi/DotA

[+slx]

On 10/30/2023 at 8:58 AM, pps said:

I totally understand this move, but sad enough, the tools always have nearly no chance competing to games.

 

Users tend to use tools on modern platforms more often now. The Atari gets more and more into a system, to play with. That's what it seems to be. 

While the latter is probably true, especially for software development, it's a pity if stuff like WozMon would cease to appear. Maybe a return to a separate category combined with a multi-factor scoring system that values the "programming art" that has gone into the program as well as its bare usefulness would help to honour clever solutions even if they might not be something used daily. (Maybe I'm a bit biased by WozMon which is a nice programming feat, well presented as well.) 

[freetz]

Thanks - well, for me it istn't about creating a different segment in the contest or anything like that. None of us puts that much time into coding because of the prize money, even if you manage to come out on top. But still we decide to publish our contributions in a contest, because we want to see how our contribution compares with others. Otherwise we could just release it outside the contest like many others do. And if therefore the contest makes it pretty clear that the "best" tool still gets fewer points than the "worst" game, then it's pretty clear what the large majority (of ABBUC voters at least) want. That wouldn't change if we created a separate section of the contest, it would just hide it better ;). So for me, personally, I would still code a tool if I want to, but probably would not release it in the contest if it's obvious that you come out at the bottom, one way or the other. For the contest, I'd focus on a game because that is what voters seem to want the most. And again, the quality of the games were certainly outstanding, that's not the issue here.

 

If ABBUC wants to promote development of tools etc. it could offer something like a "bounty". Members could for example decide what kind of tools they could really need each year and then vote on the submissions which one did it best. That way, it would at least be clear that the tools would really hit the nerve of voters, even though it may still just be a minority that uses them.

 

[+MrFish]

7 hours ago, freetz said:

And if therefore the contest makes it pretty clear that the "best" tool still gets fewer points than the "worst" game, then it's pretty clear what the large majority (of ABBUC voters at least) want.

I wouldn't use the results of a single-year's contest to make such a determination. In general, I would say that it holds; but it is also quite dependent on the entries. I think 2023 had pretty high-quality of offerings in the games department, which needs to be taken into consideration.

 

Look at the results from another particular year as a contrast. This was from the year 2008.

 

Platz	Titel	Punkte	Autor
1.	XDOS 2.4 mit YASH 1.0	467	Stefan Dorndorf
2.	Animal Party	437	Mario Callahuz
3.	SDG Statistical Data Graphics & Analysis	355	Claudio Fernandez Loquenz
4.	Blackbox	336	Chris Martin
5.	Zedi	280	Winfried Fiedler
6.	Pokey Glider	275	Bart Jaszcz

 

Edit:

Another thing worth pointing out, is that although a good-quality monitor/debugger might be greatly appreciate by those who would have a tendency to use such tools, it's not exactly general-purpose enough to be appreciated by as many people as something like a word processor, spreadsheet, DOS, file manager or other similar productivity or utility applications.

 

[freetz]

Well, of course this year might be a statistical anomaly, but to take the results from 15 years ago with only a handful of entries is not really convincing to me ;).

 

And I agree that WozMon is rather "special interest", also in comparison to the other tools this year. But the fact that it came out "best" among the tools kind of contradicts your assumption that it is the more general use tools that would fare better.

Edited November 18, 2023 by freetz

[+CharlieChaplin]

Maybe we can simply start two new topics here at AA and over there at Abbuc - with the subjects "Atari tools that I want on the Atari" (software that runs on the A8) and "Atari tools that I want on the PC" (software that runs on the PC)... ?!?

 

Examples:

 

Wanted A8 tools on the PC:

- a JPG and/or GIF and/or PNG and/or TIF and/or BMP converter on the PC, that converts pictures into Gr. 10 + 11 pictures for the A8; requirements: the destination format should be Gr. 10 + 11 with a resolution of 160x200 or 160x240 pixels and 8x16 = 128 colors, where Gr. 10 provides the well-known GTIA pixel-shifting (like in HIP, RIP and TIP modes) for higher resolution (160 instead of 80 pixels) and gives 8 luminances, while Gr. 11 provides 16 colours and one (base?) luminance. 

 

Wanted A8 tools on the real Atari:

- a Gr. 10+11 (160x240 pixels with 128 colours) picture viewer / slideshow program

- an AVF viewer (one for AVG cart, one for SIDE 3 cart) to watch movies in Gr. 10+11 format, similar to phaeron's 50fps / 60fps movie viewer for Gr. 9+11 format  (note: Gr. 9+11 has 256 colours but only 80x100 pixels resolution; Gr. 10+11 could have up to 128 colours and 160x200 pixels resolution)...

 

[+MrFish]

1 hour ago, freetz said:

Well, of course this year might be a statistical anomaly, but to take the results from 15 years ago with only a handful of entries is not really convincing to me ;).

I can see your point about there only being a small amount of entries. Never the less, Animal Party is a good game that was quite popular among users at the time, and yet it was beaten by a DOS. Also, I'm not sure why being 15 years ago would disqualify it from providing a meaningful statistic.

 

1 hour ago, freetz said:

And I agree that WozMon is rather "special interest", also in comparison to the other tools this year. But the fact that it came out "best" among the tools kind of contradicts your assumption that it is the more general use tools that would fare better.

I haven't seen much of these other applications; but of course the quality matters in how well any piece of software will do too. So, just because something is a word processor, that doesn't guarantee it will beat out a hex editor, if the hex editor is very good quality and the word processor is low quality. What I'm saying is that it might be harder for a (good-quality) debugger/monitor to reach very high in the standings compared with a (good-quality) word processor (for instance) -- based on user accessibility and interest.

 

Here are a few more contest results (with more entries) showing applications/utilities placing higher than the lowest spots and beating out games.

 

2021 Contest

 

 

2019 Contest

 

2011 Contest

 

Platz	Titel	Punkte	Autor
1.	Marbled	503	M.Pavlik, Z.Eisenhammer, M.Szpilowski
2.	Mighty Jill Off	490	Bastian Bührig, Daniel Pralle
3.	Roxblox	432	Martin Simecek
4.	Interlace Character Editor – I.C.E.	359	Bobby Clark
5.	PDP-8 Emulator	343	Norbert Kehrer
6.	Star Road	309	Thorsten Helbing / WASEO
7.	CRC32	287	Russ Gilbert
8.	Sherrifs Job	280	Ingo Boller
9.	BITS 1600 Pixel Paint	213	Herman Samso

 

 

2010 Contest

 

Platz	Titel	Punkte	Autor
1.	Ocean Detox	503	Marek Pavlik, Zdenek Eisenhammer, Adam Powroznik, Michal Sziplowski
2.	Jewel Bits	468	Mario Caillahuz, Michal Sziplowski
3.	h3x0r dekuxe	451	Martin Simecek, Zdenek Eisenhammer, Vojtech Nedved
4.	Robix	428	Radek Sterba
5.	RealDOS	377	Stephen J. Carden
6.	Donny 2	369	Winfried Fiedler
7.	Milk Nuts	363	Frantisek Houra, Zdenek Eisenhammer, Marek Pesout, Petr Svoboda
8.	Charedit	315	Florian Dingler
9.	Star Protector	301	Thorsten Helbing
10.	Atari VGM Player	280	Norbert Kehrer
11.	Gwobby Strikes Back	272	Jason Kendall

 

 

[freetz]

Quote

I can see your point about there only being a small amount of entries. Never the less, Animal Party is a good game that was quite popular among users at the time, and yet it was beaten by a DOS. Also, I'm not sure why being 15 years ago would disqualify it from providing a meaningful statistic.

Well, for the same reason that you wouldn't take a 15 year old statistics when it comes to most other fields as well. Just because inflation was lower/higher 15 years ago or was following a certain trend, it doesn't mean that this also applies 15 years later. To put it more concrete: In the last 15 years, a number of users probably have already passed away which were using the Atari like back in the days, and since the retro wave which became big maybe 10 years ago, new people who are primarily interested in games may have joined the club (if you go through the forums of previou years' contests, you can see people asking how to get the games and subsequently joined in order to get them. Also, emulation has become much more accessible in the same period of time, making tools like WozMon or image converters basically useless if you don't code/work on real hardware.

So the table from 2019 might in that sense show some predictability, but it would still be more sound to look at the results of the immediate years before to identify whether there is a trend or whether this year is actually the anomaly. I don't know what is behind the entries in 2021, but unless "Brushup" is a tool, the only tools that I can spot have come in the last two spots as well which would prove my point.

 

Quote

but of course the quality matters in how well any piece of software will do too.

Not sure how anyone would measure "quality" for a tool - because that's often hard to tell compared to a game where you can immediately "feel" whether the gameplay is appealing or not. For a tool to measure the quality, you'd have to have a use-case. And if you're a gamer and not a user, that's hard to tell. Worst case, you'd find the tool unintuitive if you don't "understand" it at once. I remember getting "Monkey Wrench" for the first time, having no idea what I could do with it and thought that it's useless. Only after I started coding myself, I realized how useful this tool was - but only back then, when other means were not available.

[darwinmac]

I am not the developer of Brushup XE, but I think it’s a painting program. 
 

Bob C

[+CharlieChaplin]

Well,

 

the problem with new tools/applications for the A8 is in my eyes:

 

a) the A8 computer is more than 40 years old and most tools/applications already exist in one form or another and not just once, but dozens or hundreds of times, e.g. DOS we already have dozens of them, Gamedos we already have hundreds of them, Assembler or Disassembler we already have dozens of them, Sectorcopy/Filecopy program we already have hundreds of them, painting programs for various gfx modes we already have dozens (or hundreds?) of them, font creator we already have dozens of them, monitor programs we already have dozens of them (software and hardware), etc. etc.

 

b) nowadays there are cross-compilers, emulators and whatnot on the PC, so everything one can do directly on the A8, one can also do on the PC for the A8, with the big advantage, there is more memory available, there is more speed available and simply more overall power. New demos and games (and often also tools/applications) for the A8 are rarely programmed on the A8 nowadays, most of the time they were/are programmed on the PC. Why should I use a font creator or a monitor program with several limitations on the A8, when there are much better and more powerful tools on the PC ? Some of them are already built-in into A8 emulators (e.g. Altirra).

 

My subjective conclusion: Converting games from the 70s and 80s for the A8 (that were not available back then) makes sense, converting tools/applications from the 70s and 80s does not make so much sense, since there are already much better tools/applications on the A8 and on the PC available. Furthermore, I am not a programmer (there aren't that many it seems for the A8), so most tools that are good + usefull for programming are not usefull for me. It also looks like the gamers (Atarians that use their A8 for gaming only) are the majority now. I am one of these gamers and only use tools/applications to create a disk magazine (Abbuc magazine), copy diskettes or transfer tapes to diskette. In the past I also converted sounds and gfx to the A8, but since I already have thousands of sounds/musix and thousands of gfx/pix on the A8, this does not make much sense to me anymore. (Think I have more sounds than I can ever listen to on the A8 and I also have more gfx than I can ever view/watch on the A8 for the rest of my life.)

 

So, it would be a good idea to start a topic what tools are wanted by the Atarians for the A8 and/or for the PC, even if many of them are only special-use-cases (usefull for very few Atarians).