Results and Downloads posted [2014 Compo] / Double Action 53

[NESHomebrew]

The results are up, and downloads are available!

http://nesdevcompo.nintendoage.com/contest14/

Thanks to everyone who voted and participated this year. Keep your eyes open for details regarding the multicart compilation. Also, feel free to submit something for Category 3, or anything else you would like to be considered for the cartridge.

[Bregalad]

How many time is left until we can submit material for the cartridge ?

I have still much work to do, and the whole May month will be pretty full for me with real life even which means I won't be able to progress a lot.

Namely, I have 5 more bosses to implement (their design is done on paper, but I have to actually do it for real), and probably some more random/small enemies to implement, and 2-3 more musical pieces to compose (I was able to compose 3 of them the same afternoon last months, it was quite amazing, unfortunately it takes times for inspiration to come, and then it's sometimes hard to remember it when you had a good idea for a song.
Also I'll probably have to do more compression tricks as I'm slowly running out of my 32kb PRG space (currently 12% of PRG-ROM remains free).

So overall, for keeping realistic, don't think I can come with anything complete before the end of July.
If the cart is going to be released before, I could try and submit a sample of the game where only 1 level is playable. It would probably fit in 32kb PRG + 8kb CHR, or 32kb PRG + 16kb CHR if I include some title screen too. Pehaps I could even squeeze it in 16kb PRG but I can't promise anything.

[NESHomebrew]

The original plan was June 1st, with July 1st being the goal for release date. This of course depends on a lot of volunteer work so those dates might be a bit optimistic.

[JRoatch]

Good job everyone. I especially liked Love Story, Double Action Blaster Guys and Auge.

Also, feel free to submit something for Category 3, or anything else you would like to be considered for the cartridge.

For the record, I nominate Magic Floor. nocash would have to give permission of course.

The original plan was June 1st...

Oh boy, I better get going then. (I most likely have post a request for some music composition later)

[tepples]

The original plan for volume 2 was for me to make a new menu that looks like a desktop computer. I was wondering if that was still the plan or if could just use the same menu as volume 1.

• A fake POST screen would provide some time for the player to request serial boot. I'd need a working serial boot cable in order to test this.
• The menu would look roughly like a Windows or GS/OS desktop. But there turned out to be not many "apps".
• My effort would be split between adding the promised weapons to RHDE and polishing the menu.
• I wonder what sort of "headliner" game someone might submit for category 3.

I don't plan to include Dig Deeper until a big update because as it is, it's even less of a game than the games in Action 52.

To do:

• Download all entries to volume 2 folder
• Play through all games with write breakpoint on CPU $8000-$FFFF
• Play through all CHR ROM-using games with on write breakpoint on PPU $0000-$1FFF

[Punch]

Honestly I think I'll wait for the next compo to release my (still unfinished) game, I don't have much time to program and it would be nice to have some headstart on the next competition... if it is allowed of course (I don't think it isn't by reading the rules though). I can expand in the design and make it better for a 32 KiB rom instead of trying to cram everything into 8 (my game is a sokoban kind of game, and currently only 15 unique metatiles are allowed to be placed on the map grid to reduce map size )

Needless to say I loved most if not all of the entries. Thanks for the hard work everyone! Cheers!

[infiniteneslives]

The deadline is really whenever we decide we've got the final rom ready to publish in reality. I think the goal we originally set is a good target, although as WhatULive4 brought up that might push depending on everyone involved.

For those who want to make improvements and hoping to get their entry in before the cart build I would suggest going for it. Worst case it's still not ready in time and you've got good progress already made for next years entry. We haven't finalized this idea yet, but everyone I've mentioned it to has thought it would be beneficial. The idea is to have more of a year round effort on the compo entries. Now that we've got some momentum behind us again hopefully people will have enough faith that the upcoming compo will go off without too many hitches and their year round effort will have a the opportunity to pay off nicely when the deadline finally arrives that year.

The original plan for volume 2 was for me to make a new menu that looks like a desktop computer. I was wondering if that was still the plan or if could just use the same menu as volume 1.

Like you bring up the app category didn't really take off as we had hoped. I don't see a lot of value in changing things heavily compared to volume1. IMO feel free to put in the POST or whatever else you'd like, but don't feel like we're expecting it, or that it's a necessity.

would provide some time for the player to request serial boot. I'd need a working serial boot cable in order to test this.

I still have a cable for you sitting on my shelf. Blargg asked me to test it and make sure all was working before I sent it you way which I agreed with. But I question when I'll get around to setting everything up to test it, perhaps it's best for me to send it to you as-is and prevent further delay. Let me know what you think.

My effort would be split between adding the promised weapons to RHDE and polishing the menu.

I would say your time would be better spent tweaking/improving anything in your entry instead of reworking your whole menu again.

I wonder what sort of "headliner" game someone might submit for category 3.

I don't see a headliner in sight, but I could be wrong. I think we have more than enough room to add any category 3 entries for people interested in getting their game on the cart. If anyone else would like to add their somewhat recent work I think it would be welcome at this point.

I don't plan to include Dig Deeper until a big update because as it is, it's even less of a game than the games in Action 52.

Agreed, in hind sight I probably should have bumped it down to cat3. But it doesn't really matter at this point, I never intended it to be included in the cart at it's current state.

As for prizes, I've got the money in route to paypal so I should be able to pay everyone out via paypal this weekend. I'll gather people's info via email/PM by then. And I've purchased some SNES mice to get prepared for the cat3 prizes as well.

[Denine]

Great, I (probably) can finish a game within a month for category 3 (UNROM).

Don't want to be rude, but for clarity sake, MilioNESy is listed as fifth game in the compo list while having more points than Sliding Blaster, did someone make a mistake while writing points for Sliding Blaster?

[tepples]

I think only the top 3 get prizes, and sort order below the top 3 matters less.

And did someone forget about Waixing's 匹诺曹的复苏 (Pǐnuòcáo de fùsū / The Recovery of Pinocchio, ES-1080) when writing a question whose answer is Pinocchio?

[Denine]

Well, the sorting continues below and I just...nah, forget it. Sorry, if my earlier question sounded strange\rude.

I had no idea a Pinnochio game for famicom exists...thanks for pointing that out. Still, the question is about playing as a character on NES not famicom, so I will not change it, unless more people will have problem with it.
...Well, you could use adapter to play the game on NES, hmmm...

[tepples]

"NES not Famicom" is what I thought too until I saw the Cocoron question.

[NESHomebrew]

Great, I (probably) can finish a game within a month for category 3 (UNROM).

Don't want to be rude, but for clarity sake, MilioNESy is listed as fifth game in the compo list while having more points than Sliding Blaster, did someone make a mistake while writing points for Sliding Blaster?

Yes, that was a typo.

[tepples]

Any idea when judges' comments will be released? I'm looking for some constructive criticism.

[NESHomebrew]

Any idea when judges' comments will be released? I'm looking for some constructive criticism.

There weren't any comments requested in the judging process. If anyone has any comments regarding RHDE, please post them on the related forum thread.

[infiniteneslives]

Category 1 cash prizes have been paid out, enjoy your winnings!

The SNES mice have arrived in the mail from ebay sellers. Once I get the cords together I'll be able to ship out cat2 prizes less carts. If there is no rush on recieving the SNES mouse I can hold them to ship with the cart prizes, otherwise I can send em out asap no prob. Let me know if you care one way or the other.

Also, my NES case mold is officially stamping out cases now. So that shouldn't hold us back from a cartridge release like it did last year. Any thoughts as to a special color for the contributor cartridges? There was good feedback from the clear choice last year, although people will probably be disappointed they won't have the option to buy clear. More motivation to contribute next year! If we'd like to do some other opaque color I could put in an order for that dye as well. nesdev purple sounds nice too... I think it's best to stick with standard grey for the main release though.

As for other games to try and include in the cart, it looks like the cat3 entries would be good additions especially if the flight mini games is able to become more complete in time. I'm not sure the story behind why Auge is cat3 vice cat1. But if Krill has interest in letting us include it, I think it'd be enjoyed by many. DABG looks like a good add too!

I'm not sure how we're doing on space with everything. But I did get permission via PM from na_th_an to include Sir Abadolto the next volume. I asked about Sgt Helmet as well as I think he's responsible for that one as well, but I haven't yet got a response on that one.

Additionally Roth was interested in letting us include his snail maze in the first volume, but we didn't get permission in time. Perhaps he'd be interested in including it in volume2.