Despite being the guy who tried to enter two projects in the 2014 compo and failed, I still think the idea of a competition is a good idea.
Going through the rest of the thread from the beginning...
infiniteneslives wrote:1- 3months isn't really enough time for most people to create something significant from scratch. 3months is better for something along the lines of a mini game. Mini games are great and all, but if we're hoping for more significant entries a longer timeline is needed.
Agreeing with this for obvious reasons :p
infiniteneslives wrote:2- would be nice to have some sort of annual timeline that can be relied upon. This would combat the time constraint above. If compo entries are expected to be due the same time every year, then people could start whenever they wanted and not have to question when the next compo will be, or if it will occur.
I like this idea in general; however, I don't know if New Year's day would be the best option, due to parties and/or possible hangovers. :p
The 7-8 months deadline sounds reasonable enough.
I have no real ideas or requests regarding prizes/rewards.
Sharing progress (or not) should be up to the author, but I'm not sure if that should include in-progress demos or not.
The idea of calling it a "game jam" seems wrong (based on the multi-month timeline [see calima's post])...
However, I recall miau working on a NES game or two for Ludum Dare, so it's apparently possible once if you know the system like the back of your hand...
In order to get to that point though...
Punch wrote:2 - Create good tutorials (nerdy nights but more polished and with more content); could be for ASM, the C compiler or even Family BASIC (more on that later). Again, this helps to bring more new people to something as daunting as "programming a game that runs on a real NES".
This is a very good idea; the wiki is a great resource, but newcomers won't really have an idea where to begin.
Punch wrote:3 - Create open-source/PD version of Hudson's Family BASIC
This is also a good idea, but not without its caveats (see posts by tepples).
Punch wrote:what about PC tools?
IIRC, this is the approach Shiru(?) wanted to take, but I can't recall the status of the project.
"NROM only" and "anything goes" seems fine as far as category split.