The results of the Minigame contest are now available. Congrats to all of the VIC 20 entries. We placed high this year including a bronze medal placing! I won't spoil the results for you; go to the webpage.
http://www.ffd2.com/minigame/
MiniGame Contest Results are IN.
The VIC-20 still seems to be considered an inferior platform, which I think is a good thing and raises the votes by a notch. While there are technically more advanced formats, there has to be at least three levels: "advanced", "regular" and "inferior". Apart from the memory limitation, maybe it is the big pixels that makes it inferior in people's eyes.
Anders Carlsson
It was nice to get some good voting news. I got 12th place. Most thought my game needed better instructions and lower difficulty. Speaking of voting... America had its election last night. I stayed awake well until the evening watching. I won't offend anyone with political discussion, but there was an interesting note. . .
Some americans, including myself, are convinced that the perception of americans has been damaged by the reelection of our president. Interesting enough, Bin Laden's videotape mentioned Sweden. In summary, he used Sweden to show that he is not anti-freedom, but rather, anti-american. With so many Swedish Vic users, I took notice. I thought it was an interesting comment. Did that make Swedish news?
I know politics are sensitive, so I won't push any direct political talk. I was just curious if the rest of the world is invested at all in this whole Bin Laden-war-bush thing.
Some americans, including myself, are convinced that the perception of americans has been damaged by the reelection of our president. Interesting enough, Bin Laden's videotape mentioned Sweden. In summary, he used Sweden to show that he is not anti-freedom, but rather, anti-american. With so many Swedish Vic users, I took notice. I thought it was an interesting comment. Did that make Swedish news?
I know politics are sensitive, so I won't push any direct political talk. I was just curious if the rest of the world is invested at all in this whole Bin Laden-war-bush thing.
being so close to the USA, us canadians are swamped with american stuff, whether we like it or not.
most canadian channels were covering your election last night, and supposedly bars had more people in them last night, watching the election!
crazy!
i am always a bit interested, because i want to find out who the next emperor will be, since the usa is the new roman empire, in my opinion (ok no more politics for me
chris
most canadian channels were covering your election last night, and supposedly bars had more people in them last night, watching the election!
crazy!
i am always a bit interested, because i want to find out who the next emperor will be, since the usa is the new roman empire, in my opinion (ok no more politics for me
chris
Yes, bin Laden's speech was on the front news of Swedish newspapers and I assume TV too. The government was NOT pleased to be addressed as a counter to USA, and they wondered what he means by that - in the eyes of the foreign minister, al-Qaida and bin Laden are terrorists that someone (else) has to defeat. The reason Sweden was mentioned is probably because we have a great tradition of mediation in conflicts in the Middle East.
Back to the subject of computers.. I have never programmed Z80, so I can't say if the processor is more memory or speed effective than a 6502, but when comparing the ZX Spectrum and VIC-20, the Speccy is by default a hires graphics computer and also has immediate UDG. It has its downsides though - more difficult to compare graphics on screen and it takes much more memory and time to copy or clear a full screen.
The colour possibilities are about equal - VIC has low resolution multicolour (3) while the Speccy can put a unique background colour to each cell. Neither has sprites, but the VIC has some hardware screen repositioning which I don't know if the Speccy has. The resolution is higher though, both in number of pixels and size of each pixel.
The VIC sound is better than the 16/48K model, but worse than the later AY chipped models. Amount of memory wise the ZX has an advantage, but maybe the file handling and storage options are more direct on the VIC? There are more outputs (like joystick) and a default better keyboard than the earliest of the Spectrum models, but the Speccy has direct TV output and takes almost a standard power adapter (beware of the reversed polarity!).
All in all, both should belong to the middle category in terms of technical features. I find platforms like the C64 and MSX in the upper half and ZX-81, Odyssey 2 (Philips G7000) etc in the lower half. As Steve at the compo always says, each platform has its advantages and disadvantages. Some however may have more disadvantages than other.
Back to the subject of computers.. I have never programmed Z80, so I can't say if the processor is more memory or speed effective than a 6502, but when comparing the ZX Spectrum and VIC-20, the Speccy is by default a hires graphics computer and also has immediate UDG. It has its downsides though - more difficult to compare graphics on screen and it takes much more memory and time to copy or clear a full screen.
The colour possibilities are about equal - VIC has low resolution multicolour (3) while the Speccy can put a unique background colour to each cell. Neither has sprites, but the VIC has some hardware screen repositioning which I don't know if the Speccy has. The resolution is higher though, both in number of pixels and size of each pixel.
The VIC sound is better than the 16/48K model, but worse than the later AY chipped models. Amount of memory wise the ZX has an advantage, but maybe the file handling and storage options are more direct on the VIC? There are more outputs (like joystick) and a default better keyboard than the earliest of the Spectrum models, but the Speccy has direct TV output and takes almost a standard power adapter (beware of the reversed polarity!).
All in all, both should belong to the middle category in terms of technical features. I find platforms like the C64 and MSX in the upper half and ZX-81, Odyssey 2 (Philips G7000) etc in the lower half. As Steve at the compo always says, each platform has its advantages and disadvantages. Some however may have more disadvantages than other.
Anders Carlsson
Can anyone point me at the rules that were used for 2004, so I can get a feel for what they are.
I am keen to enter in 2005 (started cutting some code last night in fact), and although the rules may change, this years should give me a good idea.
I did have a dig around (and on google) but for the life of me, I couldn't find them.
Cheers
Martin
I am keen to enter in 2005 (started cutting some code last night in fact), and although the rules may change, this years should give me a good idea.
I did have a dig around (and on google) but for the life of me, I couldn't find them.
Cheers
Martin
Rules: http://starbase.globalpc.net/minidir/rules.html
FAQ: http://starbase.globalpc.net/minidir/index.main.html (bottom)
Basically, it should be runnable, within the size limit, not play on porn, profanity etc and not contain stolen property. However, co-operation and credited use of other people's routines, packers etc are allowed AFAIU.
FAQ: http://starbase.globalpc.net/minidir/index.main.html (bottom)
Basically, it should be runnable, within the size limit, not play on porn, profanity etc and not contain stolen property. However, co-operation and credited use of other people's routines, packers etc are allowed AFAIU.
Anders Carlsson
Thanks for that ...
Now, I seem to recall seeing some mention on this board, plus there was scattered discussion on the minigame bbs, of whether ram expansion was allowed.
Is there a verdict on the ram expansion issue, or is the jury still out ? Given that the file size of the entry is limited by 1k and 4k regardless, I am hoping that ram expansion is still ok.
Cheers
Martin
Now, I seem to recall seeing some mention on this board, plus there was scattered discussion on the minigame bbs, of whether ram expansion was allowed.
Is there a verdict on the ram expansion issue, or is the jury still out ? Given that the file size of the entry is limited by 1k and 4k regardless, I am hoping that ram expansion is still ok.
Cheers
Martin
Yes, the official word is that RAM expansion on the VIC, ZX81 etc are OK, as it was a fairly common item and required for storing the program into memory. Not sure about RAM expansion and other units on consoles like Atari 2600, but there's a difference in that the console easily accepts ROM cartridges of 4K or 8K, and the "only" use for RAM expansion on a such system is for program workspace, not keeping the program in memory.
Of course you can make a cartridge image for the VIC-20 too, but as we all know, it is not trivial to run one of those either on an emulator or a real machine without the proper RAM (there we go again) expansion or an EPROM burner...
Of course you can make a cartridge image for the VIC-20 too, but as we all know, it is not trivial to run one of those either on an emulator or a real machine without the proper RAM (there we go again) expansion or an EPROM burner...
Anders Carlsson
MiniGame 2005 is announced
The MiniGame competition has been announced, although submissions are not activated yet. The portal URL is the same as before:
http://www.ffd2.com/minigame/
The forum is a completely new one, and it appears to be linked with the later voting stage, so only one account for both. The categories for 8-bit are the same as last year, but new categories for 16 and 32-bit computers have been added.
http://www.ffd2.com/minigame/
The forum is a completely new one, and it appears to be linked with the later voting stage, so only one account for both. The categories for 8-bit are the same as last year, but new categories for 16 and 32-bit computers have been added.
Anders Carlsson
Bwah, I am no where near as progressed as I wanted to be with my effort, and I have my 3rd kid due in 3 weeks. Furthermore, I am still very much in the learning phase (particularly, good 6502 practice).
Might have to submit what I will have as a 1k game I'm thinking.
3.5 months, hopefully should be able to get to some workable point. I can just see me coding at 4am, with the new bub over my shoulder asleep.
I have to admit though, I am amazed at how my xbox is taking second place to cutting code for the VIC. Born to be an 8-bit'er me.
Martin
Might have to submit what I will have as a 1k game I'm thinking.
3.5 months, hopefully should be able to get to some workable point. I can just see me coding at 4am, with the new bub over my shoulder asleep.
I have to admit though, I am amazed at how my xbox is taking second place to cutting code for the VIC. Born to be an 8-bit'er me.
Martin
