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Minigamecompo 2012

Dr BEEPDr BEEP
edited July 2012 in Games
http://minigamecompo.weebly.com/

As last year, 1K, 2K and 4K compo.

Now I can use all announcements on all forums you participate.

So far the food news!
Now even better news: I don't think that I will have time to code a game myself so it is up to you.
(in fact I have 6 games for the 1K ZX81 in hires, but they will be sold!)

Greetings,

Dr Beep
Post edited by Dr BEEP on

Comments

  • ajmossajmoss
    edited July 2012
    It's meant to be 5K, not 4K.

    The magazines made the limit 5K because that's as much as anyone would ever type into a hex loader for a single game. You make it 1K because of the ZX81, but 2K is neither here nor there, and 4K breaks the tradition for type-in games.

    Make it 5K and 1K and I'll write something for you, but if it's 4K then I just don't want to know.
  • ANDREW RYALSANDREW RYALS
    edited July 2012
    ajmoss wrote: »
    It's meant to be 5K, not 4K.

    The magazines made the limit 5K because that's as much as anyone would ever type into a hex loader for a single game. You make it 1K because of the ZX81, but 2K is neither here nor there, and 4K breaks the tradition for type-in games.

    Make it 5K and 1K and I'll write something for you, but if it's 4K then I just don't want to know.

    I think your missing the point!
  • jonathanjonathan
    edited July 2012
    ajmoss wrote: »
    It's meant to be 5K, not 4K.

    The magazines made the limit 5K because that's as much as anyone would ever type into a hex loader for a single game. You make it 1K because of the ZX81, but 2K is neither here nor there, and 4K breaks the tradition for type-in games.

    Make it 5K and 1K and I'll write something for you, but if it's 4K then I just don't want to know.

    The category has been 4K since 2002 I believe. It was certainly 4K when I used to participate.
    Still supporting Multi-Platform Arcade Game Designer, currently working on AGD 5. I am NOT on Twitter.
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  • Alcoholics AnonymousAlcoholics Anonymous
    edited July 2012
    ajmoss wrote: »
    The magazines made the limit 5K because that's as much as anyone would ever type into a hex loader for a single game. You make it 1K because of the ZX81, but 2K is neither here nor there, and 4K breaks the tradition for type-in games.

    5k seems such an arbitrary number; I don't recall any published limits in magazines?

    1, 2, 4 makes sense to me, all powers of 2, all doubling the size. 2k is a magic number for north american sinclair owners as it's the ram size available on the ts1000. 4k is around the usable ram in a vic20. The unexpanded trs80 model I had 4k ram. You will find that computers came in the 1,2,4,8,16.. ram sizes because of the power of 2. You will have to look hard to find one with 5k ram :P
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  • ajmossajmoss
    edited July 2012
    Alcoholics Anonymous wrote: »
    5k seems such an arbitrary number; I don't recall any published limits in magazines?

    It was 5K for the competition in Your Spectrum, when Stuart Jamieson wrote Macman and Macaroids.

    I typed in quite a few of them as a child, and I have a deep-set memory of the frustration of doing so, and of the perseverence needed to complete them. I can only speak for myself, but if any of the listings had been longer than 5K, I would have pulled the plug.

    If you want a rationalisation, it's that 5K is eight bytes per line, and 8 times 80 lines; 4K is not a multiple of ten. If you're frustrated, the advice is to count to ten. Not that this proves anything, of course.

    If the minigame competition is meant to be the equivalent of getting a game published in a magazine, then a 5K limit would be customary. If it is there to encourage efficient programming habits, I'll concede the argument.
  • LCDLCD
    edited July 2012
    ajmoss wrote: »
    If the minigame competition is meant to be the equivalent of getting a game published in a magazine...
    No, it was not meant that way. It gives a limit of 4K to programmer to let us show off what we can do with that small amount of memory.
    The compo rules must not be defined by programmers ("Give me 7Kb because I just wrote a nice game which has this size"), but the coder mus show what he can do with these limits.
    I hope, this explains it.
  • gasmangasman
    edited July 2012
    The practice of size-coding owes more to the demo scene than to magazine type-ins - and on the demo scene, there's a strong tradition of 4K as a size limit.
  • Dr BEEPDr BEEP
    edited July 2012
    The linit is only set for the datastorage. If your program needs more memory, then this is allowed. The ZX81 has the 'special' feature of having a machine with only 1K programmable RAM (screen included). So games based for this machine can't use more memory than datastorage.

    You are therefore entitled to use decompressors in your code, as long as they are inbedded in the total code.

    As for the size:
    In the early '90s I coded a BASIC version of my WorldBar game. It needed over 26k.
    A few years ago I recoded the game in MC and added computerplay. It fitted in 4K by simply using clever tables.
  • ajmossajmoss
    edited July 2012
    Ok, thanks to everyone for explaining that. I just needed to ask, to get it out of my head.
  • ANDREW RYALSANDREW RYALS
    edited July 2012
    jonathan wrote: »
    The category has been 4K since 2002 I believe. It was certainly 4K when I used to participate.

    does this mean we are never ever gonna see some of your ace minigames again ? 8-(
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