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The specs cannot be the problem. There were and are other competitions, with much higher specs, but with the same problem.

I'm relatively new to the MSX-scene so at the time there were no other competitions...
All I could find was MSXDEV...
later on the Passion MSX2 appeared. By then I already entered MSXDEV. And I must say regretted it at once.

I come from the GBA scene so am used to games with lot's more animation for example. This can be achieved on MSX1 as well but you'll need the extra bits....being limited in this will produce a lower quality game then possible (my opninion)

We might drop out the MSXDEV'08 because we can't live up(or rather down) to the lo-down specs. And we'll finish the game outside of the competition, which is a shame because I like competing against the best...(it's in my nature and it motivates me)

But the "problem" as you stated *MIGHT* lie in that new games are not praised as much as before (?) and developers are not properly motivated to keep going...

I rather think that developers simply grow older, have other things to do. And since MSX is quite bound to a generation -or better formulated: at a certain point there were no new younger people getting into MSX-, this may be a serious problem! I mean, take viejo. Always active/productive, but he has currently other things on his mind such as his recently developed and now finally compiled bag o' bones 'n organs ( ^_^ ), and it'll be like this for other people as well. Another thing is that many programmers have found a job in programming, after coming home again they may be a bit too exhausted or bored to continue programming on MSX in the evenings.

RyJuZo, so finally, we won't see your Knightmare III: Raziël's Revenge! this year??

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@viejo: Making mockups is always more fun than completing the whole thing I do hope you manage to find the time and motivation to work on some of them.

In fact what I really love is to design the game itself (gfx, how to face conversions, etc...)... but as robsy was pretty busy I started to code too Time will tell, but I am sure I will keep on working on some of those.

viejo_archivero, I still play Bomberman Special with your update patch

well, why limit yourself with specs ? I suppose everyone has a pc as well with bluemsx or open msx so even if you don't have an msx 2 (which should be the standard imho ) you can play those games. I could imagine some developers want to try stuff out that exceed the limitations and push them forward, and that they can't do that with the set restrictions. If it is purely meant because msx1 would suit everyone, then to all msx1 users: buy an msx2 damnit
It would be sad to see that a relatively easy to get computer doesn't get the full attention it deserves. it's not a luxury item compared to a 2+ or turboR realy, and the msx2 has a unique position in the 8 bit spectrum of homecomputers.

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RyJuZo, so finally, we won't see your Knightmare III: Raziël's Revenge! this year??

yes you will....as I said...the game will be completed on time even if we're out the competition...

I don't want to offend anyone, I'm just telling you what I personally think about super-pumped games: IMHO if you want to keep the MSX alive you should make a videogame that can be played on a real machine: if the target is a MSX1 game, IMHO the game should work on a real MSX1 machine; and then, a 128kbit game means that you have to put it on a cartridge if you want to play it on a real machine. IMHO it's a nonsense to make a game that can be played only in a emulator, if you want to preserve the MSX standard you *have* to preserve the machines and their use. And that's what I think.

If somebody wants to pay an homage to the MSX without having all the restrictions of a 20-years-old machine, IMHO it would be better to create a game in Adobe Flash or Java that resembles a MSX game; it could be played istantly by thousands of people... much more than the average people that use to download the games from the MSXDev compo.

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IMHO if you want to keep the MSX alive you should make a videogame that can be played on a real machine

Uh, are there games sold or spread for real MSX usage which don't run on a real MSX? Never heard of any of 'em!

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Uh, are there games sold or spread for real MSX usage which don't run on a real MSX? Never heard of any of 'em!

Wolf has never seen tape recorders and tape games? You damned foreigners were spoiled with disk drives! And have you never ever heard of hellish 1980s problem called "msx game which works on msx brand A, will NOT work on msx brand B" ?

Sorry, couldn´t resist....

I think I have 1 original tape game: The Chess Game MSX2, that's about all my experience I'm affraid. But I'm not sure whether cesco was going back in time this far.. ^^

AFAIK MSX1 machines usually have no more than 64kb of RAM, so if you're not going to store the game on a cartridge how can you load it from a floppy disk ?

If somebody plans to make a game that can be used only on a machine with 128kb of RAM, well -IMHO- it's better to make directly a MSX2 game, since very few MSX1 machines will be able to run that game - that is unless you are planning to put the game on a megarom cartridge... but even in this case you're probably cutting off a lot of people that might want to try the game and doesn't want to spend money on a real cartridge.

I'm going slightly OT... but it would be interesting if Matra or anyone else could make a mega-cartridge with *ALL* the games released in a MSXDev competition for... let's say... 20,00 Euro, instead of 12,00 for a cartridge with one (and only one) game.

So, what you're actually saying is that we shouldn't create (big) ROM files for MSX1 because -apart from a real ROM- there's no way to play it?

Yes, and -I repeat- that is just my opinion.

k.

I obviously don't agree, but alas..

Such a limitation would rule out large Megaroms such as Nemesis 3 and Shalom, both perfectly MSX1.