MSXdev22 goes all out

I'm looking forward to what kind of releases MSXDev'22 will bring. A nice MSX 2 / 2+ SHMUP (horizontal or vertical) would be great. And since the rule-set is already known, people can start already!

But first things first: Let's see what MSXDev'21 will bring us

Hey, Plastic Spoons Matter! B-)

And I can then sponsor a prize (some money) to be given to the best game using MSXdev'21 specs, i.e., MSX1 with no extra hardware? Is this correct?

Meanwhile, the donations for MSXdev’21 are going through the roof!

(And as someone who grew up with MSX2, I also like next year’s rules.)

WOW. Really great news!!

Nice, but the way I read it, the specs your game uses will affect its rating. I believe thats a wrong approach. A game should be judged by just how good it is, whether it's playability, gfx or sound. No penalty points should be given because you used dual plane mode to get that parallax scrolling right. That will end up in terrible discussions. Just rate the game, please! Only condition should be it runs in some kind of MSX set up. Thats true freestyle

I think the jury points will be given relative to the expectations of a certain chip, hence the "knowledgeable jury". Someone submitting Nemesis 2 for MSX 1 would probably win over someone with a g9k game featuring simple graphics. Following that logic, Space Manbow would win over Nemesis 2 for all the right reasons. If one compo anno today gives us both Nemesis 2 and Space Manbow, no-one has a reason to complain.

So now the question is... does a MSXVR count?

Great news, my friends!

This is like a dream coming true!

But please do not go back on the following year if not that many >MSX1 entries end up showing. Changes like these might take some time to take roots.

Finally! Freedom!
Exelent news!

umh, i think the rating should have parts not related to hw capabilities and others related to.

for example concept, playability are unaffected by hw capabilities.
when rating gfx/sound however, the graphic quality should be evaluated taking into account the hw capabilities.
For example a multiplayer smooth scroll on a TMS9918 VDP should have a very high rate than the same on V9990 because on the latter this is a lot easier to achieve.
the same apply to sound. if one game uses MoonSound and produces sound like beep, blip and other things that a simple msx1 can do with the sound port, it's rating should be very low, at least if moonsound is a required hw

Wolf, do you think that the jury would rate the games in wrong way because they are msx1 biased?
In that case, i think it would be easy to spot this.

PingPong:

I think a jury should know exactly what an MSX1, MSX2, MSX2+, tR, G9k, FM-PAC, SCC, MSX-Audio, x amount of RAM, x amount of ROM, and a disk can do, and what should be expected from it. The more you can do, the more is to be expected. This is regardless of the gameplay quality of course, a small game can be insanely fun while a high-spec game may look nice but is kinda boring to play. But alas, when artwork is considered, the jury should consider what is to be expected.

Ren:

I think SM is among the best games of any MSX platform, others would probably be RPG's like SD-Snatcher, DS:TLoH and Xak TToG, and I think Aleste 2 would also rank highly. I'd say it's fair to state that - regardless of how well done Nemesis 2 is - SM does use all the extras of the MSX2. So, in a contest, SM would win over Nemesis 2.

Now, it might actually be a different story when comparing Nemesis 2 with Hydefos. I'm not so sure which game would win there.

I really hope the jury doesn't judge the games based on what they know or expect of each hardware generation;
Expecting a Nemesis2 for msx1 or a SMW for msx2 or a GnG for v9990 is not realistic, those games took many years to develope (or a large, highly funded professional team in the case of Nemesis2)
So judging on what they expect for each system would not be fair.
For example:
What does people expect of a v9990 game?
Most people expect a NEOGEO looking game or a Capcom cps2 game such as Dungeons and Dragons - "shadows over Mystara" (for real, people have asked me to do that game in particular and several NEOGEO games...) while the v9990 P1 mode is actually closer to a 1984-85 arcade hardware, 10 or 20 times less powerful than what they expect/imagine.
How many people can actually judge objectivelly what an v9990 is capable of doing with a z80 or a r800?
I am not talking about people who have read the specifications on a PDF or a web page, I am talking about people who experienced the actual limitations and have finished something with it (because most who try fail to finish something and therefore they don't get the full experience. It is very different to start something as a demo than actually finishing a whole game, with all the perks that go with this experience).

I can count them with 1 hand.

IMHO I belive the games should be judged as any player judges them:
How you feel after you played them, based on the whole experience.

You don't need to be a wine curator in order to know if you like a particular kind of wine more than another, and you don't need to know how it was made in order to enjoy it.
The final taste is what counts.

But because sometimes things get lost in translation on the internet, I want to assure everyone that I am not trying to be a dick to anyone, just giving my 2 cents.

Kai:

msxdev entries have since almost forever been judged in the areas Gameplay, Graphics, Sound, Polish and Originality. It's probably based on what the jury wants though, I'm not sure whether these five are a fundamental msxdev law that can't be changed. If it doesn't change, then the artwork will be judged, so will the sound/music. Those are the areas where a jury needs to know what chips can do and what can reasonably be expected. Rest assured: there have been many FM-PAC games that would loose from Usas' PSG music (which, in my book, has the best PSG music in MSX history).

As for G9k: it's right that there's been very little software made for it, so you could say that no-one's ever seen the edge of the G9k-universe yet. Yet, at the same time, you know that it has pattern mode, which is quite like MSX1. But with better pixels, a better palette, better sprites, and with a multilayer that doesn't require a hackjob with tiles. One aspect that people need to keep in mind is the amount of sprites to deal with. As you can use more sprites per screen and per line: before you know it, you are using them, and you'll need more CPU cycles to check all the collisions. So, best would be to not forget that a sprite limitation does create a good balance. It's just that things can look better. And then the question is: how much better? And does it justify the G9k-potential? That's up to the jury.

Hence, you need a "knowledgeable jury"

Regarding v9990 at least, "knowledgeable" is the tricky part.
There are just not enough finished games and much less in several v9990 graphic modes in order for people to even compare, and much less people who actually have finished something and have a real understanding of what can be expected.
Reading and understanding the technical specs from the pdf is very different from what can actually be achieved with a z80 or r800.
For example:
Yes, you can put 128 sprites on screen (in order to make a big boss move, together with all the bullets and all the regular enemies), but for a z80, sending all those instructions alone eats up a big chunk of the z80 resources already, so you have little to no CPU resources for the rest of the game, much less when you add collisions.
Add opl4 music and sound (sending the 24 channels of data to the opl4 requieres A LOT of cpu cycles) and you have no CPU left.
People don't grasp this unless they actually try and suffer through this.
I could go on all night with examples such as this.
People who can judge this are people who actually suffered this, a lot, and made it to the other side alive, and there are not many of those, so knowledgeable jurers, at least for v9990, very tricky.

Anyway I will not insist anymore.
I will wait for the actual rules to be posted and for the jury to be revealed before I decide to participate. That seems the best bet at this time.

Great to hear!

I hope this will give a boost in the usage of various hardware extensions. I would love to see more GFX9000 games!

Oh, don't get me wrong, I didn't mean it as a deterrent! Let me say what I was thinking in a different way: my point is that this is an experiment year and it's going to be hard to have fair evaluation criteria, but that's ok!!! Even if I am sure there will be disagreements with the rankings, as an experiment, I think it will be a very good learning experience. So, I am very supportive of the idea to extend to other MSX generations/hardware! It'll be an interesting year! (although I'll probably still focus on MSX1, I am very interested to see what other people can do without constraints )

So personally I favor N2 over SM. But if they would be new games in this compo, then prob. SM would win indeed, but I don't think it's a straightforward matter. SM is shallow story wise ('arcade style'), where N2 is not. Both are immersive (that should be a big judging factor), but in a different way. (@wolf_)

Don't think, just start working on the entry And when you miss the deadline, you still have a nice project to finish after that

As for MSXDev22: fantastic! I'm really looking forward to see what people come up with.

Regarding the target hardware: just create a cool game and use the hardware that is the most fitting for it.

Hmm, sarcasm? Perhaps better to respond with something more substantial and/or address some questions, e.g. from Uninteresting (which I think is quite funny/interesting )

I believe, like this year's edition, you can do that (although this is a bit different from the categories given as example):

(Btw, unless I read over it, this is not mentioned @ https://www.msxdev.org/msxdev21/)

My question on a sponsored MSX1 prize wasn't intended as a joke. While my love for MSX is effectively limited to PAL MSX1, I wouldn't want to counteract the intended purpose of the eased limitations.

Hai,

As one of the organizers of the msxdev21 party, lemme just thank you all for the positive feedback. We are as exited as ya'll about next year's edition too. The official kick-off, around the end of the year, will explain more on that edition. For now, this news post is just a heads-up so folks can prepare their plans already.

Meanwhile, let us enjoy MSXdev21 (and the summer, of course)

cheers!

PAC-01 only 24th on gameplay? How?

Hi Micha, of course I understand your feeling that “this isn’t the format for me” to release your games in, you’ve explained it very well. For some reason people have gotten it in their heads that every game must be released as part of a contest, because every game that is not gets the same question: “why don’t you submit for msxdev?”.

But please don’t be discouraged! The gameplay score is just one individual person’s opinion, and I believe that if you look at the comments in the other categories (e.g. polish) there are extremely positive remarks as well. I say a top-3 ranking is an excellent result, and I enjoyed playing your game.

@Micha: seems to me like you expected to win the competition. Getting positive feedback does not mean that everyone likes your game. Some people simply do not like the genre. And I suspect that happened in your case. Judge giving points for gameplay seems to enjoy puzzles or has simply seen one pac-man clone too many.
Please do not give up on making games. I expect more excellent work from you. This is mostly about having fun, not a cutthroat competition.

Originality 20/20 though :) (some points for the original 256 team as well? ;)) (don't get me wrong, I think it's a great game / rendition / piece of work :))

Having a quick glance, I think it makes more sense when every jury member would give their points, and the final score in a category would be the average of that. I think that's better than to leave an aspect (especially when it's not a 'specialized' category) to a single individual to judge.

For 2022 it looks like some aspects will be more challenging to judge, as a certain discerning eye regarding the different platform/hw limitations/possibilities/challenges might be more of a necessity.

I agree with ren, evaluating the gameplay is very subjective and the best way is to have a panel of judges evaluating the game under any aspect and later average the scores.

PAC-01 is a technical miracle, round and polished under all its aspects. I love its sfx too, coming directly from the 80s
Micha do not give up! Contact a publisher and release it as a cartridge. It will become an instant hit in sales.

Not sure my words will help. I hope they do.
I love classic arcade games, so if you ask me, both your games are on the top of my list. Specially PAC-01 because I love Pac-man games. I must say I didn't find the time to play them (PAC-01 and Raven) as they deserve yet. But I tried them as soon as they were released on emulators and both have fantastic gameplay.
So I share your feeling of disappointment. Without even imagining the work you have put into programming them. You are clearly proud of your work and that is great (you definitely should be).
However, I think your feelings are clouding your mind. There is not right or wrong when it comes to gameplay preferences. Perhaps MSXdev jury does not have enough diversity of taste, and that's it.
I second Randam's words, please reconsider and tell us more about that inca-themed game

As I may have mentioned before It is still a mystery to me why my game manual was not considered when awarding points for my game Bookworm in MSXdev 21. Maybe someone more knowledgeable than me,on this,has an answer? It would be nice to know the reason (it maybe useful to know).

I haven't had the time to play many entries but I liked PAC-01too (and other games too, but this one is nice.) I normally don't like pacman games but it's nice and refreshing.

To be honest I never really cared about the scores in MSXDev, it's very subjective, and from previous entries I know that I won't get many points if I don't put music in, for example. (And I still intentionally didn't put music in this time, either. There's a good reason for that, but maybe I'll talk about it one day.)

There is just not much to do about the scores being subjective. Years ago there used to be public voting but in the end only very few votes were submitted and in the end they stopped doing it.

I guess for me MSXDev is just and excuse for a deadline so that I could finish some unfinished games lying around. And now you have 2 finished games, and you should really be proud of that. I find that if I just make games that I want to play myself, then in the end I have 2 more games in my games library.

I think what you have achieved is great. What you do now is up to you. You can keep making MSX games, or sell them instead of doing MSXDev, or do something else. Whatever you do, please do something that you enjoy, and don't worry too much about if other people don't like it. Focus on the people who do like your stuff instead, and on your games themselves. (I'm probably lucky that I'm already an established Spectrum games developer, so I have this problem a bit less.)

Also, well done everyone!!!