MSXdev '07 - Results | MSX Resource Center

In the last few years, the MSXdev competitions gained much praise from the community. Not only did it increase the amount of new content for the good-old MSX1 system, it also made game developers more active. In addition to that, some of the typical high-end developers had to take a technological step back in order to comply with the hardware specifications, which on its own is refreshing and educating. And so, the competition kept continuing and will continue in the next year!

The jury of MSXdev'07, being Timo Soilamaa (NYYRIKKI), Roberto Vargas (k0ga) and José Andrés Gil (Konamito), have played and judged all the MSXdev'07 entries. Based on the regular points, bonus points and penalty points they've given, here is their verdict:

Caos Begins – 78 points (winner!)
BeTiled! – 74 points
Txupinazo! – 74 points
Lotus F3 – 72 points
Mr Mole – 60 points
Penguin Mind – 43 points
Italian Stallion – 41 points
Night Driver – 41 points
Yahtzee – 36 points
Crazy MSX Frenchies – 29 points
Bag Man – 21 points
Balloon City – 20 points

The result may be what people have expected already, Caos Begins was seen as a very good candidate to win this edition when the game was released. The difference with the numbers 2 to 4 is small however, this clearly states the quality of these four games.

As Caos Begins is the main winner, Hikaru Games will be awarded with the main prize: a Sunrise CF ATA-IDE interface and 200 euro. There were more prizes available though: Luppie.net offered a 1 year webhosting package for the game with the best music, and this one will be awarded to Caos Begins as well. Furthermore, Nerlaska offered 3 PC games "Dracula Twins" for best music, best graphics and best game. All these 3 categories were -again- won by Caos Begins. Finally, there was a prize for the best shooter, a Konamito.com T-Shirt, which was won by Balloon City.

And with that, another year of MSXdev has been closed. MRC wishes to congratulate the winner of this edition, and thank the sponsors for their kind donations and the MSXdev organization for continuing this popular contest! Without doubt, MSXdev'08 will be in the pipeline, it's just a matter of when!

Relevant link: MSXdev website

Comments (40)

By snout

Ascended (15187)

31-01-2008, 22:49

Congratulation to the winners and a big thank you to all developers for this nice pile of new MSX1 games. On to MSXdev'08!!!

By Yukio

Paragon (1540)

31-01-2008, 22:54

Nice ... Now, where is the MSXdev ' 08!
Point to the site or the newspost.
Even better. List the prizes and categories ...

By wolf_

Ambassador_ (10092)

31-01-2008, 22:59

Dev8 is a matter of time, it isn't announced yet..

By poke-1,170

Paragon (1783)

31-01-2008, 23:02

well deserved winner ! I had a lot of fun playing this one,
the storyline and little quests made it worth playing through
to the end... well ehmmm... still stuck

By Manuel

Ascended (19298)

31-01-2008, 23:05

Note that there is a tie between BeTiled! and Txupinazo!, both ended on place 2, there's no place 3.

By wolf_

Ambassador_ (10092)

31-01-2008, 23:10

nlist tag detail .. I guess you get the point

By dvik

Prophet (2200)

31-01-2008, 23:10

Although it wouldn't change the outcome its unfortunate that the judges missed some extra features on the Lotus game, such as
- support for saving high scores in the cart
- Screen 4 support on MSX2
- Mirroring in screen 2 for MSX machines that supports it
- SCC/PSG balance
etc.

Ah well...

By Ivan

Ascended (9341)

01-02-2008, 00:12

dvik, send some money to NYYRIKKI, k0ga and Konamito and maybe Lotus F3 wins some positions

By Huey

Prophet (2694)

01-02-2008, 08:13

@dvik: Your SCC flash support is very interesting. I think/hope we only see more releases that support this feature.

By Vampier

Prophet (2409)

01-02-2008, 08:17

..... So Spanish entries are favored over others? I like the bull fighting game but Lotus should have had atleast 3rd place.

By viejo_archivero

Paragon (1395)

01-02-2008, 08:36

Vampier: (...) "So Spanish entries are favored over others?"
Yeah. Also entries submitted by babes with a nice rack are favored over others.

By Imanok

Paragon (1198)

01-02-2008, 09:49

..... So Spanish entries are favored over others?
That's the power of spanish cured ham!
I like the bull fighting game but Lotus should have had atleast 3rd place.
Indeed, Lotus has reached the 3rd place

By ARTRAG

Enlighted (6931)

01-02-2008, 11:18

I have to say that I totally agree on the result about the winner.
Caos Begins isn't technically as sophisticated as Lotus F3, but has
a nice plot and balanced quests (even if I was too lazy to go deep
in the game).
On the other side, Txupinazo!,BeTiled! and Lotus F3 (after bugfix)
have a good level of addiction, where Lotus F3, due to the magic
scroll engine, suffer of a more essential graphic with the respect of
the other two games.
So, more or less, I agree also with the judgement about those
other positions.

By wolf_

Ambassador_ (10092)

01-02-2008, 12:39

I think I recall Edwin saying on irc -months ago- that some game was featuring that PSG reg 7 'bug' (the forbidden/dangerous bit), yet at first glance I don't see any penalties regarding that in the jury report. Could mean 2 things:
- these issues have been resolved by the makers of such games
- the jury didn't pay attention to that PSG issue

Which one is the case?

By dvik

Prophet (2200)

01-02-2008, 23:15

I don't disagree that Caos is a worthy winner but I'm quite disappointed that the judges gave a mediocre clone of zoo keeper and a game that is fun to play for five minutes better score than our game. Of course I'm biased but I don't think two of the judges did a very professional job judging the entries.

By Yukio

Paragon (1540)

01-02-2008, 23:50

I am not sure about the 'professionalism' of the jury ... But I tested the games (without listening the music or sound effects) on emulators (BlueMSX and OpenMSX) and the entries that got the 2º place were more funnier to play! Sure that the game that yours did is nice to look, but I don't know if people would be really impressed by the sound routines. After all not everybody could use a real SCC (the same about the Yamaha FM/AM chip!) ... This without talking about the 'save features'.

Now, for shooters. The game that has the lower score is a winner!!!
I am almost sure that even I could make some shooting games ...

By Yukio

Paragon (1540)

01-02-2008, 23:58

The games that I don't know about:
Caos Begins – 78 points (winner!)
Penguin Mind – 43 points
Night Driver – 41 points

All the others were reasonable well done for 8-bit systems!
In other words, I played just the other titles ... To not be spoiled before the 'final time'!

By ARTRAG

Enlighted (6931)

02-02-2008, 00:27

@dvick
Actually, I didn't know that BeTiled! was a Zoo Keeper clone, in this perspective, maybe its “Originality Score” is a bit too high (actually one of the judges commented "Very original game", probably not aware of the fact that the game mechanic is cloned).
About the other game, Txupinazo!, I’ve found it a bit too short, but, never the less, due to its colorful and funny graphic (true cartoons) and its music (MSX-Music!!) it has a very good appeal and let it play much longer than 5 minutes.
About Lotus F3, IMHO it has suffered a bit on the artistic side the efforts done on the game physic, the scroll engine, the flash recording and the on SCC music player. You have to admit that the game tracks are visually a bit poor (due to the scroll engine), despite the fact all the other aspects are technically excellent, when not unique (the scroll engine and the SCC music player are unique).
To this regard, are you planning to release the SCC player and its music editor? There is a true lack of SCC music players, especially of those able to use SCC with its true characteristics (channel distortion, updatable wavetable etc). The most part of the times we face patches to standard PT3 players and SCC is used as a large AY8910 with 5 more channels, by just acting on volume and frequency.
Giving your player open source, it could become a de facto standard for SCC music filling the gap we have on this subject!! Needless to say, I'd use it immediatly!

By dvik

Prophet (2200)

02-02-2008, 00:42

I'm still disappointed that only one of the three juryers did an in depth review. It does of course not matter that much but when you spend 6 months developing a game it sucks that the jury can't do a better job looking at all aspects of the games. Its easy to make a quick scan of a game but thats not really what a competition judge should do. Based on all the good things all three judges done in the past I'm a bit surprised that they failed this time.

*EDIT* And yes I think the SCC replayer and tracker will be made public when its bug free.

By Vincent van Dam

Hero (513)

02-02-2008, 00:51

Especially the tracker has a few nasty bugs that block a public release for now, but it is very likely to happen once those get fixed (though, unfortunately fixing the bugs also requires quite a bit of refactoring).

By ARTRAG

Enlighted (6931)

02-02-2008, 01:00

I would be happy also with an alpha release, maybe we could also help in spotting bugs.
The new MRC deadline get closer and a prompt release often is more successful than a bug free release (was that MS motto ?)

By Vincent van Dam

Hero (513)

02-02-2008, 01:01

I already mailed it to you

By Yukio

Paragon (1540)

02-02-2008, 01:17

ARTRAG,
you message wasn't destined exact to me ... But, wait a moment. Is there someone over here that didn't knew about Bejeweled? This is one of the most popular portable games!
Diamond Mine

I searched the Internet and Zoo Keeper is much like the same game, perhaps with animals ...

By Yukio

Paragon (1540)

02-02-2008, 01:29

Interesting.

BETILED! is listed as a Bejeweled clone:
Old School Gamming

By MäSäXi

Paragon (1884)

02-02-2008, 09:24

Indeed there is a mistake in MSXdev ´07 ranking:

As BeTiled! and Txupinazo both got 74 points, they should both be at 2nd place! And so, there is not 3rd place at all... so Lotus F3 is at correct place, the 4th.

Here´s the correction.

1. Caos Begins – 78 points
2. BeTiled! – 74 points
2. Txupinazo! – 74 points
4. Lotus F3 – 72 points

Caos begins looks and sounds very nice, sprites are very detailed and I liked very much that knight sprite, whole game looks much like nintendo 8-bit games except monochrome enemy sprites, but I guess I have to be 15-20 years younger to play it for hours...

My own winners are definitely BeTiled! and Night Driver.

BeTiled! looks somewhat spectrumy, even everything is made in screen 2, especially those chaps in title, story and game over screens look very much like ones seen in 80s spectrum games, but that´s not a bad thing. Thought must say I didn´t appreciate looks of those guys, but that´s a matter of taste. Music is enjoyable! And game is very well done, and playability is GOOD!!! Before first play, I wondered about playability, as every PC game in this genre has mouse control, but playability of this game is VERY GOOD!! There´s endless amount of such games for modern day PC, but it´s first ever such puzzle game on msx!! And it´s very well done!! Difficulty level could have been lowered a bit thought, even I got to 6th level... It´s MSX game that even my wife enjoys to play and that´s a much!!! ;D

Night Driver is a step to right direction, as there is too1 many OLDIES games which are not converted to MSX.... arcade original is very well made thought just 2 gears felt bit odd... MORE OLDIES GAMES CONVERSIONS PLEASE!!!!

Txupinazo! is maybe best looking game, but it is suffered by limited playability, but must say it would have been number #1! budget game in the 1980s!!!! very funny and enjoyable game for few tries! Thought I found out simple "trick", which enables you to complete rounds in almost 100% safety.

Lotus F3.... as said already, most interesting thing is VERY SMOOTH SCROLLING! Congratulations for that!!!! Thought musics were too techno styled for me to enjoy at all... but probably most people here like techno, so it´s understandable...

One thing about Lotus f3, how about making RALLY SPEEDWAY for MSX as your next project?? As this game is "almost" like Rally Speedway already!

Mr Mole was enjoyable and graphically very nice arkanoid clone!

Penguin Mind.... it was very strange game, as even I read those instructions, I had no idea how I could win in this game, as only way to win was to guess correct colours... I mean, playing was NOT the thing in this game, main thing was just guess correct colours and that was very frustrating.... I mean winning is just a matter of luck, not how good you may play that frogger clone.... maybe this kind of mix of two different games is a funny idea, but didn´t work at all as computer game... but don´t give up, just try to think mix of some other games! It´s nice that someones have funny ideas!

I had some hopes for Italian Stallion, but must say that there was almost no playability in this game, it felt like you have almost no control to your boxer... it was way too hard to get even few hits to your opponent... but surely this was VERY AUTHENTIC, as imagine yourself to the ring... how many hits you think you can give to your opponent before dying?! by the way... this game was published by Elite for Spectrum, Amstrad and Commodore 64 in 1985 as "Frank Bruno´s boxing".
I guess msx conversion don´t have multiload, so congratulations for that!

Bag Man looked nice even there were very limited amount of colours, it was nice for one round, and I know, this is BASIC game, but I suggest you could add something new to each new round, just changing colours can give that needed touch for player to continue! But I must say this is a well programmed BASIC game even thought there was one bad bug. It´s nice to see people still like to program games using MSX BASIC!!!

By viejo_archivero

Paragon (1395)

02-02-2008, 09:46

/me points to the "rules/registering a project/" section of the contest website: "All participants will accept the final decision of the jury."

dvik, the fact that you think Lotus F3 is better than BeTiled or Txupinazo does not make Lotus F3 better than the others. Lots of MSX users point BeTiled or Txupinazo as funnier games than Lotus F3 so what is the correct opinion here? I am a bit upset too dvik, but with all this fuzz with the final results: we have here three independant people in the jury (didn't thought the nationality would be a problem, but anyway...) and they set some score about the games, but all of them have made a GOOD job. It is true that one of the jury members has made longer comments, but that has been his decision too, that does not minimize the work of the other jury members, that has rank the games with coments as longer as the last edition results were. Again, you say Lotus F3 deserved the 2nd place, but that's your opinion (that is against the jury and quite some MSX users). I even think Malaika was better then Monster Hunter, but again is my opinion and Cas Cremers, Philip Pera and Jesus Perez Rosales wasn't agree with it

I am not upset you/people complaining about the results (it is something normal, noone will be completely agree with subjective results). What is making me angry is people telling some people from the jury has done a good job and some others don't

By viejo_archivero

Paragon (1395)

02-02-2008, 11:02

...BUT discussin' about the judging system is indeed positive, as it can help us on making more balanced decissions if possible. You seem to have nice ideas, it would be *really* nice if you write them down for us at the MSXDEV Team know. Moreover, depending on your willing to participate next year, it would be nice if you help us at the contest by being a contest juror. For both your MSX extensive knowledge and your judging ideas, you can surely be a big help for the MSXDEV Team!

By wolf_

Ambassador_ (10092)

02-02-2008, 11:10

As for the ranking: it's our automated nlist tag, which simply numbers from 1..x with every new [ * ].

By wolf_

Ambassador_ (10092)

02-02-2008, 11:12

Viejo: can you confirm my PSG bit with the jury plz? It may be relevant for dev8..

By NYYRIKKI

Enlighted (6030)

02-02-2008, 11:36

- the jury didn't pay attention to that PSG issue
Here is quote from the rules:
If a game does not run properly in all MSX generations, its score will be penalised in accordance to the importance of the detected issues or even disqualified. Those issues won't be a task of the jury, whose only will judge full compatible MSX games, but for the organization to accept or not a game with compatibility problems or ask for a fix to the authors.

By wolf_

Ambassador_ (10092)

02-02-2008, 11:43

Iirc during dev5 games with that PSG-issue got penalty points from the jury (guyver). Anyway, whoever was to point out those PSG issues this year (organization or jury): is it even present anyway (and if so: is it weighted in the final score)?

By Ivan

Ascended (9341)

02-02-2008, 12:06

dvik, don't take it too seriously! IMHO Lotus F3 should have finished in the 2nd place (and technically in the 1st). But we must respect the decision of the jury. Everybody will make their own judgements about the games and the results.

By Manuel

Ascended (19298)

02-02-2008, 13:02

Yep, I agree with the previous poster here, but the difference is rather small (only 2 points)... It's a matter of people: all of them have different tastes.
Of all MSXDev 07 games, I think I played Lotus F3 the most To me it has the biggest replay value.

By viejo_archivero

Paragon (1395)

02-02-2008, 13:08

Wolf: there are games with that issue? I mean, Night Driver entered with this problem but was fixed before the deadline, and I don't know if there were other games failing with that problem. Anyone?
And about Lotus F3, I also think it is a great game, a winner like Caos Begins with no doubt. But that's my opinion. I also think Night Driver is a more solid game entry than others at upper places but that's again just imho, others probably don't think so

By wolf_

Ambassador_ (10092)

02-02-2008, 13:11

Well, that's why I also gave the other option, in which such games had been fixed prior to the deadline. It's just remarkable there're no penalty points at all..

By viejo_archivero

Paragon (1395)

02-02-2008, 13:21

Then, as the jury did not reported it, probably there are no games with that issue . All jury members do not need to be hyper MSX extreme coders so they can notice that: everyone here is talking about the technical thingies into the game... some of the jury are just gamers that talks about the game being fun or not, so I doubt they can detect a issue regarding PSG illegal accesses.

By Vincent van Dam

Hero (513)

02-02-2008, 13:40

It's just emotion after a lot of hard work. But, in the end, it's just a contest, and we produced one of the best games this year. I am verry happy with the game we produced. It's fun to play and it has imho great lastability.

The graphics may be a bit on the downside, which seems the main reason for the 'low' ranking, but it was either smooth scrolling or better graphics (it's still msx and there are limitations). We have chosen smooth scrolling because that fits the gameplay best (and for its technicall challenge ofcourse). We expected that this would also make sense to the people playing it.

I like the other games too, especially the top-3. I hope to be able to buy Caos on a cartridge soon Too bad Crazy MSX Frenchies ranked 10th, I find that quite an amusing game (the msx2 version more though).

By spl

Paragon (1470)

02-02-2008, 20:05

Actually I am a real fan of car games... so I wanted to see LOTUS F3 in better place but... no problem, for me is now one of the best MSX games ever . Having living most of my life in Pamplona I like specially Txupinazo, but most of the MSXDEV 07 games have been more than good. Thanks to all for these great games. They work perfectly also in my 1chipMSX . Great!!

By poke-1,170

Paragon (1783)

03-02-2008, 20:40

well, as for the lotus game, I thought it was very playable.
And a concession in the graphical department shouldn't be a big deal.
I can name zillions of very polished looking games (almost any FPS these days)
which are boring to play. playability ranks higher in the end.
Must say that I quite enjoyed the tunes, since it's not the average
msx demoscene kitsch.... (yes,kitsch )

By Imanok

Paragon (1198)

03-02-2008, 21:50

You're right about this. If all that features had been taken into consideration, maybe we would be talking about a triple draw here... or even Lotus being at the second place.

Anyway, don't take it too seriously... after all, the final results are taken from the opinion of only three people... if those three people had been different ones, I think the winner would have been Caos anyway, but the rest of the ranking probably would have suffered some variations.

MSXdev '07 - Results

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