I wanted to post my thoughts about this topic so people can respond to it.
It was brought up in another thread and some members might miss the discussion.
Because 2015 is the 20 anniversary of the vboy, a suggestion was made to have another coding competition. Not only that, but have the submissions be more varied.
I think this is a great idea, but some thought would have to be put into it and I would like to hear some feedback from the contestants from last years competition and of course Krisse.
1st problem…TIME
Would it be to soon to have workable demos/entries next year ? I know there was a great deal of scrambling done last year and we extended the deadline. Also, the coders might want a break 🙂 On the other hand, there might be submissions that were not quite ready yet..and they might be by next year ?? (but lets be honest..most will be started 2 months (err weeks) before the contest 🙂 )
2nd problem…Prizes
What should we give ? how to we pay for it ? Take donations and do posters/shirts..what about carts ? So far, we haven’t been able to give out the 1st place entry to MK yet…hard to make a cart out of an emulator 😛
3rd problem…general set up/rules
I think multiple categories would be interesting this time around
Software…games and engines..anything able to be put on a cart and run on the vboy..or used to create a coding environment (?)
Hardware…anything that can be added to the vboy to add functionality or make it better
artwork…any artwork that celebrates the vboy and all of its glory..posters..3-d images. Maybe artwork that can be used for a game ??
Hall of fame…vote on people to have ‘hall of fame’ badges. People that help the community in various ways. It would include older members that most newer members might not know about ..example: David Tucker..mindstorm…dogp..ben stevens… and of course Krisse
All stars…vote in all stars for their work the last 1-2 years..people like runnerpack/dogp for bringing broken vboys back to life
A+ rookies…people in the last few years that have really stepped up and helped out. Guy’s tech scroll, thunderstruck’s polished games, hedgtrimmers (sp) 3-d models
I think it would be great if people could submit multiple times in one or more categories. But, only 1 prize per category should be awarded per person. But, if someone co-makes a project and comes in 2nd for a solo..why not give them 2 prizes…
please..lets hear some thoughts on this. Particularly from people that would plan on entering.
Also, this post doesn’t mean that it’s happening…just an open discussion atm.
here are my thoughts, which are somewhat disjointed. i ran a coding compo for an independent gaming community. we had 5,000 in prize money to give away. the money came from sponsors. simply put, i contacted various sites who would gain something from advertisement in the compo and asked for donations. a bunch stepped up. some of the money came from ad-sense revenue, something this site isn’t generating.
the compo was broken down into categories by system and type of release. for a vb compo i would just break it down by release (game, app, demo, other (pc tools, etc)). i would allow every dev to release 1 project for each category and allow them to win in every category. if you let them do more than 1 they tend to not focus on their projects and instead knock out quick demos or incomplete projects, at least, this was my experience with being involved in coding compos. from their perspective they have an entry worthy of a win, but from everyone else who doesn’t/can’t code, the quality of releases drops off and there is less to enjoy. from my perspective, the point of a compo is to generate interest in a system and to see some amazing new things released for it.
asking for donations is like asking people to buy into something. if you are going to have a buy-in you will alienate devs who just want to make homebrew from the ones who see it as a gambling competition. i run a weekly billiard tournament here and i find that buy-ins scare some people off and then bring out the worst in others who only see that they spent money and expect to win the pot.
as for prizes… money is the top motivator. physical goods are nice but its like getting clothing for xmas when you really wanted cash to buy the new uncharted game. another idea would be getting that new cart ready and pairing it with a vb-link cable. that would make for a nice prize and it is something within the realm of possibility.
at the end of the day it is still the VB and this community is pretty much it when it comes to the VB. do your best but don’t expect pots of money, tons of publicity, or commercial quality releases. have fun with it. =)
I’m still working on the same project I’ve been hacking away at for years now. Didn’t have time to finish it for the 2013 compo, but who knows maybe another one will light a fire under me… 😉
I wouldn’t try to make this too complicated. I liked the idea in the other thread because it was like: Submit something as a tribute to the system. So I wouldn’t go for categories and tons of prices. Just let everyone submit whatever and how much they want. No submission should be too bad. Have a voting afterwards. The winner gets a trophy.
So if someone decides to doodle a really cool VB image in 5 minutes and everyone likes it he will win over the guy the guy who spend a year on programming a game. But it doesn’t matter because there is no big pot of gold at the first place. Just the glory.
That way we might end up with tons of cool stuff like comics, doodles, paintings, music, videos, reviews, demos, games, tools, hardware and so on. All dedicated to the 20th birthday of the VB.
I agree with thunderstruck. At least for me, competitions are stressful, and even if everyone started making something now, it would take more than a year to make a professional-quality finished game.
Instead, if we had a general celebration, everyone could help. For example, we could get recordings of music from hardware for those games that haven’t been recorded yet, new reviews (of both commercial and homebrew games), new ROM hacks (OK, this generally requires programming knowledge, but for Insmouse there’s InsmEdit :P), and I’m sure Protoman and VectrexRoli will shoot some videos for the occasion.
I agree with thunderstruck as well. Lets just celebrate. Id love to see artwork, 3d models, music, demos, tutorials whatever. Probably because I have little to no talent in most of those areas so I’m easily impressed by those things.
I like the idea of us celebrating all together. How does the following sound?
Let’s make the entire next year the year of the Virtual Boy! The year in which we celebrate PVB turning 15 in January and of course the Virtual Boy’s 20th birthday the entire rest of the year.
It’s up to the community to do whatever they like to celebrate. Homebrew projects, highscore competitions, artwork competitions, remixes of VB game music, video productions, ROM hacks… anything.
We probably should have a special “channel” for this kind of stuff, maybe a separate forum or special forum tag?
I like the sound of a multi genre competition, bringing the community together, everyone celebrating VB together. Be good to see what type of entry’s would come of it.
I really like the sounds of this =D I think it would be great to celebrate the VB’s big 20 with anything people have listed here.
While I’m not exactly a talented guy, I could do some video reviews/overviews (almost done my Japanese VB Kiosk overview). I could also rip some music from some games from my VB, once I look into which games we need rips from. Heck, I can also try my hand at making a VB music remix using rytmic retrobits on my DS =P
KR155E wrote:
I like the idea of us celebrating all together. How does the following sound?
Let’s make the entire next year the year of the Virtual Boy! The year in which we celebrate PVB turning 15 in January and of course the Virtual Boy’s 20th birthday the entire rest of the year.
It’s up to the community to do whatever they like to celebrate. Homebrew projects, highscore competitions, artwork competitions, remixes of VB game music, video productions, ROM hacks… anything.
We probably should have a special “channel” for this kind of stuff, maybe a separate forum or special forum tag?
Well, I consider July 21, 2015 to be the official “20th Birthday” of the Virtual Boy, since that will be exactly 20 years after the Virtual Boy’s launch in Japan. Therefore, those who plan to participate in the Virtual Boy’s 20th Anniversary High Score Competition should expect the requirements for winning such to be posted on that date.
That all sounds great! Maybe the whole year can be open for submissions, or at least the year until July/August. Keeping things fun and without a prize takes the pressure off for sure. Still, I do like having maybe one or two things with a tangible reward…just because that’s fun too :). I think Benjamin Stevens suggested another high score bout- that’s good because all you need to compete is a Virtual Boy! Members without specialized skills like filmmaking, music, drawing, techy aspirations, coding experience, etc. don’t have to feel left out.
I like the idea of a separate channel too. It would be a “virtual” gallery where we can wander around and look at the various creative projects people are working on. Perhaps a different channel with forum posts representing each category?
KR155E wrote:
I like the idea of us celebrating all together. How does the following sound?
Let’s make the entire next year the year of the Virtual Boy! The year in which we celebrate PVB turning 15 in January and of course the Virtual Boy’s 20th birthday the entire rest of the year.
It’s up to the community to do whatever they like to celebrate. Homebrew projects, highscore competitions, artwork competitions, remixes of VB game music, video productions, ROM hacks… anything.
We probably should have a special “channel” for this kind of stuff, maybe a separate forum or special forum tag?
VBmills wrote:
I like the sound of a multi genre competition, bringing the community together, everyone celebrating VB together. Be good to see what type of entry’s would come of it.
Me too, no limit to what you want to enter, from a pencil sketch to a fully functioning 3D remake of Metroid….
I should get my VB modelling back on track and finish of the VB in 3D, oh well, there’s my task set for 2015. Best get on with it as the parts I have modelled have taken me since 2008…..
This celebration sounds like it’s gonna be a blast! I’m so excited to participate. While I’m no expert with the technicals, I’m sure I can find a way to contribute 🙂
Anyone feel like getting psyched up? Try this one on for size:
A coworker of mine is an accomplished artist. He’s agreed to do the artwork for that game I wanted to make for the Virtual Fall event. I’m expanding the scale of the project to commemorate the Virtual Boy’s 20th birthday.
I’m working on a project for quite some time now but always felt like it is not far enough to be talked about. It is one of these projects that look easy when you start but then grow in complexity. I used to only work on it once in a while. However, with a deadline next year I can plan ahead easier. I will give my best to make this a worthy tribute.
Why don’t we call the comp Virtualfest What do you guys think? You know since it’s not really a comp but a Celebration of all things VB? How does that sound?
