Category 1:
- Mapper 28 compatible entry up to 64KB with NO PRG-RAM
- Prizes as follows:
- Dev. Edition Numbered multicarts (#1 for 1st place, #2 for 2nd, etc) for all meritorious entries (at judges discretion).
- Judging criteria below
- By submitting an entry into this contest, you are giving full consent to use the entry on the multicart. Submissions must meet multicart standards to be inlcuded (at judges discretion).
- See General Guidelines below.
Category 2:
- App entry - Mapper 28 compatible entry up to 8KB
- Prizes as follows:
1st Place - $50 + SNES mouse with converter cable
2nd Place - $25 + SNES mouse with converter cable
3rd Place - SNES mouse with converter cable
Above cash prize inclusions subject to at least 5 entries in this category (<5 entries, you just get the SNES mouse)
- Dev. Edition NON-Numbered multicarts for all meritorious entries (at judges discretion).
- Judging decided by the public on the Nintendoage and NESDev forums (This could be interesting....)
- By submitting an entry into this contest, you are giving full consent to use the entry on the multicart. Submissions must meet multicart standards to be inlcuded (at judges discretion).
- See General Guidelines below.
tepples wrote:
Mapper-specific advice:
- 8K entries: Use $E000-$FFC9, and leave a few bytes of RAM open for NMI redirection. If your game is accepted, we may ask you to relocate it.
- 8K entries and NROM-128: Be careful not to write to $8000-$FFFF. Test with a breakpoint on writes to ROM.
- NROM, CNROM: Be careful not to overwrite CHR ROM. Test with a breakpoint on writes to PPU $0000-$1FFF.
- NROM, CNROM, ANROM, BNROM: $FFD0-$FFF9 of each 32K PRG ROM bank must be unused.
- UNROM (2): $FFD0-$FFF9 must be unused.
- UNROM (180): $BFD0-$BFF9 must be unused.
- A53: Write to register $81 only once, at the beginning of the program, and match the values written to $80 to the size of the entry: $00-$0F for 32K entries and $10-$1F for 64K entries. Specify whether $FFD0-$FFF9 or $BFD0-$BFF9 is unused.
General Guidelines (cat. 1 & 2)
- Contest runs from January 1, 2014 until April 1, 2014.
- Registration and submission will begin January 1st.
- Entries must be submitted by midnight April 1st.
- Entries cannot be submitted if they have already been released prior to the contest. The exception would be if there are significant changes making the original release something completely different.
- Multiple entries are allowed and encouraged.
- Only one cash/cartridge/mouse prize will be awarded per entrant across all categories. If multiple submissions place in top three, the greatest prize will be awarded, and the runner up will receive the prize. You can only win one cash prize. You can only win one cartridge. You can only win one mouse.
- Entries must be original. Plagiarism and copyright infringement will result in disqualification.
- Use of existing tools/libraries/code qualify as long as permission has been granted by the author.
- Collaborations are allowed, prize distribution will be decided by those who collaborated on the project.
- Explicit content is not prohibited from the competition, but will most likely not be considered for multicart inclusion.
Category 3 (the non-contest):
- Anything Goes - old unreleased stuff, modified existing stuff, whatever. If it runs on the NES/FC feel free to submit it.
- There will be no cash prizes awarded for this category.
- Dev. Edition NON-Numbered multicarts for all entries included on the multicart (at judges discretion)
- Depending on the configuration of the entry, it may not be possible to include it on the multicart, however, at the judges discretion NON-Numbered multicarts will be awarded. For exceptional submissions, extra effort may be done to adapt the game/cartridge hardware to support being included in the multicart.
- Entrants are not required to consent to multicart inclusion upon submission.
- Since this category will not be ranked or judged, it will also not be under the strict submission dates and times. If it is submitted before the multicart is released, then it is fair game. Keep in mind, the sooner it is submitted the better chance it will have at making it onto the multicart.
- Entries in this category will also not be under the restriction of the General Guidelines below, but material you do not have rights to will not be considered for the multicart.
infiniteneslives wrote:
The main benefit of category 3 I see is that it's a means for people to include their work on the multicart which would otherwise be disqualified due to timing, prior compo entries that were submitted previously as WIP, etc. Even if not able to be placed on the cart, it also allows people to get some publicity, aknowledgement, and praise for their work. This will gain a little more attention from the retro community as a whole compared to making a single post on Nesdev/Nintendoage about your game
Judging
Category 1:
Judging will be done by two groups. Both groups will be using the same judging criteria. The first group is a select group of pre-determined judges. The second group will be anyone who submits an entry in this category. The results of the pre-selected judges will be included as a weighted average in with the rest of the votes. The incentive for submitters to vote will be that they will automatically score their own game for full points. In the event that a pre-selected judge submits an entry, the weighted average for their entry will be the average of the other pre-selected judges scores and a full score will be averaged along with the other entries.
Judging Criteria:
| Gameplay and Controls | 10 |
| Originality | 10 |
| Art and Style | 8 |
| Replay Value | 8 |
| Sound and Music | 8 |
| Polish/Completeness | 6 |
Catergory 2:
Judging in this category will be done on two separate forum threads (one on NA and one on NESDev). Users will be asked to rank the entries from best to worst. The tallied results will be exactly one week from the thread's start and the combined scores will decide the winners. Only users having signed up before Jan 1, 2014 will be eligible to vote.
Registration
We ask that if you plan on submitting an entry in any category to please send an email to the address below. This will ensure that everyone will be kept up to date regarding the competitions deadlines or any important information that may come up during the course of the competition.
Submission Guidelines
All entries will be submitted via email with the following format in the title field:
Category X - Entry Name - Username
All entries must include a
blurb.txt with the appropriate information. Please submit entries to the email address below.
