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2024 4KB Craptastic Game Competition Preview

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The Reset64 Magazine 2024 Craptastic Game Dev Spectacular Preview

Development for the 2024 4KB Craptastic Game Competition is in full swing. With the deadline fast approaching (August 31st), we thought we’d give you all a quick look at what some of the very talented devs are up to for this coding competition.

Best of luck to all the competitors and we can’t wait to try all of your craptastic creations!

As always, thank-you to our competition sponsors and supporters:

Bitmap Books

 

Protovision

 

Ausretrogamer – retrogaming and pinball

Title: Weights and Crates

Author: TND Games

Status: In Progress

Synopsis: You are a worker at an explosives factory. You have been sent outside to the water logged shipping yard, where you are operating a conveyor belt, with crates on board. For every crate that passes points are scored. Yellow crates give 100 points and red crates award 200 points. Landing on yellow crates will stun you for a bit. If you are pushed to the central point of the red rollers, a fault occurs on the belt, resulting in you falling into the water. If you land on red crates or getting hit by falling 10 ton weights will result in instant death.

Title: Shark Under The Sea 4K

Author: SkyBerron

Status: In progress

Synopsis: You take on the role of a hungry shark. Eat small fish, avoid depth charges and don’t let yourself be hunted by the hunter divers.

Title: MoruBOOST

Author: Alexander Martinelle, Cogitare Computing

Status: Submitted

Synopsis: Speed across the alien planet dodging your alien captors!

MoruBOOST is a game of timing and luck. Use the robotic guinea pigs speed to dodge enemies and reach the end of the level as fast as possible to gain as many points as possible.

Title: Nightmare 4k

Author: PATAGONIA – Juan Castiñeira

Status: Submitted

Synopsis: Ghosts will take over your dark and scary house, you must escape from them. Your only safe zone is to stay under the light, that’s when the ghosts disappear. Take the key and find the exit door.

Title: Hydrogen

Author: Chris Stanley / Megastyle

Status: Submitted

Synopsis: Taking the form of a traditional ‘brick breaker’, Hydrogen is a game in which you must battle your way through twelve chambers of an alien space station to achieve victory. Use your effector and power spheres in order to decimate all the defence cubes. Liberate canisters containing one of four isotopes of hydrogen fuel, each providing the player with a different and useful ability to help win the day!

Title: Escape from the Metaverse

Author: Space Moguls / Carl-Henrik Skårstedt

Status: In progress

Synopsis: You’re trapped in the metaverse! Escape a fractured universe where gravity is not a constant and try to get the fastest time possible.

Title: Geom4K

Author: Oziphantom

Status: In progress (hopefully I make it)

Synopsis: It’s a twin stick shooter with geometric shapes that hunt you.. Needs two joysticks to play or two mapped to a good enough keyboard in an emulator. Currently supports 3 different enemy types. Hunter, Boxer and Kamikaze! Can currently handle 32 enemies at 25fps, but I will either add “superior hardware” support that hopefully gets it locked 50 or make a new version for the better platform.

Title: Drone Zone

Author: Code/Design: Carleton Handley, GFX/Music: Saul Cross

Status: Submitted

Synopsis: A racing game with a drone. Fly around six tight, small courses inside caves for the fastest time. Whilst you can fly around slowly the game is designed as a time attack game. All courses can be completed in under 20 seconds with practice, I’m hoping somebody can finish the easier course in under 10 seconds after release.

Title: The Revenge of the Blobby Thingies

Author: Martin Piper

Status: Completed

Synopsis: This is you, the other monsters are jealous of your light green colour. Find freedom from the monster factory! Shoot the monsters. There are 65536 types of monsters in this game. Each has their own characteristics and animations.

Title: Jerry Kavinsky versus Space Goblins

Author: Bago Zonde / Commocore

Status: In progress

Synopsis: “Jerry Kavinsky versus Space Goblins ” is going to be a loose tribute to the game “Jim Power”. In the game we play the role of Jerry Kavinsky, a time warp hero whose mission is to rescue the kidnapped President’s daughter from the hands of mutants. Mutant goblins and mutant plant spikes will do everything in their power to stop Kavinsky. On top of that, Kavinsky must be careful not to fall into the abyss. Otherwise he will be forgotten forever. Not mentioning the President’s daughter!

Title: Cavern Drone Race

Author: Geir Straume

Status: In progress

Synopsis: This is a drone racing game, in which you compete against two AI controlled drones. The race takes place in a large cavern, and you have to successfully fly through some checkpoints before completing the race, or you will be disqualified.

<SURPRISE, no screenshot>

2024 Reset64 4KB CRAPTASTIC Game Competition

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Craptastic has been a huge success since the first competition in 2016, and we’re very excited to be doing it all again in 2024! This year’s competition theme is once again…. Craptastic!

“What the bloom’n heck does craptastic mean?”, I hear you ask.

It certainly doesn’t mean crap, although it can! Craptastic can mean ludicrous, bonkers, outrageous, funny, wacky, far out, and silly. The theme simply implies that the compo is just for a bit of fun, not a serious coding competition. You are more than welcome to make an excellent game to submit for the compo. Your game may contain some humour or silliness to fit more with the theme, but it doesn’t have to!

2022 Craptastic Comp Winner: Marble Boy (Roman Werner)

In our previous competitions, some entries were truly excellent, others excellent but silly, others truly awful but funny! It’s just a chance for people to do something a little different if they wish and explore ideas/concepts that wouldn’t normally work well in a more serious compo.

Please remember that this competition is limited to 4KB. Yes, any entry submitted can be no more than 4KB when compressed. If your game is more than 1 file, then all the game files put together must not exceed the 4KB limit. This includes hi-score save files.

We want craptastic game entries. Remember, the key word here is fun. We want both coders and players alike to have fun and enjoy this comp!

Submit your entries to RESET64 (via email: [email protected]) by 31st August, 2024 (23:59:59 GMT).

Take a look at our previous Craptastic compo entries to help draw inspiration!

RULES

Basic rules are as follows:

  • The competition deadline is 23:59:59 GMT on the 31st August, 2024. All entries to be submitted to [email protected] by the deadline or will be deemed ineligible.
  • All entrants must register at [email protected]
  • Entrants are free to preview screenshots and videos of their game(s) to other publications/websites.
  • The competition will only begin when there are at least 5 registered entrants.
  • All submitted games MUST be 4KB or less (when compressed or uncompressed), and executable on a stock C64 on either or each of tape, disk and cartridge. Your submission may have a separate docs file (either as a C64 executable or a txt file, which doesn’t count towards the 4KB cap). However, hi-score saver files will count towards the cap.
  • The games must be previously unreleased and be your own work, whether that be by yourself or as part of a collaboration.
  • PAL must be supported, with additional NTSC support optional (but encouraged).
  • Participants may submit multiple entries, either as an individual or within a team. Team entries must be registered by an individual, and any potential prizes will be sent to the registered individual only.
  • Entries should be submitted exclusively to RESET64 by the competition deadline. Please feel free to share your entry as you wish after the competition has ended (after the compo deadline has passed).
  • There will be a panel of judges (TBA), and entries will be scored on a point distribution basis across several criteria. The decision of the panel is final.
  • Games must be submitted as freeware.
  • Games will be published by Reset64 (not necessarily exclusively) on a future disk compilation for the whole world to enjoy, after the competition has concluded. All entries will be made available on the Reset64 itch.io after the compo concludes.
  • Games must not be released before the competition deadline, or they will become exempt from scoring and will be deemed ineligible. Games can be submitted after deadline but will be counted as *out of competition* and will be ineligible for a placing.

We reserve the right to change, add or delete rules during the competition if deemed necessary!

2nd place in the 2022 Craptastic Comp: Circles by James

SCORING SYSTEM

The scoring system used for Craptastic is very simple. Each game will be scored against 7 criteria, each worth 5 points. An entry can score up to 35 points. When the panel has scored each game accordingly, the totals for each individual game will be divided by the number of judges to produce a mean average. The average will be the game’s final score.

The criteria that each game will be evaluated on are:

Originality – New idea or “rip off”? Off the wall ideas encouraged.
Concept – Quality of game design, is it fun, is it bonkers, is it craptastic?
Execution – Execution of design, taking into account controls and other factors such as excecution.
Presentation – Quality of graphics, audio and overall presentation. Supremely bad can be seen as a positive in some cases!
Gameplay – A measure of how enjoyable the game is to play.
Lasting Appeal – replay value, addictiveness.
OMG factor – when you see it, do you think “wtf!?” This is the true measure of craptasticness!

If a panel member has entered a game themselves, then the number of points that they can award will be adjusted (in this example, to 5) and they will not score their own release.

CSDB will not be used for voting. Also, entries should not be uploaded to CSDB, or elsewhere until after the competition has closed. Feel free to post screenshots or info though.

PRIZES

A craptastic gaming comp requires craptastic prizes, right? We have some fantastic prizes lined up for this year’s compo thanks to some very generous sponsors.

A big thank-you to the following sponsors and supporters:



More sponsors to be announced.

Unkle K / Reset64
Official Twitter account for Reset64 Magazine – dedicated to the world’s favourite 8-bit computer!

Follow Reset64 Magazine on Twitter

Heart of Neon – New Trailer

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Just in case you haven’t been following, back in 2019 we told you about the documentary, Heart of Neon, a Paul Docherty film, centred around Jeff Minter and Llamasoft.

It’s been a hard slog since then, but it was great to see a new trailer drop (which premiered last week at the NY Game Awards), which you can check out below.

Paul has succinctly put it like this (about the Heart of Neon documentary):

Jeff Minter is an exceptional video game developer who for four decades has remained independent in an industry where corporations dictate the terms. HEART OF NEON charts Jeff’s career from pioneer to legend, mapping the landscape of the game development industry where only the most talented and tenacious can survive.



Atari THE400 Mini Pre-Orders Now Open!

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Whoa, I am late to the party, but just in case there are others that aren’t aware, Atari announced that the Retro Games Ltd. made THE400 Mini pre-orders are now open – but only to US residents (boooo)!

For our Australian friends, don’t fret, cause you can also pre-order THE400 (Atari) Mini system right now at The Gamesmen site (The Gamesmen have exclusive retail rights in Australia)! Priced at AU$189.95 and shipping in late March (March 28th, 2024), this is a pretty cool system to pick up.

For everyone else, Amazon is also offering pre-orders on the THE400 Mini right here.

So, who is getting one?



Clever Geeky (and Sarcastic) T-Shirts

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Woohoo, gotta love the end of the working week (unless you work on weekends, which may or may not suck)!

Anyway, what’s better than hitting an online store to grab some very clever (and quite sarcastic & ironic geeky) t-shirts while the weather is still warm in the land Down Under?!

We trawled through heaps of pretty darn clever tees on GEEKSOUTFIT™ to select some of our favourites – what do you think?

image source: GEEKSOUTFIT™

 



The Secret History of Mac Gaming: Expanded Edition – Review

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We have known Richard Moss, the author of The Secret History of Mac Gaming: Expanded Edition (TSHoMG-EE) book, for quite a while now. To say we have great admiration for Richard would be a gross understatement.

Speaking to Richard in the past, it was quite evident where his love and passion was focused when it came to retro computing – the Apple Macintosh. Being an award winning journalist and avid game historian, we were glad to see Richard having his book published, as it’s just brilliant, even if you aren’t an Apple Macintosh fan – if you are remotely into retro computing or old school games, then this is a great read!

Let’s start with the physical aspects of the book. The look, feel and presentation of this tome oozes quality everywhere, as we come to expect from Bitmap Books – from the hardback cover (and use of colours) hitting the nostalgic bit of our heart, to the gorgeous blue coloured page edges, it’s truly stunning! The 480 pages are filled with edge-to-edge high quality lithographic print, with sewn binding for enduring quality and the ability to lay the book flat, which is ideal for double-page image viewing.

Richard goes into detail in how the Macintosh changed video games and how it challenged the medium to be more than child’s play and quick reflexes. With human design in mind (as with contemporary Apple products!), TSHoMG-EE informs the reader in how the Macintosh made human-computer interaction friendly, inviting, and intuitive. Of course, one would argue (as the author does), that Mac gaming led to much of what we now take for granted as PC gamers, with the old Apple spawning some of the biggest franchises in video games history — including Myst, Halo, and SimCity.

The Secret History of Mac Gaming: Expanded Edition draws on a combination of archival material and around 80 interviews with key figures from the era to tell the story of those communities and the game developers who survived and thrived in an ecosystem that was serially ignored by the outside world. It’s a book about people who followed their hearts first, and market trends second – showing how clever, quirky, and downright wonderful video games could be.

This newly-expanded edition adds around 70 pages of extra content, including a foreword by The 7th Guest co-creator and id Software and Apple alum Graeme Devine, plus an annotated timeline, over 60 extra images, an icon gallery, and more than 6,000 extra words added to the chapter narratives — on top of the 115,000 words from the 1st edition — covering a variety of additional game and developer stories, including the tales behind Snood, Chaos Overlords, The Dungeon of Doom, and more. It also revises and updates the design, based on reader feedback, to provide a better reading experience. A nice touch is the “Where Are They Now” section in each chapter – giving insight into the career path of key people.

We are suckers for books that delve deep into their subject matter, and this book is no exception. It is beautifully presented and written to draw the reader into the world of the Apple Macintosh and its library of video games that became iconic. We highly recommend The Secret History of Mac Gaming: Expanded Edition book, as it is informative, fun and engaging, the three key ingredients of any great book. This tome deserves to be on your bookshelf.

Availability



Disclaimer: The Secret History of Mac Gaming: Expanded Edition book was kindly provided by PixelCrib for this review.

Turn Your A500 Mini Into A Retro Console Beast!

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We know there will be the purists out there that will want to leave their THEA500 Mini retro system as it was intended (Ed: stock standard), but for those looking to spice there’s up, Team Pandory’s A500 Mini Pandory500 V2 Mod is for you!

The below video highlights the newly added features to the Pandory mod, which was released a few months ago. There’s the new Amiberry 5.3, new Dreamcast cores, native PPSSPP, and also making it compatible with the official firmware updates, to name just a few!

The installation is easy, all you need to do is download Pandory500 from Github and dump it onto a USB stick – it is that easy! Oh yeah, this is a softmod and does not change anything on TheA500 Mini. Go and have some fun 😉


source: Team Pandory



It’s On Like Donkey Kong – The Amazing PC Case

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Sometimes there is a huge pay off being in Facebook creator / modder groups, like the PC Builders Community group, which as the name suggests, is where clever peeps share their creations and modifications.

On this occasion, group member, Dennis Riese shared his custom Donkey Kong PC case, which as you can see in the photos, is mind-blowingly amazing!

Impressed with the PC case? You should be! The intricate level of detail is so spot on, this would pass as a Nintendo first party PC case – it looks that good. So what’s powering this liquid-cooled beast under the hood? It’s just as impressive as the case:

  • Motherboard – ASUS ROG Maximus XII Hero
  • Processor – Intel i9 10900
  • Graphics Card – NVIDIA GeForce 3080Ti Founders Edition with Corsair Hydro X water block
  • RAM – 32GB Crucial Ballistix MAX
  • OS – Windows 11 Pro
  • Storage 1 – WD Black 500gig M.2 NVme
  • Storage 2 – Samsung 970 Evo+ 2TB M.2 NVme
  • Cooling – 2 Corsair Hydro X water loops

Dennis says that,

Fun build and completely overkill for me to play Minesweeper on it but I am big on future proofing.

This Donkey Kong PC case is just next level awesome!

image source: Dennis Riese via Facebook



Get Your DOS Gaming Fix With eXoDOS 5

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Are you of a certain vintage that you can recall battling archaic and extremely frustrating requirements/configs to get your DOS games playing on your PC?

If you answered yes, then eXoDOS (version 5) is here to help make things a lot easier. In a nutshell, eXoDOS obtains and catalogues games to make them playable for DOS and PC Booter platforms.

The eXoDOS v5.0 games collection is vast and can be played on any modern Windows PC without the frustrating configurations we used to endure and deal with back in the 286/386/486 days!

This platform is really cool, with awesome features like CD audio and 3dfx support. To play any game in the library, you just click on the title, and that’s it! Oh yeah, there is also a cool physical big box version too! Go on, go and have some DOS gaming fun.



A Rare 1990 ATARI STe Computer Promo Film

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If you were in the market for an Atari STE and were stumped on how to use, then this 28 minute promo film from 1990 may help!

The cheese factor is off the scale in this video, but we couldn’t look away, as there were some things we actually learned or were reminded of that we had forgotten about our 16-bit Atari!

Watch it, as you may learn something new too (or at least rejog your memory) 😉


source: Computer History Archives Project