new SEGA Saturn Coding Contest starts now

[RockinB]

The annual SEGA Saturn Coding Contest starts now!

The C4 - 2007 is a place for hobbyist programmers interested in graphics or classic consoles, as well as SEGA fans with programming skills.

The deadline to submit a homebrew SEGA Saturn game or demo is 20th december 2007. Downloads are scheduled to be available at christmas 2007.

Prizes sum up this year to a unbelievable value of 850,- Euro in total. They consist of money prizes for the three best entries, as well as a SEGA Saturn USB DataLink device for everyone!!!! The new rating system allows contestants to get extra points. With 3 extra points you get a USB DataLink no matter which place you entry is.

I've bought 10 of these very useful devices. They plug directly between the Action Replay cartridge in your Saturn and the USB port of your laptop. With it, you can exchange save games and execute homebrew binaries on your Saturn.

So, I hope you devvers like these new prizes, you are all invited to give it a try!
http://www.rockin-b.de/c4/2007/index.html

[wraggster]

hey

make a digg link and put it on the original page and then copy it here

also submit the news to engadget. joystiq and slashdot

[vbt]

ahah nice news i hope i'll participate it's difficult to find an idea of something to develop.

[RockinB]

ahah nice news i hope i'll participate it's difficult to find an idea of something to develop.

I would consider stuff that brings the most results for the work one puts in. Thinking this way, it would be best to pick out some good homebrew game for, let's say GP32, GP2x, DC or NDS and port this over to Saturn. You've showed excellent porting skills several times in the past. What do you think?

[RockinB]

Today, I've received a donation of 5 games plus a hint book from my pal Arnold (we both are working on Police Officer Smith for quite a while).

All 5 games are for SEGA Genesis / Mega Drive:

Street Fighter II
Eternal Champions
Light Crusader
Landstalker (german version?)
Comix Zone

Thanks a lot, Arnold. I will put them on the website, soon.

If some other one wants to give a prize item, too, don't hesitate to contact me via PM.

[RockinB]

News from SEGA Saturn Coding Contest (C4-2007)
http://www.rockin-b.de/c4/2007/index.html#News


New prizes arrived! Arnold donated 5 very nice games for SEGA Mega Drive, plus a hint book. I put those six prizes in a seperate table, along with 7 of 10 USB DataLink devices. These prizes are independent from place/rank of your entry. Instead, everyone can win them by achieving 1-3 extra points.

All components of the USB DataLink devices have arrived, I start building some of them, now. See the mass of electronic components:

[RockinB]

That damn USB thingy works like hell! I've just built the first unit and luckily, it worked from the start. Downloading and uploading game saves works very fine. Currently, I'm busy uploading and playing homebrew games.

Two things that could be improved in the software is the speed and the fact that you can only read or overwrite the whole raw internal battery backed RAM. That means you can't transfer individual game saves. This makes the (current) game save fileformat incompatible to the one used by the original Action Replay software, my SaveGameManager or slingas SaveGameCopier.

Anyways, the device is very reliable, stable and easy to use. Very useful, I'm glad that I finally got my hands on such a nice solution.