Dreamcast Scene Coding Competition Proposal

Time to get our thinking caps on and as a whole scene, not just this site or DCEmulation, Boob! etc. I would like to start a Scene wide coding competition.[br][br]Prizes[br][br]Just as a thought i was thinking of prizes, now we could ask to see if commercial companys like LIk Sang etc would donate prizes however small but also what about a paypal fund where we could all donate some cash into to make a great prize for the eventual winners.[br][br]Competitions[br][br]Another thing that needs to be worked out is what competitions? Best Emu/Game/Demo/App with a 4 way split on prizes donated.[br][br]Time Length[br][br]If the comp was to start in July or June how long should it last, well i suggest a 3 month time limit.[br][br]Judging[br][br]Judging would have to be done by people who are very respectable but also who cant enter. A team of 5 i would say.[br][br]Theres a lot to discuss but i feel that with all those who feeel strongly about the scene this could be a great competition. So its over to everyone for opinions.

maybe even have a joint gp32/dreamcast scene contest?

I can judge, I doubt I'll be entering anything. Also, if thinking of adding GP32 then I suggest adding all other consoles too. I definitely would like to see an entry using the new free PS2 development lib.

Meh for prizes I will do this.

Any coder make a fullspeed Genesis, WonderSwan Color or Snes emulator with sound and many options I will pay for professional pressing of $500 of the disk with the emulator and you can have the profit and I will give the coder $100 on top of it.

This sounds like a fantastic idea. It may be difficult to get it organized, though. Especially since, if you try to do it as a collaboration between all of the sites, there may be a battle for power. It would be nice to see it work out, though.

Clessy:

looks like you will be keeping your cash, Full speed Genesis or Snes Emu on a Dreamcast with Sound hahaha!!!

Dream on m8.

Paypal good idea, i will donate...... you first.

tinku :)

i would suggest not having emulation included in there. Because that would have odd results. What if one person ported a handheld system full speed full sound extra features, and another person, a previously unemulated arcade or console half speed or full w/o sound, who is to say which is better? Also there are legal implications of paying for emulation. There was a huge debate about this at DCemulation in january i think it was.

Some sort of Competition would be good, but I would hope that if one was created, the contestants could not enter things they've done years and years ago and port it just for the sake of a contest. It's not fair to developers that try to bring new things to the DC and wont win or have a chance because someone has ported something they did for school or work.
Make it fair, whatever you decide to do.

(maybe have beginners, intermediate and advanced sections of the compo?)

Gabbi

Maybe rule out ports/emulators, and keep it at homebrew from scratch..
split the catagories to Adventure,RPG, Shooter, Fighter, simulation.. and leave
a prize open for beginers.. Best Newb Award :)

also create a list of themes that have to be followed (to get around what Gabbi mentioned).. which people can propose now, and later compile into the lists..

It would be easy to determine beginner from advanced (never done anything from done something) but what about intermediate? would that be maybe like 'has released, but never for DC' also, dividing it into so genre categories would lessen the amount of prize and increase the amount of winners to a point where it would be very little. i also dont know about the idea of division by experience, maybe something like best newb award like kamjin said would be better, just to allow recognition if something was really good for a first time but not that good. Then again, remember how in the last competition it ran for almost 5-6 months? (kept on getting extended) and there were like what 5 entries in the end? just a few things to consider.

Was problems with there last one a pc game one that was ported to dc. It was never coded ground up for the dc. It had a big advantage. Pc version plays allmost the same.

I think new ground up only stuff.. Ports should be out and source code released for each game/ app/tool Would let the losers learn some thing from it.

There are a lot of unfinished DC ports and games already released. Â*Perhaps a contest to get some of them finished or improved would help the scene. Â*Ports like xRick (with glitchy sound) or Bump,n Jump (with no sound) and ports of FreeSCI and ScummVM wich would benifit from more DC specific code optimizations and better interfaces. Â*I think upping the quality of what is already released would do great things for the DC scene. Â*Perhaps a certain port or game should be the focus of the competition and the winner is the one who ports or updates it the best.