MSXdev22 Results

:trumpets and horns blaring:

Congratulations to the winners!

Again, congrats Fabulous 8bit with your 1st place!

Sorry to be negative, but after reading the judges comment for all the entries, I think I speak for a majority of those who entered when I say that Toni did a poor job of judging the graphics category, was overly negative towards most entries, left "cut and paste" comments and was insulting by comparing many game's graphics to those of the lowly ZX Spectrum.

Woohooo. Thank you all. Tremendous news. Awesome to be on top with the league we have here this year.

And for the music - seems like a truly lucky shot that Wolf came aboard. Not sure what level of quality I imagined, when I first started thinking of music for the game - but the result is way better than whatever I was imagining. Shoutout to Wolf for a good creative process and a fantastic result.

Also, as mi-chi mentions: The organizers!!! Thank you for all this work. Pulling this off, doesn't come for free, so thank you for all the work. And also - very professional and high level on the whole "production". Awesome work! Thank you!

Now I need a break -- that's actually a requirement from my wife now - someone has HAD a tremendous patience for 2.5 years...

@Uninteresting:

Well, it's actually like what I wrote. Pal has been managing games for decades, so he's used to create technical documents on game design, overviews who should do what etc. There was already a list of levels, music, sound effects 'n such, a list of enemies and their behavior when I boarded the ship.
So, design your game on paper and stick to it. Admittedly, this rules out happy accidents that would result in spontaneous ideas and additions. Most of these 'happy accidents' however tend to be the cause of project failure. So, make a design, a choice, and then stick to it. Be firm, because everyone always wants more features. Stick to it and you'll hear Hannibal loving it when a plan comes together!

Either way: at some point we'll present a kind of 'making-of', should be an interesting read!

But let's not hijack this thread about these things... there're other games to talk about as well here.

Congratulations to the winners!

I concur with @pineapple and @roolandoo while I might agree with the score (talking about my own game exclusively), the wording was harsh and demotivating instead of being feedback for improvement.
The same message could have been said in a better way. Forms matter.

And just for the record, MSX-1 does not support multi-color hardware sprites. My game uses 4 sprites in the same line, of 3 different colors to make a 32x32+ pixels playable character that moves smoothly. That is at the top of the MSX-1 hardware capabilities.

Many thanks to all participants in this competition. You all did a great job. Of course there may be one or the other who is not satisfied with the rating. Nevertheless, I personally find the result understandable. Many thanks also to all sponsors. This competition was a milestone.

A great big Thank You to the organisers & the contestants. It was a great ride again this year and with some new MSX gems released. Games that would have been deemed close to impossible at the end of the 80's, early 90's.
Looking forward to MSXDev'23!

I totally agree with you, the graphic scores are excessively low. I love the graphics and atmosphere that you created in Bufonada, it is simply perfect. I don't understand notes like RoboRumble's either. The visuals are very nice, movement really smooth...deserves a better grade.

In general the grpahics scores were too low.

@AxelStone: Re: Robo Rumble's graphics. When I first saw the MSX version, I remember being disappointed in the background tile graphics not using more colours than a ZX Spectrum game could. On one hand, there's the possibility of trying to improve on the old, and on the other, staying true to the original. Upgraded graphics/style don't always do well (Jet Set Willy on Amiga, Rainbow Islands: Towering Adventure on Wii, Gods Remastered on PC), so that's not an automatic "win".

I'm still happy that I can play a true-to-original Robo Rumble on MSX, but I also see that there was room for improvement with the graphics if they had been remade (unless I'm missing a specific art style the game was aiming for). Then again, the C64 port of Robo Rumble also has the same graphics, so maybe I just don't know the "cross-platform porting" rules, written or unwritten.

I'm not talking on the behalf of the judges or organizers (because I am not one of them and I haven't talked with them), but in relation to scoring, this is a contest and a big display window for the MSX scene facing outwards, not a mutual pat-ourselves-on-the-back event (which doesn't mean a few more less blunt words wouldn't have been appreciated). I haven't followed game compos on other platforms, so I'm curious how different the harshness of the scoring is compared to theirs?

@uninteresting I'd say the previous 2 years were a lot less harsh.

Also, when I judged the MSX BASIC contest earlier this year I put a lot of effort on giving constructive feedback. I don't know if I succeeded, that's up to the participants to decide.

On 2020, I recall my game being second to last, reading the report and just nodding. It also motivated me to do something better the next year.

This time, I'm not motivated.

I think I was annoyed most by how the scoring was based more on use of screen2 or higher, than anything else. It takes more skill to get good results in screen1 than it does in screen2 in my experience.

But anyway, it was a good competition and seems to get bigger every year, which is always a plus.

My regards to all! I hope some cartridges will be made in the near future!!
Thank you all!!!

BTW, what about the results of the MSX Levels and Editor Contest? It has been 1 year already since it has been finished...

No problem Toni, I'm very happy you guys put all the time and effort in this, since it is a huge amount of work. Although most of the graphics in my games were intentional like that, I can also understand your criticism and just will take it along as a learning for the next projects . Also big congratulations to the winners, this year the quality of a number of games was execptionally high.

This is a somewhat peculiar situation, let me explain.

I've been music jury for 'dev two times if I recall correctly. So, yesterday I read back those jury reports again. And unless a game had a mere beep, I usually had something to write and/or to explain. See here and here. Now, I'm a writer; both by education and by profession. And usually you merely need to insert coin and you'll get a boatload o' words from me in return. And other jury members are also crafty with the pen, e.g. John knows how to cook a paragraph.

But is it fair to expect this from every possible jury member? Is it fair to expect every jury member to also be kind of a tutor, able to explain how abstract creative processes can be performed better? Even if you'd want both to be 'yes', you can't expect this from everyone. Heck, at highschool I had teachers who couldn't explain jack shit even if their lives would depend on it. I know, and I think everyone knows, that Toni is a really good designer, I've seen quite a few 'hot dang!' images from him. But perhaps he's not really a writer and/or a tutor. I would say this is at best unfortunate when people actually expect texts and tips. The ranking he makes is probably accurate (haven't checked it all tbh), and as a contest is about ranking, this is all he basically needs to do.

So, here's a question for all current and future contestants: do you want to read lots of texts in jury reports? Would the availability of extensive texts (where appropriate) have to be the norm? If the answer is 'yes', then there might be choices to make.

• Unaltered jury reports, might have copypaste oneliners, might not be extensive
• Altered (by the organizers) jury reports as to feature more texts, with the risk that new words and lines are added that don't really match the findings of the jury member
• Only invite jury members who are capable of writing a fair amount of text, and then you run the risk of missing out on experts who may be crafty with the mouse but less crafty with the pen
• No individual jury texts published anymore (just their rankings), the organizers should merge/glue all jury text contributions into one big final text

A very big thumbs up on this...
And in the end, especially in this community, you won't be able to please everyone. There will allways be discussion.

Anyway, let's keep our focus on the result of this years MSXDev: We've got some great new games to play on our MSX machines!

That would equal my third bullet point, right?

It is similar but slightly different. I was not talking about the amount of text at all, just about an acknowledgement of the impact and responsibility.

Honestly, we cannot fall into the trap of avoiding criticism just to be polite. Everybody seems to be avoiding the elephant in the room, and I know I will get angry answers for pointing this, but Toni has made a losuy job as MSXDev judge.

Besides most of his comments being harsh and offensive -which is already a red flag-, they are useless to understand what has been judged and how he has determined the score for each game. I fail to comprehend how "a good example of how to use the MSX1 graphics capabilities" gets a 70/100 and falls to 5th position. Are we really accepting that it is correct to say that Diced graphics are on level with Bounce Mania? Are both really below Shadow of the Pig!? I just can assume he has judged quantity and not quality: the more colors, the better; the higher screen number, animation frames, number of sprites, number of scroll planes... There has been no consideration of the art style and how it suits the game. For example: Bufonada and Randoom may have "limited" graphics, but they look intentionally limited to me to serve a particular art style.

I think I'm not the only one that finds some of the scores are simply unjustifiable.

Developers deserves respect for their efforts, congratulations for their achievements, and proper and constructive criticism for their mistakes. General praise leads to mediocrity. Inappropriate criticism is annoying and demotivating. And lack of criticism prevents developers from learning from their mistakes and improving.

Congrats to all participants

In the end, I feel like everyone agrees:
- There were plenty of great games again this year for our beloved MSX.
- The winner absolutely deserved it.
- The jury's feedback on the graphics could be better next year.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to know if next year's contest will still be open to all MSX generations and all their devices.

Personally, I would love to have 2 distinct categories (and therefore 2 rankings):
- Original (MSX1, 16KB RAM, no mandatory devices)
- Free For All (any MSX/devices)

Limiting the game to MSX1 is the way to make sure that 100% of MSX fans can play it on their machine. Moreover, it allows the competitors to compete on equal terms.

But on the other hand, I think it's great to have games on MSX2, on turbo R, or even on V9990. So, banning these games like in the previous years would be a shame.

The double rating would allow to have the best of both worlds I think.

This is the first year that the contest is open to MSX2, 2+, turbo R or V9990 games, it is normal that there are few entries. Moreover, these are often games that take more time to develop.

I'm pretty sure that if we make 2 categories, the gap between the number of MSX1 games and the others would eventually get smaller over the years. There will probably always be more MSX1 games, but I don't think it's a big deal that the 2 categories don't necessarily have the same number of entries.

I kind of agree, but at the same time, if you want to make a simple game, why do it on MSX2 and miss the universality of MSX1? I have the impression that we tend to use more powerful hardware to make more ambitious games. This is obviously not an absolute rule.

Anyway, I know of some MSX2 projects that are in progress that couldn't be released last year. The Free style category is very new and there is necessarily some inertia among the developers.

If MSXdev remains open for all MSX generations, I think the number of MSX2/2+/tR/V9990 games will increase over time.
Maybe not as many as MSX1 games, but enough to have two distinct categories.

I think that the reasons why MSXdev was only open to MSX1 games before made sense. And on the other hand, I think it's a shame not to welcome all MSX games in this contest. So I'm looking for a formula that allows to have the best of both worlds.

For me (and probably a lot of other game developers) the main reason and biggest fun to program games on an older system like MSX is trying to squeeze as much performance as possible out of an old system. And that is why for me MSX1 and MSX2 are very different. It is way more difficult and time-consuming to squeeze the last drop of performance and best graphics possible out of an MSX2 than on an MSX1. It is really a totally different world.

People probably didn’t notice, but Lilly’s Saga uses screen-shake in the boss room

+1 to what Micha said!

Maybe score of msx1 gfx is a bit to low.
But to be honest, we need to consider that msx1 only in terms of specs is better than spectrum, in the real case you often have the same limits of ZX Speccy. (Same n. of colour combinations, same resolution, the big limiting factor that is colour clash, on the paper more limited than zx but not in real situations.)
Take for example a simple splash screen converted even on CPC or C64. you need to fight with color clash that it is not an ussue on Y axis, but tremendous on X axis. Most of splash screen that come from other platforms that you want on TMS VDP are not only a challenge to be converted, but instead a *LOST WAR* without any hope.
Where msx could be ahead from ZX spectrum could be hw sprites (sw are even *worst* due to VRAM access speed or the 8 pixel blocky moving needed to avoid colour clash), but given the scanline limitations *VERY LIMITED USE*.

By constrast, on MSX2 you do not have colour clash limits, only number of color limits, palette. Simply throw the converted picture and get good results out of the box. Without fighting a *ALWAYS LOST WAR* with MSX 1 VDP.

Sprites are a little better, at least of n/scanline.
And if you do not need the blitter for X scrolling you can use for sw sprites, graphically more appealing than hw sprites.

Maybe it's challenging to squeeze the most from msx2 because of some limitations, but at least it is not a *ALWAYS a *LOST WAR*" as it is when working with MSX1 VDP.

So, in the end i think that HUGE limitations of msx1 gfx should have been took more in account without giving a so low score.

@wolf: i think your considerations are correct to me. However the "MSX1 vs MSX2" thing and the "Simple vs Complex" games are a bit entangled, to be clear:

If one want a "complex" game maybe it is less difficult on msx2 than msx1 (not always true, but often IMHO).

People saying that getting good results on msx2 than msx1 is more difficult are simply negating the evidence.

Take for example Theseus, one challenge is to make smooth scroll. OK. We got it. But what the real satisfaction for the developer when you look the game gfx and you are disappointed from the "walls", ENTIRELY monochrome (because of colour clash limitations coupled with the smooth scroll requirement?). Answer: there is no satisfation, it's only frustrating seeing the effort compared with the final result.

One cannot deny that Theseus on a V9958 would have looked a lot better and get developer satisfaction.

What is the satisfaction for the developer in having pushed the hw to the max and got a shitty result? NONE.

Here comes the "simple" vs "complex" thing.
Most developer claim that is more easy to get things out from a MSX1 than MSX2 but they deliberately choose games that are sooooo simple to implement that are doable pratically on every 8 bit (from the most limited to the most powerful). So no need to MSX2 or V9990 gfx.
If all games were like pacman '80 why improve a MSX1 VDP? It is enough.

Neither does anyone. It's just a kind of tradition that keeps coming back with every announcement of a new contest, and with the closing/results newspost of that contest.

Sorry about my english. I just meant that i am
very happy to see a new game in such a good
qualaty. Then i ask myself why so many games
did not reach that level 30 years ago? Regards
to all!

Why would there be no satisfaction? If I were the developer, I'd be happy to continue trying to improve it until I accepted that's the best I can do, and then be satisfied with that. There may or may not even be a game at the end but that's a mere sideproduct; the journey and challenge is the fun part for me.

I had a good amount of fun just implementing a probability model that ran at an almost sufficient speed on an MSX1. It never became a game because I didn't know how to make a fun game around it.

But maybe I'm just the exception to the rule, a weirdo who's in this for the fun it offers to me.

I think the main issues were cost, speed and experience. Teams of people with no MSX experience (by definition, because the MSX was new) had to make games in a very short amount of time (e.g. to put the game in the market before christmas) and the cartridges had to be cheap (as little ROM as possible, that's why there are so many 16kb games from that era).

The challenge back then was not to make the best game, but the challenge was to make as much money as possible with the available resources; if they saw that 2 mediocre games would bring in more money than 1 good game, they preferred making 2 mediocre games.

The problem here is that a msxdev competitor want a game, and want to reach a final product of decent quality, not only a prototype that when he is tired can be trashed into the bin. And for sure the her satisfaction is correlated to the result he expect relatively to its efforts .

Thanks for the nice words, Bengalack, that means a lot to us from someone whose quality standards for his own game reach for perfection (and a well deserved first place)! And yes, the megarom definitely invites to make no compromises in code-size and graphics due to its zero-loading-time spec.

Categories are nice and don't need to be excludent. Every entry can be freestyle and the categories can be picked after the deadline. The same game can win in more than one category, just like the oscar.
And the categories do not need to be restricted by platform as well. There are several aspects in game programming, frim the best original idea to the best adaptation of a game type (even hacks). Shortest game, longest, weirdest, beautiful, etc...
After all the great prize is the recognition for the good job done.