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MRC Snowfall Challenge - Closed

by snout on 07-01-2004, 01:28
Topic: MRC
Tags: Challenges
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On November 22nd we started the MSX Resource Center snowfall competition. Now, only six weeks later, our first challenge has come to an end. And once again, the MSX Community demonstrated that and why MSX is still alive. We received no less than 25 snowfall demo's, created by a wide range of developers coming from all over the world. All demo's have one thing in common: a snowfall-effect. Apart from that each demo has a different approach. Some are coded for minimal MSX1 configurations, while others need an MSX2 or even a turboR with 512kB RAM and a GFX9000 to run. Some contain 'just a snowfall effect', while others have complete intro's, scrollers or animations included. Some are even user-controllable. Watching the demo's really gave us a special feeling. It goes without saying that the developers had a lot of fun and inspiration creating these demo's. And that's what MSX is all about. We recommend every visitor of the MSX Resource Center to have a look at all Snowfall demo's and let us (and thus the developers!) know what you think.

For your convenience, here is the complete list of all 25 snowfall demo's:

Snowfall Demo 01

  • Created by: Nyyrikki
    Programming language: Brainfuck
    System requirements: MSX1
    Received: 25-11-2003
    Description: Snow falling in text mode

Snowfall demo 02 - Znow

  • Created by: Maso Jose (WYZ)
    Programming language: Assembly
    System requirements: MSX2
    Received: 11-12-2003
    Description: A screenshot of the MSX Resource Center (initial snowfall challenge post) and snow falling in front of it.

Snowfall demo 03

  • Created by: Albert Beevendorp (BiFi)
    Programming language: Assembly
    System requirements: MSX1
    Received: 12-12-2003
    Description: Snow falling at random speeds, not in a straight line. It takes a while until the effect looks at its best

Snowfall demo 04 - Sneeu

  • Created by: JP Grobler
    Programming language: Assembly
    System requirements: MSX2
    Received: 16-12-2003
    Description: Snowfall, a scroller and a lot of ice-cold jokes ;)

Snowfall demo 05

  • Created by: Sjoerd Mastijn (XL2S Entertainment)
    Programming language: Assembly
    System requirements: MSX2
    Received: 18-12-2003
    Description: Nice graphics, a nice snowfall effect and user controlleable windflow!

Snowfall demo 06 - Lumi

  • Created by: Nyyrikki
    Programming language: X-BASIC
    System requirements: MSX1
    Received: 19-12-2003
    Description: Santa Claus is standing in the snow.

Snowfall demo 07 - Nieve

  • Created by: Imanok
    Programming language: NestorBASIC
    System requirements: MSX2
    Received: 21-12-2003
    Description: A cool drawing and multiple layers of snow falling

Snowfall demo 08 - Christmas demo

  • Created by: LarsThe18th
    Programming language: BASIC
    System requirements: MSX2
    Recommended: MSX-Audio/MSX-MUSIC
    Received: 23-12-2003
    Description: Snow falling on a TV set, with several background songs and graphics

Snowfall demo 09 - Snow

  • Created by: Jussi Pitkänen
    Programming language: Assembly
    System requirements: MSX1
    Received: 23-12-2003

Snowfall demo 10

  • Created by: TAoA
    Programming language: NestorBASIC
    System requirements: MSX2
    Received: 29-12-2003
    Description: Huge snowflocks falling the wrong way, with a nervous background ;)

Snowfall demo 11 - Snowclimber (a game!)

  • Created by: Vincent van Dam
    Programming language: Assembly
    System requirements: MSX1
    Received: 31-12-2003
    Description: Not a demo, but a 2-player game. Which penguin is first to reach the top of the mountain?

Snowfall demo 12 - Snowhite

  • Created by: Joram van Hartingsveldt
    Programming language: BASIC
    System requirements: MSX2
    Recommended: Moonsound
    Received: 03-01-2004
    Description: Snow falling, accompanied by four Moonblaster Wave songs

Snowfall demo 13 - Xmas

  • Created by: DarkStone
    Programming language: BASIC
    System requirements: MSX2
    Recommended: Moonsound
    Received: 03-01-2004
    Description: A very nice drawing and (of course) some snow falling

Snowfall demo 14 - Merii Kurisumasu

  • Created by: Alfonso D.C.
    Programming language: Assembly
    System requirements: MSX1
    Received: 04-01-2004
    Description: A nice logo and a cool snowfall effect

Snowfall demo 15 - Lumi 2

  • Created by: Nyyrikki
    Programming language: X-BASIC/NestorBASIC
    System requirements: MSX1
    Recommended: MSX2/MSX turboR/MSX-Audio/MSX-MUSIC
    Received: 04-01-2004
    Description: This demo works on MSX1, but looks better on MSX2. If you want stereo music, a turboR is needed.

Snowfall demo 16

  • Created by: Benno van den Boogaard (Scarr)
    Programming language: MSX-BASIC-KUN
    System requirements: MSX2
    Received: 05-01-2004
    Description: You know those bulbs you have to shake to see some snow falling? Here's one of them for your MSX!

Snowfall demo 17 - Oneliner

  • Created by: Sjoerd Mastijn (XL2S Entertainment)
    Programming language: BASIC
    System requirements: MSX2
    Received: 05-01-2004
    Description: In the tradition of MCM/MCCM's 'Kort & Krachtig' series, Sjoerd created a snowfall effect in just one single line of MSX-BASIC commands

Snowfall demo 18 - Digital snow

  • Created by: Infinite
    Programming language: Assembly
    System requirements: MSX2
    Recommended: MSX-Audio/MSX-MUSIC/Moonsound
    Received: 05-01-2004
    Description: A plasma logo-intro, a great drawing, a huge scroller and a snowfall effect inside the snow-font!

Snowfall demo 19 - 3K snow

  • Created by: Maso Jose (WYZ)
    Programming language: Assembly
    System requirements: MSX1
    Received: 05-01-2004
    Description: A user-controlleable snowfall effect in just 3 kilobytes!

Snowfall demo 20 - Xmas 2003

  • Created by: TeddyWareZ
    Programming language: Assembly
    System requirements: MSX2
    Recommended: MSX-Audio/MSX-MUSIC
    Received: 05-01-2004
    Description: An intro inspired by the Matrix, a nice drawing with a snowfall effect (spot the changes) and a scroller and a very special scroller as an ending

Snowfall demo 21 - YASD

  • Created by: David Heremans (turboR of Compjoetania TNG)
    Programming language: Assembly
    System requirements: MSX2
    Received: 05-01-2004
    Description: YASD stands for Yet Another Snow Demo. Two types of effects alternate in this demo, snowfall reflecting in water and snowfall sticking to text.

Snowfall demo 22 - Glop~

  • Created by: Maarten van Strien (Wolf)
    Programming language: BASIC
    System requirements: MSX2
    Received: 05-01-2004
    Description: Behold the power of color cycles.

Snowfall demo 23 - Sneeuw

  • Created by: Aurora
    Programming language: C
    System requirements: MSX2
    Received: 05-01-2004
    Description: It starts with a TV-like snow effect, but includes many extra's like (of course) a scroller

Snowfall demo 24

  • Created by: Jan Lukens (Jalu)
    Programming language: BASIC
    System requirements: MSX2+
    Recommended: MSX turboR
    Received: 05-01-2004
    Description: Using the SET SCROLL command to create the desired snowfall effect

Snowfall demo 25 - HiSpec

  • Created by: Patriek Lesparre (GuyveR800)
    Programming language: Assembly
    System requirements: MSX2/512kB RAM/GFX9000
    Recommended: 7MHz/MSX turboR
    Received: 05-01-2004
    Description: A 360 degrees rotating mountain (digitized), large snowflakes and a huge sinus-scroller. Realtime decompression. For all the lucky owners of GFX9000 cards

Once again, we recommend downloading and trying them all. They are all worth watching, and the developers would love to hear what you think of them. The HiSpec demo is even worth considering to buy a GFX9000 at Sunrise. We will get back to you soon, to announce you which demo's have won which prizes. And of course, expect more MRC Challenges in the future. Will you join in next time as well?

Comments (19)

By Grauw

Ascended (10768)

Grauw's picture

07-01-2004, 01:40

Pfff... Well, I watched only a few of them so far, now the big task to go take a look at each and every one of them Smile. I'm particularly looking forward to Digital snow, Snowclimber, YASD and Xmas 2003. I already saw HiSpec, very cool to see my Gfx9000 at work again, although a bit slow on my humble MSX2 Smile. And ofcourse I'm also looking forward to the other entries... Smile. Especially also the MSX1 ones, as you can pull amazing stuff with the pattern modes.

~Grauw

By sunrise

Paragon (1091)

sunrise's picture

07-01-2004, 08:09

Who, will judge this all independed

By snout

Ascended (15187)

snout's picture

07-01-2004, 09:03

Santa Claus!

By snout

Ascended (15187)

snout's picture

07-01-2004, 09:03

Tongue

By d-fader

Champion (293)

d-fader's picture

07-01-2004, 09:26

Maybe it's a(n) (good) idea to make a voting of it! ...just like that news voting, with a few rounds! (and that in each round you can select the best of 2 demo's)...
I think the 'real' review will be done by some mystery-group of peepz, but I think it's nice to let the community make a voting (by this) too!
What we need to do then is create some disk images with a booting on which we put a few demo's and a shortcut to start them (e.g. 1/5 on a disk, booting while choosing for 1..5)...
We only need to find a solution for Guyvers demo, since not everybody can view it! (the rest of the demo's can be viewed by emulators!). Maybe it's a good idea to make a video clip of it.
And maybe the voting needs to be done in a number of catagories (like Code, GFX, Music; Originallity; Humor; Care; etc) all will have a total of 3 points, so you can ghet winners in all catagories and an overall winner!

I think the community should start this, apart from the 'official' review! What do you guys think?

By BiFi

Enlighted (4348)

BiFi's picture

07-01-2004, 10:53

How do you see this then? Every day a different frontpage poll or something? And the contestants either shouldn't be able to vote for their own entry or not being able to vote at all.

By d-fader

Champion (293)

d-fader's picture

07-01-2004, 10:55

Just set a few days per round. And contestants may vote on their own demo since the whole community is voting, it's quite fair Smile

By Latok

msx guru (3938)

Latok's picture

07-01-2004, 10:56

Well, you should organize it yourself in the forums, then. The entries are going to be judged by a jury. There won't be any frontpage polls on this one.

By d-fader

Champion (293)

d-fader's picture

07-01-2004, 11:00

OmegaMSX: This voting system doesnt work very good, its hard to even give a top 10 ranking and it relies on randomization too much

d-fader: Yeah, that's maybe true when chaos' and guyvers' demo is one to choose between Smile that's maybe a bit unfair then maybe 100 points for 25 demo's with a maximum of e.g. 10 points, or a real ranking system, give all a score between 1 and 10 but that is unfair, since voting on your own demo then is not a good thing Smile

Bifi: Some kind of eurovision song contest system?

(a MiRC chat conversation Tongue)

By wolf_

Ambassador_ (10109)

wolf_'s picture

07-01-2004, 12:17

does 'digital snow' support msx audio ? Smile

By d-fader

Champion (293)

d-fader's picture

07-01-2004, 12:22

No it doesn't, it's the idea that counts Tongue

wheheh

By wolf_

Ambassador_ (10109)

wolf_'s picture

07-01-2004, 12:56

btw, why is the required amount of RAM not mentioned ? Might be helpful to the Japansese 64k ppz ..

By Grauw

Ascended (10768)

Grauw's picture

07-01-2004, 19:02

I think, as the MRC is the one giving away the prizes, it's their call. I trust they can make a fair judgement, and no doubt they'll tell you why the winners are uh... the winners Smile.

Also, keep in mind that this competition is not only about 'how cool it looks', but also about originality, inventiveness and skills. Otherwise only Assembly demo's would win. So all in all I think this calls for a more thought-out-voting than a frontpage poll or mega poll can account for, with a 'real' jury.

~Grauw

By d-fader

Champion (293)

d-fader's picture

07-01-2004, 20:39

Hmm, but as I said, it will be just a community-review apart from the real jury and I also said to vote in different catagories with e.g. 100 points for all demo's with a maximum of 10 for each demo and then catagorized (100 points per catagory) Smile

By wolf_

Ambassador_ (10109)

wolf_'s picture

07-01-2004, 20:54

I tend to agree on voting for indivual parts: gfx, music, code, code-language, originality, amusement factor etc.

By [WYZ]

Champion (451)

[WYZ]'s picture

07-01-2004, 21:03

Closed!! ouch!... too late... but you can download the finished 19th demo here:

http://wyz.webcindario.com/demo19.zip

By NYYRIKKI

Enlighted (6067)

NYYRIKKI's picture

07-01-2004, 22:13

I think woting is totally out of question. The original rules said: "We will not (only) look at the quality of the code, also originality and circumstances (e.g. programming languages and system requirements) will be taken into account. To make things even more interesting: We will even pick one or two winners randomly, so every entry could be a winner."

No hard feelings, but I think, that general visitor of this forum doesn't bother to download all the entrys, he does not have required hardware to run all the demos, he can't compare hardware requirements fairly nor understands differences of BASIC, NestorBASIC, C, Assembly or BrainFuck...

He will vote anyway... maybe just because his friend has made some demo to the competition, he happened to download a demo he likes or he just want's to be active and votes a MSX coder/team he has heard of.

Maybe we could vote, who will be on jury, but that is kind of hard as well as most of the "MSX guru's" has either made a demo to the competition, they belong to some group who has made an entry or at least they have friends that... or then they don't have those friends anymore after voting. :-)

I think, that objective MRC administrators should make the decisions... I just hope, that they will inform us about the schedule.

~NYYRIKKI

By NYYRIKKI

Enlighted (6067)

NYYRIKKI's picture

07-01-2004, 22:23

Ah BTW I think, it would be nice if the jury could write few sentences of all the entry's just to tell fair comment's why it was in place X, what they would have expected or something like that.

I know, it takes some time, but there are no many places, where you can get input about your MSX work, and this could be a very good place to start a new habit.

By Grauw

Ascended (10768)

Grauw's picture

08-01-2004, 13:17

I agree with NYYRIKKI... Well said Wink.