The Retro Remix Amiga Game Making Competition
 

Hi everyone!

Due to the overwhelming success and response to the Festive Amiga Game Making Competition, the team at Underground Arcade has decided to host quarterly competitions which means you will be given the chance to enter four different Amiga game-making contests each year and win some amazing Amiga prizes!

So, are you ready for it now? Our next competition theme is... RETRO REMIX! The challenge is to remake any game you like for the Amiga. It doesn't have to be an exact remake or clone of the original game, but could be more like a "Deluxe" or "Lite" version, or perhaps a sequel.

This time you'll have two months to complete your entry, starting now. All of the entries must be uploaded and ready to play by March 31st 2010. We will be announcing the full list of really cool prizes over the next few weeks so stay tuned! I can say that the prizes we have so far are really fantastic! I would like to thank everyone who has contributed to this competition's prize pool and if anyone wants to donate any more prizes, please let me know by private message or email, thanks!

The rules of this "Retro Remix" competition are here:

1. This time, we're giving you two months to work on your game. If your game isn't finished by the end of the time limit (March 31st), upload it anyway but have at least one playable level or a demo of the game completed.

2. The game you make for this competition must be playable on either classic OCS or AGA Amigas. This way, it'll reach more people who have classic hardware, or have access to UAE. If you want to port your "remixed" game to another system - AROS, MorphOS or OS4, feel free to as long as your final competition entry will work on a classic Amiga.

3. The game you "remix" must be based on an already existing game on any system (including Amiga) and you must clearly state in the ReadMe file which game you are basing it on too.

4. Ripped graphics are allowed, but keep in mind that enhanced or new graphics can sometimes improve your chances in the competition.

Feel free to use any software you like to create your game, including the use of game editors such as Backbone, SEUCK, GRAC/GRAAL or program it yourself if you like. If you need any help getting started on your game, please let us know and we'll try our best to help you.

If your talent lies mainly in one particular field, such as music arrangement and composition, or perhaps you're a coder or graphic artist who doesn't feel up to creating an entire game on your own, why not consider teaming up with others and sharing the prizes. Post away and let people know about your skills and ideas, and maybe there'll be someone else who wants the help you have to offer.

That's all for now! Good luck everyone and don't forget to keep checking back for news on prizes and more!

Why do not extend the deadline for this summer instead. 2 months is a very short deadline !

It's already Summer.

Not everyone lives in Australia! :)

Wow!!! sounds great this contest!!! I will contribute with a remake of my MSX favourite game :)

also, I think that four contests every year is too much. Two would be great.

I hope this time participe a lot of people!

Greets!

Juan

Well, in fact I was thinking of July/August 2010 !

Juan, are you the one who made the AmiMSX and SMS/GG emu ?

And which MSX game do you plan to remake (Knightmare please !!!!) ? :p

Hi Jack!

Yes, I am. (AmiMSX, AmiMasterGear, AmiGameBoy, AmiNES and AmiPC-Engine) :) http://kung-foo.dhs.org/zener/AmiEmulatorsWeb/

hehehehe, It's TOP SECRET!!!

Greets!

Juan

Yes, I live in Australia. I KNOW not everyone lives here, but as someone who lives in the Southern Hemisphere it gets annoying when people from the Northern Hemisphere refer to times of the year in seasons rather than months, assuming that we all live in the same hemisphere. It's almost as annoying as those who say good morning to everyone on an IRC channel when half of us are in the afternoon or evening. I've probably blown my chances at getting this competition going here now because of this, but I needed to get this out.

Juan, thank you for offering to get involved. The reason for having four contests each year is to give people more of a choice in themes, not everyone will be interested in each theme (some people hate Christmas so wouldn't have been interested in that last competition). It's also because we don't want interest to diminish over several months.

I'm sorry I can't please everyone, but you're under no obligation to enter this stupid competition.

2 months should be enough to provide at least a 1 or 2 levels demo of a big game (more by lowering overall quality).

You can still propose several themes / competition to choose from.

Wasn't the last competition only two weeks?

Seeing the standard of games produced in that time I think it'll be interesting to see what people can do with a longer timeframe.

Here's the thing, Cammy... once again, the idea is much appreciated and I would love to give it a try, but I'd like to know, will the winners be decided by an open web page vote again? If that's the case, I'm afraid I will have to pass. It would be so much more fair if a small committee of respected EAB members (or other Amiga 'experts' you may have in mind) voted on the games instead.

Hi Cammy!

It is a good reason to make four 'different' contest every year. :)
In this form, I think that it is important to know the objetive of every one with a reasonable time in advance.

My friend Carlos Peris (Tracker hero coder) don't like very much the idea of a remake in two months, but he likes make an original game in six months. So, it is important to know the objective of the next contest soon (in my opinion) then he can work in the second contest now :)

Please, it is only my point of view. I think that Arcade Underground knows what does.

Juan

Why? Who would choose who a "respected EAB member" is anyway?

The game making is open to everyone for making games to be playable by everyone so why wouldn't everyone get the chance to then vote on the games they play?

An open democracy is surely the fairest voting system.

I agree. I also agree with Cammy that maintaining momentum is important.

I initially thought this might be too short a timeframe for making a game by coding it from scratch but I think hitchhikr is correct - it's enough time to get a level together at least and then something promising could always be taken further separately.

Who in the right mind wouldn't have faith in the result of a committee of, say, TheCyberDruid, killergorilla, s2325, Akira, Zetr0, and Graham? Hell, I'd trust that committee to rule my country.

A web page where everyone can vote is not a democracy, it's an anarchy. :) It seems like a popularity contest and we have absolutely no guarantee that the people who voted played any of the games. We don't even have any guarantee that they know what an Amiga is.

I'm not saying that you are wrong and I am right, I am only explaining why I would personally prefer a committee to a public vote.

In other words when I asked who would choose the list of respected EAB members to vote on whether the game you made was any good or not your answer was: I will.

But choosing a list of "respected members" wouldn't be...?

Seems pretty tenuous to me - you do realise that contributing anything creative means there's a possibility that people might say that don't like what you've produced? I say swallow that fear and make your game anyway. As long as you do your best and you're proud of your effort and what you've produced who cares what anyone else says about it?

That's fair enough - likewise, I don't want to argue or cause any resentment, I'm just offering an alternate point of view.

I think the problem is that if the open vote is on some rating website and there's a prize involved, someone's bound to find a way to stuff the ballot using dynamic IPs or whatever...

An open vote in a forum would make that kind of abuse easier to spot, if the winner gets most of their votes from newly-registered accounts. Plus it's still a public vote.

Wow ! That's amazing ! I still play with your emulators, I have just completed Konami's SD Snatcher.
I'm AmiMSX registered user no.30 ! :)
I tought you left the Amiga scene after you made your emus freeware, I'm glad to see you are still in the Amiga comunity.

Will you work again on your emus one day to fix some little and very rare bugs (I'm dying to play Ys on the AmiSMS, but this one does not work :crying) ?


Okay, then I will cross my fingers (y tendre que encender una vela ! :D) !
Anyways, good luck with your game !

:laughing I was thinking of Cammy actually.

As I am the developer of two rather popular adventure games, one of them commercial, I've learned how to swallow it (and choke on it) years ago. :) It would just be easier for me to accept criticism from people who actually played the game, and I can't be sure of that with this voting system.

Not a bad idea either.

Ah, OK - my misunderstanding. I'm still not sure personally that it's fair for one person (any person) to decide what constitutes a respected EAB member worthy to vote on the games though.

I understand your concern and it's a fair one - maybe, as you say, mosfet's idea is a good middle ground... Anyways, I hope the voting system won't stop you from entering - judging from your experience you'd make a killer game! :)