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Retro Minigame Competition Revealed

Posted by simoniker on from the melon-says-let's-go-back-to-school dept.

Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing to the 2003 Minigame Competition, a homebrew game contest "open to games for 'classic' 8-bit computers from the '80s", and featuring two categories, for games where the "...maximum size of the executable... is 1024 or 4096 bytes." Voting is currently open, although new games are still being submitted, and notable highlights include SCSIcide ("You are a disk drive read head, and your mission is to read the color-coded bits of data as they scream past you on 10 separate data tracks"), and JoustPong 1K for the Atari 2600 ("JoustPong is an old school Pong Deathmatch... but with a flap button!")

11 comments

  1. Not just curiosities, they're real products. by Kris_J · · Score: 4, Informative

    Many of the games submitted for the competition are available for download or, better yet, for sale. Most of the Atari 2600 titles can be bought as a real cartridge at the AtariAge Store. Of the submitted entries I own a hold-in-your-hand copy of Skeleton+ and Qb.

    1. Re:Not just curiosities, they're real products. by MagerValp · · Score: 3, Interesting

      We were hoping for a few more original entries, but the rules do state that you're allowed to submit previous work... But with games being submitted every day, it looks like we might even beat last year's 63 entries.

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      READY.
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  2. For those of us with less talent by 73bgt · · Score: 3, Informative

    The comp.sys.sinclair crap game competition is here

  3. More information about the 2600 entries by TheAlchemist · · Score: 4, Informative

    I believe this is the first year that 2600 games have been allowed in the competition, and since most 2600 games are 4K, this is why you see many 2600 homebrew authors submitting their games. The following list contains more information about each of the entries, including some that have not yet appeared on the Minigame Competition page:

    Climber 5
    Jammed
    JoustPong
    Gunfight
    Qb
    SCSIcide
    Skeleton+
    Space Treat Deluxe
    Warring Worms

    Additionally, many authors have released the source code to their games, which is invaluable if you're trying to learn how to program the 2600. Some examples relevant to the competition: Gunfight, Qb, SCSIcide, and Space Treat Deluxe.

    And finally, some other links people may find useful:

    Atari 2600 Emulators
    List of Released 2600 Homebrews
    Games in Development

    Enjoy!

    1. Re:More information about the 2600 entries by MagerValp · · Score: 1

      I believe this is the first year that 2600 games have been allowed in the competition

      No, they've been allowed every year.
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      READY.
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    2. Re:More information about the 2600 entries by kisrael · · Score: 1

      Dang...this is one of the quietest slashdot posts I've ever seen...

      ah well!

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      SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
    3. Re:More information about the 2600 entries by zapavic · · Score: 1

      Previous years, the categories were 0.5, 1 and 2K which all seem too tight for Atari 2600 games (we had a few limited NES games last year, but maybe it doesn't require as much space).

  4. Woot, thatsa my game by kisrael · · Score: 2, Informative

    I'm the author of JoustPong, still a work in progress...I found out that an early playable alpha was only 60 bytes over the 1K limit, so I stripped it to 1 player only and sent it in.

    Most of the other atari games are previous 4K works, and generally more impressive than the 1K version of my ongoing effort.

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    SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
  5. Rip Off by Gudlyf · · Score: 1

    That entry for "Gunfight" is a right-out ripoff of the old Atari game "Gunslinger". What kind of original idea is that?

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    Trolls lurk everywhere. Mod them down.
    1. Re:Rip Off by TheAlchemist · · Score: 1

      Many games are based on others, there is nothing new here. Manuel Polik's Gunfight is derived from the 1975 Midway arcade game of the same name. Atari also produced a similar arcade game, called Outlaw, which they later ported to the 2600. The Sears title Gunslinger is simply Outlaw rebadged.

      Gunfight is much improved over Atari's Outlaw for the 2600. You can see this by downloading the binary for each game (from the links provided above) and trying the two games in your favorite 2600 emulator. Other games in this competition have also been derived from other titles. These include Jammed, Warring Worms, JoustPong, and Climber 5. Even Space Treat Deluxe takes some cues from Frogger. But that shouldn't diminish the works of these authors, as each homebrew game brings something new to the 2600, whether it be an original game or an improvement on an existing title.