SceneBeta.com is having something nice comming up!

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A whole year has passed since the first Scenery Beta 2008, and our particular Homebrew Festival has returned with the summer time. This time we are glad to announce that we will give real trophies to the winners of each category. We hope that the Scenery Beta 2009 will bring to us even more Homebrews than the last festival (specially in sections like Wii and NDS). In order to achieve this purpose our Homebrew Festival will dristribute as much money as the last year (2.400 EUR even despite the global crisis), new model and capacity for the pendrives (4GB each one), new trophies, commemorative stickers and official diplomas.

Scenery Beta 2009 is not a competition, it is just a festival (similar to cinema festivals) which not only pay tribute to all those great coders who make the scene bigger and bigger, but also make the rest of us enjoy with new games and applications for our favourite consoles: PSP, Nintendo DS, Wii and PC.

SceneBeta.com welcomes you to Scenery Beta 2009. Let’s get this party started!

http://www.scenebeta.com/noticia/scenery-beta-2009-international-homebrew-showcase-0

Do you like old computer/handheld/console stuff? Here comes a nice compo!

Read on:

RetroChallenge commences July 1st, 2009 and runs until July 31st, 2009
In order to qualify, computer systems must use a pre-pentium processor… in general, this means 486 or below, 680×0 and pretty much everything with an 8-bit processor, but we’ll also let you in if you have an old Cray kicking about.
Gaming consoles and PDAs qualify if they are at least ten years old as of July1, 2009.
Where appropriate, replica hardware and emulators may be used.
Entrants are responsible for adequately documenting their projects and submitting occasional updates during the contest.
Projects may encompass any aspect of retrocomputing that tickles the fancy of the individual entrant.
Winners will be arbitrarily chosen and crap prizes doled out during the first week of August 2009.
Have fun.

http://retrochallenge.net/2009/rules.html

Dear visitors,

We had a hard disk crash recently, which resulted into a loss of our bootloader and other problems. It was very difficult to handle the situation as our server farm is bound to specific working times and were not reachable during night, which pulled everything further into the future.

Thanks to EvilDragon ( http://www.gp2x.de ) we managed to come back online. All the fame should go to him – he’s a smart guy and didn’t even moan a second to help out.

The coding competition results for PDRC v4.01 are still pending as one judge is not done with his vote yet. As soon as this is done, the results will be compiled and presented. Please be a bit more patient.

Also by now Kojote has posted more than 70 news of major homebrew releases of the past five days, so be sure to check the backlog and let everyone know we are here again 🙂

The usual service should be back to normal soon!

Regards
Kojote

Retrogaming Times Monthly #58 is available. RTM is a retro magazine, sometimes with focus on homebrew things.

Content of this issue:

High Score Monthly!
Who Am I?
Lunch With Paul Zimmerman
Show Report: CCAG 2009
Dinosaurs, Algebra, And The Three-Handed Controller
How Phantasy Star II Taught Me To Spell
How I Discovered THE SECRET Of Missile Command
Never-Lander: A Programming Odyssey
RTM Idiocy: Blissful Ignorance And Dangerous Knowledge
NES’Cade – Arkanoid
Apple II Incider – Computer Baseball (Revisited)
The Thrill Of Defeat: ZX81 Games That Mostly Rock, Part 1
Videological Dig – The Doom Phenomenon
Laughing Pixels

Thanks to http://www.atariage.com for the news.

http://www.retrogamingtimes.com/rtm61/

Brakken ( http://www.tehskeen.com ) speaks out about (homebrew)scene issues once again.

Release notes by brakken:

Well, I have no Blog, but what’s stopping me from ranting on in another Blogcast…. Nothing! This new one covers these anti-drama lamers, Marcan and Wraggter’s shitty site. You want? Then download.

WARNING: Each Blogcast contains mature language and graphical descriptions of crap websites. Oh, and DRAMA. You’ve been warned.

http://www.tehskeen.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=12205

All entries are posted, all entries are up!

Here comes the roundup for the recently held PDRoms Coding Competition v4.01. To make it easier for other webmasters, here are all entries once again in one posting, including description, screenshots and downloads!

The judging is still in progress and should be done the next few days. The entries here are in random order.

Poomania by Metalvotze (GBA)

Our friendly plumber Paul is in trouble. Fatarse Fritz just ran to the outhouse, and the pipework isn’t done at all! Will you manage to help Paul before Fritz flushes his giant load and causes a terrible mess in the pit?

Connect the start of the pipe to the end point before the timer runs out. Once the flush sequence has been started, no more pieces of pipe can be placed. If you accidently set a wrong tile, you can remove it by pressing the B button, but this will take some time. Your progress is saved to cart automagically. If you play the game again, you can select your starting level up to the one you reached. Please don’t turn off your Gameboy Advance while the floppy disk icon is visible, otherwise your progress data may be lost and you have to start over from scratch again.

Download: //news/18145/
Discussion: //phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=91&t=5931

Clem The Retarded Elf 2 by Scott Lininger (GBA)

Poor Clem. He’s a retarded elf who loves presents but hasn’t the brains to find them. Can you help him and his blind friend, Rud get all of the wonderful gifts in time for Christmas?

Download: //files/2173/
Discussion: //phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=91&t=5942

Factory Bots by Nicholas Scheltema (GBA)

The purpose of the game is to control the movement of robots on a factory floor, and get them to take raw material from a Dispenser, put them in a Processor, then take the processed material and drop it into a Collector.

This is accomplished by placing instructions on the factory floor grid, and when a robot passes over the instruction, it obeys it. Instructions including turning four different directions, and performing an action. The action that is performed is dependent on what is nearby, this will either be picking up a nearby object, dropping a carried object, or nothing; if nothing applies. It’s also possible to introduce additional robots to a stage.

There are other obstacles that need to be overcome, such as reaching the different coloured buttons that control the various machines and barriers, and reaching conveyor belts that may be needed to transport objects across a stage.

Each stage requires a sequence to be planned, and played out over and over again until at least 5 pieces of processed material are collected. Timing plays an especially important role in successfully getting the robots to perform the set sequence, so play often involves adjusting the location of instructions to alter it slightly.

The number of instructions available are limited per stage. Solving each stage requires careful use of the available instructions to perfectly plan a successful sequence.

Download: //files/2174/
Discussion: //phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=91&t=5964

Droplets by Herman Samso (GBA)

Goal is to collect a given sequence of jewels and gems to reach the next level.

Download: //files/2176/
Discussion: //phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=91&t=5968

Shunting Puzzle by Philipp Klaus Krause (Coleco Vision)

This is a simple shunting puzzle for the ColecoVision. It has two levels corresponding to the classic Inglenook and Timesaver shunting puzzles.

Move the joystick forward / backward to move the engine.

The first fire button activates and deactivates decoupling mode. In decoupling mode a blue decoupling cursor appears and marks the decoupling position. It can be moved along the train by moving the joystick left/right. The second fire button decouples (and leaves decoupling mode).

Switches can be operated using the numbers on the keypad. Current switch positions are signaled by the point indicators next to the switches.

Download: //files/2177/

Skipp and Friends by Mukunda Johnson, Ken Snyder, Steven Velema and Hubert Lamontagne (SNES)

The object of the game is to move all three characters to the EXIT in each level. Each player has 2 limited special abilities that you may use to help advance through the level. The in-game status bar displays the name of each ability and how many times it can be used during that level.

For example, Apple’s two abilities are CARDKEY and SCREAM. Using CARDKEY next to a door will cause it to open and detract one CARDKEY point (you need at least one point to open a door). Her SCREAM stuns nearby enemies for a short period of time.

All three players must be alive and to the exit to complete the level. If you get yourself stuck, press START to pause and then SELECT to restart the level.

After you complete each level a 4 letter password is given to you so that you may resume the game using the Password option at the title screen, after your system has been shut off.

Download: //files/2175/
Discussion: //phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=87&t=5967

GemVenture (Beta) by Tom Livak (NES)

GemVenture is puzzle game where you fight against a series of monsters. If you’ve played PuzzleQuest, you’ll feel right at home. You attempt to match colored gems in the playfield, which will give you mana to cast spells, and can heal yourself or hurt your opponent. Your opponent then take a turn matching gems, and you continue back and forth until only one is left standing. GemVenture features 6 character classes, 18 different spells, and 20 monsters, each with their own special characteristics!

You’ll first pick one of the six character classes, which determines which spells you can cast. Then you’ll face your first opponent. Use the direction pad and the A button to select two adjacent gems. The gems will switch places, and any group of 3 more gems will break. Each gem you break will give you one mana of that color. Gems shaped like a heart will heal you, and those with spikes will hurt your opponent. Pressing select will switch you over the spell menu at the bottom of the screen, which you cast when you have enough mana. Each monster has it’s own special powers which use their mana.

If you run out of life points, your game is over. If you defeat your opponent, you’ll get to chose one stat to increase before taking on your next opponent.

Download: //files/2172/
Discussion: //phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=88&t=5941

Gears Of Fate by Thor (NGPC)

The goal of “Gears Of Fate” is to reach the red square with the green ball. This is reached by rotating the board, while undo is possible while the board still rotates.

Colored tiles are removed when three of them are regrouped. Grey tiles can not be removed at all. Dark colored tiles are removed once all tiles of the same color have disappeared.

This entry works on REAL HARDWARE where you have better sound but vector animations are slower. If you run this in an emulator: Using 12Khz WAV makes some emulators go nuts. Seems to work fine with NEOPOP 0.71 on Windows; Sometimes slower, sometimes faster than real HW.

Download: //files/2170/
Discussion: //phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=41&t=5930

Check the entries out if you haven’t yet, and enjoy!

Once again thanks to our sponsors: http://shop.gp2x.de – http://www.flashlinker-shop.com – http://www.superfighter.com – http://www.gamekool.com – http://www.slanina.pl & ph0x.

http://pdroms.de/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=105&t=4642

The deadline for this PDRC v4.01 is over in all timezones and we have recieved eight entries!

– Droplets by Herman Samso (GBA)
– Clem the Retarded Elf 2 by Scott Lininger, Maxwell Saal (GBA)
– Factory Bots by Nicholas Scheltema (GBA)
– GemVenture (Beta) by by Tom Livak (NES)
– Gears Of Fate by Thor (NGPC)
– Poomania by Metalvotze (GBA)
– Skipp and Friends: Unexpected Journy by Mukunda Johnson (SNES)
– Shunting Puzzle by Philipp Klau Krause (ColecoVision)

The entries will be published by time as we need to prepare screenshots and description text.

The prizes were sponsored by: http://shop.gp2x.de – http://www.flashlinker-shop.com – http://www.superfighter.com – http://www.gamekool.com – http://www.slanina.pl – ph0x; a competition would not have been possible without them. THANKS!

http://pdroms.de/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=105&t=4642

Homebrew developer Christian Nowak rises from the dead and hits the scene again. He developed for GP32, GBC but also other systems.

Keep an eye on his page and welcome back CHN!

http://chn.bplaced.net/

The deadline for this years PDRoms coding competition is almost here! Depending on your location you have 22 or more hours left!

Send in your entries! 🙂 Or hack something together in 22 hours 😀

http://pdroms.de/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=105&t=4642

The deadline for this years PDRoms coding competition is approaching! You are still having the entire weekend, which might be enough to do something little and get a chance of one of the nice prizes.

Here is the brief data:

Topic: Create a logic/puzzle game
Competition running time: Thursday, 02 April 2009 to Sunday, 31st May 2009
Deadline: Sunday, 31th May 2009 @ 23:59, in YOUR timezone!
Systems allowed: Atari 2600, Atari 5200, Atari 7800, Coleco Vision, Gameboy, Gameboy Color, Game Gear, IntelliVision, Master System, Neo Geo Pocket, Neo Geo Pocket Color, Nintendo Entertainment System, Odyssey2, Wonderswan, Wonderswan Color, Super Nintendo Entertainment System, Genesis/Megadrive, Gameboy Advance, Nintendo 64, PC Engine, Sega 32x, Sega CD and Vectrex.
Prizes to win: A WIZ console, 2 PSP Games, 1 Genesis Game, 5 R4 Cards, 10 Acekards and 150 US$ in cash

Prizes are sponsored by: http://shop.gp2x.de – http://www.flashlinker-shop.com – http://www.superfighter.com – http://www.gamekool.com – http://www.slanina.pl – ph0x

http://pdroms.de/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=105&t=4642