For those who might have not recognized yet, we do have another coding competition here at PDRoms, running since 2nd April and it’s deadline beeing 31st May 2009. There is still plenty of time to get things going!

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

It’s reality again, here comes PDROMS CODING COMPETITION v4.01 – Retro Coding Fun for Console and Handhelds!


Coding on “closed” handhelds or consoles must not be a privilege; dozens of free development kits proof the opposite. The steadily growing “homebrew scene” produces unlicensed software for devices not meant to be open for everyone.

PDRoms has always been in the homebrew scene to support the creation of new homebrew software, support programmers and artists. To show our love to the homebrew scene once again, here comes the ninth PDRoms Coding Competition.

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, 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

Spread the word! – May the Schwartz be with you 😉

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

XPMCK is a music (expressed in MML) compiler kit targeted towards various video game systems. It currently supports the following systems:

* Capcom Play System (VGM output)
* Commodore 64
* Nintendo Gameboy / Gameboy Color
* SEGA Master System
* SEGA Game Gear
* SEGA Genesis

Besides the compiler and its source code, the kit includes playback libraries for all supported systems, as well as examples and brief documentation.

Changes:

Added support for periodic noise on the GBC (noise counter width change).
Extended the octave range of the GBC noise channel (can now go from octave 1 to octave 9).
Fixed a bug in the Genesis (Z80) playback library where volume macros wouldn’t be turned off properly.
Fixed a bug in the pattern handling in the GBC playback library

Thanks to the author, mic, himself for the news via ICQ.

http://jiggawatt.org/muzak/xpmck/

Release notes from Mairtrus:

Well, after taking a little break, I resumed the BEX developing, and I returned with a pleasant surprise for all (I think): an engine scroll completely written in BEX. Currently works with 64X64 blocks of pixels (8X8 tiles), because I followed the Devster’s idea, but, actually, works pretty slow. I am working to create a more fluid movement.

It works drawing each tile separately, reading it directly from a list. By using the command DrawTile instead of DrawTiles or DrawTilesInc, you can make, within the same block, that the tiles has different palettes, priorities or reflections.

I know what everyone is thinking while reading this message, and the answer is YES: it will be open source for anyone who intends to use it.Just let me improve it a bit to make it as accurate as possible, although I may take a while …

For now I leave with a small demo that shows part of the level 1-1 of Super Mario Bros for NES. You can scroll it with the D-Pad. Just 3 observations…
1) Only shows a small part of the level because I am too lazy to finish it just to release a demo.
2) When the ground moves vertically, may appear to the same drawing, but no. It is just a test to demonstrate both the ability to scroll horizontally and vertically.
3) The numbers listed top right are just of verification, and are nothing more than the number of horizontal interruptions that were executed during the drawing of the tiles.

http://devster.proboards22.com/index.cgi?board=basiegaxorz&action=display&thread=431

Airstriker is a 1980’s-like arcade vertical shooter with 2 player support and an endurance mode.

http://syniphas.drx.pl/electroindex.htm

XPMCK is a music (expressed in MML) compiler kit targeted towards various video game systems. It currently supports the following systems:

* Capcom Play System (VGM output)
* Commodore 64
* Nintendo Gameboy / Gameboy Color
* SEGA Master System
* SEGA Game Gear
* SEGA Genesis

Besides the compiler and its source code, the kit includes playback libraries for all supported systems, as well as examples and brief documentation.

Changes:

Added support for default parameters for macros.
Added support for patterns.
Added support for detuning to the C64 playback library.
Added support for EP and MP to the C64 playback library.
Updated the GUI.

Thanks to the author, mic, himself for the news via ICQ.

http://jiggawatt.org/muzak/xpmck/

Mairtrus released a Tetris game for Genesis/Megadrive called Tetrex. It comes with fully commented BasiEgaXorz source code.

http://devster.proboards22.com/index.cgi?board=basiegaxorz&action=display&thread=401

XPMCK is a music (expressed in MML) compiler kit targeted towards various video game systems. It currently supports the following systems:

* Capcom Play System (VGM output)
* Commodore 64
* Nintendo Gameboy / Gameboy Color
* SEGA Master System
* SEGA Game Gear
* SEGA Genesis

Besides the compiler and its source code, the kit includes playback libraries for all supported systems, as well as examples and brief documentation.

Changes:

Tempo settings up to 300 BPM are now supported.
Fixed some bugs in the handling of duty cycle macros in the GBC player.
Channel 3 on the GBC is now allowed to go down to C in octave 1.

http://jiggawatt.org/muzak/xpmck/

Release notes from ScroGer:

Check out this small preview demo,just ollie on to the rail grind and fall off…

http://devster.proboards22.com/index.cgi?board=dev&action=display&thread=400&page=2

BasiEgaXorz is a BASIC compiler for the Sega Genesis consoles. That means, by using this compiler, you can program in a form of BASIC language to create awesome programs, or games for your old Sega Genesis game console. The compiler will also compile CD ISOs for the Sega CD attachment, ROMs that can use the features of the 32x extension, and not to mention, creating ROMs for the regular console without attachements. Today, when most programmers think of the BASIC language, they think about Visual Basic. The language BasiEgaXorz uses is not like Visual Basic, and it certianly wasn’t derived from it. This compiler is aimed for speed, so there are many things that cannot be dynamic within the environment, everything is stayed static (like variables for example, no such thing as REDIM). BasiEgaXorz is intended for a beginer’s platform in order to give an opportunity to make fun and simple games easy to make on an awesome gaming console!

Changes:

– Fixed many bugs in assembly that ASMX made
– Fixed the INPUT and GETS commands to not break the heap inside functions
– Declaring a variable with an absolute address inside a function gives a compiler error now
– No more mot2bin.exe
– Doing a=a*-1 is functional again
– Compiling the fake_variables.bex example works
– The assemble function works again
– Bugs fixed with user-defined subs/functions breaking the heap
– A bug is fixed, where putting spaces in between parenthesis now works
– Fixed a bug with the DATALONG command
– Fixed a bug when entering strings with the INPUT command

http://devster.monkeeh.com/sega/basiegaxorz/