Proposed side compo: Remix

Since 2012, my ultimate intent has been to put together a multicart with 53 games on it. And I want these games to be as polished as possible, to provide a stark contrast to an infamous release by Active Enterprises. Thus after the second compo, I wrote a pitch for a remix compo to be held after the fourth compo.

That time has come.

But if you're planning to make a Game Of The Year Edition, be aware that despite the name, you probably won't be able to license the song "Somebody That I Used to Know" for your GOTYE.

What do we mean by remix?

Like a crossover, like the Mario/Rabbids game? Or like, "what happens when this TV show has a guest director, and it's Stephen Spielberg" kind of reimagined version of the old game?

Would this be a sort of...give your source code to someone else and let them hack at it?


Unrelated suggestion for future nesdev. SRAM. (I have an idea that would work better if you can save).

I had envisioned "remix" as meaning you improve your past entry or you improve someone else's past entry. The aim is that the updated version supersedes the older versions, just as the post-compo version of a game supersedes the judged version. I didn't want to call it "adding polish" because then every game would have to live up to Gruniożerca 2, which is already chock full of both polish and Polish.

Thus a "'what happens when this TV show has a guest director, and it's Stephen Spielberg' kind of reimagined version of the old game" would appear to be in scope, such as an NES port of my Python remake of FHBG (which took it in a very different from Nova's follow-up DABG), or something that combines NES15 and 2048 to use one engine.

I was thinking on redoing Wo Xiang Niao Niao with better graphics using 64K rather than 32K (UNROM, most likely), and adding cutscenes. But I've yet to make my mind around it.

Is the 64K limit still being enforced?

The extent to which I would want to continue the 64 KiB limit depends on how big of a multicart INL can replicate. I would like to prevent the final 53-game collection from exceeding that size, but I'd have to wait for Paul to reply about exactly what that size is. If, say, all 53 games were expanded to 64 KiB, that would total 3392 KiB. The judging criteria may end up having to include a "value for space" consideration.

I am willing to make one concession: A remix that supersedes multiple entries or out-of-compo additions may cover 64 KiB for each such entry up to a maximum of 256 KiB. For example, something including replacements for Concentration Room, FHBG, Thwaite, and RHDE could be 256 KiB, though if I were doing that, I would hope that I can squeeze it into 128 KiB to boost value for space. So if you want to expand a game to 80 KiB, you might try to put it in the same ROM as another entry you're expanding to 48 KiB. I admit that I haven't thought through all the special cases of this where two entrants remake the same game with intent to supersede it, and both rely on sharing the ROM.

Maybe this is obvious, but I'd suggest one of the requirements is to get permission from the original author before remixing/improving someone else's entry. Even if it's technically not legally required in some cases (if the code is open source or if the improvement doesn't use any code/resources from the original), it would reduce any potential conflicts.

Like if someone "remixed" their own game, and someone else also did a remix of it... that could be bad.

Would a remix of an Action52 game fall into this category?

Just saw this now... dangit I already have too many open projects but I might have to find time for this!

My only entry (Waddles) could be a lot better with some TLC... better movement/collisions and some redesigned levels and better puzzles. Maybe some extended/improved music tracks too.

I'm not quite sure I'm ready to wade back into that mess of assembly, but.. maybe.

Glad to see this finally happening!

Is it happening?

I can't imagine any way I would/could/should change my 3 entries.

I really like the idea. One way to handle it could possibly be to contact each of the previous developers and ask if they would approve of others working with their IPs for this purpose, and then have those available in the OP of a relevant thread.

I see no problem with multiple developers attempting remakes of the same project (obviously if the developer had previously agreed to let their project be used openly for a remake.) Seeing different intrepretations and takes on the same game would be very interesting.

You are free to use any IP related to my games published in A53 whatsoever. That includes out of compo submissions.

I agree -- I _could_ add more to my previous entries, but I'm not really interested in doing so -- making something new is a lot more fun to me. But hey, everyone's different, maybe there's someone out there that would really enjoy this sort of thing.

Maybe this could serve as inspiration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OliBr44kzk

Snarblams' maru mari hack on metroid (unsure if it ever was finished) flipped the object of the game on its end by exploiting the sprite wraparound, forcing morphball mode, adding and adding ratchet autoscrolling. I assume the ypos-based hurt mechanism is repurposed to kill off the player character if catched by the upper edge of screen.

I think it would be fun to do a remake of Wo xiang niào niào. I could get interested in that.


(edit, a word)

I would love to see your own interpretation of the game.

Actually, it's not a hack, it's a homebrew game, written from scratch. Snarf just used Metroid graphics as placeholder for future art.

He was asking for artists on his coding blog, a while back.

Oh, cool!

I tried to google for snarfs' blog but only found the homepage and the youtube account.

Here's the relevant blog link, if you're curious: http://snarfblam.com/words/?p=376

The concept reminds me of MineShaft vaguely.

I'm actually working on a port of Brick Breaker for the PCE to ease me into developing for it, but maybe I'll remake it for that system so the side compo idea is intriguing. Not sure if I'd be able to back port the "new" version to a compo format though, since I'd probably hit 64k easily with what I'm planning.

Much has changed since the original proposal 4 years ago. The biggest being the large increase of participants and the volume of original content, and I'm in the process of re-deciding what my ultimate goals for nesdev will be.

I'm in agreement of preparing for the master assembly of Action 53, to that end things like engine improvements and merges should be encouraged. If I recall correctly there's a remastered version of Sir Ababol from Mojon Twins. Arbitrary engine merges may not actually save as many bytes as one would hope because the majority of the game size consists of the level layout and graphical data which is not common from game to game. For graphical data, I would be willing to replace pb53 with donut to help with space there. Also maybe have a few CHR RAM games, that only upload a full CHR sheet on start, move to CHR ROM to easily take advantage of the compression.

My original thoughts of making mini tools that require large saves is not going to work. It is also not a common thing to work on someone else's full game source code. I personally have a couple half finished projects aimed at being in the remix: Solar Wars rewrite, Russian Roulette rewrite, and implementing the actual correct logic in my musical controller toy. I should finish those.

There's no chance for me to make my own full original game, and that's OK, many of us are already doing that. I willing to spend my efforts to help with the master assembly of Action 53, wether that be through a "remix compo" or just helping assemble it. Maybe Tepples and I should do a mini hackathon the day after NovaCon 2018 as I will still be in the area that Sunday.

There's remastered (much improved) versions of Sir Ababol and Sgt. Helmet's Training Day, yes.

Does anyone want to redesign the graphics in Jammin Honey? The 'Assembly Line' podcast suggested that I might have won if the graphics were better.

You wouldn't have to learn any of the code. I could easily insert it for you. Also, all the level design was done in Tiled, which anyone could use to change the levels (if I gave you the template file.

Also, the 'choose honey's colors' could be removed to give more color options for sprites.

I thought Jammin' Honey's graphics were good. They were clean and direct, a little bit cute.

The only thing I'd want to remix about it, personally, is that suggestion I made to you earlier about playing the DPCM guitar sample at 3 different speeds in a way that follows that harmony of the music.