MSXdev23 is on!

Good luck for those who intend to enter the contest.

No need to worry about my remakes scoring high, I won't be joining this time

...and without blatant favouritism.

Thanks for the motivational words, guys! Let's do it.

Nice I am already looking forward to this years entries!

Weren't Lilly and Sales Discontinued original?

Anyway, really loved they kept it freestyle

Was does this statement cover exactly ?

And you cannot open source the game before the contest is over of course.

You can open source it after end of contest, @aoineko, would that become a problem?

My open source is non-negotiable. It's a matter of principle; I spend a lot of time developing, and sharing with the community is my main motivation.
Moreover, my games are also used as samples for my MSXgl library. I'm not going to hide these projects for 1 year just to please the organizers of a contest.

If this rule is confirmed it's a pity, but it's not a big deal. My game will be released in 2023, whether it is in MSXdev or not.

I've done that in the past (that rule has been there for a while)

My games are open source and the code is in github since day one. It is a question of principles as well.

It basically means you are not doing a public release in a shop or website (at least not until the contest has ended)
I never had any problem with that: Open Source games, no public "release".

They are always available on TFH anyway, so you could "download" them from there as well, and this has never been a problem, on the contrary, it is great to have them there,

Hai all,

The rule about "msxdev exclusive", just means that the game cannot be published by any other than MSXdev. It does not mean it can't be openSource, or downloadable somewhere else. For example, the game can not be published on cartridge by a company during the contest. It is an MSXdev game only in the time MSXdev23 is active.

Hope that clears things up. The MSXdev tries to keep things simple and not be picky about rules, interpretations and what not. Play fair, have fun.

We hope you like the decision to go Free-Style again.

Haha, thanks a lot ro! Got scared there for a moment! haha Looking forward to this year's competition!

It is great that you guys organise another MSXdev again!... but it will not surprise you that I don't like the decision to go Free-Style again. I guess we'll have to live with it. Will this be the format also for future MSXdev's ?

I like the suggestion of Aoineko to have an MSX1 category/ranking. I think MSX1 game development could use more competion, recognition and appreciation.

You mean like almost every MSXdev before last year's? Funnily enough, I feel the exact opposite: I personally believe MSX2 (and higher) game development could use more competition, recognition and appreciation. Most MSX game releases, be they commercial or not, are MSX1 exclusives, even without small MSX2 enhancements despite some of these being relatively easy to add. And many people seem to think MSX2 games should be held to 16-bit standards, which raises the bar even more for MSX2 (and higher) productions.

It also seems to me that separating MSX1 and freestyle categories would effectively kill the freestyle one, as already seen in the past. Even last year most entries were MSX1 games.

Uh, say again? MSXdev has always been MSX1 only, for 18 years or so...

Until 2015 it was, but after 2015 only the 2020 and 2021 editions were pure MSX1.
And I’m not saying that the competition should be MSX1 only, but I think it makes sense to differentiate between MSX1 and MSX2.

With all due respect, Micha, but how and why do you think it will?

Dear people, I will just have to react to this as open and honestly as I can.
Please read my words as coming from John Hassink, as an individual person and not as an organizer of MSXdev or even an admin of MRC (hardly - mostly only some editing in case I happen to spot a grammatical error).

Growing up as a Dutch guy, having MSX more as a consolation than a console, I didn't really differentiate MSX1 from MSX2. I'm aware that this is anecdotal and from my own cultural point of view. I know it's different for Brazilian MSX fans or even most of you from Spain, or Russia, for example.
Us, Dutchies, were just lucky that MSX2 was a pretty normal thing around here; endorsed, manufactured and distributed by the biggest tech company of the nation (Philips) and even employed in schools for education.

So to me, Valis II (MSX2) was just as cool as Penguin Adventure (MSX1). They were both MSX games to me.
In my opinion, Salamander (MSX1) was a better game than Twinkle Star (MSX2), despite them sharing a lot of game mechanics.
But I enjoyed Space Manbow (MSX2) more than Super Cobra (MSX1).
I liked Psycho World (MSX2) more than Nuts 'n' Milk (MSX1). Not because Nuts 'n' Milk was MSX1, or because I thought it was a bad game (which it is not) but because Psycho World was a more advanced game in every aspect. They are both sideview platformers though, in any stretch.
My favourite Laydock game? Not the MSX2 one. Not the MSX2+ one. Super Laydock, for the MSX1 is the best one in my opinion.
The Roving Planet Styrus (MSX1) has at least 50x more deeper gameplay than ButaPorc (MSX2). I would expect any jury of MSXdev to realize that. And they do.

So, I could go on and on, but you probably get my point.
I would like to even expand upon this point by stating that, to me, just to grab two examples from last year: "Sacred Valley" and "Sales Discontinued" are both masterpieces. They compare like apples and your dog on a drumkit, but both of them are crafted masterfully, with a lot of love and dedication, and both of them can run on an MSX machine.
Sure, "Sales Discontinued" needs some extra help, but so did Salamander, with its built-in extra soundchip, and the required Nemesis 2 in order to get the good ending.
To me, it's all MSX games, and I pray that you'd also see it that way.
Really, practically all entries of last year were awesome. I played DICED yesterday with my girl, because we love it. We play it all the time. And I could go on and on and on about how much I appreciate and love all the support for the contest.

I'm sorry about the dissatisfaction over last year's jury report. We all are. But guys - even the juror himself came out; realized that it could have been done better (which was also due to a linguistical/cultural barrier,) he apologized, and promised to do better next time.
So why do you keep bringing this up? I can really understand your concerns, and I fully understand that a contest like this should be considered seriously and (semi-)professionally. Regarding that, we're really doing our best, but remarks that suggest nepotism or any other kind of politics going on, that hurts. Hard. To be honest.

Around 10 years ago, viejo_archivero and robsy selected Konamito and I to take over the MSXdev torch from them.
As I already loved the MSXdev initiative, it started to grow on me, as an organizer. I started to consider it as a part of me, and a way to express my love for the MSX platform and the scene itself.
I don't want to exaggerate, nor over-dramatize things (while I'm already ranting for quite some paragraphs), but you may try to realize that organizing a world-wide contest of which people will have a lot of opinions and their own special needs, is quite tasking, even working as a team, but especially when you're also trying to maintain a family and professional life.

I'm absolutely not saying here that the MSXdev Team, whether I'll be still on it or not, should never be criticized.
Criticism is good, and should always be welcomed, in order to improve ourselves.
I'm just asking you to be fair and consider the people behind the organization.
We're all in the same boat, together. Please, let's be kind and try to consider eachother.

I hope this will be another great run for MSXdev.
Once more, we'll prove together that MSX is the greatest platform that was, while it wasn't or could have been more. ;-)
MSX1, MSX2, MSX2+, Turbo-R, Frankenstein MSX;
It's all MSX and good to me. Start your engines, revv up your creativity and let's rock 'n' roll!

John

If something is bad, is a jury allowed to say it's bad?

See, if I'd be a jury, what I would try to prevent is to give grades between 6 and 10 rather than between 0 to 10, just to make it all appear friendly and jolly in common scene/group spirit. Of course, always with clearly written explanations. One could respect and be friendly to contestants, but how about being respectful towards the art itself?

Just asking...

If a jury's report is bad, are we people allowed to say it's bad?

Being respectful and friendly with the contestants does not imply to give grades between 6 and 10. And it does not imply to say "good job" regardless quality either. Giving good scores to everyone is disrespectful as well to the people that really deserved the praise of their work. I'll quote myself:

That was the main criticism towards last year graphics jury reports, the dismissive and insulting "explanations".

Hai, all.

Thank you all for you honest discussion, I appreciate a good, open and transparent one. As a member of the MSXdev team, I'm listening in and taking notes. And I'm glad to read different opinions on whatever matter. I am well aware of the amount of reactions one might get when going public with whatever. Negative, positive, or neutral. We can handle that just fine.

The first and foremost reason for MSXdev to exist, is to have a stage for developers to showcase their skills. We, the MSXdev team, are nothing but humble servants to that cause. And, just like John, I love doing my part. It is just like writing a news post, for example, here on MRC; I love writing about what others do for MSX.

As much as the dev show is a stage, it is also a contest. And perhaps that's the part that gets talked about the most. Good reason, or not. And yeah, I can understand that not every one agrees on judge reports. As it should. I have often wondered if MSXdev would work if we just loose the contest part and only be a platform for developers.

We had a good discussion about whether this year should be classic or free-style, and we ended up with the latter. Just because we love to see any MSX related game on stage. A good game is a good game, no matter the hardware.

So, keep the discussions going. We're all in the same boat, or scene, indeed Just make your point and don't dwell too long on it.

you are all awesome, see you on stage!

(meanwhile, first game is already in as are donations and sponsoring... see, you are awesome!)

The real answer is, it depends!

A really interesting thing about this contest, and the discussions on this site, is that while it's aimed for everyone around the world, a lot of people tends to be dutch, and they talk as if the whole site consists of only dutch people. It must be an essential part of the dutch culture where they say what they believe.

In many, many other cultures, that's not what people do. In some parts of the world, people say "yes" when they mean "no", or they say "daijoubu", for example. But in a lot of cultures, mostly where people respect each other, there just is no need to say that something is "bad".

I guess that it's easy to forget that people on this site can come for different cultures, and they can interpret your message differently. It's probably fine to be direct and invasive and respectless when both partners of the discussion are dutch, but people probably should be more careful when they're not sure about what culture the other person is from, and what they expect. This may take some energy from your part, and if you are too tired to do that then that's fine too, we respect you.

This also goes for people who are not familiar with the dutch culture; please have mercy on these poor dutch people, for they probably don't know how to do intercultural discussions.

As for the MSXDev, where the original intention was to improve the number of games made for the MSX (at least that's what I gathered), I believe we should be encouraging people who spend time to make games for a contest, and have respect for the authors. Encouragements and respect should be the point of any communication to the entrants; they have spent time and energy making the games to be released for free, after all. Still, have some mercy and respect on the organisers, for they are dutch after all.

@John: please read timmy's comment with a grain of salt and understand the sarcasm/exaggeration here.
I understand what he means and he's got a point. And it's not specifically meant as a direct critisism on the MSXDev organisation

Well, in case that I've misinterpreted, I apologize. I will refrain from commenting for a while.

Awesome. I welcome freestyle again - I hope it will encourage people to explore and discover new possibilities on both msx1 and MSX2 (and above). Personally I’ve had to slowdown a bit on the time devoted to development now, so I assume I won’t be submitting this year, but I’ll stand on the sideline cheering up the contestants. Hoping that someone raises the bar, of course

So making a separate ranking of MSX 1 entries should not be a difficult task and everyone would be happy. Why have one winner when you can have two?

First, I would like to thank all MSXdev teams (past and present) for all their effort and time to create this ecosystem that produces so many new MSX software each year. Sadly, it's a human tendency to only focus on the negative aspects and forget to praise the good parts.

And can't describe how happy I am the freedom to choose from any MSX generation has stayed. I share the opinion with @JohnHassink that what matters to me are if the games are good or not, regardless of the generation. I also have many MSX1 games play much more and rank them above *a lot* of MSX2 games.

We all know that the contest isn't perfect. But IMHO, it has been improving each year. And, being humans, some new mistakes are also tend to happen here and there ( 😅 ), but IMHO what's important is to see if it's a repeating pattern or not, even after feedback was given.

Thank you for your suggestion, sd_snatcher. Appreciated.

The rule states "during the contest it is MSXdev exclusive" - so when submitting a game, it's exclusive until the deadline. Then the author can do whatever he/she want to do with it. Does that fit your suggestion?

Simple, we want exclusive MSX software at that moment. We want it clean, simple and.. yup, exclusive. See, we keep simple rules to keep it... well, simple. Can I say so many "simple" in one comment? Play fair, have fun.

I really appreciate the MSXdev contest, including some of the requirements; I've seen many contests fail due to 'commercial drama'.

As a professional auditor myself I recognize many of the pitfalls some jurors walked right into, but all I can say is: please don't shoot the messenger for being honest and/or outspoken; that's exactly why they were chosen (and/or successful in the field) in the first place.

The MSX community being so small & intertwined for over 25 years in many cases, doesn't make it any easier to find 'neutral' yet 'established' jurors either.

/ I'm just happy the '23 dev compo has been announced and it is free-style again !

Also: Can we please get an interview / video about the making of Sales Continued and/or the game-engine behind it; that's some serious engineering for a retro platform !

If language is/was a barrier for Nitta, then I'd suggest that jury members shouldn't comment on details outside of their field of expertise. For music you don't really need to understand much of the game, as long as there's some kind of BGM-player, or a list of MP3's.

So, a designer comments on graphics. A composer comments on music/sfx. And a coder comments on ... on what actually... ^^; On how smooth a game plays, and on the game's technical content?

Ofcourse Mister Nitta played the game, as he obviously took his jury job quite seriously, and put a lot of love and effort into judging each and every one of them fairly.

Imagine slaving for months over a soundtrack to get every detail right, trying to make this your best game music ever.
Imagine almost drying your eyeballs out, staring at our own pixel-art, avoiding colorclash, marrying sprite to sprite, to tile to tile.
But the jury only comments on if the game is "fun" or not, like a child at a zoo.
"Yeah, it was fun. The elephants were not starved. I especially liked the icecream I got afterwards."
Then why bother?

IMHO, the different categories are there for a reason. Sound, Graphics, Playability. So an entry can be judged on its merits and/or flaws.
A game can be super fun to play, but look and sound like vomit. A game can be as exciting as watching wallpaper dry, but have awesome music and graphics. It should be judged particularly on these components, or even an overall jury report wouldn't make a lot of sense.

If you would have a 3 person jury and two of them don't like shooting games, and you just made the best MSX-shooter ever...ouch.
If you have a very large jury or let the public decide, then it might make sense to just ask: what do you think is the best game ?, but the mix of ranking per category (gameplay, graphics and sound) and ranking games as a whole like in MSXdev22 makes a lot of sense when you have a small jury.

Then that person shouldn't be chosen as member of the jury anyway. One picks a jury member based on its skills to identify quality in any game. Be it Fray, Puyo Puyo, Space Manbow or Boulderdash.

Very much in context. I agree with wolf a good juror is able to objectify. And likes them all anyway, whether it is shoot'emup, platform, rpg, strategy or puzzle.

Imagine obsessing over smooth gameplay, difficulty ramp, level design, progression, flow, onboarding and mastering...
And that being just part of the overall grading and hardly being mentioned by the jury.

It all depends. What is important is to have a clear criteria for evaluating the games and stick to it.

As, more or less, in some previous editions of MSXdev, a special "Public Vote Prize" might be something to consider, which would be its own ranking, besides the jury deliberation.

The MSXdev'23 can only really begin if we've reached 100 posts about specs and jurys. That yearly debate is part of the tradition.

You are not wrong, but it has luckily really begun, as we already have a cool first entry.

And they're back! Yay!

Indeed, down....