Retrospectiva 2012: Coding and digital art competition

The Argentine retro community Retrocomputación announced the fourth Retrospectiva competition. Last year the competition struggled to get entries, so a few things were changed compared to last year. For starters, the competition is to be 8bit platforms only, with an exception for the TI-99/4a. Furthermore, the organization is now backed by the Argentinian ICATEC Museum Foundation, who will provide prizes (being 7" Proton tablets) for the winners of each category.

There are three categories in the competition:

BASIC games
Graphics
Music

A list of the supported platforms and the specifications that should be kept in mind can be found over here. Interestingly, despite the retro spirit of the competition, the GFX9000 entries are allowed in the Graphics category.

Entries can be submitted until April 14th, 2013. Complete rules to the competition can be found over here.

Relevant link: Retrospectiva

Comments (13)

By anonymous

incognito ergo sum (116)

17-05-2012, 03:19

This would have been an excellent incentive to finally finish SD Yab Yum!
But:

Quote:

No racist, violent or sexual content.

Oh well...

What is meant with 'violence' ? I couldn't begin to count the times that I shot enemy fighter planes out of the air above the Pacific Ocean, slayed vampires with my mystical whip, delivered countless deadly sword chucks (yo!), beaten opposing street fighters to #@%$ with my bare fists, blew a whole bunch of guys away with grenades, bazookas and/or machinegun-fire, etc. etc. etc.
Man, I even ate ghosts! Sometimes four in a row, just to get 1600 points.

And how gory can you get with 8-bit graphics, anyway? I've seen some conceptual graphics for an MSX1 version of Splatterhouse once, and well, yeah, no, you can't, really.
The 'no racism' part I can see, but we still have to be careful with the label 'racist', as I've seen a jewel like Higemaru been called just that. Because you can not acknowledge that black people exist in a game.

Besides my questions, I don't want to be negative. I hope this contest will inspire people to make some cool stuff!

By Vampier

Prophet (2397)

17-05-2012, 02:49

nothing to see; move along.

By anonymous

incognito ergo sum (116)

17-05-2012, 03:25

Funny thing about that - partly due to the (Japanese-Dutch) language barrier, the reviewer of Dutch/Flamish magazine MCM thought the guy was actually still alive but wounded and dying. I recall a remark saying "He manages to stay alive until he can tell you what happened, just like in the movies".

When I, back in the day, played SD Snatcher together with my little brother, I didn't want him to see this and prevented it. To this day, he still calls me a sissy because of that!

If anyone'd think that's 'gory' in any way, check out that particular scene in The Snatcher. That at least gets in the direction of 'almost'.

By the way, an MSX2 'graphical adventure' like Kubikiri Yakata ("The House Where Throats Are Slit") hardly shows any blood or gore at all during the game, but is genuinely scary, haunting and disturbing as hell. Even if you don't read Japanese.

Okay, there's "Dead of the Brain" and some Valis II cutscenes. But still. Goes to show: use screen 7! :D

By MäSäXi

Paragon (1884)

17-05-2012, 06:17

John, you are not aware of some really sick Commodore 64 homemade games...

By anonymous

incognito ergo sum (116)

17-05-2012, 06:45

MäSäXi wrote:

John, you are not aware of some really sick Commodore 64 homemade games...

I know some C64 game from my youth, it was a racing game, a bit like Road Fighter (only with better scroll ) and you could earn "hellish points" or "devily points", or something, by running over dogs and pedestrians, which would leave a 1-coloured puddle of blood sprite on the asphalt. You could earn "heavenly points" by driving like a gentleman. That was way before "Carmageddon" or "Mortal Kombat".
I remember my mother getting pretty angry about the racing game. She talks about it unto this day.
Also, there was "Forbidden Forest", in which the dying scenes where pretty gross for 8-bit.
But I don't know if you mean these games. For the rest, I do not know, indeed.

By anonymous

incognito ergo sum (116)

17-05-2012, 09:15

Oh yeah, and in "Aztec Challenge", you would get spears in your legs and piranhas in your ass.
"Bob 'n' Rumble" showed some quite graphic violence, too.

When I was little, one of my neighbourhood boys had a C64 demo on disk which was about gays and gay sex, but it was just silly. Not really offensive, more like childish. Sound effects were funny, though. In the loading screen, it had the same music as Aackosoft's "Mac Attack" (Burger Time port) by the way.

I once heard about a nazi PC (*) game called "Kampfgruppe" in which you had to gather money to gass the Turks in Germany, but I've never seen it, don't know if it really existed and it may be just stories.

But can you tell what you mean?

Off topic: I've just seen our royal family singing Saint Nick's songs on TV so I think I'm going to kill myself now.

(*) doesn't stand for "Politically Correct" but for "Personal Computer"

By JohnHassink

Ambassador (5605)

17-05-2012, 10:07

Hey, I didn't want this thread to derail, but at least there are reactions, right?
Don't worry, Argentinians, the future Queen of us Dutchies is Argentinian too! Yes, seriously. She is a daughter of a certain Jorge Zorreguieta. Dunno who that is, probably just a standard name there.
Everyone here is stil surprised, after all these years, that she's so pretty, and that's just silly, since everyone knows that almost all South-American women are hot.
And that's what most people care for, if they look nice, smile nice and wave nice, after all. The rest is not important.

Well, let's talk about the contest now, shall we?

By MäSäXi

Paragon (1884)

17-05-2012, 10:24

No, no, nothing like those Aztec Challenge nor anything else you mentioned. Just some games I once found accidentally from some website many years ago. Glad that I didn´t see anything like that in the eighties. Only one I quickly tried was called "killer games" and every "stage" could have be taken straight from really sick violent movies created by sick minds. Disgusting. I am not going to describe stages here, check it out by yourself if you really want... I won´t touch it again.

I wonder if you are made yourself familiar with swedish erotica, John? That was demo too, but that cracked turbo-load version naturally did not have any loading music, so I cannot say if it is the same what you are talking about. It plays music from "Bump Set Spike" in title screen and start animation (view from the street), I think it had "Rasputin" (game, not Boney M) music during the "action" and music was "cleverly" synchronized with, err........ the action.

By JohnHassink

Ambassador (5605)

17-05-2012, 15:18

MäSäXi wrote:

Wow, it's that bad? Well, there are sick people around, but at least those are talented since I found that coding on a C64 is really hard. But the way you describe it, it sounds like it's pretty bad moraled stuff.

MäSäXi wrote:

No, I think it was something different. But that sounds more in good fun, anway.

By the_woz

Rookie (18)

17-05-2012, 16:51

The WOZ here, one of Retrospectiva's organizers.

I'll probably reword that rule as is too generic right now.

I added that rule originally mostly for the graphic compo.
I'm from the C64 camp and is not rare to find a couple of 'too sexual' graphics submited to most graphic compos.
And by 'too sexual' I mean something of bad taste you'll expect from a teenager instead of a 30 or 40 something as most of us are.

And about the violence, is to avoid things like what MäSäXi mentions. Sick, pointless and extreme graphic violence.

By anonymous

incognito ergo sum (116)

17-05-2012, 18:13

Thanks, the_woz! That's clear.
I hope this competition will inspire many a great works!

By viejo_archivero

Paragon (1395)

18-05-2012, 06:37

John: well, I remember making some MSX1 Splatterhouse designs some years ago, and I remember I found it quite easy to adapt

By JohnHassink

Ambassador (5605)

19-05-2012, 02:02

I do remember, viejo_archivero.

Retrospectiva 2012: Coding and digital art competition

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