Anyone interested for another CW challenge? (Contest 3 ideas walriistorming)

u/Dudeman313 February 18, 2016, 09:18:05 PM

Piskel's awesome. We could definitely get some contests out of that. Maybe like a 32x32 contest? It's not too big to take forever, but not too small to be terribly difficult or too challenging. Or maybe it could be non-walrii but

sized(24x24)?

u/Dream of Omnimaga February 19, 2016, 06:51:04 AM

Pixel-art contests are something we could attempt, but when we tried on Omnimaga in 2005 and 2006, most people near the end just took existing pixel art then changed the color depth >.<. We would need a way to ensure they didn't cheat. One way is to keep the resolution very small, such as 16x16 or 24x24, but then fewer people participate.

Last Edit: February 19, 2016, 06:55:39 AM by DJ Omnimaga

u/Dudeman313 February 20, 2016, 08:03:05 PM

What about something like POTY, with Walrii themed entries of only games, with calculator specific sections, so that those voting wouldn't have to worry about being unfair? Of course, votes would only count for a little, maybe 20% of their total score, and the entries would also be separated by language of creation, with Pure BASIC also separated from Hybrid.

u/Dream of Omnimaga March 14, 2016, 03:14:33 AM

Although Code golf has been overdone in recent years (resulting into lack of interest over time) and that we can't really financially afford to organize prize-based contests every 4 month, I was thinking that it would be a good idea to make a topic about what kind of contests or challenges we could do in the near future to keep people interested during periods of lower activity on CW.

The idea I had recently was not a programming competition, but rather an optimizing game/challenge. It would be team work and happen in the form of a discussion topic. Basically, the challenge would involve optimizing one or two program or parts of a program from my old TI calculator BASIC games, such as, for example, the Illusiat games that don't have 50 sub-programs, or some of the Omnimaga Pack games such as Mortal Kombat (yes, there's actually a Mortal Kombat clone for 84+ series), while not severely harming execution speed. The program code would be posted in the first topic post, then members would find what needs optimizing in them, then post their version of the code. Each program would be optimized one by one, then after several replies in the topic, if it becomes clear that no more optimization can be found, then the final code would be saved and we would jump to another set of programs in the next challenge.

Once the entire game has been optimized, each program would be repackaged, then the game re-released on ticalc.org and other places, with every participant listed in the credits section. This would give some new life to old games that people liked, but that were coded too early in the programmer's coding carreer or before the advent of TI-Basic Developer wiki.

The challenge could also involve making the code clean or reducing the amount of sub-programs while still keeping speed/size intact

We could maybe do it with Axe Parser and hybrid BASIC games as well, if the authors give permission to release new versions, eg with CW releases.

Last Edit: March 14, 2016, 03:18:47 AM by DJ Omnimaga

u/Dudeman313 March 14, 2016, 04:14:03 AM

This sounds fun to me!

I also see it as an excuse to port some stuff and secretly add

s in the games.

Another idea would be to take a game and rewrite it for the calculator of your choice or the language of your choice, but keeping the same style of the old game. Like porting an Illusiat game to the CE, but turning it greyscale instead of color.

Or maybe even an ________to basic contest, to see how good you could replicate another game in basic.

Last Edit: March 14, 2016, 04:21:53 AM by Dudeman313

u/Dream of Omnimaga March 14, 2016, 01:32:04 PM

That could work, but be a bit more complex and deter some participants. It could be done for certain challenges later for more variety, though.

u/Dudeman313 March 14, 2016, 01:46:45 PM

Oh, okay.

u/Snektron March 14, 2016, 03:08:31 PM

Sounds like a cool idea, especially because axe (and basic too, but less) has so many secret optimization tricks

u/aetios March 14, 2016, 03:10:03 PM

I'm all for this!

u/Dream of Omnimaga March 14, 2016, 03:53:07 PM

Do you think those contests should also allow minor aestetical improvements to games? For example, in Mortal Kombat, the title animation could be made faster. No graphical changes, though, unless it involves a color port.

u/Dudeman313 March 14, 2016, 07:42:26 PM

That would be cool.
And maybe even authors could add one request to be in the optimized program, as a challenge?

u/Dream of Omnimaga March 14, 2016, 09:48:23 PM

That could work.

So yeah, if this goes through, I am really considering Mortal Kombat standalone as first challengd (it used to be standalone, but I then put it in a multi game pack). I would do Balltrix, but Ztrumpet remade it years ago in his own game pack and Xeda recently made an ASM version (which I forgot to feature on cw front page)

(Note that the game isn't that great, but it would still be fun to see it optimized like mad and especially get rid of that flicker).

Last Edit: March 15, 2016, 08:10:19 AM by DJ Omnimaga

u/Dream of Omnimaga May 03, 2016, 06:30:45 PM

So who would be up for an optimization challenge? There would be no prize since it would not be a competition, but rather people suggesting optimizations to a poorly-optimized game to improve it. Would you guys be fine if I launched it now or are you too busy with school finals and stuff? And would you be ok if it involved TI-BASIC and/or Axe? For Axe I would need suggestions for games/programs, though, preferably ones that you created in your early days of TI programming.