[Opry99er]

Thanks to Filip and a few others, the Atariage TI-99 forum is a bustling hub of activity.  My personal thanks to Filip for starting the first contest, and this post is to announce a brand new game program competition.  Here's the deal:: this is the (S)hort and (S)weet (G)aming ©ontest

A 30 line BASIC or XB game on the subject matter of your choice.  30 lines of program and an additional 10 lines available for DATA statements are available.  The format for this is designed to make the competition do-able for everyone.  You may not have time to do a 300 line game or one done in assembly, but a 30 line game will encourage creativity.  . Competition starts immediately and will end on April 15th.  Good luck!

First prize--- a CF7+ with a 512 MB card, a TI99/4a console, and an XB cart

Other prizes (2nd and 3rd place) will be announced later.

This post has been edited by Opry99er: Sun Feb 28, 2010 1:07 PM

[Opry99er]

I have decided to put up 3 prize packages---- the winner will select the package of his/her choice and on down the line for the top 3 entries. This way, if the winner already owns a CF7, he/she will be able to pick a different package. . So far I just have the CF7, but I am working on putting the other 2 prize packages together now. Keep checking in, and please feel free to ask any questions.

[The Codex]

Brutal! Having to think in the abstract for this. However, I do have 10 lines written that actually do something, though I wouldn't call it a game. I suspect I'll need to meditate on my commute to get something going here.

[sometimes99er]

Opry99er, on Sun Feb 28, 2010 7:34 PM, said:

A 30 line BASIC or XB game on the subject matter of your choice.  30 lines of program and an additional 10 lines available for DATA statements are available.  The format for this is designed to make the competition do-able for everyone.  You may not have time to do a 300 line game or one done in assembly, but a 30 line game will encourage creativity.  

So I guess multistatement lines are allowed (using double colon) !?

[The Codex]

sometimes99er, on Mon Mar 1, 2010 6:23 AM, said:

So I guess multistatement lines are allowed (using double colon) !?

I hope so, or else I'm already disqualified.

[marc.hull]

Questions.... Are E/A routines loaded from disk allowed ? What about loading data from disk ?

[Opry99er]

Multi-statements are allowed... It'd be really lame if they werent. =) Yea, fill all those lines up!!!
No disk access, though.
DATA lines only, no assembly. Pure XB

30 Lines of code
10 additional lines available optionally for DATA statements. =)

Have fun, guys!

((edit))

To clarify, you can have 39 lines of DATA statements if you want.... but if your program goes over 30 lines, any line higher than 30 MUST be DATA statements. =) Thanks

This post has been edited by Opry99er: Mon Mar 1, 2010 4:46 PM

[marc.hull]

39 or 40 ?

I read a max of 30 lines of code and a max of 40 total lines, no more, correct?

I also assume that this contest is for Standard vanilla TI XB and none of the fancier varieties?

One last question. Are people limited to one entry or can multiples be spammed your way for consideration?

At any rate I think I'll dust off the XB manual and enter this here contest. That's a heck of a prize your offering. Should bring in all the heavy hitters. Maybe I can at least show (provided it is no more than a three horse race

[Opry99er]

Yea 40 lines total--- but I said 39 DATA lines because.... If you had 40 lines of DATA--- it wouldn't be much of a game, would it? . As far as the number of games to write, write as many as you want... But each contestant may only win once. . So, Marc, if you write the best 20 games out of 22 entries, you're only winning once. . And posts to this thread are encouraged, however with a contest of this type, I would certainly understand if the entries were kept under wraps--- some of you might have a few parlor tricks to use with a 30-40 line game that you don't wish to uncover. . Code on my wayward son!!!

[InfernalKeith]

Thinking I might enter this after all, depending on how my work week goes. I have a vague idea right now, and it's a game I want to write on the 99/4A and then convert to other platforms (Vic, Timex/Sinclair, etc). Many of them have really low built-in RAM, so a short game is essential. Gonna ponder it a little and see how I'm feeling about it this weekend... probably gonna keep this one under wraps till it's done, though.

[Opry99er]

Do it!!! . You've got plenty of time and another InfernalKeith game would be a welcome entry!

[InfernalKeith]

Opry99er, on Mon Mar 1, 2010 11:31 PM, said:

Do it!!! . You've got plenty of time and another InfernalKeith game would be a welcome entry!

Dude, you have no idea how not true that is. Every time I check this forum or Facebook, I can hear the sound of nickels and dimes rolling away, never to return. That's the problem with self-employment. You're never off the clock.

Eh... sleep is for wimps. I'll knock it out.

[Opry99er]

Hey-- from one self-employed guy to another----- it's a month and a half and 30 lines. .

[Opry99er]

Ahhh. didn't read that "sleep is for wimps" part. . That's the spirit!!! One line a day.... That's how I look at it. Hehehe

[unhuman]

Wow. I must say I'm very impressed as to how much I can do with so little code. I've got just about all my objects moving around as I want... With no collision detection / etc. I don't know if it'll all work, but I've got tons happening in 7 lines of (multistatement) code.... My game has already evolved to be very different than what I originally planned.

And, here are a few tips.
1. Write your code in a windows-based text editor and paste it into the emulator
2. Put remarks in between lines of code - so it won't count against you, but it's obvious what's going on

-H

[Opry99er]

Glad to see you having fun!!! XB IS a very powerful language and very flexible and versatile. Many people give it a bad wrap, but you can see how fun it can be coding in XB. . I did my first couple demos in XB and was so pleased with the results that I started doing full games... This contest is for YOU, man.. Keep having a blast with it, and I hope you find a love for the language. Remember that this a 30 line contest, but if you want, you can put your character definitions into DATA statements... You're allowed up to 40 lines as long as any lines over 30 are DATA satements. This gives you some extra flexibility. Just sayin.

[unhuman]

OH - I just remembered an old hack - altho using a text editor voids it... If you enter a "tight" line (with no spaces between separators, etc), you can then edit that line in the console and get more space...

Opry99er, on Tue Mar 2, 2010 11:26 PM, said:

Glad to see you having fun!!! XB IS a very powerful language and very flexible and versatile. Many people give it a bad wrap, but you can see how fun it can be coding in XB. . I did my first couple demos in XB and was so pleased with the results that I started doing full games... This contest is for YOU, man.. Keep having a blast with it, and I hope you find a love for the language. Remember that this a 30 line contest, but if you want, you can put your character definitions into DATA statements... You're allowed up to 40 lines as long as any lines over 30 are DATA satements. This gives you some extra flexibility. Just sayin.

[Opry99er]

XB will also tokensize your code for you... If you add EXTRA or unneeded spaces, it will eliminate them all for you, allowing you to go back in and add more as well.

[unhuman]

Is it me, or does XB not have a modulus function?

Opry99er, on Tue Mar 2, 2010 11:45 PM, said:

XB will also tokensize your code for you... If you add EXTRA or unneeded spaces, it will eliminate them all for you, allowing you to go back in and add more as well.

[sometimes99er]

unhuman, on Wed Mar 3, 2010 7:37 AM, said:

Is it me, or does XB not have a modulus function?

No, you have to do it yourself. I guess you already know how, but here goes anyway ...

100 A=INT(RND*100)+1
110 B=INT(RND*10)+1
120 C=A/B
130 PRINT A;"/";B;"=";C
140 D=C-INT(C)
150 PRINT A;"%";B;"=";D
160 INPUT "NEXT":A$
170 GOTO 100

This post has been edited by sometimes99er: Wed Mar 3, 2010 1:57 AM

[Opry99er]

Looks like Keith has a tactical board game goin on... . Check out his thread!

[unhuman]

It's amazing how quickly this stuff comes back. I stayed up way too late last night, but I have all sorts of stuff moving around & animated. I'm definitely over-optimizing, but that could just mean more features. I'm pretty amazed at what I've done in about 10 lines of code so far and 6 lines of data... I could definitely tighten up my data too...

So, is it me, or does XB IF / THEN / ELSE work a bit funny? It seems to be doing all the stuff in a statement.... So, if I have:

REM I didn't run this test specifically, but this is sort of what I think happens based on my work so far
10 A=1::B=2
20 IF B<A THEN PRINT "HELLO"::PRINT "GOODBYE"

In this case it prints nothing....

Also, it appears that you can't put a FOR loop after the conditional... - it blows up

This stuff is forcing me to waste precious lines of code... But I'm sure I'll have plenty left...

Also, are there any tips on optimizing XB? I remember there used to be a CALL LOAD that would limit the # of sprites processed - so that the system wouldn't waste as much time. IIRC it was pretty negligible, but I'd like to do whatever I can to speed things up.... I'm gonna need it.

-Howie

[Opry99er]

100 A=1 :: B=2
110 IF B<A THEN PRINT "HELLO" ELSE PRINT "GOODBYE"

that should knock it out.

Don't know about the CALL LOAD thing...

[The Codex]

unhuman, on Wed Mar 3, 2010 9:31 AM, said:

So, is it me, or does XB IF / THEN / ELSE work a bit funny?

-Howie

Yeah, if you look at the examples in the Xb manual, you can sort of force multiconditional IFs, but beyond that it gets really messy trying to do clever branching with them. I had to refactor some lines in my prog that seemed like they would work but actually failed to branch as expected.

And can I say, what are the odds of TWO guys named Howard being TI programmers AND living in Vienna, Virginia being on this board at the same time? That's damn spooky, man.

This post has been edited by The Codex: Wed Mar 3, 2010 9:08 AM

[Opry99er]

40 IF A>B AND X<Y AND P=1 THEN GOSUB 300 ELSE GOSUB 200

This checks for 3 conditions and if ALL are true, it jumps to 300. If ANY of these are UNTRUE it will jump to 200. Of course, this looks bulky... But it works.