This jam is now over. It ran from 2021-09-03 23:00:00 to 2021-12-03 23:59:59.





The Big MEGA65 Competition

Win a full production MEGA65 computer!


 

  The Competition

   Make a MEGA65 game in 3 Months that runs on the emulator XEMU (download here). The game can be any genre and you can use any language. Then in December your games will be judged by our celebrity panel of judges, and the winner will receive a full production MEGA65 computer from the first batch released to the public! See here for more information regarding the MEGA65.

The Prizes 

First Prize

  • One production quality full fledged MEGA65 desktop computer.
  • We will try to bundle your game with future MEGA65 computers if you allow it.
  • We will try to print your game onto future MEGA65 boxes.
  • MEGA65 goodies.

Second and Third Prizes

  • Nexys A7 MEGA65 development board in a 3D printed enclosure of your choice of color.
  • We will try to bundle your game with future MEGA65 computers if you allow it.
  • MEGA65 goodies.

The Judges 

Thomas Hertzler

Mr. Nice Guy. Rainbow Arts, Blue Byte. Video game producer.
Will judge criteria: Overall production quality

Ralph Egas

CEO of Abstraction. Video game industry expert. Entrepreneur.
Will judge criteria: Originality and Replayability

Chris Hülsbeck

Genius composer. Oldschool artist. Legend.
Will judge criteria: Music and Sound FX

Andreas Liebeskind

Senior Art Director at Crytek. Games industry veteran.
Will judge criteria: Game and Level design

Paul Gardner-Stephen

8-Bit Superstar. Father of the MEGA65.
Will judge criteria: Utilisation of platform

Simon Jameson (Shallan50k)

C64 Wunderkind. Master of drunken coding.
Will judge criteria: Clever coding

The Rules 

  1. The task is to create the best fully fledged MEGA65 game complete with sound and graphics. Any genre and any theme, this time it’s up to you to make what you think is the best showcase of the MEGA65 and the most fun to play.
  2. Games can be any genre and style, and development in any language is allowed(BASIC, 45GS02, Millfork, TRSE or other!)
  3. Your game should use as many MEGA65 features as possible to increase your chances of winning 1st prize. e.g. higher color count graphics, Raster rewrite buffer, 80 column mode…
  4. We will be using the MASTER branch of XEMU, it is much more up to date and is the current active branch for game development. Submitted games will be expected to run on this branch from PAL C65 mode. See page @ https://github.lgb.hu/xemu/
  5. Entries must be saved to and submitted in .D81 format. See notes below for how to set up your D81 file. Entries must be submitted by 23:59 GMT on 3rd December.
  6. All entries will be judged by a panel of judges after the submission closure date on a number of criteria with each judge responsible for scoring a particular area. See above for the judges and their respective fields of expertise.
  7. The winner will be announced on Shallan's Christmas giveaway stream (https://twitch.tv/shallan50k) on Thursday 23rd December and will receive a full production MEGA65 computer, not a Nexys A7 board, an ACTUAL MEGA65!!!!!!
  8. Additionally with the developers permission, we will try to bundle the top 3 entries with the retail MEGA65 machines and print them onto the boxes. (Note: This is not a guarantee and is dependent on release timelines).
  9. Only one win per team or individual. If a team or individual places more than once in the top 3 their lower placements will be ignored and the next valid entrant will take that place.
  10. The judges’ decisions are final and binding.

Notes 

  1. By default XEMU will use a D81 file that is part of the emulator’s SD card image. It is much easier to submit your D81 file if you attach an external D81 file instead. The easiest way to do this is to point the XEMU shortcut to an empty image somewhere using the -8 "MYDISK.d81" command line switch.
  2. The emulator is a work in progress and understandably not everything will be correctly supported at this time, if you find a missing or broken feature please report it in the MEGA65 - XEMU discord channel (https://discord.gg/ZPWdcxeAEq).
  3. Entries should use the latest kernel ROM as of 7th Sept (currently 920224) which can be found on the Mega65 file host: (https://files.mega65.org/html/main.php?id=fd2c40b9-f337-41f7-8a81-0254b1e09fb5). All entries will be tested against this version.

 

  Links

MEGA65 Homepage - https://mega65.org/

XEMU Download - https://github.lgb.hu/xemu/

MEGA65 Discord - https://discord.gg/fSQWpDYZMB

Shallan50k Discord - https://discord.gg/Q8VUpCQ8de