rokicki@rocky.STANFORD.EDU (Tomas Rokicki) (08/08/87)
[ -- -- Please give this the widest possible distribution -- -- ] The Zeroth BADGE Killer Demo Contest! *Preface* This is an updated announcement; some of the rules have changed, and there have been some rather significant prize contributions. Please use this announcement instead of the previous one. *Introduction* The Bay Area Amiga Developers' Group is sponsoring, for the first time, a competition designed to provide some impetus to the creative and sometimes demented developers and users of the Amiga to create some killer demos. The rewards consist of cold hard cash and recognition throughout the Amiga community, and some neat toys. *Prizes* There shall be at least nine prizes awarded. The prizes consist of cash, hardware, and software. The prize categories will be : First, Second, and Third Overall, Best Category A (512K), Best Category B (1M), Best Category C (> 1M), Best Use of Sound, Best Use of Graphics, and Funniest. The grand prize shall be an Amiga 2000, donated by Commodore. The exact prizes and their corresponding categories have yet to be determined, but they include (in alphabetical order to avoid stepping on anyone's toes): ASDG - Hardware 'something', to be determined BADGE - Cash and organization BYTE - Free BIX signup plus some free time Commodore - Amiga 2000 Individuals - Varying sums of cash Lattice - C compiler MicroBotics - Ram Card's and MouseTimes MicroSmiths - FastFonts, TxEd Radical Eye - AmigaTeX I would like to thank all those who have agreed to contribute, and encourage any further donations. *Introduction* The Bay Area Amiga Developers' Group is sponsoring, for the first time, a competition designed to provide some impetus to the creative and sometimes demented developers and users of the Amiga to create some killer demos. The rewards consist of cold hard cash and recognition throughout the Amiga community, and possibly some neat toys if someone would care to donate something. *Time/Place* The actual competition will take place on Thursday, October 15, 1987, at Stanford University, during the regularly scheduled October BADGE meeting. (Actual location to be announced.) All entries must be received by October 1, 1987 to be eligible for the contest. *Rules* All entries must be freely redistributable. Floppies with the best Demos will be sent to Fred Fish for inclusion in his Freely Redistributable Library and will be made available to any interested parties, including dealers. Source is *not* required, but appreciated in the spirit of Amiga hackerdom. If source is provided, it too will be distributed. All Demos must be runnable from the CLI by specifying the name of the Demo only; no `execute' or parameters should be required. The sole exception to this is tool-based Demos developed with tools that do not allow this. Shareware is not permitted. All files required for the Demo, except those on the standard 1.2 Workbench Disk or AmigaBASIC, shall fit on one standard 3.5 inch Amiga floppy. The Demo will be run with the standard 1.2 Workbench Disk in DF0: and the Demo disk in DF1:. The current directory shall be a subdirectory into which all of the files from the root level of the supplied Demo disk have been copied; all files referenced by the Demo should not use logical names or absolute paths, except for the standard logical names defined after a cold boot onto a standard 1.2 Workbench. All Demos shall run under Version 1.2 Workbench. Either custom programs or tool-based Demos are acceptable. If a tool-based Demo is entered, the `player' tool must be provided on the Demo disk. No Demos will be accepted if they are directly derived from a commercial product available on or before October 15, 1987. In other words, a Demo-mode version of Marble Madness is not acceptable. All Demos shall run properly on an Amiga with expansion RAM, even if they are entered in Class A. Things that need to go in CHIP RAM should specify CHIP RAM. Each Demo shall have 60 seconds to run. If it does not terminate of its own accord by this time, it should have clearly indicated a method of termination, and it will be ended. This time shall start when the Demo presents a `ready' screen, or actually begins `demo'ing. For those demos with large data files, up to a five minute startup time shall be allowed for the demo to load any files or do any calculations required. Each Demo should require little or no user interaction. If any user interaction is required, complete and clear instructions shall have been displayed at the beginning. A mode in which absolutely no user interaction is required is highly recommended, even for those Demos that benefit from user interaction. A person may enter as many times as they desire. Anyone may enter. The decisions of the judges and BADGE are final. *Entry Fee* No entry fee is required, but donations toward the prize money and operational expenses of the contest are encouraged. If at least $5.00 is sent, a floppy containing at least the top-three ranking Demos will be returned. All donations will be acknowledged in a file distributed with the Demos and displayed by a script written to run the Demos. Please donate, and help make this Contest successful! *Judging* There will be three classes, A, B, and C. Class A will be Demos that run on 512K Amigas. Class B will be Demos that run on 1M Amigas. Class C will be Demos that require more than 1M. You may enter any class, but your Demo must run on a machine of the class you enter. In particular, Class B Demos should run on Amiga 500's with the internal RAM expansion. During judging, all Demos will be run on an Amiga 1000, with the appropriate amount of memory. Class C Demos will be run on a 2.5M Amiga; if your Demo requires more memory, contact Tomas to see what can be arranged. If the response is great, there will be a prejudging step to prune the number of Demos down to 30. This prejudging will be held just like the final contest, but only ten judges shall be used. The main contest will be held with everyone present voting. Each demo will be shown, and then everyone present will be requested to score that demo on their own judging card. At the end of the meeting, the judging cards will be collected; the results will be tabulated and the awards presented the following evening. The judging will be based on a 100 point total. The judging categories will be: Technical, 30 points. Nift, 30 points. Use of Graphics, 15 points. Use of Sound, 15 points. Amiga Specifics, 10 points. The Technical category will be judged before the meeting; it is expected that each Demo shall receive the full 30 points for this category. The requirements are that the Demo shall not require reboot to exit; shall have a clearly indicated and simple method to exit the Demo if necessary; shall return all system memory and other resources; shall work with a 60-column workbench as well as an 80-column workbench, and shall not write to either disk during execution. A Demo may take over the machine, but it should run to completion and return to the Workbench correctly. You should be able to execute the Demo from a command script and have the command script continue at the end of the Demo. The Nift category is just sheer impressiveness and impact. The Use of Graphics category and Use of Sound categories are intended to be self-explanatory; how effectively did the Demo make use of the graphics and sound capabilities of the Amiga? Finally, the Amiga Specifics category is intended to judge how much this Demo sets the Amiga apart from other computers; was it obvious that this type of Demo could not have been done on an Atari or Mac, for instance? All points will be totalled, and then, for each individual Demo, the highest 10% scores and the lowest 10% scores will be eliminated and an average taken. Prizes will be determined strictly by ranking the Demos by the resultant average. All entrants will receive a notice of the final results. *Entry Instructions* To enter, send in your Demo on one 3.5 inch floppy, with no files on the floppy but those required for your demo, excluding any files on the standard 1.2 Enhancer Workbench floppy, to Tomas Rokicki, Killer Demo Contest, Box 2081, Stanford, CA 94305. Include a sheet of paper with the following information: Your name, telephone number, and address; the class of your Demo (A, B, or C), and a short description of your demo to help in the judging. You are also encouraged to include a donation towards the prize money; $5.00 will get you a floppy with at least the top three demos on it. All submitted materials become the property of BADGE and will not be returned. Make sure your entry gets to Tomas by October 1, 1987. If you plan to attend the BADGE meeting and you do not usually attend, please indicate this so an appropriate-sized room can be reserved. *Announcement Distribution* Please give this announcement the widest possible distribution. Post it to bboards, announce it at User Group meetings, print it out and give it to friends.