Cemetech Contest #26 is the screensaver contest! Save our screens with cool visuals! Here's some ground rules, of course:

General:
Programs for this contest may be in any language, for any platform. The use of any assets, such as sprites and code, will also be permitted provided that they are public at the start of the contest. Projects released or started before the contest's beginning are ineligible for entry in the contest. In order to qualify for the contest, the program has to fit the general constraints of a "screensaver" (defined below). The contest is open to all Cemetech users, except for judges.

Development:
Please create a thread to document your progress throughout the contest, in the format "CC26: <your username>". Receiving help is also allowed for the contest, provided it is done through a Cemetech-run public place of discussion, such as the forums, SAX, IRC, or the Cemetech Discord server. If you receive help from someone, be sure to give them credit. (Thanks Epsilon5 for writing most of this. I heavily drew on CC25 as a base for the phrasing.)

Submission:
Source code is required. Send the source, executable, and readme in a zip file to "contest@cemetech.net" before the deadline. Late submissions won't be eligible for voting.

Judging and Scoring:
Personal Judgement of 5 judges: Wavejumper3, LogicalJoe, and three others TBA.
There will be a community vote as well!
One winner from 2 categories of programs will be picked by judges.
Categories as follows:

1. Programs written in TI-BASIC on any (e)Z80 calculator model.
   
2. Non-TI-BASIC programs, which may be written for calculators or any other platform.

A community vote picks an overall winner (which can be different from the judge-picked winners)

Timeline:
This contest will begin when this post goes up, and end on Saturday, November 25th, at 3pm EST, 12 Noon PT. Community voting will be the following week, and winners will be announced soon after.

Prizes:
A surprise! (There are prizes, though, don't you worry).

Now, a definition of "screensaver", as the judging will be based on these criteria:

1. An emphasis on not requiring user input.
   Of course, it can accept user input to change the visuals, but it should continue to function in an interesting way without any user interaction for most of the runtime. We will judge each entry by running the program and not touching the calculator or computer again.
   
2. Dynamic Visuals
   The screensaver has changing visuals, often in a purposefully non-repetitive way. They generally lack audio, and are relaxing to look at (a strobe light is not a screensaver).
   
3. Creativity!
   Screensavers are encouraged to be interesting in both execution and concept. Originality is a big plus!

Now, go save some screens!

Finally, contest time!

I'll probably make a contest thread in a couple days, once I decide to go with either TI-BASIC or C...

Awesome! Finally it's time for another contest.


I also heavily drew on previous contests for inspiration for the phrasing, so credit also goes to the authors of those posts as well.

Thanks for hosting and good luck to the other contestants!

!!! Gl to everyone competing and congrats to the person (I really hope it's me) who wins !!!

Yaaay!! This year's contest is quite different, and I can't wait to see what everyone comes up with!

just checking, we can use Celtic ce right?

You can use any libraries that you see fit.

I am so tempted to go and grab like, the Omnicalc Font Editor and see what I can whip up with that and a notebook of graph paper.

Will try to propose something for the contest on the fx-CG50.
Now need to find a good idea and time to make it real

How does someone get picked to be a judge? Just want to know.

Generally by being Cemetech staff, which is highly correlated with being a long-time member of the community known for maturity, leadership ability, and deep technical proficiency.

Are TI-BASIC programs allowed to use small ASM helpers? Things like ones you'd type in via HEX codes and use ASMComp with?

They are, but they'll be judged accordingly. A pure TI-BASIC program that is equally as visually impressive as a TI-BASIC program that uses small ASM helpers will be judged more impressive, and extensive use of hybrid libraries would probably tip the program into the non-TI-BASIC category.

Just one small question regarding the contribution.
Would it be possible to send two revisions of a contribution ?
Let say one few days before the deadline and a revised (polished) version if possible just before de deadline ?

I am asking this cause I need to travel for work and may miss the possibility to send a very final revision on 25th afternoon. So my plan is to send something quite in advance to secure the sending and if possible send the final revision later on.

Of course, if not possible, I'll manage the constraint, so no problem

Hi everyone!
I'm back here to inform you all of the names of our 5 judges.
I've already mentioned myself and LogicalJoe, and without further ado, the other three are:
Comic,
Merthsoft, and
KermMartian!
We look forward to viewing (and judging) your contest entries!

Yay, very exciting - only a few days left everyone!

Good, and we can see more and more entries !!
Judges will have a lot to tests to do to determine the best contributions.

How absolute is this? I'd like to make my program show some information on first run and wait until it receives some input to begin operating autonomously (giving the user time to understand what it's saying), but if that will cause it to be penalized in scoring I'll omit that feature in the build I submit.

I think the rules are rules, but maybe it can show on a timer before moving on?

Apart from emailing the screen saver and source code, will it be our responsibility to upload the finished project to the Cemetech downloads section?