Another fun-filled Cemetech contest starts today!

This contest's theme has three requirements:

• You must make a game.
  
• It must involve both of the following thematic elements:
  • Cats.
    
  • Space.
  It will be up to you, the contestant, to determine how best to integrate these two thematic elements within the creative fabric of your game.
  
• You must target one of the following hardware/language platform combinations:
  • Any calculators in the TI-83 Plus through TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition line, using BASIC, Hybrid BASIC, ASM, or Axe.
    
  • TI-Nspire, using Lua only
    
  • HP Prime, using HPPL
    
  • Casio Prizm, using C/C++ or BASIC

This contest comes with just under a month of development time: entries will be due by 11:59:59 PM EST, on December 20th.

The usual rules apply:

• Contestants may not release any code or binaries before the end of the contest, including asking for programming help publicly or privately. Violators will be disqualified. Projects that have already been released in any form (excluding a contest project topic) already are not eligible for the contest.
  
• The contest will run until December 20th, 2014, at 11:59:59pm Eastern Time. No late entries will be accepted.
  
• All contestants must maintain a topic in the Contests subforum on Cemetech, including a first post that mentions the name, programming language, and topic of the entry.
  
• Judging will be performed by the Cemetech administrators (all of whom are disqualified from entering). Results will be posted no later than ten days after the end of the contest.
  
• A grading rubric is attached below. Entries will be graded primarily on their entertainment value, polish, and consistency with the given theme ("Space and Cats").
  
• Although the focus is on gaming, and we intend this primarily as a fun educational experience for the contestants, we also will be impressed if you manage to sneak some teaching moments into your game.

As with the previous contest, we are very proud to offer two brand-new calculators as prizes. The grand prize winner will be awarded one TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition or one TI-Nspire CX, as chosen by the winner. The second-place winner will receive the remaining calculator. Additional Cemetech swag may be added to the prizes at the Cemetech staff's discretion. All participants will earn Cemetech flair in the form of signature bars and respect. As you can see below, our anonymous donor has generously provided six calculators as contest prizes, so you can rest assured that this winter season will at least one additional contest where you can win these prizes.

So what are you waiting for? Getting coding, make a fun game, challenge yourself to learn something new in the process, and win some calculators!

More Information
Contest #13 Rubric
Contest #13 Rules

Two of the remaining four of these six generously-donated calculators will be awarded as prizes, with the remainder awarded for another upcoming contest. A special thanks to our anonymous donor for making this contest possible!

Nice work! I'm heavily anticipating some fun entries to this contest, well done .

Thanks! We're looking forward to seeing what results



Answering a question from SAX/IRC

To clarify: Any entry that meets the language requirements will be accepted. You should state any dependencies or conflicts in your submission readme. From the rubric linked above:

Under the point:I am seeing the intent is to force entries to create new ideas for this contest and to not take an existing released/mentioned idea/game and continue working on it or submit an already finished game.

The concern that was brought up on IRC was about using libraries or code in libraries to aid in creating a project. Dumping from IRC,

My library in question is the closed-source asymmetric engine library used in Lift and PJumpingCube (Interfaces for tilemapping, sprite drawing, file compression, particles). This engine is being massively overhauled for this contest. Am I correct to assume this counts as released enough? EDIT: To clarify, this is a statically-linked library.

Also, the Prizm language only lists C and Basic, but not C++. Is this an intentional restriction or was this overlooked, and if so, could C++ be added alongside C? (There is nothing special required on-calc to run an addin using C++, however Jonimus' libfxcg does not fully support C++, so building will require a forked libfxcg or applied patch).

A question posed to KermM about the definition of "cat" and "space" was discussed in IRC:
Thoughts?

Also, for those reading, there is a restriction on the countries able to win prizes for this contest mentioned at the end of the linked rules page.

Other than that, shoutout to the anonymous donor of the 6 calcs.

This should definitely lead to some interesting submissions! What fun. Well, time to get started...

It's been a while and my skills are rusty but, here we go.

EDIT: Never mind, having a full-time job really cuts into your fun times.

Have fun! I'm working on something too.

I have an idea for the contest, based on a game that I'm currently addicted to, but I feel that I should have at least basic knowledge of ASM before I have a chance. And plus even if I did apply my limited TIBASIC knowledge, the result would be a pretty bad game.
To sum it up, I need to learn more before I start challenging myself.

I agree; same here! All my experience is with BASIC programming. I definitely need to hurry up and learn some ASM programming (and I've heard it's not simple).

I already have a couple ideas on cats + space games. I'm already learning ASM and it IS hard and complicated. It will take me a while to make my game. I feel kind of jealous about the people who've already had experience with this.

I completely agree with you about everything but the jealousy part. Everyone here has had years to study and figure this stuff out. Plus, there are always going to be more contests in the future that you could compete in.

So, the contest has been running for a while (around half-over right now). How's everyone doing on their entries? Any finished and submitted ones already?

I feel like I will submit mine in the next couple of days. Still thinking about things and this week has been pretty rocky.

And Chauronlilsis has indeed earned the distinction of being the first to submit a completed entry; congratulations! Remember, the new rules include submitting contest entries to the correct folder in the Archives, not emailing them to us. In addition, as in past contests, you can submit multiple versions up to the contest deadline, and we will judge only the last version sent before the deadline.

If they are submitted to the archives, can/will they not be made publicly available?

We will only accept them if you want us to.

Just to clarify, (because the submitting requirements were unclear to me), we submit by submitting to the archives into the category it would normally go in, but it won't be accepted until after the contest (so that it isn't made public)?

That is correct. Make sure you make it very clearly to be a contest entry so I don't accidentally accept it Also, if you don't want it to be publicly available yet, we will reject it.

A bricked Prizm sure does make it very complicated to submit an entry. Sorry Merth, never did get you a screenshot

That's really unfortunate news, AHelper. I hope that you'll get a chance to continue it after the contest, though, or perhaps even gbl08ma will have ideas for unbricking it.