Yandex Retro Games Battle 2019 - develop games for ZX Spectrum
Hello! My name is Dmitry Pugachev, I help develop the Yandex Museum, in which our team collects rare and interesting copies of computing equipment. Recently, we invited Habr's readers to visit our museum as part of the “Museum Night” action. Honestly, we didn’t expect that among those who wanted to come visit us, there would be a queue “like a new iPhone”, and two gamepads would go for repairs after the Mortal Kombat tournament. And it inspired us!
Today I will talk about our new initiative, focused on the community of fans of retro games - about the game development contest for the legendary ZX Spectrum. How relevant is this? What are the features of this particular device? I propose to recall and discuss.
Sinclair Research, where the ZX series of computers was developed, was owned by Sir Clive Sinclair, a well-known British entrepreneur and philanthropist. He comes from a family of hereditary shipbuilding engineers and in childhood he dreamed of building submarines. His career, however, made in the production of radio components and electronics.
')
The first ZX Spectrum was released in the early 1980s, which became Sinclair's finest hour as an inventor and entrepreneur. The word Spectrum (“spectrum”) in the title should have been telling customers that the computer supports color. At the same hinted and a color icon on the keyboard.
Actually, the keyboard was a computer. Sinclair was obsessed with miniaturization, so all the key chips needed for a computer were built into one relatively small package.
In the photo above - a working copy of the ZX Spectrum +2 from the Yandex Museum. It differed from the first model in 128 kilobytes of RAM, it supported the RGB format, three-channel sound, and also embedded a cassette recorder.
The original ZX Spectrum has gained high popularity due to the best price-performance ratio on the market. As a result, a lot of games were created for the platform, which in turn again helped sales. Moreover, Spectrum has a special highlight in working with graphics: the color is not given out to a pixel, but familiarity, that is, 8x8 pixels. Talented artists wisely used it, and even very beautiful artworks were made.
Examples of games for the ZX Spectrum (from the collection of Old Love Games ):
In the Soviet Union, the ZX Spectrum also became popular. And there were two reasons for this. First, under the Spectrum was a lot of quality games. Secondly, it was relatively affordable. And I’m not talking so much about the original English version, but about the numerous clones , which were easy to assemble thanks to simple architecture. Unless the processor was not easy - its analogue in our country was learned to be produced only in the 90s.
It is not surprising that we not only played, but also created games. For example, how can you not recall the popular games "Black Raven" and "The Adventures of Buratino" by Vyacheslav Mednonogov.
It would seem that all this was a long time ago, now in the fashion of PlayStation, Xbox, Steam and, sorry, Fortnite. Maybe. But interest in the development of games for the ZX Spectrum is maintained by the community. And I know this from my own experience.
In 2014, I organized an informal Retro Games Battle tournament. His official site has not been preserved, but there is a page in the thematic database and two mentions on Habré. We had a budget for rewards. Serious jury. And, of course, the best participants in the world who competed for fun, not prizes. Believe me, the enthusiasm has not diminished at all since then!
Now I work in the Yandex Museum, and this year my colleagues and I decided to revive the competition. The essence remains the same. It is necessary to develop a copyright-free game for the ZX Spectrum platform before December 3 of this year. The games sent to the contest will be published on the site, where anyone can play them. Winners will determine the jury and the audience.
The jury assesses each game on a 10-point scale according to three parameters - graphics, sound and gameplay. All three scores add up to a total score that determines the top three.
The Audience Award will be received by the winner of the popular vote, which will open on December 4, 2019 on the contest website.
For more information about the composition of the jury and the conditions of the competition can be found on our website: https://yandex.ru/museum/yrgb-2019
By the way, it is not necessary to have a real device for development and debugging. You can find a cross-compiler and emulator and create a game of documentation and other materials on the network. It is not as difficult as it may seem. Moreover, the ZX Spectrum in the Yandex Museum is also always open to your projects.
It may seem strange to some that they still pay attention to the development of retro games. Personally, I do not see anything unusual. And it's not just nostalgia. The best developments of the past have influenced our present, to show interest in them - this is natural. And it is absolutely not important when the device came out, if you personally are interested in developing games for it and sharing them with your friends. Interest is what the community keeps on. And I believe that the new competition will be interesting. Good luck to the participants!
Today I will talk about our new initiative, focused on the community of fans of retro games - about the game development contest for the legendary ZX Spectrum. How relevant is this? What are the features of this particular device? I propose to recall and discuss.
Sinclair Research, where the ZX series of computers was developed, was owned by Sir Clive Sinclair, a well-known British entrepreneur and philanthropist. He comes from a family of hereditary shipbuilding engineers and in childhood he dreamed of building submarines. His career, however, made in the production of radio components and electronics.
')
The first ZX Spectrum was released in the early 1980s, which became Sinclair's finest hour as an inventor and entrepreneur. The word Spectrum (“spectrum”) in the title should have been telling customers that the computer supports color. At the same hinted and a color icon on the keyboard.
Actually, the keyboard was a computer. Sinclair was obsessed with miniaturization, so all the key chips needed for a computer were built into one relatively small package.
In the photo above - a working copy of the ZX Spectrum +2 from the Yandex Museum. It differed from the first model in 128 kilobytes of RAM, it supported the RGB format, three-channel sound, and also embedded a cassette recorder.
The original ZX Spectrum has gained high popularity due to the best price-performance ratio on the market. As a result, a lot of games were created for the platform, which in turn again helped sales. Moreover, Spectrum has a special highlight in working with graphics: the color is not given out to a pixel, but familiarity, that is, 8x8 pixels. Talented artists wisely used it, and even very beautiful artworks were made.
Examples of games for the ZX Spectrum (from the collection of Old Love Games ):
In the Soviet Union, the ZX Spectrum also became popular. And there were two reasons for this. First, under the Spectrum was a lot of quality games. Secondly, it was relatively affordable. And I’m not talking so much about the original English version, but about the numerous clones , which were easy to assemble thanks to simple architecture. Unless the processor was not easy - its analogue in our country was learned to be produced only in the 90s.
It is not surprising that we not only played, but also created games. For example, how can you not recall the popular games "Black Raven" and "The Adventures of Buratino" by Vyacheslav Mednonogov.
It would seem that all this was a long time ago, now in the fashion of PlayStation, Xbox, Steam and, sorry, Fortnite. Maybe. But interest in the development of games for the ZX Spectrum is maintained by the community. And I know this from my own experience.
In 2014, I organized an informal Retro Games Battle tournament. His official site has not been preserved, but there is a page in the thematic database and two mentions on Habré. We had a budget for rewards. Serious jury. And, of course, the best participants in the world who competed for fun, not prizes. Believe me, the enthusiasm has not diminished at all since then!
Retro Games Battle 2019
Now I work in the Yandex Museum, and this year my colleagues and I decided to revive the competition. The essence remains the same. It is necessary to develop a copyright-free game for the ZX Spectrum platform before December 3 of this year. The games sent to the contest will be published on the site, where anyone can play them. Winners will determine the jury and the audience.
The jury assesses each game on a 10-point scale according to three parameters - graphics, sound and gameplay. All three scores add up to a total score that determines the top three.
The Audience Award will be received by the winner of the popular vote, which will open on December 4, 2019 on the contest website.
For more information about the composition of the jury and the conditions of the competition can be found on our website: https://yandex.ru/museum/yrgb-2019
By the way, it is not necessary to have a real device for development and debugging. You can find a cross-compiler and emulator and create a game of documentation and other materials on the network. It is not as difficult as it may seem. Moreover, the ZX Spectrum in the Yandex Museum is also always open to your projects.
Instead of conclusion
It may seem strange to some that they still pay attention to the development of retro games. Personally, I do not see anything unusual. And it's not just nostalgia. The best developments of the past have influenced our present, to show interest in them - this is natural. And it is absolutely not important when the device came out, if you personally are interested in developing games for it and sharing them with your friends. Interest is what the community keeps on. And I believe that the new competition will be interesting. Good luck to the participants!
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/458316/
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