I think that Sonic MisAdventures is a great game. If only there were more levels...but I'm sure those will come. Great job Patrick!

Congratulations to the winners and I think they all deserved it

first comment

You wish you had first, Dudeguy...

"Messages containing "first comment" boasts, requests for game ports, or criticisms of "newsworthiness" will generally be deleted."

I agree with you Bryan, I am aware, and have read, the current guidelines put out by ticalc. Didn't I follow the rules? I congradulated Patrick on such a nice job. Surely that is "newsworthy". If it is not, please have a member of ticalc.org e-mail me on what kind of positive comments I can post. Thanks...

I was refering to dudeguy's comment, not yours.

Sorry for the misunderstanding...

The new system was biased against BASIC programs and calculators that aren't used as often. At least before, one from each category had to win. Just my opinion.

Not to insult the winners. The programs that won were all quite good. Congratulations!

Hate to state this, since I may get bashed for it...

If you want to become well-known programming for a calculator, you have to either program one heluva basic program, or learn to program in assembler language.

I don't know assembler language, but it's clear that most who bothered to vote favored the newer calculators and assembly programs... isn't that what everyone should expect?

If I clicked on the 'tabulations' link and saw that 98% of those who voted chose a basic-based math program for the TI-81, I'd just laugh. :P

When you think about it, I think this is good. Before, when someone released something for the TI-92, it automatically won whether it was good or not. If something is good, it will win. Please notice that the BASIC version of Zelda came quite close to winning! I also don't think it impossible that a BASIC game could win using the current system. The winning programs were 83+, 86, and 89, which makes sense, since they are the most popular calculators in each of three categories. The 85 may have been great in its day, but is there _really_ any reason to encourage new programs to be made for the 82, the 85, or even the 92? Probably not.

Zelda for TI-89 BASIC was close, but not that close. Notice, it was 13 votes away from just making the #5 position, and it received only 1/3 of the votes that TISShot got.

Kirk, I'd like you to explain to me how a BASIC game could possibly win this thing. Zelda 89 is a great BASIC game and took many many hours to program. If that game can't win, I doubt any BASIC program ever will.

Sure, if something is really good, it will win. But is that the point of POTM? Is it all about the most popular programs winning all the time, or is it supposed to recognize merit?

Also, you mention categories. THERE ARE NO CATEGORIES. None. Period. The _only_ reason why ticalc.org grouped them into "categories" for the voting process was to "help" people remember what calculator they were for. Ideally, they should _not_ have done that. Again, there is no such thing as categories here. They got rid of them.

Why are you saying that the TI-82, TI-85, and TI-92 don't matter anymore? Sure, they may not be the newest calculator, but that doesn't mean some excellent programs can't be written for them. And even if some were written, they most likely would not win POTM simply because not enough people own that calculator anymore. Sad.

I think that something BASIC could win if it is truly worthy, and it would motivate people to make extremely high quality BASIC programs. The way I see it is now that they have the featured programs (which makes your view of the POTM moot), being a featured program indicates merit, whereas POTM indicates popularity. That IS how it will be as long as POTM is chosen by vote. What I meant by categories is lesser Z80, greater Z80, and 68K. Even though there weren't any restrictions, a program from each category won, even though that wasn't required by the voting system. That tells me that the nomination process is pretty fair. The 82, 85, and 92 have a shrinking user base. To continue to write programs for them is stupid when you could write for the 83, 86, and 89. POTM encourages people to write for popular user bases.

Obviously your views and mine differ, and we have both presented our own perspective. There is no need to further argue the subject on these boards; if you want to take it up in email, then by all means.

So Zelda 89 is not worthy enough to win POTM?

Featured programs are choosen by the ticalc.org staff alone. It is entirely subjective to the staff. And since the staff does not own every calculator, the only way they could truely determine if a program should be featured is via an emulator such as VTI. It should be noted that playing a game on VTI vs. on the calculator is a big difference, mostly with the keys. It's simply harder on VTI, because the game was meant to be played on the calculator.

I know what you meant by categories, but there are NO categories. ticalc.org should remove those.

Now why would writing programs for the TI-82 be stupid if you, the programmer, only own a TI-82? Why can't the POTM award encourage programmers to write programs for their own calculators? Why should they have to write for other calculators just to win the award? That's stupid.

About the last paragraph of your statement...

If someone only owns a TI-82, and intends to own only that calculator for the forseen future, then by all means they should make programs for it. Others who own a TI-82 will be grateful for those programs. The same applies for any other older calculator.

However, some people take this 'programming on the calculator' business pretty seriously. We've all seen the postings from people who claim to own a TI-80, two TI-81s, a couple TI-82s, eighteen TI-83s, seventy-four TI-86s, etc., etc...
These people are naturally going to program on the newest calculator, and these programs are naturally going to win. (Assuming they're written well, blah, blah, blah...)

It'd be like me making a program on an old XT computer (the 8088s), or simply in QBasic, or something. Someone with an older computer might enjoy fooling with my program, but I would not expect a 'programmer of the year' award or anything.

So in otherwords, you say, that making a program on an old XT or in QBasic is like making a TI-BASIC program on a TI-82? It may be nice, but there is no way it will ever win an award? Exactly. That's why there should be seperate awards for each calculator, since you can't compare, for instance, an XT to a Pentium III.

My solution is that if you write a good program for your own calculator, someone will port it to another calculator, doubling your chances to win (even if it is in the same category) because 2x the people will be able to play it.

For the last time, there are NO categories. :)

Also, I don't think it should be a "requirement" that a game must be ported to multiple calculators in order for it to win.

> So Zelda 89 is not worthy enough to win POTM?

"Worthy" is the wrong word for POTM. As Kirk mentioned above, POTM reflects popularity, not merit. Therefore, no program "deserves" or is "worthy" of POTM; it is simply a popularity contest. And even if you make a program that allows a calculator to run, say, 8000 emulated programs (Texzas), which is a DAMN impressive accomplishment, if more people play super mario quest, then super mario quest will win POTM, just as it should.

Exactly, it is a popularity contest, and that means no BASIC program will ever win, simply because the majority of voters download assembly stuff and not BASIC. Why would people download BASIC programs when there are plenty of assembly ones available?

Why not award the most popular TI-89 assembly game or the most popular TI-82 BASIC game? Wouldn't that be more fair? Under the current system, BASIC programmers have no chance..

You're right, my Zelda Demo came close to winning, but it didn't win. Many people out there thought that it should have won for its catergory, but you didn't even separate the results into catergories!! This is a worthless system!
Maybe I'll just wait until January to release the next version of my Zelda Demo, and <sarcasm>HOPEFULLY</sarcasm> you'll have a decent system by then. Here's a hint: Separate everything into each calculator and each language! Who cares if there's only one program for the 92, if it wins, it wins! It means that at least somebody out there is still devoted to that calculator, and they should be credited for it!

-Fil

Programs cannot be featured more than once. I was told that by a ticalc.org staff member. So if your program was featured last time, it can never be "featured" again and be on the voting list again. Basically, they say, you had your shot and you lost.

I think that an update to this program, complete with enemies, etc. should be able to receive the POTM nomination again. It didn't win the first time, right? Who's to say that it doesn't deserve a second chance? Take a look at Sonic Misadventures. Both Zelda and Sonic are demos, without enemies, external levels, etc. They _aren't_ final versions. Basically, their only purpose is to be a world to play around in, for now, at least.

~ferich

Well, I see your point. But I'm simply telling you what the policy is at ticalc.org. I didn't make up these stupid rules. :) They say the POTM is for "new" programs, not for updates.

The only reason you're mad is because your game didn't win. You completely blamed the system that was used this past month and not your programming skills. I'm sure it must have taken many hours to write the program, but you saw the responses by others. Zelda was insanely large, the controls were slow, and it was _just_ a demo. If it had been a quick, full version game, I'm sure it would have won. I suggest, in the future, you do not get your hopes up about unfinished projects.

But that's just it, BASIC games almost never have good graphics, fast gameplay, and are small in size. You can pretty much do all that in assembly, but in BASIC its a trade-off. You can either have good graphics and slow gameplay, or poor graphics and faster gameplay. Good graphics also increase program size significantly.

The problem is that you can't compare BASIC and assembly. They are two totally different languages. BASIC has a lot of limitations compared to assembly, and there will never be a BASIC version of ZTetris or Vertigo. Plus, since there are so many assembly programs out now, a lot of people just don't bother to download any BASIC stuff at all.

>Plus, since there are so many assembly programs out now, a lot of
>people just don't bother to download any BASIC stuff at all.

Now that's something that never even occured to me, but boy is it true. I can't remember the last time I downloaded a program that was Basic-based. If we want a totally fair system, then everyone who votes would have to have tested every assembly AND basic program that has come out in the last month. I seriously don't think that that will ever happen.

I am not saying, however, that BASIC is a bad language. For math programs, it's the language of choice for programmers. It's good for simple, text based games and antics because of strings. And, as far as graphical BASIC games, I once had a Tetris game written completely in BASIC on my calculator back when I was in the tenth grade. I don't know who the programmer was, but I do remember the game was made in Israel. Sure it slow, but this was before asm ever came out for the 83. Everyone at my school had it. Also, there are several reviews that are written each month for BASIC programs. But as far as fast, graphical games go, you should stick to asm.

off the subject but I was wondering if a 89 could emulate games from a 85 or 86 and play someone on a cable with an 85 thanks and sorry to interupt

The TI-89 is a 68k based calculator and the TI-85 and TI-86 are Z80 based calculators. Currently, the TI-89 cannot emulate any TI-85/86 programs, however someone /could/ write a program to do it, it would be quite difficult and more or less pointless. There are already a lot of excellent games for the TI-89.

However, you can play games, such as ZTetris, through the link cable using a TI-85 and TI-89.

The 82-86 use a z80 processor. The 89,92(+) use a 68k processor. They are two entirely different processors. Therefore, the 89 cannot emulate the 85. However, according to Ztetris' readme, the link protocol in Tetris for the 92 is identical to that of Ztetris for the z80 calcs. In theory (I don't have a 68k calc to test it with), you can play Ztetris vs. someone on an 89 using Tetris (Jimmy Mardell's).

Actually, it could be done. The fact that they are two entirely different processors says nothing. Hell, that's what emulation is, isn't it? How do you think Rusty Wagner created his vTI program? It's all about emulating other processors. Sure, someone could write a z80 emulator for a 68k-based calculator, but it would be slower than anything. It would be like playing a graphic-intensive BASIC game. I know on my old P120 computer, emulating my 89 on vTI was no joke. It was slow. How do you think emulating a 6MHz processor on a 10MHz processor will hold up?

~ferich