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The First Mad Scientist ASM Contest - RESULTS

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After a bit of a shorter run than expected, this contest has come to a close. Thank you to everyone who entered, voted, etc. We're going to learn from what went wrong here, and use that to make this contest even better in the future.

With that, it's time for the results!

ROUND 001 RESULTS

#1 Ruberjig (Wart) 66.84%
#2 Un8Y (Birdo) 57.89%
#3 TheBiob (Ludwig) 25.26%

More detailed information on the results can be found here.
Additionally, you can download these bosses here.

And finally, we've made our winner, Ruberjig, November's Member of The Month! Check out the interview here!


Hope we have more ASM contests~


HackPortsASM"Uploader"

Yoshiatom's Post
I feel like this contest could have been run much better (as in, not jumping to bosses on the second round) but I would like to see another contest sometime.

Anyways, congrats to Ruberjig! Enjoy your MOTM status!... I guess.

Layout by Koopster!

<DeputyBS> I knew it
<DeputyBS> alcarobot is taking over the world through his truck dealership franchise
I agree we should definitely run something like this again, and jumping to bosses on round 2 may not have been the best move, so we'll keep that in mind. I encourage everyone to share their thoughts on what could be done better if you have any.
If anyone actually played Wart, then they would know how weird and broken it is. Birdo is the only one that doesn't have a really major let-down. Of course, my opinions tend to be quite unpopular, so...

Congratulations!!
I immediately knew Wart was Ruberjig's because of the art style, but I didn't want to jeopardize their chance of winning by bringing it up. Congrats(?) everybody!
ask me if i give a f*ck...
Congrats Ruberjig and congrats thebiob!!!
Originally posted by Hobz
I immediately knew Wart was Ruberjig's because of the art style, but I didn't want to jeopardize their chance of winning by bringing it up.

Haha, same.
Congrats, winners! And good job, Vitor! You must be pretty disappointed with how the contest ended. It rose very high very fast, and fell back down at the same speed. I'm not saying this is a bad constest, but it could have been so much better...!
Really, it only needed some more limitations and a smaller scale.

Congrats to all three, I guess. The bosses may not have turned out amazing, but you deserve some respect for your efforts, anyways.
Feel free to visit my website/blog - it's updated rarely, but it looks pretty cool!
Wait wait wait

Originally posted by K3fka
#2 Un8Y (Birdo) 57.89%
#3 TheBiob (Ludwig) 25.26%

I thought it was the other way around lmao

I'm so used to seeing JP hackers like EXTRA and such make absurd ass flashy bosses with twitch reflex attack patterns that I thought Un8Y made Ludwig (and Robirdo reminded me of Biob's bonus stage from last round lol)

My earnest apologies if this post is rude
HackPortsASM"Uploader"

Originally posted by Leomon
Wait wait wait

Originally posted by K3fka
#2 Un8Y (Birdo) 57.89%
#3 TheBiob (Ludwig) 25.26%

I thought it was the other way around lmao

I'm so used to seeing JP hackers like EXTRA and such make absurd ass flashy bosses with twitch reflex attack patterns that I thought Un8Y made Ludwig (and Robirdo reminded me of Biob's bonus stage from last round lol)

My earnest apologies if this post is rude


Nah I'm terrible at making bosses but at least I got something done. Even though it's probably the worst thing I ever made lol

e: Oh yeah wanted to comment some things:

Originally posted by MercuryPenny
okay why are some people voting for ludwig

Ye I was thinking the same thing lol

Originally posted by Hobz
that's not very nice ):

Agreed

Originally posted by RPG Hacker
It's a typical case of "mode 7 for the sake of mode 7".

It was actually more like "mode 7 for the sake of it already being set up and me running out of ideas that I could finish in time"

Originally posted by MercuryPenny
literally inc mode 7 registers

Hey there are some dec's as well!
Also cmp's to make it stop at the right time which funfact: doesn't even work properly lol
Holy CRAP, i saw the code of this robirdo, and i can't get how someone could make a WHOLE 32x64 BOSS only using Pull-to-Stack commands. This is impressive at all, i never saw someone doing that.
Originally posted by Tsutarja
This is impressive at all

It's impressive for all the wrong reasons.

It's called obfuscated code. The guy decided to, after writing the code in a normal way, assemble it and store it as a bunch of bytes, then turn that into PEAs (probably because it's faster than most other ways to get code to RAM). Probably to ensure it can't be used by anyone else; it will crash horribly if not inserted at exactly the correct address.

Vitor, this can't be considered a source file as required by rule 14.


and which of you forum mods threw out the other threads, contests aren't old until they're over. that includes closed threads in ongoing contests.
<blm> zsnes users are the flatearthers of emulation
I'm gonna have to agree that that code can't qualify as valid source code. I think we should disqualify for that.
Originally posted by Alcaro
It's called obfuscated code. The guy decided to, after writing the code in a normal way, assemble it and store it as a bunch of bytes, then turn that into PEAs (probably because it's faster than most other ways to get code to RAM). Probably to ensure it can't be used by anyone else; it will crash horribly if not inserted at exactly the correct address.

Vitor, this can't be considered a source file as required by rule 14.

lmao

I get doing this for your own hack (like if you have a boss that isn't meant to be used outside of your hack) but a public contest? Why?
HackPortsASM"Uploader"

Originally posted by Alcaro
Originally posted by Tsutarja
This is impressive at all

It's impressive for all the wrong reasons.

It's called obfuscated code. The guy decided to, after writing the code in a normal way, assemble it and store it as a bunch of bytes, then turn that into PEAs (probably because it's faster than most other ways to get code to RAM). Probably to ensure it can't be used by anyone else; it will crash horribly if not inserted at exactly the correct address.

Vitor, this can't be considered a source file as required by rule 14.

Never heard of that guy before. What an asshole.

Originally posted by Leomon
I get doing this for your own hack (like if you have a boss that isn't meant to be used outside of your hack) but a public contest? Why?

Cool, I get to do this again.

We are using tons of Nintendo's code/resources in a way that they do not want us to, in a completely illegal way. The fact that some people feel that it is their ethical right to close source/obfuscate code/resources that they create for this is completely mind blowing to me. The disconnect is insane.
Originally posted by TheBiob
Originally posted by RPG Hacker
It's a typical case of "mode 7 for the sake of mode 7".

It was actually more like "mode 7 for the sake of it already being set up and me running out of ideas that I could finish in time"


Fair enough, I guess. #ab{:LOL:}
It's as I said, some more limitations for the contest would have actually been helpful. Less limitations allows people to be more creative, but it also makes it harder to come up with ideas, and an ASM contest shouldn't really be focused on creativity in the first place, it should be focused on the solution to a problem (since really, that is what programming is mostly about).

Ideally, an ASM contest should look something like this:
  • Get a very concrete problem/task with only very few variables. To get back to the boss idea, the task could be something like "create a boss that does [bla bla bla] and uses either an attack that does [bla bla bla] or an attack that does [bla bla bla]". This sounds like it's not very flexible and leaves little room for creativity, but first of all, that's kind of the point, and secondly, it's not even really true. It does still leave room for creativity in places where it really matters. For example: how fast are the attacks, what do they look like, how are they animated, what sound effects does the boss use, how does the boss battle begin and end etc. The creative factor is in the details, and really, that's how it should be for a contest like this.
  • Now after the task is given, people actually start coding. With a clearer task in mind, they can probably start right away and don't have to waste time on actually getting ideas.
  • Now for the actual voting. If you can even call it that, cause I'm not sure if there should be a voting in the first place, or if anything, the voting should only making half the score, and the other half should come from judges. Here is the reason: there are a few factors that should really influence the scoring of an entry in an ASM contest that can't be considered by "public voters". Things such as: how clean and readable is the code, how efficient is the code (does it was some performance or memory in obvious places?), is it easy to use/modify the code, how is the code's compatibility with other patches. You know, stuff like that. Now there are still some factors that I consider important for the scoring and that public voters could actually have influence on. Things like: how polished, playable and fun is the solution (the boss battle, in this case). Even with all people having the same base task, there would still be a lot of room for variable scoring here. For example: a boss with proper animations and tells and attacks that a player can reasonably react to would naturally score higher than a boss with no animations and unpredictable, fast-as-shit attacks, and a boss with a reasonable amount of challenge would (probably) score higher than a boss that was either too hard or too easy. At the end of the day, we might only get a single boss in many different variations, but that one boss would at least (probably) have a version that is very polished and could go right into your hack.


That's how an ASM contest should be done, in my opinion. Make it about the solution, not about creative ideas (which can still be used for a solution, anyways). Really, having too many very different results just makes scoring harder, anyways.
Feel free to visit my website/blog - it's updated rarely, but it looks pretty cool!
If anyone cares, I disassembled Robirdo into a sprite that is usable.

Not well documented or anything, but it should be easy enough to just insert and use. Someone who knows more about the SA-1 addresses could probably document it better than I.
Originally posted by RPG Hacker
Now after the task is given, people actually start coding. With a clearer task in mind, they can probably start right away and don't have to waste time on actually getting ideas.

Judging by these posts, this freedom is directly responsible for several dropouts. I didn't post, but that's why I dropped out as well.

Quote
Things such as: how clean and readable is the code, how efficient is the code (does it was some performance or memory in obvious places?), is it easy to use/modify the code, how is the code's compatibility with other patches

Good idea. An ASM contest should be about ASM, not creativity; we ASMers are often lacking in that department.
<blm> zsnes users are the flatearthers of emulation
yeah the big thing that confused me about the boss round was that bosses require graphics, and unless I'm mistaken it's probably safe to assume that not all asmers are also competent pixel artists. I don't think you'd be able to ask somebody else to draw them for you either, since that'd be against the anonymity rules.
I get that the entrants weren't being judged on graphics anyways, but idk personally if I was a participant I wouldn't feel comfortable coding or releasing a boss that, regardless of technical impressiveness, looks like shit.

I agree with everything RPG Hacker said.
ask me if i give a f*ck...
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