Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!nrl-cmf!ames!lll-winken!ubvax!ardent!rap From: rap@ardent.UUCP (Rob Peck) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: BADGE Killer Demo Contest (long) Message-ID: <3473@ardent.UUCP> Date: 20 Feb 89 22:53:55 GMT Organization: Dana Computer, Inc., Sunnyvale, CA Lines: 284 ==================================================================== The following posting is also being sent to all of the major Amiga magazines. I have not as yet contacted the disk-based Amiga mags, but shall do so RSN. :-) Posted on behalf of BADGE which itself has no explicit Usenet access. Rob Peck ==================================================================== (officially) Announcing the results of the 1988 Bay area Amiga Developers GroupE Killer Demo Contest On October 20, 1988, the Bay area Amiga Developers GroupE (BADGE) held a contest to select the best Amiga demo of the year. The contest is sponsored to promote greater interest in the Amiga and thus generate additional sales. The primary purpose of the contest is to create demo disks for dealers to use to show off the Amiga. First of all, a very large THANK YOU goes out to all of our sponsors who were generous enough to donate prizes for this year's contest. Commodore-Amiga -- Amiga 2000 Go Amigo -- 30 meg Hard Card Computer Attic -- 2 meg Ram Board MicroBotics -- 8Up! 8 meg Ram Board (unpopulated) Manx Software -- Aztec C compiler (and temporary housing one of the judges) A-Squared -- Real Time Video Digitizer Oxxi -- Software (Maxi-Plan, Atalk III) Boing Inc. -- Boing Jacket, Boing Mouse Info Magazine -- Ten three-year Subscriptions Winner's Circle, Berkeley -- Time and Equipment (thanks!) Tracy McSheery -- Game software Radical Eye Software -- $500.00 cash (for operating expenses) This year there were two catagories of demos: Tool-Based (meaning that the demo may require another, possibly commercial program to run), and Custom-Programmed (a standalone program). The prize catagories were: Best Overall, Best Use of Graphics, Best Use of Sound, and Funniest, as well as second and third place. [Scoring details and explicit finishing positions omitted for brevity] This year, the Best Overall prize (an Amiga 2000, donated by Paul Higginbottom of Commodore-West Chester) goes to Brad Schenck for his Director Animation called Charon. Other winning catatories include: Best Custom Demo -- Tank by Vince Lee; Funniest -- "Not Boing Again" by Dr. Gandalf; Best Sound -- "Charon" again, by Brad Schenck; and Best Graphics -- Tychoid by John M. Olsen. Two disks with the top three demos are available from BADGE for $5.00 by sending your request to: Badge Killer Demo Contest c/o Randy Spencer P.O. Box 4542 Berkeley CA 94704 All of this year's entries will be sent to Fred Fish for distribution in his Freely Redistributable Library. The Folks Behind BADGE ======================= We are BADGE, the "Bay area Amiga Developers GroupE". The group consists of developers (both commercial software organization employees and independents) and others who just want to be there when the latest hot product (sometimes work-in-process) is shown. We enjoy working on the Amiga and want to promote it wherever possible. Some time ago, we realized that with a limited budget for advertising and dealer training, Commodore International might need some gentle help to show off the capabilities of the Amiga. With so very much software becoming available in the Public Domain for the Amiga, someone at a BADGE meeting said: "Hey, why don't we create an award or a hall of fame for the best of the Public Domain Amiga software". This idea soon became the seed for the "BADGE Killer Demo Contest", a contest that might use some of the spare time of various developers to create whiz-bang demos that we could distribute, at our cost, to dealers. This would help sell machines and garner a bit of fame (if nothing else) for the demo's creator. Suddenly we were awash in offers for prizes to give for contest winners and suddenly we had a real contest that demanded real rules and real judging. The idea had taken on a life of its own. The first contest (called the ZEROth demo contest, because we didn't know if it would ever happen again) was a success and the disks were distributed far and wide. We again promoted the contest idea for the following year, and established a set of rules to follow. The rules took up a few pages and unfortunately tended to discourage some entrants who might otherwise have produced the "demo of the decade". At our most recent meeting, BADGE has decided to get back to that original idea -- to promote the Amiga -- and the demos should support that most basic concept. Thus, we present the "CONCEPTS For Future BADGE Killer Demo Contests": The Winning Demos: o are easy to install and run o are 'safe' to run o are freely redistributable o promote the Amiga and THAT's IT! Exactly what BADGE would like to be able to distribute. To expand on the items just a LITTLE bit: Easy to install - the dealer or customer ought to be able to figure out what is needed to install it on a hard disk and the program should know how to run no matter where it is installed. Or explicit instructions on how to run it can be provided. Safe - the program contains no virus, and does not crash the machine on entry or exit. Freely redistributable - we want to give them out at cost to whoever wants to see them. The winners get famous. Promote the Amiga - it certainly would be nice to see things that are not as easily done on other machines, shows folks why they bought (or should buy) an Amiga. Something uniquely Amiga would be a big plus. So you now know our GOALS. So what are the RULES? Well, we've become pretty open ended there. The only rules (and maybe for something fabulous we might be willing to bend just a little) are basically the opposites of the GOALS above. A demo program can be disqualified for any of the following: o if it crashes the machine (bendable rule); o if it has or installs a virus (hard and fast rule); o if it does not exit cleanly (does not follow Amiga program "rules", bendable to some extent); o if it is not freely redistributable (ok to copyright, but if you prevent us from distributing it, it won't be accepted as a contest entry); o if it requires that the disk be write-enabled (bendable - BUT... one entry last year wrote to its disk, then stopped running after it had been run 5 times; this is not a suitable item for a person to have to demo his machine... word of mouth sells a lot of systems! ) We have developed a set of 'recommendations' which we felt would best serve our target audience for the demos. Note that these are not "rules" per se, however the presence (or absence) of some of these could be considered in part of the judging: RECOMMENDATIONS (NOT rules): o uniquely Amiga - a big plus o originality - will influence audience reaction o runs in 512k system - largest installed base o runs in a one-disk system (another large installed base) (if needs Workbench disk present for libs etc, maybe demo can be set up to run with certain things in RAM:?) o easy to install on a hard disk (maybe even provide a script) (We'd "prefer" all-you-need in a drawer that we could simply use Workbench to drag onto the hard disk) o fits on one disk (nice, but low priority) o obvious means of exit (or startup screen that tells how to exit) o asynchronous exit (can get out at any time) o idiot proof - cannot 'cause' it to crash; trap all non-exit events -- low priority item, but nice if included o supports multi-tasking -- nice if you can do it o no blatant commercialism IN the demo -- though a text file specifying the product that created it, or glorifying the creators of the demo is perfectly acceptable. JUDGING: will be based on the following tenets in general: o which demo will sell the most Amigas? o audience reaction will play an important part; technical judges might act as human applause meters, so to speak o use "technical merit" (we are, after all, developers) as a tie-breaker. o no explicit categories, but one special award for 'funniest'. Yes, there will probably be "professionals" entering demos in the contest, but every demo has an equal chance of winning. We're looking forward to seeing everyone's ideas. Announcing The SECOND BADGE Killer Demo Contest =============================================== The SECOND (annual?) BADGE Killer Demo Contest will be held at the September, 1989 meeting of BADGE (most likely to take place on the third Thursday of the month.) Entrants are encouraged to follow the above rules and guidelines in submitting your demos. Demos should be accompanied by either a README file on the disk to tell us the minimum configuration in which the demo will run and exactly how to start (and stop) the demo. Demos will be accepted up to and including September 1, 1989, with that date relatively firm (because the contest is being announced so far in advance). This will allow sufficient time for the judges to arrange the necessary equipment and to set up a reasonable environment for the display of the demos. If you wish to ask any questions about the rules and recommendations, please send those questions to the address below. We will try to respond in a reasonable time frame. A quick answer is certainly possible, but an "official" response would be based on a vote of the BADGE membership. Since we meet only once each month, an official response might not be what you'd want, but perhaps a "well-maybe" would suffice until the next meeting happens. Submit your "prize-winning" entries to: BADGE Contest c/o DATAPATH P. O. Box 31008 Los Gatos, CA 95031 All entries will be acknowledged on receipt. If you want your entry material to be returned following the contest, please include a self- addressed envelope with sufficient postage to carry the material safely back to you. We've announced the contest considerably earlier this year to give folks time to think about the rules and recommendations, and to provide additional work-time if required. It would be a shame to miss a chance for the killer demo of the decade just because we did not post the contest rules in time. For all coming contests, we'll want to distribute the winning disks very quickly, and this is yet another reason why we simplified the rules. Additionally, since the announcement is early enough that we have no idea what kind of prizes might be available for this next contest. As mentioned earlier, prize donations are voluntary and depend on the generous support of our sponsors. We can not guarantee anything of course, but please realize that this contest draws a lot of interest from users around the world who eagerly await the killer demos each year -- you could become famous. We're looking forward to your entry. BADGE.