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  3. Atari Lynx 30th Birthday Programming Competition

Atari Lynx turns 30 this year and we here at Atari Gamer are set on making this a birthday to remember. As part of the celebration we've created the best Lynx games voting page and are now introducing the...



You're most likely looking for this page: Celebrating Atari Lynx 30th Birthday. All of the competition entries have been submitted so now it's time to play and celebrate! 🕹👾🎂


If you think you have the skills and talent to win then submit your expression of interest so you can be registered as a participant. This is an online contest and you have right until the cut off dates to submit your entries. All submitted entries will be open for comment by the community, which will be considered as input for final results by the judges.

Double-Up Update🕸

Due to the overwhelming interest and larger than expected number of registered teams, the competition dates and prize pool have been expanded. Here's what's in store now...

Registrations close on the 20th of July 2019
Final submissions close on the 30th August 2019
ROMs will be released to public on the 1st of September
Winners will be announced in October 2019

Prize pool has doubled!

Competition Sponsors🕸

We'd like to thank all of our generous sponsors for making this competition happen. Without them there would be no prize pool, so be sure to check them out!


Competition Rules🕸

Lets set out some rules...

  • Your game must be for the Atari Lynx console and submitted as a LNX ROM file
  • Your team can be made up of yourself or multiple people
  • You're limited to 1 entry per team, but you can be a member of multiple teams, as long as they are larger than 1 person teams
  • Your game must be original, ports of commercial games will not be allowed (a port of your own original homebrew game for a different console is OK)
  • Your game must not have been released in the past for Atari Lynx
  • Your game must be complete to be judged, unfinished/partial submissions will be disqualified
  • You can use any tools you wish and can code in C or Assembly
  • Source code does not need to be submitted but sharing of your code is encouraged
  • You give Atari Gamer and competitions sponsors permission to publish your game on their website and make use of screenshots, story and other content for promotional purposes (this is not automatically extended to making physical copies of your game)
  • Competition sponsors will be judging all entries with final results published by Atari Gamer
  • Registrations will not be accepted after the 20th of July 2019
  • Final submissions close on the 30th August 2019
  • Winners will be announced in October 2019
  • Prizes are awarded per team, you decide how the prize is split
  • Sponsors/judges are not allowed to enter the competition as competitors
  • Atari Gamer reserves the rights to change these rules at any moment


Prize Pool🕸

There will be prizes! The top 6 teams will be awarded one of the following (teams can choose their prize with preference given to first place winner, then second place winner, etc). There are two of each item up for grabs, with one item per team to choose from...

The next two runner ups will be awarded an Atari Lynx Console Stand from Gaming Displays.

All participants will be given the opportunity to have their game released as one of the default ROMs on the Lynx SD cartridge.



Registration🕸

Registration is now closed! 🔒

To register your interest to enter the competition, please email Atari Gamer on with the subject "Lynx Programming Competition 2019". Please provide the following details:

  • Team name and names and email addresses of all team members. If entering as a team, please nominate a team representative too.
  • Entry category
  • Game name
All entrants will be listed here once confirmed and will be notified by email.

Check out the Atari Lynx Programming Resources if you need help with getting started with Lynx programming.


Registered Participants🕸

There are a total of eleven registered teams. Four of the teams are multiple-member teams (listed first), the other seven are single-person teams.

All of the competition entries have been submitted so please head on over to this page for more details: Celebrating Atari Lynx 30th Birthday.




Team: OCEO
Members:
    Martial DAVIAUD (lead and graphics)
    Karri KAKSONEN (coding and sounds)
    Leo KAKSONEN (playability and game rules)
    Walter LAUER (testing)
Entry: "On Duty"
Submitted


Team: Retroguru
Members:
    Gisberto Rondinella (coding, design)
    Shahzad Sahaib (team lead, testing, design)
Entry: "Nutmeg" - a jump and run game
Submitted


Team: New Generation
Members:
    'Laoo' (coding)
    'Solo' (coding)
    'Miker' (music/sfx)
    'FinalBossBlues' (graphics)
    'UilleagGodwin' (graphics)
    'Alcopop' (graphics)
    '0x72' (graphics)
Entry: "Lynx Quest" - adventure action game
Submitted


Team: PriorArt
Members:
    Martin 'enthusi' Wendt (coding)
    Oliver 'v3to' Lindau (graphics)
    Kamil 'jammer' Wolnikowski (sound)
Entry: "Assembloids" - an action puzzler with too little dev time 🙂
Submitted


Team: KrakenDev
Members:
    LordKraken (Alexandre Genoud)
Entry: "The Inside World"
Submitted


Team: White Lynx Productions
Members:
    Karri KAKSONEN
Entry: "Find a way to my heart"
Submitted


Team: Team Jum
Members:
    James Higgs
Entry: "Sky Raider" - Simple procedurally generated vertical shooter (think "River Raid")
Submitted


Team: Yastuna
Members:
    Fadest (Frédéric Descharmes)
Entry: "Ynxa"
Submitted


Team: Dr. Ludos
Members:
    Dr. Ludos
Entry: "Growing Ties"
Submitted


Team: Nop90, last minute GFX additions by Marss
Members:
    Gisberto Rondinella
Entry: "4TTUDE" - An advanced 3d tic-tac-toe game
Submitted


Team: VladR
Members:
    Vladimir Repcak
Entry: "Undergrounders"
Submitted
 

Judging Panel🕸

Competition entries will be judged by a panel of the following people and "virtual judges"...



Scoring System🕸

Scoring rules take a number of factors into account. First there are the scores for each of the games as provided by the judges. Each of the judges are asked to submit their scores according to this points calculator. This will cover the following aspects for each entry...

  • Creativity
  • Implementation
  • Gameplay
  • Replay
  • Completion

For each entry, a minimum score of 4 and maximum score of 400 is taken from each of the judges and then these are averaged to get the overall judge's score. In addition to this, Atari Gamer will award points for each entry in the following two criteria...

  • Community vote results. From the Atari Age forums voting poll. Points will be awarded to each entry based on the number of votes it received. The vote count is multiplied by 3 (first place poll), 2 (second place poll) or 1 (third place poll).
  • Community reaction. This will be a score counting positive reactions to each of the games on the Atari Age discussion forums (30th Birthday Club game discussions), and for any of the Atari Gamer shared Twitter/Facebook/Instagram posts for the games and the 30th Birthday Competition posts.


Winners🕸

Winners of this competition have been announced at the Mark/Space booth at the Portland Retro Gaming Expo (PRGE). Watch the announcement video by Super Nicktendo.



Big Thanks to Wasabim for helping with the artwork!

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