Dark Bit Factory & Gravity

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Firstly we would like to thank everyone who participated in this challenge, and also we would like to thank those people who worked on something but didn't quite have the time to get it 100% working / finished. Please complete these entries if you can, we really need them for Retro-Remakes.

Voting has been delayed for a few days, this is due to the fact that Stormbringer and I needed to chat about ratings and we were seldom online at the same time.
Anyway, we finally got the chance to chat about the scores and now the poll can start.

A note on the scores. We have written comments about each of the remakes in this voting topic, however we have decided not to publicise them. The comments for each intro along are available via PM to the coders of those intros.

If you want to read our comments, and you coded one of the entries in contention, please message Shockwave.

On voting for these.. In the descriptions below, you will also see the scores from Stormbringer and Shockwave.

These scores are just a guideline from the viewpoint of people who remake these demos all the time. It's up to you if you are influenced by them, but if you think we got it wrong or if you just *like* something more than the others, vote the way your heart tells you. Please do.

Remakes often spark a wonderful sense of nostalgia in people and if something just made you remember a good time in your life for a while then that remake has done its' job and should therefore get your vote.

And even having said that, there is still some difference of opinion between Stormbringer an I over the scores each one should recieve.

Please remember that this challenge was extremely difficult, reflected in the low number of entries, it's worth bearing that in mind when you vote too.

Sadly because of the very low number of entries this time, there will not be another remake challenge here again.

Remake:

Cyberzerk by Xalthorn.

Notes on this intro:

Lots and lots happening in this intro, spinning blenkvectors, transparrent scrolling text overlay, cool music, scrolls and loads and loads of colours on the screen at once.

Plenty of things for Xalthorn to make sure that he got right.

Accession: Stormbringer (6650) + Shockwave (4455) Total: 11105

Remake:

Vroom by Pjay274.

Notes on this intro:

Another busy and colourful intro, the original by Rog had a lot of things happening, scaling bob scroll, reflection, bob starfield, typer, music and a nice copperlist..

See it all reproduced here for your pleasure!

Vroom: Stormbringer (4500) / Shockwave (4032) Total: 8532

Remake:

Brutal 3 by Voltage.

Notes on this intro:

This C64 intro has some really nice elements, scrolling text, scrolling background, large logo and sparkling stars. It all included some really nice text fades and a great song too!

Voltage has gone to a lot of effort to make sure that all those fades are properly done, and even the sparkles are in exactly the same places as the original... Total nostalgic trip!

Brutal 3: Stormbringer (2375) / Shockwave (3589) Total:  5964

Remake:

Venlo by Jim.

Notes on this intro:

This was one cool partydemo, very remeniscent of the game Afterburner. This one featured a futuristic spaceship flying over an arid landscape, a scroll and a really great song. The demo is also unusual in that there was interactivity, you could take control with the joystick.

What is here is pretty accurate, sadly though Jim didn't realise that the plane could move up and down in the original too and there wasn't enough time to fix it in the end.

Venlo : Stormbringer (4900) / Shockwave (2975) Total: 7875

I picked only one because I'm scared of the wieghting of others distorting my vote. I hope this is acceptable. I'll fix my demo but I'm still quite busy for a while. I hope you can wait :P

I voted for Voltage cuz of his accuracy with the text particles.

Please pick 2 or your vote will not count. Thanks.

Thanks Spitfire. :)

There are 3 other great remakes to choose from, and each coder worked hard to get them complete.

Well it wont let me change it now :)

Good luck everybody. :)

What we're lacking in quantity is certainly  more than made up by the quality of the remakes on offer. 8)

Well done everybody :clap: :clap: :clap:

Yes. The quality was so good, it didn't matter there was not more entries. Voltage got my 1st vote :) I really enjoyed brutal !! Keep up the good work, all. :cheers:

Plenty of voters... But who's going to win? :D

QuoteSadly because of the very low number of entries this time, there will not be another remake challenge here again.

well, yes but it's the first competition here where all the submitted productions reach this level of quality. All the persons that provided a remake for the challenge made some serious efforts.

It's true that a lot more could have been submitted, especially because lots of remakes could have been easy ones.

Now what I'd like to know is how difficult this challenge was? I'm sure it was an easy one for Jim but what about the others? Were the rules too strict? what was the real challenge for you guys??

Quote from: stormbringer on November 04, 2008
well, yes but it's the first competition here where all the submitted productions reach this level of quality. All the persons that provided a remake for the challenge made some serious efforts.

Mmm. I don't know about that, there have been some incredible entries to past comps, even the last one (reduced res), but I guess you mean that they had to reach the right standard to be submitted.. I am sure that put a lot of people off entering. There were 4 or 5 remakes created that were sadly not entered into the comp however, and I don't understand why! I mean Alpha Ones, and Hellsangel's ones. Both people knew about the challenge but did not enter their remakes, even though they were all good enough and might even have had a chance of winning.

But anyway, I guess we'll never know those reasons, and remake challenges are very rigid and not open to interpretation at all so I guess that it puts a lot of the coders off.. It's not that people don't want to take part (I had several pm's off different people who wanted help in entering), but it stops people from using their interpretation.

Some people relish the opportunity and challenge of making a pixel perfect copy of something, others just enjoy watching the result.

Generally here, when a competition has less strict rules (but properly thought out) and a challenge that can be interpreted openly in many ways, it generates a lot more entries.

The rules were fine. In a remake challenge like this, you need strict rules.  We're not trying to write a demo 'in the style of', we're trying to actually recreate it as close to the original as possible.

As to the challenge, about three days into coding (or at least working out theory) I suspected that I should have gone for something easier, or at least within my 'comfort' zone and coding experience, but then that wouldn't have been as much fun.

I didn't come up with a solution to the staggered object rotations until the final day and had to do some frantic coding to get it working.  After that, I could think about the scrollers and get those included.

So for me, I loved it.  I've learned some new coding techniques, added more routines to my library (first time I've ever written a scanline triangle routine, I didn't know how Glenz vectors worked until this challenge, and the copperlist technique has so many applications it's freaky), I've learned more about how the Amiga worked, and I've been able to concentrate on creating something where I haven't had to come up with the concept in the first place.

I know that my version isn't 100% accurate, and I will be working to improve my version to bring it closer to the original until I hit the limit of what I can do (which might not be very long).

Quoteremake challenges are very rigid and not open to interpretation at all so I guess that it puts a lot of the coders off

Apart from having very little spare time at the moment, that's exactly the reason why I didn't enter the challenge. As I was starting to copy one amiga cracktro, I was constantly thinking "oh, it would be so much cooler to do it this way or to add another effect over here"...
So it's just not my understanding of creativity. Which does *not* mean "remaking" doesn't require creativity - it just turned out this is not they way I like to work.
I also didn't realize there were just a few entries as the challenges thread (http://dbfinteractive.com/forum/index.php?board=9.0) appeared quite stuffed...

Next one will have more time to complete and a really open idea anyway :)

plus too bad you couldn't vote Xenomorphis, it's just not right :b

Congratulations to every body who entered, and to those who supplied example productions.

Im defineatly going to win this one ;)

@Praecor: yeah.. well that wouldn't be fair. I released over 100 remakes of old Amiga intros and I definitely know a couple of tricks that are challenges to some members here... if you want to vote for it or post nice comments, consider doing at http://www.retro-remakes.net ! The site is there exactly for that purpose

Nearly 200 remakes online there now!

Way to go Stormbringer :D

QuoteI'm sure it was an easy one for Jim

Actually, not really!  There are a lot of challenges in these conversions.  I had a heck of a time grabbing all the original resources and I'm lucky to have a really good knowledge of how an Amiga works inside which made it a little easier.  I used a combination of memory dumps, screen shots and avi recording to get all the gfx.

Printing everything is pretty easy, though I stuffed up the sub-sprite plotting on the trees...lack of thought went in to that.

Getting the trees scrolling to look anything like the original took a good long time.  I had several totally failed efforts before I decided to go to a full 3d fx (I'm sure the original doesn't do it like this).

I liked this comp, it's good to try to see how people got amazing fx like these to run on a 7Mhz cpu, when sometimes it's a struggle to reproduce it on a 2.6GHz Core2Duo!  There are so many tricks and cheats to learn.

In all, I spent about 6-8 hours on this code.  That's about 1/2 to 1/3 of the time I would normally try to spend on the other kinds of comps we have here.  But I didn't get a chance to polish it, which would have been another couple of hours.

Good comp, shame about the lack of entries, I really looked forward to seeing Mental Hangover remade, that would really make my day, it's an all-time favourite of mine.  It was astonishing when it came out.

In all, lots and lots of fun, and looking forward to the next one!

Jim

Quote from: Jim on November 05, 2008

In all, I spent about 6-8 hours on this code.  That's about 1/2 to 1/3 of the time I would normally try to spend on the other kinds of comps we have here.  But I didn't get a chance to polish it, which would have been another couple of hours.

Wow that was very fast working of you and awesome results !! (eventhough you say you didn't polish) :) I never seem to get anything done in just 6 hours except make coffee + small planning.

@Stormbringer: Yes I get your point why you didn't allow it to be votable (still abit shame).
I will check out retro-remakes website!

Xalthorn you won! Congratz mate! It was awesome cool prod (+difficult one) :cheers: :cheers:

Congratulations Xalthorn! Your prod definitely made impact here and at www.retro-remakes.net! Eager to see more from you in the future

Woo hoo!

:updance:

Thanks for voting for mine folks, and congratulations to Pjay274 and Voltage for placing as well :D

I was curious to see how the voting panned out because it's a hard thing to judge as they were all different with their own complexities and challenges.

I hope Jim returns to his and completes it because that's another stunning one I'd love to play with some more.

@stormbringer : Have you had chance to look at my updated version?  I tried to address the issues that you and Shockwave raised during the judging and it would be nice to see the changes reflected on retro-remakes if they're acceptable.

Congratulations to all who entered :)

I will sort the sigs out this weekend I promise :)
Also the winning entries will be added to our showcase too.

@Xalthorn: yes Shockwave sent me the updated version. Everything looks more than very fine for me. Really it was a quality prod and I just hope you will release some more of this league in the near future...

@Shockwave: BTW, did you manage to upload Xalthorn's new version on retro-remakes.net??

BTW, this week-end we'll go over the barrier of 200 remakes online! I set myself a new goal: 300 remakes by the end of January 2009 :D

Anyway, if some of you want to see more, they are all there. You can vote and comment at will!

Congratulations Xalthorn for winning and to all the the other entrants. :clap:

Like my bank account there was nothing in it ;)

Quote from: Gooner on November 07, 2008
Like my bank account there was nothing in it ;)

:D

Congrats Xalthorn, Pjay274 and Jim.

I enjoyed this comp, and I'm looking forward to the next one.

Congrats winners. Cool entries!

Yey  :clap: Congrats all, great entries & great fun to boot.

Sigs coming soon guys, been a bit busy today sorry :)