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Competitions 2025
Post Posted: Wed Jan 22, 2025 6:59 pm
We will celebrate SMS Power’s 28th Anniversary in March 2025 and run the usual competitions!
It's getting easier and easier to get into homebrew coding with assembly, devkitSMS, z88dk and gbdk-2020 available.
There's a wide range of Alex Kidd in Miracle World hacks and total conversions via KiddEd, and editors for Sonic games via STH1EDWV and Aspect Edit.
Music composition can be done any way you like, but composing for the glorious PSG and YM2413 is increasingly accessible with Furnace and DefleMask among the popular options.
So you have no excuses! The only way to fail is to not try.

Ultra-short rules:

The same as every year :)
Please read below for details.

Slightly longer rules:

Deadline is 27th March 2025. You may choose to interpret that in any reasonable way. We expect people to submit patches/fixes in the following days, but try to get your entry submitted by the end of March 27.

There are three main competitions: coding, hacks and music.

Coding competition

Write something that runs on a Sega 8-bit home system which isn't a hack. A game, a demo, a tool!
(See our Homebrew section for an idea of past work done by the community.)

Hacks competition

Make a hack of a game for a Sega 8-bit home system.
(See our Hacks section for an idea of past work done by the community.).
System conversion hacks (such as GG2SMS, MSX2SMS hacks) are not valid for the competition unless they also significantly modify the game as part of that adaptation. Please post them through regular non-competition means.

Music competition

Make some music that either uses the sound chip(s) from an Sega 8-bit home system, or is an arrangement of music from commercial software for that system.
(See our Music section for an idea of past work done by the community.)

Rules / The small print

* Entries should be either made for this competition, or substantially different to any earlier release. This means you can’t take something you released before and enter it with minimal or no changes; it also means you shouldn’t release it yourself elsewhere before the deadline.
* If you have a project that don't clearly fit in the Coding/Hacks/Music criteria and you think would be a good fit in the competition, please message us and we may work something out together (e.g. enter the project in Coding competition if that seems reasonable).
* Super-offensive or overly illegal content will get your entry rejected. Be nice.
* Coding entries must be in a format that works with a wide variety of emulators, i.e. raw ROM image or disk images. Tape images and wacky custom formats are no good unless you are genuinely making something related to those formats.
* Hack entries must be either in a format like for coding entries, or in the form of an IPS or BPS patch. You must give details of the original file(s) your hack is based on.
* Music entries can be in any format you like, provided it's VGM or MP3. You are welcome to also provide the same music in some other format (e.g. the tracker file) alongside it.
* Licences: we would like to start showing licences on the coding and music entries. If you are including source, it would help us if you can tell us what licence you want to apply to it.

How to enter

E-mail: competition AT smspower.org
PLEASE BE EXTRA CAREFUL TO SUBMIT ALL INFORMATION. Every year it takes us a long time to sort through entries for which we can't associate a real name to a forum people, can't tell the proper entry name, etc.

E-mail subject:

Coding Competition 2025 Entry: XXXXXXX

Music Competition 2025 Entry: XXXXXXX

Hacks Competition 2025 Entry: XXXXXXX


Form to copy and fill in your e-mail:

* Forum user name:
XXXXX

* Competition type:
* (Coding/Music/Hacks)
XXXXX

* Title of your entry:
* (please provide a clear, official title we are going to use everywhere, not just "here's my rom.sms")
XXXXX

* Description:
* (we will copy whatever in your e-mail looks like a description to the corresponding pages)
XXXXX
XXXXX

* Files:
* (list of files links, or filenames attached to the e-mail. Please ZIP everything so we can preserve your build timesamp)
XXXXX
XXXXX

* Sources:
* (no/yes/link)
XXXXX


Please do make sure to:
* Attach the file(s) preferably, however our gmail account will filter .ZIP files (even renamed) if they contains executables or batch files. If you have them, upload your file to Google Drive / Drop Box / etc. and send us a link.
* Mention the word "competition" in your subject line
* If it's a hack, specify in the description which game/version/CRC.
* If it's a music, specify in the description if it's an original track or a cover (specify which game, which track).
* Include screenshots. Please make lossless screenshot (e.g. 256x192 resolution, no filter, PNG format).
* Including cover art makes you 20% more awesome :)
* Including sources (for both music and code) makes you 256% more awesome. :)
* Specifying a licence makes you extra cool.
* If you have multiple entries, please send multiple e-mails.

You should receive an automatic response when it is received.

After the entries are revealed
* If you want to update your entry, please post your update to the forum thread along with attachments.
* You may also directly edit the Wiki page of your entry and add the new files if you have Wiki writing access (you can request it). Otherwise someone will update the Wiki with your latest attachment.
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Post Posted: Fri Jan 24, 2025 10:04 am
Well, this year i dont will vote. Im tired because there is many polemics about results. The competition is to be funny between devs. But i will continue test and to give my opinion about entries. All are winners!
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Post Posted: Fri Jan 24, 2025 3:11 pm
Suggestion:

This year will be Sega Mark III 40th anniversary, so more or less the Master System.

It may be fun if that was reflected in competition entries?
I don't mean as a strict rule, but as a general trend of finding ways to acknowledge this inside entries. What do you think?
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