Another fun-filled Cemetech contest starts today!

This contest's theme has three requirements:

• You must make a game.
• It must involve both of the following thematic elements:
  • Cats.
  • Space.
  It will be up to you, the contestant, to determine how best to integrate these two thematic elements within the creative fabric of your game.
• You must target one of the following hardware/language platform combinations:
  • Any calculators in the TI-83 Plus through TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition line, using BASIC, Hybrid BASIC, ASM, or Axe.
  • TI-Nspire, using Lua only
  • HP Prime, using HPPL
  • Casio Prizm, using C/C++ or BASIC

This contest comes with just under a month of development time: entries will be due by 11:59:59 PM EST, on December 20th.

The usual rules apply:

• Contestants may not release any code or binaries before the end of the contest, including asking for programming help publicly or privately. Violators will be disqualified. Projects that have already been released in any form (excluding a contest project topic) already are not eligible for the contest.
• The contest will run until December 20th, 2014, at 11:59:59pm Eastern Time. No late entries will be accepted.
• All contestants must maintain a topic in the Contests subforum on Cemetech, including a first post that mentions the name, programming language, and topic of the entry.
• Judging will be performed by the Cemetech administrators (all of whom are disqualified from entering). Results will be posted no later than ten days after the end of the contest.
• A grading rubric is attached below. Entries will be graded primarily on their entertainment value, polish, and consistency with the given theme ("Space and Cats").
• Although the focus is on gaming, and we intend this primarily as a fun educational experience for the contestants, we also will be impressed if you manage to sneak some teaching moments into your game.

As with the previous contest, we are very proud to offer two brand-new calculators as prizes. The grand prize winner will be awarded one TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition or one TI-Nspire CX, as chosen by the winner. The second-place winner will receive the remaining calculator. Additional Cemetech swag may be added to the prizes at the Cemetech staff's discretion. All participants will earn Cemetech flair in the form of signature bars and respect. As you can see below, our anonymous donor has generously provided six calculators as contest prizes, so you can rest assured that this winter season will at least one additional contest where you can win these prizes.

So what are you waiting for? Getting coding, make a fun game, challenge yourself to learn something new in the process, and win some calculators!

More Information
Contest #13 Rubric
Contest #13 Rules

Two of the remaining four of these six generously-donated calculators will be awarded as prizes, with the remainder awarded for another upcoming contest. A special thanks to our anonymous donor for making this contest possible!

Am I the only one to think about this ?


Anyway, great idea of a contest, and good luck everyone entering

Are there limitations on the OS being used for the TI-8x family?

Nope, any TI-OS is allowed, although to my knowledge there aren't many changes across different TI-OS versions that would impact the entries in this contest.

I like the cat idea in particular

Anyway good luck to contestants.

Quote

You must target one of the following hardware/language platform combinations:
Any calculators in the TI-83 Plus through TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition line, using BASIC, Hybrid BASIC, ASM, or Axe.

Does that mean that the game must work on ALL of those calculators?

No, it means you need to target at least one of those calculators, not all of them (unless you choose the Prizm, or Prime, or Nspire...).

If so, can we use KnightOS or use different builds for the B&W/color versions?

Programs that require non-stock operating systems or operating system patches are not eligible.

If i come up with an idea i might actually enter

What is the default meaning for "space" ? As almost any English word it has many meanings, e.g. character with ASCII code 32, the button on the keyboard, which types this character, and many others.
The default meaning of "cat" is probably the animal, but it has also many meanings.

I am interested how will you handle any game, which would contain space (or even more spaces) and cats, but NOT the space and cats you meant :-)

Outer space, space travel, that kind of space.

By the way, if a project was already started before the contest, but all that has been showcased are graphics and a dynamic tile generator in some forum topics with no download available, then would such project be eligible for the contest? I had an idea in mind just now, but I already posted some graphics in the pixel art sub-forum here and I showed a video containing extra graphics to some people.