C4A Competition, Starting from September!


+1

for _wb_s / ekianjos proposal!

I was already thinking a little about how to do C4A support right without "spamming" the system with each and every score.

I would/will probably do several highscore lists (All time, monthly perhaps even weekly and daily) just to make sure monthly competitions work without evil hacks (sorry Ziz / _wb_ ;) ) like deleting the 3rd place or even the whole appdata folder...

A centralized C4A uploader could do this much better... B)
 
_wb_ said:
Perhaps the best way to handle this is to let all games submit all scores all of the time, but put some logic in the (centralized!) score submitter to do things like maintaining local highscores, storing them when offline and auto-uploading them when online, and deciding what scores to upload (perhaps user-configurable so you can decide yourself if you want to upload every game played, only the scores that improve your monthly highscore, or only the scores that improve your all-time highscore).

That would be a better solution than letting each dev do things in their own way.

Hm, probably.

The way to do it would be to no longer include that sc binary in every PND, but let the C4A profile manager install it in /usr/bin/sc so PNDs can just use that one. The game should then immediately submit any highscore as soon as there's a game-over, but the score submitter should be smart enough to do something sensible with those submitted highscores (not just try to upload them to the server, but compare it first with previous local highscores). It could even keep statistics on how often you play games (because it sees all those submissions, even if they don't get uploaded) so it could generate a list of your favorite games (could be useful, because you're more likely to want to launch or check highscores of your favorite games).

That means existing PNDs with C4A support have to be modified a bit, but it makes adding C4A support to a game even easier than before, because you don't have to worry about score caching and error handling etc at all -- just execute sc (the new, smarter, globally configurable sc) and let it handle things.

You also maintain the C4A profile manager, right? Perhaps you could implement something like this, perhaps together with skeezix?
Click to expand...
I see your point, but I think most games don't need that, because they submit every session at last one score anyway like Flappy bird. So all C4A games don't need to be changed, but may not profit from caching even if it would be useful.
However I don't think, that skeezix will soon™ make such changes. So atm the best (because the only) way to achieve such a behaviour is to do it yourself, which isn't really a problem imho, because you can check, whether a score is submitted (either with the result of sc or with getting the scores from skeezix server and comparing) very easy. Furthermore a local highscore exist in most cases anyway. ;)

Oh and I didn't make nor maintain the C4A manager! I made the Sparrow C4A Manager, an own application, which reengineers the behaviour of skeezix origianl application using SDL, especially for devices like the gcw or caanoo (without gtk and touchpad). However to achieve best compatibility especially for games being ported from the Pandora to the GCW0, I made a copy of the spaghetti client too, called the fusilli client (uses the same parameters). I could make the Sparrow C4A Manager to install it to /usr/local/bin/fs and improve it to cache every call. With this you could check for fs and if it is not available, call your brought sc binary (or your brought fs binary).

So if you have interest, I would implement such a feature in my sparrowNet Library, which handles my C4A code and would make it save cached scores e.g. to the appdata folder of Sparrow C4A Manager (fs then would profit from this). But if no interest exist in a home made version and you want to wait for skeezix official handling, it is fine, too. Less work for me. ;)
 
ekianjo said:
... if MHT were to play more Flappy Bird ...
Click to expand...
I played Flappy Bird for many hours without getting a better hiscore than I already have. I concluded that I'm just not good enough and stopped playing it, because it's a big time killer.I also stopped trying to get into top 5 in Tumiki Fighters - again I'm just not good enough (I'm better at vertical shooters than horizontal shooters).

Ironically, I have the best results in the least played game - Nub Nub. I only played it 5 times, each time achieving better score. I should play it again to get to the first place. :)
 
I plyed Flappy Bird a bit too, but definetly not for me. It's too upseting.

Tumiki Fighters, I like all kind of shoot'em up, so no issue on this one for me :)

Nub nub, I have to play it, I haven't from some time now (and not this month anyway).

I don't play much with my Pandora, as I always have something compiling... I played like one hour last sunday, I will try to play another hour this we, try to improve my scores.
 
No love for OpenTyrian one of the first non-MAME C4A titles.. I guess clicking on a weird looking bird gets more attention.
 
 
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Just played Tumiki Fighters, what a great game. I love the shield style technique.


Never played Flappy Bird before either so might give that a go now
 
Everything you pick up in Tumiki Fighters does more than shield - it also shoots brown bullets (at least everything I've picked up so far does), so it's important which way round you pick it up.


Unfortunately, I don't think I've ever finished the first level with any extra bits. Pick up anything big and your hitbox is suddenly massive so you instantly lose it if any enemy bullets coincide with it. You're better off with smaller guns to be honest, but still I never seem to be able to keep them for very long.
 
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Yeah I noticed that, didn't realise where you attach controls the angle of the additional fire though... Thought it was just different bits had different angle of fire.


Good though, got level 4 boss and does me in
 
I like this a lot. I'll never finish in the top, especially with my broken screen, but I loved the competition. Thanks for organizing!
 
Why do you split WB and MHT to rank 2 and 3, but following same-score-happenings at the same rank splitted with a,b and c? Did you sort this a,b,c like you sorted WB and MHT based on the ranks in the games?
 
FZERO said:
M-HT said:
Looking at past results of A7Xpg, I think the winner in next month is clear. :)
Click to expand...
 
Exactly what I thought when I checked the scores earlier just before playing that game ... I swear that he must be like a human fly or something, seeing in slow motion
Click to expand...
H scored 361 at flappy bird too which is very impressive. Basically no single mistake made in like 20 mins of continous play.
 
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