Mururoa disqualified at MRC Bounce Challenge

The results to the MRC Bounce Challenge were quite exciting as they were already, things just got even more interesting. Not only was the TNI Bounce entry moved from first to second place and Sphere from third to fifth due to missing the deadline of the challenge, we now have an official disqualification on our hands. One of the prize winners, no less.

Yesterday we published the results of the MRC Bounce Challenge, in which Near Dark's entry Mururoa ended on third position. We already were aware the entry wasn't created especially for the MRC Bounce Challenge, but as the production had not been released before we did not think that mattered a lot. What did surprise us, however, was a mail we received today, which stated a game very similar to Mururoa had been published on an MSX-Fan magazine in the past.

We dove into our MSX-Fan archives and found a game called 'SKY' on MSX-Fan #13 of October 1992. The game, the texts in the game and, most importantly, the names of the variables in the short BASIC listing of this game are almost completely similar to those in Mururoa. This disqualifies Mururoa as a valid entry to the MRC Bounce Challenge. The third prize now goes to Blend, a demo created by Desire in Envy.

You can find the final results of the MRC Bounce Challenge over here. If you want to compare the listings of SKY and Mururoa yourself you can have a look at this forum thread.

Relevant link: MRC Bounce Challenge - Results

Comments (19)

By DarQ

Paragon (1038)

28-11-2004, 18:35

mmm, i really remember someone saying something like: 'ivor made it'

By Meits

Scribe (6476)

28-11-2004, 18:46

The maker, Ivor Borsloper, who was a Near Dark member when he 'made' it, has handed it in to us in those days. It's hard for us to trace where he got his ideas or codes from because 1) we lost track of him and 2) it's long ago, though, I didn't expect this, cuz he is a formidable programmer...

Though I never heard of the original, I believe the MRC judgement to be right...
You guys tickled my ciriousity, so i'll check the 'real mururoa'. And I check with Ivor (if his e-mail addy I found on google is right), what he remembers of this, cuz I hardly believe that the japanese took it from him...

Meits

By mars2000you

Enlighted (6098)

28-11-2004, 18:48

Too many incidents in this challenge : changes of the rules at the last moment, addition of penalties for late concurrents, no explanation (until now) about jury's motivations (I'm curious to read them : they don't like very innovative demos ?) and now, the cherry on the cake, a well correct disqualification ....

That's not a happy MSX day !

By snout

Ascended (15184)

28-11-2004, 18:54

Afaik the rules were not changed at the last moment, but perhaps your memory is better than mine on that one. Either way, the 1 point penalty was introduced in this challenge and will most likely be used in other challenges as well. It gave both TNI and Infinite the opportunity to finish their products within an acceptable time-limit after the deadline without negatively affecting the contestants who -did- finish their entries in time. As for the motivation of the jury: as promised, it will be published in the near future. Just give 'em the time to write it!

As for the disqualification... lets look at the fun side of it. From the looks of it, the Near Dark members do .

By wolf_

Ambassador_ (9918)

28-11-2004, 18:54

you forgot 1 'incident' tho: "deadline right after Bussum"

By snout

Ascended (15184)

28-11-2004, 19:00

Wolf_: Yeah, but you had 12 instead of 6 weeks to create entries to the challenge this time

By mars2000you

Enlighted (6098)

28-11-2004, 19:00

First announcement of the challenge is here :

http://www.msx.org/newspost2144.html

No trace of the penalties ....

By DarQ

Paragon (1038)

28-11-2004, 19:04

i think its quite obvious mars2000you to disqualify an entry like this. whether or not a 'trace of penalties'

By Meits

Scribe (6476)

28-11-2004, 19:10

As for the disqualification... lets look at the fun side of it. From the looks of it, the Near Dark members do
Ow yes, I can look at it from a funny side, but it's negative for the supposed originality of Near Dark.
I didn't code/take it from an MSX-FAN disk (don't even have one), but I was 100% certain that Ivor made it... It's a nice and addictive game with bounce in it so I sent it in for the challenge...

Little did I know...

By snout

Ascended (15184)

28-11-2004, 19:14

Mars2000you, do you ever take things lightly? ^_^

The 1 point penalty had not been applied before, but it was not unusual to give contestants a bit of extra time after the deadline, just so they could join the competition (afaik every challenge so far has had them). As Ricbit, TNI and Infinite were still working on their products after the deadline there were two new deadlines: One with and one without a one point penalty. That was indeed a new rule, but without it Ricbit, TNI and Infinite would not have been able to join the Bounce Challenge at all and perhaps might not even have finished their products.

The developers agreed on the one point penalty and in both the Sphere newspost and the TNI Bounce newspost the penalty was already announced and explained. The full story can be found over here. I would not call that an 'incident', nor a 'change of rules', but just a creative way of not demotivating, but encouraging developers. Which is what the MRC is all about, isn't it? :)

By mars2000you

Enlighted (6098)

28-11-2004, 19:15

i think its quite obvious mars2000you to disqualify an entry like this. whether or not a 'trace of penalties'

The problem is not the disqualification, that seems me correct, but the addition of incidents in this challenge ... and the penalties for late entries are not in the first announcement ...

By mars2000you

Enlighted (6098)

28-11-2004, 19:24

Snout, it's never a good thing to change the rules at the last moment, even with a good intention (and you had a good intention), because it always opens the door to contradictions and contestations.

Besides, I think that TNI and Infinite developers were (and are always) so motivated that with or without challenge, they would have made great demos.

By wolf_

Ambassador_ (9918)

28-11-2004, 19:32

Wolf_: Yeah, but you had 12 instead of 6 weeks to create entries to the challenge this time

At first we didn't plan to do anything for this challange anyway.. after an experiment with screen 3 I more or less canceled by concepts. Only a few weeks before the deadline I decided to give scr4 a try. From that moment, I went on coding for a huge editor to edit the frames and palettes. That went fine, until the last evening of the last day..
Thanks to a silly bug I spent hours and hours on searching why I couldn't load more than 500-some frames (images).. turned out that I forgot to free a filestream, meaning that each new frame internally opened a new filestream, which turns out to be limited to 500-some instances. The problem was that I never tested with tons of frames before, so nothing seemed to bug anyway (while it was buggy all the way!). Sphere was in fact the first *big* project I did in my editor

Anyway, after we fix some minor issues (a loader, nice libs rather than a mess o' files and -if possible- some optimizing, we'll be back with more 4m-violence at a new theme-challange.. this time it'll be in-time.. and better!

By Sonic_aka_T

Enlighted (4130)

28-11-2004, 19:57

mars: penalties are a positive thing, they allow these two beautiful demos to participate instead of being disqualified alltogether.

By IC

Hero (557)

28-11-2004, 21:14

I'll vote for another rule..

'Only adult content is allowed'

By Sander

Founder (1867)

28-11-2004, 21:21

I really don't understand the fuzz here. Every contestant agreed, so what's the problem?

By IC

Hero (557)

28-11-2004, 22:42

you won't hear me complaining

By Sonic_aka_T

Enlighted (4130)

28-11-2004, 22:52

I really don't understand the fuzz here. Every contestant agreed, so what's the problem?You're forgetting mars makes a sport out of finding things to complain about

By snout

Ascended (15184)

29-11-2004, 11:02

Btw Meits, I'm not worried at all about the originality of Near Dark anno 2004. But you can always create a new bouncy demo or game to show your current skills ^_^

Mururoa disqualified at MRC Bounce Challenge

Share

Related content

Comments (19)