And there it is, for the fourth year in a row: MSXdev, the annual MSX1 game development contest that took the MSX community by surprise. After a slow start, MSXdev'04 resulted in 16 new MSX1 games, whilst MSXdev'05 even surpassed that success with 21 brand new MSX games for the whole community to enjoy. Now, the time has come for MSXdev'06!.

Previously organised by Eduardo Robsy, the MSXDEV contest is now organised by a team composed of 3 MSX fans : Jon Cortazar (aka viejo_archivero), Sjoerd Lammertsma (aka BodyHammeR) and myself, Benoît Delvaux (aka mars2000you).

The new MSXdev website contains a lot of information (and downloads) of the previous editions of the competition. In short, these are the rules for MSXdev'06:

- Games have to be supplied as .ROM files and can be up to 128KB in size. Of course, smaller games are allowed as well
- All games should be 100% compatible with the first generation of MSX computers, being an MSX1 with 16kB RAM and 16kB VRAM. The games should also work on MSX2, MSX2+ and turboR computers
- It is allowed to use additional hardware like SCC, MSX-MUSIC, GFX9000, R800 et cetera. This time those add-ons will be taken into account when judging the entries, even giving them extra points!
- Although original game concepts are preferred, remakes and ports will be accepted
- Games have to be completed before December 31st, 2006

So, for now, people can start developing their MSXdev'06 entries and -like in previous editions- sponsors are free to contact the MSXdev team for offering new parallel contests, following the same sponsorship system we saw on the last edition. At the moment there is only one nice prize to be won: a Panasonic FS-A1GT MSX turboR computer!

Developers: you have more than 8 months left to develop your games so you have no excuses. Happy developing, and good luck!

http://msxdev.msxblue.com