PSP Genesis Competition, And the winners are…
Wow. 5 months after we announced the PSP Genesis competition, there we are with our final list of winners. First of all, I want to say choosing those was tough. We tested all the entries for almost a month (and this taught me a lot, from an organizer point of view, a judge point of view, but also as a homebrew developer… I’ll probably blog about that one day), and debated for a few days to decide who would be the 3 winners… this ended up in a 2h hot discussion on IRC in which we reached our conclusion.
Here goes, in reverse order:
They didn’t win, but were nominated by some of the 4 judges
These entries almost made it, but were eliminated by stronger opponents in the final vote. It’s probably not gonna feel so good for their creators to know that they were that close to getting a nice cash prize, but we want as many homebrews as possible to get recognition in this competition, so I hope that at least mentioning the quality of these entries will help raise awareness on those:
- Localizer by Draan. This plugin lets you translate your XMB and all PSP Messages into the language of your choice, even if (especially if ?) Sony didn’t include your language on their device. The source shows a huge investigation of all the strings of the system, and a very solid and useful concept.
- PSP3D by PSPWizard (aka AnMaBaGiMa). This plugin allows you to see actual 3D with the help of colored glasses, in many 3D games. What’s amazing is that it does it in a clever way, actually finding the 3D shapes in the game. A brilliant concept, and a nice implementation.
I also have a personal list of my 28 favorite entries, and I’ll blog about that one day.
Guys, this is not over, there are other prizes in this competition and you might still get those.
4th. SHELL by Arnold. He didn’t win, but we have something for him
After a long discussion, the judges were still split on Arnold’s SHELL. This is a great concept, extremely promising, but we thought there is a risk this doesn’t live up to its expectations if the scene doesn’t follow up. SHELL doesn’t get one of the 3 prizes, but what we are offering here is a promise for dev help. I can’t reveal too much in there yet as the right people still need to be contacted, but some of the judges personally committed to help big time with this project.
3rd. Some1’s Failsploit gets 400$
Congratulations to the first Kernel Exploit to ever join a Homebrew competition. What can we say? Kernel exploit ARE a big deal, and there’s no way the judges couldn’t acknowledge that. This exploit brought freedom to thousands of PSP users around the world, and is what allows us to run Custom Firmwares on the latest OFW as I type this. Congrats to Some1.
2nd. Team pro’s Pro CFW get 750$
CFW Pro was my personal favorite. I am actually still running 5.00 m33 on some of my machines, but there is no doubt that Pro CFW is shaping the future of Custom Firmwares on the PSP. The pro team has been consistently delivering quality updates over the past months, turning what was initially a “simple” Hen into a CFW working in several environments. Icing on the cake, it went open-source recently, which is the first time a custom firmware does that on the PSP, and let me tell you, it was about time 🙂 . This is one of the most promising projects in this contest, but also one of those that accomplishes the most already. Congrats guys!
1st. Drakon’s Lamecraft gets the big 1900$ prize
Our big winner is Lamecraft. It’s always difficult to choose and announce the winner. There will always be people to say that this one is not even a game. Or that it is just stealing a concept. Or that we shouldn’t even dare compare a simple homebrew game to a brilliant plugin or a CFW. But the thing is, this entry came out of the blue, and in the course of a few weeks, created a massive community of players. It is pushing some of the limits of the PSP, and doing things nobody thought was actually doable on this small hardware. It also went open source recently, so we are confident that it will keep improving. To us judges, this homebrew was a massive shock in every aspect, and we sure hope this keeps going. Congrats Drakon!
The Genesis compo is not over!
This is not over yet! We at /talk are still voting for the audience prize (Note that it won’t go to Lamecraft, Pro CFW, or some1’s exploit, as per the vote’s rules I won’t give this prize to one of the 3 winners), I myself still need to decide which open source entry will get my 100$ prize, our sponsors at Daxhordes.org also have a 100$ audience vote, psp-hacks.com are also voting for a psp go + a 50$ cash prize, and pspgen are also choosing 3 entries that will respectively get 500$, 300$, and 200$.
So keep voting!
Note: We will be contacting the winners very soon to send them their prizes. Please note that each sponsor is supposed to contact the winners individually, so once I get the winners’ email/paypal information, I will contact the sponsors with this information, and let them send the prizes directly.
You can discuss these results in the comments below, or in our forum, where npt just announced the winners as well.
Cool, Im gonna see who won the /talk prize.
Edit: I just checked and Nazi Zombies: Portable won. Congrats Jukki and team.
The vote for Audience prize is still not over yet. NZP are the most likely winners for now, but there’s still a good week for people to vote/ change their votes
hehe nicee, lame craft weas really the one! 🙂
LAMECRAFT Sucks IMHO!!
ikr! It’s so boring, its nothing left to do after 5 minutes imo
No! I dont think so because it was the game in which i built my house and also i built a game saying “OSAMA’S ESCAPE” With underground rooms aswell as an escape with many doors!!
I spent an entire year on my game and I see this. I am disappointed.
Please test and vote for gSquare ! The best platformer game ever!
https://sites.google.com/site/gsquarecenter/
I’m not sure this is going to make you feel any better, but gSquare was in the top 10 of most of the judges.
I plan to have a blog entry on my favorite 28 entries (the 28 entries I strongly considered for top 3).
I probably said that already, but I will discuss with npt for potential “sequels” to the Genesis competition, for a way to get more entires with prizes.
Let’s be honest, we didn’t expect so many entries, and lots of good plugins/apps/games do not get the recognition they deserve because of the small amount of prizes. We’ll try to solve this in next compo.
From personal experience: Wagic once made it to 6th position in a contest with 10 entries. This was very frustrating, seeing that I’ve worked on this game for 4 years (at the time, it had been 2 years). One never really forgets the bitter taste of “not winning”, but you also realize with time that “not winning the contest” doesn’t mean the game is not good.
For Wagic, I ended up understanding that it is a good game, but in a very “niche” kind of section, which makes it very weak in a contest, were judges, even the best ones, will try to choose the entries that make the “most” sense.
Anyways, I talk too much. gSquare is an excellent game, and it’s still on my memory stick (I’m stuck very early in the game though, level 3 or 4 maybe, it feels like I have to revert gravity and put it back extremely fast, but then the f***ing square lands on a black square…damn…)
Did you know you can press L+R at the same time to invert the gravity ? 🙂
Big thanks though.
Geecko, don’t worry.
At least your game got publicity and allowed people to play it… Be happy with what you have. I have one vote (for two games/apps) out of 600+ 😛 and I’m not complaining, am I?
Sure, but I think I had way more visibility when I released Cube3D which was coded in a single day.
I should have called my game “gSquare 3D” ^^
A little disappointed, but I guess it was to be expected that the less niche entries would win.
Congratulations to the winners, and all the other entrants as well 🙂
Silveredge f**king rules!!
waiting new releases.
Hmm, I’m kind of disappointed as well. That huge $1900 prize should’ve been splitted in order to make more devs feel rewarded 🙂
I didn’t expected to win with my humble CubeMania, but hey, it would’ve been nice 😛
http://www.facebook.com/pages/PspGo-HAcksTUtS-ByHackThiefCoder93/103883383035816
I feel, the winners are just perfect. And wololo and all other judges did an excellent job! Congrats to all of’em:)
sooooooo disappointed that lamecraft won. Its so boring and stupid.
the people are complaining about Lamecraft winning for no reason, its not the fact that its a minecraft remake or that people find it boring, its the fact that someone actually made it and that it has only been out for a short time and many many many people were interested in it within that short amount of time. to make it simple it was a hit at a very early stage develpoment
Only because it is a minecraft port. People are for some reason crazy for minecraft (which is still boring and useless). If this was the first iteration, I highly doubt many would be so stuck on it.
Just to reply on that one: When I saw the first videos of Lamecraft I was impressed, and I didn’t know Minecraft at that time. As I dug up on the project, I realized it is super popular, and it doesn’t surprise me. This success is similar to that of social networks and Web 2.0: it lets users take control of the content.
It is also technically fairly impressive.
I must say that MineCraft (and Lamecraft) it’s not the kind of game that comes to me. I almost think like you, but when see the videos, i was impressed too. I still don’t like the game (for all purposes, the gameplay), but that doesn’t prevent I can recognize a real winner and the great technical concept in the game.
As always, people star complaining in a decision in which they know anything, just their own opinion. Taking it as is, this compos will never make happy everybody 100%.
Hey Wololo, Have you seen this new *** from Capcom??
http://dvice.com/archives/2011/06/capcom-tries-to.php
It is worse than SONY!!!!
wth? that is sooo messed up. what was capcom thinking?
on topic;
congrats to all the participants in the compo for keeping the scene alive
I really don’t like much of the outcome….
They could have categorized each of them depending on their function like GAMES,TOOLS,PLUGINS,CFW,etc. than combine all of them to one where most people kinda gets confused or disagree with the result….
same here man. I personally think 2nd and 3rd shouldn’t have even been in the competition.
Exploits are big deals, yes. But I don’t believe they are homebrews. Nor do i think a hen or cfw should have really been in the competition either. I’m sorry, but pro doesn’t need any recognition or exposure at all, and my respect for them has diminished for entering the competition.
I think the nominations are much more deserving than those who have won, they might not have been the ones i liked the most, but i wouldn’t have been dissapointed from them winning.
without hens/cfws this competition would never have been possible in the first place…..
GREAT WORK AND A GREAT JOB TO EVERYONE WHO PARTICIPATED IN THE COMPETION
Congratz to Drakon for making Lamecraft =D i love it *currently trying tobuild nuclear reactor and silo* and Home Tree. + Pandora =)
We will discuss the pros and cons of categories in a “post mortem” for the competition, with npt.
That being said, the concept was clear from the start. When a competition offers 10 times more money than any other homebrew compo, we expect to get huge things.
Yes, a CFW and a Kernel exploit might seem unfair, but the ultimate goal is to help the psp scene going further, and we believe these 2 pieces of software are exactly about that: keeping the scene alive.
Yes, I am disappointed too that some great games and plugins out there are not getting the recognition they deserve. This is why the genesis competition is not only about the main prizes. W have the audience vote that will go to a 4th entry, and my personal prize which will go to a 5th one.
Do you have your winner wololo? 😉
Did anyone expect 111 entries? I highly doubt it. Did anyone expect this much community support? I could go on and on. The point being, there’s no way to make everyone happy. We did our very best to pick the three winners, that as wololo said, ‘helped the scene go further’. If you are in disagreement with the outcome, that is understandable. Can anyone be in disagreement that what came out of this was helped the scene in every way possible? I don’t think so. It’s true with so many entries, that many didn’t get as much of a spotlight as they deserved. Would these entries even have come about without this competition? Who knows. 😉
It may have sparked interest into the scene from some that might have otherwise not bothered, true. But from my perspective, if I was to think about making a truly original game or plugin, what this outcome signals to me (including the poll for /talk prize, have not seen the other site’s polls, but reading the comments on other sites, I can assume the vote will most likely be pretty close. I know the winners aren’t eligible for the /talk prize, which is fair, and I thank wololo for that decision. The results before the announcement are still overwhelming and shows what the community at large would vote for.) is that if it isn’t a copy of something already established or dealing with a custom firmware, my time will be largely wasted(seeing as the other original homebrews did not succeed). Which will tell me to not even bother.
Nothing I have said was an attempt to get any decisions changed. You guys made your choices for whatever reason and nothing is going to change that. And I do appreciate what you guys have done, and making it as fair as far as you could see, and am not saying you are wrong (I believe a ruling decision is an opinion, and I believe opinions aren’t wrong). I am merely voicing my opinion on the subject as I see it from my perspective. Just so people don’t get my intentions wrong.
Yes, and I’m happy people give such feedback. There is officially no plan for a similar competition next year, but who knows, and we will take those comments into account.
What sounds clear to me is that such a competition requires categories. We tried to go without categories to make the prizes look even more interesting, but my personal opinion is that this was a bad move, and I’ll discuss this with npt 🙂
Some time ago it was my opinion to make multiple categories in the compo (I know, I am invisible), but I suppose to be the first attempt in a compo, organizers were not expecting so many contestants. So giving only 3 prizes sounded good.
And for being the first compo, I suppose it had a huge success. If truly the big goal was to mantain the scene alive, to boost the scene in a new era, now it’s my opinion that this compo should continue (I don’t say annually, that is organizers’ decision) taking into account errors and accuracies. A BIG point IMHO was unifying big sponsors and supporters in the scene to raise the prize and quality of homebrews, so I think this should continue. But also a must it’s to incorporate meaningful categories to help achieving the main goal.
About opinions, @Jurian, I can say everybody have opinion, different opinions and you shouldn’t be afraid to express yours. One opinion don’t change the world, but if that opinion goes accompanied by thousands, boosts further ;). Besides, your opinon can be taken into account from people, organizers, that think it’s good 😉
Well, my opinion is too long to be published without moderation 😀
congratulations to everyone that joined the contest. i believe all of you are winners! there was only the simplest line drawn for this contest.
the psp to go out with a bang!
1.is it unfair?
ans. technically, NO because there are no rules that will disqualify them. i believe every candidate was fairly judged.
2.was the decision reasonable?
ans. for the cfw pro, YES because it gave the psp leaps and bounds despite the measures sony took to prevent homebrew on the psp. BUT i believe they should not have entered competition for the following reasons:
what they have to offer was nothing new considering that it was already out before the competition began and what they entered was nothing more than bug fixes and improvements. sorry team pro, i love your work but thats how i see it.
for the kernel exploit, NO (but i may be wrong) because wouldn’t it be the same as davees downgrader only with a different exploit? great discovery but not really pure talent there. luck is more like it and a copy of davees downgrader.
for lamecraft, isnt this a port to the PSP? if it is then NO , the purpose of the competition is to create not recreate.
anyway, you heard them, they will iron out any wrinkles and maybe the next competition will be better.
I said early on, that any new CFW / Exploit / Downgrader would really have to pull some new punches to get my attention. I said clearly that I favored new -homebrew- rather than reworking an old hat. DESPITE this, the choices I personally made as a judge attempted to reflect this. I’m glad a homebrew -GAME- won. For those of you that think that lamecraft is a simply a port of an idea, you have no clue of the work that’s involved. It’s pushed the limits of the psp itself, in a limited time, which a great fan base. Not speaking for the other judges, this is what stood out for me.
To give the other top 2 to a custom firmware, and a kernal exploit, was against my grain. There was just so much out there to consider! I thought of BOTH of these as reinventing a wheel we already had… but to be fair, it’s a wheel that needs to keep turning. Without the wheel, we don’t have the ability to run homebrew.
Remember, not only was this the lifeblood of the psp, it brought on a flow of new ideas. We nor anyone else expected to have to consider so much new life. I’m truely sorry it wasn’t possible to consider more for a top three prize out of 111, but we did our very best to consider everything.
yeah… lampworker has a really good point… sorry if we were unable to appreciate the work. it does make sense…. now i remember the first time they brought out windows xp for psp (not the portal) it was mind boggling at the time. its how you can make it to work on the psp… i guess the judges know better. good work guys. just got foot in mouth disease. hehehe
i hope that when the playstation suite comes out, somebody will be able to “PORT” it to the psp. i’m gonna keep my big mouth shut now. zzzzziiiip!
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