Other : Invasion

Time to present another game created by Sherif Hashem aka sherif_hashim and shared with the MSX community ! Invaders from the space have been always a theme for the inspiration of many coders. The amazing thing here is the fact that the game is entirely in MSX-BASIC with measure to neutralize automatic shooting ! Of course, there are different attacking waves of aliens and the difficulty level increases with each wave !

Check the [Other] section !

About Night Escape

After some discussions with the coder, we have removed Night Escape from the MSXdev’11 contest and transferred it to the Other section.

There was some kind of misunderstanding. The intention of Sherif Hashem aka sherif_hashim was not to participate to the famous MSX challenge, but to share with the MSX community his games created in BASIC between 1984 and 1987. He’s now very busy with his professionnal activities and his hobbies, but thinks that sharing his old MSX works on a nice website (thanks for this appreciation !) is a good idea. So, you can expect that more games will extend the Other section, reserved for games published for other contests or outside any contest. Even in BASIC games, we think that experienced coders can find inspiration for more advanced games !!!

Sherif Hashem wants also to answer to the critics seen on the MSX Resource Center about the presumed non-originality of Night Escape, and, beyond that, the status of all his games. We have indeed received a second game that we’ll release soon. It includes many REM lines without any content, so he has also answered about that. Here’s this answer :

All these games actually I had on an old notebook written by my own hands in basic between the years of 1984-1987, I already had many games and programs that sure have been modified thru basic books and added/changed/modified the idea/graphics, so I m really not sure which of these games has been modified by me and which has been written from the scratch, but definitely I had learnt and used many many books by this time , but the 1000% sure thing is that nothing of these games was copied as it is from a source, and all of them has at least 50-60% changes either in the idea, graphics, music and more. Even regarding these rem lines according to what I remember, they are usually due to change in the way of reading the sprites data (repeated lines instead of using a for-next loop) or due to change in the input of the control keys ( chr$ vs asc() ) inputs, or sometimes a change in the instruction screens which I used to insert very often by this time ( if something bad was meant I would have sure removed that lines) :))

So, it means that we can enjoy these games without any problem, as they are not aimed to be part of the MSXdev’11 challenge ! More games, more fun … It’s the slogan that we must keep always in our hearts and in our minds !!! ;-)

Other : Night Escape

UPDATE 24/05/11 : After discussion with the coder, this game has been removed from the MSXdev’11 contest and transferred to the Other section.

Do you know why the MSXdev’ website has received so many visitors yesterday ? Sherif Hashem aka sherif_hashim had announced on Twitter the sending of Night Escape to the MSxdev’11 contest. This guy has so many followers on Twitter that we can hope a big extension of the MSX community ! The game, completely written in BASIC, is a challenge for your memory as you need to find the exit in a dark maze. Besides, a monster tries to catch you and the using of a lamp is very limited !

Check the [Other] section !

Other : Cubic Duel

Since many years, the MSXdev’ contests have a great success in the MSX community. They are the living proofs of the MSX Revival. They have inspired other contests with different rules (for example MSX-BASIC games or MSX2 games) and were also inspired by challenges organized by the MSX Resource Center. Besides that, some new games are released outside a contest.

Many MSX fans think it could be interesting to present all these extra games on the MSXdev’ website. The building of the new site has been conceived in this perspective. So, from this day, you can see a new section : [Other].

In this section, the MSXdev’ team presents these extra games, most of them will be directly available on this website. In some cases, we’ll link only to the website of the developers, as there are different sensibilities in the MSX universe. In all cases : more games, more fun :)

We start this section with Cubic Duel, a 3D isometric action game for 2 players, created in MSX-BASIC by a Spanish coder, Joaquim Vidal Juventench, also expert in high quality designs and animations for Concrete Digital Designs.

The game is a little tribute to 3D isometric ZX Spectrum games such as Bobby Bearing and Highway Encounter. It includes 6 different screens. You need to make 3 moves on a magnetic area and try to come at the location of your enemy with the 3rd move !

By sympathy for the MSXdev’ contest, Joaquim Vidal Juventench has given us the authorization to publish his game on the MSXdev’ website. So it was a good opportunity to open this new section ! You can find on his website also older MSX games.

The original game is in 3 formats : DSK, CAS and WAV. We have slightly modified the DSK version to make it auto-executable and converted it into a ROM version (64 Kb – Used mapper : KonamiSCC). Tip for a fast drawing of the screen : launch the ROM version on a MSXturboR machine !