GBAtemp Homebrew Bounty: 2018 Switch Edition

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GBATEMP PRESENTS...
THE 2018 SWITCH HOMEBREW BOUNTY

It is with great pleasure that I announce the official beginning of GBAtemp's first Switch Homebrew Bounty! If you aren't familiar with the concept, the Homebrew Bounty is a competition that rewards the best homebrew for a given platform. The idea is twofold: we want to reward authors for their hard work, but also encourage the creation of new projects and developments, which in turns benefits everyone!

Our previous bounties date from several years back, take a look at our first ever homebrew bounty back in 2008, and our second one from 2011 if you want to know what it looks like. This time, we're aiming even higher. Here's all you need to know about this year's bounty.



Four categories, four competitions

We will actually be running four different competitions over the next few months, one for each category of homebrew. The idea is to reward everyone, not just game developers but also those who work behind the scene to create the tools everyone needs.

CATEGORY 1: tools and utilities (WINNERS ANNOUNCED! CLICK HERE)
This category is meant to reward authors of tools/utilities, as in, programs that run on a computer (not on the Switch itself) and serve a specific purpose such as patching tools, content extractors, development libraries, and much more. If you aren't sure whether your project fits in this category, look at the other categories below, and if in doubt, simply ask a moderator.

CATEGORY 2: Switch applications (WINNERS ANNOUNCED! CLICK HERE)

Projects in this category are applications that run on the Switch itself. A few examples: video or media players, browsers, custom firmwares, homebrew loaders, etc... This category is not to be confused with category 1 which is for computer-based tools.

CATEGORY 3: emulators (WINNERS ANNOUNCED! CLICK HERE)
The third category will reward emulators. This means emulators that run on the Switch, or who knows, perhaps the other way around too: Switch emulators that run on computers. If your project is an emulator and it's related to the Switch then it belongs in this category anyway.

CATEGORY 4: games
The last category: homebrew games. We accept new games as well as ports of existing games, of course.

Regardless of the category, if you wish to enter, you will be required to present either a new project, or a significant update to an existing project. As it is difficult to define the exact meaning of 'significant update', simply keep in mind that judges will look at your project individually and decide whether your update is significant enough to warrant their vote.

A few other noteworthy points:
  • In order to enter, you will be required to upload your project to the GBAtemp Download Center to allow other users to download your files easily. However feel free to also host your project on other platforms such as Github and similar.
  • Our Patrons (members who support us on Patreon) will have a voting right, the combined patron votes will have a 50% weight on the outcome, the other 50% will come from internal staff votes.
  • Although the competition hasn't officially started yet as we're only beginning Phase 1 (read below for more details), you can already begin working on your new project / project update to submit to the Homebrew Bounty. However you must publish it during the appropriate window in order to be eligible to win a prize.
  • Winning projects will receive cash prizes as well as medals (image files) that they can include in their project if they like.

Phase 1: sponsors and donations

Thanks to our sponsors, we are going to be able to distribute as much as $8000, yes you read right, eight thousand US dollars!
The initial dispatch will be $2000 per category, divided into different sums for the top 5 highest voted projects. The detailed breakdown of prizes will be given in each respective announcement.

Half of this sum is generously donated by yours truly, GBAtemp!
Thanks to ad revenue and to our Patreon backers, GBAtemp is the biggest donator.

The other half comes from our generous sponsors as listed below.
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MOD3DSCARD.COM
Buy flashcard to mod 3DS and Switch | Team Xecuter SX | Sky3ds+ | Stargate 3DS | R4 3DS - mod3dscard


axiogame.png

AXIOGAME.COM
Axiogame | Backup Units, Modchips and more

sxossmall.jpg

And let's not forget Team Xecuter who made a very generous donation too.


But the bounty isn't only about sponsor companies: you, beloved members of our community (and even guests) can contribute too! If you want to make a donation, simply click the button below to send a payment to our Paypal. Needless to say, 100% of the amount we receive will be transfered to the authors of winning projects.

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Upon submitting your donation, you can indicate whether you want the donation to go to a particular category, or all of them.
Also please note that our Paypal account name is "FILETRIP" - this is normal.

About a week from now, we will announce the final prize money we'll be able to distribute, although people will still be able to continue donating.
Then, the first competition (category: tools and utilities) will officially begin. You will have one month to work on your tool/utility project and submit it.
After which, we will take a moment for the voting process, and announce the winners shortly after.

Then the second competition will begin. And so on.
Reminder: you don't have to wait until competitions officially begin to start working on your project.

Thanks everyone for making GBAtemp such a fantastic community.
Let's get this started!
 

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Last edited by Costello,

Kadji

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Game Category as the last one is a good idea, maybe the frameworks / libs (i am looking at you OpenGL / Vulkan) will be more mature to use.
Also: Do we have full Joycon compatibility including Gyro Sensors? I have a realy good Idea for a Homebrew game but i would need to have full Gyro Controll and native 3D support and up until now I did not have much interest to go for it (my real life job takes a huge amount of time atm).
 

Technicmaster0

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Do we have full Joycon compatibility including Gyro Sensors? I have a realy good Idea for a Homebrew game but i would need to have full Gyro Controll and native 3D support and up until now I did not have much interest to go for it (my real life job takes a huge amount of time atm).
We don't have gyro support yet as far as I know. I think that rumble is bugged as well.

I have a question regarding the competition: is more than one entry per user allowed? Can one user commit more than one entry per category?
 
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Costello

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We don't have gyro support yet as far as I know. I think that rumble is bugged as well.

I have a question regarding the competition: is more than one entry per user allowed? Can one user commit more than one entry per category?
good question.
I think there shouldn’t be a limit of entries, if you can contribute with many entries then it’s all the best for Switch users who will get more homebrew.
However it takes time to produce quality project so I doubt it will end up being a big issue.
And judges may not want to vote for the same author twice.
 

Localhorst86

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isn't this a double post? ^_^
yeah, post reported, hopefully the moderators will handle this spammer appropriately :P /s

that said: looking forward to some nice entries, hopefully we'll see a lot of games und useful tools come from this.
 

HtheB

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Very nice to see a new Homebrew bounty :) first off:

"And let's not forget Team Xecuter who made a very generous donation too."

I would rather see them add something to the scene, something that benefits everyone, something that they made themselves... if they would do that, then I'd feel a bit better about them.
Giving a good donation to this bounty is a very good thing that adds to the Switch scene. Hopefully more homebrew will be available because of this. Every donation is welcome to the scene!

edit:
@Costello Will there be an option to donate as a regular user to make the amount of money even higher?
 
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Cyan

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edit:
@Costello Will there be an option to donate as a regular user to make the amount of money even higher?
it's written at the bottom of the message, users, and even non-GBATemp users, can donate globally or to specific categories.


I'd be interested in participating and making a game, but I don't think I'll have enough free time or knowledge to make what I want in time. I know, 4 months is enough time to do something, but I'm not sure to be ready. At worse, I'll release a game another time, not expecting any prize. Being staff, not sure I can participate. But as long as I don't vote for myself it should be acceptable, right?


Maybe we should have a mini guide to setup a development environment? I don't know if all people who want to create homebrew already have the necessary tools, nor have even hacked their switch yet.
I'd say a guide to explain that they first need to make a NAND backup, explain to stay offline to prevent any ban, restore nand after that could be useful. Not wanting to prevent homebrew from using online, just setup a proper network URL blocking guide. then explain how to install devkitpro and libraries, and compile. I'm particularly interested in knowing how to get 2 devkitpro at the same time (32bit/wii, 64bit/switch) without conflicting. I know there are already different guides (reinx, sdfile guide, even switchbrew) but none is covering what I think is important, many information are in each, but not everything in a single one. Most guides cover their own installation, but there's no guide to explain what to choose and what their differences.
 
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KingBlank

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I finally joined this site after seeing all the great homebrew released in the first bounty, And finally here I am as a professional coder - keen to give back a little of what was given to me over many years on this site. Thanks for running this event again, sometimes I feel like this site is getting lame, but this is absolutely the opposite. GBA 4temporary!
 

Purple_Shyguy

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Oh yes! This shall be good

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

Iwould rather see them add something to the scene, something that benefits everyone, something that they made themselves... if they would do that, then I'd feel a bit better about them.

You mean like drag and drop xci's?
 

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