A game contest wouldn’t be complete without a judging protocol; a proper jury team that rates submitted entries. As for this year’s edition, we have assembled a jury panel consisting of three members to take on that task and bring it home. It is with great pride that we introduce you to this edition’s international MSXdev jurors.
Putting together a respectable crew of MSX knowledgeable fanatics that is to judge other’s work is a journey we love to embark on. Surfing the digital highways, we traveled the world and hunted high and low to contact like-minded people. We managed to bring together a party of three more than capable persons. These people are Ronald van der Putten, Danilo Danisi, and Robert Vroemisse. We happily wish our fresh jury members a warm welcome!
Judging
The jury panel is to rate each game on its quality and will also provide a motivation for their rating. The score list will be made public and the winner is announced when all games have been judged by the panel. Furthermore, the jurors’ scoring and motivations will be publicly available as a .PDF file download from the official MSXdev website.
Every entry will be judged on different qualities of the game by the jury panel. Certain aspects are assigned to a particular expert-juror. They will endow two (2) types of scoring per game; one on their particularly assigned department, and one on their overall impression of the game. These are separate points to deal out. A score can range from 1 to 100 points. The total score of a game is the average of all scores (6) given by the panel.
The game aspects that are rated separately are called Mechanics, Bleeps, and Pixels. Jury deliberation officially starts on October 15th, 2023 – right after the deadline for contestants to join in. The jurors are given a month to reach a final conclusion, which we will bring forwards shortly after that. So, exciting times are ahead!
Jury introduction
Now, allow us to introduce each jury member to you. As said, we have three of these giants doing all that heavy lifting of inspecting every MSXdev23 and give their honest, but always positive, opinion about it. It’s a job, but a hell of a job.
Ronald van der Putten, U.S.A. – Mechanics
Back, way back, in the mid-1980s, the Dutch software company Aackosoft International released an impressive portfolio of MSX games. One of their main programmers was Ronald van der Putten. Initially hired as a Master-Tape Creator, and later transitioning into the role of Game Designer and Programmer, he is credited for designing and coding several games for the company. Ronald also pioneered writing the first software-only digital voice recording and playback tool for MSX systems. This tool was frequently used in MSX games – you may remember the legendary Oh Shit! – and was eventually released as a commercial package called Mastervoice/Wordstore. Ronald was also responsible for the development of Aackosoft’s Floppy Disk Copy Protection System.
Still in the computer business, Ronald would continue his programming ambition as software engineer and later Senior Security Architect. While originally being a Dutchman, Ronald is living in the beautiful Pacific Northwest outside of Seattle with his wife Shawn and their dog Bruno.
Ronald will be judging game play and its mechanics – great having you aboard, sir!
Danilo Danisi, a.k.a. DanDan, Italy – Bleeps
The MSX user group can easily be divided into two; gamers and demo sceners. The latter being a tight group of MSX enthusiasts that would show off their skills with demos. Danilo is one those, known for his excellent scene music. Popular in the early nineties, where the demo scene had its peak, he provided a good bunch of OPL based music under the moniker “DanDan” for demo and game groups such as Abyss and IOD. A few examples like the Audiowave series, the unfinished game X-Tazy, and Total Parody might refresh your memory. In later years, he shifted focus from electronic to traditional acoustical instruments like African percussion, only to re-connect with electronic music again at the turn of the century.
Nowadays, Danilo is teaching computer graphics and design at an Italian Art academy, acts as sound designer, and even organizing some videogame and creative coding workshop in Italy. All that while enjoying the beautiful scenery of Bologna, Italy.
It might come as no surprise that Danilo-san will be checking out all sound output for this year’s dev edition.
Robert Vroemisse, the Netherlands – Pixels
It’s no secret that growing up with MSX, our beloved platform has inspired an entire generation of professional engineers, software developers, game designers, musicians and last but not least, graphic designers ofcourse. Belonging to mainly that last category, we are pleased to introduce this year’s jury member for the Pixels department.
Robert Vroemisse is a professional graphic artist, who amongst other things, is a high profile designer of product packaging, advertisements, educational material and 2D, 3D and VR designs. In the roaring nineties, his MSX activities included affiliations with development teams such as Sargon, as both chief of their graphics department and co-composer. In this function, Robert contributed to productions such as the music demo Twisted Reality and the Defender diskmagazine.
Later on, he ventured to fresh pastures, collaborating with Team Bomba to create Bombaman, and Team Deva of, you guessed it, Angelic Warrior Deva fame. Much of his musical work on the MSX OPL4 is included on the Dutch Moonsound Veterans compilation. Robert is still an active member of the MSX scene these days, currently working on the graphic design of a very ambitious MSX2 project.
With a very keen eye for visuals as well as a deep appreciation for 8-bit development and MSX in particular, you can trust that he’s our man to judge all of the pixels, and particularly how they’re aligned.
Conclusion
And there you have it, the complete jury team for MSXdev23. We, the MSXdev Team, are extremely proud to have these experts on board. We wish them good luck, as well as a lot of fun, and we trust in their wisdom in taking on the ever difficult task of jury duty.
