Competitions

Codex Alpe Adria hosts and promotes a number of competitions, most notably for demoscene productions. This year's prizes will again feature items of great rarity and value.

Important: the demo competitions have been adjourned to a new date to be announced, in order to avoid a date conflict with another event. We are meeting again on September 22-23 in Empoli (between Florence and Pisa, in cooperation with Pianeta Amiga). More detailed information to follow soon. This does not otherwise affect the rest of the July event.

Demo Competition and Prizes (in September)

At the time of this writing, the Codex Alpe Adria 2007 demo competition has the following main prizes:

• Minimig 1.0 functioning prototype (very rare), donated by Dennis van Weeren
• Sam440ep system, donated by ACube Systems srl
• C-One development system

		Minimig (actual prize)

Additional prizes for non-winning entries and for different demo categories include software, T-shirts, and other sponsored items. These will be announced in detail at the event.

If you would like to submit an entry, please:

• Register first (include your group name, the title of your entry and the type, e.g. 4K, 64K, Demo, Wild, etc., as you would like them to appear in the voting card)
• Submit your entry, with a preferred title and a reference screenshot, photograph or other visual material (if applicable), to submissions at 0xAA dot org by [date to be set], 14:00 CEST (UTC+2)

For maximum transparency, please submit your entry to the above email address even if you are attending the event.

For wild competitions that cannot be "attached", at least a photograph or other descriptive rendering of the entry should be submitted, along with the other details.

We will try to help you if you have last-minute needs or if you are a bit late with your submission, but please understand that we cannot promise timely and complete processing after the deadline. It is important that you register in advance even if you expect to be late, because we need to print the details of your entry on the voting cards.

Attendance registration (for badge, organization, etc.) is appreciated even if you don't plan to submit an entry, but registration with inclusion of the group name, if any, is required to be eligible for prizes, and to vote.

The voting sheets are pre-printed based on the title indicated in your submission.

Demo Competition Rules

The rules for Codex Alpe Adria 2007 take into account the fact that this is a small event with a solid commitment to the future. The event aims to draw attention while also rewarding attendance. This means that some competitions may be combined, depending on the number of entries, and that some prizes (but not the "Grand Prize") may be awarded to non-attending winners.

It is never easy to satisfy everybody, and this is especially so for an event like Codex Alpe Adria, which is relatively young, and otherwise not built around rules. If you would like to help us improve the framework of rules and categories and the organization for future editions you are very welcome, and please feel free to contact us or discuss this in person at the event.

The following rules apply ("you" is whoever submits an entry, "we" is the Codex Alpe Adria demo team):

• By submitting an entry (production) you indicate acceptance of these rules.
• Attendance is not required to submit an entry, or for the winning entry to be eligible to receive a prize other than the "Grand Prize".
• Attendance is required for the winning entry to be eligible to receive the "Grand Prize" (in case of non-attendance it will be awarded a different prize).
• The "Grand Prize" will either be assigned to the winning production or it will be reassigned at next year's event (unlike other prizes, it will not be assigned to the second entry).
• If the "Grand Prize" is not awarded, a different prize will be assigned to the first winning entry.
• To meet requirements which require attendance, an active team member who participated in the production of the submitted demo must attend Codex Alpe Adria 2007. We trust your word that this condition is met.
• There are no rules concerning "boring", lengthy or otherwise questionable content, as these considerations are in the hands of the public, who is trusted to be able to judge and vote accordingly.
• Motion content has to be rendered by code (no pure animations). Of course you can try to bend this rule, but the public is likely to notice and vote accordingly...
• If there are less than four entries for a competition, we reserve the right to cancel the competition, or to combine it with another competition. You will be given the choice of accepting this, or withdrawing your submission, but you are expected to be available on short notice and to decide promptly (even if not attending).
• We reserve the right, at our sole discretion, not to show certain productions to the general public, solely based on criteria of suitability (e.g. for a young audience). Such entries will still be available for evaluation at the event.
• Your production as a whole must not have been released before. Please let us know us if your entry includes previously-released content, so that we can discuss this.
• Content that violates local (Italian) law will be disqualified. This is not as strict as in other countries (e.g. German regulations on Nazi symbols), but on the other hand you may find out that the bar for style is set a bit higher than elsewhere. :-)
• While the copyright of your entry remains with you, you allow productions which are accepted (i.e. neither non-functional, nor disqualified, nor withdrawn) to be made freely available by us to the general public, including but not limited as a download in the Codex Alpe Adria archives. This implies that content which is copyrighted or trademarked by third parties may not be submitted, unless licensed.
• We reserve the right to change these rules without notice, while remaining true to the spirit and goals of the competitions.

We like to believe that these rules look so long only because they are formatted on a narrow column. They are, in any case, not meant to be hostile, but only to be clear and equal for all. If you have any doubts, or if you experience a problem, feel free to let us know. If you attend Codex Alpe Adria you will have plenty of chances to fix any issues, and to make sure that your production gets a fair review.

Demo Competition Categories

Categories are determined in consideration of the size and the interest areas of the event, and of the availability of "important" prizes. We wanted to maintain a clear attention focus, and we could not risk having more categories than entries.

The voting system we use encourages the ranking of all entries, both within their category and in multiple categories, if applicable. If the winners do not stand out clearly it will take a bit longer to count the votes, as second and subsequent preferences also contribute to the results, but the important fact is that all votes and preferences will be taken into account.

These categories take part in the competition qualifying for the "Grand Prize" and the other prizes:

• C64 (PAL, with 1541-II floppy drive)
• Amiga (A1200 PAL AGA or RTG-enabled emulation, or more powerful Amiga hardware if requested)
• PC (Windows XP SP2, hardware to be determined also based on submissions)
• Wild Demo (anything you would like, including Flash productions, animations, videos and photographs)

The categories which take part in competitions that are awarded additional prizes are:

• Streaming Music Demo (please submit as MP3 or OGG)
• Surprise Compo

Prizes for these competitions will include software and T-shirts.

Demo Competition Voting

All registered visitors (including staff) are eligible for voting. You will be issued a voting card listing all entries for each category together with your badge. The winner in each category will be determined by applying a Schulze method voting system, in which voters rank all entries in order of preference. In 2007 we are going to use a quick voting software, rather than the lengthy manual counting of 2006.

A few recommendations:

• Please try to get a good general understanding of all submissions, and of their technical challenges and features, which are not always evident, before voting. The voting system we use encourages this by asking that you rank all productions.
• While you may be tempted to vote for your friends or for your own group, the goal of the contest is to promote and recognize technical and artistic merits. Please consider this when casting your vote.
• If you are not sure about what makes a certain demo special, don't hesitate to ask. Sometimes this is the uniquely small size of the code, or the fact that results that normally require very powerful modern computers are achieved on a much less powerful 20-year old system.

Surprise Competition (also in July)

Several "surprise" competitions will take place on Saturday and Sunday. Further details will be announced. No computers will be required (all materials will be supplied).

Sports Competition (also in July)

We plan to organize a cellphone throwing competition on Sunday. If you have some non-functional cellphones, especially heavier ones, please let us know, or consider carrying them with you.