Vita Island Homebrew Contest
KyûHEN Post Mortem
KyûHEN has ended, and what a journey it was, the submissions were all amazing and we received a huge amount of support. Whether it was financially, helping to share the news or attracting new developers it’s time for an in-depth retrospective of the contest.
Creation of the Contest:
We sure didn’t wake up one day and think, “hey, should I launch a contest?”. It was all kick started by a discussion on Twitter and 2Old4Gaming decided to take the lead and create a “vita island game jam”. I (Cimmerian) then decided to assist him with the contest, knowing that 2Old4Gaming had a backlog of successful events. Such as his “PlayStation Vita: Year One” book Kickstarter. With him we had a chance of a serious and prosperous contest (unlike the previous vita game jam which was a bit of a joke). Frangarcj was also willing to help out and joined the team.
Since it was our first contest and none of us had any experience in such an event, we attempted to replicate GekiHEN as it was the safest choice, but with a little more ambition. With that in mind we also tried to contact the major hacking news website for their participation. Their support and their experience with GekiHEN would ensure our success. In the end, their help was a huge part of KyûHEN’s success. We also had the help of the good people and developers from the Vita Nuova server for constructing the rules of the contest (and the name KyûHEN was also found there, thanks to Rinnegatamante).
We also did a bootsplash contest as advised by Wololo (following what had been done with PSP genesis) and found the perfect bootsplash for our contest. Widvern, the designer of the GekiHEN bootsplash, was late to the party but his concept was a perfect fit for our website which originally should have been black/grey.
Financially, we commenced with $100 thanks to 2Old4Gaming. We were unsure about the amount we would receive and initially discussed different prize tiers based on the amount we received at the end. Fortunately, Juliosueiras had promised to donate 1200$ meaning we were freed of the stress. Due to 2Old4Gaming and his relationship with a game publisher we received PSN game codes to share with the developers who entered.
Setting up the website was a nightmare, and the reason why the contest was first delayed. We were ambitious and that is evident in the finished product. We sent out a call for a designer and web developer. A friend of mine from the iOS jailbreak scene (Dave van Wijk) offered his help. He is a talented designer and made great tweaks that changed the iOS UI in a prettier way.
After the design was done, it was time to create the website. He introduced me to someone he collaborated with in the past and was willing to help us, the website was being built slowly but surely. As time passed us by, we realized the deadline was swiftly approaching and didn’t finish making it. We first apologized on Twitter about the delay, then set a definitive date. Unfortunately, that web developer ditched us a mere 3 days before the deadline without even telling us he was dropping off. What was a stressful thing became a total nightmare as at that time I had to study for my final exam in 3 weeks.
Fortunately, Wirus, the GekiHEN website maker and a true friend, helped us recreate the website based on previous work. 3 days later it was ready for the public. We launched the contest officially and enabled the submission a week after to let us the time to create a submission and showcasing system, which we couldn’t make in time. We chose a Google form as a submission form and a simple showcasing API which needed to be handled manually to add submissions to the showcasing tab. We simply didn’t have any more time to spend as our lives were getting busy. For instance, Wirus had to work on the website after his work, so was working 11pm-3am.
The contest was officially launched without any major problem, apart a rule we had to change a few hours after because it was deemed unfair.
Did KyûHEN meet our expectations?
Financially yes, over $2000 in total which is more than what GekiHEN gathered. The submissions quality was beyond our expectation especially with the Game 2 category which we were afraid of not having enough participant. The overall reaction from the community was very positive and we are happy to have brought KyûHEN to the community.
Originally we were supposed to have more Judges among our sponsors and the game publisher that sent us the PSN codes, but because of the PS Store closure and life problems, they were unable to submit a judgement.
Submission Judgement
Game 1:
Sandeep Rai/2Old4Gaming Ranking:
1. Brain Splitter - A really fun and unique take on the SHMUP genre and well executed. The trophy notification is a nice touch.
2. Thrust Shot - The fact that this is on the Vita, and you can play online blew my mind. The shooting needs a bit of tightening up and some extra maps would be great, but I think this game has lots of potential.
3. Rolly Poly - Tough and addictive. I was really impressed with the first-person mode.
4. Dark Paradigm - I think the scope of the game and ambition deserves a lot of praise. The animation for reloading and the environment shows real attention to detail. However, I ran into quite a few glitches. If they weren’t there, then this would have been number 1 for me.
5. Demons Down - I found Demons Down a lot of fun. The blood splatter and guns were great. I would have liked more variety in the enemies and more challenge as it did start feeling repetitive after a while.
6. Angel Colide - A solid SHMUP. It doesn’t do much new, but it has a good level of challenge, and I liked the sound effects.
7. Boxing Girl - Boxing Girl is another game with a lot of potential. The controls need tightening, and the placement of checkpoints should be rearranged. I did get frustrated at times with how easy it was to die on spikes but overall, I thought it was a fun little game.
Cimmerian Ranking:
1. Rolly Polly - The PSVita did really lack that kind of platform game, and they play very well with the two joysticks. The music evolves with the speed which adds a nice immersive touch, and the levels are well designed, and some can be very challenging. Graphically it’s colorful and it render well on an OLED PSVita, the gameplay is really precise, and the sounds effect are great too. Personally, it’s the game that has the most to offer to the PSVita library
2. Brain Splitter - Probably the most complete homebrew game ever released on the PSVita, it has everything that a real PSVita game can have. Minimal story, multiples game mode, an original concept that can be challenging and fun, easter eggs and surprisingly a trophy system that is well replicated. It can be mistaken for an official PSVita game at this point
3. Dark Paradigm - A nice alternative to the popular ZombieBound, graphics are impressive, the atmosphere, level design as well as the audio really gives a zombie feel, controls are a little too sensitive without an option to adjust it, but it has sometimes some annoying bugs like game freezing, or some sprites being locked (like fire animation still being shown when you don’t shoot). But overall, it’s a great experience and is really fun to play.
4. Boxing Girl - Sprite art is just awesome, the reflection on the water, or in the background, different sounds for the enemies, controls feel great but sometimes the level is too hard, and the final boss is just impossible to defeat, our character can’t do anything if he isn’t in a 2cm range around the boss. Which means we have to do suicide attacks.
5. Thrust Shot - Most ambitious homebrew I have seen on the vita, a multiplayer battle royal that is working on the PSVita! It has a great toon art style that reminds me of Team Fortress 2, an original concept of jetpack gameplay and multiple weapons. The map is fun although it gets really boring in 10 seconds as the center of the map is a gladiator arena and the rest of the buildings around are just a spot for sniper to kill the gladiators. The gameplay unfortunately is not that fun, we have no recoil, aiming is hard which defeat the purpose of using the jetpack as we literally cannot have any advantage using it if we can’t aim correctly, the zoom should have been stronger if it was supposed to be useful. We have no life bar, so I don’t really know if I’m going to die, and the multiplayer is a hit and miss (although it’s a limitation of VitaHEX’s free multiplayer API). It needs to fix those points to really be the battle royal experience for the vita.
6. Angel Collide - Although it seems simple at first glance, it is not really graphically impressive, but the gameplay is perfect, precise and comfortable it makes the action really fun to play with the enemies that are intelligent which gives really intense games, and the boss fight is a great experience.
7. Demons Down - It’s a very cool DOOM like game, has a lot of potential but unfortunately, it’s empty. Only one small level and only one kind of enemy.
Points given per position:
1st = 23
2nd = 18
3rd = 15
4th = 8
5th = 5
6th = 3
7th = 1
Brain Splitter : 23 + 18 = 41
Rolly Polly : 23 + 15 = 38
Dark Paradigm : 15 + 8 = 23
Boxing Girl : 8 + 1
Thrust Shot : 5 + 18 = 23
Angel Collide : 3 + 3 = 6
Demons Down : 1 + 5 = 6
Note : Thrust Shot place took 3rd place because we took into account that Dark Paradigm was a consequent update to a previous zombie game while Thrust Shot was a new project.
Game 2:
Sandeep Rai/2Old4Gaming Ranking:
1. Treasure Chasers - I found Treasure Chasers to be really addictive and fun. It’s a simple premise but well executed. Great pixel graphics too.
2. Silly Tower - Another game with a simple premise, Silly Tower is really addictive. Having a leaderboard present really made me want to play more and more to improve my score.
3. Happy Blocks - Happy Blocks is an interesting game. Trying to find the best placement of the blocks before I lost the level was tricky but enjoyable.
4. Guess It! - I found Guess It! is very similar to the iPhone game Heads Up. I can see Guess It! being a fun game to play at a party just like Heads Up.
5. Wonky Adventures - This platformer was pretty good, but I didn’t feel it did much new. I also felt like mapping jump to X would have worked much better.
6. Vitaman - Unfortunately I didn’t enjoy this game. The controls were not very responsive which resulted in frustrating deaths.
7. Crab Island - I encountered a few too many bugs in this game and the attack and player movement needs work to be smoother.
Cimmerian Ranking:
1. Treasure chasers - A great pixel art game, original concept, great custom-made soundtrack, that game feels like it was professionally made as if it was supposed to be an indie title. And the fact that it was achieved using the VitaSDK instead of game maker makes it more impressive.
2. Happy blocks - An interesting Tetris like game with multiple game mode. The concept made the game funs to play and not just a Tetris clone, the boss mode was intensive. Really enjoyed the overall experience even if the game did crash after a long playthrough.
3. Guess it! - I always wanted to make the Vita do more things than it was supposed to do, reading books with the Vita ebook reader, or the manga app, watching video. But what I liked more was trying to bring the Vita into a friend meeting. While the Nintendo switch could make use of its two joycons to do multiplayer activities with friends, Guess it! gives us a good excuse to use the Vita. Quiz is always fun to do with friends, and they make a good use of the Vita to make it more enjoyable, either we just do the quiz, trying to find what is the name of the movie shown for example, or by holding on our head and make the man in front of us try to make us guess the movie shown on the vita. I liked the fact that the quiz was customizable, and the source code was also provided.
4. Silly Tower - The game is really fun although I suck totally at this game. It reminds me a lot about a certain pc game, or even a PSP homebrew called Stacker PSP. Perhaps a little too close to that homebrew which could basically be a port. But that is the fault of the original game concept that restrict too much the originality of the clones.
5. Crab Island - Well it’s impressive that we have a 3D game made with VitaSDK, although that’s the only good thing about this game as the gameplay is too simple and has many bugs.
6. Wonkey Island - The idea is great, the controls are not that comfortable and the level design isn’t that good looking.
7. Vitaman - An attempt to bring a Vita Pacman clone except the control is your main enemy
Points given per position:
1st = 23
2nd = 18
3rd = 15
4th = 8
5th = 5
6th = 3
7th = 1
Total result:
Treasure Chasers = 23+23 = 46
Silly Tower = 18+8 = 26
Happy Blocks = 15+15 = 30
Guess It! = 8+18 = 26
Wonky Adventures = 5+3 = 8
Vitaman = 3+1 = 4
Crab Island = 1+5 = 6
Port category:
Sandeep Rai/2Old4Gaming Ranking:
1. Crashlands - The initial load time is horrendous, but the game is worth the wait. It’s a great port of a great game. It’s the kind of game that seems like it could have had a proper release on Vita. It’s been one of the highlights of KyuHEN to have this game on my Vita.
2. Vanilla Conquer - My initial impressions of Vanilla Conquer were not positive but I stuck with it and ended up really enjoying it. There is a lot to do in this game and the port plays really well.
3. Ink - Ink is another really good game. It’s simple and fun and I love the premise of painting the environment.
4. Love - Love is a 2D platforming where you have 100 lives to get through the game. I really enjoyed this game. The gameplay is great, and I liked the old school graphics.
5. XCom - I’m a big fan of the console XCom games so I really enjoyed seeing this early iteration of the series. The port had problems at first, but I am glad the dev sorted them out.
6. Mirror - Mirror is an interesting game. You’re exploring a maze made up of symbols. I found it really intriguing, especially when you discover different symbols. I was compelled to play more and understand the game.
7. Gun Godz - The dev recommended overclocking to make the game run smoother but I thought it ran great even without overclocking. I thought Gun Godz was a fun old school FPS.
8. Have a good one - it’s a relaxing little experience and runs perfectly on Vita.
9. Xump - Xump is a fun little puzzle game. The premise to eliminate all the blue squares is simple but the puzzles are tough at times. The port runs perfectly on Vita.
10. Where the F did I get these sunglasses? - it’s an interesting premise where you need to puzzle together what happened the night before and how the player woke up with sunglasses. It’s definitely unique but not a game for me.
11. Trex - This auto-runner is simple but enjoyable. My high score got deleted after I shut down the app. I would have preferred if the score could have been saved.
12. Ars Poetica - Yet another unique and intriguing game. You need to use clues from poems in a book to “complete” each area. It’s not a game I normally gravitate to, but I was really interested in trying to figure out the puzzles.
Abuse - I enjoyed Abuse but I felt there was slow downs at times and the graphics were a bit too dark.
13. Worminator 3 - I can’t fault Worminator 3 on the port, but I found the game itself a bit average.
Cimmerian Ranking:
1. Crashlands - I did not really expect having a great steam game on my hand. And the reverse engineering job done there to make it working on a PSVita with specific optimization makes it a very enjoyable experience minus the first long load time (so the game could have been ported officially on the PSVita).
2. Vanilla Conquer - A very nice addition to the vita library, a well-known classic of one of the best strategy games, it plays well once we get used to the controls.
3. Where the fuck Did I get those sunglasses - You get dropped inside the game without knowing what to do (just like the drunk lady you’re playing so I guess it’s really immersive) but once you understand the gameplay it’s really addictive, the music the art and the fact that it push us to think hard about what could have happened in order to sort the puzzle makes it a port that we needed on the PSVita to add another variety of game. It’s a game you should definitely try.
4. Xump – The puzzle platform game runs well on the vita, and the concept reminds me of the old school games we used to play on our phones back in the 2000s with a modern look. It’s always fun to play games like that.
5. Xcom - Always nice to see a new Xcom game on the PSVita, unfortunately it did suffer from some performance issues. But the game still is fun to play on the vita
6. Mirror - Same thing as angel collide, you don’t really want to play at first, but as you go through the game you find that’s it’s an addictive game.
7. INK - First canceled for the vita, thanks to mis3ry we can have it back. It’s a fun game but somewhat the performance issues that can arise does remind us why the game was canceled first.
8. Ars poetica - Ok I spent like 15 min to understand what the game wanted from me. And when I finally understood, it was awesome to dig and find the hidden clues to get the word into the right map to unlock it, a la ford boyard (French TV show) until I saw that there was only 3 words to find. It’s a huge disappointment to be honest that the content is that slim for the effort I spent.
9. Love - The port is well done, and the game is great. The reason why it’s below Ars poetica and others is because I feel that it doesn’t add much than they do to the vita library. We do have games like Love released on the vita
10. Worminator3 - The port on the technical side is done well, but the game concept was fun at first but after like 30 min of gameplay you get really bored.
11. Abuse - The game is fun, although it’s a little too dark, but the slow down were a little annoying
12. Have a Good one - It’s a nice game that is more like an interactive story. It’s fun but only last 10min and it’s not a game you will play a second time.
13. Gun GODZ - The port overall is good although there was some minor performance issue, but I didn’t have much fun with that one
14. Trex - A port of the famous chrome game, without any speed up mechanics that defeat the whole purpose of the game.
Points given per position:
1st = 23
2nd = 18
3rd = 15
4th = 10
5th = 8
6th = 7
7th = 6
8th = 5
9th = 4
10th = 3
11th = 2
12th = 1
Total result:
Ink = 15 + 6 = 21
Love = 10 + 4 = 14
XCOM=8 + 8 = 16
Mirror=7 + 7 =14
GUN GODZ=6 + 0 = 6
Have a good one= 5 +1 = 6
Xump=4 + 10 = 14
WTFSUNGLASS=3 + 15 = 18
Trex=2 + 0 = 2
ARS POETIC=1 + 5 = 6
Abuse = 0 + 3 = 2
worminator = 0 + 2 = 3
Utility:
Frangarcj Ranking:
1. Walk - An excellent utility that allows me to directly view the walkthrough of the current game without the need for another device. Simple and cool.
2. Vita Recorder - It should come standard as with PS4. If the plugin also saved some seconds before a trophy, it would be perfect.
3. Vita Homebrew Sorter - Very necessary utility, especially for those of us who are playing with the Vita OS and have ever lost all shell settings.
4. ds4ambi - Another simple yet ingenious utility. It can also serve as an example for someone to develop a homebrew/game based on colors.
5. x1vita - Adds support for Xbox controllers. I think it should integrate with the rest of ds34vita and the like, along with a configuration tool.
6. Resavedata - Useful for those who do modding or want to share saved games.
7. hbRedirect - Quite requested by the community but in my opinion, it does not stand out from the rest.
8. MAC Address Spoofer - I have never seen these spoofers useful.
Emily Ranking:
1. Vita Recorder - Vita recorder seems very useful, and I think a lot of people will like it. It doesn't support audio though which sucks but that is planned for future.
2. Vita Homebrew Sorter - Vita homebrew sorter is a cool idea that I was gonna make myself actually but never got around to it and it has a GUI. Don't have many dislikes for that one.
3. X1Vita - Will probably be very useful for people with PSTVs and such, and it seems easy to setup.
4. hbRedirect - It’s a cool tool too, and it looks like it can be helpful, however I think it has a limited use case compared to the first three.
5. Walk - It is useful, and I like being able to easily check a walkthrough halfway through a game, but it seems like it's lacking some important features like text wrapping, and actually putting the walkthroughs themselves in can be clunky.
6. reSavedata - It seems cool but honestly, I don't know when the average user will ever need to use it.
7. DS4Ambi - It is fun but rather gimmicky and not that useful compared to the other tools.
8. Mac Address Spoofer - It has a very limited use case and isn't as creative as the other projects.
Cimmerian Ranking:
1. Walk - With GTA San Andreas released, I wanted to do an old PS2 style experience, with my old book with cheat codes, tips, and map info. The plugin was released just on time to allow me to do all that and be back at the old gaming experience and it’s honestly a major addition as the vita browser is not usable to google game tips and force us to use our laptop or phone. Which is not convenient for a portable console.
2. Vita Homebrew Sorter - A homebrew that will save my life, honestly as a beta tester the database is often rebuilt, and I always lose my bubbles layout config. Meaning I always spend 10 min to reorder everything and it’s a pain. Thanks to this homebrew I’m free of that.
3. Vita Recorder - A massive technical success that is promising, unfortunately it doesn’t perform well enough to replace the use of the USB streaming plugin to perfectly record on heavy live gameplay. But it is still useful if you want, for example to save your amazing goal replay in FIFA without using the phone to record it.
4. X1vita - Although it comes late for me since I had bought a DS4 to use it on the vita, and that the first pairing was kind of hit and miss for some reason, it works well and I can use my Xbox One controller on vita, it’ll make the small part of the vita community who use a Xbox One controller happy
5. hbRedirect - With android ports being released, ux0:data is getting heavier and this plugin allows us to use the imc0 or uma0 that was “useless” back then. It’s a must have If you want to save some space.
6. Mac Address Spoofer - Yeah, I know many people don’t see the use of that plugin, it’s just gimmick. But it can save someone to bypass a Wi-Fi blacklist and redeem free 1 hour internet at the airport or in the train multiple time and I find this great especially when I use the vita as a media center with Netflix and Crunchyroll.
7. DS4Ambi - The concept is cool, but unfortunately it does add anything to the gaming experience on the vita, it’s just not fit .
8. reSaveData - It’s nice if we want to have a central save data slot to use. It makes my life easier when I switch between two memory card and still want to continue playing with my Killzone cartridge.
Points given per position:
1st = 23
2nd = 18
3rd = 15
4th = 10
5th = 7
6th = 5
7th = 3
8th= 2
Total result:
Walk = 23 + 23 + 7 = 53
Vita Recorder = 18 + 15 + 23 = 56
Vita Homebrew Sorter = 18 + 15 + 18 = 51
Ds4ambi = 10 + 3 + 3 = 16
X1vita= 7 + 10 + 15 = 32
ReSaveData= 5 + 2 + 5 = 12
hbRedirect= 3 + 7 + 10 = 20
Mac Address Spoofer= 2 + 5 + 2 = 9
How we shared the prize pool.
1st place = 40%
2nd place = 34%
3rd place = 26%
Conclusion
The submissions and the support from the Vita Homebrew community has been nothing short of amazing. Thank you to all the entrants that worked hard on their submissions and thank you to all the people that supported the contest with funding.