Speccy Tour 2006 Rules

***  6th International ZX Spectrum games Tournament  ***

What's this all about?

The Speccy Tour 2006 is a games playing tournament that will run for more than 2 months, giving you the time to improve your scores in the games that take part in the tournament. This means that you don't have to rush your scores. There's plenty of time to make a good score.

Start Date: October 16th, 2006.
Ending Date: December 10th, 2006 23:59 London time - 15:59 Pacific Standard time (HARP Time).

Ending date to sign up is October 29th, 2006.

Rules:

Every player must send at least one recording on all ten games. Players who don't submit a score to all ten games are disqualified. You can send as many recordings to a game as you wish, as long as they are higher than your previous score. For a complete list of Special Rules on each game, visit the Special Rules page. Here you can also download some instructions for the 10 picked games as soon as the games in this years Tour are announched.

The scores are automatically registered in the server, so they can be submited anytime. However don't submit *lots* of scores in order to keep low the quota in the server.

The last 2 weeks are on 'special regime', as we need to avoid 'score hoarding'. During that time, when recording starts, players have to type 'public key' for that week, and send records within 48 hours.

Point System:

The highest score (the topscorer) in each game gets 100 points. His/Her score is made equivalent to 100%, meaning that if the topscorer have a score on 100.000 points and your submitted score is 70.000, you are awarded a score of 70% equal 70 points. The scores from all your ten games will be added together to get a total score (which max can be 1000 points), and out of that the standings will be calculated.

Unlike last year, more than one player can get 100 points awarded for a game if we have tie scores.

If two or more players have e.g. 530 points, the player with most top scores wins. If they all tops in 2 games, the
player with most 2nd places wins, and so on.

What do I need to take part?

Following Emulators can be used in the Speccy Tour 2006:

RealSpectrum DOS version. It uses AIR files. Ideal if you have a slow Pentium or don't like to manage with large recording files.

RealSpectrum DOS is available at http://www.ramsoft.bbk.org/realspec.html.

Jonathan Needle's Spectaculator for Windows.It uses RZX files. You can only use the Freeware 5.3 version, as the Shareware version have a bug that forced us to ban it for this Tour. Hopefully there'll be a newer Shareware version ready for next year, where that bug is fixed. However, please take a look at the Shareware version anyway, and a look at the Spectaculator site.

GPL FUSE V0.6.2.1. For Linux and MAC OS X platforms. It handles the RZX format. Download Unix or Mac OS.

We are pretty busy preparing the compo itself, so please read carefully the docs of each emulator in order on how to execute/compile it. For help on how to record and playback games go here. If you still have doubts, ask for help in your favourite forum WOS/CSS/ECSS. If you are really new at the Speccy emulation scene, and don't know of these forums, then send a mail to Eduardo Yáñez Parareda (Spanish Players) or to Alexandar Lukic (Everyone else), and we'll try to help the best we can :)

What do I do with my recordings?

1. Choose SUBMIT in the header on top of every page here at HARP.
2. Choose Speccy Tour 2006 under Tournament, and up comes the submit page.
3. Choose the Emulator you used, and the game for which the recording is for.
4. Put in your score. In games where level completed counts instead of the score, you must enter the last level you completed in the Stages field. This means if you get to Level 28, you must enter 27, as that was the last level you managed to complete.
5. Find the recording that you want to upload on your harddisk. You don't have to ZIP the file before uploading, as AIR files are so small, and RZX files are hardly compress at all. Just upload them as they are.
6. In the comment box you can either tell the editors something important about your recording, or tease the other players by achieving the new topscore in that game :)
7. Finally choose Submit recording.

IMPORTANT: Always keep a backup of your recordings, old and new scores. Tour's judges will do their best to verify player's scores ASAP, but... the whole thing is volunteer and 'real life' is... 

I still have one or more questions, what do I do?

Simply contact one of the Tour Editors already mentioned above in the 'What do I need to take part' section, or you can seek help in the ZX Spectrum - Speccy Tour 2006 area on the HARP Board, by clicking the Board link at the top of this page. On that Board you can also talk about the games, or what ever you feel like talking about with the other Speccy Tour competitors.

THANK YOU TO:

Michael Bruhn the founder of Speccy Tour, who started the whole thing.

Aley Keprt for making and creating the AIR feature, and for letting Ramsoft use it in Real Spectrum.

Ramsoft for making RealSpectrum as suitable for the Tour as possible, and for being so friendly and helpful during this.  

All RZX developers, which have worked hard to give alternatives to participate in the Speccy Tour.

Jonathan Needle and Phillip Kendall for providing us with new emulators for the Speccy Tour.

Gameboy9 for all his hard work on adjusting and programing stuff, so that the Speccy Tour here at HARP can be as enjoyable, and good as possible. Also thank you for hosting the Speccy Tour of course.