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Thanks!

So far I was targeting my Pocket8086 at 10mhz where even in the later stages with 8 enemies max it still keeps at 70fps. But I've tried it on a 8088 motherboard at 4.77mhz and know it will struggle after 3-4 sprites. I was planning to rewrite the sprite rendering in x86 assembly compiled sprites in the hopes of catching up the speed there but jam ended and had no time than. I am still thinking I want to try this and will release a next version here if I get the motivation to try this.

The sprite rendering is optimized enough for C (having pre-generated 4 pixel shifted versions of sprites, bliting 16bits at once and 8bit at the sides, not using mask (black background), not using framebuffer but sorting top to bottom to avoid flickering (rarely it will happen on top)) but I know the assembly rewrite can be even better, just needs some work and new code generators from my side. Your post motivates me to go back to it and try that too. Thanks!

I also was clearing the keyboard buffer in my own entry, there were two methods. I just found something that if I call once per frame after the input read, it mostly works fine even if it might not be the complete solution.

My solution was some interupt call.  mov ax,0c00h and then int 21h

However I have some other I didn't use that looks similar to the qbasic solution like here  https://www.tek-tips.com/threads/how-do-you-clear-the-input-buffer.77806/

Maybe this one is the easiest to try DEF SEG = &H40: POKE &H1C, PEEK(&H1A): DEF SEG like maybe call it somewhere once in the frame loop after the input checks.
There are also more proper solutions but need more work. In my case I also should have read the input in a continuous loop till the buffer empties. But I just read once and then clear the buffer. Didn't notice issues with keyboard clashing regardless.

Did you btw have the problem yourself or do you run it in Dosbox and you didn't notice the issue?

Nice gfx and top down rpg controls where character kinda reminds me of Phantasy Star. Not sure what to do yet in the map but need to spend more time to figure it out.

Got some time to understand all the options, but makes sense now. Was kinda fun for a while reading the text, warping to nearby planets and looking at the things to buy/sell or missions.

Nice and easy to play, it reminds me a simple version of pizzaworm.
Only issue in real 8086 PC, I get my keyboard beeping and slow down, probably you not clearing the keyboard buffer.

Nice use of the highres mode!

Cute and simple to play.

Non linear modes were pain but very common in old hardware. Maybe even for legitimate reasons, like it fit well in the design of the hardware at the time.

My setPixel function is like this

static void putPixel(int x, int y, uint8 c, uint8 far *vram)

{

uint8 shift = (6 - (uint8)((x<<1) & 7));

uint8 pixel = (c & 3) << shift;

uint8 mask = ~(3 << shift);

vram += vramY[y] + (x >> 2);

*vram = (*vram & mask) | pixel;

}

I precalculated vramY[200] array to avoid some stuff

for (int y=0; y<200; ++y) {

vramY[y] = (y & 1) * 8192 + (y >> 1) * 80;

}

Simple nice game that plays well, very nice gfx, fun to move around, unlock things and get the extra water movement capability. Enemies were a bit bullet-sponges but ok.

Nice Atari VCS entry, however I am having a bit trouble with some collision detection, seems like I am stuck at some places or it's not certain if I am attacking some enemies, or got stuck in a wall. Eventually I was going around to explore the area till I died.

Nice simple idea, interesting platform I've never heard before, I had only issues with not very fast responding  controls, like I had to hold the key well to move, couldn't make some fast moves back and forth in the second level with the spiders, so they touched me easily before I could sneak and get the keys.

Interesting platform for an entry. I kinda get how you play, I managed to copy paste the code and run and things were scrolling. Then with the arrows I could move a thing as it was printing text. It's very close down to the bottom of the screen, so you can't see if you crash in time (I guess when I hit certain characters I do crash). Isn't very intuitive to play to be honest.

Nice to see a NES game. This one still kinda needs work. It's ok at best. Gameplay is just simple brawl of repeatitive enemies. I was curious to move further to the later screens but suddenly died from one such enemy and started from the beginning.

I like dungeon crawlers. This one is nice, everytime player is random with different stats and different starting items, so it made me replay many times. It's hard to survive, sometimes I get one strong hit and die, others I progress a bit but don't know if there is an ending. I find interesting the use of AI for graphics, they certainly look pretty atmospheric.

Haha, that's so much fun. Not sure how relevant to the theme but pretty fun shooter.

And the whole visual effects, interesting but got me whoozie very easilly. I managed to beat the final boss regardless.

Nice and simple to play. I found the exit easily and there was not much challenge. There was something floaty a bit with the movement or the jump that made me lose my step. Graphics are nice.

Wow, many platforms submission. I tried the DOS version. It's pretty simple platformer with many levels and collecting, shooting and levers. Levels have nice progression from simplest one to teach you the basics to levels with more complicated progression. Pretty solid entry.

Pretty nice and simple concept, good idea and plays well.

Impressive entry for an impressive platform!

I only had a little trouble setting the mouse controls, editing the cfg to invert mouse and reduce sensitivity somehow didn't work for me. So I got a bit motion sick before getting to far with it. It does however seem to be a nice simple game and easy to move around and shoot things.

Wow, cool!

Besides the GCW0, I also have the RG350 from Anbernic so I'll try it myself and see if it works correctly.

UPDATE: Just tried. RG350 displays the colors wrong. I see now maybe the SDL port on RG350 does not convert correctly from 8bpp palletized to 16bit? I could try on dingoonity forum and ask the devs (not sure if it's an issue of opendingux or the rogue firmware I used on my RG350).

Even more funny, it does actually work nicely on GameKiddy 350h. GKD can run OPKs from GCW0/RG350 but is less compatible than both of this (other emuls just fail sometimes), I wasn't even initially expecting to run it there, but I guess their SDL implementation was more correct.

A simple minesweeper game. It works (even if I am bad at minesweeper). I mostly like the vaporwave background colors in this game :)

I quite like the clever use of this engine for a driving game, the dark atmosphere and the humor of this game (I think I got Duke as a customer at some point :). At first I lost, but when I played again and got used to the control, it's pretty fun to drive and rush to get the next customer, the map and the waypoint helps.

Nice use of textmode for a dungeon crawler style movement, I need to play this a bit more, maybe found 1 or 2 riddles but left it somewhere. But it's nice and easy to play so far.

This is the most technically impressive entry in the compo and a lot of effort has gone to have some kind of story/gameplay and complete levels. I haven't finished seen much of the game yet (still on 1st level, I'll try again with the new patch) but what I've seen so far is pretty decent (need to get used to the controls a bit).

This is obviously unfinished as there are no other racers, but the 3d engine is impressive and the handling of the ship feels good. It has potential.

It's a small game finished in 5 mins, but I like the visibility effect idea. Nice text based rendering too.

It's pretty nice to play (I go a bit slow because I crash but mind you I had the same problem with original Skyroads) and great for supporting many different modes and running on very old PCs smoothly. Pixel graphics are cute too.

Simple but was easy and nice to play. Nice CGA graphics. Runs in even very old PCs.