Atari Lynx’s 30th Anniversary Programming Competition Winners To Be Announced In October

Atari didn’t foresee the number of participants for its programming competition to mark the Atari Lynx’s 30th Anniversary.

As a result, the company had to push back the announcement of winners after receiving a deluge of entries. On its website, the deadline for the final submission was on Aug. 30, 2019. The ROMs will finally be released on Sept. 1.

Finally, the winners will be announced in October although there’s no final date yet.

The top six teams among the pool of competitors can get prizes. Among the prizes include a Lynx Programmer Pi Hat, Lynx SD cartridge, and AgaCart SD cartridge. Atari partnered with RetroHZ and Rafaljankowski for some of the prizes. Although the winners can pick the item they want, the first and second placers will get first pick.

The runners-up will also get a Lynx console stand courtesy of Gaming Displays.

But it’s not just the merchandise, and all the winners will get the honor of their game being included in Atari Lynx. Their games will be included as one of the ROMS in the console’s SD cartridge.

The competition drew 11 participating teams. New Generation submitted Lynx Quest, KrakenDev submitted The Inside World, Dr. Ludos submitted Growing Ties, and Yastuna submitted Ynxa. The submitted games range from action platformer, jump and run, puzzler, adventure game, vertical shooter, and a tic-tac-toe game.

The Atari Lynx held the distinction of being the first colored handheld console. In fact, it was quite revolutionary when it launched on Sept. 1, 1989. Aside from the colored display, it also featured 16-bit graphics, which could only be found in arcades at that time.

It was also an experiment for Atari since the 7800 wasn’t going anywhere and the people rejected the Jaguar. The company had promoted the Jaguar as the first 64-bit console, even before Sega Genesis and SNES.

While Atari seemed to have found the sweet spot with its Lynx handheld, people were complaining about the battery life. That’s why they compromised with the colored backlit display (160×120 resolution). But it did compete with Game Boy, and everybody knows who won that handheld console battle.

However, 30 years after, the Atari Lynx is still being sold in the market, if only for the nostalgia alone.

The winners will be announced at the Portland Retro Gaming Expo at the Mark/Space booth on Oct. 18-21. The public can also play the submitted games at the booth.