The GemTOS 2025 was a convention in St. Just en Chausee, north of Paris. It took place on the 3rd and 4th of May. It has been organised for years, and there were a lot of people, mainly from France but also from other countries.
Not wanting to travel such a long distance alone, I convinced my friends Neewalix & Lynxman to join me. Thanks to both of them. I did not want to go to GemTOS alone.
We started our journey on Friday around 11.30 am in Frankfurt and quickly made it to the motorway. After an unplanned sightseeing tour through Rheinhessen we had an easy drive and made a short stop at a McDonald’s. In St.Ingbert.
Neewalix was well prepared and bought a French motorway payment device, so we did not have to stop for 10 seconds every time we passed a toll station.
After a stop at a nice rest area near Verdun, we passed Reims, where we had to leave the motorway and enjoy the local B roads for the rest of the journey. A few minutes before 8 p.m., we finally arrived in Clearmont / Oise, where we spent the night in a hotel recommended by the organisers.
The first positive impression was that the woman at the reception was friendly and even spoke a little English.
Since some restaurants were nearby, we decided to go on foot to get some food. Clearmont’s suburb, Agnetz, is a quiet place, and after about 10 minutes we arrived at a nice pizzeria. I had forgotten what “oeuf” meant, but the other ingredients looked good, so I gave it a try. Oeuf means egg, and it was a pleasant surprise. I liked the pizza. A good end to the day. Lynxman also bought a special shake at the McDonald’s next to the pizzeria, so everyone was happy.
Neewalixs Pizza
On Saturday, we planned to go to the local Intermarché supermarket before going to the party location. It is always fun to visit a supermarket when you are abroad. But first, we wanted to have breakfast, especially croissants.
The breakfast was really good. For 9.5 euros, you get croissants, pain au chocolat, baguette, coffee, juice, yogurt, and more. A great way to start the day.
As Neewalix added the usual 45 minutes to our meeting time, we had to go straight to St.Just en Chaussee instead of the local Intermarché supermarket. A good decision in the end.
After some more sightseeing on the local dirt roads, we finally made it to St.Just. Having missed the right fork in the road, we had to take the next one. There we found a much bigger Le Clerc hypermarket. Nice. We agreed to come back later.
As there aren’t that many forks in St Just, we finally arrived. The Salle de Fetes was already crowded, but the fantastic organisation had reserved a table for everyone. It was hard to find my name because some unknown joker had spelled my name with a P instead of a þ. But nothing compared to Lxnyman’s problem of them spelling it Linksman. With these problems solved, we set about building our stuff.
Lynxman got some attention for his various ST, STE, TT, and Falcon RAM boards, Neewalix tried some games on his MiST, and I tried some games and devices on my MiSTer.
We had the chance to play Tempest on the Lynx with 3D glasses and a gyroscope ship. The project is already some years old, and it’s still unreleased. But it was so cool to use the Lynx like a modern mobile phone. Hope to get a released version one day.
Behind us sat Wulf. I met him at the last ADN and asked him to show Neewalix and me the latest version of his game called Pathfinder. You have to find a way to collect some items, but the traps on the paths disappear, so you have to remember them. It shows that you do not have to make the 15th clone of Mario or anything like that. An example of how you can make unique games on the ST.
The first point on the convention program was eating (typical for French parties). We got a huge sandwich, so nobody was hungry.
After the dinner, the organisers had prepared a little comedy sketch: While they were announcing the start of the convention, someone wearing a monkey mask entered the stage and disturbed them. The plot was that the security tried to take him away from the organisers, but the monkey man was able to free himself, take off his jacket, and show an Amiganet shirt. Now the security got their hands on him again, and he was thrown out. I liked it very much, as did the rest of the people. Funny idea.
Next came the game competitions. You could sign up for 4 games already days before: Vroom, Jupiter Master Drive, Barbarian, and Flight Simulator. After the Vroom tournament, I took part in the only Jupiter Master Drive game (the final) against Pump. He had fixed one of my STs when we met at the ADN, but it was not the day for presents 🙂 I only played the game 2 times in my life. So the start was not so good. But after 2 out of 3 rounds, I managed to fight my way through and pass Pump. A friend was talking to him in French, but I understood “no … he passed”. I like those sentences 🙂
I was focused for the rest of round 3 and managed to win. Unbelievable! I celebrate with my standard shouts and shake hand with Pump.
I thought I would have some time to enjoy the fruits of my victory, but I had to play again immediately.
This time it was Barbarian. I was fair and mentioned that I had played a few Barbarian competitions at various parties in Sweden. It was best of 3, and Pump managed to decapitate me in the first round. But then my time came and I elbowed him into the right corner with my evil Duck & Drift moves. Then I chopped his head off. Pump was surprised.
I finally went into Berserker mode, and þorN the Mighty started to play his game. Round 3 was a copy of round 2. Chop chop chop and the head rolled off. Now I had won 2 Barbarian tournaments in 2 different countries. Another milestone in my career.
Still in Berserker mode, I thought to myself that this was already much more than I expected. I had won all 2 competitions I had entered so far.
Next was the flight simulator competition. I was not subscribed. Pump was the winner. Well deserved.
Next was the Midi Maze II competition. There were 2 groups with 16 players each. The winners of each round go through to the final. I was in group 2, so I was able to drink some water to calm down.
The Midi Maze II tournament took place in the dining room, and it was a cool sight to see 16 STs in a row.
First, I unplugged the connected joystick. I’m an eSports professional, so of course I play with my own stick. Since my Pac-Man needs a few more Kick Off 2 games before I can use it as my favourite joystick, I plugged in my beloved CMS stick (who cares if it’s Pac-Man or CMS, it’s from Greece :-). Christophe, who was sitting next to me, said: “if you break something, you will be in trouble”. Seems he has not forgotten that I delayed the last ADN Midi Maze tournament a little bit 🙂
After the game started, I had a slow start, and I had no hope that it would end well for me. But in the middle, I had a few shots in a row, and surprise, surprise, in the end I won.
In the final, 14 random players and the two winners of the previous rounds played the game, but only the points of the two winners were counted.
I had to fight a lot and was always 10-20 points behind the leader. I ended up with 86 points, 14 points behind the winner. But my opponent only had 82. And yes, I won!
What a moment! I won the biggest Midi Maze tournament of the year. I had been dreaming of such a result, and now it happened. I will never forget it. I came to GemTOS, I saw what’s going on, and I won (as Julius Caesar said 2000 years ago).
A great eSports event! With this victory, I finalized the French triple: I won important tournaments on the AC, the ADN, and the GemTOS!
Now it was time to go shopping. We went to the Le Clerc hypermarche, which we had found in the morning when we missed the right fork. I was able to pick up some of my favourite French products (mainly crisps and non-alcoholic beer mix drinks). Always a pleasure to go shopping.
Later, we found out that the photo shoot had taken place while we were shopping. Sad, but there’s nothing we can do about it.
I had some good conversations and played the upcoming games in the STOT (Saint Dragon and Axel’s Magic Hammer).
Now it was time for pizza. Again, it was a surprise. I had pre-ordered a pizza called “Raclette”. A pizza with potatoes and cheese. With a spicy sauce poured over it, the pizza tasted great. As you get fat all day long at French parties, I was not that hungry to be honest.
Then the award ceremony began. A large flag was unfurled with the faces of two well-known sceners who had died. George (Shadows272), the author of many games for the ST and Papy CPC, the artist of Space ZOT. It was a great moment when these people were honoured, and all the people who knew them were able to remember them.
There were also prizes for the music and coding competitions.
Then the results of the gaming competitions were announced. I had to go on stage 3 times and won 3 nice-looking 3D-printed golden cups. Wow! Very nice. I also won a Lynx game, a GemTOS shirt, and as 1st prize for winning the Midi Maze 2 competition, a 1040 STF with a French keyboard.
My new family member
Pump also won a golden cup for winning the Flight Simulator game. The winner of the Vroom competition also won such a trophy. Later, one of the organisers told me that next time they will tell me the wrong names of the games in advance, so I won’t be able to practice. An honour to hear that 🙂
Another funny comedy act was a Pac-Man and a Ghost costume running around chasing each other while a song about Pac-Man was played. Everyone laughed a lot at that one.
It was late, and time to go back to the hotel in Clearmont. As we were all very tired after all the information and food, we went straight to bed and I fell asleep soon after.
On Sunday, the plan was to go back to the party place, but to leave at one o’clock, because the way back is a long drive.
We had a great breakfast. This time, there were a lot more people in the hotel, including some other Atarians.
I was even able to explain that we had to pay for the breakfast for 3 people and two days in French. Another success!
Back at the convention, I continued to play with my MiSTer and talk to the other Atarians.
I also took part in the Space ZOT competition, but Sunday was not my day. I got more than 8000 points, which is a great result, but there were players with more than 12000 points.
So Neewalix and I had some Speedball II and Kick Off 2 (Amiga core) matches. I managed to do a 45-degree loop in Kick Off 2. The first one in years!
On the other side of the hall, Manu, JB, and others started to play Grenzüberschreitung. Always a special moment for me to see all these people still playing my game.
But the game stopped in the middle. Strange, normally, Lua is very stable. We tried everything: restarting in different resolutions, replacing the Falcon, and so on. Nothing helps. It has gotten worse and does not boot at all.
Luckily, someone found out that a pin on one of the Jaguar controllers was broken, and that was the cause. I was very happy that the game finally continued and I was able to join in. We had a few rounds. Once again, I have to say that Manu, JB, and others are much better Grenzüberscheitung players than I am these days.
In the middle of a game, it was announced that the Space Invaders competition was starting, and I had to go on stage to take part.
For weeks, I had trained a lot, but on my Steam Deck. I found the pattern of the enemies, and I was in a good mood. But in the end, I was either not that good, or not that lucky, or both. On the other hand, others were much better. Lessons learned: You can’t push your luck endlessly.
The competition itself was also a milestone in eSports at Atari parties. There were 6 original VCSs in a row. Much like the original competitions back in the early eighties. There was also a huge Space Invaders banner. I felt like I was taking part in those famous eighties competitions I had read so much about. Thank you to the organisers of this competition. It was an honour to take part.
With a line from one of my favourite songs in mind: “Beaten you go home, your grandchildren fight better.” (“Geschlagen ziehen sie nach haus, unsereEnkel fechtens besser aus) I returned to the Grenzüberschreitung friendlies.
I was the only player to attack another player, but only once, and the other players blamed me a lot (But I will do it again 🙂 After a few funny rounds, I gave my pad to Lynxman. He immediately attacked other players and nuked 3 of them. Manu stood up and asked: “Who’s this player?”. We point our fingers at Lynxman.
Lynxman’s comment: It’s important to remember that even if a lynx looks similar to the cat on your couch, it’s a predator that can’t be domesticated. When I saw that all the other players were just hoping for the others’ mistakes, I realized that the way to victory lies in using my claws! Anyone who enters the ring with a predator shouldn’t rely on mercy!
We know how to make friends 🙂
After some more fun games, I was walking around and someone asked me to try a music quiz. I sat next to Christophe, and we had to guess famous game music from different Atari machines (Lynx, ST, 8-bit, and others). The quiz was done on an Atari 800XL. You are given a paddle controller and have to press the button when you think you recognise the music. You are then given a list of 4 options and a few seconds to find the right one.
Sound familiar so far? The awesome part of the game is that the music is played by an MP3 chip. So your Atari from the seventies displays some text and you use the old paddles, but the sound is from a new MP3 chip from China that costs 1,50 Euro. Wow! Hard to describe. But it was such fun. The 800XL played normal ST sounds in MP3 quality, and we had to guess the game. Christophe was much better than I, but I had 3 or 4 lucky tries.
Lynxman and I also had a good talk with the creator of SD Card modules for various systems like the Atari 8-bit, Colecovision, and others. It was interesting, especially the stories about people who pirated his designs.
Now it was time to eat again. A cold plate with lots of healthy stuff and meat. Very nice.
After the meal, it was almost 15.00 and time to leave. So I grabbed my shirt for winning one of the competitions and said goodbye to everyone.
I really hope someone will join me next year, as it was a great two days. Thanks to Manu and Super Ninive, and their team. Also, thanks to all the friendly people I talked to or played with.
