Competitions & Showcases

Do you create art with computers? We want you at Impulse presenting it! There are several ways to do so, depending on what kind of art you are showing and if you are comfortable with being scrutinized by a public vote. Check these categories to see which one fits your production the best.

• Combined Demo Competition
• Size Coding Showcase
• Graphics Showcase
• Music Showcase
• Lightning Talks / Wild

General Rules

Original content

All productions submitted must be original releases of your own copyright and not previously made public. Sampling / remixing to create derivative work of someone else is accepted but within reason, blatant plagiarism and AI generated content has no creative value to us.

When submitting the production please list your sources and tools explicitly, they will be shown on the information slide and are critical to contextualize your entry to the viewers.

Competition machine specifications

• OS : Windows 10 (with latest updates)
• CPU : 13th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-13700K (2.5 GHz)
• RAM : 32GB DDR5-6400MHz
• GFX : RTX3080Ti 12GB GDDR6X

If your production targets another platform, please also provide a video recording of it, if you can’t do so please come talk with us as soon as possible so we can try to figure out how to capture its signal with acceptable quality.

Production licenses

All productions entered will be distributed free for download on the internet after the event. By submitting your production to our party website you are agreeing to this distribution. The copyright remains yours ofcourse, and you are free to select what license you prefer for your work if you prefer something else besides Creative Commons BY-NC-SA that we apply by default. But please be aware your submission will be archived and made public. We might also use your work to promote future editions of Impulse or Inércia. Please only submit your entry if you’re ok with this.

Disclaimer

The organization reserves the right to not screen your submission for any reason they see fit. This will likely only be enforced in case of productions which are deemed innapropriately offensive, immoral or illegal according to the Portuguese law.

Combined Demo Competition

Our main event is the Combined Demo Competition. A competition for executable realtime entries, running on any computer platform, as long as they were made exclusively for Impulse 2026. If you are not sure what we mean by demo, you might want to read about the demoscene first.

📤 Please submit a zip with your entry: the working binaries of the executable and a short text file explaining what it is, the target platform, the techniques and references used, and how to play it. If you’re targetting an uncommon platform and/or wish to guarantee we play the demo as it’s meant to be shown, please also include a video capture of your entry.

The winner will be determined by public voting.

Size Coding Showcase

We will have a screening block dedicated to any size coding / bootblock productions made exclusively for Impulse 2026! We are looking for submissions running on any platforms under specific size constraints, it must not have been previously released. The most common target size restrictions are usually 8 bytes, 16 bytes, 32 bytes, 64 bytes, 128 bytes, 256 bytes, 512 bytes, 1kb, 4kb, 8kb, 20kb, 40kb and 64kb.

📤 Please submit a zip with your entry: it should contain the entry itself, a short text file explaining the techniques and references used. This text file should also explain the best way to display the entry if it needs a special viewer and special settings, and how to play it. If you’re targetting an uncommon platform and/or wish to guarantee we play the demo as it’s meant to be shown, please also include a video capture of your entry.

Maximum two entries per participant allowed on this category, choose wisely what you want to focus on! Some leeway on this rule to also allow collaborations but please don’t abuse it.

Graphics Showcase

We will have a screening block dedicated to graphics productions made exclusively for Impulse 2026. We are looking for submissions of the following kind:

• Text art, be it ASCII, ANSI, PETSCII, ATASCII, TELETEXT, etc
• Pixel art, limited palette and canvas resolution, using standards from retro machines or fantasy consoles
• Photo art, typically a photo with minor retouches and color correction but photoshop collages also welcome
• 3D model graphics, static 3d model scene that can be viewed from different viewpoints using latest version of Blender or Foxotron
• Rendered graphics, images rendered out of 3d modelling tools such as Blender, 3DS Max, povray, etc
• Voxel art, images made with voxel editing programs such as MagicaVoxel
• Freestyle graphics, painted by hand, scanned, drawn digitally, vector or brush, whatever combination you use
• Fractal art, generated with fractal generator tools
• Executable graphics, 4kb code executable that renders a single static image
• JPEG XL art, made solely with JPEG XL encoding predictor operators
• Animated GIF, short looping GIF animation
• Others

📤 Please submit a zip with your entry: it should contain the entry itself, a PNG version if it’s a strange format we might otherwise display incorrectly, 3-4 steps of your work in progress and a short text file explaining the techniques and references used. This text file should also explain the best way to display the entry if it needs a special viewer and special settings.

One entry per participant on this category allowed, choose wisely what you want to focus on! Some leeway on this rule to also allow collaborations but please don’t abuse it.

Music Showcase

We will have a screening block dedicated to music produced explicitely to be premiered at Impulse 2026! We will play a maximum of 5 minutes of each track submitted. We are looking for submissions of the following kind:

• Tracked music, composed using tracker software, for whatever target platform you use
• Executable music, 32kb executable that generates the audio
• Oldschool / chiptune music, playing from any retro machine with 1bit / 8bit / 16bit sound chips
• Fantasy console music, music playing from fantasy consoles
• Streaming music, an mp3 rendered usually from a modern DAW
• Recording of a live performance (live instruments, livecode, eurorack, etc)
• Live music, beatboxing, singing, improv rap, easy instrument to setup
• Others

📤 Please submit a zip with your entry: it should contain the entry itself, an mp3 version of it if it’s in a format we might potentially play incorrectly and a short text file explaining the techniques and references used. This text file should also explain the best way to play the entry if it needs a special player and special settings.

One entry per participant on this category allowed, choose wisely what you want to focus on! Some leeway on this rule to also allow collaborations but please don’t abuse it. We accept music of all genres. Special karma points if they are drone ambient or jazz musician submissions.

Lightning Talks / Wild

Give a lightning talk presentation (less then 15 minutes) about something interesting in your creative digital art process!

It can be something that was developed by you or something you have been exploring lately that you think others will also find interesting. It can be a tool, a production, a work methodology, a source of inspiration, a project you’ve been working on. Be creative, show us what you been working on and inspire the other visitors. as long as it is remotely related to digital art and computers, it is welcome.

It can be just a video of something related to the demoscene or digital art.

Have an idea but doubts if it makes sense to present it at Impulse? Get in touch with us through discord and measure it’s interest amongst the rest of the community before commiting to it.

📤 Upload a zip file with any slides / video / information about your presentation.