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Zaknafein
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« on: August 10, 2009, 07:00:53 PM » |
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I just came back from a gamejam called the Bivouac Urbain, it was its first year and it was seriously awesome. So the idea was to group up under a big tent and make a game for three days. Language and tools weren't set, but a lot of people were using Actionscript and Blender,... of course I chose C#/TV3D.  I was paired with a cool game designer friend (Heather) whom I worked with on Super HYPERCUBE, and the end result is this :  Signed Binaries : http://theinstructionlimit.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/stimergy_final.zipSource : http://theinstructionlimit.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/stimergy_src.zipIt's simple, but it works pretty well. We didn't win any prize, but I was thrilled to just finish the game in time. Last hours were really stressful. A+++ WOULD JAM AGAIN |
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« Last Edit: August 12, 2009, 04:45:11 PM by Zaknafein »
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Aion
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« Reply #1 on: August 10, 2009, 07:22:20 PM » |
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holy stressful game batman  just beat it, fairly fun for a 3day exercise. Also, a billion points for stylization. |
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Zaknafein
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« Reply #2 on: August 11, 2009, 10:50:37 AM » |
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ZaPPZion
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« Reply #3 on: August 11, 2009, 11:44:55 AM » |
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WOA! you're a genius, i don't think i could do this in 3 weeks and you do it in 3 days, amazing
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Raul
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Posts: 550
I like games.
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« Reply #4 on: August 11, 2009, 12:00:36 PM » |
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WOA! you're a genius, i don't think i could do this in 3 weeks and you do it in 3 days, amazing
Zak has a gift. It's simple..  |
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Zaknafein
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« Reply #5 on: August 11, 2009, 01:49:34 PM » |
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No no, Zak is a workaholic, that's all.
But it's all about context. Being in a place where 20+ other teams are doing the same thing as you gives you quite a motivation.
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ZaPPZion
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« Reply #6 on: August 11, 2009, 04:01:49 PM » |
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True, and the competition factor usually works for me as well  |
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rootsage
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« Reply #8 on: August 12, 2009, 03:45:54 PM » |
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Man, this is a great game, I don't know how you did this is 36 hours, this would take me a lot longer. Question though, what is the process you go through for coming up with different ideas for these little games? That is my downfall, I have a difficult time coming up with awesome unique games, that is why I am just coding an editor right now. Do you have any tips for us to help with the creative process of game design?
-Eric
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while( !( succeed = try_again()) );
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10 print "Is this recursive?"
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Zaknafein
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« Reply #9 on: August 12, 2009, 04:13:19 PM » |
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Thanks! I'll try to walk you through our design process as I remember it. We were two for the design, so that helped a lot.
The competition had a theme (it was the word "antithesis"), so we started from that and brainstormed for about 45 minutes.
Our initial idea was completely different from what we ended up doing, but was much more on-theme... it was the idea of having a mirror image that you moves opposite as you on one or two axis, and has an offset, and you need to bring it to a goal with obstacles that would apply only to you, or only to the mirror image, or both...
After making a really quick prototype, we realized a couple of things : it was a puzzle game whose fun factor heavily relied on how good the maps were, the difficulty curve, the number of levels... it was too hard to design properly. Also, we found a similar game to our concept on a flash portal, and we hated it. Boring, slow, not interactive enough.
So the next morning, we iterated on another idea, which is that TRON-style trails would generate obstacles. We also liked the fact that "antithesis" had "ant" in it, and there was an ant sticker on my laptop, so that stuck with us.
Heather pinned the look of the game, that it should look like a disco floor with... dancing ants, kinda. Simple, and since neither of us was a graphics artist, we needed to keep it simple.
I am pretty fascinated with artificial life and cellular automata, so it all went from there. Ants that smell around them and are guided by a simple AI.
We had other wildly different ideas, but none of them felt as good as this one, to either or both of us. It's really all about discussion and finding the best in every idea, and make something with it.
You have to be aware of your limitations too. I knew I could make a 3D game, but 2D is so much simpler, and keeping it "turn-based"-ish and on-the-grid removes a lot of corner cases too.
Since we couldn't do art, we didn't do art.
Because a level editor was out of question, there were no levels. It's randomized and only the goals and parameters change.
I'm thinking about releasing the code, but I don't know if it'd be of use to anyone, as it is kinda messy (duh). But if you're interested, I wouldn't mind.
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rootsage
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« Reply #10 on: August 12, 2009, 04:17:18 PM » |
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Messy or not, I am absolutely interested in seeing the code. I like to learn by the hands-on approach, and it helps to see how more experienced coders get things done, so I do not mind if the code is messy, I would just love to see how you made it  Thanks for the reply too, it helps a lot. -Eric |
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while( !( succeed = try_again()) );
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Zaknafein
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« Reply #11 on: August 12, 2009, 04:42:51 PM » |
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rootsage
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« Reply #12 on: August 12, 2009, 05:15:44 PM » |
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Your awesome dude! Thanks so much -Eric |
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while( !( succeed = try_again()) );
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