Category «Contest»

How to survive a GAME JAM?!

The Global Game Jam is the event to be part of, soon. So we collected some points you should consider, especially when this is your first game jam:

1. KNOW YOUR TOOLS
- Don't try out new tools - use engines, frameworks and things you know (or even invented).
- Use programs like GameMaker and Unity or frameworks like FlashPunk and LÖVE2D which were built to make games.
- There are several tools to make your life easier, like sprite editors, level editors, etc.

2. THINK SIMPLE
- Try not to make a whole game, instead experiment with ONE gameplay feature.
-> Or: Remake a simple game, but with a new twist or a different style.

- Also graphics should be a simple as possible.
-> Think also about drawing footage on paper and scan it. Be creative!

3. WORK IN TEAMS
- Try to not work alone, shared fun is double fun!
- Communicate to others what you can do best (programming, graphics, etc. - or even subsets: pathfinding algorithms, pixel art animation, etc.). Team up with like minded people with other skill sets.
- Talk to your team members and find out what they're interested in.

4. TAKE A BREAK
- Breath, eat, sleep. Go out for a walk. You have three days, use them well, but not only for working.
- Talk to other teams! Look what they are doing. Show your work. Don't get stuck with yourself!
- Sleep! Ideas and solutions to problems come up better when you are fresh minded!
- Don't just eat sugary stuff and pizza. Bring also fruits and vegetables with you, and don't forget to drink much. Or you will just feel full and immobile.

5. MISTAKES ARE OKAY
- Your first idea turns out to be stupid? No problem! Start anew, instead of trying to work around (and painting yourself into a corner). Remember: "If you realise you're riding a dead horse - dismount!"
- Don't immediately start with your first idea.

6. DON'T PANIC
- Most important lesson! There are plenty of game jams over the year. This doesn't need to be the best game you ever did. Just relax and enjoy being part of it!

If there are more suggestions you would like to add, write them in the comments! We would be pleased to hear your experience.

LD #22: SOLILOQUY – Post Mortem

(This post mortem can also be found on the official Ludum Dare blog!)

Ludum Dare 22 was somehow pretty exhausting for me, and kind of depressing. I don't exactly know why, but I think that multiple factors brought in.

The weekend before the compo I made a "warm-up game", even though I planned to do it long before PoV announced this kind of thing. I just wanted to make a game in 48 hours in order to help a friend (a 3D artist), who needed a programmer for his university project. The programming part wasn't wasting, but the fact that the game didn't get finished at this weekend (mostly because of my friend :P) left feelings of "incompleteness" inside me, which I hate.

Another thing: I didn't like the theme "Alone", and I still don't think it was the best or even a good theme of the ones in the final voting round. But, as I always have to live up to my own standards I wanted to follow the theme AND make a good game. And this often leads to a status-quo - as long as I don't have the right ideas I won't start, and as long as I don't start I won't have the right ideas. Or something like that. My mind was blocked and I did other things, like playing Skyrim and chatting on IRC (not in #ludumdare, though, that place was CROWDED). Later, I started Unity3D and tried to play out another idea I had days before, about some time manipulation gameplay. It wasn't feasible to do it in Unity3D, but due to the fact I did something concrete (game with 3D environment and FPS controls) I could develop another idea in my brain, which became the concept of the final SOLILOQUY.


I still think the best part of my game is this name! I thought of it before I thought of the gameplay (but it didn't give me any directions), and I liked it so much, I wanted to use it in any case. I'm quite happy nobody else named his/her game the same, too.

Even though I have some experience by participating at Ludum Dare before, I still don't really know how to cut back optimally. The concept of SOLILOQUY demands levels, and levels demand content and art and story and design and choosing colours and making 3D models ... but I knew this would be hard for me, as it was when I made my Ludum Dare 20 game, "TRI". So I decided to do NO textures this time, and it didn't hurt much (on the game's side), but the benefits weren't that great either. I mainly put the levels together in Unity3D instead of 3dsmax (in contrast to TRI), but this didn't help me much, either. Altogether I have six levels now, where I really wanted ten, but at least seven.
The levels don't look that bad (abstract style for the win), even though I chose the colours quite randomly. On the other side, what I don't like much, the levels are all tutorial missions only. You just jump around in the first two, learn using your souls in the levels after that, press some buttons and work together with yourself. After this, the real levels should come, but I didn't have time to do any more content.

I finished the last level three hours before the deadline, and I couldn't do any more creative stuff. I especially failed in doing sounds or anything like music, unfortunately. I thought about using inudge.net again, but it would sound like my other two Ludum Dare games, so I dropped that idea. At least this frustration encourages me to actually learn how to make simple songs with real tools. (Wish me luck.)
The reason why I couldn't do more creative work: This time, Unity3D was my enemy. Sometimes I really had to fight the engine, mostly when it came to the text you see in the game (story & hints) - Unity's GUI system still is awkward to look at, and it has bad effects on the performance. So I used someone's code which displays bitmap fonts via SpriteManager (the original one), but it didn't work out of the box with all my bitmap font generator tools (I decided to use "TWL Theme editor"). After those problems were resolved, at the very end of the process, suddenly my white text became gray in the webplayer version. Argh! I needed nearly an hour to find out why that happened - a plane with alpha (the dark overlay) had the same distance to the camera as the text, and somehow the editor sorted it differently than the webplayer. Whyever that is.

After the mixed (or even bad) feelings I had about my own game, I'm really relieved that people actually liked it! The current feedback is mainly positive, and some things that were criticized are fixed in a post-compo version (on Kongregate, for more attention)! Other things, like the jumping height / range being too crass, are somewhat subjective and unfortunately can't be changed without rearranging some of the levels.
Of course, many people complain about the brain-hurting aspect of the game (gameplay and visuals alike), but that was expected. I could have done the double-soul mechanic with just a picture-in-picture style or something like that, but then the game would lose its uniqueness pretty fast IMHO. Also, as soon as dogbomb does his "I play your game drunk!" video, the whole game visuals will make much more sense, haha.

BTW, if you have a look at the source you will need Unity3D. The indie version should suffice for just reading the C# files and so on, but you need Unity Pro (or its 30 day test version) in order to actually start the game, because I used Render To Texture. Sorry!

Thanks for reading this wall of text, and don't forget to PLAY THE DARN THING!

PS: There also is a video now!

Ludum Dare #22: Soliloquy

(YouTube videos try to set cookies and contact Third Party servers!)

Devmania 2011 – Part 2

After Jana wrote a little bit about our trip to the Devmania 2011 in Mainz, I will do so, too! (I'm late to the party, I know, I know.)

OK then. In the middle of October 2011 there was the Devmania, a convention about hobby game development, for the third time, and 90 people from all parts of Germany participated. Compared to the former event "Dusmania", this wasn't that much (AFAIK there over 200 attendees in 2003) - but nonetheless (or perhaps: because of this) it was a very intense and fun event. We came a little bit too late and Christian Rösch's speech about demo coding already started, which was a bummer, because while I acclimated and set my computer up it was hard to follow the presentation. Even better, right after Christian we had to give our talk about iOS Development With Unity3D! This was a good thing, because we would have been nervous until then, and so this was over pretty soon.

Our presentation was well received even though it's a pretty specific topic, and some of the Devmanians came to us afterwards and wanted to try the games we had shown (PITMAN and TUMBLOX) or just discuss about their experiences with the platform and the market, or about Unity3D (which I thought would be used by everybody and his/her little sister now, as every browser game seems to use Unity nowadays). All things considered it was a nice experience to give a talk again after our last one in Leipzig, and we hope to give another one next year.

Some hours later I was on the stage again and showed three games I made in 2011, all for Ludum Dare contests (1930, TRI and BUNNIES, BACK INTO YOUR CAGE). Traditionally, game presentations get prices the next day, and this year the voting for them was at the same evening. I made second place - once again I lost against Dreamworlds (and their fine-looking SPLATTER). ;-) Not bad for small games I made within 48 hours, I think. The year before, Jana, Björn and me talked about our final projects we made for University, and my Diploma project "Hals über Kopf" also made second place (no chance against SPLITTERWELTEN), while Jana got the third trophy!
Be that as it may, TRI got some great positive feedback, but there were also people who liked the BUNNIES more.

Like last year I wanted to enter the Overnight Contest, but also like last year I didn't have the right idea until 10pm. The subject this year was "Pirates". Even though I told myself there is no pressure all the time I tried to become creative and productive. In the end, Björn and I made a pretty standard game where you play a treasure chest collecting coins, while evading palm trees and pirates running around like crazy. After three minutes the game ends and you can pat yourself on the shoulder for surviving it. I found the game to be funny, but it wasn't anything new, so it didn't win a price. Also, singleplayer games automatically have a hard time as the judging panel consist of four persons at one computer - this is why we made a hot-seat multiplayer game last year. ;-)

So we created TREASURE CHEST ISLAND within 12 hours, using Unity3D. Björn made all the graphics (the island, the chest, the animated pirates, the palm tree, the coin and the treasure map), while I scripted the complete game logic. We didn't use any fancy version control system, only my crossover LAN cable and a shared folder on Björn's computer, which was fast and easy enough. We both stayed up all night, something I only could do because I usually don't drink any coffee or cola, so one bottle of cola kept me awake until the very end, haha.

Right now I try to make the game a little bit better and put it on Kongregate, with online highscore and some new gameplay.

Because of the overnight contest I pretty much ignored the rest of the event after 10 o'clock, which probably isn't the best way to participate in a convention. On the other side, ten other teams / solo persons also were busy making their contest entries. Somehow, this year it felt like much more people were awake during the night, coding, pixeling, modeling and recording fart sounds. A very productive environment!

Some photos of the Devmania 2011 are here and there - ours are here. And there also is a French blog post about the event. Please tell me if you find more coverage!

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