A Game a Week

[Sammo]

I was reading an old interview (http://casualtygamer.com/2008/10/2dboy-interview/) with Kyle Gabler from 2D Boy (http://2dboy.com), the developers of The World of Goo.

The whole interview is worth a read, especially for Kyle's slightly crazy but very funny persona. You can really tell where the humour from World of Goo came from. But by far the most interesting bit is where Kyle talks about how the game came about. Here is excerpt from the interview:


Some friends and I started the Experimental Gameplay Project (http://experimentalgameplay.com/) back in grad school. The idea was we’d make bunch of games in one semester, to discover as many new forms of gameplay as possible. We ended up making about 50 games, seven days per game, each made by just one person, each game based around some “theme” like “gravity” or “evolution” or “a game your mom would play”. One of the small games I made was called “Tower of Goo”. It turned out to have a kind of fun idea behind it, so we took that basic idea and made “World of Goo”.

I think this is a fantastic idea and was wondering whether anybody would be interested in doing something similar here at Kirupa? Obviously, you wouldn't be required to enter every week (I'm sure I wouldn't be able to manage!) but if a theme is posted every week we can showcase all the small flash games that are produced by the talented members of the kirupaForum.

You would have to post the source of your file, this wouldn't be a contest, more an educational creative community brainstorming... er, fun... thing (I trailed off a bit there...).

For some inspiration and to see just how wacky some of the stuff they made is, check out some of the games (http://experimentalgameplay.com/blog/games/) Kyle and his friends made.


So yeah... that's my pitch. Would anybody be interested in participating in something like this?

[Valaran]

I think this is a great idea, especially for people like me, whos got some experience, but not that much under his belt in terms of actual projects. Would be a great opportunity to increase the size of your portfolio. I vouch for this.

Good luck with getting things going :)

[Sammo]

Excellent! I'm gonna leave this thread open for a few days and if there's enough interest (I don't need many to motivate myself because I really want to try it!) then I'll create a new thread with the first challenge! :)

[Quirky Quantum]

Sounds quite fun. My source files (generally) aren't terribly pretty though. Would there be an actionscript version requirement? (preferably not)

[Gnoll]

Sounds fun! Good to force working on smaller projects, I always get caught up with things I will never finish.

[MaToMaStEr]

ok, lets do it !

[dandylion13]

To keep things fair (and focused), consider some technical constraints like keeping the SWF file size under 10k and prohibiting 3rd party API's?

[Sammo]

To keep things fair (and focused), consider some technical constraints like keeping the SWF file size under 10k and prohibiting 3rd party API's?

I think the timescale is a good enough constraint. It ain't a contest, I wanna see technical and creative breakthroughs.

But what does everyone else think?

[Gnoll]

I agree with Sammo, 3rd party api's will allow much more creative things... and not competing right?

[Sammo]

Hey guys!

I bit the bullet and just tried it (only way to see if something works, eh?).

You can see the main thread here: http://www.kirupa.com/forum/showthread.php?t=348758
I thought Source/Experiments might be a better suited place for his as the Game Programming forum is more problem orientated.

The theme this week is Temperature.
If this becomes a recurring thing we'll have to sort out a way to pick the new theme each week.

I can't wait to see what you guys can do! Good luck everyone :)

[ubergoten]

I think it's a good idea- but I'm too busy to actually compete- but I would like to see the ideas other people come up with. I am working on a large scale game by myself with the box2d world and may post it in the future, plan to have it done by the end of the summer =)

[Nim]

Nice idea!

But...

I think the really good programmers ain't got the time to create a game just for "fun". And the rest ones.. just can't create a game in a week :P

[TOdorus]

How's everybody faring? Not much to show at the moment but here's my six hours in build:

build 1 (http://home.planet.nl/%7Ebogaa096/Endothermia/Build1.html)

If you're wondering what your looking at: they're supposed to be atoms (carbon, oxygen and hydrogen). You can add heat to them by moving your mouse near them. Next up is writing some code that allows the player to form molecules this way.

Curious as to what everybody else is up to. Do show!




If this becomes a recurring thing we'll have to sort out a way to pick the new theme each week.

How about letting everyone give a theme and have a random number generator pick one from the list?

[TOdorus]

Build 2 (file:///D:/Users/newnomads/Documents/vipe/Endothermia/Build2.html)

You start adding the molecule creation code. You see the weirdness it creates and you realize something: the drawings you used to make in chemistry are 2D, but they're representations of something 3D. Linky (http://jchemed.chem.wisc.edu/JCESoft/CCA/CCA5/MAIN/1ORGANIC/ORG02/TRAM02/1MODELSMETHANE/0060807/THUMBS.HTM)

Crap!

I may have to force oxygen to have it's connections 180 degrees apart. And there's a bug in there which I have trouble recreating. And I thought my troubles would mostly lie in simulating rotational velocity on the molecules :(


Btw, anyone else actually doing this thing?

[Valaran]

Im on it, Im not about to put up a build1, 2...x like you are though. But Im basically doing a platformer with some 'temperature' elements within it. Just hoping to get done in time :D

[dandylion13]

I may have to force oxygen to have it's connections 180 degrees apart. And there's a bug in there which I have trouble recreating. And I thought my troubles would mostly lie in simulating rotational velocity on the molecules :(

Hey, no worries Todorus, it's just a game :)

I also wonder if anyone else is doing this? I think it's a great idea but I'm just too busy.

[Quirky Quantum]

I'm making a pseudo-rts type game, but I'm not sure I'll finish. The current version isn't near as temperature related as the original idea, as it has drifted off, but it might still end up nice.
I'll post a screenshot of my non-matching pixel art graphics in a minute.

Edit:
Early Start (http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/3941/v00001.png)

[TOdorus]

Im on it, Im not about to put up a build1, 2...x like you are though.

Well, I always get motivated by the creativity of others, so I thought they might motivate a person or two ;)

I actually got swamped in work when some ancient bug which slipped through all of the early hunts came to bite our ***** from every angle possible. Absolute nightmare! Endothermia had to pay the price for that.

I still really like the idea though. As you can tell people got inspired by it. But instead of a word next time, maybe we can use a work of art as inspiration? A game may be a bit too hard to give some inspiration to a diverse set of games, but I'm thinkin a certain song, painting or sculpture might? I also think the length needs to be extended to something like a month, so people can work leisurely on it and do not need to slow down development on their own main projects.

[IQAndreas]

Or maybe next time include a dozen or so predefined sprites that everyone is free to use (or maybe required to use?). That way no one needs to worry about graphics, and ONLY need to focus on the actual game. Of course, unless those graphics are diverse enough, they might all end up being platformers, or whatever the graphics lean towards. :P

Not sure, but great idea, so try it again, I will definitely try to include a submission when I have the time.

Maybe extending it to two weeks is good, but any longer than that and people loose focus and drift off doing other tings. But, of course, the whole purpose was to design in a small amount of time anyway, so it would loose some of that. :P

[TOdorus]

Maybe extending it to two weeks is good, but any longer than that and people loose focus and drift off doing other tings. But, of course, the whole purpose was to design in a small amount of time anyway, so it would loose some of that. :P

I didn't mean you need to take the whole month to create the game ;) People can ofcourse, but you can also work on it in the period you actually got some time for it.