So I never carried on the dare game…
Which I’m a little disappointed in myself for. However I was working on average 10am-8pm Monday-Friday for 7 weeks. It was originally just a game to try to work on through to completion so that I have a game in my portfolio.
I never expected, going into it, to receive as much experience as I did. Not only did I get a good hands on with working in a team, but I was able to see (albeit perhaps on a smaller scale) the typical ups and downs of games development. I also never expected to get a chance to show off what I’d make nor how the experience would have an effect on me.
Which I’m a little disappointed in myself for. However I was working on average 10am-8pm Monday-Friday for 7 weeks. It was originally just a game to try to work on through to completion so that I have a game in my portfolio.
I never expected, going into it, to receive as much experience as I did. Not only did I get a good hands on with working in a team, but I was able to see (albeit perhaps on a smaller scale) the typical ups and downs of games development. I also never expected to get a chance to show off what I’d make nor how the experience would have an effect on me.
Having a regular schedule during the summer did wonders, not only for my sleeping pattern but also my health in general. It also made sure I was keeping up with my coding. Although we were working in unity so it was just scripts that I was writing. However, as gameplay programming is what I enjoy the most, this was fine for me.
Over the course of the first few weeks, there were a lot of back and forth discussions over the gameplay. In the end there were 5 stages of changes before a system emerged we could agree on. From this control mechanism, we thought of a feature to add that hadn’t previously been considered, which was to add in-game cut-scenes. The game we were making was a casual game for the tablet and mobile market. The control we settled on was a method where the player automatically follows a path but they can strafe along perpendicular to it. This allowed minimal controls but with more interesting movement. However, to make it easier and more intuitive for the player, the paths had to be quite straight. Therefore we decided to add cut-scenes that break up the straight paths and allow the players to admire the scenery more as well as give a better sense of flying, as the game features the player as a paper airplane. When beginning the implementation of this system, I realised the camera needed to have a dynamic zoom feature, not only to keep the player a decent size on screen, but also to make it look more action orientated. The camera, upon the player starting a cut-scene, flies to a predetermined pivot point. I later added in the ability to have multiple cut-scenes and this feature was able to be exploited to allow multiple pivots in a single cut-scene allowing for even more interesting shots.
The whole team worked hard and it was worth it in the end. We realised early on that we could apply to enter the Indie games festival which is part of Dare Protoplay (organised by the same people doing Dare to be Digital). We were pumped to enter, but it meant cutting our original schedule from 9 weeks of development to 7. But we went for it anyway, and I’m glad we did.
13,000 people attended Protoplay over the course of 4 days. Certainly it wasn’t that many who came to the indie fest as the it was poorly sign posted so not everyone was aware it was there!. However there were still thousands of people who attended our booth. I was delighted that not only was our booth almost always full, but also people were able to pick it up and play and almost everyone enjoyed it. Most of those who walked away only did so after playing the first level, which is intentionally simplistic as an introduction to the controls. It was mildly irritating however, they were drowned by the amount of compliments we received.
A selection of such compliments were:
- “Where is the box to vote for this game?” (there were boxes to vote for the 15 Dare to be Digital games, but not for the games at the indie fest)
- “This is the best game in here”
- “This is better than the games in the Dare competition”
- “This is the indie fest”
- “I need this game now!”
Receiving such a vast amount of positive feedback by so many people of all ages and backgrounds over the course of 4 days makes it nigh impossible to not have been glowing afterwards. As well as the public, we received high praise from people from various professions within the industry. Our game even got a mention in The Guardian (the game’s “Wee Paper Planes”)
I want to make games. There’s now no doubt left in my mind. The reality check that was drilled into me over the past couple of years regarding the vast negativity that surrounds parts of the industry had kept some hesitation as to whether this is truly what I want to do. But I’d never experienced what the positive aspect is like. You know, people actually playing your game and even better, enjoying playing it. That is all I could think about as I talked people through the game. I felt like a rockstar. A really geeky rockstar.
After the high from Protoplay had settled, I took part in Ludum Dare 27, The theme was “10 seconds”. I got off to a tiring start: On the starting day I had jumped out of a plane at over 11,000 ft. It was awesome, but it took it out of me.
During the theme voting rounds, the “10 seconds” theme had gained notorious popularity. It was very likely it would win. As such I’d started considering what game would suit such a theme.
I came up with an idea for a platformer where the player has to collect a gem within 10 seconds. After collecting it, the level will change (and increase in complexity and thus difficulty) and a new gem will spawn.
I quite liked this idea, but after skydiving, I really wanted to do a game based around that. I had the idea to make it so the player has to count 10 seconds after jumping before pulling open their parachute. The closer they get to 10 seconds, the higher the score. However, If they try to open the chute after 10 seconds, it won’t open.
I still liked my initial idea so decided it would be a good idea to really push myself. I decided to do a collection of mini games. I felt two would be too few so I aimed for at least three.
I started off creating a framework to run multiple games. It went really well and it wasn’t long before I was working on my first mini game, the skydiving. Although the concept is quite simple, it wasn’t as simple to code to make it work smoothly. However I still managed this within good time.
During the time I spent making the skydiver, I came up with another idea for a mini game. One where the player has 10 seconds to find the toilet. There would be multiple rooms where the player can’t see into them until they open the door. I’d randomise it so that not only was the toilet in a random room, but also the doors are orientated randomly. This was the next game I worked on because it sounded like it’d be fun.
It didn’t take long to get the mechanics up and running, I had over a day left - I was feeling confident. I spend an hour or so touching up the controls on both games as well as replacing the placeholders with more substantial sprites. I then checked the time, it was less than a day. losing that “+1 day” made it feel like I had considerably less time and I still had another game to make. A platformer no less. I’ve had trouble in the past when trying to get the basics for platformers to work, namely the character movement and the platforms themselves.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have a stroke of luck where I could get these mechanics to work. It took ages before I thought I’d managed to do it, but I discovered that it didn’t actually work when I made a more complex level. I was even more dismayed when I saw I had 3 hours left. I didn’t want to submit something unfinished. I had to come up with another game that I could build in less than 3 hours so I had time to double check the game.
I decided to adapt the original game idea with a different gameplay mechanic. Instead of a platformer, it would play more like Helicopter (and Jetpack Joyride) where the player is in the air and falls to the ground and must use a rocket to fly back upwards. They can also strafe left and right and using these controls must collect gems within 10 seconds. I did manage to get this in before submission, however I wanted to add in obstacles to make it more challenging but I just didn’t have time.
As with my Ludum Dare 23 submission, I will be posting my results for this submission on this blog. Click here to go to my Ludum Dare 27 game.
I wanted to do more this summer; while I have done some work on an OpenGL framework and also read up some more on C++, I didn’t do nearly as much as I planned for myself to do. However, being realistic, this was my best summer break yet for working and improving myself.
I’ve a few weeks left yet before I start the Masters course at Abertay, so I’ll continue to work on the other things I wanted to do. I hope I’m ready to take on the course and that I’ve got what it takes to make it. Certainly I’d rather know through the safety net of education rather than on the job where it could have a more damaging effect.
Over the course of the first few weeks, there were a lot of back and forth discussions over the gameplay. In the end there were 5 stages of changes before a system emerged we could agree on. From this control mechanism, we thought of a feature to add that hadn’t previously been considered, which was to add in-game cut-scenes. The game we were making was a casual game for the tablet and mobile market. The control we settled on was a method where the player automatically follows a path but they can strafe along perpendicular to it. This allowed minimal controls but with more interesting movement. However, to make it easier and more intuitive for the player, the paths had to be quite straight. Therefore we decided to add cut-scenes that break up the straight paths and allow the players to admire the scenery more as well as give a better sense of flying, as the game features the player as a paper airplane. When beginning the implementation of this system, I realised the camera needed to have a dynamic zoom feature, not only to keep the player a decent size on screen, but also to make it look more action orientated. The camera, upon the player starting a cut-scene, flies to a predetermined pivot point. I later added in the ability to have multiple cut-scenes and this feature was able to be exploited to allow multiple pivots in a single cut-scene allowing for even more interesting shots.
The whole team worked hard and it was worth it in the end. We realised early on that we could apply to enter the Indie games festival which is part of Dare Protoplay (organised by the same people doing Dare to be Digital). We were pumped to enter, but it meant cutting our original schedule from 9 weeks of development to 7. But we went for it anyway, and I’m glad we did.
13,000 people attended Protoplay over the course of 4 days. Certainly it wasn’t that many who came to the indie fest as the it was poorly sign posted so not everyone was aware it was there!. However there were still thousands of people who attended our booth. I was delighted that not only was our booth almost always full, but also people were able to pick it up and play and almost everyone enjoyed it. Most of those who walked away only did so after playing the first level, which is intentionally simplistic as an introduction to the controls. It was mildly irritating however, they were drowned by the amount of compliments we received.
A selection of such compliments were:
- “Where is the box to vote for this game?” (there were boxes to vote for the 15 Dare to be Digital games, but not for the games at the indie fest)
- “This is the best game in here”
- “This is better than the games in the Dare competition”
- “This is the indie fest”
- “I need this game now!”
Receiving such a vast amount of positive feedback by so many people of all ages and backgrounds over the course of 4 days makes it nigh impossible to not have been glowing afterwards. As well as the public, we received high praise from people from various professions within the industry. Our game even got a mention in The Guardian (the game’s “Wee Paper Planes”)
I want to make games. There’s now no doubt left in my mind. The reality check that was drilled into me over the past couple of years regarding the vast negativity that surrounds parts of the industry had kept some hesitation as to whether this is truly what I want to do. But I’d never experienced what the positive aspect is like. You know, people actually playing your game and even better, enjoying playing it. That is all I could think about as I talked people through the game. I felt like a rockstar. A really geeky rockstar.
After the high from Protoplay had settled, I took part in Ludum Dare 27, The theme was “10 seconds”. I got off to a tiring start: On the starting day I had jumped out of a plane at over 11,000 ft. It was awesome, but it took it out of me.
During the theme voting rounds, the “10 seconds” theme had gained notorious popularity. It was very likely it would win. As such I’d started considering what game would suit such a theme.
I came up with an idea for a platformer where the player has to collect a gem within 10 seconds. After collecting it, the level will change (and increase in complexity and thus difficulty) and a new gem will spawn.
I quite liked this idea, but after skydiving, I really wanted to do a game based around that. I had the idea to make it so the player has to count 10 seconds after jumping before pulling open their parachute. The closer they get to 10 seconds, the higher the score. However, If they try to open the chute after 10 seconds, it won’t open.
I still liked my initial idea so decided it would be a good idea to really push myself. I decided to do a collection of mini games. I felt two would be too few so I aimed for at least three.
I started off creating a framework to run multiple games. It went really well and it wasn’t long before I was working on my first mini game, the skydiving. Although the concept is quite simple, it wasn’t as simple to code to make it work smoothly. However I still managed this within good time.
During the time I spent making the skydiver, I came up with another idea for a mini game. One where the player has 10 seconds to find the toilet. There would be multiple rooms where the player can’t see into them until they open the door. I’d randomise it so that not only was the toilet in a random room, but also the doors are orientated randomly. This was the next game I worked on because it sounded like it’d be fun.
It didn’t take long to get the mechanics up and running, I had over a day left - I was feeling confident. I spend an hour or so touching up the controls on both games as well as replacing the placeholders with more substantial sprites. I then checked the time, it was less than a day. losing that “+1 day” made it feel like I had considerably less time and I still had another game to make. A platformer no less. I’ve had trouble in the past when trying to get the basics for platformers to work, namely the character movement and the platforms themselves.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have a stroke of luck where I could get these mechanics to work. It took ages before I thought I’d managed to do it, but I discovered that it didn’t actually work when I made a more complex level. I was even more dismayed when I saw I had 3 hours left. I didn’t want to submit something unfinished. I had to come up with another game that I could build in less than 3 hours so I had time to double check the game.
I decided to adapt the original game idea with a different gameplay mechanic. Instead of a platformer, it would play more like Helicopter (and Jetpack Joyride) where the player is in the air and falls to the ground and must use a rocket to fly back upwards. They can also strafe left and right and using these controls must collect gems within 10 seconds. I did manage to get this in before submission, however I wanted to add in obstacles to make it more challenging but I just didn’t have time.
As with my Ludum Dare 23 submission, I will be posting my results for this submission on this blog. Click here to go to my Ludum Dare 27 game.
I wanted to do more this summer; while I have done some work on an OpenGL framework and also read up some more on C++, I didn’t do nearly as much as I planned for myself to do. However, being realistic, this was my best summer break yet for working and improving myself.
I’ve a few weeks left yet before I start the Masters course at Abertay, so I’ll continue to work on the other things I wanted to do. I hope I’m ready to take on the course and that I’ve got what it takes to make it. Certainly I’d rather know through the safety net of education rather than on the job where it could have a more damaging effect.
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