Those who have been following me on Twitter have been aware for a while of GBJam, an online games jam, and of course, I’ve been working on a game for it. Therefore as today marks the end of the third GBJam, this article will be a part-summary, part-showcase and part-post mortem of the GBJam.
GBJam Banner: Image from 2945 – Devblog
Over a week ago, I was at the LGAC 2014 at the Rocket Complex. Secret of Escape was shown amongside nine other amazing indie games, and it was a brilliant experience to see hundreds of gaming and anime fans come down to the indie zone to check us out!
The Animeleague staff were brilliant to work with, providing us tables and equipment if needed, we were invited to speak at the opening ceremoney and a Q&A on indie games development so we had plenty of opportunities to get involved with the attendees.
I also had a chance to play through some of the other indie games on show, including some watch worthy titles such as Kraden’s Crypt, Legena: Union Tides, Narcisistic and #Dungeon, as well as other titles with potential such as Bard to the Future, Playtanic and some current releases like Spelmy and Space Farmers.
Of course several people had a chance to try Secret of Escape, and were thrown back by the challenging gameplay. While there were some technical issues, it’s good to see a lot of people enjoy the difficulty and showed a lot of determination to finish the eight level demo, some of them even succeeding in the LGAC exclusive challenge of finding the hidden passage to win a random mystery Steam Game Key.
The original LGAC demo had a video and the hidden passage challenge which have been removed to provide a more closer experience to the released game.
Many thanks to Animeleague for arranging the Indie Zone, as well as the other indie developers, exhibitors, vendors and attendees for making the convention such an awesome experience, I hope to return next year.
Just a quick reminder of what’s happening this weekend (5th-6th July). I will be showing off Secret of Escape in the Indie Zone along with 9 other awesome indie game developers and their awesome indie games! Alongside us indies, there will be Capcom, Ubisoft, Namco Bandai and GAME in the gaming area! There is also lots of anime, music, TV, film and web related events as well, so it’s a weekend worth going to!
Under Maintenance – LD29 Jam Entry. Select the image to go to the entry page.
Here’s my post mortem for the 29th entry of Ludum Dare, also posted on the Ludum Dare forums. Enjoy!
So for this Ludum Dare, with the theme of “Beneath The Surface”, I decided to make a game where you work as a maintenance engineer who works between the streets and an underground train tunnel, this is Under Maintenance.
I wanted to get back into Ludum Dare because of how much I enjoyed LD27, however I was travelling out to see friends on Saturday so I had very little time to do a compo entry. However it didn’t stop me from working on a simple game, so I decided to put as much energy I can during my free time to bring you this busy micromanagement platformer. As such I appreciate giving your time to reading my post mortem, which includes a timelapse and tweets among other stuff and see how I managed to fit social events and my job into this Ludum Dare.
So the last month for me was pretty hectic, I’ve been updating some design elements for Secret of Escape and doing my software day job, both have been battling to take the most of my work and free time but I’m keeping at ease. ut also been doing some extra stuff. I figured that since it’s been a while since I posted on here, I figured I’d show you all the two main things that I’ve made, but till now have only been mentioned on either my Facebook page or Twitter.
So the basic story of this one is that a colleague of mine who also studies games programming was trying to work on his own A* Implementation as well, but was struggling on parts of the algorithm. So I figured I’d try myself, since I too haven’t attempted to write my own version for some time. My first attempt at it was back in first year University, and due to the poor resources I ended up giving up. It’s also very worthwhile that I at least get a working implementation done since Secret of Escape also uses pathfinding for some of the enemies.
After about two days of looking through online resources (I highly recommend anyone interesting in building their own to read this article) and help from some very helpful folks on Twitter, I successfully got a working implementation!
The source code is up online, the application was built using LibGDX but with a bit of tweaking the pathfinder and node classes could be used for other Java based engines. The classes are commented with all the steps for clarity.
This is a grid based puzzle game where you use commands and functions to control cars to get them to parking spaces. The game used three computers connected to a server so each player controlled a car. The purpose of the game was to teach basic concepts of programming, problem solving and teamwork, while adding a small message on environmental awareness. The game was made for a nationwide school event called Blue Fusion, which students from schools around the Hampshire area came to compete against each other by playing games like Clean Commuter in order to gain interest in science, technology and maths.
I was the project lead in a team of five, as well as the person responsible for the in-game graphics and most of the rendering using LibGDX. We worked on the game for over five months and we were able to complete the game in time for the week long event. Unfortunately, due to copyright and licensing, the game will not be available for download from me on any site, but I hope you appreciate these screenshots.
So after today, things should be slowly going back to normal. I should be giving a few updates on Secret of Escape within a few weeks or so, I’m also considering doing the Insanity Jam, which is a small games jam where you make a game based on whatever you receive from the random game idea generator with the Insanity option on for totally bizarre ideas. But for now I’ve got some work to catch up on.
Talk to you all later!
For another year, Global Games Jam has ended, and what a time was had at Stafford Campus during the event. After 48 hours of work we were able to pull off most of what we had hoped and it’s time for me to give you my report. I will explain what happened, what problems were faced and what we produced.
I hope everyone will be celebrating the new years like I am, 2013 was a huge year with loads of news and events going on within each week. And with the year coming to a close, it’s time for me to look back to see how far Gamepopper has come in this last year. Continue reading
Hope everyone had an awesome christmas and a happy new year! Just thought I’d do a late announcement on my involvement in the last weekend jam for GameJolt this year. I’ll be working on a game in HaxeFlixel, and see what happens. I’m also going to be Livestreaming it through Twitch, so go and watch me here!
Hello everyone! Hope you all are preparing for Christmas! I have received an early Christmas treat that I wish to talk about: the 2D Dynamic Lighting Tool, Sprite Lamp!
Hey everyone! If you’ve been following me on Twitter, you’d be aware that I was gonna take part in Ludum Dare 28. So now that the jam has come and gone and we are in the judging period, you are probably asking where the game is.
GAMEPOPPER 