Global Game Jam 2011

Our second Global Game Jam was a mixed experience. The event itself was as fun as the last one, our team was a little bigger than last time. We had three coders, a game designer, and a graphics artist.

Last year we started the production of our game almost immediately but then we had a working idea we really liked from the start. This time there was a little broader limits of the game. It was about extinction. We didn't really want to make a game about creatures killing each other and committing genocide because there isn't really anything interesting or new in the idea. So we spent the first 4-6 hours brainstorming different ideas and in the end we started making two games.

The first game was a board game, it was supposed to use phone as a narrative device. Most of the game would have been interaction between the players in a world that had suffered a major catastrophe. Players are the last members of human species and the conditions they are in are getting worse turn by turn. In the end they all die. The game was called The Last. And due to me getting ill after the first 30 hours or so it was hastily turned into analog game. Cards replaced the phone but the main interaction was still the role-playing between players.

The other game was called Genos Locos. The Phone created a random specie that was unique to that particular game, and when the game ends either player pulls the plug(ends the game) or the creatures die away, the digital specie is gone forever. These creatures grew into a more complex form that consisted of about 10 tiles or cells. And the offsprings inherited genes from their parents. They would randomly mutate a little which would change the color or pattern on them. The goal of the game was to keep them alive as long as possible and in some ways direct the evolution of the specie.

What was disappointment though, we only had five minutes time to show one game, ten minutes total. These games weren't really up to be presented in that time and we barely had the time to explain the basic ideas behind the games. Maybe we bit more than we could chew. Maybe next year...

Long time no write

Updating blogs and such really doesn't seem to be one of my strongest points. Anyway, after last update I had work practice and we made some more games. I worked in a familiar team, the same I've almost always worked at, and we got our first game published! Our main development platform has been and possibly will be Windows Phone 7 Mobile devices. At least for now, and we are considering porting games on other platforms when time allows.

The game is called Break the aliens and it's out now for windows phone 7. It's a mix of breakout and space invaders and there is a trial available. I worked as a lead programmer in our team for the whole work practice and my main focus was the gameplay mechanics and overall code structure.

We also had a prototype of a rocket game that used Farseer Physics Engine. The goal of the game would have been to create a rocket as cheap as possible to get the payload to space. Project was scrapped because it didn't have much appeal as a game.

Latest project is still unnamed and it has been postponed time after time because of school assignments, that seem to take up way more time than I initially thought. But more on that on a later date.