November 2013 Theme

[Stephen Roantree]

Was great seeing people on Friday, and now it's time for the theme for November. This month the theme is:

Gods and Monsters

and as always it's 100% optional. There are so many great myths to pull from! The Minotaur would make for a great puzzle game. Hercules would be great as a WarioWare style game. Diana could inspire something Duck-Hunt-y. So many options! I should have time this month to actually make something, so I'm looking forward to digging through some fun myths to grab an idea :)

As always, feel free to post anything you're working on here. I know myself and Colm would love to see the stuff people are working on :)

--

Stephen 

[John Kelly]

Okay.

Right.

Okay.

Enough messing around. Going to FINISH my game this month. So I've got a multi-stage idea, which gives me multiple points for me to stick a fork in and say "done!".

In my game, you play Victor Frankenstein ("Franken-steen"). You've created a shitty monster from leftover parts. But the monster wants to be better, stronger. So the monster goes out and fights people he finds (or runs away from them if they're too strong for him). Because he's a shitty monster, he's not very strong and not very good at fighting. But if he wins, he can salvage the 'bits' of the people he fought and gradually improve himself by fighting and beating better people and using their parts to build himself up.

BUT!

The parts you choose affect the way the monster behaves. Take the eyes of an old person and your eyesight will be shitty and you won't be able to tell if this is a person you can fight or run away from. Take the arm of a sailor and it'll be a little drunk and won't behave properly. Take the arm of a gentleman and it won't hit a lady. Take the arm of a woodsman and you'll be really strong. Take the arm of a witch and you'll have some magic ability. Take BOTH arms of a witch and you'll have strong magic ability. etc. etc.

For this one, I'll be playing about with haxeflixel. Its docs are so much nicer than straight openfl and seems much easier to get to grips with. I was able to get a simple game up and running with it last night, which is a lot more than I ever did with nme/openfl.

[Colm Larkin]

Sounds really interesting John!

Great theme this month too, look forward to seeing more interesting games!!

A few dates for your diaries:

Gamecraft Unplugged (Sun 10th Nov, Science Gallery):
http://dublingamecraft.com/events/gamecraft-unplugged/

dubLUDO (Fri 15th Nov):
https://www.facebook.com/events/443336192439215/

Likely November 1GAM meetup date:

Thursday 28th November

(we'll confirm this closer to the date)

[Colm Larkin]

And another event coming up, a GameCraft game jam on Dec 7th!

https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/dublin-gamecraft-iv-tickets-9299740775

[Colm Larkin]

Also: dubLUDO is on tomorrow night from 6pm. I'll be bringing along my 1GAM-turning-into-commercial-game 'Guild of Dungeoneering' to get some feedback on the alpha version from players. Do come along and show off some 1GAM work - or just have a play with what everyone else has built!

https://www.facebook.com/events/443336192439215/

Note it is on in SixMinute's offices just off Camden St.

[Colm Larkin]

Yet another event for the diary, this is on next Friday the 29th Nov:

http://stateofplay.ie/

If you are interested worth signing up as it sold out last year

Kev - I haven't had a chance to try your game yet (no android device), got any screenshots or a video?

On Mon, Nov 18, 2013 at 9:37 PM, Kev <bergin...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi all. I haven't been very active around here lately, and missed a few of the themes .. the main reason is that work has been hectic, but I've also been working on something else that I planned on actually releasing for Android (and IOS later). I've finally got it in a state that is playable as a full (if small) game. I'd love to get some feedback off you guys (particularly on the controls and how intuitive you found it). There is an APK here.

I've loads more features I want to add over time (and improve the art) and also figure out a better difficulty curve, but anxious to get it out there and start iterating.

Cheers!

-Kev

[Jonathan Frawley]

Hey guys,

Been meaning to do a game for a few months and finally mustered up the enthusiasm this month.

My game is a simple 2 player game where you try to navigate Perseus from one end of a labyrinth to the other, while a minotaur chases you and sends you back to the start if he catches you. One player controls via the WASD keys to move Perseus, and the other player highlights the way using a spotlight as Ariadne. This pretty loosely follows the Minotaur myth (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minotaur#Theseus_and_the_Minotaur) with the notable exception that the minotaur doesn't get killed and Ariadne uses a giant spotlight rather than golden thread to guide Perseus. Graphics are super basic (art is HARD) so you'll have to really use your imagination.

The spotlight slows down the minotaur, so it can be used strategically if the player playing Perseus knows what lies ahead. I was hoping to build in a couple of more tradeoff elements into the game like having certain paths only being active while the light is in a certain position, but I didn't have time.

I made it in python with a swig-wrapped version of a basic 2D engine which uses SDL2, opengl, openAL and libpng.

Here's a win32 build of the game : http://static.9lines.org/ariadne_win32.zip

I'll add a linux and OS X build when I get a chance, but you might be able to use wine in the meantime to give it a go. I've tested it with an xbox controller + WASD keys, but you can also use the arrow keys to control the spotlight instead if you don't have a controller handy.

I'll bring it along to the meetup tomorrow with an xbox controller if anyone wants to try it out.

Thanks,
Jonathan.

[Colm Larkin]

Looking forward to seeing it in action Jonathan!