A regular game dev challenge?

Hi, I'm looking for a good regular (weekly, monthly etc) game dev challenge. I think my learning would benefit from being forced to try new genres or have constraints put on me. I'm sure when I first started programming a few years ago I saw a few challenges like this but it was too early for me to join in. The one I remember seeing pitched a general constraint or idea for a game each month and you could join in. Is anyone aware of anything like that?

I'm aware I can do this myself but I'd like to be pushed out of my comfort zone and also work on things I'd personally never have considered.

If you know of any I'd love to check it out, thanks

 

Consider joining some game jams
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=game+jams&atb=v94-3_f&ia=web

 

Like @Antypodish mentioned joining game jams is an easy way to get a challenge. Below is a link to the jam calendar.

http://www.indiegamejams.com/

 

I'd actually like to see this forum doing weekly dev challenges and the like. Think it could really bring back some of the old spirit of the forum. Thoughts, @zombiegorilla @hippocoder ?

 

In the past the past they have never worked. At least community led ones. Staff lead ones are up to the Community team. They have just had a staff change in that regard, so maybe it is something that will be on the plate in the future.

I have said before that I will support a community driven dev/jam as long it is something that the community is interested in and will participate in. So far nearly every attempt either nothing at all happens because no one wants to play (usually along the lines "too busy now, will do the next one!"... which never happens). or it ends up being just a one person devbloging... (which belongs in WIP or made with Unity).

And that still stands. If someone wants to do one, they can... provided it has community support and participation. This also means clear guidelines, short timeframe and decent organization and a reasonable target.

 

Is Ludum Dare still a thing?

Unfortunately this. The forums simply don't have the critical mass to pull something it off. Even the most well supported ones have only hit half a dozen participants. Many of which didn't complete the game.

 

Indeed. And there tons of jams going on all the time and whole sites dedicated to creating and managing jams and challenges. Forum software isn't really optimal for handling that kind of thing. The best and most practical option (apart from official Unity initiatives) is to find one you like and participate in it. Or create one and use their provided software to handle it. You can announce it here (and post the results), but use their communication tools for updates/devblogs. If there is enough participants and activity on that jam, I'll be happy to sticky an announcement for it.

 

I suspect, here is where discord like channels may shine more than forum, since all happens relatively fast. So more real time-ish interaction may be more adequate? And probably doesn't require registration to countless forums. Just a thought.

 

Totally, use the Unity discord, that is more of a socially chit-chatty ephemeral type thing, it is much better suited for that.

 

Yes. October 4th - 7th is the next competition. One of these days I need to take part in it.

 

Maybe the problem is that the scale of the efforts were just too large with too much of a time commitment. Maybe if we can target something small, like a specific kind of particle effect or something. Like an hour long commitment instead of a multi day commitment.

 

I think it needs:
- small well defined scope with limitations that inspire and a different theme each time (and I agree it doesn't always have to be a full game)
- small time frame during which can be worked on
- random irregular schedule, so that no one thinks "I'll just enter the next one in X days"
- a way to easily notify people of upcoming jams, like an email list or something (I'm sure some from the chat servers might be interested that never hang out on the forum)
- some form of incentivizing performance metrics, like a winner poll at the end and a leaderboard for most participations in the jams or something similar
- ideally prizes sponsored from asset creators (makes a world of a difference in participation rates)
- clear and unambiguous rules regarding use of assetstore content and asset re-use so that there are are no discussions on what's "cheating"

 

I think the comments from @zombiegorilla are on point though - the problem is participation. Every time the forum has tried to do something like this its almost always been an effort that would take at least like 10+ hours, and most people don't have time for something like that.

So I'm thinking a better goal would be a kind of stand alone element that could also be used elsewhere. Like a particle effect, an animation, a ui transition, or a lighting rig.

Something that might be kind of globally useful, mostly artistic and that can be accomplished in an hour or two and shared mostly with through images or short video clips.

 

If someone started a set of game jams again but this time registered them on the jam calendar on itch.io, we might see more users participate as well as see people from outside the unity forums community join in.

Anyway my 2 cents is that I think its a good idea, I have no idea how many would participate but I see a lot of smaller jams all the time on itch.io that only have 3-4 people join but still produce cool stuff regularly. Anyway who cares how many people participate, as long as its there people can join and have fun should they want