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Global Game Jam 2016

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Kiwasi, Jan 29, 2016.

  1. Kiwasi

    Kiwasi

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    Just thought I'd start a thread, since this starts in a few hours. Anyone participating? Its my first real jam, so I'm kind of excited.
     
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  2. Arowx

    Arowx

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    Good luck, have you done any online game jams like Ludum Dare?

    They would be good practice as you only have a few hours to do a game.
     
  3. TonyLi

    TonyLi

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    Good luck and have fun! I'll be finishing the next version of the Dialogue System, so unfortunately no time to participate. Remember to paper prototype; it's especially fun if you're getting to participate in a group, all of you sketching and shifting pieces of paper around in a chaotic, collaborative frenzy. :)
     
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  4. Arowx

    Arowx

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    Top Tip: Paper prototypes, super fast and adaptable!
     
  5. tedthebug

    tedthebug

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    Yep, this is my first global jam. I've done some local ones but not this big. I'm taking my prototype box (fishing tackle box with hex & grid paper, post it notes, scissors, game tokens of various types, blank playing cards, textas, pencils, pens etc.) since board & card games are valid entries if we can't code it in time.

    But, if we don't like the topic or have no inspiration we'll just use the access to the stuff to work on our own game :)
     
    Last edited: Jan 29, 2016
  6. SunnyChow

    SunnyChow

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  7. iamthwee

    iamthwee

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  8. Kiwasi

    Kiwasi

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    The theme is pretty good. We've got a decent concept up already. Will post more after Hawaii.
     
  9. Kiwasi

    Kiwasi

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  10. tedthebug

    tedthebug

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    We struggled to not do the obvious, came up with a couple of options we could possibly do (1 programmer, 1 designer, 0 artists) but got distracted making a board game, which is technically allowed. We'll tighten the rules & play test all day then see if we can knock out a 2 player game using one of the grid assets we own to speed things up, otherwise we'll submit the hard copy version.
     
  11. Kiwasi

    Kiwasi

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    We've gone relatively obvious and literal. Our gameplay should be pretty unique.
     
  12. SunnyChow

    SunnyChow

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    did everyone get the theme?
     
  13. tedthebug

    tedthebug

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    Well, we didn't play test all day. We play tested our board game in the morning (after leaving at a reasonable hour last night & starting again at 9), wrote up the rules, long lunch break, play tested the rules to make clarifications & corrections to them, then packed up & got people on breaks to play test our other board game we are working on that isn't related to the GGJ. Now I'm at home playing games & reading. Will head back around 9 tomorrow morning for a final polish of the rule set & to see if we can get some strategy people to play the game to identify balancing issues as neither of us are real strategists. We do have one mechanic, not triggered every game, that meets the criteria but just in case the name of our game matches exactly the theme word :)
     
  14. Kiwasi

    Kiwasi

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    Yeah, you can discuss the theme in public now. For the record it's 'Ritual'
     
  15. Aiursrage2k

    Aiursrage2k

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    That's a pretty cool theme. I'm thinking throw people into a volcano
     
  16. tedthebug

    tedthebug

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    We looked up animal mating rituals & came up with some pretty funny game ideas but with no artist on our team we went for a board game instead.
     
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  17. Kiwasi

    Kiwasi

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    A little obvious. But its nearing done.

    Build 01.png
     
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  18. iamthwee

    iamthwee

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    @boremormon, can you give a breakdown of time spent on graphics, music, gameplay/coding, animation, testing, once the jam is over.

    Looking good though, you're getting better with paint for sure ;)
     
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  19. tedthebug

    tedthebug

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    Looking good on Demon Days :)
     
  20. Kiwasi

    Kiwasi

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    Umm... Game jam...

    We had a team of two programmers and two artists. The jam was 48 hours, minus two nights sleep at about 6 hours each.

    Audio was done by the dedicated audio team. No idea on time requirements.

    Basic outline went something like this
    • Get theme 7pm Friday
    • Brainstorming
    • Prototyping start 8pm Friday
    • Prototype finished 1am Saturday
    • Sleep
    • Art production and intergration all day Saturday
    • Sleep (1x programmer did not sleep)
    • Play testing, juice and audio integration Sunday
    • Upload first version to GGJ 1 pm Sunday
     
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  21. Kiwasi

    Kiwasi

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    I'd like to take the complement, but my only role on the art side was intergration. One of the artists took characters, the other took the environment. I had some paint programmer art early in the piece. But none of that made the build.
     
  22. tedthebug

    tedthebug

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    Another jam down, now to recover before the next local one. One board game done, now to sleep & look at it again next weekend with a clear head to see if it is useful as an actual board game or a turn based strategy for PC/tablet.
     
  23. Kiwasi

    Kiwasi

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    Got a link to your game page? And everyone else that participated? I'm spending my recoup time just browsing some amazing creations.

    Mine is here.
    http://globalgamejam.org/2016/games/demon-days

    And here is one of my favorites so far from Melbourne
    http://globalgamejam.org/2016/games/elemorphis
     
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  24. tedthebug

    tedthebug

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    Kiwasi likes this.
  25. ImpossibleRobert

    ImpossibleRobert

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    That was really fun. We scrapped our vision of a massive VR online multiplayer experience but had a really good time nevertheless. Works in WebGL as well.

    http://globalgamejam.org/2016/games/mooo-ve-it

    We even got a little rap video going!



    Looking forward to trying out other games soon.
     
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  26. iamthwee

    iamthwee

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    When do the winners get announced?

    How did you find working in a team of four, and did it work how you imagine. How did you find a global comp compared to just a unity one, was the standard higher?

    At least when you're working by yourself you know what you're building/coding is going to interact with something else.

    For example your animation of an open door might have to sync with the sound of an opening door, at least when you're by yourself you do the animation to account for this (the door opening needs to last 1.2 secs as that is the length of the sound clip), how does it work when your workng with someone else and pressed for time, that person might be in another room.

    It must be strange for once not being, the sole sound engineer, animator, modeller, texturing and lighting engineer, gameplay and visual effects coordinator, at least that's what most guys here wear all these hats, including myself, lol.

    Did you have any takeaways, things you'd do differently next tme.
     
  27. Kiwasi

    Kiwasi

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    Everyone who uploaded by the end of the jam is a winner. You can check out the games on the site.

    Working in a team was surprisingly easy. We had version control set up before the jam. The artists were using a pretty dumb client (GitHub desktop). That simply required a commit and sync as each asset was finished. I had source tree which let me fix most merge conflicts. The other programmer was an expert on the command line. Most of the time things synced really smoothly. We did loose a few meta files if two people imported the same asset into unity at the same time.

    In general the team ran smoothly. We sat around with four comps on a single desk. Anytime help was needed there were people there. Anytime an asset was needed there was someone there. And vice versa.

    This one was better, mainly because everyone was in the same room. There was no excuse to slack off when others were waiting for your work.

    That said about 70% of the hammers on my site seemed to be using unity. That's not a real number, just my observations from wandering around.

    For the most part we coded our own systems. Breaking down our game:

    Me
    • People movement
    • Summoning
    • Marks
    • Points
    • Energy
    Other programmer
    • Devil movement
    • Rituals
    We both exposed a couple of public methods to let each other tie into our systems.

    Towards the end of the jam it became more and more hacky. Pretty much the entire game runs in the Update method of DevilMovement. It got nicknamed the Devil class, not because of the game theme, but because anyone working on it in the future is going to have a hell of a time.

    On sound we cheated. All of our sounds are longer then they need to be. When intergration we simply picked a start point that sounded about right, and turned the sound off once the animation had finished. Not overly elegant, but it worked pretty well.

    In fact, we used that timing hack a lot to just force thing to finish at the same time.

    For me it was great. Download some of my solo games, like pond wars or revenge of the ghosts. There was no animator, so there are no animations. There is no sound. Very basic art.

    One person can only have so many skills. Having all of the skills I needed to make a game within arms reach was awesome.

    • Controllers are really easy to integrate
    • We ignored every optimisation trick in the book. And the game still performed well
    • High score boards are a powerful motivator
    • Leave even more time for balance and tuning
     
  28. ScottyB

    ScottyB

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  29. tedthebug

    tedthebug

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  30. ScottyB

    ScottyB

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    Yeah, I want to try and find some time very soon to try a mobile port. Finding extra time is always an issue though.
     
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  31. Kiwasi

    Kiwasi

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  32. iamthwee

    iamthwee

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    Real time or reflection probes?
     
  33. Kiwasi

    Kiwasi

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    I'm more of a meta programming type of guy.
     
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