Silly New Years 2015-2016 Jam

I was thinking of going for that but having a piece of string in the game

 

OP updated with donated prizes & categories.

 

Good luck, make sure you have fun

 

Fun? In a game?! Heck, it's 2015 games just need to be perty, have a message, be stupid/wacky, be a movie (or have several tiny movies) or even be a book. Of course, I guess all of these things could be seen as fun so disregard this. I was thinking you meant fun as in actually a fun gameplay experience.

 

Your right. Games these days aren't original. We- the Unity3D community- need to start pioneering the new games. I don't know if that makes sense Does it?

 

It's all about the meta

 

Well I think there is a lot of originality as far as variety. There are popular games these days that are stupid/wacky, more or less a movie, interactive books, sometimes they just have a message, sometimes they just look superb. In fairness, there are also many that have experimented with different types of game play. Indies have been trying out all kinds of different ideas.

For me I don't care for a lot of the Indie games because they just seem... well a bit weird really. And even with the Indies it seems like they are basically trying to take the path of the mainstream games. The whole "juice it or lose it" thing is a great example of that. That in essence is the heart of the AAA games. Now, I am not saying it is incorrect. Of course, it can often be good to jack things up a bit and make them kind of flashy. But it just seems to me this kind of thing is the path right back to the same old thing again. Focusing on flash and fluff over substance.

To me a great game... like a really fantastic game... is one that is a ton of fun to play and you become immersed in it even though the graphics may be simple letters of the alphabet, colored rectangles or just globs of programmer crap art. Yet all of the systems and mechanics are done so well they create a believable realm despite what you actually see on the screen. There are very few truly great games like that. Dwarf Fortress and Minecraft are sort of examples of such games where the focus seems to have been more on the game experience / world than flash & fluff.

However, SanctuaryRPG is probably the best example:

It seems like there are some devs who are beginning to take games nearly full circle. SanctuaryRPG is very much like games we'd play decades ago. The game relies on everything but flash and fluff to make it a great game.

It's something I have wrestled with for a long time personally. I have ideas for games to make with the focus being on everything except the flash and fluff and yet even I end up hiring artists or spending too much time tweaking graphics and then thinking about "juicing it" and so forth. And in general just wasting too much time on nonsense how things look, tweaking colors, tweaking animation timing and so forth.

If you really want to make a great game, an original game, I'd say focus on the most primitive presentation possible. Keep the flash & fluff ("juice") to a minimum and focus only on the game play experience. If you can make a fantastic game without relying on "gee whiz" FX and so forth that will be a game that has more of a chance to stand out I think. I also think you'll be a better game designer to be able to pull it off.

Of course, not everyone will agree with my views. In fact, it is quite likely most folks around here will adamantly disagree. But that is the great thing about opinions. We can all have them.

 

But only one is right (mine)

 

The awesome thing in a world with billions of people is that even the craziest dumbest idea will have at least thousands of people who like it.

 

And that's why I'm making a game about chicken.*

*: No really, I'm "serious" about that.

 

Did you know dwarf fortress had graphic mode (addon)?

Google "stonesense".

 

No but it doesn't surprise me. I consider DF and MC to be "kind of" examples of what I was saying because through the development focus has occasionally slipped from depth & interaction to flash. Such as the lighting upgrade in Minecraft and later higher resolution for the objects. But the heart of the games the core that was there in the beginning months was pretty spot on for what I mean.

It's just a very hard thing to resist. The flash. The juice. And it was that way even decades ago.

It is one of the reasons I like LD and other compos and jams. Generally people cannot afford to get distracted by flash & fluff so they pour their time into the actual heart of the game for the most part. And because of that sometimes in only a weekend we see some cool games.

Think of the epic scope of game world any of us could create if we simply focused on building this awesome game world instead of focusing on building this awesome looking game world. And "everybody" seems to be focusing on building awesome looking games these days so unless your game is truly absolutely stunning looking I think it is just a waste of time and energy that could have went into building an awesome game.

Anyway, I don't want to kill the thread with this kind of discussion. I was just replying to @armanb_21 basically that a great way to have some originality is to focus on everything else except for the flash & fluff. Don't be limited by what you can do graphically. I honestly thing this is the approach that will bring us some killer game sooner or later.

 

For God's sake make them free range Chickens and Turkeys

 

Make them Survivalist turkeys & chickens, living in a compound in the Appalachians.

 

45mins in, about to paper prototype. Only way it fits the topic tho is it is a new game from an old guy. I need to come up with a better hook.

 

My kin are from the Appalachians and that's life for them already, well the older ones at least. Nothing to do with escaping and surviving and everything to do with that's where they were already. But most, myself included, can learn a lot of interesting things from them, e.g. I had to ask what heffers, hoss, sows, lard, pokeweed, okra, chiggers, mountain oysters, and all manner of weird words were and about all these wild medicinal and edible plants these moneyed folk go gaga over.

 

Hey everyone! The Silly New Years 2015-2016 Jam is now underway! You can stream, submit, and see other works as they become available!

 

Okay Ill send a 1L Jug of Canadian Maple syrup to the most "polite game" whatever that means.

Edit: okay ted said it would be crazy expensive to ship that, and hes probably right anyway i guess ill think of something else for the prize

 

On a totally unrelated note I may just pay you to get some shipped over.

 

So I got a little distracted making pretty things yesterday. Not exactly the best idea when there is a time limit. But it was fun.

And by pretties I mean code pretties. Not art pretties.

But again if you are interested you can check out another progress build here.

 

I can't see anything boredmormon, do you have to install unity web player or something, and flash? A screenshot would be easier to see.

 

My magical talent for breaking things shines once more:

Spoiler

Code (csharp):

1.  
2. An error occured running the Unity content on this page. See your browser's JavaScript console for more info. The error was:
3. uncaught exception: abort() at jsStackTrace@blob:http://boredmormongames.com/4c19db59-78e1-4754-a108-0ad0c47a3058:1:22814
4. stackTrace@blob:http://boredmormongames.com/4c19db59-78e1-4754-a108-0ad0c47a3058:1:22997
5. abort@blob:http://boredmormongames.com/4c19db59-78e1-4754-a108-0ad0c47a3058:36:50121
6. _abort@blob:http://boredmormongames.com/4c19db59-78e1-4754-a108-0ad0c47a3058:1:188961
7. mFk@blob:http://boredmormongames.com/4c19db59-78e1-4754-a108-0ad0c47a3058:8:681740
8. oFk@blob:http://boredmormongames.com/4c19db59-78e1-4754-a108-0ad0c47a3058:8:698412
9. PC@blob:http://boredmormongames.com/4c19db59-78e1-4754-a108-0ad0c47a3058:23:265597
10. jRk@blob:http://boredmormongames.com/4c19db59-78e1-4754-a108-0ad0c47a3058:29:31179
11. invoke_iii@blob:http://boredmormongames.com/4c19db59-78e1-4754-a108-0ad0c47a3058:1:352919
12. zG@blob:http://boredmormongames.com/4c19db59-78e1-4754-a108-0ad0c47a3058:23:340409
13. iJ@blob:http://boredmormongames.com/4c19db59-78e1-4754-a108-0ad0c47a3058:23:417625
14. eE@blob:http://boredmormongames.com/4c19db59-78e1-4754-a108-0ad0c47a3058:23:295451
15. I_c@blob:http://boredmormongames.com/4c19db59-78e1-4754-a108-0ad0c47a3058:14:423228
16. OQk@blob:http://boredmormongames.com/4c19db59-78e1-4754-a108-0ad0c47a3058:29:28191
17. invoke_vii@blob:http://boredmormongames.com/4c19db59-78e1-4754-a108-0ad0c47a3058:1:348363
18. dE@blob:http://boredmormongames.com/4c19db59-78e1-4754-a108-0ad0c47a3058:23:293942
19. iI@blob:http://boredmormongames.com/4c19db59-78e1-4754-a108-0ad0c47a3058:23:377349
20. Cpk@blob:http://boredmormongames.com/4c19db59-78e1-4754-a108-0ad0c47a3058:8:470677
21. bbf@blob:http://boredmormongames.com/4c19db59-78e1-4754-a108-0ad0c47a3058:10:488106
22. $_j@blob:http://boredmormongames.com/4c19db59-78e1-4754-a108-0ad0c47a3058:8:177457
23. ORk@blob:http://boredmormongames.com/4c19db59-78e1-4754-a108-0ad0c47a3058:29:34585
24. invoke_iiii@blob:http://boredmormongames.com/4c19db59-78e1-4754-a108-0ad0c47a3058:1:358626
25. $H@blob:http://boredmormongames.com/4c19db59-78e1-4754-a108-0ad0c47a3058:23:373419
26. zu@blob:http://boredmormongames.com/4c19db59-78e1-4754-a108-0ad0c47a3058:23:86872
27. bib@blob:http://boredmormongames.com/4c19db59-78e1-4754-a108-0ad0c47a3058:20:294544
28. cEb@blob:http://boredmormongames.com/4c19db59-78e1-4754-a108-0ad0c47a3058:15:115165
29. SAb@blob:http://boredmormongames.com/4c19db59-78e1-4754-a108-0ad0c47a3058:15:29009
30. RAb@blob:http://boredmormongames.com/4c19db59-78e1-4754-a108-0ad0c47a3058:15:28606
31. g1a@blob:http://boredmormongames.com/4c19db59-78e1-4754-a108-0ad0c47a3058:16:570693
32. bzb@blob:http://boredmormongames.com/4c19db59-78e1-4754-a108-0ad0c47a3058:20:831945
33. TKd@blob:http://boredmormongames.com/4c19db59-78e1-4754-a108-0ad0c47a3058:9:42025
34. rRk@blob:http://boredmormongames.com/4c19db59-78e1-4754-a108-0ad0c47a3058:29:31932
35. Runtime.dynCall@blob:http://boredmormongames.com/4c19db59-78e1-4754-a108-0ad0c47a3058:1:6885
36. Browser_mainLoop_runner/<@blob:http://boredmormongames.com/4c19db59-78e1-4754-a108-0ad0c47a3058:1:206656
37. Browser.mainLoop.runIter@blob:http://boredmormongames.com/4c19db59-78e1-4754-a108-0ad0c47a3058:1:237169
38. Browser_mainLoop_runner@blob:http://boredmormongames.com/4c19db59-78e1-4754-a108-0ad0c47a3058:1:206552
39.  
40. If this abort() is unexpected, build with -s ASSERTIONS=1 which can give more information.

I can't make any sense of this, but just in case you can, I wanted to post it.

 

Those will go to a winner in category: "Best game name that is a palindrome or semordnilap"

 

If you could send me some real Canadian bacon, that'd be nice. I live down here in the USA, shouldn't be too expensive.

 

Ahhh, Canadian bacon. Canada's invasion of America, one heart attack at a time.

 

Thanks @mgear

OP update with the new prize category.

 

Hmm, that's annoying. Its a WebGL build. It works on firefox and chrome on my PC. I might set up a webplayer version instead.

The plot thickens. I also have no idea what that means. Nothing in that log has anything to do with any of my scripts.

Anyway here is a screen shot.


And try this link to see if you can break the webplayer version. Being webplayer it will not run in chrome. And as a general disclaimer, there really is nothing else in the demo that's not already on the screenshot.

Once I run out of days for the jam I'll throw up an executable.

 

I get it in Edge but can only do drag about the two dialogues at the top. The capsules do nothing.

And, oh wait, that's a cube and suddenly the capsules and cube can be selected and turn red. That's very slow on my computer but I think on a modern computer with university comparably internet bandwidth it would download and run very fast.

 

I didn't manage to break this one yet . But the right click context menu of the webplayer is getting in the way of the right click to attack function. Maybe you can turn that off for the webplayer.

 

You can. And its done now.

Now I'm starting to remember why I gave up on browser games.

So, any one else got any half clickable prototypes yet?

 

I'm just playing my first round of the paper prototype puzzle game that came into my head yesterday. It's damn hard to play, since I don't know how to do ai I just randomised stuff & I think I'm about to get my butt kicked by the dice. I also don't know if I will be able to code it as I'm not sure how to do some of it. I suspect it will involve while loops & if it does it will mean a lot of shutdown restarts as I get stuck in infinite loops
But, I'm still having fun, I think as silly as the premise is it might be a decent puzzle game.

 

Working on mine. I've got the bits of the UI set down and I'm working on the player. Today he's a cube, but soon, he will be a chicken. Then another bird. Then a pile of ashes. Then a chicken again!

...I could substitute the pile of ashes with a chicken leg or a chicken tender or even a chicken nugget...all interesting possibilities...

 

Or the ghost of a certain southern colonel?

 

Nah.

But, I did finally do something that will make @Aiursrage2k very happy - the Chicken game has 8-direction movement! It only took me five years to actually do it for once.



The logic sucks, though. I couldn't figure out an elegant way to do it.

Code (csharp):

1.     private void ReadControlAxes()
2.     {
3.         if (ControlManager.NoControlsPressed)
4.         {
5.             Motion.HaltEntity();
6.             return;
7.         }
8.  
9.         float verticalDirection = ControlManager.GetAxis(VerticalAxis);
10.         float horizontalDirection = ControlManager.GetAxis(HorizontalAxis);
11.  
12.         MotionDirection direction = MotionDirection.None;
13.         if (verticalDirection > 0.0f)
14.         {
15.             if (Mathf.Abs(horizontalDirection - 0.0f) < 0.001f)
16.                 direction = MotionDirection.North;
17.             else if (horizontalDirection > 0.0f)
18.                 direction = MotionDirection.NorthEast;
19.             else if (horizontalDirection < 0.0f)
20.                 direction = MotionDirection.NorthWest;
21.         }
22.         else if (verticalDirection < 0.0f)
23.         {
24.             if (Mathf.Abs(horizontalDirection - 0.0f) < 0.001f)
25.                 direction = MotionDirection.South;
26.             else if (horizontalDirection > 0.0f)
27.                 direction = MotionDirection.SouthEast;
28.             else if (horizontalDirection < 0.0f)
29.                 direction = MotionDirection.SouthWest;
30.         }
31.         else if (Mathf.Abs(verticalDirection - 0.0f) < 0.001f)
32.         {
33.             if (horizontalDirection > 0.0f)
34.                 direction = MotionDirection.East;
35.             else if (horizontalDirection < 0.0f)
36.                 direction = MotionDirection.West;
37.         }
38.  
39.         FormattedDebugMessage(LogLevel.Info, "Vertical: {0} Horizontal: {1} D-Value: {2}", verticalDirection, horizontalDirection, direction.ToString());
40.  
41.         Motion.RotateEntity(direction);
42.         Motion.MoveEntity();
43.     }

 

For the love of...

//mix of C++, C# and pseudocode

Code (csharp):

1.  
2. enum Direction = {SouthWest = 0, South = 1, SouthEast = 2, West = 3, NoDirection = 4, East = 5, NorthWest = 6, North = 7, NorthEast = 8};
3.  
4. int getMoveSegment(float val){
5.      if (val < 0)//replace with some "+-SMALL_VALUE"
6.         return 0;
7.      if (val > 0)
8.         return 2;
9.      return 1;
10. }
11.  
12. ...
13.  
14. int hDir = getMoveSegment(dirVector.horizAxis),
15.    vDir = getMoveSegment(dirVector.vertAxis);
16.  
17. Direction dir = (Direction)(hDir + vDir*3);
18.  
19. return dir;
20.  
21.  

Or just:

Code (csharp):

1.  
2. Direction directions[] = {SW, S, SE, W, DefaultDir, E, NW, N, NE};
3. return directions[vDir*3 + hDir];
4.  

If you really want directions to correspond to different numbers.

 

When the jam is over, I'll pick your brain on this. I actually did the math ahead of time with some other setups that I could not get to work, and settled on the brute-force approach when I noticed I was nerding it up.

I would love to hit on an elegant way to add up to two ordinal directions, to get either an ordinal or a cardinal direction.

 

I abused the heck out of enum extensions for directional handling in revenge of the ghosts. I used a turn left and turn right method to increment the direction by one (with an overflow to make it a full circle. I also added conversions to the appropriate vectors. Internally the logic looked a little messy. But externally it was all nicely packaged.

 

I've opted for a simpler, childish 2d game called Unicorns Eat Rainbows. Here is a screenshot using placeholder art that needs to be changed before I put it up as I don't own the rights to these (expect crappy art from me instead)



I'm still working on the puzzle game I had thought of but came across a snag when I reviewed how I played & realised one of the pieces was needed for the game but I hadn't made it a piece that was actually useful to use.

 

haha, very cute what do you have to do kill the rainbow?

 

Nah, just catch the colours as they drop faster & faster. If I get time I might have coloured buttons with numbers & you have to type the number of the colour of the ball you want to catch to change your horn to that colour first otherwise you can't eat it.

Sounds even sillier than I thought when I see it written out.

 

Something old, something new, is anyone sticking to the theme

 

I am. But, it's more like a guideline anyways.

 

Can noobs join, or do you need to have a bit of experience? And do you upload the binary or the unity project, if you have to upload the binary do you have to do 6, one for linux one for mac one for windows, and either x86 or 64bit builds?

 

It's open to anyone (I'm a noob, my games are all really simple). The idea is just have fun & knock something silly up in 7 days of work.

Gamejolt (where the jam web page is) lets you upload a web player build or a normal build (PC etc)

 

I really don't understand the web player build, can someone explain it to me. Do you need to have unity player installed, or is it guaranted to work in all browsers, what about high performance games, can they play properly in the browser.

 

Oh something to do with time travel

 

So Unity can be told to build your game in a few different ways; you can build it as an executable for certain hardware, or you can build it for web. There are two ways to build for web - WebGL, a new, somewhat experimental technology, and the Unity Webplayer, which is being phased out by WebGL, and pretty much at this point only reliably runs on IE, but is significantly more stable than WebGL.

In the Game Design forum, when we seek feedback we use Webplayers as a matter of course, so that we can play each other's prototypes without worrying about tech issues.

 

The only qualification is you need to make a game in seven days. That's really independent of your experience level.

 

Just remember that gamejolt webplayer windows aren't full screen as they run stuff across the top so you need to build it smaller, I've tried to stick to about 1200x650 or around that.

 

This is a big problem for me, I use linux firefox, or mac so anything IE is a non starter, especially if unity player only works reliably in internet explorer. I think webgl may work but my games isn't exactly light, playing it on the web would be unimaginable I would think. I'm screwed