#Metroidvania Month Jam

[rittzler]

i spent the last month making a 3d metroidvania for a jam!! and you can play it now! so go play it !!

https://rittzler.itch.io/pseudoregalia

[chromegnomes]

Metroidvania Month Jam Has Begun

and our project, Castletroid: The Hyper-literal Metroidvania, has begun production!

just whipped up an idle sprite and run cycle for Samson Armont, the intergalactic Draculoid Hunter. we're in business

[butterworthd]

oh god Im going to do my first game jam and it starts tomorrow and end next month on the 15th and AHHHH this will be my first like real game. Im scared but also super duper excited. The community with this jam seems super nice and stuff too. Im going to work solo because idk how well I will do. The type of game is a metroidvania game and omg im going to add some goooood bosses. The theme thing will be reveled tomorrow when it starts!

[ranarh]

"Dreamweaver" Game Art

March is Metroidvania Month (well, February and March) and I joined a team to cretae a sidescrolling 2D game called "Dreamweaver" for the game jam on itch.io Our theme was the struggles of a supernatural character named Aria who has to defeat the negative emotions she used to seal a child's dream with. I was on duty for background art and also did something like two animations, as well as voice acting (!) for an entire enemy. These are some of the pieces I created for Dreamweaver. Voting is open until March 29th and you can see and play our little gem here: https://coinbirdface.itch.io/dreamweaver

[unlostpixel]

Devlog #1 - February 2023

NOTE: This devlogs will work as a personal reflection and as development update, to both look back on my own progress and to share my story with others and hopefully they can find something of value too.

This was meant to be started last month, and it'd have been a very different devlog. The last couple years I finally decided to dive into development and at the same time, I started planning and writing a game and then I felt very insecure about it and just started over. I couldn't allow myself another failure so I tried my best in my next idea and I started working on it. I dived into several game engines, even though I felt pretty comfortable and kind of advanced with GameMaker, but I felt it wasn't giving me what I needed to tell my story. At the end of the day, I settled for Unity again (it was the first engine I tried) but now with more experience, I felt I could take it.

Then, I found a game jam that offered to pay to the winner the fee that Steam requiers to submit your game, and the theme was unusual magic. It instantly sparked something in me, because I knew I already had something for that: my first game idea was very compatible with that. I took out my old notes, and I felt the creativity taking over.

Unfortunately this story doesn't have a happy ending haha. I found about the game jam right in the middle of it, so I didn't have much time to work and at the end of the day, it was buggy mess but with a lot of heart. The screenshot above, is from that buggy jam.

But, with a resurrected hope in me and my original idea, I decided to keep going and polish this because it just flows better for me. It was originally a topdown action-adventure game, but I decided to make it a metroidvania because I think it really fits the story I wanna tell as well as the gameplay, plus, it's less animations for me to do since it's gonna have a lot of those.

I reworked my code from scratch, to have a cleaner, easier to use, and easier to add code. I made the state machine already and finishing up into adding the abilities I got in mind. I also developed a lot more of the lore, sidequests and NPCs.

The still-untitled game follows Ida into The Abyss, an unknown and dangerous land, to rescue her daughter. In The Abyss she encounters entities called Idols, who offer great powers, but everything comes at a cost. You have to give something away, sometimes items, sometimes other abilities, sometimes even parts of your own body.

She's Ida, the protagonist of the story and playable character.

[davidkneusel]

The Effort and Payoff of Independent Game Development

Independent video game developers have released a host of highly-rated, top-selling video games over the last decade. In some cases, teams of just two or three developers and artists produce games that yield hundreds of hours of content.

This was precisely the case with Hollow Knight, a Metroidvania released by Team Cherry in early 2017. Team Cherry was formed in 2013 as a duo: game designer William Pellen and art supervisor Ari Gibson. The two bonded over a love of classic Nintendo games and soon took part in various game jams and collaborative competitions in which developers attempt to make a game, usually with a specific theme, in just a few days or even a handful of hours.

Pellen and Gibson completed their first game together, Hungry Knight, as part of the 27th Ludum Dare game jam. The central character would become the protagonist of Hollow Knight but Hungry Knight was crude by comparison. The pair missed the deadline for a second game jam, this one with the theme “beneath the surface.” However, the theme sparked an idea for an abandoned civilization far beneath the earth, a location perfect for their knight character to explore.

Team Cherry launched a Kickstart for Hollow Knight in 2014. The campaign was successful but not so big, garnering $57,138 in contributions after an initial request of $35,000. The studio expanded modestly, hiring musician Christopher Larkin and programmer David Kazi. To the surprise of many, the small team produced a title on par with any AAA release.

Hollow Knight launched on PC in 2017 and gradually expanded to all major platforms. The central story takes roughly 30 hours to complete, according to gamer resources howlongtobeat.com, while a complete playthrough takes the average gamer nearly 70 hours to finish. Gibson hand-drew nearly 200 bosses, enemies, and non-player characters (NPC), each with dozens of unique animations, to say nothing of the game’s many diverse environments, also drawn by Gibson.

The small studio not only managed to release the massive game but launched a series of DLC accompaniments over the following 18 months at no additional cost to players. Team Cherry’s efforts paid off in both critical reception and sales. The game received a 9.4 from IGN, a 92 from PC Gamer, and has a 90 percent rating on Metacritic, indicating universal acclaim.

From a financial perspective, the game sold more than 500,000 copies on PC by the end of its first year. Hollow Knight sold 250,000 copies on the Nintendo Switch within its first two weeks. Lifetime sales had eclipsed three million by 2020, and the game’s popularity has expanded since then.

While the story of Hollow Knight is impressive, it is not necessarily unique in the world of independent game development. Cuphead is a 2D run-and-gun game developed by Chad and Hared Moldenhauer, brothers who pooled their resources to release their dream game. Like Hollow Knight, Cuphead has an instantly recognizable art style inspired by rubber hose-style animation from the golden age of animation, as seen in shorts produced by the likes of Walt Disney Animation Studios and Warner Bros. Cartoons. Chad Moldenhauer hand-drew all game assets, including Cuphead’s 31 bosses, a world record for run and gun games.

After development began in 2010, the game gradually expanded in scope. The studio remained small but hired a jazz musician to record an era-appropriate score. At one point during development, the Moldenhauers were forced to remortgage their home to continue financing Cuphead.

Once again, perseverance paid off. The game scored near-perfect marks with players and critics, joined Hollow Knight on several Best Games of 2017 lists, and was named Best Microsoft Game by GameInformer. Sales reached six million units in 2020.

Small game developers compete with AAA releases every year. As recently as 2021, the Game of the Year winner at The Game Awards was It Takes Two, developed by a small, Stockholm-based company that beat franchise games such as Resident Evil, Metroid, and Ratchet and Clank.

[cocoisindecisive]

im so excited for the metroidvania month game jam i feel ill. ITS GONNA BE SO FUN gagh

[goldcrest-game]

First Demo

A playable demo is out on itch.io.

Made for the Metroidvania Month 21 game jam.

[videobun-gameblog]

33 (oh no) Games I'm looking forward to in 2023 and beyond, including 2022 (and a few earlier) games that I missed

Games Releasing in 2023 onward I'm looking forward to most:

Oh my god, there's way too many.

Darkest Dungeon II: I need to play the first still, a game I know I'll like, I just haven't because I know once I do It'll take over my life for the month.

Nine Sols: Incredible souls-y sidescroller with a boss demo that instantly made me know I NEED this game. Very stylish, pretty, dark, and just sorta my jam wrt its aesthetics on top of its gameplay being pretty darn good.

Momodora: Moonlit Farewell: I assume this is coming out in 2023, though you never know with these indie projects. This is supposed to be the last game in the series, so this is a fairly big release!

Returnal (PC): Finally, I'll be able to play it. I no longer want a PS5 :x

Hollow Knight: Silksong: For all we know this could be another couple years out, but I'm holding out hope that 2023 is the year. The first game is extremely good.

Endless Dungeon: I've been playing the open dev betas and I'm liking how this game is shaping up, even if it's got some divisive changes from Dungeon of the Endless. That said, I'm hopeful it'll still be a fun multiplayer game for a couple months.

Wildfrost: Cool card game demo I tried out during a Steam Next Fest event, I think it'll be a good time.

Another Crab's Treasure: From the developer of Going Under, It's supposed to be a souls-y experience, so I'm hoping it can deliver on that, I liked their previous game even if it wasn't to all of my friends' taste.

Gunbrella: Another Next Fest demo I tried out, it's REALLY fun, the movement is extremely good and has high potential to go ridiculously hard if the level designers have the guts to go all out in the final release.

UFO 50: I have no clue if 2023 is going to be the year for this collection, but It's in the hands of Derek Yu and a handful of other very good indie devs, a collection of 50 dang games that's been in development for quite a while now.

Animal Well: A really stylish pixel metroidvania that I'm very interested in.

Hades II: I'm going to go out on a limb and say this is actually going to hit in 2024 (unless it's confirmed for 2023, I didn't pay attention) but I really enjoyed the first, Supergiant really never misses imho.

Skate Story: I'm not super big on skating games but I absolutely can't get over how good the aesthetic of this game is, it's, as the kids might put it, "a vibe".

Remnant II: The first Remnant wasn't really anything too special, but it was a fun low double digit hour multiplayer romp that I'd happily do again with some improvements, which is what I'm hoping this ends up being. It looks promising.

Enchain: ANOTHER Next Fest demo entry, this FPS has some of the most satisfying movement I've ever played around with in recent memory, with so much cool tech innately available to you that only gets revealed every few minutes, it's ripe for sequence breaking and speedruns. Absolutely keeping an eye out on this, even though I expect it to be done after 2023.

Lone Ruin: This will likely be one of the first games I'll get to in 2023, Next Fest really introduced me to a ton if interesting games, and this one is no exception. Isometric action roguelike twin stick shooter sorta thing with a cool look and a wave mode to boot, it's addicting, I know I'm going to like this.

Lies of P: Just a truly bizarre souls inspired game that, despite my skepticism, I can't help but be intrigued. The concept is goofy as hell, but I just have to know if it's good or not.

Replaced: I'll be honest I don't know enough about this game to be sure I'll be into it, but the Game Awards trailer caught my eye.

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor: Look, as little as I care about Star Wars as a whole, I really enjoyed the first game, so I'm 100% on board for this sequel.

Armored Core VI Fires of Rubicon: I hate to admit it, but I'm a bit of an Armored Core fan poser; I haven't really played any other Armored Core outside of dabbling in what I retroactively recognize as Armored Core at a friend's house ages ago, it's that kind of game for me. Still, I've loved everything Fromsoft has put out lately, I'm a budding mecha fan getting into all sorts of mecha media lately, it's time I really sink my teeth into one of these; honestly, I might play some of the older games before this releases to get a taste.

Earthblade: This is supposedly coming out in 2024, and it doesn't seem like a really intense platformer along the lines of Celeste, but I like the dev, I'm curious. I'm sure it will be interesting.

The Lords of the Fallen: Lords of the Fallen (2014) was one of the most mid games I've ever played, a fairly repetitive slog that I, for some reason, felt compelled to 100%. This is apparently under a new director/team (??) so this confusingly named reboot is something I'm cautiously optimistic about.

Final Fantasy XVI: I'm not really a big Final Fantasy fan, my experience is in the first two games. That said, the action of this game looks cracked, I can't deny. I'm interested. I know the writing for the series lately has been compelling, and the combat designer for this game worked on Dragon's Dogma and Devil May Cry V, so I can only assume this one is going to be nuts.

Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn: From the developers of Ashen (which was very souls inspired), this one looks like it's got more of its own identity which is cool. I also think it follows that game's lore?? Who knows, we'll find out.

Games from 2022 and earlier that I need to get to:

Norco: I just didn't have time to get around to it, narrative type games tend to get put on the back burner for me.

Citizen Sleeper: See above, same reasons.

Disco Elysium: See above, except longer standing.

Kentucky Route Zero: See above, and begin laughing.

Outer Wilds: See above, except with the context that I played an hour and just sort of forgot. I'm sure it's good, and I know it's short-ish, but here's my sort of hot take: the [spoiler, gimmick] is something I always thing is COOL in games but is never something I actually LIKE that much in games. I always feel like I'll find one that really clicks, but something about it sort of short circuits my brain and willpower.

Thymesia: A souls-y game that just sort of went under my radar and I couldn't afford and didn't have the time for

Hyper Demon: Partially due to lack of money and partially due to not being done with Devil Daggers quite yet

Signalis: I have no excuse - well yes, money. But aside from that, I know I should play it.

NieR Replicant: I just forgot! I own it, I just.. didn't have time!

[splashink-games]

Dev Log 6

I started the day by breaking the entire project :( by literally moving one folder.

In Summary:

painstakingly set up version control✔️

started the very clunky mess that is the first boss, I guess❔

made a triangle that shoots a diamond at the player (aka an enemy)❔

a satisfactory dash move (comes with i-frames)✔️

so here's your daily dev log story time:

I had the fantastic idea of organizing some files and putting them in the right places. this doesn't usually cause too many problems, and so far, none project-breaking. here's me moving my "Templates" folder into my "Scenes" folder and good lord was that a mistake.

and so I saw absurd error/warning messages like

for a moment, I thought I'd need to remake the entire map, but I just moved the folders back and it worked?? I can't recover what was lost in BoardEnemy (RIP) but at least it's not too detrimental since I made all those templates yesterday

anyways, that gave me reason to listen to my "Consider Git" note on my whiteboard and finally set up the version control. took me a hot minute to decide how exactly to do it, and after realizing that the GitHub addon didn't even work, resorted to using GitHub Desktop (so that I didn't have to use the web version + the web version has a 100 file restriction and I couldn't upload the Dialogic addon)

with that out of the way, let me tell you about some enemies that I'm still struggling with. the boss is still clunky and it doesn't do anything except sit there all pretty with its polygons, but it's a start. the logic is pretty much ready, it just doesn't have any actions

the other enemy (that I've tentatively named "BirdEnemy" for lack of an actual idea of what it is) is basic and "functional". it sees the player, it shoots a projectile and the projectile can hurt the player.

of course, the bullet apparently doesn't wanna target properly, but that's something to fix for next time

oh yeah, and I made a dash ability

Coming Up:

more boss work

more enemy work

not much else because I want enemies to be good

[slushrushed]

Some animations I did for Metroidvania Month Jam 15! From left to right, top to bottom are the Mimic protagonist’s idle animation, damage animation, dash animation, and projectile fire animation, followed by an idle and attack animation for a boss!

[chromegnomes]

signed up for the Metroidvania Month jam in a few weeks here. time to actually follow through on making a Videoed Game

[retphienix]

*slamming table louder each time chanting* bad ending get

Bad ending get

BAD ENDING GET!

@gamesception I have to thank you for the recommendation because while Hollow was on my radar, it wasn’t a game I fully planned on playing purely because, if I haven’t beat the darn horse dead already, it’s not a genre I’d consider a forte of mine.

I’m thankful as all hell to you for that little push, and I apologize in advance for this:

I probably won’t be going all in for bonus content and all the endings despite the world and story having its hooks in me MORE than enough to warrant me attempting to muscle through.

Fact of the matter is- I suck at this genre. Give me a 3d souls game or a shooter or a tactical RPG or most RPGs for that matter and I’ll piledrive through because those are my jam and I can more naturally adapt to increasing difficulty because those are genres I’m acclimated to.

2d action platformers? I’m so trash I can’t beat a sonic without save states and mario is honest to god a hardcore challenge for my hands.

Now I do love the genre and trying my hand at improving- and this was a 11 out of 10 experience for that that genuinely didn’t have a low point despite any gripes I mentioned (even Nosk).

But knowing that the games post-release content aimed for more challenge- knowing that the other endings (after beating it I looked em up because I am pretty decided) require additional bosses and a real final boss- I know enough to know it’ll take ages for me to accomplish that.

And maybe I will at some point, because my god, I’m hooked both on the reward of playing and on the story, but as for the blog’s inclusion I think we’re done here outside of a potential post gushing in friggin 10 years time when I sit down and return to this gem.

I really really ended up loving this, not that I truly doubted that. But I really did have, I don’t know, lesser expectations for how the world would hit me. I’ve just seen a lot of games attempt to replicate the souls world building before and they come off as just desperately copying or otherwise lacking heart- this though? This genuinely holds its own flame.

From exploring the environment to talking with the denizens, to the bosses, to the fully verbalized plot- it’s apt that the characters are bugs because it got its hooks in me for certain.

Reading through the wiki post-credits and watching the alternative endings I’m left even more enthralled on that end.

I mean, they really had the dedication to make this bleak world end truthfully instead of copping out and giving you a glitz and glamour happy true ending possible- huh? And I love that shit.

That’s the kind of stuff that hits your heart upon completion and makes you think about the game for months after you stopped holding the controller.

That’s the stuff that makes you sit back and consider what a happy ending would be, what all the things that are left ambiguous actually turned out to be and potentially inlay those as things that make the post-ending better or worse for those you met along the way.

That’s the shit that shows a story well told, start to finish.

And I’d have just as soon skipped it entirely and thought of this as “That one soulslike that’s 2d and I heard was good” instead of what I will get to hold onto now. Thanks again, sincerely :) Game story means a lot to me, as well as the overall experience a game can lend you and allow you to expand on for yourself- all those pieces that make what you get from a game unique and individual despite the mass product-ibility of the game itself.

That means loads and you let me see a great deal here :)

Enough of that.

Hollow Knight.

This is usually where I ramble about flaws or gems in the game despite how silly I think that can be since every game has both and I almost always emphasize one or the other when I don’t mean to lol.

So Hollow Knight. It shoves some features that don’t feel right in a metroidvania. It has a world that doesn’t ENTIRELY properly mold to the exploration of a metroidvania (too much is unlocked with single upgrades, it more or less becomes an entire map of free reign and near equally difficult areas with single rooms barred off until you get things like the shade dash).

It falters on base game difficulty on occasion because of the ‘we accidentally made the metroidvania map too open too quickly’ thing.

And despite any of that it ended up playing like a wonder all the way through lol.

God, some of those bosses will stick with me just because of how perfectly balanced they felt like the manti or either Hornet fight.

And yet my takeaway will remain the story and world. They really pulled out the stops and went for it and created a world that feels so utterly unique. What an ingenious design decision to make everything insect themed, it gives the world an alien feel that I certainly haven’t felt before. And it’s incredible to me how a game that is more or less gray for the length of the gameplay felt so full of color and artistic expression.

The zones have so much life through the land itself despite the plague-like infection and corpses everywhere. The Fog with its bubbles will definitely stand out there.

I’m wrapping up and doing a terrible job of it and all that’s going through my head is “Those endings, the ambiguity of Hornet’s outcome or even the truth of how the knight persists or entirely dissolves in the flower extended ending since in the others he either becomes the new vessel or perishes. I can’t stop dwelling on that world I’ve explored in those context.”

and

“I should write fanfiction” followed by “Do not do that you have not explored 100% of the game and you’re obsession with details will kill you in attempting that, stick to writing your darn (as of now) OneShot game fanfiction instead you dolt”

This was good. Very good. I’m sorry to sort of blanket it out with such a simple statement but honestly, I couldn’t do it justice, so I’ll say it plainly. This is a good game and I’m happy to have played it :)

[ranarh]

Dreamweaver game assets

Two sheets of 2D game assets I made for the small game "Dreamweaver", a contribution to the Metroidvania Month '24 game jam over on Itch.io. There were a total of five areas, three of which were the intro and outro and the final boss arena, which I decided to do in a graphic look - one abstract background and platforms made from text.

For Envy, I made use of Krita's wonderful colouring functions and overlaid my own watercolour textures for an art nouveau look. Paranoia's swamp was created by painting roughly with Painter's oil brushes and using its paper textures. Not seen here, but for the final area I also created nozzles in Painter to paint with pictures, to quickly create a Klimt-esque look of many loosely painted graphic elements.

Not all were used in the final game since jams have tight deadlines, but most made it. You can see the game backgrounds on my Artstation https://www.artstation.com/artwork/n0ko9r my UI work on this project at https://www.artstation.com/artwork/rJQl6E and play the game at https://coinbirdface.itch.io/dreamweaver

[blubberquark]

Seven Types of Game Devs And The Games They Make

The Computer Science Student

The computer science student had to write a game for class in the fourth semester. The game must demonstrate OOP design and programming concepts, and solid grasp of C++.

This game is written not to be fun to play, but to demonstrate your skill to the professors - or to their poor assistants who have to read the code and grade the accompanying term paper. The core loop of the game is usually quite simple, but there are many loosely connected mechanics in there that barely don’t really fit. For example, whatever the core gameplay is, there could be birds in the sky doing some kind of AI swarm behaviour, there could be physics-enabled rocks on the floor, there could be a complicated level and unit editor with a custom XML-based format, and all kinds of weird shaders and particle effects.

And with all this tech infrastructure and OOP, there are just two types of enemies. That’s just barely enough to show you understand how inheritance works in C++.

The core gameplay is usually bad. Un-ergonomic controls, unresponsive game feel, flashy yet impractical 3D GUI widgets make it hard to play - but not actually difficult to beat, just unpleasant. The colours are washed-out, and everything moves a bit too slow. There is no overarching design, the moment-to-moment gameplay is not engaging, and the goal feels like an afterthought.

But that’s ok. It is to be expected. The professors are CS professors. They (or rather their assistants) don’t grade the game based on whether the units are balanced, whether the graphics are legible, or whether the game is any fun at all. They grade on understanding and correctly applying what you learned in class, documentation, integration of third-party libraries or given base code, and correct implementation of an algorithm based on a textbook.

The CS student usually writes a tower defense game, a platformer, or a SHMUP. After writing two or three games like this, he usually graduates without ever having gotten better at game design.

The After-Hours Developer

The after hours programmer has a day job doing backend business logic stuff for a B2B company you never heard of.

This kind of game is a labour of love.Screenshots might not look impressive at first glance. There is a lot going on, and the graphics look a bit wonky. But this game is not written to demonstrate mastery of programming techniques and ability to integrate third-party content, tools and libraries. This game was made, and continues to be developed, because it is fun to program and to design.

There is a clear core loop, and it is fun and engaging. The graphics are simple and functional, but some of them are still placeholder art. This game will never be finished, thus there will always be place-holders as long as the code gets ahead of the art. There is no XML or cloud-based savegame in there just because that is the kind of thing would look impressive in a list of features.

More than features, this games focuses on content and little flourishes. This game has dozens of skills, enemies, weapons, crafting recipes, biomes, and quests. NPCs and enemies interact with each other. There is a day-night cycle and a progression system.

While the CS student game is about showing off as many tech/code features as possible, this kind of programmer game is about showing off content and game design elements and having fun adding all this stuff to the game.

This game will be finished when the dev gets bored with adding new stuff. Only then, he’ll plan to add a beginning and an ending to the game within the next six months, and go over the art to make it look coherent. The six months turn into two years.

The after-hours developer often makes RPGs, metroidvanias, or rogue-like games. These genres have a set of core mechanics (e.g. combat, loot, experience, jumping) and opportunity for a bunch of mechanics built around the core (e.g. pets, crafting, conversation trees, quest-giving NPCs, achievements, shops/trading, inventory management, collecting trinkets, skill trees, or combo attacks).

The First-Time Game Jammer

The first-time game jammer wants to make his first game for an upcoming game jam. He knows many languages, but he does a lot of machine learning with torch7 for his day job, so he has decided to use LÖVE2D or pico-8 to make a simple game.

This guy has no training in digital art, game design, or game feel. But the he has a working knowledge of high-school maths, physics, and logic. So he can write his own physics engine, but doesn’t know about animation or cartoon physics. He doesn’t waste time writing a physics engine though. He just puts graphics on the screen. These graphics are abstract and drawn in mspaint. The numbers behind everything are in plain sight. Actions are either triggered by clicking on extradiegetic buttons or by bumping into things.

The resulting game is often not very kinetic or action-oriented. In this case, it often has a modal/stateful UI, or a turn-based economy. If it is action-oriented, it could be a simple platformer based around one core mechanic and not many variations on it. Maybe it’s a novel twist on Pong or Tetris.

The first-time game jammer successfully finished his first game jam by already knowing how to program in Lua, copying a proven game genre and not bothering to learn any new tools during the limited jamming time. Instead, he wrote the code to create every level by hand, in separate .lua files, using GNU EMACS.

The Solo Graphic Designer

The graphic designer has a skill set and approach opposite to those of the two programmers described above. He is about as good at writing code as the programmer is at drawing images in mspaint. The graphic designer knows all about the principles of animation, but has no idea how to code a simple loop to simulate how a tennis ball falls down and bounces off walls or the ground. He used to work in a team with coders, but this time he wants to make his own game based on his own creative vision.

The graphic designer knows all about animation tools, 3D modelling, composition. He has a graphic tablet and he can draw. He knows all about light and shade and gestalt psychology, but he can’t write a shader to save his life.

Naturally, the graphic designer plays to his strengths and uses a game engine with an IDE and a visual level editor, like Unity3D, Construct, or GameMaker.

The graphic designer makes a successful game by doing the opposite of what the coder does, because he does it well. The screenshots look good, and his game gets shared on Twitter. He struggles writing the code to aim a projectile at the cursor in a twin-stick shooter, but we live in a world of Asset Stores and StackOverflow.

The resulting game is a genre-mixing thingy full of set pieces, cut scenes, and visual-novel-style conversations. The actual gameplay is walking around and finding keys for locks, but it’s cleverly recontextualised with a #deep theme and boy does it look pretty.

The Engine Coder

The engine coder is like the CS student on steroids. He has nothing to prove. He knows his C++. He lives in a shack in Alaska, and pushes code to GitHub over a satellite connection. He also knows his Lua, C#, Python, and Haskell. The engine coder writes a physics engine, particle system, dialogue engine, planning-based mob AI, savegame system, a network layer and GUI widget library.

He has written five simple demos for the engine: A first-person walking simulator, a third-person platformer, a very pretty glowing orb swarm shader thingy, a non-interactive simulation of a flock of sheep grazing and a pack of wolves occasionally coming in to cull the herd with advanced predator AI, and a game where you fly a spaceship through space.

Somebody comments in the forums that it’s hard to even write Pong or Tetris in the engine. The Engine Coder is more concerned with optimising batched rendering and automatically switching LoD in the BSP tree so you can land on planets in space without loading screens.

The Overeager Schoolboy

The schoolboy has an idea for a game. He saves his money to buy Game Maker (or RPG Maker) and tells his all friends about his amazing idea. Then he makes a post about it on tumblr. Then he makes a sideblog about the game and posts there too, tagged #game development.

Unfortunately, the schoolboy is 15, and while he is talented, he doesn’t really know how to program or draw. He’s good at math, and he can draw with a pencil. Unfortunately, he wants to learn digital art, level design, and programming all in one go. He already knows all the characters for his game, and he writes posts about each of them individually, with pencilled concept art and flavourful lore.

Even more unfortunately, our schoolboy is hazy on how big the game is actually going to be, and what core mechanic the game should be based around.

After designing sprite sheets and portraits for ten characters you could add to your party, plus the Big Bad End Boss, he realises that he has no idea how to get there, or how to make the first level. He starts over with another set of tools and engine, but he doesn’t limit his scope.

In an overdramatic post two months later, he apologises to the people who were excited to play the game when it’s done. A week later he deletes the tumblr. He never releases a playable demo. He never gets constructive feedback from game developers.

The Game Designer’s Game Designer

The game designer’s game designer is not exactly a household name, but he has done this for a while. While you have never heard of him, the people who made the games you like have. All your favourite games journalists also have. Through this connection, many concepts have trickled down into the games you play and the way your friends talk to you about games they like.

The game designer’s game designer has been going at this for a while. When he started, there was no way to learn game design, so he probably studied maths, psychology, computer science, industrial design, or music theory.

The games fall outside of genres, and not just in the sense of mixing two genres together. They are sometimes outside of established genres, or they are clearly inside the tradition of RTS, rogue-likes or clicker games, but they feel like something completely new.

The games of the game designer’s game designer are sometimes released for free, out of the blue, and sometimes commissioned for museums and multimedia art festivals. Some of them are about philosophy, but they don’t merely mention philosophical concepts, or use them to prop up a game mechanic (cloning and transporters, anyone?). They explore concepts like “the shortness of life” or “capitalism” or “being one with the world” or “unfriendly AI” through game mechanics.

But they also explore gameplay tropes like “inventory management“ or “unidentified magic items“ or “unit pathfinding“.

Sometimes bursts of multiple games are released within weeks, after years of radio silence. Should you ever meet the game designer’s game designer, you tell him that you got a lot out of the textbook he wrote, but you feel guilty that you never played one of his games. So you lie and tell him you did.

[donutknightgames]

Mini Jame Gam 8 has begun!

The jam (or jame) has started and the theme has been released. I had to laugh; it’s magic & bottle. They’re really into their potions at the moment apparently. 

As it’s fairly late in the night I decided I wanted to create a rough concept tonight and sleep on it, ready to start proper game creation tomorrow. I followed the same process as last time and so far I’m finding it works wonderfully. I created a mind map beginning with the two words, magic and bottle, and branched out from them with whatever came to mind. After about ten minutes of brainstorming I had three ideas I think sound pretty fun. 

Players will be tasked with remembering lots of patterns as the complexity and speed they’re required increases. This intends to create a overwhelming, frantic challenge. Thematically, this will be depicted as a potion maker attempting to fulfil orders (perhaps not as qualified as they claimed to be). 

Players will need to strategically choose who to help as they dodge through the crossfire of a tense, epic battle to reach them. Thematically, this will be shown as a healer helping their teammates during a fantasy boss fight, likely against a dragon of some sort.  

Players will be tasked with protecting a fragile potion of powerful magic. They’ll need to carefully deliver it to it’s destination whilst avoiding the many unobservant and reckless students practicing magic. I feel like this has potential for a humorous and tense game of egg and spoon with far greater stakes. 

I’m going to decide in the morning which one I like most after some rest but I feel all carry potential. I’m leaning away from the first simply because I feel it’s too similar to the game I just made for Metroidvania Month Jam but that could be a good thing given the short time limit. 

I said in my last post that budgeting my time is going to be vital to my success, so I’m going to make a list of all the things I want to have done by the end and mark how long I think each task will take. I’m then going to fill my time limit budget (of realistically 18 hours) with the tasks I see as most important and set aside the others as a list of potential features. I’m hoping this will allow me to more fully realize the project. 

I’m also determined to make music for this one! I didn’t get to do any sound last time and that’s one of the things I enjoy most. It’s definitely going in my time budget.