June had come and gone without having produced my One Game A Month, and I was into the last week of July.. I needed to do something drastic. So I decided to have an impromptu one day gamejam a couple of days before the deadline. Work feverishly all day long and see what pops out the other end!
Make games. Not 1GAM logos.
A couple others from the 1GAM-Dublin google group joined in on the day and we got to work. Our theme for the month by the way was 'KAWAII!!!!'.
Since gamejams work so well for my gamedev productivity I've decided to take part in a similar monthly challenge: One Game A Month. The basic idea is to try and finish one game every single month – it can be something simple or complex as long as you complete something every month. There is loads more information at onegameamonth.com – I highly recommend taking part!
Make Gamedev Challenges. Not Excuses.
Not only that – but I've helped set up a meetup group for fellow 1GAM enthusiasts in Dublin, Ireland. We are going to meet at the end of every month to playtest each others creations and generally swap war stories. Our very first meetup was last night and was a great success! If you want to join us sign up to the 1GAM-Dublin google group. But what about my game for April? Read on!
I love gamejams. You and your fellow participants all crowd into a room and build a whole load of games in a day or a weekend, all with a common theme. It's a lovely combination of community creativity and enforced delivery. Not only must you all come up with cool on-theme ideas for games… but you've got to get something finished before the time is up! It's a great way to flex your game-makin' muscles, and it consistently surprises me how much you can get done with a bit of focus. In short it is an inspiring experience. Make sure you try one!
Sweet logo guys!
I recently attended Gamecraft, an excellent 12 hour gamejam held in Dublin. About 80 people turned up on the day, with the theme announced at 9am leading to 12 hours of frenetic game-making by all involved, followed by 2 hours of judging & trying out other people's games. Yum!
Are you trying to make flash games for a living, but having a hard time making ends meet? Have you made an engaging & fun game, then spent months polishing and tweaking it to perfection before releasing it onto the world? Maybe you got it right and it's a hit – it's been played and enjoyed by literally millions of people! Well time to sit back and watch the pennies roll in, my friend, because that's all you're going to be getting. This may sound alarming, but it's what most flash game developers have experienced using what I call the 'Ad Model' of monetisation.
All this could be yours!
We're building a fairly simple game featuring turn-based battles with fantasy units. This is the skeleton of the battle system I've devised – I'd love any feedback or comments anyone has to help me improve it.
The game is a turn-based tactics game where you start with a small warband of rookie units, then fight battles with them. Doing well in battles can improve your units, and give you money to expand your warband or improve the equipment of your existing units. It will be a single player game.
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Are you interested in game development? Are you just starting to make games (like us) and want to find out as much as you can about how to design, build and promote your game? Well then it's time to put on your reading pants and get stuck in! Presenting my list of the very best game development blogs around:
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Unfortunately we're not over in San Francisco right now for the 2009 Game Developers Conference which is happening all this week – maybe next year! However we have been following the coverage – there's been some excellent talks, many of which you can enjoy even if you weren't there. Here's my pick of the most interesting ones so far:
No matter how smart the AI, it's not the same as a human opponent!
As we design our first game we've been forced to look at the differences between how a single player game is played compared to a multiplayer (PvP) one. The goals of the player are often opposing, the rewards for playing are different, and how the player deals with setbacks is different. Since we are building a single player tactics game now but will later be expanding on it to deliver a multiplayer, PvP version this means we have to walk a difficult tightrope. We want the single player game to work and we want the gameplay to transition later on.
Our short term goal is to build a simple tactical turn-based game where you start with a team of rookies, and fight battles against the computer to progress. You can earn new skills for your units, and money to expand the team or buy better equipment in between battles. We also want to keep it as simple as possible so we can get a fully working game published and 'done'. Read More »
Itsa Money!
We want to build up this part-time game development gig into a successful business, so we have to think about how to make this profitable from the beginning! Here's how we are going to monetise the games we are working on – if you are a game developer (or thinking of becoming one) this should be very helpful to you too!
Wile E. Coyote, Super Genius
Despite being a Super Genius he never seemed to think his plans quite through. Here's hoping our bomb hits the target even if we sail on over the cliff edge!
We're going to make a turn-based tactics game, focused on multiplayer and with persistant units to allow more long-term growth and strategy.
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