I’ve submitted games for 6 LDs and participated in plenty of other game jams. Currently I’m working on a card game project with artist @fell_martins and he informed me he hasn’t participated in a game jam before. So we decided to team up and make something over the weekend. We’re planning to make a small game and hopefully finish most of it in a day.

• Engine: Unity 4.6 beta Pro (C#)
• Graphics: Photoshop, Blender
• Audio: bfxr, MasterAudio plugin, maybe outside help
• VCS: svn

Fellipe’s warm up sketches from this morning.

The Side Factor is a local 2 player turn based strategy game. It explores the idea of creating a strategy game with a minimal number of unit types, in this case only 1. The core mechanic is shooting through things.

What went right

1. Paper prototyping – We used a Chess board and some folded pieces of paper to iterate over the concept of shooting through things. Originally we played with a rule that you could capture enemy pieces by straddling it on both sides and shooting through it. That was abandoned in favour of gameplay where players never lost any pieces.
2. Audio design – One of the reasons why I entered the jam instead of the compo was to work with a fantastic audio designer, Gordon McGladdery. I spent a lot of time implementing it and adjusting the animations so it felt right.
3. Visual design & polish – Gameplay was completed on Sunday so I spent all of Monday polishing it. It’s one of the prettiest games I’ve made in a game jam. Below is a series of progress shots from the end of Saturday, Sunday, and Monday.

What went wrong

1. The Theme – Minimalism is not a great theme when you assemble a team ahead of time to create a highly polished game. Instead of focusing on aesthetic minimalism we tried to explore it through gameplay. When I created the instructions on the website I realized even though there was one unit type the rules weren’t that compact.
2. Playtesting – It’s really difficult to playtest a 2 player game by yourself and writing an AI was out of the question.
3. Publishing on Android – One of my goals was to release this on the Google Play store. It runs surprisingly well on my Nexus S but still needs some optimizations, buttons need to be bigger, and support for different aspect ratios. It’s still in the cards but a post jam version with playtesting and tweaks instead.

Play Now (Unity web – Mac/Win/Linux binaries too!)

I usually enter the compo but this time I want to use non-free Unity plugins and try collaborating. I’m going to work with Samppa Raski for art and Gordon McGladdery for audio. It depends on the idea we come up with but I might try integrating the Leap Motion as an optional control scheme or aim to release it for free on the Google Play store for Android.

• Engine: Unity (C#)
• Plugins: RagePixel, iTween, NGUI for 2D/UI, TNet for networking
• Art (if I’m doing art): Photoshop, Blender, Paper by Studio 53 for sketching
• Misc: Wacom Graphire 2, whiteboards, Leap Motion dev kit, Nexus S

In Empire Reclaimed you play as a race of conquerors who have returned to an empire they abandoned centuries ago. Command Cortex Transport ships and deploy your fighters to decimate cities.

Linux build available too!

I’m looking forward to participating again. I’d like to try my hand at making a 3D game this time but it will depend on my idea. Otherwise I’ll use RagePixel. I’ll be tweeting about my progress, follow me @ericraue. I’m looking forward to playing some amazing games.

• Engine: Unity 4
• Plugins: RagePixel, iTween
• Language: C#
• IDE: MonoDevelop
• Art: Photoshop, Blender, Paper by Studio 53 for sketching
• Sound: Audacity, bfxr, GarageBand, cheap microphone
• Misc: Wacom Graphire 2, iPad, whiteboards

Here’s what my setup looks like. Not pictured are two large whiteboards.

I made a Christmas version of the kitten icon if anyone wants to use it.

I didn’t finish everything I wanted and a couple issues near the end forced me to comment out some features. The core idea is you interact with your spaceship by touching individual blocks and you can combine them together by using button blocks. Click the image below to check it out. (requires the Unity web plugin)

It’s about time I posted something. The concept is building a ship out of parts you find in space like Captain Forever except controls need to be jury rigged by the player. You steer the ship by clicking on individual thruster blocks. Buttons can be connected to interactive blocks like thrusters to fire all at once through the circuit edit mode. I also planned to add survival elements with habitat modules but that’s unlike at this point.

I’ll be participating in two game jams at the same time. The other one is the Orcajam located in Victoria British Columbia, Canada.  I’ll probably team up with people at the event so I’ll participate in the jam instead of the compo this time. As for tools I’ll probably go with Unity but I might give the LOVE 2D engine a try instead.

• Engine: Unity 3D (C#)
• Unity Plugins: RagePixel, iTween and NGUI (Maybe Futile instead of RagePixel)
• Audio: bfxr, audacity
• Art: iPad (procreate, paper by 53), Blender, Photoshop

What an amazing Ludum Dare. I managed to stay focused the entire time and develop it for both web and iPad. I’ve been so busy making the game I haven’t had much time to play it and see how it really feels. All the art was done inside Unity using the RagePixel plugin. Wish I had a bit more time to add animations.

Desire is a puzzle game where you place citizens and try to fulfill their desires.

Play Desire

Switched from a hex grid to a square grid because six relations would be overwhelming for the player to keep track of. I’m using the RagePixel plugin to create all the art inside Unity. So far I haven’t corrupted my tileset but I’m using git to regularly backup my work just in case. Next I’m going to get drag and dropping citizens working. I’m still working out how relationships to other tiles will actually work mechanically.

It took me longer than I thought it would to arrive at an idea I was really feeling. I’ve been sketching on my iPad the last couple hours and decided on a simple concept I’m calling Desire. It was inspired by the small map size of the board game Smallworld. Desire is played on a small hex board with randomly generated tiles with locations and objects on them. The idea is you place people on the board until all spaces are filled up and then scoring happens. People have desires (maybe hates) and become happier when they are beside hexes with what they desire. Aim for the highest happiness you can!

Read more to see a few more sketches that lead to this design.

(more…)

Was thinking about trying a new framework like Slick2D or Flashpunk but I think I’ll stick to what I know best, which is Unity. I’m going to focus mostly on gameplay this time around but I hope to get around to making some great pixel art. RagePixel seems like what I’ll use the most.  I just picked up my first iPad today so I’ll try to make something suitable for the platform; playable in the web browser too of course.

• Code: Unity 3D (C# & MonoDevelop; Mobile Basic license)
• RagePixel (warning: it’s a bit buggy)
• iTween
• fg2D
• Planning:Paper or Procreatefor sketching
• Art:Pixen and/or Blender (RagePixel plugin too)
• Audio: Audacity + microphone & BFXR

I will try to post updates on Twitter and G+ regularly.

My goal for the LD is the same as last time: submit a game. Last time I succeeded and I hope to again. I want to create an action game this time and focus on perfecting a small amount of content.

• Language: C# (Unity 3D, MonoDevelop)
• Libraries: Orthello, iTween
• Graphics: Pixen, TexturePacker, possibly Blender and Photoshop
• Audio: Microphone (Not going to rely on sfxr this time!), Audacity

My goal from the start of the competition was to finish my entry and I reached it!

Concept: Qua-tzar is a simultaneous turn based local multiplayer game. The object of the game is to get your BITs to your spaceship on the other side of the game board without being captured.

Inspiration: The initial idea came from a gym class game I played in elementary school called Octopus. In Octopus everyone would line up on one side of the gym and try to get to the other without being tagged by people in the middle. I took part of this idea and turned it into a symmetric two player game where each side has pieces that move across the board to score and also pieces that can capture or prevent your opponent from doing so. Then I thought of simultaneous turn based movement and started to prototype the game with my Chess set.

Since it’s a local multiplayer game I realize it’s going to be difficult for a lot of people to play. I hope you check it out and let me know what you think!

Entry Page 

Play Game (Web – Unity)

Qua-tzar is a simultaneous turn based multiplayer game where opposing sides are trying to get their BITs (small squares) to the spaceship (long white rectangle) at the other side of the board. The TZAR (large square) is the only piece that can capture BITs. The DOM (diamond) cannot be captured, nor can it capture other pieces. The advantage DOMs have is if multiple pieces move to the same tile, the DOM will beat the others in a competition. If two pieces with the same priority attempt to move to a tile, neither one will move there. If this doesn’t make sense I will be writing better instructions soon.

Next step for me is to polish the game and if there is time I’ll start adding more special pieces. It looks like I’ll be able to finish it on time.

Click the screenshot to play it (Unity 3D plugin required)