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  What is One Game A Month?One Game A Month is a challenge: Make one game each month for the entire year of 2013. Each month, post a game. Everybody* is doing it! There are no rules and no prizes. Make whatever game you want, by yourself or as part of a team. Want to make a blackjack game? Awesome! Mario clone? Go nuts! Code it in C++ with your terrible programmer art scribbles or make use of Unity to import models and a quality soundtrack? Sounds perfect! What's important is that you try to make One Game A Month; the rest is up to you. *"Everybody" equals over 5,000 individuals who have to date made over 3,000 games! Why should I make One Game A Month?The same reason you play video games: XP and Achievements! Also to learn to lay out reasonable goals, complete projects without succumbing to feature creep, and improve your ability to design games, create art, and program. If you're completely new to game making, this should be a fun way to experiment with ideas and tools without worrying over fleshing out a AAA title or spending your money on an expensive application; if you're a seasoned hand this should be a good opportunity to add to your portfolio and hone your skills on a deadline while showcasing your unique game ideas. The achievements and XP and such are all things to help keep you motivated. McFunkypants, creator of One Game A Month, has posted the following Keynote that does a good job of explaining the Why: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mjkNtfRbV8 How do I take part in One Game A Month?Go to the One Game A Month website and sign in using a Twitter account to start tracking your progress. Once you've got your game ready, go to your profile by clicking on your name in the upper-right corner of the website. Click "Edit Profile", and you should see a spot to enter your game information like so:  Remember to save your changes! The project is currently under construction so I'll try to keep this section up to date with any changes. Helpful LinksLooking for programming tools, artwork, sprites, music, sound effects, articles or videos to help you make a video game each month? Try checking some of these. Resources:  PixelProspector’s Indie Resources - A big, big list of resources ranging from design and graphics to art, music, marketing and more. This list is a superb starting place and if it would fit in the OP I would be tempted to paste it all in here. (Thanks Ol Uncle Anime.)Open Game Art - If you're like me, you couldn't make an art to save your life. Open Game Art has a variety of freely usable game art so you don't have to cringe looking at your coding masterpiece in action. Freesound - Looking for some premade sound effects for free? This is a good place to start. Bfxr - Make your own sound effects, using a very simple set of controls. Great for placeholders or the final submission. Gigster Game Idea Generator - Need help brainstorming ideas for a game? Try this site out by clicking on the cards in the bottom left portion of the flash window. Video Game Name Generator (VGNG) - Need help naming your game? This is a name generator. I got back "Apathetic Viking Rider" which makes this an awesome game idea generator too. (Thanks mnd.) Oblique Strategies - Are you stuck on something? This website can help. The idea is to get you to try thinking about your blockage in another way. Each time you view the page you'll get a remark or cryptic phrase, such as "Discard an axiom". Some are music specific, others are more general. (Thanks mnd.) Tools: Stencyl - Want to make a flash game but find coding to be overwhelming? Stencyl let's you create games using their toolset without any coding required. If you want to add in your own code once you're more comfortable with making games you can! (Thanks Ol Uncle Anime.) Flixel - Flixel is a free, open-source flash game-making library using ActionScript 3 focused on simplicity. Never coded before and want to try making a platforming game in 2D? Flixel is a good place to start. FlashPunk - FlashPunk is a free, open-source library that can be used to make 2D flash games, and it has a lot of basic functionality already setup for users. Like Flixel, this uses ActionScript 3. (Thanks Ol Uncle Anime.) Twine - Want to make a text-based game that tells an interactive story? Twine is a free program that will help you create it; setup your story using a straightforward graphical interface that keeps it all organized visually for you. The final output of the program when you're all done is a single web page, so it's easy to share and host. (Thanks Ol Uncle Anime.) Construct2 - Construct2 is a game engine for creating games in HTML 5. There is a free version with some limitations, which shouldn't be too much of a hassle if you want to get an idea if you like the editor. (Thanks Thievery.) MonoGame - MonoGame is a free, open source implementation of XNA that enables you to make games for a variety of platforms. While XNA isn't supported by Microsoft as much nowadays, the base they have setup is solid, and MonoGame looks poised to continue that work into the foreseeable future. Adventure Game Studio - Free (for non-commercial use) software for producing a point-and-click adventure game. Import your art and put your story into motion. Ren'Py - Create a visual novel style game with this free, open source game engine. Unity - Unity 4 is a game engine that allows user to make games scripted in javascript or C# with a fairly useful development environment setup. There are a lot of tools available, though some features cost money. Unity is capable of making both 2D and 3D games. UDK - Unreal Engine 3, free for non-commercial use and with a straightforward licensing agreement for commercial use thereafter ($99 up front, 25% of earnings after $50,000). Unreal Engine 3 is used all over the place, from X-Com to Dishonoured, definitely worth looking into. (Thanks Enos Shenk.) Threads, Reading & Watching: Game Development Megathread - This Cavern of COBOL thread has a bunch of information interspersed throughout it, and a handy place for general game development questions relating to code. Making Games Megathread - A more general thread here in Games about making games. Also contains useful information, links, and a good place of discussion. Juice It or Lose It - This video emphasizes the importance of the concept of making a game "juicy": juiciness has to do with making the game fun to interact with. A great watch. Ten Things Every Game Needs - Mark Rosewater is the head designer of the CCG Magic: The Gathering, and in this article he shares some basic guidelines for how he views game design. Fairly insightful. Sirlin.net - These articles I found mostly useful from a gameplay balance perspective. Making sure a game is challenging without being infuriating is a delicate exercise, and Sirlin does a good job of explaining the principles behind balancing a game. Optional InspirationMay Theme Word: "Grow" Mo_Steel fucked around with this message at May 1, 2013 around 17:50 |
| # ? Dec 28, 2012 23:04 |
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| # ? May 24, 2013 06:02 |
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Awesome Games Looking for an awesome game made in One Game A Month? Try these: Mr. Podunkian posted:
Ol Uncle Anime posted:My game for Feb is what ended up making me not finish my game for jan: Thievery posted:I am pumped for that. Enos Shenk posted:
Enos Shenk posted:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5boOOjAkvL8 Angry_Ed posted:
Parasytic posted:As done as it will get for April! Sprung Fever can be played in your browser now. Collect the items while avoiding the girls, couldn't be simpler, right? Right?! Participating Goons: (99)Mo_Steel - @Mo_Steel Red Mike - @MikeRedhorse LordAndrew - @Lordovos Shalinor - @glassbottommeg PDP-1 - @PDP112 ShinAli - @shinali Stiggs - @Stiggss Face Melter - @meltervultus Flagrama - @flagrama Jewel - @Jewelots_ Stick Figure Mafia - @hoodwinkedfool That Gobbo - @ThatGobbo SlippyFists - @smugfox Amstrad - @amstrad00 Butt Town - @cooldudeirl Ol Uncle Anime - @zoequinnzel HelixFox - @kylerodgers Svampson - @Svampson HicRic - ? Thumbquat - @Thumbquat Zomodok - @Zomodok Love Stole the Day - @rkffhk Dystonym - @BealeBarrett QuelquePeu - @jejouelejeu Dorniff - @almightycaleb Kanpachi - @_kanpachi FinalSin - @mtrc Thievery - @Thievery52 Afal - @Afal field balm - @field_balm Foran - @ForanIdah thegasman2000 - @ReidBuck General Emergency - @iamquh Mr. Podunkian - @mrpodunkian fatelvis - @fatelvisburger rush - ? a medical mystery - @HepCatPJs brian - @partybrian5000 medibot - @robohugs Bakkon - @jasonwnorris Sebbe - @pishmoffle Daynab - @mathieudugon MadFriarAvelyn - @MadFriarAvelyn Tayacan - @KanelKat Xand_Man - @AxelWolfin RoboCicero - @wuhwuhwhat Grinnblade - @grinnblade HiriseSoftware - @HiriseSoftware Ben Soosneb - @BenSoosneb Sodomy Non Sapiens - @TDFitzsimons Shinku ABOOKEN - @GigaMegaMax Morholt - @drMorholt the chaos engine - @folmerkelly Silver Alicorn - @SilverAlicorn NorthByNorthwest - @Kpiddy273 Tempo 119 - @brehonia Hexagon - @aHexagon kdrudy - @kyru grimdarkkrieg - @shinnerjt mnd - @gamekata stoutfish - @FluffyDream9 SketchyPlane - @SketchyPlane Neofelis - @GoonNeofelis Shane-O-Mac - @Muhgray anti-hamaon - @codabreak Haephastus - @BaldrRasmussen Pyradox - @TimePyradox Archibald Tuttle - @hairytuttle Third Murderer - @ThirdMurderer gypsyshred - @gypsyshred Torch Dexter - @TorchDexter Cosmic Horror - @FoffT Eternalmajin - @Eternal1GAM chiefnewo - @chiefnewo univbee - @univbee Cirrial - @Cirrial Awia - @AwiaMartindale AstralCalculus - @JDMorrissey Enos Shenk - @EnosShenk leper khan - @codethulu Ulu - @ULuIQ12 limaCAT - @limaCAT Highblood - @appearifier Megadrive - ? Kunzelman - @ckunzelman NeekBerm - ? Knight007au - @ChrisBu27663793 NadaTooma - @alandaniels Locus - @ChurchOfCordite DeathBySpoon - @DeathBySpoon Rupert Buttermilk - @robot_cousin Kimaka - @KimakaEdusei TJChap2840 - @TJChap2840 flaffol - @flaffol TheOrange - @jthom252 Quiiet_ - @Quiiet Xeromph - @scutellaris fatedtemp - @aWorseFate killerllamaman - @Ementiam Angry_Ed - @AngryEd Additionally if anyone has any helpful resources they'd like to share, I'll add them to the OP. Mo_Steel fucked around with this message at May 1, 2013 around 22:54 |
| # ? Dec 28, 2012 23:05 |
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Game Release
and no high score table. When I come back to this game either next month or later, I do plan to expand on it a lot further, but for now I'm happy with how it's turned out. You can grab it from my 
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Will be participating, as @MikeRedhorse. Looking forward to getting started soon. My January game will be focused around making an intuitive interface, and 'juicing it'. I actually came here to post the 'juice it' video, but noticed it was already posted. I have nothing to offer, then.
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| # ? Dec 29, 2012 00:35 |
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I'm going to be participating... hopefully. Gotta cross the i's and dot the t's with legal first.
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| # ? Dec 29, 2012 00:44 |
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I'm participating as @Lordovos. I've never actually finished a game before but hopefully I can motivate myself to do so for One Game a Month.
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| # ? Dec 29, 2012 00:48 |
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Son of a bitch, this looks like the kind of thing I need to kick my rear end into gear. I haven't programmed in 15 years other than batch files, though.
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| # ? Dec 29, 2012 00:51 |
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Welp, downloaded Unity and Blender with the goal of maybe doing some programmer art in 3d!! This Blender UI is even more horrific than I've heard, but I think I'm gonna try to do at least a couple of 3D projects. I figure programmer art in 3D might actually be easier than 2D, since working with cubes and spheres is easier for me to deal with than trying to draw actual sprites and such. I'm really interested in doing some first person shooter experiments in particular. Anyone had experience with anything like that in Unity? How realistic is the idea of sketching something like that out in a month? I suppose I could always fall back on Source modding or something. poo poo, maybe I'll learn to mod the Quake II engine like the Gravity Bone/30 Flights guy  Mostly, I want to try to mix it up, though. My first project might just be something really basic in Twine or Inform just because I have some narrative ideas I want to explore but I don't have the artistic talent to pull off in any other form.
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| # ? Dec 29, 2012 00:55 |
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ASK ME ABOUT GETTING REAL MAD IN A SECRET SANTA FOR RECEIVING THE EXACT GAG PRESENT I ASKED FOR AND THEN DOING A COMPLETE U-TURN WHEN I REALISED IT WASN'T EVEN THE ENTIRE PRESENT
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I've been using Blender for over 10 years Abraham. If you need any help fiddling around with it, I'd be happy to answer questions. I don't have PMs, but you could always hit me on on skype (enosshenk2) or Steam http://steamcommunity.com/id/enos I'd be tempted to put a few things together for this. I've never bothered with twitter or facebook though. And I'm short on decent ideas lately. I'm sad not to see UDK in the OP though. UnrealEngine3 for free (or very decent licensing terms)? Yes please. http://www.unrealengine.com/udk/
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| # ? Dec 29, 2012 01:58 |
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I'm in as @glassbottommeg - it should be fun. I'll finally have a solid excuse to make stupid little one-note side games.
Shalinor fucked around with this message at Dec 29, 2012 around 02:03 |
| # ? Dec 29, 2012 02:00 |
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Red Mike posted:Will be participating, as @MikeRedhorse. Looking forward to getting started soon. My January game will be focused around making an intuitive interface, and 'juicing it'. I actually came here to post the 'juice it' video, but noticed it was already posted. I have nothing to offer, then. Honestly it was one of the more revealing videos I spotted looking through the Game Development Megathread over the past month or two. I had never really thought of it as an explicit concept but had utilized it in part in previous game jams. It's definitely going to be a point of focus going forward for me in this challenge. Enos Shenk posted:I'm sad not to see UDK in the OP though. UnrealEngine3 for free (or very decent licensing terms)? Yes please. http://www.unrealengine.com/udk/ Noted and fixed.  Added a list of goons and links to their twitters in the second post for now; going into this myself as the obvious @Mo_Steel. With three days left until things kick off, I'm going to have to do some brainstorming to decide what I want to start with.
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| # ? Dec 29, 2012 02:15 |
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I'm in. I like the 'no rules, just do something' theme, and plan to abuse it to make my entry a year-long effort with monthly goals. Basically January will be spent getting something to draw on screen, February will be getting that thing to move when you click it, etc. By the end of the year it might resemble something playable. Signed up as PDP-1, aka @PDP112 because apparently Twitter likes to mangle names. Off to a great start!
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| # ? Dec 29, 2012 02:51 |
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I'll try my darndest as @shinali I think I'll be doing GGJ again so hopefully that'll cover January.
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| # ? Dec 29, 2012 03:14 |
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I'm gonna try real hard to do this. I need to finish a game. E: Oh yeah, twitter: @Stiggss Stiggs fucked around with this message at Dec 29, 2012 around 04:25 |
| # ? Dec 29, 2012 04:23 |
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I guess I'll throw my procrastinating hat into this too. twitter: @meltervultus
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| # ? Dec 29, 2012 04:32 |
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I'm in this as @flagrama I've never actually programmed a game or anything, so most of my stuff is probably going to be stupid little clones of simple games until I get the feel for programming games, and I'm not sure what I'll do from there.
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| # ? Dec 29, 2012 04:43 |
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Yo, maybe each month we could have a "theme" that we don't necessarily have to follow but would give some guideline to people who are more into the developing side and not too great at creativity of creating an idea? Otherwise I won't know what to make at all and be kinda stuck  Also I signed up as @Jewelots_ (warning lovely non-programming oriented twitter don't follow if you don't like me and a buncha friends being huge dorks)
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| # ? Dec 29, 2012 04:47 |
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I am totally down for this @hoodwinkedfool . I was just looking for a website that tracked game jams because they're the only time I ever complete anything.
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| # ? Dec 29, 2012 04:47 |
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Jewel posted:Yo, maybe each month we could have a "theme" that we don't necessarily have to follow but would give some guideline to people who are more into the developing side and not too great at creativity of creating an idea? Otherwise I won't know what to make at all and be kinda stuck Like, January - I'm doing global game jam for my one game a month.
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| # ? Dec 29, 2012 05:13 |
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Sounds awesome, though I'll be transferring to a 4-year in January so it might be a bumpy start. It'll give me something to push me to at least make a prototype. In as @ThatGobbo
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| # ? Dec 29, 2012 05:21 |
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Shalinor posted:For most months, I think most of us will be looking for game jams to do, and they all already have themes. Where can I find some of these game jams that are on each month? Edit: Oh, global game jam is an irl event, gross. I don't really want to work on a game for such a short amount of time or work with others for this, all I want is a theme to bounce some ideas off 
Jewel fucked around with this message at Dec 29, 2012 around 05:28 |
| # ? Dec 29, 2012 05:25 |
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Signed up as @smugfox. I've never made a game, but I've always wanted to learn how. This is going to be a real challenge for me, but it's something that I can hopefully accomplish in a year.
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| # ? Dec 29, 2012 05:44 |
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This sounds like an excellent way to build up some general game making knowledge and skill, I'm in as @amstrad00Jewel posted:Yo, maybe each month we could have a "theme" that we don't necessarily have to follow but would give some guideline to people who are more into the developing side and not too great at creativity of creating an idea? Otherwise I won't know what to make at all and be kinda stuck I'm interested in having a theme decided by participants in this thread as well.
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| # ? Dec 29, 2012 07:11 |
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Yo sign me up for this @cooldudeirl I love to make the video game.
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| # ? Dec 29, 2012 07:30 |
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This sounds like a great idea. I'll have to see if I can commit to this or not though; Jan-Mar are gonna be crunchy crunchy. 
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| # ? Dec 29, 2012 08:11 |
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I'm in as @zoequinnzel and am on the community team so if there's anything I can do to help out the effort here I am all about it! Also you should really add twine, stencyl, and flashpunk at least to the OP. A great resource for indie tools and getting started can be found here! If nothing else, twine can be learned in about an hour so if you're really really worried you might not make a game that month, why not screw around with something new and easy like that? Edit: also I am 100% down for doing art for games one of these months (not January since I'm already spoken for this month) Ol Uncle Anime fucked around with this message at Dec 29, 2012 around 09:35 |
| # ? Dec 29, 2012 09:31 |
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I, too, shall attempt this lofty goal: @kylerodgers I've already started my January project: a choose-your-own-adventure-like with NPC social interaction simulations running under the hood to generate social cliques and have these inform the random events that can happen 
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| # ? Dec 29, 2012 11:17 |
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I'm in as @Svampson! I know this might be seen as verboten but I started working on my January entry! It's a simple rougelike built in Unity  Day 1 - Added the basic gameplay of a rougelike, so actors take turns and you can attack/get attacked by bumping into them  Day 2 - Made my first ever dungeon generator! It's super basic and spits out some pretty terrible maps so I'm gonna go back and improve it a bunch later hopefully! All art are placeholder (It's Oryx's sprites but you probably already knew that  )
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| # ? Dec 29, 2012 11:19 |
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Svampson posted:I know this might be seen as verboten but I started working on my January entry! The only rule is to release a game each month. This can include games you've already been working on for ages! You're in the clear. Hell, you could make twelve games in January then just queue up the posts in wordpress and be done with it. If you were a nutjob, that is.
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| # ? Dec 29, 2012 11:27 |
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I'll be taking part. Looking forward to trying out some weird/different/silly ideas and seeing what you all get up to as well!
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| # ? Dec 29, 2012 12:38 |
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Time to get ye olde tome of Creating Games with Inform 7 and get all up in this. I may even just say bugger it and try and learn games that don't involve text!
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| # ? Dec 29, 2012 12:44 |
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I am signed up as @Thumbquat. Looking forward to making 12 games next year :-) Thumbquat fucked around with this message at Dec 29, 2012 around 14:19 |
| # ? Dec 29, 2012 13:46 |
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I'm in as @Zomodok!
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| # ? Dec 29, 2012 14:05 |
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Svampson posted:I'm in as @Svampson! This looks awesome. Do you have any resources you'd recommend for learning Unity? I'd love to give it a go one month.
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| # ? Dec 29, 2012 15:15 |
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I'm participating as well for this under the name rkffhk, just in case anyone cares. I plan to start out creating Pong for the first month. For the second month I plan to try creating a short Zork-like text adventure similar to the kind that the HomestarRunner guys did a decade or so ago. For the third month I want to make one of those mouse maze things where you can't touch the wall. I'm sure that you guys all know the Flash one that ends up being a trick or whatever so that it scares you eventually. That's about as far as I've tried to plan ahead, I guess. I want to try and do everything with the pyglet library.
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| # ? Dec 29, 2012 15:32 |
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I'm in as @BealeBarrett. Looking forward to it. I haven't started work on it as I'm away from a place where I can work until January 6th, but I've started working on the design for my January game. It's a sort of puzzle game (but not really) where you are presented with a selection of people with a set of traits, diseases and what not. You need to selectively group people together in sets of two in order to create offspring (who have a random selection of their parents traits) free of genetic disease and with desirable traits.
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| # ? Dec 29, 2012 15:36 |
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Svampson posted:
I want to do this but put the camera down in the dungeon. First person-roguelikes 
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| # ? Dec 29, 2012 15:42 |
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abraham linksys posted:I want to do this but put the camera down in the dungeon. First person-roguelikes There was that one thing similar to that which came out this year. Using Oryx's sprites too. Delver or something? Edit: Yes. http://www.delvergame.com/
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| # ? Dec 29, 2012 15:48 |
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Svampson posted:I'm in as @Svampson! Check out BSP Dungeon generation! Also, can't wait to play some Svampsongames.
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| # ? Dec 29, 2012 16:20 |
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Jewel posted:Where can I find some of these game jams that are on each month? Anyways, ludum dare is probably the most prolific of the game jams - I don't think it necessarily runs every month, but it sure seems like it sometimes. I'll talk with McFunkyPants, and make sure he posts links to the upcoming game jams each month. Also, ahem, I hope some of you do the SA GameDev challenge for July, which will also have a theme ... and I am envious of SvampsonGames. So cool
Shalinor fucked around with this message at Dec 29, 2012 around 16:40 |
| # ? Dec 29, 2012 16:37 |
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| # ? May 24, 2013 06:02 |
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Count me in! For what it's worth. My head is usually full of ideas, so an achievement system to make them a reality might just be what I need! @jejouelejeu
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| # ? Dec 29, 2012 17:16 |
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