Wow 1 day 14 hours…

I’m 8h behind due to the compo starting midnight at my timezone. None the less i have some first Brainstorming thoughts ready. I like to approach those Themes from various angles and pick an interesting aspect. Philosophical and by terms of motivation i wrote down some loose thoughts.

Beeing evil is nothing natural, all evil beeings were once good. Evil and Good is something everything is based on. There are several Motivations to become evil. Betrayal, missunderstanding, manipulation, overambition, deception, megalomania, power, fraud, jealousy and so on. The classic Game-Villian always has a counterpart. Alot of Games, specially the Molyneux Games, use the Theme to put Players in a moral conflict of beeing good or evil. Beeing evil has a lot of charm – money, power, the freedom to do what i want. Beeing evil means that i don’t have to follow any rules.

What also is interesting in many fictions, that the line between good and evil often is blurred. Sometimes you have to do something evil to be good and vice versa. Theres a whole new Theme opening when you think of good and evil in terms of judgement. Who decides whats good and whats evil?

Etymology wise i’ve found that the word villain itself is pretty interesting. And leads to the conclusion that not beeing Knightly implies that you are doing bad thing. And therefore Farmers are bad. Which i found kinda funny when you think of Farmville…

French villains in the 15th century before going to work, receiving their Lord’s Orders.Villain comes from the Anglo-French and Old French vilain, which itself descends from the Late Latin word villanus, meaning “farmhand”,in the sense of someone who is bound to the soil of a villa, which is to say, worked on the equivalent of a plantation in Late Antiquity, in Italy or Gaul.It referred to a person of less than knightly status and so came to mean a person who was not chivalrous. As a result of many unchivalrous acts, such as treachery or rape, being considered villainous in the modern sense of the word, it became used as a term of abuse and eventually took on its modern meaning.

Then there is one thing or sentence that bugs me since i started thinking about the Theme. Which is a Quote from The Dark Knight: “You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” This Quote opens a lot of options in terms of Game-Design and elegantly describes the dilemma of beeing someone good in the first place and then becoming evil, even tho you never intended to be the villain.

My next step is to get a playable concept, that uses this Quote as a base. I’m mainly focusing on doing something that could work on mobile and therefore i’ll try something simple with a one-button approach. I’m not sure if this is the right way to do it but we’ll see.

click here for more of my motivational posters

Ready up! The Hack-a-Jam is back, and starting tomorrow!!

To join, you must create an account in the Posting section of the website, and then start posting! Note: All posts have been deleted since the last Hack-a-Jam, so that is why only I have posts there. However, I do encourage you to become social in the forums and ask questions.

The Hack-a-Jam is a regular game development competition/jam where you must create a game within a set amount of time. However, it is not like any other gaming competition/jam. In the Hack-a-Jam, there is an infinite amount of winning categories, and no overall winner. While winners still must have superb games to win, there are no set winning categories, and there will always be multiple winners. Also, the theme will be voted on by the community, after they are submitted in the forums (Posting section) under the topic Theme Posting, in the Rules and Announcements forum.

To prove how unique the winning categories are, these are previous winning categories and other possible categories:

Most Psychedelic Visuals
Most Deaf People After Hearing The Game
Most Angry Bongos Involved
Most Rage-free
Most rage-induced
Most Suggestive Content Without Crossing The Line
Shortest Functional Game
Most Random and/or Annoying Sound When Picking Things Up
Most Things On Screen Without Lag or Crash

Like most game development competitions, there are rules, however, the rules here are more laid back and simple:

1. All game content must be created within the set time. Note: You can use other music, placeholder graphics, etc. as long as you are allowed to!
2. Your game is not required to follow the theme, but would greatly improve your chances of winning. Unless almost every other game is not following the theme, it is almost guaranteed that your game won’t win anything.
3. You must work alone, and you must create everything included in the game.
4. All game creation tools are permitted, such as GameMaker, Photoshop, Flash, Paint, etc.
5. All game extensions/DLLs are permitted. If you want to make it multiplayer (if you are using GameMaker), go ahead and use 39dll.

What do the winners get?

The winners will have the opportunity to post a message on the Hack-a-Jam website itself, whether it be something random and funny, like “I LOVE banana chicken pancakes”, or an advertisement such as “Play my new game TODAY!”. The winners will also get badges to show off to their friends and the gaming community.

The official 4th Hack-a-Jam starts tomorrow (Friday), so ready up for a double game jam week (if you are joining to Ludum Dare too next week)!

The Charity Game Jam was a huge success. Our initial fundraising goal was $250 and as you can see, we destroyed it! Mission accomplished. Achievement unlocked. Boss battle won. Princess saved. THANK YOU VERY MUCH, EVERYONE! I’m humbled and grateful for all your enthusiasm, hard work, and generosity. Should we do this again next year?
Play The Games Here! | Keynote Video | Announcement Post

Ludum Dare,sitting there for the first five minutes hitting yourself because you have no idea what to do, and the last five shitting yourself about how slow the game is uploading.

Well, I finally submitted my game. It can be downloaded and commented here.

This was the second time I participated and the first time I finished. What a rush!

Best of luck to all those still working!

…is possible, even in a 48h compitition

Hi Everyone,

This is only my second Ludum Dare, and I’m dropping out.

When I found out the theme was evolution I was really enthusiastic as I had a number of ideas for it. So I started and got a good way into the base coding, before I finalised my idea.

It wasn’t until,a couple of hours ago that I realised I had to rework some things….this is where I started downhill. As I’ve been working, different ideas and code snippets have been building in my head. So right now, it feels like a burden just to start writing code again.

As much as I would like to continue with this project, I’m going to have to pull out here. I’ll keep it as something to do sometime, but not for the contest.

Before I attempt another Ludum Dare I’m going to have to practice a bit more with the structure of a game, and also with the OpenGL side of things (planning to learn during LD is NOT a wise option)

I do feel disappointed with myself, but I know I’ll just get frustrated if I continue

See you next time