One-Button Joystick
Friendly to all Ages
Collection Element
Big thanks to Mark Sample from Eutechnyx.
He supplied this weekend theme and provided feedback on the entries.
The favorite of the contest its randomly generate music and simply game concept was really popular.
From the games I can play I think my favourite has to be Dr Petter's. Although the graphics are crude, I just love the risk reward gameplay feature and the ever changing map - this combined with a far out 8 bit style tune makes it a fun experience. I reckon with a little more push this idea code be expanded to multiplayer and taken to Xbox live.- M.S.
The E4 remake was also good and made nice use of simple controls and emergent gameplay.- M.S.
Neilo's entry was very cool. I hadn't played or seen the original E4 game (googled it after playing though) so the concept was pretty new to me. My favorite bit was how the explosions were all synched to the music, it made things very dynamic and enjoyable. Played quite a few times trying to get a good score, maybe 30 minutes in total over 10-15 sessions. Unfortunately I seem to have lost track of my best score... I did put it in IRC at one point but I don't have a log of it. Managed to stay alive until the music changed after the long sameish sequence at least, though I'm not entirely sure how the timer worked.- Dr P
A remake of classic asteriods.
A boulderdash clone.
Cave Raider was polished and fun - a nice remake of the classic Boulderdash.- M.S.
My little physics platform pinball mix up on things. Incomplete.
I really like the way you made use of a one button control scheme. I did find the map layout a little tricky to successfully collect all the pickups though. It's a tough little game.- M.S.
Gameplay seems a bit broken, I don't think the original plan fully worked out within the time limit. What's there is quite a bit of fun in a "play with the mechanics" kind of way though. I spent at least some 10 minutes bouncing around, experimenting with what kinds of jumps were possible. I got some pinball vibes from it, maybe with some tweaking this could be a kind of super-interactive pinball game where you control the ball more directly?- Dr P
Your game input can only be a directional input and an action button. Up to 8 directions, keyboard or joystick allowed only one action button. There must be an element of collection or pick-up.
All content must be created during the weekend. This is a solo project. Middleware, API and Physics are allowed. No pre-made game code allowed.
First Place went to Magnescape by Neil with his SHUMP and magnets. From a game play point of view a bit hard but it was complete, had multiple levels, and good sound. Points of interest were his use of RTTI as discussed in the podcast and his hacked together midi playback. Downside was the use of magnets was difficult when playing.
The only other complete entry was Lander: by Jase. A lander remake with random terrain generation. A pleasing little game which with a bit polish might have won.
GraviTux: OS wars with Magnets by Alice.
This little swarm attack game is more at the toy stage than game.
Maggilz: Swarm Magnet Racer by Claire.
Incomplete and lacking polish.
Our first weekend could have been better but its something to build on. We learned our lesson in announcement time needs to be at least a few weeks before the event in question. We might also revise our rules slightly as we had some drop-outs who failed to submit anything.
We are in the process of getting other bodies involved and a slight restructure.
All games were made from scratch using only a graphical API. Theme was announced at start of weekend. All entries were solo with all resources including graphics and sound being made during the weekend.