30 Games in 30 Days

Community Showcases
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Hi all,

I just wanted to share some stuff I’m working on at the moment. I’ll start with a bit of an intro, but feel free to skip it and then shred my work to bits! XD

I have been learning Unity / C# for the last year in an effort to become more actively involved with the independent game development community here in Australia. I have the same dream that many of us here do: To become self sufficient producing independent video games.

A little over a year ago, the global financial crisis resulted in my partner and then myself being made redundant in a matter of days. At the time we were approved for a home loan and only days away from making an offer on what would have been our first house. It was a pretty crushing time for us. But then I decided to take this misfortune and make it a positive, by signing a contract with myself to pursue the creative endeavours I’ve daydreamed about, but could never find the time for until now.

One year on from that contract’s conception, I actually know enough about programming to make simple games. It’s pretty mind blowing, going from daydreaming to actually doing (even if only at the most basic, beginner level). For most of you, what I’m doing would be child’s play. But for me, it’s a real, measurable and totally awesome step in the right direction.

So in reviewing my contract, I decided I needed to step it up a gear, to give myself some real momentum to actually start making stuff, instead of just learning about making stuff. So I challenged myself to create 30 games in 30 days.

The first day is done. You can play the ‘game’ here:

http://www.booncotter.com/?p=370

It’s likely I’ll fall short of this goal. This first game was a bit of a monumental effort to get done in a day (for me, anyway!). Also, I received a contracted job offer today (WOOT!) so I’ll be returning to full-time+ work next week for a few months. But excuses aside, I’m going to do my best to stick to this commitment, and to have 30 games published to my blog in the next 30 days. I’ll even try to make some of them NOT crap!

Thanks for reading if you have, and superthanks for playing my game if you’ve done that! And then ubermegahyperthanks for being a great community full of tips, advice, solutions, and inspiration.

Boon

P.S. I’ve worked in the creative industries, and I don’t feel precious about my work (or its shortcomings). Feel free to rip it to shreds! I appreciate critique!

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I wish ye the best of luck!

The first game is purty!

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A very uplifting read for first thing in the morning - kudos for having the conviction to pursue and teach yourself programming, and congrats on the new job. And after all that, you go and set yourself another monumental task! 30 games in 30 days is a pretty big goal. Impossible? No. Hard? Very. But if you don’t challenge yourself, what’s the point of doing things, right? :slight_smile:

So on to the first game! The first thing that caught my eye was the background. I love it. The style, lighting and depth of the forest is great. I’m sure that took some time to bake in beast, but definitely worth it in the end (although for speed projects like these long bake times can be your worst enemy). The gameplay is what I would expect from a 1 day project, simple and repetitive, but it works quite well. I do agree with the comments made on your blog about random vs pseudo random, and that could be a way of improving the gameplay (although going back to these projects probably isn’t what your planning).

Negatives? Music would have been nice. Perhaps something 8-bit and quirky with a nice rhythm to give a sense of urgency to the player, or something that sped up slowly with the gameplay to help denote difficulty. I also think you should have followed the style of the forest (Voxel/Cube/8bit/Retro - whatever people are calling it these days!) with the Player, collectables and the enemies - something cute and cubey. With a few tricks you could have even pulled off the same lighting as the background on the dynamic objects at no real performance cost.

With all that said and done, I liked the game, and I look forward to seeing the next one :slight_smile:

Good luck!

PS: Had a poke around your blog - some very nice art you have on there. I love the Limbo concept piece :slight_smile:

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Thanks for the feedback and the critique! I’m totally chuffed you guys like the art! It was actually all baked in Maya (next time, I intend to stick hot pins in my eyes for fun instead :/). I’m working on Game #2 at the moment, and I’m totally hoping to get some sound in it. I suspect gameplay will suffer again, but hey, by game 30 I hope to have something fun, too! XD

Good thoughts on the 8-bit music. These kind of byte sized (HAR HAR) games feel like that’s what they really need, right? And you’re absolutely right, the player, pumpkins and gems would have fit better with the same aesthetic. If I go back to this one, that’ll be something I’ll definitely fix so thanks for pointing that out!

P.S. Thanks also for the compliments on the concept art. It’s a shame that project is in creative limbo for me, but I’ll resuscitate the aesthetic at some point I think. I really dug it. It felt simultaneously retro and modern. Retromodernism? ~shrug~

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Hey it’s a great deal you did with yourself: compliments and good luck :slight_smile:

About the game, I agree with NomadKing: the background and the color palette are truly beautiful, and it’s the first thing that impressed me.

I played once and reached level 5 (mostly because that was when my cat jumped on my keyboard): controls are simple yet they respond smoothly as I’d expect, and it was a pleasant experience. Though, at least a simple sound for when you get the diamonds would’ve been better: a couple times I thought I got one and immediately moved back, just to realize it was still there.

All in all, for a one day game, it’s very nice, and I’m definitely looking forward to the next ones. Go for it! :slight_smile:

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@Izitmee: Thanks for the feedback mate. I think I will try to set aside some time to add some cursory sound effects to the game. It makes such a huge difference.

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Hyperetromodernrealism? :slight_smile:

Copyrights

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That sounds so cool, I may just have to license it O_O

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Rubs hands together $-)

The style actually reminds me a little of Bastion except perhaps a bit more retro with a little less ‘clutter’ about too (Although that sort of thing might evolve as the concept grew)

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LOL :slight_smile:

It was a little like Bastion. It had the old-school isometric tiles vibe, everything rectilinear and equidistant, but all with rounded edges and clean shapes as decoration. I have a bunch of concept art for the project, but it’s still under NDA so I can’t share it :frowning:

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Well, another day, another game. Once again, thanks to anyone who checks it out, and feel free to shred it!

http://www.booncotter.com/?p=380

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Another day, another game to go with my breakfast :slight_smile:

I like the idea, and the retro visuals work very well with it. I’d almost dare to say such a simple game might not work so well in a ‘higher’ visual style, but with the style you’ve chosen the whole concept fits together nicely. Even the harsh difficulty level is quite retro in itself - back then designers seemed to put a lot less thought into “Is something too difficult?” than they do these days. A lot of people play games for a challenge, and a lot of people don’t find one. Frustrating the player a little can be a good thing - just look at Super Meat Boy! It’s was also nice to hear some sound in there, even without music it makes a huge difference! :slight_smile:

Improvements? The controls to me didn’t feel as sharp as they needed to be (maybe it’s just early and my reflexes haven’t warmed up yet). With death being so binary, the controls need to be spot on. Also, like you said in the blog, enemies would have been a great addition. You could have probably done patrolling enemies quite easily without worrying about the need for any real pathfinding (Assuming the world is a grid you could have made an array of cell numbers that each enemy simply traversed).

All in all, another good day. Keep it up!

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Thanks NomadKing! Great idea about pathing enemies, too. That would literally take minutes to set up. I wish I’d thought of it earlier!

And great feedback on the controls. I hadn’t really considered it to be honest, I just set it up and left it. But now, playing it again, you’re spot on: The controls are too ‘slippery’ almost.

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I just played a bit further into it (to the blue key) and I have to say I think you’ve done very well with the overall level design considering you have such a limited tileset :slight_smile:

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Aw thankyou :EGO EXPLOSION: As I said in my blog, a couple of screens were replaced with boring corridors when I ran out of time, but I had some puzzles I thought were pretty cool, like a maze where monsters slowly homed in on the player, forcing you to navigate through the maze back and forth to create pathways past enemies. Just couldn’t do the enemies :frowning:

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That does sound quite challenging! If you went back to this project, enemies (and a mechanic to fight them otherwise they are just another thing to avoid) should probably be the No.1 thing to add. Perhaps you could give the player a few bombs to fight them with, adding another tactical element to the gameplay (timing a bomb against a patrolling enemy), a new collectable, and the possibility of a new level tile (Destructible wall). Just spit-balling ideas!

The way I see it, the way your going about this 30 games in 30 days won’t only improve your time management, motivation, etc. but your design skills will improve greatly. I’m sure by the 30th day there will be very little critiques to offer that you haven’t already pointed out yourself in the post mortem :slight_smile:

Edit: I didn’t mind the corridors so much - they make the whole level seem bigger. Another trick straight from the retro handbook!

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Yeah I think you’re right, if it’s all just “dodge graphical element” then that doesn’t offer much variety, does it? Bombs would be cool. Maybe the pellets you collect could even be ammo, so you need to finish the game with finite ammo? Certainly seems like one of those brutally unforgiving gameplay mechanics of days gone by :slight_smile:

Destructable walls? Awesome. I love microcosm adventure gameplay, where you slowly progress through the environment by uncovering new abilities or items to unlock new areas. Castlemetroidzeldavania-ish gameplay!

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I think Castlemetroidzeldavaniaish has quite a ring to it as a game name…

A small tip - write all these little ideas down somewhere and forget about them until you decide to come back to these projects. I quite literally have a google powered wiki where I do this - 1 page concepts, partial designs, half baked ideas, all just waiting for when they are needed. They are all very easy to extend to a “full” design thanks to the wiki format, but most importantly, they are no longer buzzing around my head! It certainly helps my brain feel lighter :slight_smile:

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Cheers for the tip, great idea!

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Ugh, that end boss is really hard…