I was thinking of mining my older games for code or at least ideas for micro components.
I ended up doing a ātest jamā, I agree with @neginfinity an hour just isnāt enoughā¦ This ended up taking me four hours, as Iāve never taken part in a game jam Iām not sure if thatās considered a āgood timeā for what I didā¦ I might just for fun spend another couple of hours on it, improve the AI and have a big robotic boss for the end.
It was a valuable experience though, as much as it might sound odd Iāve never actually made a small game and / or done anything in spaceā¦ Just plenty of big prototypes, it was fun and some things took longer than I expected and had to reign it in (especially as in screenshot 3 I started drifting into a ship perspective galaxy explorer LOL!)ā¦ I do have an issue with perfectionism, I would of spent a week on the ship alone given the option so thatās something to take out of this.
Besides from learning about limits, I was looking at the viability of adding mini games to my major gameā¦ Looks like it is very much possible, although Iāll leave it until last.
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@ That looks freakin awesome man! Are you saying you actually made a complete game out of this in 4 hours including making all of these graphics from scratch?! 
Iād say you have to be the fastest developer of them all. I mean seriously there are many 3 to 4 man teams who participate in a 48-hour (Figure 32 hours of work-time) Ludum Dare weekend combo that wouldnāt be able to do this. Of course, it all depends on exactly what is in the game. But I think most people would spend at least a weekend on this. 4 hours is insanely fast.
Another way of looking at it is Iāve always been a fast developer (comparatively speaking) and I just spent another 1 hour and 20 minutes tonight working on my 3D Space Invaders inspired game. Which is really for me to learn the 3D api.
Anyway, this makes a total of 4 and 1/2 hours spent on this so farā¦
And that is my play list you can flip ahead and you will be at video #1 of 7. The videos show the progress made in each of the 7 dev sessions.
Granted I am not in a real hurry and am continually digging in the api documentation or at least hitting . (dot) and scrolling up and down through the method names looking for this and that. But still I think this is pretty fast work. To do what you did in basically the same amount of timeā¦ ā¦ ā¦ we need one of those images of a frosty mug of beer on here. You deserve one. 
Show a video of it in action so we can see it!
An heck yeah I really think you will find a lot of value in making small games. For one thing they are a fantastic sandbox to try out ideas. Whether it is a graphics technique or a game mechanic or whatever. Plus you get things done this way because like you said you place a constraint in the form of time or game scope and that means you cannot spend 1 week on 1 model.
I hope you continue with it and we see a whole line of mini games. Although maybe like a 1-week game or even better a 1-month game. Hell you could probably build a single town rpg in a month if you donāt spend 1 day on each tree and so forth. lol 
Also I do agree with you and @neginfinity that 1-hour is just too damn short. BUTā¦ it has inspired me to work on tools and further streamline patterns and build more of a template to make it possible to do something.
Iāll do one of those Saturday 1-hour game jams at some point this year. It will be a lot better going because I will know the api better and have some better tools and a template in place. Trying to do the jam while still learning the api, the architecture and how different things interact, which takes precedence and so forth is not good.
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Oh hey speaking of graphics and the time it can take upā¦ I think the next batch of games coming out is kicking it up to the next level for the realistic graphics you guys likeā¦ @ and @Billy4184
I think continuing to chase the best graphics you guys have seen is only going to become more and more difficult and time consuming and basically kill every game before it even has a chance. Going after the realism I mean. If you two were on a team and had another 10 to 15 people with you it would be different. But it will get to the point eventually where even making Space Invaders, Asteroids, Donkey Kong, etc striving to hit the current gen graphics level will take 6 months to a year or even more for a solo dev.
Not if everything else moves along with it. I think the proportional difference in output capability will probably remain fairly constant, unless studios start doubling their employees and spending twice the money.
Star Citizen is a bit of an experiment and itās not at all clear how good an idea it was for CIG to open so many studios/hire so many employees. If I had to guess they are probably well below everybody else in efficiency. Kickstarter has funded this experiment so far but I doubt anyone will be keen to follow suit.
Not to derail but Iām a bit disappointed with the graphics from most of the upcoming games of 17/18, I donāt think there have been any advancements in the wow factor and quite possibly the push for bigger worlds has even forced a bit of a retreat. E.g. the trailer for the new assassinās creed game.
Anyway Iāve never done a 1 hour game jam, it would take at least that long for me to settle on a premise. Fastest Iāve made a game was in about six hours, a fully functional snake game for a freelance job, sans art.
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Youāre nuts. Disappointed with the graphics. lol
They all look damn good I think. And God of War, Star Wars BF2, Middle Earth, RDR2 and Gran Turismo (INSANE!!) look fantastic. Much better than most games. Heck even Tarkov held up quite well in that video. Thatās saying something. Imagine how good it would look in a video with 14 other Unity games. Probably stand out a lot.
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Iām only disappointed because Iām expecting something new and mindblowing. They obviously look great, not saying they look bad at all! Although I was a bit iffy about the assassinās creed graphics it actually looks like a step back, though itās early days yet.
Basically, I think battlefront and especially battlefield 1 set the bar very high and I was sort of hoping to see something even better.
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Sure. I think what he means is that there isnāt much of a step up from whatās available on the market right now:
http://store.steampowered.com/app/460930/Tom_Clancys_Ghost_Recon_Wildlands/
And E3 used to be where they show off jawdropping trailers of games using new tech to really push whatās possible (and later downgrade their gameās graphics on all plattforms, just to make it run on consolesā¦ but thatās another story), itās not been that impressive this year.
And I sincerely hope that this is where the derail ends, because imho weāve long filled our quota for AAA graphics threads this quater of the year.
@ Looks good, would like to see it in motion!
From you as someone who usually works on much bigger scope, I would like to hear where you feel are the advantages of the timelimit-jam format. I never tried it, and I doubt I could get anything done in such a short amount of time, because just deciding what I wanna do would take me longer than that. But maybe Iām missing something. For digital painters the āspeedpaintingā is a well established concept and it is very obvious to me why it is useful. With 1-hour gamejams I have yet to really grasp the benefit. Maybe you with your art knowledge can explain it in a way that I āgetā.
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Cool, so it might not be me thatās slowā¦ Iām so used to working on large games where a month will pass and youāll see little to next to no progress, I was beginning to think it was me ā¦ I used a Skybox, two particles (after burner and explosions) and a laser sound effect from the asset storeā¦ Apart from that yeah, all done in four hours.
Canāt really say itās that interesting though (compared to a game like R-type), sure at points you might sweat because you can get jarred in and youāll loose a life if you collide. Give me another 4 hours ish? Iāll make it far more interesting and Iāll put the game up as a web player if anyoneās interestedā¦ Actually wouldnāt mind some feedback anyway, Iām a little concerned about posting a video as it is an extremely āflashyā gameā¦ If you suffer from epilepsy stay a million miles awayā¦
Well for me at least it makes you focus on every aspect of a game as opposed to working on a larger project where youāll spend a vast amount of time on a specific thingā¦ I wonāt deny Iām rusty in a lot of areas that should be straight forward for me at this point. So itās nice to break out and strengthen every part of your development process, it will help when you get to another portion of a larger game where usually youād be sat there feeling somewhat confused.
Also it gets you out of your comfort zone, trying to tackle new ways of doing thingsā¦ A lot of my games revolve around newtonian physics and realistic actions, this was completely different to anything Iāve ever done.
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OK Iām going to try again this week!
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That sounds awesome to me and I am sure many others here are looking forward to playing the game as well!
And yes I completely get it. Certainly put in another 4 to 6 hours on it and then throw out a demo. I think everyone here has enough brains to keep the dev time in mind when we check it out. At least I would certainly hope so. 
A person would have to be quite ignorant to expect the same scope and level of fine-tuning & polish from an 8 to 10 hour game that would be in a 8 to 10 month game IMO.
Also completely agree on what you said about it. I think that is what I enjoy about tiny game projects. It keeps you moving along working on everything. You donāt gain nearly as much experience on any one thing this way but you do gain overall experience on EVERYTHING that goes into making a game from concept to release and that is very important. And you do still get the expert subject matter experience as well it is just that it will come over time and many many different completed games (or at least demos).
Basically it is just another way to approach things. Besides all of that it is just fun. 
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Good luck man! I put in an hour on my game project earlier. And just got the video up before visiting these forums. Now I am shutting this dang thing down and getting outside. Awesome weather here today and I donāt want to miss out on that.
Looking forward to seeing what you come up with this time around.
@GarBenjamin hey dude - just wanted to mention something about the colors on your last video: theyāre really good!
Makes even a simple demo like that look sharp, the fun animations also add a nice flair.
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Thanks. I think color is very important. Up til this year I was spending so much time wrestling with other stuff (mainly just Unity) I didnāt spend much time or thought on the visuals. But I used to at least put some some focus on it. And now that I am doing game dev pretty much the way I used to I find that I am just spending a little more thought & time on such things. I think simply because I am having fun and I feel like I have the time to spare since everything else is so easy.
Speaking of funā¦ I just got back from being out & about. Actually took a mini road trip to a flea market about an hour from here. I go over there a few times each summer and this was the first time this year. Of course, they have all kinds of interesting stuff and some vendors leave and others take their place. But there are also the ones that are always there.
Todayās findsā¦
6 PS2 games and 1 NES game. I was surprised but I donāt think I have that Midway Arcade Treasures in my PS2 collection. If I do well I now have a spare. Also I never knew they made Defender of the Crown for the PS2!! I played that long ago on the C64 and Amiga.
Anywayā¦ thanks for the kind words man I appreciate it.
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Well over the one hour again more like 2 hours, 30 minutesā¦ Retribution by Arowx
The plan is to sleep on it then try and improve it a bit tomorrow, any and all feedback welcome.
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Looks awesome man! 2.5 hoursā¦ Iād say that is damn good to get this very basic playable game.
Focusing on playability hereā¦
- Make the turning a little slowerā¦ it is kind of disorienting due to the view I think.
- Throw a crosshair out in front of the player a ways to show where they are aiming
- Set up enemy spawners and only spawn the enemies thereā¦ perhaps the four corners (and start the player in the middle of the area) OR even inside the buildings. Or whatever / wherever you come up with. The thing I am suggesting is to eliminate the enemies spawning right next to the player.
- Ammo limit. And ammo is occasionally dropped by an enemy when killed
Overall this is a very solid start. I notice the game is tagged as LD38. Didnāt even know that was going on this weekend. Youāve got plenty of time to make this a very good contender!
Thanks for the great feedback.
I donāt like the quick control system I used, maybe it should be twin stick or mouse look and keyboard move?
Iāll see what I can do.
LD38 was in April but I think these 1 hour game jams are great training for a 48 hour game jam as long as you use incremental development or it would give you time to build up more levels.
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Why did you tag it LD38 or did someone else do that?
@ how is your 8 to 12 hour jam project coming along?
Getting close to a playable release?
I put in another hour on the 3D Invaders game this morning. Then spent 2 hours making videos (had to remake one of them 4 times!). This making video logs of the progress is getting ridiculous but I thought it might be interesting to see it develop.
I also made a video showing the current source code for the project. Which I donāt think I mentioned but actually I am building this in two separate projects at the same time. The AGK BASIC version and a C++ version using the AGK library. Although I am basically only using C instead of C++. I just update one or the other versions and then quickly replicate the updates over to the other version testing as I go. They map to each other very well and like Iāve said many times I develop more or less the same exact way no matter what I am using so that helps a lot too when it comes to porting code.
Iām at 6 and 1/2 hours now.
Seeing your screenshots kind of reminds me of that game @Billy4184 was making. Iāll have to check his wip thread and see where heās at on it.
Anywayā¦ looking forward to checking out your space game @
Looking good ;)ā¦ Pfff, I got sidetracked on an āinteresting problemā as neg would say with my main projectā¦ I picked it up again tonight and geez I donāt do things by half measures. I put together an actual music track instead of the stock midi stuff, I added a mega laser / clamped itās use (so you canāt spam it to win)ā¦
Iāve added variable enemy strengths, started balancing out stats, added a life / shield system and I created a spawn / clamp system for the other enemies and Iāve set up the skybox to rotate to give the actual feel of movementā¦ Plus much, much moreā¦
Next on the list is to create the new enemies and bosses, it should be near enough plug and play by this point (after Iāve made themā¦ Iām 7 and a half hours in.
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