First week of programming: Making a text adventure game

The programming course has begun. Since I already know most things taught in class, I decide to brush up on the subject in my own way.The lectures we’ve had this week mainly consisted of learning control statements like the for statement which loops and the if statement which checks for certain conditions. This is basic stuff I learned in high-school, so I did a little exercise of my own.

This is my text adventure game. It doesn’t […]

Programming

Game design introduction course completed. A quick look on the experience gained.

Now we’re finally done with the concept document for the space shooter. Hard times were had and lessons were learnt to make it easier in the future.

A game about a detective who must defeat mafia bosses in order to pass on
I was the producer for the game concept called Desert of Tombs, and it was not an easy task. We had our good times and bad times throughout the project, but I think the most important […]

Desert Noir Paper Prototype UPDATE

Here is a one-page rule explanation of our paper prototype. It represents our core gameplay which is run and gun combat. When people playtested it, they found it really fun to run around freely and some people even started climbing chairs. Even though that was unplanned, it actually kept the core experience intact.
This thursday, we’re going to show off our prototypes. I believe our players will run around and have a lot of fun 😀

Paper prototype of Desert Noir, space shooter extraordinare

Now we’ve begun on our final assignment for the game design introduction course. The group seems good, we’ve got a nice concept, what more could you ask for?
The goal is to make a game concept document based on two words and some restrictions. The restrictions of no gravity, a projectile present and powerups basically makes it a space shooter.
The game is shaping up good. Today we made our first paper prototype, and it’s… special. Our game’s combat is focused around […]

Concept Challenge – Lady Lovelace and the mystery at sea

A chance to test out our skills and prepare ourselves for future assignment, the random narrative concept challenge had us pick a narrative randomly and then make a concept pitch about it.
Your main character is a fun-loving 50 year-old woman. The story begins in a boxing club. Someone is haunted by a traumatic experience at sea. It’s a story about prejudice. Your character approaches the situation extremely carefully.
We really liked the potential of this character. Our first focus was on […]

Game Jam with Mayesrunner

Game Jam with the GAME crew. What an amazing experience. I’m happy with my amazing teammates and the 6 hours we put into our game. And we even won a reward, how wonderful isn’t that?

We had a game jam last Friday. It was called “My first jam” and was centered towards building relationship between new students and older students as well as creating the opportunity to be making games.

The team was really nice. The seniors helped us when we needed […]

Backlog on the previous weeks

So somewhere along the lines I forgot about blogging about school stuff and went on the do my own analyses of games. Here are some snippets and thoughts behind the recent weeks.In the recent 3 weeks we’ve actually had quite a lot work done. Assignments to be presented the day after receiving them, writing of essays. So I’m just gonna write about the recent happenings and my thoughts/reflection on them.
SissyfightWe played Sissyfight and then we added a new mechanics to […]

Analysis of Sushi Go!

Collect sushi with cute anime faces. Dip them in wasabi and triple their points!

Every round in Sushi Go! you collect sushi of different kinds, then you count points based on what you picked. Often you need a collection of the same dish to get the required points, but some cards combos with another card.

Every round, each player starts out with X cards in their hand. Based on the number of players in […]

Cooperative chess game

Fundamentals of game design chapter 1 exercise 2: Use a chessboard and chesspieces and the ways they move to create a cooperative game where two players work together to achieve a victory condition.My first idea on this is to have the colors represent each player. This makes it easier for the players to consider themselves important and also guides them in what they can move. I want the enemy to start on the other side of the board and have a system […]

Mechanics are hard

What do you get when your assignment and course material contradicts each others and the presentation that should have been uploaded isn’t there. At least a confused as fuck student.
Maybe it’s just me, but the game workshop where I took the role as the mechanics designer was really weird. The paper was full of fill in the blanks of gameplay modes. The description says I should design core mechanics. The course material says there are lots of types of mechanics. […]

Creeping doom and scary games

What is horror games? Does it make you feel afraid or does it just scream in you face?Horror games has the last years had a really dull view of fear. The game industry thinks that simply a monster in a closet will get us happy and content with the scare factor. And while monsters can be scary, just having them chase us is not enough to make a good horror game. Dead Space wants to call itself a horror game, […]