Global Game Jam - 2016

So, yet again I've decided to do the Global Game Jam hosted at my University this year.

This years theme: RITUAL 
The diversifiers: 

Comic book colours
Your game uses only 4 colours, with an emphasis on contrast 
- Accessibility, Art, Design, Pervasive

LEGO Got It Right
There are no spoken or written words in this game. This is even true in the instructions 
- Pervasive, Accessibility

The Bard's Tale
2016 is 400 years since the death of Shakespeare. Build a game around one of his works - Content

A local game for local people
Make a game that features your country, city, or people that jam around you 
- Content, Theme

Where in the world is…
Gameplay or art changes depending on the player's geographical location (GPS, IP location, etc). The game experience is therefore significantly different for players all around the globe - Art, Content, Design, Pervasive

Crowd sourced
Anyone who is watching it can play along!
- Design

No retreat, no surrender
The protagonist is unable to go anywhere but forward, in every situation 
- Art, Content, Design, Theme

Capture and Play - Bluetooth
Make a game with Bluetooth capabilities in which any bluetooth device near the PC that have the game would interact with something inside the game. (More items, more enemies, another challenger player, or instant co-op, etc)
 - Code

Take Control
Instead of the usual keyboard and console controllers, your game must use a custom controller
- Design, Accessibility

Marco Polo
Create a game that contains no graphical output -- all information is conveyed to the player through audio 
- Accessibility, Audio

Gandhi’s Game
This game must have zero violence in its game play. Conflicts must have resolutions based on logic 
- Design, Theme

One hand tied behind my back
Create a game that can be played with only one hand. On mobile just one hand holding and playing at the same time i.e. just play with your thumb. Desktop, mouse only or keyboard only 
- Accessibility, Design, Serious

Multijammer
Work cooperatively with other GGJ sites within your own timezone 
 - Meta

Story Mode
No cutscenes, textboxes or interruption of gameplay. Use player actions for all your storytelling - Content, Design, Accessibility

Infinite
Your world is procedurally generated 
- Code, Content

Loudmouth
All audio assets are created by sounds from your mouth
 - Audio

What was that?
Any sound featured must not be sourced from the object in the game making that sound 
- Audio

Work and Play
The game requires the player to code/learn to code to progress - Code, Serious

Won’t somebody think of the children?
Your team must use the works from a child or children - Meta

Companion screen
The game uses a mobile device as an additional screen to show a different mode or portion of the game - Code, Design

Common Ground
Make a co-op game playable by players who have very different levels of ability to each other - Accessibility

Twitch Plays (sponsored by Twitch)
Create a live streamed game intended to be played concurrently by the masses on Twitch.

Do You Even Care? (sponsored by iThrive Games)
Drawing from guidance materials from iThrive's subject matter experts, make a game that teaches empathy to teens.
Guidance materials from iThrive's subject matter experts is available from: http://ithrivegames.com/iThrive%20G4H%20Materials.pdf

Now...I could not think of a game....Nothing. I was a barren wasteland. Luckily, the rest of the community had a ton of brilliant ideas. So, I joined a team and we made a game called:

RPG where you are the village's most amazing and successful hero. (Named Bjorn) You also happen to have a severe case of OCD. You're sent on a quest to save the village, but you'll encounter a lot of things that are an extra challenge for you with your OCD condition.

The team (Not to be confused with the A-Team...different division ;P ):

(Left) Ben Geldenhuys - Art

(2nd from left) Megan Hughes - Game Designer, Project Manager, learnt-to-colour-in-using-wacom-at-ggj16

(Middle) Jem Smith - Lead Programmer

(2nd from right) Jacques Botha (Me) - Programmer, Art, Sound

(Right) Kevin Gibson - Music                         (can't find him?...welp, resident ninja in action)

Some of the Epic art that was designed by Ben (and his sexy assistants): 

The Hero, Bjorn

The home stead

Village

Dreaded Forrest

Final Boss

Unfortunately I don't have the original files anymore (Formatted PC soon after the Game Jam)

Exe download link [win] (for those of you who want to try your hands at being an OCD'd viking hero)

All in all was a epic experience. Even after the disaster (Coined the "Great Git Crash") where by we lost all audio (cept music) we still where voted the best game at the venue....squeeee xD. I would love to team up with these epic folks again and see want we create.

Guess I'll be back next year for another update on GGJ adventures, cheers.

Global Game Jam 2015

Global Game Jam 2015

This past weekend I took part the annual Global Game Jam event.

1. "A game jam is a gathering of game developers for the purpose of planning, designing, and creating one or more games within a short span of time, usually ranging between 24 and 72 hours. Gamedevelopers are generally made up of programmers, game designers, artists, and others in game development-related fields."

This years theme was: "What do we do now".

Diversifiers (Optional conditions):

1. Noise Generator: The mechanic of the game is based on players having to stay in constant communication with each other.
2. Folk: The game uses a folk or indigenous art style of your region.
3. NES: Make the game playable on an old school console, either directly or through an emulator.
4. Wrist Watcher: The game is playable on a smart-watch, or uses wearable technology in some way.
5. Clueless Parents: The game helps kids teach something to their parents or other family members.
6. Batch Job: The game is a batch file from any operating system, using command line tools found in an out of the box installation.
7. Chimera: The game is played partly as a digital and partly as a non-digital (board, card, etc.) game. (we did this Diversifier) 
8. Hyper-Local: The game is set in your town/city and contains elements locals can identify, while still being entertaining for a global audience.
9. Can I Try?: Any spectator of the game automatically becomes a player as well.
10. This is How it Feels: The game raises awareness of how hate speech or unfair accusations feel, and what kind of effect they have on their targets.
11. Stephen Hawking Can Play This: In the game everything (including any menus) can be navigated with one button, without any need for quick / precisely timed presses.
12. Eagle Ear: The game is primarily visual, but is also playable by visually impaired  players, either through audio design, or through a screenreader (VoiceOver, Talkback, JAWS etc).
13. Relatively Speaking: A game based on the 100th anniversary of Einstein’s theory of general relativity, which explained that massive objects cause a distortion in space-time, such as light bending around black holes.
14. Public Domain Class of 2015: Make a game based on the works entered to Public Domain on 1st January 2015 - for instance works of Wassily Kandinsky, Edvard Munch, Edith Sitwell, Piet Mondrian, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Felix Nussbaum, Filippo Tommaso Emilio Marinetti, Glenn Miller, Flannery O’Connor, and Ian Fleming (cough, James Bond, cough), depending on your country.
15. Code for Good (Sponsored by Intel): Make a game with the goal of improving literacy, or inspiring interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields.

So when this jam started I was like, "I'm not going too code a single line of code. This year I'll be purely art-ing"....I ended up being the only coder in a team of 5.

Anyhow, it was tons of fun, this is what we made.

Augmented reality card game where players play cards to give their beasts weapons and actions. To start the game, each player chooses their character and takes the associated deck. Shuffle the deck and draw three cards each. Each card has an image, description of impact and the energy cost for the card. You cannot play a card if you do not have enough energy to play it. Decide which player will play first and place both creature cards onto the play mat. Player 1 selects one card from his or her hand and plays the card face up on the player mat card slot. The computer will calculate damage and reduce energy. It will then be Player 2's turn to play a card. The game continues until one beast has been reduced to zero health. Note: If a card indicates that you gain or lose defense percentage - this applies for the attack in the very next play of the opposing player. to use AR, ensure you have a decent webcam connect too the system that can see the cards.

GGJ link

The team

Jacques Botha (back middel) - Augmented Reality & Game coder, Project Manager, 3D modelling + rigging + animation, DJ

Ben Geldenhuys (back left) - 2D Art, Creative Metal Direction

Richard Ramsbottom (back right) - 3D modelling & rigging

Megan Hughes (front right) - Card game design

Adam Linder (front middel) - Music

Game screen shots 

Tech demo vid

Augmented tech: Vuforia

All in all it was fun, stressful, hard work and most importantly very very educational (even if we didn't stick to the theme). We as a team are contemplating on maybe continuing developing this game for a few months and see what the results turn out too be.