Anyone for Global Game Jam?

[Stoney]

I'm a big fan of any game jams whatsoever. I think the advantage of real-life game jams (as opposed to virtual ones like Ludum Dare) is that to you are in team and there's a lot more pressure, you can't really afford to give up. Another factor is that you have to make decisions within a few minutes max and stick with them as you don't really have time to completely scrap ideas and start from scratch.

[Ingemar]

Sounds like I am on the right track then. I have done small quick projects a few times before, usually with one more person (which I think is important, you need a discussion partner as well as someone that can take on some tasks that you don't have time for) but never with larger teams and not teams formed like in GGJ.

I am not sure what kind of team I will want, one where I do the programming or where someone else does, or I make a boardgame instead... but as long as I do something, I think it will be fun.

[Ingemar]

Now I am at the Game Jam and I just don't know what to do. Without a single FPC (or similar) programmer around, I have nobody to code with. I won't code in C/C++ for fun, that simply isn't fun. The guy I hoped to work ideas with went home.

[Ñuño Martínez]

I didn't know nothing about this Global Game Jam. But I don't understand: What does "not virtual" means?

[Ingemar]

I didn't know nothing about this Global Game Jam. But I don't understand: What does "not virtual" means?

Groups physically in the same place.

But for me it isn't very fun. I just don't know if I care to finish. I did have a playtester today, that was fun, but otherwise I am all alone. Not much of a "jam" then. I could have joined a group that is doing one of the ideas we came up with in my brainstorm group, but then we would be three programmers, all with different languages, and... I think I would code past the others in no time. I could have finished that game in the first evening. (Hey, I use FPC! Much faster.) And that would just spoil the fun for the others. So... I went for other goals, alone. I made a partial prototype yesterday, but couldn't see the fun. Today I made a boardgame instead, a strategy game. It works, it was actually pretty fun in the playtesting. But what's the damn difference whether it ends up on the GGJ server or in my drawer? None that I can see. I'll bring it to a game convention instead.

Sorry if I sound negative, I am a bit tired.

[Stoney]

We finished a game: http://globalgamejam.org/2012/dr-moebius-vs-world It's not in Pascal though, we used Game Maker (so indirectly Delphi for the Windows version ). I did the art for the game. The game is actually quite hard (almost impossibly hard and very unforgiving), there is also a HTML5 version here: http://spellmaker.de/ggj/

@Ingemar: I don't think doing the jam alone is a good idea. Were there no graphics or sound guys or gals that you could help you out with your game?

[Traveler]

That's a nice little game, Stoney. It's annoyingly hard, but at the time you still want to go on and try again, and again... and again.....




and again.....


good job!

[Ingemar]

@Ingemar: I don't think doing the jam alone is a good idea. Were there no graphics or sound guys or gals that you could help you out with your game?

The few graphics&sound guys quickly dried up, since there were more programmers. That made the first evening pretty bad. Yesterday was better, thanks to a playtester showing up. And this third day got a bit better still and I ended up programming a simple game from scratch in the last 6 hours, with two more people helping with graphics and discussions! So in the end, the Game Jam result was one board game and one computer game, plus a graphics demo I made the first evening (but had no good game idea for).

So the real game jam was the last six hours due to the problem of forming teams with mostly programmers around.

[Ingemar]

We finished a game: http://globalgamejam.org/2012/dr-moebius-vs-world It's not in Pascal though, we used Game Maker (so indirectly Delphi for the Windows version ). I did the art for the game. The game is actually quite hard (almost impossibly hard and very unforgiving), there is also a HTML5 version here: http://spellmaker.de/ggj/

Looks nice. I wish it was in FPC, and for the Mac of course.

[Ingemar]

we used Game Maker (so indirectly Delphi for the Windows version )

BTW, it should be indirectly FPC for other platforms.