Game Jam The Micro Jam - THEME: Crazy Party

M

Misu

Guest

May 5th - May 8th
theme
CRAZY PARTY

What is this madness!!! Its the Micro Jam, of course! A jam where you make a micro-game (like the ones from WarioWare). This challenge is pretty simple and easy although you think you have what it takes come up with an original microgame that is challenging and fun?

Okay when is this?

Starting on Friday, May 5th at 8PM (Eastern American Time) and ends on Monday, May 8th at 8PM

What are the rules?

Submit any amount of entries you like of your own microgame. Your game must have a timer set between 5 to 7 seconds.
Every entry here will focus on their own random challenge to test players coordinations and fast thinking. Every finished entry will get to go into a special project called the GMCWare, which I will provide once the jam ends. This requires your submissions to be project zip folders so I can add your microgame into the project (which will run them like an actual Warioware clone).
During voting phase, you evaluate which microgame is your favourite and give top 3 scores for them.
I will sum up all qualified votes given to me through PM, so I can give the final scores by May 13th.
Only one of your entries will be qualified for voting.

All game that is not micro or timer is more than 7 seconds wont count.
Any entry that contains offensive content or inappropriate material wont be accepted.

Please do not provide any copyright resources or sources that were paid from market.
Your entries are submitted through PM. If you still want to show off, you can provide exe to public for others to play.

How my entry should be displayed?
Good question! You can have it start the microgame immediately, and end with a closure or a static display at the end. If you like, you can set up a start menu or something.
What about my control scheme?


Control scheme can be any way you want it but following this schematic:

Do it whatever pleases you. No specific system required.

NOTE:
The submission should be GMS2 project file (You must make sure your resources start with the initial of your username to avoid conflict {misu_player, misu_back0,...}). Any GM is welcome but be aware that when importing into GMS2, small chance it may not run the same.
I provided base files, if you are using them, here are some things you need to know.
- Inside object sys_obj has the timer, speed, and entity variables for you to adjust if you like. They are located in UserDefine0 event.
- DO NOT change anything else inside sys_obj except those.
- Whenever you win your microgame (pass it) you set global variable VICTORY to true, otherwise, leave it as false (or 0).
- Whenever your microgame ends, you should wipe all your created objects for your microgame inside the script instance_destroy_all()
- You dont change the room apparently... you gonna have to assign all instances using instance_create I'm afraid. Only one object you have will spawn them for you and will be your main object that you will input in variable ENTITY in UserDefine0 event on object sys_obj


If you like to donate a prize, go ahead, I wont mind.

If you have any questions, doubts, or better suggestions, please do post in the thread or notify me by PM. Im looking to make some arrangements to the norms so the jam can be much more organize with the player and submission form. So feel free to suggest something sooner.

As always, I leave you with a banner for you all to use and spread the word!
Code:
[url=https://forum.yoyogames.com/index.php?threads/the-micro-jam.25381/][img]https://gyazo.com/38affa752f2d12c1aa5dcab8484a41bf.png[/img][/url]


 
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Mercerenies

Member
Alright, you wanted my thoughts.

Submission format seems fine to me. Since it's just a short game (made in three days and intended to last seven seconds), it shouldn't be a lot of super high-tech proprietary code that you need to hide. My main concerns are these.
1. I assume there's no limit on the number of submissions (I see that only one counts for voting, but I would probably be interested in making several small ones in addition to the one that counts)?
2. I suspect I'm not the only person who doesn't have / hasn't learned GMS2 yet. As such, I'm not really familiar with the importing mechanism. Is there anything us lowly GMS1 users should specifically avoid or make sure to do to maximize the chances of things working smoothly?

(E: Oh, probably should @Misu this)
 
M

Misu

Guest
Ok sorry for the bump but there has been several misunderstandings from my information of the jam that people didnt get. I made some changes to the information to clarify it better.
Just so you know, I called it player because it plays through your entries but the idea is to play them as if it was a warioware clone. I thought it would be a cool idea to do that sonce its various short games.
Another thing, submissions has to be through PM, if you want to share your little creation, you can post a link to an exe in the thread for everyone to see.

Also, if you still feel skeptical about this, feel free to speak, i am open to any improvements. We still got 2 weeks ahead of us.

@Mercerenies
Well allowing several entries is a regular thing you normally get from other jams. It may be a micro game but the effort of making one is as same as making a regular jam entry .

Also for those who are concern about importing with gms1 to gms2, i will make a list tomorrow with some specifcations that will help out on that. ;)
 

matharoo

manualman
GameMaker Dev.
Okay so, only one entry can be voted upon, so I'll submit only one.
So I need to make a 7-second (or less) game, with or without a menu screen, and with a static ending screen? Then you'll add it to your project (GMCWare)?
Is that it?

Edit: What about the controls? Because the controls should be consistent in all the microgames, you should set a control scheme.
 

Hyomoto

Member
Hmm, may be a fun idea. I'm working on a more in-depth project, but maybe it'll be far enough along by the time this happens? I like that it's definitely something challenging in how do you make something that only lasts 7 seconds?


However, the submission format does bother me. I honestly have no real issue with providing a GM2 file, especially since it could help others to see source ( I learned by taking apart old Hypercard projects ), but as others have mentioned it may limit who can actually play the games. I love GM2, but a lot of people don't even have it and I think the spirit of a Jam isn't just submitting something, but seeing the things everyone else submits. Just because it doesn't covert to GM2 well shouldn't be a limitation, at all.
 

matharoo

manualman
GameMaker Dev.
Hmm, may be a fun idea. I'm working on a more in-depth project, but maybe it'll be far enough along by the time this happens? I like that it's definitely something challenging in how do you make something that only lasts 7 seconds?


However, the submission format does bother me. I honestly have no real issue with providing a GM2 file, especially since it could help others to see source ( I learned by taking apart old Hypercard projects ), but as others have mentioned it may limit who can actually play the games. I love GM2, but a lot of people don't even have it and I think the spirit of a Jam isn't just submitting something, but seeing the things everyone else submits.
See:
Misuchan said:
If you still want to show off, you can provide exe to public for others to play.
So yeah, we all can provide an exe.
 
Yeah, I think we'd need a unified control scheme. I'd suggest a rule that uses only the mouse, or the mouse and the arrow keys or something.

But perhaps instead we should all just make sure the controls for each of our games are immediately clear through images, or else make that part of the microgame itself.
 

Micah_DS

Member
Sounds cool and I'm totally down for this! But I see some issues which may arise if no decision is made on them:
  • First issue - display resolution:
    Since it's all going to be combined into a single project (GMCWare), shouldn't all games be running at the same resolution? Or at least be within a certain range? For example, jumping between fullscreen and windowed mode every 10 or so seconds would be a bit... trippy. So at the very least, it would be good to decide either fullscreen or windowed (I'd vote windowed). I think some more thought could be put into this aspect.

  • Second issue - controls (as others have also pointed out):
    WarioWare games have limited control options and the same controls are used for each game, while a computer has an entire keyboard+mouse and even gamepad. Simple and limited controls are key in allowing the player proper information on how to play.
    Perhaps a requirement for each game could be a 'controls' screen that displays on game start until the user presses a button, and then the game starts directly after that, with the player properly informed. Either this or we all decide on input limitations to make all games have unified controls (I'd vote only mouse or only arrow keys and one button).
    A perhaps cooler option would be to have everyone make their buttons be stored in global variables, something like keyboard_check(global.inButtonA), and in the GMCWare program, have an options screen which allows users to assign their own controls. If everyone used the same variable name, all games would have unified controls and of the player's choosing.
Maybe I got carried away on the control ideas...:p but yeah, this seems fun! Just needs a little bit more rules to ensure everything works together well. ;)
 

matharoo

manualman
GameMaker Dev.
Hmm the idea to have custom controls seems too much lol. Maybe we could settle on just the mouse? We can do some much with it.
 

Mercerenies

Member
These are some really good issues I hadn't thought of when this idea was originally pitched, so I'll throw in my two cents.

  • Display - I'd say 640x480 is probably best. GMS1's default resolution (1024x768) is known to flood the screen of some people's computers, especially if they have the resolution turned down to be able to read better. So smaller than that would be ideal. Besides, simplicity is better in microgames like this. We don't want a bunch of really complex messes that we have to sift through every 7 seconds. I'd even say smaller than 640x480 might be better. But regardless, there should be a definite resolution specified.
  • Controls - The trouble with the mouse is that there are two kinds of laptop users in today's world: touchscreen users and mouse users. And while this wouldn't matter for longer games, for really short games it's going to come into play. If you make a game that's intended to be used with a mouse, it's going to be way too easy with a touchscreen. And if you make a game that targets touchscreen users, it's likely to be nigh impossible if you only have a mouse. For that reason, I would be inclined to suggest a keyboard-only rule, probably limiting to one or two keys (say, space and return, for instance). After all, most of the pre-Touched Warioware microgames used only one or two buttons.
  • Trick Games - Do we want to have a veto rule against games that are completely unfair? In a regular GMC Jam, it wouldn't matter. But if there's going to be a GMCWare project made out of this and some schmuck submits "press the spacebar 500 times in two seconds) as a game, that's going to make the whole project less fun to play. So that's why I ask if we want to have some way to deal with that. I'm sure most of us have the best of intentions, but as they say it only takes one bad egg.
 

Micah_DS

Member
- Controls -
Hmm the idea to have custom controls seems too much lol..
It's really not too much of a task at all, actually. The games should at most have 2 button options, possibly only 1 button, meaning each game would use global.inButtonA and possibly global.inButtonB as well, and that's it. It's not like there are a ton of controls to assign. But the problem is @Misu might not want to create the button assignment option screen. Honestly though, I could volunteer to create scripts for that if the idea sounds nice to everyone and Misu doesn't want to program that aspect himself.
But maybe I'm too used to GML and others feel this is too difficult of a rule to implement/follow?

Anyway, after reading what @Mercerenies said about touchscreens, I'm thinking yeah, I vote keyboard only. I didn't think about touch capabilities.

- Display -
640x480 sounds pretty good, but would it be okay if we scaled up 2x from 320x240 or something to get this? It'd hit more of a sweet spot for those of us who are used to creating 'pixel art' styled graphics. In 16x16 tiles, this would be 20x15.

- FPS -
And I just thought of another thing, FPS (i.e. 'room speed', a.k.a. 'game speed' in GMS2). I vote we all go with 60 FPS. But whether we go default 30 or 60 or something else, it'd be good to settle on one, as it would be a lot less of a headache for Misu putting together the GMCWare project. We don't want games running at the wrong speed.
 

matharoo

manualman
GameMaker Dev.
It's really not too much of a task at all, actually. The games should at most have 2 button options, possibly only 1 button, meaning each game would use global.inButtonA and possibly global.inButtonB as well, and that's it. It's not like there are a ton of controls to assign. But the problem is @Misu might not want to create the button assignment option screen. Honestly though, I could volunteer to create scripts for that if the idea sounds nice to everyone and Misu doesn't want to program that aspect himself.
But maybe I'm too used to GML and others feel this is too difficult of a rule to implement/follow?
I think that's a good idea, and I don't think it's too hard to implement, is it?
 
M

Misu

Guest
Ok guys first off...

Control scheme can be any way you want it but following this schematic:


Pretty much any form of usage as long they are one of the highlighted keys in this map image.


Second, the resolution would be recommended to use 640x480. However, if you want to experiment with different room sizes and views, I recommend trying to set a blank background and fit the game screen within the 640x480, centralized.

Also for those who are gonna use GMS1, I recommend avoiding functions like instance_create and instance_destroy since GMS2 conversion might not work the same. Thats pretty much it.
If I spot anything else about the importing process, Ill let you all know.
 

matharoo

manualman
GameMaker Dev.
I recommend avoiding functions like instance_create and instance_destroy
The simple instance_destroy() from GMS1 works in GMS2 too

Also, just for a 7-second game, aren't 3 days too much? It should be 2 days maximum I think?
 
M

Misu

Guest
I thought about setting the jam to 1 day thing but I gave it a 3 to ensure that people have the time to enter in this jam (knowing lot of people are likely to be busy and stuff) but depending on how this goes, I'll see what are the results.
 
Yeah, I'd say it may as well be three days. I'm pretty sure some of us could make an entry for this jam in less than two hours, so we may as well have extra time. It'll increase the number of ones submitted.

So @Misu , are you planning to be combining these into a single project, as like one big game made by all of us? In which case, would heavy commenting be helpful?
 
M

Misu

Guest
So @Misu , are you planning to be combining these into a single project, as like one big game made by all of us? In which case, would heavy commenting be helpful?
Thats correct. And yes, commenting would be much appreciated (Although its not necesary since Im just putting the resources in the project and thats it but in case if something does not go right, it would make my life easier to debug).
 

Mike

nobody important
GMC Elder
Control scheme can be any way you want it but following this schematic:


Pretty much any form of usage as long they are one of the highlighted keys in this map image.
Not that I'm taking part, but why on earth would you force a keyboard layout? There's a good reason games can redefine keys - people tend not to like specific keys. I never....ever use WASD, for me they are a horrible combo, I much prefer cursor keys as the space around them means I don't hit wrong keys.

By all means say your allow a mouse button and 4 keys, but don't be too specific.
 

Shawn Basnett

Discount Dev
Not that I'm taking part, but why on earth would you force a keyboard layout? There's a good reason games can redefine keys - people tend not to like specific keys. I never....ever use WASD, for me they are a horrible combo, I much prefer cursor keys as the space around them means I don't hit wrong keys.

By all means say your allow a mouse button and 4 keys, but don't be too specific.
I feel like the way this project will be combined, consistent controls will be necessary.
 
M

Mocgames998

Guest
I'm in.
Also, considering that one of my very first GM games was a WarioWare clone...
 
M

Misu

Guest
Not that I'm taking part, but why on earth would you force a keyboard layout? There's a good reason games can redefine keys - people tend not to like specific keys. I never....ever use WASD, for me they are a horrible combo, I much prefer cursor keys as the space around them means I don't hit wrong keys.

By all means say your allow a mouse button and 4 keys, but don't be too specific.
At first (before starting this thread) I had in thought of letting anyone come up with their own ways of controlling the system. But eventually, a couple of people here were discussing that such game concept requires a consistent keyboard input (mostly because microgames take less than 7 seconds and having a huge keyboard full of different keys seem to complicated for coordination).

Anyway, my idea provided was something I thought of, believing maybe that would help but if there is a better way to establish this, I mostly would accept any improvements to this jam.

Let alone 4 random keys would be something, but a bit complicated for coordination. Unless Im wrong and there is a reason to allow such idea.
 

Alice

Darts addict
Forum Staff
Moderator
How about there would be 5 keyboard input variables (LEFT/RIGHT/UP/DOWN/ACTION) + mouse press/position, and the player would be able to redefine the keyboard input however they want? This should give about as much consistency and flexibility at the same time as it can get.
 
M

Misu

Guest
How about there would be 5 keyboard input variables (LEFT/RIGHT/UP/DOWN/ACTION) + mouse press/position, and the player would be able to redefine the keyboard input however they want? This should give about as much consistency and flexibility at the same time as it can get.
I like that idea. If all agree, we could go with that.

If anyone else haves a doubt or other suggestions, feel free to talk in the thread. :)
 
R

rui.rosario

Guest
I like that idea. If all agree, we could go with that.

If anyone else haves a doubt or other suggestions, feel free to talk in the thread. :)
I think you should create and distribute a project to act as the "platform" layer of the Jam.
The project would have a room set up with the size and all of those pre-configured, immutable aspects. It would also have a set of useful scripts that all entries should rely upon (an example would be those input scripts, input_left_*(), ..., input_action_*(), input_mouse_*(), input_mouse_delta_x(), etc).

With this you would then define a set of rules:
  • All the used resources should be in a group with your username (for multiple submissions you could have sub groups for example).
  • [optional] You could enforce a naming scheme for an initializer script (*_microgame) that would get automatically called through reflection in order to set up required globals and actually register with the platform (again, you could use a provided APi for registering the microgame like registering the microgame name and author, etc).
  • Other rules you deemed necessary.
Hopefully this structured approach would mean entries would be consistent and hopefully it would also make your work of merging everything together simpler.

Anyway, this is my suggestion :p
 

HayManMarc

Member
Derp. Found it. (re. resource conflict issue)

EDIT:
As for control scheme, I'm for WASD (or ARROWS, per Mike's comment) and ACTION (spacebar). Allows for movement in any direction and one action if needed. Anything more seems like it would make things become too complicated for something that is supposed to be simple. Also, with regards to "touchscreen vs mouse", I vote for neither and disallow mouse controls.

As for resolution, can we use any resolution as long as it's ported out to a specific size? For example, I could make a view in a room of 320 x 240 then port it out to 640 x 480. But someone else could make a view in a room of 1280 x 960 then port it out to 640 x 480. I think this would be acceptable, giving entrants more options while keeping the port size to be displayed the same for all games.

??
 
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Micah_DS

Member
How about there would be 5 keyboard input variables (LEFT/RIGHT/UP/DOWN/ACTION) + mouse press/position, and the player would be able to redefine the keyboard input however they want? This should give about as much consistency and flexibility at the same time as it can get.
I like that idea. If all agree, we could go with that.
I agree, since that's pretty much what I suggested before.:p

I think you should create and distribute a project to act as the "platform" layer of the Jam.
(snip)
This idea makes a lot of sense to me.
 
M

Misu

Guest
I think you should create and distribute a project to act as the "platform" layer of the Jam.
Sounds nice ...

It would also have a set of useful scripts that all entries should rely upon (an example would be those input scripts, input_left_*(), ..., input_action_*(), input_mouse_*(), input_mouse_delta_x(), etc).
But that no. If I provide too many resources for you all to use, then in this case, you guys would end up finishing entries way too early and easily. The point of a jam is to challenge your knowledge, test your creativity, and have fun of course. Guys need to come with your own scripts or use premade resources elsewhere because you need to dedicate more on those entries, especially with a 3 day range that focus on micogames (something very simple that can be done way quicker).

If Im going to provide a separate project, its to provide a set up for the display mode and the timer that will be needed. also some commentaries on how to organize your project. Thats pretty much it.
 
R

rui.rosario

Guest
But that no. If I provide too many resources for you all to use, then in this case, you guys would end up finishing entries way too early and easily. The point of a jam is to challenge your knowledge, test your creativity, and have fun of course. Guys need to come with your own scripts or use premade resources elsewhere because you need to dedicate more on those entries, especially with a 3 day range that focus on micogames (something very simple that can be done way quicker).

If Im going to provide a separate project, its to provide a set up for the display mode and the timer that will be needed. also some commentaries on how to organize your project. Thats pretty much it.
In this case I was referring to standardization scripts / required APIs.
For example, if you want the player to be able to customize the keyboard layouts and all microgames to conform to that layout then you provide the input scripts so that the entries use them, instead of each entry having it's own keyboard scheme.
Another example is that API I mentioned to register microgames to the platform.

So I wasn't saying to provide scripts that made it easier to create an entry :p
 
M

Misu

Guest
In this case I was referring to standardization scripts / required APIs.
For example, if you want the player to be able to customize the keyboard layouts and all microgames to conform to that layout then you provide the input scripts so that the entries use them, instead of each entry having it's own keyboard scheme.
Another example is that API I mentioned to register microgames to the platform.

So I wasn't saying to provide scripts that made it easier to create an entry :p
Actually there is a more simpler way of doing this instead of scripts, its called "preparing a system object". Your system object has all the preferences you would apply to in control schemes and room modification. Im pretty sure I can include an example of one in the distributed project file.
 
R

rui.rosario

Guest
Actually there is a more simpler way of doing this instead of scripts, its called "preparing a system object". Your system object has all the preferences you would apply to in control schemes and room modification. Im pretty sure I can include an example of one in the distributed project file.
The scripts were an example, of course you can use other paradigms :p
 

HayManMarc

Member
Starting to get complicated. Easier just to restrict the Jam to certain keys, IMO. It's only a jam, for fun, right? Jus'sayin'.
 
M

Misu

Guest
Starting to get complicated. Easier just to restrict the Jam to certain keys, IMO. It's only a jam, for fun, right? Jus'sayin'.
Honestly, I dont mind about key restriction or freedom of establishing any key of my own. Im a simple person who knows how to get around anything and not skeptical about any possibility. However, its for you all to feel more satisfied with since I am not the only person participating. I am still observing other people's opinions to take in majority of counts and choose whats best at the end. Do you have a good reason why restriction would be better?

Also, sneek peek!
 

matharoo

manualman
GameMaker Dev.
Honestly, I dont mind about key restriction or freedom of establishing any key of my own. Im a simple person who knows how to get around anything and not skeptical about any possibility. However, its for you all to feel more satisfied with since I am not the only person participating. I am still observing other people's opinions to take in majority of counts and choose whats best at the end. Do you have a good reason why restriction would be better?
I think two keys and mouse are enough.
 

HayManMarc

Member
Do you have a good reason why restriction would be better?
either a restriction so the player controls are all the same for every entry, or no restrictions at all and leave it up to the designer to define the controls. Now that I think on it more, I'm inclined to change my mind and favor no restrictions at all. Whatever the case, it doesn't really matter to me.
 
M

Misty

Guest
Dude what I'm thinking is...we take the top 20 of these games and make a Party game out of it and sell it on Steam...and then all the people who made it to the top 20 get a 3.5% share.
 

Micah_DS

Member
Dude what I'm thinking is...we take the top 20 of these games and make a Party game out of it and sell it on Steam...and then all the people who made it to the top 20 get a 3.5% share.
I hate to be that realistic guy, but the quality control on this likely won't be strong enough in multiple areas, not to mention how extremely short of a game 20 micro games would make. Putting something like that on Steam would definitely make it one of those "cash grab" games that only a handful of people might be interested in. It'd also be a pain to pay 20 people. Too much of a task for essentially no monetary gain. Actually, if one had to pay $100 for dev access on Greenlight, it'd probably be a loss overall (yeah, I really don't think it'd make much money...). And once Greenlight is replaced, it'd definitely be something we wouldn't want to do. :p

That said, it would be pretty cool if the GM community did a large scale micro game project with more submission rules to ensure the game is properly designed. But, then comes the problem of commitment, except it likely wouldn't be much of a problem due to the nature of the micro games - how it could easily be modular in code design. So if one person drops out, there would be plenty of other micro games from other people, and the entire project wouldn't be lost or really hindered in any way. So I could see it working, but it'd still need some serious organization and it's way more work than one might think at first glance. If someone ever properly headed that kind of project on here, I'd be interested in working on it seriously, just to put that out there.
 
I was wondering about the same thing. I think it'd be kind of cool to have a game that is created by the GMC. I'd actually suggest making it free, so that we can ignore the payment issue, or have it all go to a donation. Otherwise it'd be impossible to decide how much to pay everybody. I don't know if I have the time to head a project like that, but I would support this for sure. I'd be willing to write up a proposal for the regulations to be used on the project, and the format that people could submit micro-jams.

What I'd really suggest is that after this Jam, the people interesting in supporting that sort of thing should get together in a PM or discord or something to talk about it then.
 
Well yeah. But the point is that we don't think it should just be limited to a three day Jam. We think this idea has enough potential to be worth considerable work to make it a really good product, far outside of the time-frame of a jam. And several of us just volunteered as members of the community to make that sort of thing happen.
 

matharoo

manualman
GameMaker Dev.
Make sure you make a timer, like the one they do in the GMC jams. It helps those with different time zones ascertain the time left for the jam to start.
 
S

Storyteller

Guest
Id like to use number keys and enter for my micro-game.
I could put an onscreen keypad you use with the arrow keys, but my idea involves numeric input.
 

John Andrews

Living Enigma
Oh gravy custard... IM in probably mostly :)

but my GMS is outdated as ************ :'(

OH AND I have to give my source? Well good luck reading my code XD
 
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