Game Jam 24 Hour Minecraft Jam!

Xor

@XorDev
Minecraft Jam!
July 9th-10th, 8:00 PM EDT

The goal is simple: Remake Minecraft in only 24 hours! Feel free to add your own twist to the game to make it original. Here are some ideas:
Minecraft, but it's sci-fi, 2D Minecraft, a space game, first-person shooter, etc. Or if you don't have any ideas, you can just try to remake Minecraft as closely as possible.

When can I start?
Don't start until the start date above! I highly recommend either streaming, recording, or take some screenshots of the development process.

Are teams allowed?
Not for this jam. Show off your skills by going solo!

Can I use pre-made assets?
Sure! Textures, sounds, and music are perfectly fine (assuming you have the rights to use them). You can also use code assets/libraries however coding from scratch is highly encouraged (I'll only be using pre-made sounds and music myself).

Are there any prizes?
YoYo Games is offering GMS 2 Ultimate Edition (worth $1500!) which is going to their favorite game made with GameMaker!

Isn't that pretty ambitious?
Of course, it is! That's part of the fun. Let's see if we beat this!

The most important rule:
Have fun!


Games will be submitted to the itch.io page!
 

Evanski

Raccoon Lord
Forum Staff
Moderator
I love seeing YYG support this kind of thing!

Also, I spent a little time to attempt making Minecraft in 30 minutes as warm up:
That voice tho ๐Ÿ‘Œ๐Ÿ‘Œ๐Ÿ‘Œ๐Ÿ‘Œ

Im defiantly in on this, im assuming we can only use game maker?
 
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rui.r6o

Member
I'm on vacation during this jam so I should be able to enter without any big issues! I already have a very rough idea of the genre of game I want to create. Quick question: are we allowed to sketch out game/level design before the start date? I.e. not implementing anything but planning how a certain level will look like on paper
 
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O.Stogden

Member
I'm on vacation during this jam so I should be able to enter without any big issues! I already have a very rough idea of the genre of game I want to create. Quick question: are we allowed to sketch out game/level design before the start date? I.e. not implementing anything but planning how a certain level will look like on paper
Seeing as you're allowed to use sprites/sounds/music made beforehand, I would assume concepts/concept art and design is perfectly fine to plan outside of the 24 hours period.

Looks like it's primarily the coding itself that should be done in the 24 hours. Xor themself is using pre-made sounds/music.
 

drandula

Member
I think you can practice and see what works, like Xor itself made 30min challenge already. So you can try and see how to approach some problems. So I would assume making concepts is not out of question. For example you could do something like cube marching for rendering, but if you don't know anything practical about it, you want to educate yourself beforehand and make some tests.
But for jam you need to start from clean slate. Although I was wondering, can you go for your other projects for reference? Not for copying the code, but looking how specific thing was made and rewriting it? And if so, does this include your "training" projects, like previous example for cube marching.
 

Evanski

Raccoon Lord
Forum Staff
Moderator
Here are the free sound effects Minecraft uses, that others can use as well because they are from freesound.org

 

Xor

@XorDev
I'm on vacation during this jam so I should be able to enter without any big issues! I already have a very rough idea of the genre of game I want to create. Quick question: are we allowed to sketch out game/level design before the start date? I.e. not implementing anything but planning how a certain level will look like on paper
Awesome! Sketches, concepts, and even working prototypes are okay as long as you don't prepare code for this jam. All the code you use should be written during the jam (or from a generally accessible source).
I'm going to be writing down ideas for how I'll store data, chunking system, collisions, etc to get some ideas flowing. I'll also plan some ideas for biomes, mobs, and general aesthetics!
 

Xor

@XorDev
Perfect!

Also, fun fact: Going from one vertex_submit per block to one for the whole chunk made the draw time stupid fast. Make sure you're smart about how you build chunks!
MinecraftChallenge.jpg
If you're worried about setting all this up, you can always opt for an exploration game with a static world. It saves a ton of time!
 

Xor

@XorDev
Also, since I'm entering into my own niche challenge, it wouldn't be fair to win the prize, so if YYG picks my game, I'll ask them to go for the next one down the list.
I've made many voxel engines before with GM so I do have a little advantage.
I'm thinking about adding a prize to the pool myself. Not sure yet
 

drandula

Member
I assume you can interprete recreation of Minecraft however you want? Like what aspects makes Minecraft "Minecraft", which you try replicate. Is it infinity cubic open-world, or mining in tunnels and crafting new tools, surviving and gathering resources?
So you don't necessarily need to try replicate whole Minecraft, but take core parts which clearly show it is Minecraft inspired :)
 
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Xor

@XorDev
Exactly! Have fun and be as creative as you like. I will be going for a voxel engine with building/destroying and will see how far I can get.
 

Mr Magnus

Viking King
I actually have an idea. I don't know if I have the time, but I have a concept!

Now to see how much I can overscope it until the 9th.
 
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rui.r6o

Member
I'm actually not going for a 3D entry because I don't like doing 3D in GM (personally). That said, I am going for a game genre I don't normally do, as I feel it provides that extra exploratory feel of a game jam and it also provides a nice spin on Minecraft (IMO). So I'd assume a lot of entrants might feel the same way and just do 2D renditions of a concept based on Minecraft
 
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O.Stogden

Member
I'm actually not going for a 3D entry because I don't like doing 3D in GM (personally). That said, I am going for a game genre I don't normally do, as I feel it provides that extra exploratory feel of a game jam and it also provides a nice spin on Minecraft (IMO). So I'd assume a lot of entrants might feel the same way and just do 2D renditions of a concept based on Minecraft
Yeah, I haven't touched 3D in GM since 2008/2009 or so, no way I'm going to learn it again during a game jam haha.

I'll definitely be doing 2D, I've just spent today mulling over which perspective of 2D I should go for...
 
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FoxyOfJungle

Kazan Games
People could join Jam just to show they're interested. Suddently YYG and Opera improves the 3D support of GMS 2. :p
That's a little advanced for me right now. But I would like to.
 

Posh Indie

That Guy
Not sure if I can take part, but I am playing with ideas so I have a smoother path in case I can. Super rough and arguably minimal since I am "seeing what works and what does not".



I already discovered some things I would do differently (Chunked data would not only allow for infinite worlds, but it would also make generating the worlds a lot faster in this case). Also, I would make different size worlds generate more "consistently" with one another. I have ideas for the water simulation and lighting, as well. Obviously I would be going with 2D and something in the same vein as Terraria (Hopefully that qualifies as "Minecrafty enough"!)
 
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bandman28

Member
Itโ€™s all fun and games until someone makes multiplayer
Whatโ€™s so bad about multiplayer?
I was actually thinking of making a multiplayer local-type thing, but youโ€™d have to get other people to get the game, and the same local wifi, so a limited amount of people would be able to do that.
I'm actually not going for a 3D entry because I don't like doing 3D in GM (personally). That said, I am going for a game genre I don't normally do, as I feel it provides that extra exploratory feel of a game jam and it also provides a nice spin on Minecraft (IMO). So I'd assume a lot of entrants might feel the same way and just do 2D renditions of a concept based on Minecraft
I might learn 3D GameDev on GameMaker just for this jam, since now I know Perlinโ€™s noise stuff and Iโ€™m itching to try it out. Besides, I feel like 2D Minecraft will have a limited range of how much you can actually copy. Oh well, weโ€™ll see.
 
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Xor

@XorDev
Whatโ€™s so bad about multiplayer?
I was actually thinking of making a multiplayer local-type thing, but youโ€™d have to get other people to get the game, and the same local wifi, so a limited amount of people would be able to do that.
If you can make a playable game with networking in 24 hours I will be seriously impressed!


Thatโ€™s alright, Minecraft takes about the same time.
The problem is this is just a few sine waves, only one block type, no trees or anything interesting. This will be difficult!



8-hour hype!!
 

Mr Magnus

Viking King
8-hour hype!!
For a moment I forgot time zones existed and was *really* confused, because currently my local time is 15:35. 8pm is only in four and a half hours away from my perspective. Guess I'll have to do some midnight coding.
 
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Posh Indie

That Guy
The problem is this is just a few sine waves, only one block type, no trees or anything interesting. This will be difficult!
It would be interesting to implement, but would speed it up a lot and use noise algorithms.

Hear me out:
Minecraft chunks are 16x16x256, if I recall correctly. Generating 8 octaves of 3D Simplex Noise on the GPU is insanely fast (My above screenshot was on a pretty big surface and took 0.22 seconds).

What I propose is: Generate 3D Simplex Noise using a shader in vertical strips of 16x256 (which is insanely small compared to the above) onto surfaces (Draw the surface onto itself to ensure the shader actually displays without utilizing excessive "hard sized" sprites) 16 times for each chunk and then convert the surfaces into byte arrays. Then store the chunk locally (to avoid regeneration necessity. How you do this is subjective, so i will not elaborate here, haha).

I believe 1 Degree higher (So 4D, in this case) on the Simplex Noise would also allow you to get tunnel generation "Out of the Box".

Disclaimer: I have not tested the above, myself, but it is just taking what I do for 2D and carrying it to 3D. Due to chunk sizes being (relatively speaking) small, I think it would be feasible (It would come down to computer specs and how many chunks you load in at any given time, of course)
 
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Xor

@XorDev
What I propose is: Generate 3D Simplex Noise using a shader in vertical strips of 16x256 (which is insanely small compared to the above) onto surfaces (Draw the surface onto itself to ensure the shader actually displays without utilizing excessive "hard sized" sprites) 16 times for each chunk and then convert the surfaces into byte arrays. Then store the chunk locally (to avoid regeneration necessity. How you do this is subjective, so i will not elaborate here, haha).
Very neat concept. I'm not sure if the cost of converting this to a buffer would make it worth it though as it's very slow.

What will the rating criteria be for this jam?
I'm not planning to have public ratings. If there's enough interest, I'll certainly consider it, but for now, it's just YYG picking their favorites (and users here can give their own reviews).


Also 2-hour hype!
Who's here? I'm currently writing out some technical plans
 

Mr Magnus

Viking King
I'm not planning to have public ratings.
Well, that's no fun. What's a jam without harshly critiquing everyone's work and awarding votes based on arbitrary metrics?

Who's here? I'm currently writing out some technical plans
I'm pretending to write a Trello to-do list. I have a few papers strewn about that list what structs and functions I need to write and how they relate to each other, but it's a bit of a mess.
 
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Oh fair enough. Honestly, I just find the ratings helpful to me personally, I know they're not going to contribute to my actual score

it's just YYG picking their favorites
Favourites? Is it possible for more than 1 person to win?
 
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Update - I've got that cellular automata system generating a height map now. If I can get this working smoothly with a chunking system, I might be able to at least get some ok-ish world generation working.

voxel_test03.png

Edit: One last update before I call it a night. About 4 hours in and this next pic should be showing a test of a 10x10 grid of 8x8x20 chunks of voxels looking relatively seamless.

voxel_test04.png

Tomorrow, I'd like to optimize the vertex buffers a little, get chunks spawning and despawning as you move around the world, raise sea level to give some room to maybe generate some caves, and if possible, get some sort of 3d collisions working.
 
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Bart

WiseBart
I guess I'm in!

Started about 2 hours ago setting up an 8x8x8 "chunk" vertex buffer to store several cubes (a form of instance pooling). All other info will be sent in via a uniform array.
Once all that is working properly modifying the state of a chunk should be little more than changing a value in that array.
I haven't really thought this through properly so we'll see how it turns out ๐Ÿ˜€
 
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drandula

Member
I still don't have anything rendered for the world, only white view :U
And now I have to go somewhere else for couple of hours.
 
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