Design Game a week - Week 2!

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pappa_wayne

Guest
EDIT:

So week 1 is now completed, onto week 2! This week's words are Contagion, Hard Decisions and Party Games. Got a few ideas for this one so far, thinking about a turn based multiplayer game...

Prior Week Results -

Week 1 - Seasons, Harvest, Infinite:

Egg Harvest - https://www.dropbox.com/s/dnt9182l3xhq7ky/Egg Harvest.exe?dl=0

http://imgur.com/HURgLxQ

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Hi guys,

I've been making little games for a while using game maker now and begun struggling for inspiration a bit. After reading some articles I've decided I'm going to give the whole 'make a game a week for a year' a go. I figured there's no better way to force yourself to come up with new ideas and get practice in a wide variety of game styles. Hopefully by the end of the year I will come out a far better designer and programmer :).

I currently work 4 days a week, so I will have 1 full day a week to work on this plus any spare time I can find (plus weekends). Also anyone who wants to join me on this would love to have the company.

RULES:

- Monday Morning each project will start and it will have to be finished by Sunday night (midnight)
- A finished product will have to be posted online for people to view (and hopefully get feedback)
- I will only be using GameMaker for this
- Games will be based around 3 word themes (game jam style), for this I will be using http://www.cowfacegames.com/handytools/ludum-dare-theme-generator and will try avoid using double up words through the year
- All art work will be made by the designer (no borrowing external art)
- Will try to post atleast a couple of development updates each week

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zombieattack

Guest
This is a really cool idea for rapidly making simple games, but what about features that are a bit complicated where a week might not be enough? It depends on personal speed and time available, but do you think you could program for example a good online multiplayer game in only one week?

I think you should keep going with your plan but maybe also aim to implement a list of game features you've never programmed before. Don't shy away from stuff you're bad at or that seems hard. If you end up needing more than one week for certain complicated features, take the extra time. Then at the end of the year you will truly have expanded your programming and design skills a lot!
 
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pappa_wayne

Guest
This is a really cool idea for rapidly making simple games, but what about features that are a bit complicated where a week might not be enough? It depends on personal speed and time available, but do you think you could program for example a good online multiplayer game in only one week?

I think you should keep going with your plan but maybe also aim to implement a list of game features you've never programmed before. Don't shy away from stuff you're bad at or that seems hard. If you end up needing more than one week for certain complicated features, take the extra time. Then at the end of the year you will truly have expanded your programming and design skills a lot!
Hmm thats probably a good idea. Could possibly adjust things as I go along, every month or two have a two week game dev period maybe for more complicated ideas?
 

Coded Games

Member
I've tried to do something similar but the first few weeks will be the most difficult. Build a template that you can reuse so that you don't spend forever coding something simple like menus. This will save a lot of time later on and will allow you to make more complex games.
 
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zombieattack

Guest
Hmm thats probably a good idea. Could possibly adjust things as I go along, every month or two have a two week game dev period maybe for more complicated ideas?
Good idea, and also good advice from Coded Games. You can also take a finished game and add another feature to make a new game (maybe with different sprites / sounds, but using the same base code). For example if you make an awesome platformer, then the next game you make could add in dialogue and speech options and characters for an RPG. So now you have a platformer RPG.

Once you have a large "toolbox" of reusable code for different features that you can easily add into a new project, you will find that making games becomes faster and that certain features combine to make something much better than their individual parts.
 
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rui.rosario

Guest
Also anyone who wants to join me on this would love to have the company.
I would totally be up for this, but besides weekends (and even they are slim) I don't have a single complete day... Besides having my own projects besides potentially participating in this.

However, I'll try to enter the next Week and see what comes off of it :)
 
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pappa_wayne

Guest
I would totally be up for this, but besides weekends (and even they are slim) I don't have a single complete day... Besides having my own projects besides potentially participating in this.

However, I'll try to enter the next Week and see what comes off of it :)
Awesome, would love more people to be involved! The more people involved the more you have to keep you accountable. But getting the time can be a problem. I'm doing bits and pieces at night and the morning at the moment. I also have a bunch of people from the game dev reddit working on it https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/55ldto/game_a_week_week_1/

As an update I've got the game working with multiple enemy types, season transitions with solid controls. It's quite difficult at the moment haha, but I'm kinda liking it that way. Will get some better looking art in in the next couple of days
 
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pappa_wayne

Guest
Thanks for the advice on building the 'toolbox' like you guys said. I'll try keeping portions in separate files to make it easier to import things like menus etc for future weeks.
 
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pappa_wayne

Guest
Ok, first game is complete! Not the most complex game in the world but have to start somewhere.

I called it Egg Harvest. It's an infinite runner where your play as a giant flying beetle. You have to harvest your eggs that arise during the spring and summer months, whilst avoid the enemy military trying to shoot you down. The eggs provide you with more energy so you can stay flying and use your shield to block attacks.

Would love some feedback on it if any of you can play it. Here is the link:https://www.dropbox.com/s/dnt9182l3xhq7ky/Egg Harvest.exe?dl=0

Wanted to add a few more features but ran out of time in the end, was a far busier week than I was hoping.

Tomorrow will be starting my next one, will make a new thread for that with the new theme words
 
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pappa_wayne

Guest
1 game a week seems a bit much. Have you seen this?...

http://www.onegameamonth.com
Yeah I'm going to vary things as I go I think so I can do some more complex stuff. The game in a week is more just about getting simple ideas down and 'finishing' them. I have a bad habit of doing 1/4 of a game, or 1/2 a game and getting bored.
 
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BobFish

Guest
I like this idea! good luck with sticking to it because I know I'd probably give up after a couple of weeks :(

Ludum Dare is usually the only time I actually finish games so maybe I should give this a go sometime.
 

Genetix

Member
It's a pretty cool idea - i'd be up try doing something similar once in awhile. Sometimes I'll take Friday off from developing my big projects and just let myself build something simple from scratch - occasionally I come up with something that has a good amount of "fun" to it and turn it into a prototype.
 
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