Game Jam OSG Jam

Surgeon_

Symbian Curator
People, in order to vote please send you votes through PM to me (to make them easier to tally), however do post them in the topic (along with reviews or something else you want to add)
For how many entries can we vote and do I just go "I vote for this, this and this" or is there something more to it?
 
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rui.rosario

Guest
For how many entries can we vote and do I just go "I vote for this, this and this" or is there something more to it?
You can vote for whatever number of entries you want, from one to all (although ranking all would be better). Also, you should at least state something about what you think of the ranked entries, after all they are not that many and a few words of feedback can go a long way.
 

Surgeon_

Symbian Curator
You can vote for whatever number of entries you want, from one to all (although ranking all would be better). Also, you should at least state something about what you think of the ranked entries, after all they are not that many and a few words of feedback can go a long way.
So since there are 14 entries, I give a number between 1 and 13 to each one (excluding my own of course)? Because if I "just vote" for everybody it will be the same as not voting for anyone.
 
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rui.rosario

Guest
So since there are 14 entries, I give a number between 1 and 13 to each one (excluding my own of course)? Because if I "just vote" for everybody it will be the same as not voting for anyone.
Yes, you should rank all entries not actually make a vote for each entry.
 

chance

predictably random
Forum Staff
Moderator
I think it would be easier to create a voting system, i would recommend straw poll
And even easier to cheat with it. Not that GMC members are all cheaters... but on a large forum, there are always some people who would use IP proxies to cast multiple votes. Or ask their non-GMC friends to cast votes.

This is why we've always used public voting (in posts), or voting by member PM. Public voting removes any suspicion, and also encourages members to explain their votes and review the games.
 

Surgeon_

Symbian Curator
And even easier to cheat with it. Not that GMC members are all cheaters... but on a large forum, there are always some people who would use IP proxies to cast multiple votes. Or ask their non-GMC friends to cast votes.

This is why we've always used public voting (in posts), or voting by member PM. Public voting removes any suspicion, and also encourages members to explain their votes and review the games.
At least we'd have a chance (no pun intended) against Mike and Alice.

EDIT: But on a more serious note, I agree that public voting is better, and for some time now I've been thinking that we should adopt it for more serious things as well, elections and such.
 

Mike

nobody important
GMC Elder
We can create a proper poll on here, and let users have "N" votes (they come through as ticks).............?

You can allow... vote once, unlimited votes, vote "n" times. So if you have 10 options, they could vote for 2 - for example.
 
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rui.rosario

Guest
I think it would be easier to create a voting system, i would recommend straw poll
And even easier to cheat with it. Not that GMC members are all cheaters... but on a large forum, there are always some people who would use IP proxies to cast multiple votes. Or ask their non-GMC friends to cast votes.

This is why we've always used public voting (in posts), or voting by member PM. Public voting removes any suspicion, and also encourages members to explain their votes and review the games.
I think @chance explained it very well :p

We can create a proper poll on here, and let users have "N" votes (they come through as ticks).............?

You can allow... vote once, unlimited votes, vote "n" times. So if you have 10 options, they could vote for 2 - for example.
Is it possible to create a ranked poll, like "Game A is rank 1, Game B is rank 2, ..." instead of "I vote for A and B equally"?
 

Mike

nobody important
GMC Elder
No, it's just a "tick" to vote. It also isn't anonymous if you don't want it to be.
 
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rui.rosario

Guest
No, it's just a "tick" to vote. It also isn't anonymous if you don't want it to be.
Then I think it is better to go for the manual route instead, as it allows for a better ranking of the votes. Too bad you can't do ranked polls, it would also be useful on the GMC Jam :p
 

GMWolf

aka fel666
Would it be super hard to write a small script that reads comments on here and use a rank?
If we force people to use a specific format, then an automated tool could tally everything. If it works well enough, this system could even be used on the main GMC jam.

The format could be that you have to include the line: "votes", followed by a spoiler of either a numbered list, or CSV values of the members name or entry name.

The tool would then only take the latest comment cotaining this per user and tally it all.
 

Nocturne

Friendly Tyrant
Forum Staff
Admin
We can create a proper poll on here, and let users have "N" votes (they come through as ticks).............?
Ummm... no we can't. I'm pretty sure you can't enable polls on a per user-group basis like you could on IPB. They are enabled on a per-forum basis and that means that anyone can create a poll in any topic if we enable them. This is something that I'd rather not have as we have never permitted polls (to prone to abuse and silliness and they encourage people to be lazy and just tick a vote option rather than post and give an opinion explaining why they think that way, etc...).

PS: I love how all topics related to voting devolve into a massive discussion about HOW we could vote! Same thing happens with the GMC Jam too. For what it's worth, I think PMing @rui.rosario with your votes, and then posting them here if you are so inclined) is the best way to go as long as he doesn't mind the extra work tallying them up and presenting them. Keep it simple and fun, as this is afterall a JAM and not some super important competition. In fact, I'd be happy if @rui.rosario simply chose a winner himself and announced it. Cut down on the fluff and nonsense. :)
 

Bingdom

Googledom
And even easier to cheat with it. Not that GMC members are all cheaters... but on a large forum, there are always some people who would use IP proxies to cast multiple votes. Or ask their non-GMC friends to cast votes.
Very true, i didn't think of that. :)
 

Alice

Darts addict
Forum Staff
Moderator
I think the very problem with rankings on forum-based polls is that the forum software would need to know which voting system we use to compute the results; for single or multiple-choice polls it's a simple matter of adding up total ticks, for ranking polls a voting system must be chosen to compute the result (or just give the topic author an ability to get consistently formatted rankings for further processing of their own). ^^'

As for the votes tallying tool, I've already made something like that for myself for GMC Jam. One of the reasons I introduced GMC Jam Player was so that people would export games to consistent format so that I could copy-paste that more easily. Putting the burden of using specific format on the voter would be too much, I think, and could discourage from voting; I instead made it so that large part of people used the "correct" format by default, so that remaining part wouldn't be as much of a trouble.

Whether the tallying tool should be re-used here, I'm not sure. It uses the voting system with large Jams in mind, where people make incomplete votes because they don't have time to play all entries. Here, the quirks of this voting system might outweight the advantages it has been designed for.
 

Mike

nobody important
GMC Elder
Ummm... no we can't. I'm pretty sure you can't enable polls on a per user-group basis like you could on IPB.
Yeah... but we could create a voting sub forum that only admins can post to, and enable/disable as required :)

But not being able to rank...yeah...meh.
 

GMWolf

aka fel666
external tools are good too. like http://www.pollandmatch.com/
the trouble is that they dont allow for comments and all...

The best solution for a small jam like this probably is just doing it manually... how many votes are we gonna get anyways? 10?
 
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Galladhan

Guest
For what it's worth, I think PMing @rui.rosario with your votes, and then posting them here if you are so inclined) is the best way to go as long as he doesn't mind the extra work tallying them up and presenting them.
This seems the best option to me. In this way, everybody is free to post here the votes they want. If someone prefers to post a complete rank, they can do that. If someone else prefers to post only the votes for the 3 best games (or 5, or nothing, dunno) they have the possibility to do that too.
 

Alice

Darts addict
Forum Staff
Moderator
Going through the games, checking both the gameplay and the code. Also, got to @Mike's game and did a little tweak to make the scanlines even more scanliney:


Can you guess what happened here? ^^
 

Mike

nobody important
GMC Elder
Going through the games, checking both the gameplay and the code. Also, got to @Mike's game and did a little tweak to make the scanlines even more scanliney:
Can you guess what happened here? ^^
I ended up putting a key in to turn them off, as they end up messing with my eyes :)
 

Alice

Darts addict
Forum Staff
Moderator
Well, I guess I'll end here... *whistling*
Also, I like quadratic growth. In a way more than one.



(for the record - looked into the code and found how exactly I can get supermassive number of points, then combined it with the tactic I used earlier)

@Mike: It's not terribly hard to get that much if you know the good strategy. ;)
 
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TDSrock

Guest
Seems like eventually the shape becomes so massive it's hard to dodge that what you don't want onto the shape though :/
 

Alice

Darts addict
Forum Staff
Moderator
Seems like eventually the shape becomes so massive it's hard to dodge that what you don't want onto the shape though :/
Not that much of a problem, since the only thing I really, really want to dodge are bomb orbs, and when one of these comes too close, I'll just trigger the blocks removal. Note how the core is entirely surrounded with a group of yellow blocks - that way once I remove the blocks, the core is the only thing that remains. At the same time, I get larger and larger bonus for each additional block that belongs to either group of 3.

In fact, at the beginning of the game, when things started slow, I got around 3k score in a single iteration that way. ^^ (which implies I had 77-ish blocks in groups at that time, given the scoring formula)
 
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TDSrock

Guest
Kind of awesome that out of this jam, a game was made that you decided to invest the time in to learn those mechanics. Sure they are not the most complex(as expected of this jam) But I still find it pretty awesome.
 

Surgeon_

Symbian Curator
Kind of awesome that out of this jam, a game was made that you decided to invest the time in to learn those mechanics. Sure they are not the most complex(as expected of this jam) But I still find it pretty awesome.
It seems contradictory, but simple mechanics often make for a more strategically complex game than complicated mechanics. Look at games like Chess and Go, or Game of Life. My brain hurts from just thinking about how to play them. But WoW? Not so much, even if you can find pages of math concerning DPS optimization.
Anyway, to talk about this specific game, I too am amazed that somebody put "so much" time into trying to figure it out. I didn't expect my game to get more than a quick glance, especially compared to what *ahem* some members made. Feels nice though:)
 

GMWolf

aka fel666
Its all about depth versus complexity.
But to sumarize, if you add complexity, you often minimize what it is the player can do.
 

Alice

Darts addict
Forum Staff
Moderator
First!

  1. Mega! Super Smash Track Buggy Racer by @Mike
  2. Pool by @YellowAfterlife
  3. NOT TETRIS by @Surgeon_
  4. Asteroids by @Nocturne
  5. Forest Fox by @JimmyBG
  6. Flappy Souls by @Threef
  7. @Matthew Brown's entry
  8. @chance's entry
  9. Shooting Star by @Galladhan
  10. @Coded Games' entry
  11. @Nallebeorn's entry
  12. @PsychoDelph's entry
  13. @shadowspear1's entry

A brief remark about my choices:
  • I had really hard time choosing between M!SSTBR and Pool, as both had their highlights and their annoyances (and neither keeps track of the score); eventually, the fact that I have more idea what's going on looking at Mike's code was decisive here
  • NOT TETRIS won over Asteroids mostly because of the interesting idea, as well as the fact that Asteroids uses bland movement mechanic that makes the game less entertaining than the original; kudos for sounds and actually persisting the hi-score, though
  • I appreciate various choices included in Matthew Brown's entry, but there's a bit too few of events and the pigeonhole principle effects appear pretty quickly, causing events repetition
  • Shooting Star is the last game of a bunch that has traces of actual gameplay
  • shadowspear1's tower defense, sadly, uses a method of loading graphics that doesn't work on my machine >.<

Pretty great job with only one script, still. ^^

More detailed reviews:

@chance's entry

I do believe I've seen something like that earlier on, probably as one of these little mobile games. Fun to play for a bit, though personally I'd prefer if the game reacted to keyboard checking rather than keyboard presses (alternately, be rigged in a way that allows declaring a jump a few frames before landing; one of these tiny tweaks that make the game appear smoother without the player noticing). Also, I think Space would work better as a restart button at the end, considering R is not used anywhere else. Bonus points for sounds and the silly bouncing text on menus. ;)

As for the code, it generally looks fine, though it seems rather inflexible, what with each level being limited to 3 obstacles and the same obstacle sprite (to alleviate the first issue, you could have used a ds_list of obstacles instead). Also, the level declarations seem quite repetitive; I feel like some parts could have been shortened. Finally, you might want to use data structures accessors (instead of ds_map_add/replace). ^^

@Coded Games' entry

Well, indeed it is pretty unfinished; I can tell that even without looking at the comment at the beginning. Still, it's an interesting idea to use procedurally generated planets, with different hues, conditions and terrain (the terrain pretty often seems suspisciously sinusoidal, though; is it actually a sound wave surfing game all along?).

When it comes to the code, one thing that struck me as odd is usage of 2x30 grid for storing variables, mostly the fact of using two columns. ^^'
Also, personally, I would still name the 0-indexed grid somehow, to make its purpose clearer (and, as an added bonus, to allow using grid accessors).
By the way, I noticed a line like file_delete("Game"). Were you perhaps initially trying a file-IO data storage method, before settling for 0-indexed structure? ;)

Shooting Star by @Galladhan

Hmmm, so I am supposed to fly forward until I run out of lives, and get the highest level possible? Sounds like a game that could use hi-score tracking...
Aside from that, the game is a bit confusing; I had hard time understanding when I lost lives, and when I could just slide on the floor without worry, and whether these shiny squares harmed me or not. Also, there should be a mechanism that prevents a player from running into terrain the very moment the level begins.

On a side note, I see you use file-based variables keeping method? The code seems kinda fine at a first glance, if maybe a bit undercommented (I don't quite see what happens in the room_init phase, for example, with all these rows of unknown purpose and such). I didn't quite feel like playing around with it more, though.

Forest Fox by @JimmyBG

Nice little game, with a good use of 3D, though the fox running animation isn't really top-notch. Also, I didn't know I could use Space to jump until actually looking in the code (ASDA! Is that what the fox says?), and I don't quite like how the tree in the middle covers the rest of the middle track, which might very well be another obstacle (it makes switching from a side to the middle lane pretty troubling). Finally, as a hi-score based game, it really should persist the score somehow (even the basic text file...).

The codebase is rather large, but about 2/3 of it is initialisation of the models (computer-generated, I presume? Typing all these vertices yourself sounds looks about as exciting as making an Excel document from a table spanning across tens of paper pages, without any smart scanner at your disposal). Aside from that, the code seems pretty straightforward, and if I looked into 3D I probably wouldn't have trouble figuring the game out (especially with comments posted every now and then).

@Matthew Brown's entry

Yay Yay Yay Yay

Entertaining to play for a while, but pigeonhole principle eventually had to kick in and some events were repeating (sometimes resulting in having the same event in a row). They seem to be picked entirely randomly, too, without any rigging to make the distribution more even (e.g. shuffling instead of picking random event every time). Somehow, I found money had the highest tendency to be the lacking resource. Still, the events that were there were pretty good, and somehow, trying to pick the "optimal" answers, I lived through the 52 weeks.

When it comes to the code, it doesn't seem particularly sophisticated, and it uses the OSG classic 0-indexed structure game state. One thing that stood out to me, is how the game first declares all the questions, then all the answers, then all the consequences, in that order. I would rather put all the related data around the same place, i.e. question 1, answer 1 with consequences, answer 2 with consequences, answer 3 with consequences, answer 4 with consequences, then question 2 etc. As it is now, it makes things unnecessarily difficult for the developer. Also, all that data seems to be declared every step, for some reason, rather than during the initialisation.

(full disclosure - I would just keep all the questions and related data in a JSON, because JSONs are really useful for that, and much better than hardcoding that sort of data in GM)

Mega! Super Smash Track Buggy Racer by @Mike

Well, it was pretty fun to play once I got it figured out, though the beginning is quite rocky. Part of that might be the fact that the car doesn't change its appearance when steering left or right, so it is hard to tell whether you're on a good way to turn or not. I find it interesting that the game includes a bonus of sorts for surviving two laps in a row, as the first lap always comes with a few additional seconds before crossing the starting line.

Also, there are some tiny visual glitches (e.g. the green line at the bottom appearing occasionally, as if the road isn't entirely drawn, and the tunnel with the outside shown was a bit weird), but nothing too major. A tiny suggestion about scanline effect - having alternating, low-alpha black-white lines ensures that scanlines affect dark and bright objects alike. Overall, somehow, I ended up playing that for FAR too long.

(oh, and one more thing - why hi-scores aren't stored between runs? It isn't much to add, and is a significant improvement; one of the essential thing about hi-scores is that they stay, after all)

The code seems generally well-structured, and the usage of recursion to make the one script multi-functional helps it even further. Going by the variable names and comments here and there, I can get the general idea of *what* is supposed to happen in a piece of code, even if I'd need to look into it more to tell *how* it does it. One thing that I found confusing is how the naming conventions seem all over the place, when it comes to usage of snake_case, PascalCase, nocase, ALL_CAPS, _underscorePrefixed etc. (with different conventions used for seemingly similar entities). Maybe there's some well thought-out pattern behind these, but I can't quite spot it. ^^'

On a side note, somehow, I never knew of draw_sprite_general before. The things you learn...

@Nallebeorn's entry

Well, there isn't really much gameplay here. ^^' I appreciate the platforming mechanics, though they could be tweaked in a few places (in particular, it would be good if the character didn't wall-slide nor wall-jump when a left/right key isn't held). Also, the animation seems a bit buggy (too bad, because it's pretty good otherwise) and there's that weird glitch when you randomly fall through the bottom when walking right on the lower-left chamber floor; I have no idea what can be the cause...

The code is mostly clear about its intent (even though the implementation is kinda buggy...). The use of underscore for the main map kinda reminds me of Lodash (a JavaScript library). ;)

Asteroids by @Nocturne

Gah, that's game is really well-polished, and quite impressive for only 16 hours time and such, and I'd really like to like it, but it has a major flaw - it's just kinda boring. I think the movement is largely to blame here - the original had the ship inert, drifting for a while when left alone, with the ship direction affecting the acceleration rather than the movement. Here, the ship stops quite quickly (where does the friction in space come from, anyway; solar winds? ^^'), and changing its direction means also changing the movement direction, completely unlike the original. I believe that factor makes the game much less entertaining than it could be, taking away the challenge and fun of the inert movement.

Well, at least this game, as the only one of hi-score based here, actually persists the score. ^^'

When it comes to the code, it seems presented and commented well enough (you seem to really like short variable names). At least, it's understandable enough for me to implement the inert movement instead of the one submitted. ;)
(on the other hand, I can't quite find where I can tone down the afterimage a bit...)

@PsychoDelph's entry

Well, more of a prototype than an entry. The parallax effect, the enemies closing in and the changing background colour are nice, but a bit too little compared to other entries. Plus, I've found that at specific angles the backgrounds are cut off at the bottom (i.e. there's regular background colour shown below them). Also, the lag when clicking the enemy, however intentional, is pretty annoying.

It's rather interesting how you seem to use tiles all the time to display the gameplay elements, instead of drawing background or sprites; perhaps it's so that tiles fulfill the role of objects or something? Pretty unusual method, nonetheless.

@shadowspear1's entry

Uhhh, dammit, this game uses buffer_set_surface which doesn't work on my computer, which means basically nothing displays except for the game map, so I can't really evaluate anything here, sorry...
Also, it seems some grid size checks are in order, as when I moved the mouse around and clicked in various places, I kept getting grid out of range debug messages. ^^'

NOT TETRIS by @Surgeon_

Pretty interesting concept, with matching the blocks in groups of threes or more then removing the groups manually. However, I have found some strategy to be pretty effective - wrapping the core so that all 8 neighbouring blocks belong to a group of 3, then gathering blocks to rack up potential score (especially glowing ones), then triggering the removal as soon as some bombing orb comes too close, removing literally every block except the core. That strategy, aside from initial wrapping, kinda misses the main challenge of the game (matching the same block). Also, after getting a score of over 5000 and triggering another removal, I got an error (I didn't know I could ignore) and stopped my run. :< And, once again, this game doesn't persist the hi-score! >.<

(I kinda liked the font colours, by the way ;) )

The code seems to use a recursion scheme for different functions; clever, though you weren't the only one to think of that. ;) Also, the code was clear enough for me to find out how the score is calculated exactly and use it to my utter advantage, but I guess you know that already. *whistling*

Flappy Souls by @Threef

Interesting idea for a game autobalancing; too bad you missed "EVERYBODY IS DEAD" or "Dying gives you twisted benefits" Jam. ^^' The execution could be refined a bit, though, in particular there are some parts literally impossible to get through, and the high jump power makes it quite hard to navigate properly (requires taller gaps to survive). Also, there seems to be no goal to reach or anything, and with more and more area cleared, you repeat the same level part over and over again, ad nauseam. The startup gets more laggy, too, which might have something to do with increasingly massive JSON file storing the game data. Oh, and nice that the game includes the sound, but it is pretty annoying, especially the flapping sound. ^^'

The code seems clear enough, and gives no trouble changing the key variables (like jump power or sound toggling).

Pool by @YellowAfterlife

That's some really neat entry, what with that pool aesthetics and pretty fresh idea. Some things could use tweaking, like the time of calm between rounds could be reduced (it's particularly annoying around the beginning) and the epileptic eyebrows. I'm not exactly a fan of corner pockets, either, though I admit it *does* make for a good balancing mechanic. Overall, I managed to pocket 75 balls in one go; that's like winning a game of pool 5 times, isn't it?

I don't quite like the code, though. As I understand, it has been Haxe-generated, which apparently has the drawback of having rather sparse comments; thus, I can't tell at first glance *what* a given piece of code is supposed to do, whether through comments, variable names or other indicators. Also, that "if (true /*comment*/)" construct looks a bit weird. o_O'

Too bad, because I kinda felt like playing around and discern between POCKETED and K.O. messages, as well as add FOUL losing condition when you pocket an 8-ball while coloured balls are still present (and maybe make it so that each round has at least/exactly one 8-ball in the pool). That game basically asks for it.
 

Nocturne

Friendly Tyrant
Forum Staff
Admin
Cool review Alice and I agree 100% with your comments. It's something I will most definitely be fixing when (if? :( ) I get a chance to go back and add some more to it (I also want to add an enemy AI to it that follows and shoots you). As for this...

(on the other hand, I can't quite find where I can tone down the afterimage a bit...)
There is a part at the start of the script that simply draws a black rectangle over the whole screen with an alpha of (iirc) 0.2. Simply change this value to change the afterimage effect... ;)
 

Mike

nobody important
GMC Elder
.....uses bland movement mechanic that makes the game less entertaining
See! I told you!! :p

Have to say I really like the "NOT TETRIS" game, was a fun, interesting mechanic. Pool was pretty, but a little too dull, just didn't want to spend much time playing it. And the asteroids one would have been "much" :) nicer if the ship had worked properly. I thought Forest Fox was lovely, although could have done with a wider area like "Death Chase". Had a look at the others... but skipped past them as they didn't hold my (grumpy old man) attention for very long.

1) NOT TETRIS
2) Forest Fox
3) Pool
4) Asteroids


EDIT: "oh, and one more thing - why hi-scores aren't stored between runs"
I thought "Top" was... that's a bug if it wasn't.... That was certainly the idea! :)

EDIT EDIT: my naming scheme....

var = single word variable
PascalCase = Multi-word variable
UPPER_CASE = constant
_prefix = parameter (so you know it was passed in when in a function)
 

Alice

Darts addict
Forum Staff
Moderator
Had a look at the others... but skipped past them as they didn't hold my (grumpy old man) attention for very long.
Ah, dammit, I hoped making the initial dialogue possible to finish in 4 short-ish dialogue boxes ("Respond" >> "I'm fine" >> "I want to go" >> proceed) would be enough, but maybe not. :p

As for the naming scheme: how about variables like curr_lap_time, engine_state (both snake_case) or roadY (camelCase)? Did they use that convention for specific reason, or was it just acceptable break from pattern? ^^'
 
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Galladhan

Guest
@Alice: thank you very much for your feedback :)



Hmmm, so I am supposed to fly forward until I run out of lives, and get the highest level possible? Sounds like a game that could use hi-score tracking...
Absolutely yes, but i didn't have the time to add it :\

Aside from that, the game is a bit confusing; I had hard time understanding when I lost lives, and when I could just slide on the floor without worry, and whether these shiny squares harmed me or not. Also, there should be a mechanism that prevents a player from running into terrain the very moment the level begins.
Ahahah, yeh i know: it's confusing. There's not even an indication about the fact that you can shoot (my bad, i wanted to write it somewhere on the intro, but i found myself without time left).
The trail was intended to show when you pass very close to an object (meaning that you made a risky move), but it's not clear, i agree.
And, yep, the 'ship' spawns way too low: i realized it when it was too late. It begins the level in that position cause, at the very beginning, i was trying to make a sort of platform game, but then i abandoned it in favour of a 'shoot 'em up' (kinda), and i forgot to update the player's initial "y".

On a side note, I see you use file-based variables keeping method? The code seems kinda fine at a first glance, if maybe a bit undercommented (I don't quite see what happens in the room_init phase, for example, with all these rows of unknown purpose and such).
Well, thank you! You know, if you told me: "i kinda liked your 'game', but your code looks like a mess!" i would have been less happy. Really, this is the kind of feedback i was hoping to receive :)

I didn't quite feel like playing around with it more, though.
I'm already surprised that you played it for more than 6 seconds :D




Aside this, if somebody is interested to know which is my personal top 3...

1) Mega! Super Smash Track Buggy Racer / @Mike
I confess i had to wonder a bit about the first position, cause i think that @Surgeon_ had a pretty fresh idea, and that's very important in my book. But then i asked myself: "which is the game i've been playing for longer? And the one with which i had more fun?". And the answer is undoubtely @Mike 's game, so...

2) NOT TETRIS / @Surgeon_
What else can i add? Nice concept aside, i would say that the game is neat and easy to learn (and probably hard to master, even if @Alice finds it relatively easy lol): it's not overcomplicated and the rules are pretty clear. The controls are smooth and it's quite fun to play. It doesn't even look bad, especially when you have many blocks piled up on top of each other.

3) juegOS / @Alice
The game is short, but considering it's a game made with 1 script in 1 week it looks gigantic. I really appreciated the way in which you used the level design to create small puzzles. The idea about the memory leak, then, is a nice touch.
 
M

Matthew Brown

Guest
@Alice Thanks for the feedback! :D And yeah, I feel I'd have had a much stronger entry if I'd actually had time to finish it. I didn't put as much time in as I should have in the early stages and then ran out. I wanted to have either 52 events,each of which would be seen exactly once, or preferably 200+ for it to randomly pick between. As for the like pseudo-random idea, I should have thought of that. :p

As for the lack of general code sophistication, I actually had to learn how to do the 0 index list thing for this, because I had no idea how to save the variables at all. xD Only been using GameMaker for like 3-4 months, and only done a bit of coding off and on prior to that. This is actually both my first jam entry and actually first publicly shared thing I coded, so. I wanted to do more, but I feel reasonably well about what I managed considering. xD And yeah, I probably should take the time to branch out and learn more about ds_structures and json and whatnot, instead of trying to find ways to solve everything with arrays and code I already understand. :p

All of that said, some of you guys had way more impressive entries than I did. I need to go through them all, but I already know voting is going to be tough... xD
 

GMWolf

aka fel666
I found it hard to rank beyond the top three, so here is just the top 3:
  1. mega super smash track buggy racer!
    The game i enjoyed the most, and the game with the best code.
    I love racing game, for one, and having one where you have to slow down! thats good design righ there! The gameplay is solid, enough said.
    The code is really clever, and quite easy to follow. Not only that but the redering technique is one that i havent seen before.
    Only wish there was some sound. game would be 2x fun IMO!
  2. juegOS
    So much content! Thats great! And the concept isnt bad either! the simple one upgrad mechanic does add a huge amount of depth!
    The graphics are decent, and the 'story' exists. thats a plus :)
    Use of json! of course! great idea!
  3. Pool of Doom
    A pool fps? haha, great! Well, i didnt play it for very long because of short atention span, but it seems like there isnt much going on.
    Graphics are great, though the code is a bit bleh (generated by hax was it?)
So, a little short, and just my top three... if i get the urge to do so, i may write a thing or two about other entries :)
 

Mike

nobody important
GMC Elder
As for the naming scheme: how about variables like curr_lap_time, engine_state (both snake_case) or roadY (camelCase)? Did they use that convention for specific reason, or was it just acceptable break from pattern? ^^'
This is GameMaker naming corrupting me!! I'm move away from WordWord to word_word.... this is what happens when you spend years with game_maker Grrr....

The only reason I use Pascal case is because "myvariablename" is a mush, where as "MyVariableName" is actually readable - as is "my_variable_name". For the same reason "roadY" is still pretty readable.

EDIT: BTW @Alice I just checked on a windows build, the high score DOES stay on mine.... "TOP" is the fastest lap. "LAP" is the last lap you did, and "WATCH" is the current stopwatch. I don't save it out to disk... (is this what you meant?) but it does work from one game to the next.
 
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GMWolf

aka fel666
My naming convention changes every other tuesday!
well, currently, its 'do_stuff' for scripts, 'camelCase' for instance variables, 'stuff_again' var local variables and 'Object' for objects.
but there is no sence in me saying all that since it will change in a couple days :p
It wuld be immensly helpful if comunity could settle for a good style then no one has to think anymore!
 

Alice

Darts addict
Forum Staff
Moderator
My convention might vary between projects, though generally I do something like:
  • word for very simple and frequently used scripts (print, new, etc.) or one-word object variables
  • snake_case for scripts that are more or less related to GameMaker functionality (extend it, in a way); for example, ds_list_contains or file_read_all_text
  • NameSpace_generalScript for scripts that are to be called explicitly from various places in code
  • _NameSpace_delegateScript for scripts that are to be used as script_execute parameters, rather than to be called directly (state machines FTW)
  • __NameSpace_localScript for scripts that are to be used locally, i.e. as a part of other script in the namespace
  • prefix_ResourceName for other resources; where prefix might be e.g. "spr" for sprites, "bg" for backgrounds, "rm" for rooms, "obj" for generally visible in-game objects, "ui" for interface elemetns, "ctrl" for game controlling objects, "par" for objects to derive from rather than created directly, "data" for objects that are merely serving as a data structure of sorts...
  • camelCase for multiple word object variables
  • _camelCase for local variables (or something like "i", when it has only one letter)
  • ALL_CAPS for constants or enum names, and PascalCase for enum elements

I think that would sum up most of my conventions. ^^'
(I guess the use of PascalCase and/or camelCase is mostly related to me frequently using C#, where these sorts of conventions are prevalent, at least in the core libraries)

EDIT: BTW @Alice I just checked on a windows build, the high score DOES stay on mine.... "TOP" is the fastest lap. "LAP" is the last lap you did, and "WATCH" is the current stopwatch. I don't save it out to disk... (is this what you meant?) but it does work from one game to the next.
I meant saving the result to the disk, yes. Having to keep the computer running not to ruin my glorious hi-score is a bit inefficient.
(sure I can just capture a screenshot, which I did, but it's still not as efficient as it could be :p )
 

Mike

nobody important
GMC Elder
I meant saving the result to the disk, yes. Having to keep the computer running not to ruin my glorious hi-score is a bit inefficient.
(sure I can just capture a screenshot, which I did, but it's still not as efficient as it could be :p )
Ahhhh... okay. To be honest, I didn't think anyone would play it long enough for that to matter! I though a run time high score only would have been enough :D
 

Alice

Darts addict
Forum Staff
Moderator
To be honest, I didn't think anyone would play it long enough for that to matter!
A lesson for you (and a few other people, like @Surgeon_, for example) - if I participate and, by extension, vote/review in a Jam, there's a good chance I will play the game long enough for that to matter. Especially if your entry is supposed to be entertaining. :lemwink:
 
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