We’ve done a miniLD or two this past year as well as competed in MolyJam awhile back but this is our first official LD game jam that we’ll be taking part in! We’ll be working as a small group so we’ll be doing the jam, which is a good thing because the extra 24 hours will really help out.

The Team:
We’ll both be contributing to the design process but as far as actually game creation goes…
Tim Elzinga – Programming
Using the Unity3D engine and programming in C#, we’re hoping to have a PC downloadable, web build, and Android build ready upon game submission. I’d have a picture of my workstation, but I’m actually going to be visiting my brother at his college this weekend as well so I’m guessing it’ll just be my laptop while I’m sitting around on a couch in a messy college apartment.
Kiki Snell – Artwork
Photoshop and using Chronolapse as well for a timelapse of the event. Attached is a picture of her workstation…

We were planning on doing something for the warm-up weekend but instead we ended up polishing up a little drinking game we had made for PC and released a paid and free version of it for Android… (Pictured below)

We’re probably going to aim for doing something a little easier just so we know we can complete it on time. I unfortunately had already made some plans this weekend but I’m too excited for the competition that I’m going to attempt to do both. This means the programming side might not get as much time on the project as the art side of it so we’re aiming for something simple but well polished…

Good luck to everyone!

Tags: 2D, ld23, unity3d

It’s a good thing I’m working with a partner because the I don’t think I’d make the time limit for the regular competition, having until later on Monday might just save this project. I wasn’t able to devote a ton of time to my game so far but here’s what we have…

We were trying to think of a good setting for a “Tiny World” and thought maybe something like a little Sea Monkey society might fit good. We were thinking of just caring for it sort of like a Tamagotchi for the gameplay but now I think we’re hoping for something a bit more fun than that. Right now though we’ve just got a fish tank with some little critters in it that swim around randomly and if you click a spot inside their tank they’ll swim to it… We’ve got a couple ideas as to how we can make it more of a game but nothing implemented yet, though we still have until Monday evening for the jam so we’ll see…

My artist (@KikiSnell) uploaded a timelapse of what she’s done so far too: http://youtu.be/CFZv6sP62oM

Tags: 2D, ld23, progress, screenshot, timelapse, unity3d

Well, we finished. Barely. With 5 minutes to go I was making a build and realized there was no game icon so I quickly let my artist know, she tossed one in the dropbox, and the build finished with two minutes before the deadline. Our finished game is called “Aqua Wars”.

CLICK HERE TO PLAY THE GAME!

WHAT WENT RIGHT?

The art. The artist for our group was Kiki Snell and I usually have her doing the art for me whenever I do game jams. She did a great job and threw together this awesome little timelapse video to show her progress…
http://youtu.be/vRduXqTZ3CA

WHAT WENT WRONG?

It took far to long for us to figure our our idea and gameplay. I had a few ideas for some of the themes but wasn’t expecting Tiny World to win. We kind of came up with a rough plan and fleshed it out as we went along. With past game jams I’ve had more time to focus but I was gone from my house until Sunday afternoon and was just able to do a little bit of coding with my laptop. Once I was home on Sunday we made a lot of progress but then I had work all day Monday and only a few hours to make any finishing touches. The next time I plan on taking off time from work and putting aside the entire weekend to completely devote it to making a better entry.

We started tossing ideas around as soon as the theme was announced and had an idea for making a city building sim type game but base around a microscopic Sea Monkey type creature. That idea didn’t really stick for long but we had already gotten a decent amount of art for an aquarium type setting so we kept going in that route. For the first 24 hours we didn’t really have much down as far as gameplay went. We thought maybe something like a Tamagotchi where you would just care for the fish, but that sounded more like an interactive screensaver and we wanted something a bit more fun. We ended up turning the assets we had into a sort of tower defense type game. You guide a small school of fish around, clicking other types of fish that appear to attack them, and buy more fish, feed your fish, and buy plants for the aquarium. I’m not sure I’d really call our game a success, even though we finished I think we could have done something better…

Tags: 2D, final, ld23, post-mortem, postmortem, screenshot, timelapse, unity3d

I’ll be doing the jam again this weekend. My artist for the past few game jams is busy this weekend so instead my younger brother is going to be doing all the artwork for me. We might have another friend or two help us out with design, testing, sound, etc… I took Monday off from work so I’m ready to spend the full 72 hours for the jam creating something I’m happy with.

I know we’ll be using Photoshop and Unity3D but I’m not sure what other tools will be used.

Goals:
Make a PC standalone, web, and Android build of the game. I think the lack of a web build really affected how many people ended up playing my game the last time and seeing how I’m using Unity3D it’s not that difficult to make one in addition to the other platforms.

Have some sort of achievements or stats page. Most of the games I end up making for these end up being pretty short so I think achievements and/or stats could definitely increase the replay value of my finished game.

Sound. My previous games have either been missing sound completely or have only had a few sound effects. I want to make sure this time I’m thinking about adding sound in before the final hour of the competition.

Tags: LD #24

It’s been awhile since I’ve done one of these but I’ve got the weekend free so I figured I’d spend it doing game development. I’ll be designing and prototyping by myself and then have a friend or two help out with final artwork and some sound later in the weekend. I’m planning on aiming for mobile platforms but I might do a web version as well.

I’ve been messing around with the new UI Canvas stuff from the Unity 4.6 update so I’m planning on using those objects for some 2D game development.

Tools:
Engine – Unity 4.6
Language – C#
Art – Photoshop
Sound – ?

I've done a few game jams in the past and a group of friends I regularly play board games with have been interested but didn't possess the coding or art skills to contribute. So this time they're joining me and we're going to attempt making a board or card game instead of something digital. Our submission goal is to have a print-n-play pdf available for those who'd like to try it out.

Looking forward to participating with a group this weekend. I did GGJ at the start of the year but otherwise haven't spent much time on indie development recently, I'm excited to get back into it. We'll be using Unity and likely developing for PC or Android. I have a few people potentially joining in who don't have any development experience so hopefully we can find plenty of ways to keep them engaged and find ways for them to contribute. Good luck everyone!