game jam III

The 3rd Gameforge internal Game Jam (Hammerzeit) is over. It was fun and it was short. Our game won the 3rd place in the competition part and we are happy and proud of the results. The idea of the game was unique with innovative game mechanics. And the time, as usual was our worst enemy.

I think, people learn more from their failures than their success. At least, it is the case with me. This time, I learned one very interesting live hack from our success. In the brainstorming phase, people come with already shaped ideas and visions of the future project. When it is a team project, each part of the team should be equally motivated and excited about the results. That’s why we sticked to one unwritten rule:

When one member of the team is not happy with the goal, proceed with brainstorming immediately, without arguments. When your team comes up with the IDEA inspiring each and everyone of you, then you got it.

Goal of the game:
Serve your customers as inefficient as possible, but do not let them go away and complain to the boss.

Rules of the game:
– There are 3 waiters in the cantina.
– Each of them can be sent to bring nomnoms (food) to customers.
– The color of the chip on the table have to match the color of the plate to be served.
– Each customer gets more angry with time (the more angry customers give you more points).
– Additionally, the customer’s rage is higher when a waiter with her food passes by.
– When the customer is really pissed off, she takes the chip and walks through the door to complain to the cantina boss. This is the sad point when you loose a customer.
– After 3 lost customers, your waiters will be fired and game over.

And now the video tutorial how to break a score 🙂

End of a journey..

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A dream-like game inspired by Escher, Monument Valley instantly made it into top 3 of my favourite games. Might be because of the impossible geometry, or because of the zen feeling you get when solving the puzzles and wandering between your ideas. Breaking the rules of the nature feels good. Experimenting with your own believes about the world feels good. Finding yourself in a blank state with minimal expectations about the physics and the mechanics of the universe feels enlightening.

If you want to remember how you felt as a child, discovering the rules of the nature for the first time, then go on.. Take a walk in the monument valley.

Game Jam Hammerzeit^2

The second Gameforge company internal Game Jam is over. It was awesome! 49 hours of awesomeness! Every single participant was awesome! But my team members are the best! 🙂 Haven’t got so much fun in a while.

The topic of the game jam was “Light and shadow” and we used unity3d to create a small puzzle game. Here’s the story: You are the invisible player, who is the landlord of a huge castle. Your only tenant is a vampire, who has the unfortunate habit to sleepwalk in a search of his noon snack. The way to the fridge is, however, dangerous at noon, since the light is generously spreading through the huge room windows. Luckily enough, you have those fancy “poltergeist” powers and can move some loose objects in the room to block the spreading light and protect your friendly tenant. But be extremely careful, because your tenant is very sensitive in his sleepwalk, so even the weak luminance from the room lights can harm him.

Here’s the link to the submitted version of the Jampire game: Jampire . And to play, you just have to know, that the game was originally designed to be played on a mobile device with touch screen. So if you want to be able to move the objects around, then you have to position your mouse close to the object you wanna move and keep the mouse pressed for like a second until the object turns green. Then drag the heavy thing where it will be useful. Scrolling the game screen down or up is very easy with short click and fast drag in the wanted direction (up or down).

The most difficult part of an awesome game jam is getting back to reality afterwards.. It’s kinda strange to accept, that your problems are more like searching for a toilet paper roll left on Sunday night in Germany, rather than strangely flying cupboards, unwanted teleportation of vampires or not enough time to build the on-off switch of the Dracula’s fridge light .. Damn it..