Game Maker's Garage Forum

Game Maker's Garage => Group Projects => Topic started by: WarHampster on March 05, 2012, 01:24:04 PM

Title: Prototype Jam
Post by: WarHampster on March 05, 2012, 01:24:04 PM
We all have plenty of half-finished games, unpolished prototypes, and empty game engines lying around. They shouldn't go to waste gathering dust on external harddrives! Let's work together and finish all of them, and then submit them to the Pirate Kart (massive collection of small indie games that is being shown at GDC) I have two project stubs that we could extend: one is a sort of tower-defense game in which you play as a great-old one (lovecraftian monster) protecting your temple from invading humans, and the other is that 3d engine that you've all seen at some point. It could be an interesting abstract exploration game!

Who's interested? Anyone have prototypes of their own?
Title: Re: Prototype Jam
Post by: Gan on March 05, 2012, 01:42:17 PM
I have a few prototypes but... bahaha. Too big for me to finish. *Cough* iRPG *Cough*

I'm all for starting with some simple prototypes. Like the tower defense game.
Though of course, we could just finish Space Marine first.
Title: Re: Prototype Jam
Post by: WarHampster on March 05, 2012, 02:21:40 PM
My idea is that we could all get online and work on stuff like this together - try to finish in one sitting. It'd be a totally different experience from drawn out projects like Space Marine and the RPG! We could set up a conference call and use a dropbox or something to collaborate.
Title: Re: Prototype Jam
Post by: Gan on March 05, 2012, 02:28:23 PM
Whoa, kinda like a Terraria server party except instead of playing a game, making a game!

Sounds like fun. Maybe some skyping, screen sharing, instant communication.
Title: Re: Prototype Jam
Post by: Connors on March 05, 2012, 03:19:41 PM
I LOVE IT! Gan we could totally make use of all the templates sitting around in your game maker.
Title: Re: Prototype Jam
Post by: GMG Kurt on March 05, 2012, 07:46:48 PM
one is a sort of tower-defense game in which you play as a great-old one (lovecraftian monster) protecting your temple from invading humans,

I really want to do this, I love H.P. Lovecraft.
and as Gan said it'd be like the Terraria server but with making a game instead of playing one.
oh yeah... I REALLY want to do this one  ;D
Title: Re: Prototype Jam
Post by: Connors on March 05, 2012, 08:11:44 PM
Well we have a good group of people here, if we can organize a time like you did for Terraria we can probably get a lot done...
Title: Re: Prototype Jam
Post by: WarHampster on March 06, 2012, 06:25:21 AM
Awesome, I'm glad you guys are up for it! Haha Kurt after reading your short story I thought you would like that. Here's what it looks like so far:

(http://i43.servimg.com/u/f43/11/03/78/78/screen10.png) (http://www.servimg.com/image_preview.php?i=408&u=11037878)

My idea was that the player would gradually drive the humans insane, leading them to kill each other. Insane humans will attack others within a certain distance of themselves, but you can control them to some extent by placing monsters, which sane humans will run away from. Placeholder ASCII graphics, obviously.

Let's brainstorm here and then go for it some time next week!

Oh and as for Skype: the free version will do conference audio chats, but not video or screen shares. I think that audio might be all we need, we can set up a dropbox to put all the work in.
Title: Re: Prototype Jam
Post by: Gan on March 06, 2012, 10:26:29 AM
Oooh, so this is like an evironment/attitude manipulator where you play with the emotions of
mere mortals.

I like it. How would you change human sanity? Also would there be a way to introduce more humans? Possibly a different gender and let them procreate?

Perhaps we could make them bunnies so this game seems less sadistic?
Title: Re: Prototype Jam
Post by: WarHampster on March 06, 2012, 12:25:52 PM
By a power that you can use once per turn - you'd have to be strategic about which people you manipulate.

Bahaha and I'm sadistic? Well, depends on whether we like the Lovecraft theme or not.
Title: Re: Prototype Jam
Post by: Gan on March 06, 2012, 12:38:52 PM
What's lovercraft?
Title: Re: Prototype Jam
Post by: WarHampster on March 06, 2012, 02:24:40 PM
Oh as in HP Lovecraft the psychological horror writer. Kurt posted a short story written in his style, he's famous for having his characters go mad after investigating the true nature of some unexplainable phenomenon. Such as the eldritch cosmic monsters that lurk just outside civilization!
Title: Re: Prototype Jam
Post by: Gan on March 06, 2012, 03:24:26 PM
Sounds neat.

I can enable a group project in the HTML5 GameMaker. The leader would control the main build. Everyone would have read access of the project but only the leader can write to the main build.
So if Kurt added in attacking, he'd have to send the new code to the leader who would put it in the main build. Then everyone could see the updated main build.
Title: Re: Prototype Jam
Post by: GMG Kurt on March 06, 2012, 04:15:33 PM
This is awesome.
perhaps we could make it wave based, and because the old ones don't perceive time as we do, the human civilization could age, and attack us from different times periods. cavemen to space men. And maybe the aliens (or something of that ilk) that inherit the earth afterwards.

the emotion manipulation thing is quite amazing, I have a list of psychotic dementia, and the like from D&D I can grab if you wanna have different types of insanities.

as far as having our own units, maybe we could have loyal cultists. And that gives me a neat idea for getting mana or something to use our attacks. maybe we'd get higher max and regeneration for the amount of cultists we have, and we can "buy" them by intruding into the dreams of humans in-between waves.
Title: Re: Prototype Jam
Post by: WarHampster on March 06, 2012, 06:17:49 PM
@Gan sounds good to me! The prototype is in SilverCreator so that should be easy to convert... it would probably be easier to rewrite actually because I ended up simulating OOP for the engine.

Kurt want to write a series of short stories providing some context for each wave? For example, before wave 1 you read about a bunch of cavemen stumbling across the temple, then later it's about scientific expeditions, etc.

So now I do need to say: the goal of this is to finish a playable game in one sitting, so anything too far outside the basic mechanics is probably not going to make it. That doesn't mean we can't extend it later!

So can you guys do this on Saturday? I'll be staying with a pixel-artist friend then, which will work out perfectly!
Title: Re: Prototype Jam
Post by: Gan on March 06, 2012, 06:42:37 PM
I'm up for it. I'll bring the HTML5 GameMaker. We just need someone to bring the pizza and the drinks.
Title: Re: Prototype Jam
Post by: GMG Kurt on March 06, 2012, 06:45:24 PM
yeah I can do it for most of saturday, but I'm baby sitting sometime later in the day, probably only towards nighttime.

Of course I can write some short stories.
When you say extend it. You mean updating it right? not making a sequel?

I'll bring the cream puffs :p

EDIT: Which old one? just any of them or a specific one? Personally I'd like to do Cthulhu and the setting be R'lyeh. Although I guess it doesn't really matter, but I'm most familiar with Cthulhu
Title: Re: Prototype Jam
Post by: Gan on March 06, 2012, 07:34:33 PM
Of course I can write some short stories.
When you say extend it. You mean updating it right? not making a sequel?
I'm actually just gonna make the game a template and give WarHampster the permissions to alter it directly. No actual changes.

Quote
I'll bring the cream puffs :p
Sweet! :D
Title: Re: Prototype Jam
Post by: WarHampster on March 06, 2012, 10:35:24 PM
@Kurt yeah I mean update. But, how could you be familiar with an unknowable manifestation of cosmic chaos!? Haha ok, Cthulhu it is! My personal favorite is Shub-Niggurath (Ia! Ia!).

@Gan that sounds great!

So Gan, Kurt, what time can you be online Saturday morning? My Skype name is warhampster. Connors, can you make it?
Title: Re: Prototype Jam
Post by: Connors on March 06, 2012, 11:48:51 PM
My idea was that the player would gradually drive the humans insane, leading them to kill each other. Insane humans will attack others within a certain distance of themselves, but you can control them to some extent by placing monsters, which sane humans will run away from. Placeholder ASCII graphics, obviously.
This could actually be pretty fun, in a demented kind of way. ;) I'll try and be there, I might have a lot of homework but I can likely help out.
Also, we would get to play with AI stuff again! Huzzah!
I haven't read Lovecraft though and can't say I have a specific preference, but Cthulu is so well-known it seems it would be more interesting to choose something different.
Finally, I like setting traps for people. There ought to be some more unique defense type games out there. You got me thinking now, I'll bring some ideas on tactics you might use in such a game.
Title: Re: Prototype Jam
Post by: Gan on March 06, 2012, 11:53:15 PM
I might be able to get on at the start of the day.
I'm not sure. I don't think I have any plans for Saturday.
Title: Re: Prototype Jam
Post by: GMG Kurt on March 07, 2012, 03:07:41 PM
like I said I'll be baby sitting so can't stay on late, but can probably get on as soon as I wake up, and I don't know exactly when that'll be.
Cthulhu is not well know, he is the most referenced Lovecraftian monster though because he is the high priest of them, and The Call of Cthulhu explained the whole basis of that mythos.
I think we should never outright say that it's Cthulhu, but should give strong hints.

@Gan But gan! you do have plans... this! ;)
Title: Re: Prototype Jam
Post by: Connors on March 07, 2012, 08:05:26 PM
Cthulhu is not well know, he is the most referenced Lovecraftian monster though because he is the high priest of them.
That's what I mean, it could be another one that is not referenced so often.


I think we should never outright say that it's Cthulhu, but should give strong hints.
(*reconsiders*) This would also make it interesting wouldn't it? I like this one. It leaves players wondering. 8)
Title: Re: Prototype Jam
Post by: GMG Kurt on March 09, 2012, 04:54:27 PM
so I was woking on those little stories in-between the fights.
free-verse are the humans (the narrator changes just about every time, so be on your feet)
the iambic pentameter is Cthulhu. For those who don't know what that is. it's a type of poetry like the way Shakespeare wrote. Every line has 10 syllables,

This is not done yet, and I think I'll add a part in about the first great civilization of man, when we were still like monkeys (described as a darwinian creature), but Cthulhu overthrows them. Tell me any constructive crytacism any part you want in or removed.
By parts I mean time periods OR mini-narratives.

Also I wrote this at midnight, and skimmed for grammatical errors. If I missed any of them, please don't think I'm stupid  ::)

EDIT: whoa! I had some extreme factual errors in there. I'm trying to bend the findings of archeologists so that I can mention Laurasiaian mammals in the piece. and at that point in time human evolution wouldn't have been monkeys, but instead Purgatorius, a mouse-sized mammal http://dinosaurs.about.com/od/mesozoicmammals/p/purgatorius.htm
Title: Re: Prototype Jam
Post by: Gan on March 09, 2012, 05:28:43 PM
Interesting read.
Title: Re: Prototype Jam
Post by: GMG Kurt on March 09, 2012, 08:50:09 PM
hmmm. How long should the time span be? earths history, the landing to the destruction.
Or just one part of humans besieging R'lehy is a relatively short period of time?

And should he fight only humans? Or are Dinosaurs also an option?

I'm perfectly fine with scrapping the narrative I've already started, but plz tell me now :p
Title: Re: Prototype Jam
Post by: WarHampster on March 10, 2012, 08:34:34 AM
I like the direction you're taking with this! Having Cthulhu speak in poetry is a really good idea.

I'd say no dinosaurs to keep the asset work to a minimum.

So when can you guys come online? 
Title: Re: Prototype Jam
Post by: WarHampster on March 10, 2012, 11:43:29 AM
So... maybe this is not happening -_-
Title: Re: Prototype Jam
Post by: GMG Kurt on March 10, 2012, 12:22:49 PM
I hope it is... I'm online. And I've been developing the story more.
Title: Re: Prototype Jam
Post by: WarHampster on March 10, 2012, 01:03:31 PM
Well, I'm definitly planning on making this at some point, so your story will be used even if no one shows up.
Title: Re: Prototype Jam
Post by: GMG Kurt on March 10, 2012, 01:08:01 PM
alright cool.
Also I just re-read The Nameless City, Which was the first H.P. Lovecraft story I read, and it's still my favorite... just sayin.
Title: Re: Prototype Jam
Post by: Connors on March 10, 2012, 01:16:29 PM
It's a fantastic story, actually. I'm just beginning to think it would be hard to implement it all in a couple days. The original idea of manipulating people trying to get in is cool but requires a bunch of AI. But, we ought to at least see what we can do with some tile engine and go from there. We might not use Kurt's story today but we can try for some sort of little 2D puzzle game.
Title: Re: Prototype Jam
Post by: Gan on March 10, 2012, 06:02:42 PM
What do you mean by online? Are we using Skype or something?
Title: Re: Prototype Jam
Post by: Connors on March 10, 2012, 06:06:46 PM
I don't think anyone is online, so...
Yeah they all lied, no one is here.
Title: Re: Prototype Jam
Post by: Gan on March 10, 2012, 06:19:52 PM
Well, we can work on this on and off till next week which we can set an organized date.
With Skype and stuff.
I should be on hopefully, I don't believe I have any more lock-ins.
(In the meantime, Terraria server is up)