Prototype Jam

[WarHampster]

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?

[Gan]

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.

[WarHampster]

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.

[Gan]

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.

[Connors]

I LOVE IT! Gan we could totally make use of all the templates sitting around in your game maker.

[GMG Kurt]

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 

[Connors]

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...

[WarHampster]

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:



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.

[Gan]

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?

[WarHampster]

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.

[Gan]

What's lovercraft?

[WarHampster]

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!

[Gan]

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.

[GMG Kurt]

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.

[WarHampster]

@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!