Last week I was asked to run a PICO-8 workshop in Limerick. This week I ran it. I continued to work on the tiny prototype-game from the workshop. It’s not much even for a crappy Pacman clone, but it was made in about half a day. You can: play the game that came out of the workshop on itch.io, and/or read the notes from the workshop on github. Anyway, the workshop was a nice surprise!...
At some point in my childhood, an uncle gifted my family an old computer he no longer used. Probably one of the best gifts anyone could have received in the 90’s, even though nobody in my family knew much about how it worked, or was useful. Having a it was considered a Good Thing. The computer was some kind of Digital, though I don’t recall which model. It had a floppy disk drive and a cd drive....
Why write about writing in a different editor? I’ve got a few other blog posts lined up, but they need a lot more work. As WordPress is moving to use Gutenberg soon, I decided to take it for a spin. I don’t want to mess up my in-progress stuff using the beta version of it! This opinion post that is largely inconsequential, but I did encounter a bug. Luckily, the Gutenberg editor was stable enough to throw up a screen to prevent me from using it further, so no need to worry just yet....
Galway Game Jam 10 offered either “extinction” or “insomnia” as a theme. Which would you choose? I chose “extinction”. I made a broken game, designed to make you feel horrible and think about extinction. A terrible game about being a cat in 1894. These themes were oddly miserable in tone. Using such a theme adds an extra challenge and makes you get a little philosophical! Such gamejam themes can make really interesting games that would never otherwise exist....
About a week after UL’s Game Dev Soc Game Jam, I had some free time to revisit the collaboration tool I made for the gamejam team. It was nothing special, but I was hit by a mini-epiphany of turning it into a super-simple web app that would aim to make it as easy as possible to use. A fun little side-project, why not? Generally when solving any problem I have to ask myself “Has this been solved before?...
Here I write about my second day of the gamejam weekend. Part 1 is here. Happy Accidents On the second day of the gamejam, I had a scheduling mishap. I had convinced myself that I had band practice and took some notes for the game in the morning. After I went into town and learned of my mistake I decided to use it as an opportunity for learning. Knowing practically nothing about how a café or tea room actually works I reckoned it would be a good first step to organize a short meeting with some people who run such a business....
This theme is fantastic - it drives creativity. Simply by getting you to juxtapose genres in a particular way to see what doesn’t fit! Then think of idea’s that are achievable in the given time. Repeat until you land on something you think might be fun and wow, it’s already going to be fun simply on the merit of it’s wacky genre combination. I’ve started to work on a Turn-Based Strategy Game that is actually a Text Adventure made using Twine....
For UL Gamejam 2 I joined a team with Dave Ryley and two of his brothers, Brian and Jono Ryley. Dave is a veteran game jam enthusiast, but this was both Brian and Jono’s first experience of a gamejam. Luckily we got a great theme for the first-timers; “Simplicity”. Together we made Jam, The Game. Naturally, a game about jam is the simplest gamejam game you could make. Our game won the popular vote at the end of the jam, which was a wonderful achievement for our team!...
Getting started is very daunting in any creative endeavour. Games, being both very technical and creative, can be even more terrifying for beginners to consider starting. So far in my blog, I’ve mostly written sprawling heaps of words on my own gamejam experience, expounding the benefits of gamejams and my own takeaways. But that is of little use to people in a gamejam. What would be useful? Links. Links to practical, useful resources....
I am beginning to get used to writing these blog posts, but honestly, I cringe at myself every time. Hopefully, this practice will improve my writing and the cringe will lessen with time. It’s the 5th anniversary of Galway Game Jam. I had a different approach to this one so there are some new takeaways to mention. The Gamejam Plan - Using the gamejam to work on other things. Sometimes people work on their own projects at gamejams....
In my previous post, written before the 10th annual Global Game Jam, I mentioned my aims, expectations and excitement about the jam. In this post, I’ve written about the game I worked on at the jam as well as the main struggles faced by the team. More great lessons from just one single weekend! Assembling a team I aimed to make something very small in scope and simple to make. Making things with friends is more fun so I wanted to get a team together....
I’m delighted to be able to attend my 4th Global Game Jam in Galway. I’ll be switching to another game engine for the jam AGAIN - this time I’ll be using Godot Engine instead of Pico-8 (which I have been using these past few months). Since the Previous Global Game Jam I used Godot during last year’s Global Game Jam and I failed hard. A lesson was learned, which is what game jams are about!...
Adventure awaits Dungeons & Dragons: Let us embark upon a fantastical adventure in this collaborative storytelling social game! Vim: Let’s code with terse editor commands! What? No, I’m not making a vim based Dungeons and Dragons game - I’m using vim to keep notes and write story elements (and blog posts). This is probably the driest and tech-hipstery blog post related to D&D you’ve come across. I prefer vim. Or rather, after having used it in work I chose to stick with it....
Recently there was a series of “Who is Irish Game Dev” polls in the IrishGameDev facebook group which had some interesting results. For me the most interesting was the “Where is Irish Game Dev?” which asked everyone in the group to select the province in which they work. The survey results: Location Count Connacht 26 Leinster 109 Munster 13 Ulster 5 Not in Ireland 15 Total respondants: 168 (approx 13.488% of group) Members in group: 2266...