game-development

Project name: Fungi Garden Release: (development on hiatus) Genre: 2d, puzzle, adventure Role: Lead Programmer Made with: GameMaker Studio Company: Portal Punch Ltd.

After trialing a few different visual novel builders, my team and I settled on Renpy for this game. Using Renpy as our game engine provides most everything we would want to make a visual game very quickly. Speed is a huge plus for us because our team of two artists, our writer and our programmer (me!) are all working on this project in our spare time. Having multiple people working on game assets can cause conflicts....

Ludography

As you might know from following me elsewhere online, I have been designing a new adventure game with some light puzzle and resource management mechanics. The working title for the project is “Fungi Garden”, and you can learn more about it on my website here: https://mindcauldron.com/fungi-garden The game is inspired by the fascinating interactions that occur in nature between mycelium, mycorrhiza and tree root systems. Currently, I have many ideas for the game....

This is the ending post about my Ludum Dare 46 entry. To start at the beginning, go to Day 1 here: https://darrenk.net/ludum-dare-46/ Ludum Dare 46 was an interesting challenge. There are many things I would change if I were to do it again. That said, I am quiet happy to have finished something - even if it is a sparse experience for the player. You can play the game here: https://darrenkearney....

I’m streaming development on https://twitch.tv/mindcauldrongames. Head over there and give me a follow! Here’s some progress and process in images. Random sketches during idea generation last night…ye ¯\_(ツ)_/ #ldjam46 Possible title for the game. I like the colours. Concept art in MS Paint with breakdown of areas for figuring out rooms layout and connections. #ldjam46 Screenshot of agri dome area. #ldjam46 Screen of elevator controls in agri dome #ldjam46 Screen of sub level 1 #ldjam46...

In the past few days I’ve been streaming a game dev series on my Mind Cauldron twitch account as I learn Unity in real time. You can follow along here: https://twitch.tv/mindcauldrongames The stream is a straight-forward live stream of my game development. If watching and chatting with someone while they work on their passion projects sounds like fun to you then your in for a treat. Otherwise it is suspiciously like you are watching a reality show of someone working from their home-office....

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....

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!...

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...