Batteries Not Included - The GameCraft London 2015 event

On Saturday the 31st of October 2015 - Halloween 

Our merry group of developers took a trip to London with one purpose. To make a game in a day. We had no idea what the theme for the game would be, it's always a closely guarded secret until the morning of the event.

With no way of knowing the subject, it was impossible to predict what kind of game we would be creating. So we pondered this for a while.

We arrived in London to nice weather, the streets were dry and it wasn't cold. Just the type of weather needed for sitting inside all day and writing games.

We'd not been to the location of the GameJam before so it took a little time to get our bearings and find the place.

After a little time spent looking for the new (and amazing) SkillsMatter building "CodeNode" we arrived with a little time to spare, got ourselves signed in and joined everyone in a large room where the plan for the day was given to everyone. There were people from various sponsors there, a group from Audi were there as well as a team developing devices for an "Internet of things". It was all very cool.

GameCraft London 2015

There were actually 3 events going on on the same day, such is the massiveness of the SkillsMatter building and how much in awe I am of it and grateful for their kind hospitality - You guys rock! People were encouraged to mingle and to see what others were working on. It's great to meet people who share a passion for development, no matter what the subject is.

11:00

It came time for the brief for our event.  Batteries not included.
The irony being that the majority of the machines being used to develop needed batteries to function.


With 8 hours to go, we had to come up with a design pretty quickly. Dean came up with an idea in a eureka moment and suggested a top down racing game where the cars operate on power from the sun. I'm a big fan of alternative energy and electric cars so I was all in. I also used to love the old top down racers on the Spectrum.

Within a short amount of time we had a very detailed design on paper and coding the game could begin proper.

Detailed and comprehensive design.

Design is everything. 

We took graph paper and pens to work out our design first before touching any code. It's probably a good rule of thumb that if the design is too complex to fit on a side of paper, it probably can't be made in a single day. Skillsmatter also provided graph paper - great minds think alike, but it's always best to come prepared.

With the design agreed, I set about designing the cars while Dean put the Farseer physics system into our framework. We'd set up a git repo the evening before so we could easily share code without stepping on eachother's feet.

Once again we would use our familiar tools of MonoGame and Xamarin studio with Spine, Mixcraft, Audacity. However this time, I thought I'd try to use Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop instead of my normal Xara.


The more we use these tools, the faster we become at producing content. But also it means that with MonoGame and Xamarin studio, we don't have to worry about trivial details like Operating Systems and hardware.

Dean used a Macbook pro and I used a Windows 10 laptop. A few years ago, this would have been almost impossible to share any kind of coding tasks between us - delegating one of us to graphics while the other gets on with code... thankfully this was not the case.

Although I did do a lot of the graphics...

The game started to take shape once I got the basic graphics to Dean so that he could animate them in Spine. He's getting rather good at it too and it wasn't long before we had a working race car.

I got to work making the track. I used Illustrator and Photoshop to put the basic track together.

13:Once I had the basic track, I sent that to Dean who then placed the bounding boxes for the physics system to use to contain the cars on the track. He did this also using Spine. 

MUSIC!

While he was doing that, I got to work on the music. A racing game needs music to set the mood and to keep the adrenaline flowing, but we didn't have much time to spend writing a magnum opus. So I fired up my trusty Mixcraft and started to layer some of the samples in the library.

The results of this can be heard on our Soundcloud.

With this done, I mixed it down to an mp3 and added it to the MonoGame content pipeline for inclusion into the game. Very Easy!

Then it came time for the game's title. Dean had the track and cars loading and was working on getting the collision detection working, so we took a short break and came up with a name. Both Harvey and Dom (a visiting old friend) came up with the idea of Solar Race Cars, shortened to Solar RC and then turned into a logo.

Following that, Harvey got to reprise his role of voice actor to give us the announcer sounds which we recorded using a RockBand microphone and processed in Audacity.

For the final push, once all of the assets had been created, Dean and I shared the remainder of the programming, tweaking the physics and getting the gameplay working as it should... finally resulting in a multi-player top down racing game.

Harvey liked it, we were on to a winner.
With very little time remaining, we had to polish the game into a game which others would enjoy. A few things were required, braking and reverse - We'd not added those initially, but it became apparent once cars started ramming into walls that brakes were probably a good idea.

19:00

Finally, the time was up and we had to down tools and let people play our games.

Not all entries could be completed unfortunately, but there were some decent games on display - one of which was a card game using NFC chips as part of the game mechanics - very interesting stuff.

Play time!

Things were getting very competitive on our table, once people got the hang of managing their power levels, they quickly learned how to defeat each-other, taking advantage of the sweet-spot on the controller where power output was balanced with the energy intake from the sun. Then they did what all people do in driving games, rammed each-other out of the way to get to the finish line first.

Finally, it came time for the voting to end and the judging began.

In 3rd Place

, was a game by Ross McKinlay who single handedly wrote another racing game with a different take on things - as well as a very impressive tunnel effect made entirely using trig.

In 2nd place

 was the NFC card game, lots of people enjoyed playing that game - although I didn't personally get a chance to play :-(

and finally in 1st place....

in case you were wondering, it was SolaRC

In closing

Everyone had a great time, we played some great new games which in the morning of the day didn't even exist as an idea in the developer's heads. They were born on the day.

It's always amazing to me how much people can create in such a short amount of time and how warm and kind everyone is even while working under such time constraints..

Thanks again to Skill Matter for hosting the event and thanks to GameCraft for organizing an amazing day.

Thank You!

Game Jams as a Catalyst for Busy People

...or how to build a game without p!$$ing off the missus. 

Using a Game Jam as a tool to kick an idea into action. All while being fair to those who share our lives.

Face it, we're all busy people.
Modern life is filled with distractions. Some more deserving of our time than others, some are essential and spending time on other things could be seen as neglect - but we won't dwell on those things. The distractions are there whether we like it or not.

Here's a few of the most common ones. Although it's not an exhaustive list. See if any of this rings true for you...

Most aspiring app or game developers have a day job. 

This takes between 7.5 to 8 hours a day from the pool of available hours, OK - it pays the bills, but it's not the ideal use of that time. Unfortunately, unless we catch a break, we cannot ditch the job. Most of the time the job is in a similar field as the idea (e.g. Software engineering) and when we return home after a grueling day of meetings, code and stress - there's not a lot of mojo remaining for that million dollar idea.

Some have partners.

Significant others who rightfully demand time. They too feel the hours taken by the day job and are often reluctant to allow or simply can't understand why there is a desire to put additional hours into a similar thing that their loved one was just complaining about five minutes ago - but has some idea they want to try which means more time alone. This one is the most tricky to deal with because partners are usually very forgiving and will tolerate a little time - but it's easy for this to become unbearable and they quickly put their foot down. This can lead to a lot of friction. (been there, got the tee-shirt)

Some have children. 

Similar in a way to the demands of a partner, children absolutely need time and don't like it when they don't get that time. Although, children can make good assistants if the game or app is written with them in mind. They make good testers and sometimes can provide their talents too. (Sounds, art etc)

Then there are competing hobbies.

like sports, going to the gym, the cinema, bowling with friends, parties.
These are the activities of a healthy life and a sign of a well rounded individual (apparently).
They're also a massive time sink leaving very little time to develop that killer app.

So how can we proceed? Most of these activities are essential or not easily avoided, so they take their price in hours, leaving very few hours remaining to get any work done and often leaving the developer very tired afterwards.

There are three options.

1. Abandon the idea. 

Knowing that there will never be enough time to devote to the idea to allow it to grow enough to see whether it would be worth extra development or not - may as well give up.

2. Steal a few hours from here and there. 

Hoping that a few hours will be enough to get into the zone, to focus for long enough without interruptions to make sound design ideas. Stealing a few hours makes the project take a very long time to get into a place where a clear path to completion becomes apparent.

3. Have a Jam. 

Book some time with your significant other, have a party and invite like minded friends to help - make an event of it. Brainstorm and see what you can produce in a few hours. This allows you to put the idea to the test very quickly. If you have helpers they can get parts of the application or game built while you focus on other parts. Setting goals to meet will keep you on track and at the end of the session, you'll have something to show for your efforts. Further more, you'll have had an entire day of uninterrupted work, you'll also have cleared it with your partner who will most likely use the time and have fun - all while knowing that they'll get you for the rest of the time.
It's also a great way to get the prototype ready so that you can demonstrate it - often buying more time to work on it.

Jams are worth their time investment a hundred fold.

Dean and I gave a talk about this very subject on the 1st of October 2015 at the Just Eat HQ in London.

We discussed our experiences in trying to get projects off the ground, the obstacles we'd come up against and our attempts to solve them. 

One of these attempts being the Game In a Month initiative. A very strict set of rules which if followed will produce a game in a month, but it may take several iterations before it comes out. 

Dean did produce a game using the system though, although he did stress that it was exhausting.

If you want to try it, go to www.gameinamonth.com

Then we discussed the tools we used during the process. Note the prominent placement of git. Having a source control system is essential in any project. We've lost far too many projects to the failings of hard drives and when working in a team, it is essential to have the ability to share and modify code without stepping on each-other's feet.

Most of the tools on the list are free or very reasonably priced.

So in summary:

A GameJam lets you focus your attention on the idea guilt free. It lets you collaborate or compete with others and gives you the opportunity to see if the idea bouncing around in your head is actually worth pursuing. Afterall, if the idea isn't worth it, it's best to know quickly before pulling all-nighters to get it polished and released.

London GameCraft 2014 Part Deux

Last year Dean and I attended the London GameCraft jam.
It was in an assisting capacity - providing video and effects support to any developer who wanted them.

This year, we're going again. Only this time, we're taking part!

We will be making a game in around 10 hours based on a brief that no-one will know until the morning.

It's going to be a blast and if last year is anything to go by, there'll be some amazing games made.

So if you want to go, there's still a little time remaining, so register by following this link.
https://skillsmatter.com/conferences/7378-gamecraft-london-2015