There were four great entries from Knoxville Game Design for Ludum Dare 39. The theme for this competition was Running Out of Power. The entries by our group are listed below in no specific order. Let us know if we missed your game!
Multiple US cities have been hit with simultaneous power grid failures. We are RUNNING OUT OF POWER.
The government has tasked YOU—a PowerTransformer—to put as many windmills as you can back in operation in a limited amount of time in order to get power restored to a maximum number of households.
Away Team is a resource and squad management simulation game where your goal is to get home. Your ship is stranded 4 jumps from home and each jump takes a certain amount of power and time to charge. You can send an away team on resource gathering missions to nearby asteroids, abandoned ships, and more. You can convert supplies into power and once the jump is charged, make your way home!
Help Slowbot activate the three lights in each level. Slowbot’s power will gradually decrease over time. Slowbot will become slower and headlight will dim as power decreases. Moving makes Slowbot’s power decrease more rapidly. Picking up a battery will restore some of Slowbot’s power. Touching a mine will drastically lower Slowbot’s power.
Spin Widgetz is the ultimate collectible Fidget Spinner experience with true Augmented Reality mode. Spin your spinners to earn gold, then use gold to get new spinners!
There were three great entries from Knoxville Game Design for Ludum Dare 38. The theme for this competition was “A Small World”. The entries by our group are listed below in no specific order. Let us know if we missed your game!
Long ago the race of Hoppers populated the galaxy. Now all thats left is a few Hopperbots still trying to complete thier exploration of the planets they are left behind on. Can you help the Hopperbots complete their mission of collecting data on their small worlds?
Classic beat ‘em up action. You must guide the planet and defeat the evil planets to save the universe!
Time Lapse Videos
Gameplay Video
May 2017 Meeting Announcement
We will meet online using Google Hangouts on Sunday May 14, 2017 at 2pm Eastern Time. No agenda this month. We will be showing off our Ludum Dare 38 and other games that we have been developing.
Be sure your mic is working prior to the meeting. Also, please mute your mic when not speaking, especially if you are in a place with a lot of background noise. There is a little mic icon in the Hangout window that will allow you to mute yourself.
We are still exploring other options for holding our online meetings. We may move to Skype or some other service, but Hangouts is nice since it doesn’t require invitations to be sent. Any other suggestions are welcome!
Members of Knoxville Game Design created entries for the GM48 22nd game jam. The theme was “Descend”. The games had to be completely created in 48 hours using GameMaker.
Welcome to Drone Delver! The cave exploration drones have gone haywire, and we need your help! They’re only responding to switching positions, but they are able to send signals that effect each other. See if you can figure out how to get to the bottom!
Help the miner escape the caves by avoiding the deadly bats and collecting gems!
Time Lapse videos
Ludum Dare Kickoff
Some of us will be getting together at Panera Bread on North Peters Rd. at 7pm Eastern Time on Friday April 21, 2017 for a Ludum Dare Kickoff. We are planning to show off our games at the May 2017 online meeting.
Upcoming Events
Members of Knoxville Game Design will be at Momocon in Atlanta, Georgia May 25-28, 2017.
Last month, there were eight great game entries that members of Knoxville Game Design created for the Ludum Dare game development competition. The theme for this competition was “One Room”. The entries by our group are listed below in no specific order.
My two sons wanted me to make a game while they made games too. So I made this shmup. All made in game maker studio pro (thanks humble bundle), sounds via sound recorder app on my phone.
Your goal in Eye in the Sky is to find the requested people using the casino security camera feeds. There are 4 different views set up looking into one room – the casino floor. People will be freely moving around the room and as such you’ll need to look at all the cameras to see where they might have gone. You can click on any of the camera feeds to zoom in on that view in the room, which will help you pick out the correct person. The score is based on how quickly you are able to find each person, with no points given after a certain amount of time. There is no gameover, feel free to play as long as you like!
Persistence pays as you confront a series of enemies, each requiring their own unique strategy. Learn skills and spells as you try to escape the isolation your captors have placed you into.
Help Froggy escape the room by collecting the quantum accelerator artifact. When the artifact is collected, Froggy leaps through time and space to the exact same room in another dimension! Help Froggy avoid the dangers so that he can hope that the next leap will be the leap home!
Its a twin-stick type shooter set in the mythical zombie apocalypse. While enemies are coming at you from all directions, you will want to watch your shots as your ammunition is limited. Thankfully for you, it appears that every zombie is carrying at least one or two bullets, or a grenade. You only get one life, and the zombies are coming faster and faster, how long will you survive?
This platformer game for children was developed using Processing version 2 with Java. Only one level (hardest) is provided here. New feature for touch screens is showcased.
Last month was Ludum Dare and we had seven(!) entries from members of Knoxville Game Design. Join us this month as we share our entries and discuss what went right, what went wrong, and what was learned.
The theme was “Ancient Technology” and here are the games submitted:
Watch the compass arrow, it will point towards the skull you need to pick up (if it points all the way up, you’ve already collected it)
Get past level 9 and………well, lets see what happens.
The unexplainable complexity, size, and precision in constructing The Great Pyramid at Giza (completed around 2560 BC) has led some to conjecture that aliens had a hand in building the pyramids in Giza. This simple action game designed for my preschool grandchildren tests speed and reaction time as they help Orecka The Alien-Sweeper vacuum the Alien Building Supervisors away from the pyramids.
At KDS your job is to sort the incoming cut stone from the quarry for sending to the builders at Giza. Efficiency is the goal, sending a full load means less time wasted counting on the other end and a quicker turnaround for that team for you.
Oh, and the builders also offer a bonus for color-matching boards of any size, as it helps them utilize the stone quicker.
Keep the process flowing and everyone stays happy, got it?
Barony is a 3D, first-person roguelike. The goal of the game is to descend to the bottom of a dark dungeon known as the Devil’s Bastion and destroy an undead lich named Baron Herx, who terrorized the peaceful town of Hamlet in life and is now harboring a curse against the land from beyond the grave. To aid you in your quest are friendly humans who have been eeking out a rough life within the dungeon for generations, as well as any friends you can bring with you in real life: Barony is the first of its kind as a first-person roguelike in that it fully supports cooperative multiplayer for up to four players.
The podcast is recorded after the regular meetup ends. Anyone is welcome to join the discussion with the only requirement being that you have played the game. I highly recommend taking notes while playing so you have a good set of taking points for the podcast and have less of a chance of forgetting something!
The meetup will be held at the Technology Cooperative located at 13 Emory Place, Knoxville TN. Parking is available in front of the Technology Cooperative. We start at 2PM and open with some roundtable discussion and a Show ‘n Tell where everyone can show a bit of their in progress game, favorite tool, mechanic they love in another game, or anything they find helpful and want to share with the group.
Special announcement this month, the Knoxville Coding Dojo Meetup is holding an Android gamedev with Android Studio 6PM Tuesday May 3rd. For more information, please visit and sign up on the Knoxville Coding Dojo Event Page.
A failed scientist dies in an accident, only to awaken in a mysterious, alien world.
Where is he? How did he get here? And why do the fundamental laws of reality appear broken?
Life. Afterlife. Real. Virtual. Dream. Nightmare. It’s a thin line.
It’s Axiom Verge.
The podcast is recorded after the regular meetup ends. Anyone is welcome to join the discussion with the only requirement being that you have played the game. I highly recommend taking notes while playing so you have a good set of taking points for the podcast and have less of a chance of forgetting something!
Several members of the group entered games in the April Ludum Dare and will share the behind the scene tales of each. The entries below may not be the full list, so if I missed your game please send me an email and let me know. Also, if you have any in progress game or maybe you didn’t finish the jam please feel welcome to join us in sharing!
The meetup will be held at the Technology Cooperative located at 13 Emory Place, Knoxville TN. Parking is available in front of the Technology Cooperative. We start at 2PM and open with some roundtable discussion and a Show ‘n Tell where everyone can show a bit of their in progress game, favorite tool, mechanic they love in another game, or anything they find helpful and want to share with the group.
Several games were submitted by Knoxville Game Design members to the 34th Ludum Dare this month. The theme was tie between “Growing” and “Two button controls” so participants could choose one or both for their game. Here are the games submitted by Knox Game Design members!
Jacob (age 11.9) has created a different game this time. He did all the art and coding with Gamemaker Studio with built in sprite editor. Dad is helping compile and post the entry but that is all the help dad has done.
Super Autoscrolling Space Robot GROWZINGER by Dylan
Open Game Labs: The group hosts an Open Game Lab every Tuesday 5:30PM – 8PM and on the 3rd Sunday of the month 2PM – 5PM. These labs are unstructured time for anyone to come to the space, hang out and work on their game. If you are just starting out this is also a great time to come ask questions! Special note this month – no Open Game Lab on Sunday April 19th due to the game jam.
Call for Topics! If you’ve been to a meetup you know that the group is very informal and you do not need a well timed and polished presentation. A presentation can simply be discussing a topic while showing a demo on a laptop. If you are interested in presenting or have a request for a topic you would like to see covered please contact Michael at michael.neel@gmail.com
Facebook and Twitter: You can also stay up to date with members of the group on Facebook. The group is closed, so you’ll need request access and it make take a day or two to get approved. If you don’t get approved in a few days, send me an email at the address above. There is also a twitter list maintained by Levi. For info on joining the twitter list, contact Levi @gatechgrad.
Several members of the group entered games this past month in the Ludum Dare. This month we’ll look at the entries and share the behind the scene tales of each. The entries below may not be the full list, so if I missed your game please send me an email and let me know!
Nighttime at Chunky’s Pizza (incomplete / not entered) by ViNull
Location and Time
The meetup will be held at the Technology Cooperative located at 13 Emory Place, Knoxville TN. Parking is available in front of the Technology Cooperative. We start at 2PM and open with some roundtable discussion and a Show ‘n Tell where everyone can show a bit of their in progress game, favorite tool, mechanic they love in another game, or anything they find helpful and want to share with the group.
Several games were submitted by Knoxville Game Design members to the 32nd Ludum Dare last month. The theme was “An Unconventional Weapon” and below are the games submitted.
You are a superhero with unconventional powers. A magical MacGuffin allows you to imbue light with various magical effects. Use your powers to fight the bad guys and make sure no innocent bystanders get hurt!
Shoot the Cornflakes from the spoon to blow up the mouths around the screen. You start with 20 flakes, when you have 4 or less (flakes), within 20 seconds another bowl will appear. Collect it to get another 10 flakes.
KRYPTONATOR is the unconventional weapon for this 2D fighter game with a twist—the villain is the hero! The goal is for one of Superman’s villains (Bad Grrl or Lex Luthor) to defeat him in as many battles as possible.
I call it mower. The mower follows the mouse. Something gets all weird after you play for 2-3 minutes and it starts bogging down — I just don’t know whats wrong. I did something the wrong way.
Screwdriver: Screwy McScrews is the hero out to attack the WWII and Dr. Who inspired enemies by shooting spoons. Spoon slinging is hard when you are a screwdriver with no hands, so the spoon firing mechanism can be difficult to control. Can you make it to the end?
The past weekend was another Ludum Dare game jam, and once again several games were submitted by Knoxville Game Design members. The theme this time was “Entire Game on One Screen” though many of us were hoping for ☃(not “snowman” but the unicode symbol for snowman was a possible theme). I think you’ll see that many of us included some cold love for unicode Frosty…
Ice Fishing Derby is inspired by David Crane’s Fishing Derby for the Atari 2600 (where the entire game was played on one screen–there wasn’t even a title!) My goal was also to make a retro-style game.
This game is a bit more complicated, however. You’re ice fishing, so you have to cut holes in the ice, and you can use bait to attract fish.
Each fish is worth $1 to $3. In addition to being your score, you can use this to buy various types of bait. Each bait has different properties: some attract fish at greater distances, some keep fish interested longer, and some are less likely to be lost once you reel in a fish.
Jacob (age 11) has his interpretation of the theme presents: Snowman Simulator
play with: WSAD, arrows, mouse — secret stuff to click on and do. can you find multiplayer mode? Get the high score?
Made with GameMaker Studio and Tile Studio.
Dad helped with minor debugging, encouraging, and cleanup for submission. Jacob did 99% of the work.
Click For Dragons! by Mike, Rachel, Hannah, and Cicelie
We decided to combine the fun of idle games like cookie clicker with the RPG setting of games like Dragon Age. It’s a game you can play while playing other games in Ludum Dare!
The development team was myself, my wife, and my two oldest daughters (we entered the game jam as a team). Even though this is a jam entry, everything in the game was made by us.
I have to admit, the original idea was all based around the fact that the ‘uni-code snowman’ may have won, but the theme still allowed me to build this.
There are 8 boxes at the bottom of the screen, and falling from the left and right you have parts of a snowman, two snowballs, hat, coal and a carrot. The idea being you catch it, and drag it down to the box, as you do, a piece appears in the box, get all the pieces the snowman starts to dance, click it, you’ll get points.
