Designing an Android Game Meetup

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.

Next Game Design Chat Podcast Game is Axiom Verge

This month’s game is Axiom Verge (available from the website, Steam, and Playstation 4 / Vita):

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!

You can check out all previous episodes at knoxgamedesign.org/podcast and subscribe to the show on iTunes or via the direct feed | Subscribe on iTunes

This Month’s Topic: Game Jam Results

Several members of the group entered games in the April game jam 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 Cube by Jacob
• Shifty Shapes by Dylan
• Shape Quest by Levi
• Shapeflip! by Mike

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 game jam 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!

Button Flower by Jacob

Play the game here

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

Play the game here

Flying through space, constantly growing, SUPER AUTO-SCROLLING SPACE ROBOT GROWZINGER is hot-blooded forced scrolling giant robot action.

Survive by Paul

Play the game here

Now the game is called Survive, and all you have to do it that.

Mutant Veggie Arena by Levi

Play the game here

Save the world from the mutant vegetables!

Postmortem | Time Lapse

Reminders and Announcements:

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.

All this too much to keep up with? The Knox Game Design website has a calendar!

This Month’s Topic: Game Jam Results

Several members of the group entered games this past month in the game jam.  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!

• Monster Hotel by GaTechGrad
• MonsterMe by tranzeve
• Orange guy by jacobturn
• 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.

The past weekend was another 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 by Dylan

Play the game here

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.

TV World by Levi

Play the game here
Watch Time-lapse

Make your way through the nine channels of the TV World!
Collect remotes… shoot everything else!

Snowman Simulator by Jacob

Play the game here

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

Play the game here
Watch Time-lapse

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.

Build A Snowman by Paul

Play the game here

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.

This past August was once again game jam time, and several Knoxville game designers took part.  The theme was “Connected Worlds” and each developer or team had to use this theme some way in their game.  Here are the games submitted to the jam, plus another game completed by Ruth Ann who choose not to upload her game but showed it off Sunday night.

Revo by Devon, Elena, and Manuele

Play the game here

This was originally going to be an iOS game that played out over simulated text messages.. Since none of the team knew iOS development, that turned out to be unrealistic. Then, we were hoping to make a “graphical” text adventure, but we’re still getting the graphics together. We may make a more fleshed-out version in Twine after the jam. For now, the text-only version will have to suffice, but the screenshot shows a tease of the style of the graphical version.

Planetary Escape by Paul

Play the game here

I Found it really hard to think of something to link with the theme.. This is the best I could come up with 🙂

Parallel Puzzles by Dylan

Play the game here

A match-3 game with two connected boards.

Dots by Mike

Play the game here

Puzzle game of “connect the dots”. There are 12 levels in this version.

Dream World by Levi

Play the game here

Adventure through the connected dream worlds to find the clarity of your true reality.

Postmortems and Other Things

Several members wrote about the jam and made time-lapse videos of the process:

• Game Jam Post-Mortem
• Writing a Match-3 game in Unity
• Dream World Time-lapse
• Day One Progress
• “Dots” Postmortem
• “Dots” Timelapse

This past weekend was the second time members of the Knoxville Game Jam took part in a game jam.  The theme was “Beneath the Surface” and each developer or team had to use this theme some way in their game.  There were a total of four games submitted from KGD teams, plus another game completed by Ruth Ann who choose not to upload her game but showed it off Sunday night.

Upper Crust by Dylan

Play the game here

You are a geomancer exploring beneath the surface of the earth. To move forward in your journey, you will need to bribe the giants who guard your path.

Archaeology by Levi

Play the game here

Welcome to Archaeology!

First select a surveyor to find good locations for treasure. If treasure is found nearby, the ground will be highlighted with a certain color.  Once you find a good location for treasure, assign an excavator to that area. If the excavator successfully digs up treasure, it will be shown in the world. Then assign an appraiser, who will determine the value of the treasure and add it to your total money.

Repeat until you’ve found all of the treasure, but you have only until 7pm before the game is over.

Under the Surface by Jacob

Play the game here

Jacob (age 10) went camping this weekend and created the game basically in a little over 1 day from Sunday – Monday. The game is a maze style game with a mining element and enemies trying to kill you. Arrow keys to navigate, some other hidden short cuts, in game warps and tricks. Dad did some debugging, score/health tweaking, and collision fixing, but Jacob did 95% of this one alone.

Jungle Noir by Rachel, Hannah, and Mike

Play the game here

We took the theme “Beneath the Surface” as a reference to hidden or double meanings, which lead to the noir setting.

Time-lapse Development Videos

It’s common for participates in the game jam to live stream their process, and then crunch the whole weekend down to a short video.  Both Mike (and team) and Levi made time-lapse videos:

This past weekend 3 developers plus 2 teams from Knoxville Game Design took part in the game jam for a total of five entries!  The theme was “You Only Get One” and it was up to each developer and team how they incorporated the theme.  Here are the five entries:

Weird Kingdom (Jacob, Jeffry, and Jon)

Play the game here

Jacob age 9 is the team leader (Lead Designer, Lead artist, Lead programmer). Dad and Uncle Jon provided technical assistance. Game done in GameMaker Studio 1.2. Tile Studio used for sprites. Audacity used for sounds. Game play with Arrow Keys, A = attack. Weird quirky glitches are by design. The final boss can be tricky to kill. You only get one life, one weapon, one boss fight.

One Gunman (Levi)

Play the game here

You play as One Gunman, who must gather the rewards for shooting the bandits (Evens, Odds, Fibonaccis, Squares). Each bandit has a numerical value associated to it, which determines if it is one that can be shot for a reward. The reward will change periodically to a new set of bandits. Shooting an incorrect bandit will result in One Gunman losing a life. When all of his lives are gone, the game is over.

YoGo Burger (Mike)

Play the game here

It’s your first day at YoGo Burger, and management has said it needs to make some cuts. Effectively immediately all customers can have only one item on a burger. Marketing suggests we do not tell customers of this new policy, and research shows people only care about one topping anyway so there should be no complaints.
Also, new policy for new hires: get one complaint and you’re fired!

One Card Hero (Dylan)

Play the game here

Collect the coins! Avoid the enemies! Score the points!
Power-up your robotic avatar by playing cards–but you can only hold one card at a time (that is, “you only get one”).

Shovel Master (DBRalir, Aarithian, Chume, Reginald, Ben)

Play the game here

You are are a skilled treasure hunter, exploring various areas in search of gold.
Collect at least 50 gold to pay for travel to the next area, but you only get one minute!

Time-lapse Development Videos

It’s common for participates in the game jam to live stream their process, and then crunch the whole weekend down to a three minute video.  This time, both Mike and Levi made time-lapse videos:

The response was very good this time, even with it being in the middle of the holidays, and we’ll likely do another in April. Be sure to sign up on the mailing list for future meetup and game jam announcements.

Congratulations to everyone who entered the game jam!

Members of Knox Game Design entered not one, not two, but three games in Microsoft’s Dream Build Play 2012 game competition!  Here are the entries:

EvilQuest 2 by Chaosoft Games

In a world on the brink of annihilation, a mighty warlord has appeared and seems hell-bent on delivering the planet a final crushing blow. But, in the small village of Aurora, a glimmer of hope appears in the night sky. A mysterious stranger has fallen from the heavens, fulfilling one of the planet’s most ancient legends. Is this man the people’s savior, as the legend claims, or something else entirely? In EvilQuest 2, play as a mysterious hero on a quest to discover the truth about both himself and the world that he has been thrust into.

Resistor by Levi D Smith:

The objective of Resistor is to build connections to carry electrical flow to activate LEDs (light emitting diodes). To avoid damaging these components, the flow level must be reduced using resistors. Each level is graded upon number of pieces used, the luminosity of the LEDs, and the time required to complete the level. This game teaches the basics of resistor color code values to help educate youngsters who are interested in learning about electronics.

Captain Dubstep by FuncWorks, LLC:

Captain Dubstep is sent in to fight the forces of METAL who have been terrorizing the peace loving people of Electronica. Approaching the METAL moon base, her ship is hit and her weapons scattered across the base. The Captain must find her equipment, then shut down the moon base once and for all!

Next Meetup – Sunday, June 24th 2-5PM

Our next meeting will be held Sunday, June 24th from 2-5PM at the Technology Cooperative.

Since CodeStock just happened, I haven’t had time to plan out much for this meeting, so the plan is to round table discuss submitting the games above to Dream Build Play with the creators present, and follow that with a screening of Indie Game: The Movie.

See you there!