There’s another Glorious Trainwrecks event wherein you make not a game, but a level for an existing (wonderful) game! It’s a perfect opportunity to apply what we have learned recently. As with all Glorious Trainwrecks events, the idea is just to make something stupid without caring about the quality, so don’t be afraid to participate!

Since it’s such short notice, we won’t have a physical meetup, but I thought you’d want to know about it anyway. There’s a link to a chat, and people will be talking, so you can still get your camaraderie fix. <3

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We had like fifteen people come to the gamesmash and like ten of them were making games! Like five of them were making games for the first time! That’s awesome.

Here are some of the games made for it, in no particular order! Because never actually asked what anyone’s name was (oops), they are attributed to usernames.

I Love You But You Kiss Like a Girl, by mkapolk

mkapolk is the one who originally came up with the idea of physically hosting Glorious Trainwrecks events, starting with when we made like 35 games in what we called an Intergalacticollabogamesmash! PROPS TO HIM. He’s somewhere in the process of changing majors from Computer Science to Digital Media Arts.

Invasion of the Spiders and the Bee in the Middle, by trimon

I’m pretty sure that this was trimon’s first game! Nice. He’s some kind of Art major, I think.

Cave Shooter, by Kitaru

Kitaru doesn’t look like a nerd, even when he tried on my glasses! I’m not sure how he does it. I’m almost certain that he’s a Computer Science major.

Duck Hunt remake, by gregsqueeb
[SCREENSHOT]

I’m almost certain that a) this was gregsqueeb’s first game and that b) he’s some kind of Art major! Sweet!

Jumps, by KristopherWindsor

Kristopher couldn’t make it in person, but he was with us on the Internet! He’s a Computer Science major.

UFO, by GingeRage

GingeRage made his first game, and he’s an Art major! There is a pattern here which can be explained by natural phenomena.

THIS IS NOT AN ART GAME, by Cavalcadeofcats

Cavalcadeofcats is actually a University of California, San Diego student! He was visiting because he is home for spring break. He is an HONORARY TEMPORARY member of the Club, or something.

FAKE GAME, by Fake Person
[FAKE SCREENSHOT]

I know there are at least four games that didn’t get uploaded! This is unfortunate, it means that not all of our games can be seen. To upload a game, go to the Klik of the Month Klub #33 page and click on upload it here (it’s in the post).¹²

It’s best to include a screenshot–it just is!–and to tag your game with “sjsu”, so that we can more easily find the games made at these physical events. Click to see the games we have made at these physical events! If you haven’t uploaded a screenshot or you haven’t tagged your game with “sjsu”, you can find your game and click “Edit” at the top of it to do those.

If you upload your game or add a screenshot, tell me on Facebook (I’m Kelsey Higham) and I’ll update this post!

1. If you were using Game Maker, you’ll want to compile an executable–that’s a fancy way of saying that you’ll want to save the Game Maker file as a .exe. To do that, go to File > Create Executable… or click the equivalent toolbar button. Then right-click on the .exe file and do Send to > Compressed (zipped) folder, so that it’s smaller. [↩]
2. If you were using Klik & Play, I can’t actually remember the instructions, but I know that only one person was using Klik & Play and that he’s smart enough to figure it out. Remember to include the .DLLs in the .zip, Joe! The game won’t run without them. [↩]

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Thanks to Anna Anthropy for presenting about the design of one room (and then of other things) in REDDER! There were like 50 attendees and we were all at the edge™ of our seats.

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Glorious Trainwrecks is an online community celebrating the spontaneous creativity that comes from making games using children’s gamemaking tools under severe time constraints.

The third Saturday of every month, they host Klik of the Month, an event where participants are encouraged to use the simplest tools and the lowest standards possible to make a game in two hours.

The last time we tried to organize a physical event around a similar thing, it was a total blast. So we’re doing it again!

I should note that no experience of any kind is necessary. If you have not made a game before, we will teach you how! Last time, a guy (Andrey) who had never made a game before not only learned to make his first game, but he made another game that was mentioned on Bytejacker. From not knowing anything, that’s a time-to-fame of like eight days! This could be you.

Details details

MacQuarrie Hall Room 227
3:00pm – 6:00pm
RSVP on Facebook, if you like
Sign up on Glorious Trainwrecks, though it’s not necessary

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It is cool to have more artists, we are like 90% programmers here usually! Look at our games, they are generally ugly, we need y’all. (If you’re not an artist, of course, you already fit right in!)

If you’re new to the Game Dev Club and you want to collaborate on/participate in the current challenge, you should join the mailing list.

If you want to become a member of the Game Dev Club, here’s how:

1. spin around three times
2. clap three times
3. hop on one foot three times

Congratulations, you’re a member! You didn’t even have to pay a fee or anything.

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If you haven't implemented a game before, this weekend is Klik of the Month on www.glorioustrainwrecks.com. Participate in that for practice, there are people who can help you!

Part Ⅱ of the challenge has begun! In this part, you will be tasked with implementing a game using Part I’s designs and assets. The designs and assets are here! But don’t you start downloading them yet. This is a challenge, we have constraints to make it challenging.

Here are some rules

There’s no “I” in “COLLABORATION”

Part of the fun of this challenge is that it forces people to team up with each other. But that doesn’t work unless we force people to team up with each other! So you’re not allowed to use your own design or assets. You have to use someone else’s if you want to be eligible for prizes.

If we didn’t do it this way, there wouldn’t have been much point to Part I!

i made a picture

If the design you choose has assets to go along with it, you have to use the assets provided before using your own. This doesn’t mean that you can’t create assets, just that you can’t replace existing assets for new ones. If something is in the design but isn’t provided as an asset, you’re free to make it yourself!

Lol, Internet

You’re not allowed to use assets beyond those provided and those you create yourself; no pulling a sweet sprite or jammin’ soundtrack off the Internet.

Team Size

In Part II, you can work with only one other person, because we only have enough prizes for teams of that size. Human assets from Part I don’t count towards that, because technically they’re in Part I.

The best game will net prizes for both the team that made the design and assets and the team that implemented it!

Deadline

The competition ends on April 6. It started two weeks ago, and there are three weeks remaining!

Here are some summarizing bullet points

• Members select one game design from the previous challenge, and implement it, in teams of 1 – 2 people
• Members cannot develop their own designs
• There will be one prize per team member for the best implemented game (the implementing team and design team will both win prizes)
• The challenge ends at the meeting on April 6th
• If the game design includes art, the art must be used, but additional art can be added (same for sound)
• All code and assets must be made by team members

Here are some designs and assets

Designs and Assets

click to get at them

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Perhaps the flyer which brought you here in the first place??

Anna Anthropy will be presenting at our next meeting on Tuesday, March 16! You should come, even if you’re not a part of the club. (Even if you’re not a student here! (Even if you’re from the Internet.)) I don’t know what she’ll be talking about, so I’ll tell you a few miscellaneous things about her. Or you could just skip this post and play her games.

As a general introduction, Anna is a game designer and critic who excels at telling stories through the medium of games. Rather than relying on the embedded media of text or movies, like most story-based games out there today, she embeds her stories in the gameplay interactions. Literally, she has told a video game love story where the only action you can take, as the player, is to shoot. More abstractly, she’s told countless smaller stories in her various games’ level designs. She has written extensively about game design and storytelling on her blog, where she has, among other things, dissected the level designs in Super Mario Bros. and Star Guard to find out some of the reasons they’re so good.

Since it’s right after transgendered awareness week, I feel it’s worth mentioning that she’s transgendered. Historically, this has been a problem for people in the game industry; the story of Dani Bunten, lead designer of MULE (you should play the online multiplayer version) is a tragic one. Anna’s story is more inspiring—it’s a testament to the meritocratic nature of the Internet that she became known and respected first, and when people finally figured out that she was biologically male, few really seemed to care. Ultimately, people are more grateful than anything, because she has created some of the few games with non-immature lesbian stories.

She’s a judge in the Independent Games Festival, and she’s been influential in making the judging process suck less for those whose games were are getting judged.

Also at this meeting

People will show their progress on the current challenge, if they’ve got anything to show! (I still need to post the rules and the design docs for that thing, sorry. •_•)

We’ll probably share anything interesting that happened at GDC this weekend. I’m sure that something interesting will happen at GDC this weekend. (EDIT: Interesting things happened at GDC this weekend!)

People will also make new friends and get along with each other!

Here’s the where and the when

Guadalupe room (second floor), Student Union building, San José State University
Tuesday, March 16
7:15pm – 9:15pm

RSVP on Facebook, if you like.

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If you didn’t come to the meeting, you missed a grand time. But that’s okay, because it’s my job to summarize it for you!

GDC

If you’re attending GDC, there’s a mandatory informational meeting next Friday Wednesday (March 11th)! We don’t know when or where it’ll be yet, but it’ll be posted on the Facebook event page (so sign up on there to get messages if you haven’t already) and there’ll be a flyer or something in the CS Club. The informational meeting is now scheduled for Wednesday, March 10, at 7:00 PM, and will start out in front of the Student Union.

The deadline for payment is Tuesday, March 9th, which is five days from now! If you haven’t paid yet, get in contact with Cindy through the Facebook page, where her name is spelled Shin Deh.

T-Shirt Design

We’re going to be making T-shirts at some point! You can try to design one, but it’ll pass through an intensive quality control program, so don’t be offended if it gets rejected for being too boring or ugly or something! Here is one which was rejected, how foreboding:

Not that you shouldn’t try! You can post attempts and works in progress on the mailing list.

First Phase of the Contest

People presented their designs, shoddy half-designs, assets, and shoddy half-assets! You have like three hours left to submit your own, by the way. I will post them on the website here because we are about to start the

Second Phase of the Contest!

I will be posting the rules to that too, just be patient.

Intergalacticollabogamesmash

Parris played all the games we made for the Intergalacticollabogamesmash! You can play them yourself here. Those are only the 35 (!) games we made at our physical event; on the Internet, 102 people made 529 games, which you can play here. It was an awesome time, so we will be doing more things like that.

Next Meeting

Anna Anthropy will be our guest speaker! Sweet! More on that later.

Update: The GDC mandatory informational meeting is on Wednesday now! Gosh!

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Just so that we’re clear!

Wednesday at midnight Thursday at midnight is the deadline for the titular current challenge! (It used to be Tuesday at 9:00, we changed it for some reason. And then it used to be Wednesday, but we changed it again! what the heck) If you have stuff on a computer, put it in a zip file and email it to kelseyhigham+gamedevyay@gmail.com (that’s me) by the end of Wednesday Thursday, so that I can put it here on sjsugamedev.com. If you have stuff on paper, either scan+email it, or bring it to the meeting and we’ll have a person with a scanner you can lend it to. If you have stuff made out of clay, man, that’s really great. You should be proud.

Update: Just kidding! It’s Thursday now.

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