This post is way too long! Just read the bullet points at the end.

Our next challenge is a two-parter! In Part Ⅰ, you are tasked with designing your game’s gameplay and assets.

In Part Ⅱ, you are tasked with coding together someone else’s game, but we’ll worry about that in a few weeks.

Does the prospect of making a game without learning to code appeal to you? Well get your head out of the cloud, buster, it’s not as easy as your daydreams make it out to be. There are some barriers, technical and human, which you need to deal with.

The Technical (or: The Rules)

To be eligible to compete, and to be awesome, your game must incorporate at least two of the following keywords: animals, food, future, and snow. How you incorporate them is up to you!

Here’s the tricky part. If you want something in the game, you have to make it yourself. Do you want your guy to be able to run and jump to the left and the right? If you don’t want your game looking like Karoshi, where the main guy is facing forward the whole time, you have to draw all of those pictures! Don’t worry, it doesn’t take as long as you fear. I drew this guy in a minute:  Imagine what you can do with ten minutes.

If you have a grander vision, however, you are welcome to team up with people. Teams can be up to three people in size. Have one person draw the backgrounds and one person draw the sprites and one person compose the music, I dunno! (You can also make THREE DEE MODELS, if that’s your thing.)

That’s one reason you should bring stuff you’ve made to the next meeting: you can see who’s interested in what and team up with people who complement you. Don’t worry if you suck at everything; all of us suck at everything! That’s why we’re in college.

The deadline for this thing is March 2nd. Establish your vision by then.

The Human (or: Protips)

You’ll want to make your game design as detailed as possible. Otherwise the programmer could misunderstand your vision! Make sure you write down exactly what you have in mind. Draw levels on graph paper, specify speeds of things in pixels per second, write down text exactly how you want it to be worded. Coding a game is hard work; the programmer has enough on his plate without having to make arbitrary decisions all the time.

Remember, though, coding is hard. Keep your game simple. If you make your game design too complicated, the programmer won’t have time to finish it all—he might just pick the funnest subset of your game to make, or worse, skip it entirely! Take a look at some existing games we’ve made to get an idea of what a reasonable scope is.

tl;dr:

• Form teams of 1 – 3 people to design a game. People cannot be on multiple teams.
• Design the game, but don’t create the game: describe the game in words, and provide assets (art and sound) for it.
• Game designs must match at least two of these keywords: food, future, snow, animals
• Game design descriptions should be as detailed as possible so that the game design is not misunderstood
• Game designs should be easy to implement, because some of them will be implemented in the next challenge
• There will be prizes
• The design is due in four weeks, at the meeting on March 2nd

Rules:

• 1 – 5 people per team; members do not need to be students, but they must attend at least one of our meetings this semester
• Games must be original
• Games must use the Facebook platform
• Art and sound assets must not be copyrighted
• Teams should meet the schedule below
• You must allow this site to link to your Facebook game

Important dates:

• October 22
  • Challenge starts
• November 5, end of week 2
  • Teams must be finalized
• November 12, end of week 3
  • General game design must be submitted
• November 26, end of week 5
  • Games must be playable and public
• December 3, end of week 6
  • Challenge ends
  • Games are presented

Prizes are tentative / will be announced soon.

See you in the winners’ circle! ^_^

Winners, tied for first place, are Intergalactic Planetary Super Showdown And Nyx.
Cygnus the Cutie was a close runner-up.

Gravity Flyer from SJSU Game Dev on Vimeo.

Cygnus the Cutie from SJSU Game Dev on Vimeo.

Intergalactic Planetary Super Showdown from SJSU Game Dev on Vimeo.

NYX from SJSU Game Dev on Vimeo.

Students from SJSU and Cogswell Polytechnical College are working together to make games. Although some teams have been formed already, you can still use this Google group to find or form a team. Following these instructions, students are posting to list their skills and the types of teams they would like to join. If you haven’t posted yet, please do, then either try to start a team or ask others if you can join their team.

Challenge dates:

• Thursday September 10th: rules are announced and challenge starts
• Thursday September 24th: (optional) teams may presents previews of their games
• Wednesday October 7th: game entries are due by email
• Thursday October 8th: teams will present their games
• October 15-21: team members vote for the best entries (see website for details)
• Thursday October 22: winners are announced and prizes are awarded

Main rules:

• Game entries must match at least one of these tags / themes: 4th wall, building, coloring, and gravity
• Game must be completable in less than five minutes
• Teams must have 1 – 5 people, from Cogswell / SJSU
• Code and artwork must be made by the team members

Complete rules

The challenge starts on Thursday, September 10, 2009
Entries must be received by Thursday, October 8, 2009 at 8AM. (That means, submit on the previous day.)
Games will be presented at the SJSU Game Dev meeting on Thursday, October 8, 2009

Challenge entry rules:

• The game must be fully completable in less than five minutes
• The game must match one of these tags: 4th wall, building, coloring, and gravity.

To be eligible for prizes:

• Teams must announce their team name and members on the Challenge Google Group (one post per team), by Thursday, September 24
• Teams must have 1 – 5 people, and people cannot be on multiple teams. Team members must be associated with either Cogswell or SJSU
• The SJSU Game Dev Club must receive permission to post at least one of the following for each entry on the website: executable, source, screenshots, or presentation video
• The game and its code (excepting code libraries) must be new and made by team members, after the start date of the competition
• All artwork must be created by members of the team
• The team must either make included sound and music, or get permission for all sound and music used
• At least one member of each team must be present at the meeting on Thursday, October 8 to demo their game. (For non-Windows games: bring your own laptop!)

Submissions:

• Submissions must be received at kristopherwindsor@gmail.com before 8AM, Thursday, October 8, 2009
• Submissions should include all of the following: game name, source code, Windows executable (not necessary for Linux / Mac – only games) or SWF / link to SWF, two screenshots, list of team members / positions and team name, and what the team will allow on the website (ie do they want the source code posted?)

Judging and prizes:

• Games will be posted on the SJSU Game Dev website by Thursday, October 15, so everyone can review them
• Every member of each team that submits a game should review the games after that date, pick two different games to vote for (members cannot vote for their own games), and email their votes to kristopherwindsor@gmail.com by Wednesday, October 21 (voting is optional)
• The two games with the most votes will win * (in case of tie: prizes will be awarded to 3 teams if there is a 2-way tie for second or 3-way tie for first; other ties will be broken with some form of re-voting)
• Each member of the winning teams will receive one prize (prizes include XBox 360 games, PC games, and a variety of Microsoft hardware)
• Prizes will be awarded at the meeting two weeks after the game presentations, on Thursday, October 22 (members do not need to be present to collect prizes)

* At some point before the challenge ends, we may announce that more than two teams will win (don’t count on it)

Home Defense from SJSU Game Dev on Vimeo.

Tower of Mediocrity from SJSU Game Dev on Vimeo.

Wave[Z] from SJSU Game Dev on Vimeo.

Operation Flytrap from SJSU Game Dev on Vimeo.

Zune Defense from SJSU Game Dev on Vimeo.

AG! It’s a 3D TOWER Defense from SJSU Game Dev on Vimeo.

Untitled Tower Defense from SJSU Game Dev on Vimeo.

Tower Defense:

- At least one map

- At least 3 Tower types

- At least 5 waves of creeps

- It may be developed for any platform

Prizes will be announced on the day of; however, please remember how awesome the prizes were last time :)! Plus you will be praised in the Game Dev and CS club for your awesomeness.

This may be judged by a vote or by a panel (not sure yet, Edgar and I both want to participate)

Grading Criteria:

- Mechanics

- Game Play

- Graphics/Audio

- Polish

Tentative Deadline: Monday, April 27th, 2009 at 5:00pm ( a little more than a month from now )

We will also have a speaker on that day! ( will be announced and confirmed soon )

Good Luck!

Shmup of Death from SJSU Game Dev on Vimeo.

Intersecshmup from SJSU Game Dev on Vimeo.

Super Hostile Mega Uber Protector from SJSU Game Dev on Vimeo.

Shmup of Joy from SJSU Game Dev on Vimeo.

Nanoha Shooter! from SJSU Game Dev on Vimeo.

This was a little later than anticipated; however, here are the rules for the shmup! Once again you may use any technology that you would like. If you make your game in C#/XNA and you feel that it would have a chance for Imagine Cup I would suggest submitting your entry. Winner of that will get to go to Cairo, Egypt and participate in the internationals and have a chance at winning $25,000

1. 1 Minute of Gameplay (at least)

2. 1 Level (at least)

3. 1 Boss!

4. Teams are allowed and may be as large as you wish.

5. The due date is around March 5th (we will set it in stone within the next week or so)

6. Games will be graded on Mechanics, Design (graphics, game and sound), Fun Factor, and Polish

7. The winners get prizes

8. The judges are Parris and Edgar (they may be bribed (jk))

9. Top 3 will get posted on SJSUGAMEDEV.com!!!

“Vanguarder” by Edgar, Robert, and Cliff

Vanguarder from SJSU Game Dev on Vimeo.

“Tactics This” by Michael and John.

Tactics This from SJSU Game Dev on Vimeo.

“Other People” by Kelsey

Other People from SJSU Game Dev on Vimeo.

“Mediocre Man” by Pauline, Gizelle, Parris, and Wally

Mediocre Man from SJSU Game Dev on Vimeo.

- Games must simply feel asthetically ‘retro’
- Must resurrect a classic game genre
- Games may be direct clones, slight upgrades, or variations on original titles during that time period
- Mini Presentation due Thursday, November 13th
- Final Presentation due Tuesday December 2nd
- Projects may be developed for any platform
- Projects may feature newer technologies

Resource websites:
Various sprites:  http://www.spriters-resource.com/
Megaman sprites:  http://www.sprites-inc.co.uk/
Sonic/others? sprites:  http://www.themysticalforestzone.com/Sprite_section.htm

We do not have resources for game music yet; however, visit our google group and talk to your fellow members for further assistance!!!

GOOD LUCK :-D!