I also find demakes a fascinating topic. On the one hand, it's just plain fun to imagine what all these games might have looked like if they'd have come out years ago. On the other, perhaps the even more interesting question is 'what can you add by de-making a game?' If you are taking away all those layers of technology what can you put back to actually improve upon the game?
What kind of schedule do folks think is reasonable for Art Challenges?
I was thinking one every other month.
How long should the challenges run for? I was thinking 4 weeks for the challenge, 2 weeks for judging, 2 weeks off.
Does that sound reasonable, or should it all be done in one month, 2 weeks for challenge, 2 weeks for judging?
If we targeted one challenge every other month, and assuming a Game Jam in June, that would give us a schedule like so:
January Art Challenge
March Art Challenge
May Art Challenge
July Art Challenge
September Art Challenge
November Art Challenge
Once concern with this, is it gives us a challenge in July which is also the judging period for the Summer game jam. So an alt approach would be to skip Jul and pick up again in August, this yeilds:
January Art Challenge
March Art Challenge
May Art Challenge
June Game Jam
August Art Challenge
October Art Challenge
December Art Challenge
I actually like this because it keeps October and IMHO we could run a 'halloween' themed challenge every year and it would never get old ;)
Or we could go for 'seasonal' challenges, so:
Winter Art Challenge (Dec, Jan, or Feb)
Spring Art Challenge (Mar, April, or May)
Summer Art Challenge (Jun, Jul, or Aug)
Fall Art Challenge (Sep, Oct, or Nov)
We've been on the 'no art challenges' schedule for a while, so maybe it would be better to shoot for just a seasonal challenge for now and ramp up more if that works out. We can always add a 2nd challenge to any given season if we want (so Fall Art Challenge #2, etc).
Well what do folks think? If we can agree on a schedule, then I'll start a thread asking for volunteers to run each jam. volunteer gets to pick the theme, so there's some fun in running the challenges.
Final thought, it would be extra super great if there was some way to highlight the challenge entries on the main page. Currently, we get 'popular this week', 'latest art', 'latest art by friends' and 'featured art'.
It would be super-de-duper cool if 'Featured Art' could 'feature' entries from the current art challenge. Could be done for the duration of the challenge, or just through the voting period. Either way, this would be an added incentive for folks to participate (more visibility for their works) and help level the playing field a bit since presently there's a bit of a 'favorites beget favorites' economy going on. By that I mean, favorites get an entry onto the 'popular this week' tab, which brings more eyeballs and more favorites. Whereas, if an entry gets pushed off the 'latest art' tab before getting enough favorites to make 'popular this week' (which can happen simply because you submitted at an inopportune time, ie just before a sudden deluge of submissions) it'll effectively disappear and be unlikely to compete.
@Spring: I found hosting to be pretty straight forward. itch makes setting the jam really simple. I honestly just copied the description from chasersgaming's last jam and then tweaked it a bit, so for the most part, all the text kind of writes itself. The only real extra work is double checking all the entries to make sure their assets and credit pages are all in good order. Personally, next time I host I am going to add a requirement that the asset credits appear in the game descrption on itch.io. This will make them much easier to check over (since you'll be able to just click the urls on the itch page instead of trying to transcribe them from a credits page). It will also (hopefully) bring more attention to the assets and their creators.
Other than that, I didn't find it too much trouble to host at all. You'll want some banner art, but once you settle on a name I know someone who'd love to help putting that together (hint, hint, he looks alot like me ;)
I don't know about an official prize pool. I agree it might attract the wrong kind of attention, we seem to get quite a few bogus entries every jam as it is (games that clearly don't meet the criteria and are most likely just re-submissions of games created). Also adding money to the mix might create more sour feelings when the results come in.
What I'd love to see is some kind of template for badges that could be given out to the overall winner and the category winners for each jam. Possibly first, second and third place badges for the overall winners. This would be something folks could display proudly and use in promotional materials (banners, etc) for their games.
I tried to make something for the Fall All-OGA Jam and while I think the result came out alright, I'm certain a proper artist could do much better. Also, I got a bit carried up in the 'fall' theming for that badge so it wasn't particularly re-usable. Something with OGA and Sara would probably be more useful.
re: art challenge
I was going to try and run a 'Re-design OGA Home Page' contest but I'm not sure if that would dovetail well with a Spring game jam. Could just do a 'regular' themed art challenge if you wanted.
Monday, February 11, 2019 - 10:27
I would definitely try to participate. It would be all too fitting for you to host the Spring game jam ;)
If the Summer one is in Jully, then a Spring Jam in March or April wouldn't be too close IMHO.
Monday, February 4, 2019 - 11:42
Can anyone whose run an art challenge let me know if those steps seem about right or if I'm missing something?
Just wanted to let folks know that this project isn't dead!
Still no proper index palette support or color editing, but based on some nice feedback from Chasersgaming, I've gone ahead and rolled up a new version with a few small changes:
Added option to change background color (default is black). Separate initial paths maintained for save/load image/palette/project file browsers. (Previously, all save/load file browsers used same initial path variable) Added a small selection of useful palettes to project distribution, these can be found in the 'palettes' subfolder of the install folder. Load palette dialog defaults to starting in '[INSTALL_PATH]/palettes'. Colors with alpha values less than 255 removed from palettes. Only unique colors loaded from images/palettes (roll back of previous and broken support for indexed images/palettes). Support added for reverse color selection (clicking swap color and then match color.)
On the long term front, I have put some time into wrangling GTK so there is still hope for a version with a proper GUI down the road, just have to clear some other stuff off my plate first.
> I've tried the visual novel idea and it wasn't great
Well you tried anyways, at least now you know you're stuck with game making and not just story telling! :)
> , but I still have no ideas about what to actually put in the game O_o especially level design,
I've definitley been here. Actually if you ever wonder why Yulpers has such a well developed level editor, it's because I spent a lot of time working on that as a way to put off making the actual levels because I felt like when I closed my eyes I drew a complete blank for what I wanted the levels to look like. That said, once I got going I found the levels came pretty quick. It was really just a matter of establishing some of the base rules and then playing around with all the toys I'd built for the game (eg. different enemies, crates, power ups, etc). So don't worry, even if you feel lost at first, once you start pencilling some things in, I'm sure the creative juices will start flowing and before long you'll find you have more level ideas than you can fit in the game.
One of the things I did to get started on the Yulpers was just to spend some time staring at the original Super Mario levels:
I didn't want to copy those maps exactly, but just like we all do with pixel art, I spent some time studying them, looking at the tricks they use and trying to think about how to apply similar tricks in my levels.
I'll add that as far as 2D platformers go, one of the big take aways I got from looking at those classic SMB levels is how stretched out they are. Each level has just a few sub-sections to it each with it's own 'idea' behind it. I found I had a tendency to try and cram too many ideas into one level, eg. 'a few crates and baddies, then a sequence of jumps, then a staircase, then some pits with baddies over them, then some more crates, etc. etc' After looking at the SMB levels I realized I needed to user fewer ideas per level and stretch those ideas out further, making platforms longer, spacing out jumps and baddies more, etc. The result is a win-win: you don't need to come up with so many unique ideas to fill a single level and areas/ideas have more weight and are more memoriable to the player because they don't zip by as quickly.
Well, I don't know if that bit helps at all, but I'm sure studying the SMB can help. :)
> it's actually easy to be too critical of your own work, rather than the other way around?
Yeah, I know what you mean, on the otherhand, you certainly don't have to look too far these days to find folks who are clearly not nearly critical enough of their own work (eg. steam) ;)
@Xom Adept: Look forward to hearing where your engine search takes you!
@theidiotmachine: Wow! thanks for the recommendation. that Love2D does indeed look like a really good! I love how the home page itself has three line tutorials for drawing text, loading and drawing an image, and loading and playing a sound. If they added one for reading the joystick/keyboard they'd have everything you need to get started in less than 20 lines. Very simple and to the point without a lot of structure and/or orginizational theory to learn before you get started. I'm sure the bigger engines get you better pipelines and such, but for some one starting out, this looks golden! Been looking for something to use to introduce my boys to the magic of game programming and I think this could well be it.
@Spring: I just want to say thanks for opening this thread and being so honest about your development struggles. I don't think the topic is too personal, making games is hard and we've all had similar struggles. I think it's actually very instructive for others to hear about the problems you've had and the ways you've tried to combat them. I also commend you for taking such a critical look at your own work. I know that's not an easy thing to do but I'm sure it's a process that will serve you well over time.
Outside of that, I don't have too much to say that VinnNo.0 didn't already cover. The visual novel idea is certainly an interesting one. You could maybe try doing a story that way just to see if you find it satisfying.
@VinnNo.0: I hate to be a hater, but I can't resist offering a counter point, I love the look of Child of Light, but I seriously played it right up until the first battle and never touched it again. I found the switch from real time action running and jumping about to turn based combat stifling and frustrating. So I am in the camp that the game is not a great example of mixing platforming and RPG gameplay very well. But then again, you can check Metacritic to see I am clealry in the minority on this, so maybe it just shows what I know. ;)
@Xom Adept: Not much to add, I would just say start with what's free. Honestly, if you've already done bare C and SDL any of these engines should feel like a cake-walk.
That link shows one submission which is licensed under cc0.
All the songs there are licensed under cc0.
itch won't show me the preview :(
I don't know if you have to make the page public or if there's a way to give access to a list of accounts.
Sketch is good, could maybe use a blue sky and some sun for 'spring' but otherwise it looks great. Fun to see Sara in regular people clothes :)
I also find demakes a fascinating topic. On the one hand, it's just plain fun to imagine what all these games might have looked like if they'd have come out years ago. On the other, perhaps the even more interesting question is 'what can you add by de-making a game?' If you are taking away all those layers of technology what can you put back to actually improve upon the game?
What kind of schedule do folks think is reasonable for Art Challenges?
I was thinking one every other month.
How long should the challenges run for? I was thinking 4 weeks for the challenge, 2 weeks for judging, 2 weeks off.
Does that sound reasonable, or should it all be done in one month, 2 weeks for challenge, 2 weeks for judging?
If we targeted one challenge every other month, and assuming a Game Jam in June, that would give us a schedule like so:
January Art Challenge
March Art Challenge
May Art Challenge
July Art Challenge
September Art Challenge
November Art Challenge
Once concern with this, is it gives us a challenge in July which is also the judging period for the Summer game jam. So an alt approach would be to skip Jul and pick up again in August, this yeilds:
January Art Challenge
March Art Challenge
May Art Challenge
June Game Jam
August Art Challenge
October Art Challenge
December Art Challenge
I actually like this because it keeps October and IMHO we could run a 'halloween' themed challenge every year and it would never get old ;)
Or we could go for 'seasonal' challenges, so:
Winter Art Challenge (Dec, Jan, or Feb)
Spring Art Challenge (Mar, April, or May)
Summer Art Challenge (Jun, Jul, or Aug)
Fall Art Challenge (Sep, Oct, or Nov)
We've been on the 'no art challenges' schedule for a while, so maybe it would be better to shoot for just a seasonal challenge for now and ramp up more if that works out. We can always add a 2nd challenge to any given season if we want (so Fall Art Challenge #2, etc).
Well what do folks think? If we can agree on a schedule, then I'll start a thread asking for volunteers to run each jam. volunteer gets to pick the theme, so there's some fun in running the challenges.
Final thought, it would be extra super great if there was some way to highlight the challenge entries on the main page. Currently, we get 'popular this week', 'latest art', 'latest art by friends' and 'featured art'.
It would be super-de-duper cool if 'Featured Art' could 'feature' entries from the current art challenge. Could be done for the duration of the challenge, or just through the voting period. Either way, this would be an added incentive for folks to participate (more visibility for their works) and help level the playing field a bit since presently there's a bit of a 'favorites beget favorites' economy going on. By that I mean, favorites get an entry onto the 'popular this week' tab, which brings more eyeballs and more favorites. Whereas, if an entry gets pushed off the 'latest art' tab before getting enough favorites to make 'popular this week' (which can happen simply because you submitted at an inopportune time, ie just before a sudden deluge of submissions) it'll effectively disappear and be unlikely to compete.
@Spring: I found hosting to be pretty straight forward. itch makes setting the jam really simple. I honestly just copied the description from chasersgaming's last jam and then tweaked it a bit, so for the most part, all the text kind of writes itself. The only real extra work is double checking all the entries to make sure their assets and credit pages are all in good order. Personally, next time I host I am going to add a requirement that the asset credits appear in the game descrption on itch.io. This will make them much easier to check over (since you'll be able to just click the urls on the itch page instead of trying to transcribe them from a credits page). It will also (hopefully) bring more attention to the assets and their creators.
Other than that, I didn't find it too much trouble to host at all. You'll want some banner art, but once you settle on a name I know someone who'd love to help putting that together (hint, hint, he looks alot like me ;)
I don't know about an official prize pool. I agree it might attract the wrong kind of attention, we seem to get quite a few bogus entries every jam as it is (games that clearly don't meet the criteria and are most likely just re-submissions of games created). Also adding money to the mix might create more sour feelings when the results come in.
What I'd love to see is some kind of template for badges that could be given out to the overall winner and the category winners for each jam. Possibly first, second and third place badges for the overall winners. This would be something folks could display proudly and use in promotional materials (banners, etc) for their games.
I tried to make something for the Fall All-OGA Jam and while I think the result came out alright, I'm certain a proper artist could do much better. Also, I got a bit carried up in the 'fall' theming for that badge so it wasn't particularly re-usable. Something with OGA and Sara would probably be more useful.
re: art challenge
I was going to try and run a 'Re-design OGA Home Page' contest but I'm not sure if that would dovetail well with a Spring game jam. Could just do a 'regular' themed art challenge if you wanted.
I would definitely try to participate. It would be all too fitting for you to host the Spring game jam ;)
If the Summer one is in Jully, then a Spring Jam in March or April wouldn't be too close IMHO.
Can anyone whose run an art challenge let me know if those steps seem about right or if I'm missing something?
Hi all!
Just wanted to let folks know that this project isn't dead!
Still no proper index palette support or color editing, but based on some nice feedback from Chasersgaming, I've gone ahead and rolled up a new version with a few small changes:
Added option to change background color (default is black).
Separate initial paths maintained for save/load image/palette/project file browsers.
(Previously, all save/load file browsers used same initial path variable)
Added a small selection of useful palettes to project distribution,
these can be found in the 'palettes' subfolder of the install folder.
Load palette dialog defaults to starting in '[INSTALL_PATH]/palettes'.
Colors with alpha values less than 255 removed from palettes.
Only unique colors loaded from images/palettes (roll back of previous and broken support for indexed images/palettes).
Support added for reverse color selection (clicking swap color and then match color.)
Download at:
https://withthelove.itch.io/pixelpalettetool
On the long term front, I have put some time into wrangling GTK so there is still hope for a version with a proper GUI down the road, just have to clear some other stuff off my plate first.
@Spring:
> I've tried the visual novel idea and it wasn't great
Well you tried anyways, at least now you know you're stuck with game making and not just story telling! :)
> , but I still have no ideas about what to actually put in the game O_o especially level design,
I've definitley been here. Actually if you ever wonder why Yulpers has such a well developed level editor, it's because I spent a lot of time working on that as a way to put off making the actual levels because I felt like when I closed my eyes I drew a complete blank for what I wanted the levels to look like. That said, once I got going I found the levels came pretty quick. It was really just a matter of establishing some of the base rules and then playing around with all the toys I'd built for the game (eg. different enemies, crates, power ups, etc). So don't worry, even if you feel lost at first, once you start pencilling some things in, I'm sure the creative juices will start flowing and before long you'll find you have more level ideas than you can fit in the game.
One of the things I did to get started on the Yulpers was just to spend some time staring at the original Super Mario levels:
http://ian-albert.com/games/super_mario_bros_maps/
I didn't want to copy those maps exactly, but just like we all do with pixel art, I spent some time studying them, looking at the tricks they use and trying to think about how to apply similar tricks in my levels.
I'll add that as far as 2D platformers go, one of the big take aways I got from looking at those classic SMB levels is how stretched out they are. Each level has just a few sub-sections to it each with it's own 'idea' behind it. I found I had a tendency to try and cram too many ideas into one level, eg. 'a few crates and baddies, then a sequence of jumps, then a staircase, then some pits with baddies over them, then some more crates, etc. etc' After looking at the SMB levels I realized I needed to user fewer ideas per level and stretch those ideas out further, making platforms longer, spacing out jumps and baddies more, etc. The result is a win-win: you don't need to come up with so many unique ideas to fill a single level and areas/ideas have more weight and are more memoriable to the player because they don't zip by as quickly.
Well, I don't know if that bit helps at all, but I'm sure studying the SMB can help. :)
> it's actually easy to be too critical of your own work, rather than the other way around?
Yeah, I know what you mean, on the otherhand, you certainly don't have to look too far these days to find folks who are clearly not nearly critical enough of their own work (eg. steam) ;)
@Xom Adept: Look forward to hearing where your engine search takes you!
@theidiotmachine: Wow! thanks for the recommendation. that Love2D does indeed look like a really good! I love how the home page itself has three line tutorials for drawing text, loading and drawing an image, and loading and playing a sound. If they added one for reading the joystick/keyboard they'd have everything you need to get started in less than 20 lines. Very simple and to the point without a lot of structure and/or orginizational theory to learn before you get started. I'm sure the bigger engines get you better pipelines and such, but for some one starting out, this looks golden! Been looking for something to use to introduce my boys to the magic of game programming and I think this could well be it.
btw: for those interested url is https://love2d.org/
@Spring: I just want to say thanks for opening this thread and being so honest about your development struggles. I don't think the topic is too personal, making games is hard and we've all had similar struggles. I think it's actually very instructive for others to hear about the problems you've had and the ways you've tried to combat them. I also commend you for taking such a critical look at your own work. I know that's not an easy thing to do but I'm sure it's a process that will serve you well over time.
Outside of that, I don't have too much to say that VinnNo.0 didn't already cover. The visual novel idea is certainly an interesting one. You could maybe try doing a story that way just to see if you find it satisfying.
@VinnNo.0: I hate to be a hater, but I can't resist offering a counter point, I love the look of Child of Light, but I seriously played it right up until the first battle and never touched it again. I found the switch from real time action running and jumping about to turn based combat stifling and frustrating. So I am in the camp that the game is not a great example of mixing platforming and RPG gameplay very well. But then again, you can check Metacritic to see I am clealry in the minority on this, so maybe it just shows what I know. ;)
@Xom Adept: Not much to add, I would just say start with what's free. Honestly, if you've already done bare C and SDL any of these engines should feel like a cake-walk.
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