But while the counter ticks the last few minutes i thought that we could all share some closing thoughts for this second stage of the competition, I'll start by saying that the part i found to be the hardest was right at the start, looking at the Arena with those yellow and red cubes didn't spark an idea straight away and it took me a couple days before actually getting to the coding part of just coming up with ideas and writing down a lot of doodles and sketches... My final game is quite close to the original idea, of course by programming it i found some thing that didn't work or feel good to play and had to change mid-way but the core loop didn't change drastically during the project.

The final stretch was also really hard, i had a couple decisions to make that were really hard and i'm still wandering if what is in the final game was the right thing to do but only time will tell.

After submitting my project i've downloaded and played some of the other projects just out of curiosity and they're really cool, a thing that always surprises me in game jams, and this one in particular, is how we all started from the same point and at the end all the games are so different and each one is unique in its own way. Even though in this jam/competition, having all started from the same project you can see the similarities in mechanics more than in theme...

How did your project go? What did you find hard or easy? Do you have any final thoughts?

Good luck to everyone, and i hope to see you at the finals, if i get there that is xD

Gual

My issue is that I am using Unitys Multiplayer services and it turns out the 4kb limit of bandwidth literally means my game disconnects after about 2 minutes of having it open without fail! And paying for an upgrade is impossible :s

Anyone used these services before and found a work around?

A-Sync scene loading is great for large scale games but using it simply to load in a scene with a UI Canvas in seems a bit much. the only way I can see it being of use is if you have lots of scenes all with the same UI but then using DontDestroyOnLoad works just as well.

Maybe I am missing something?

Mine is in process and i was thinking about what name to give it, i'm thinking something on the lines of "Bomb Repulsion" or "Planet Wars" (yes my game is in space and has bombs, so original xD) but i'm not sure yet, do you have a name already? would you like to share it with the rest of the group? After all this is a competition but also a Jam and the most fun about jams is seeing what the others are doing, so i'll start with one of my bombs ;) Looks pretty angry, right?

BOOM

Have fun and good luck ;)

I have mistakenly been in the Search for a Star group up until now as I followed the link in the email we got not the one in the brief!

Many people in the other groups have been talking and sharing their project ideas and generally networking with other contestants. So now I am in the correct group thought I may as well try and start it over here as well.

So far I am working on a game that is a cross over between the arcade game Asteroids mixed with Geometry Wars but have added in some extra features such as online multiplayer where you are fighting each other as well as the environment.

It would be great to see what everyone else has been up to.

Good Luck!

Calum McManus - De Montfort University Leicester - BSc Computer Games Programming (Hons)

There are a lot of directions that you can go with this & it can quickly get overwhelming once you start stacking up the options. If you try to add every feature you can think of, you'll probably end up finishing none of them. It's not just the code challenge of getting the feature in, you're also having go through several rounds of playtesting, rebalancing and modification before it's 'right'. The best approach is likely to be picking one feature at a time to focus on, getting it right, then moving on to another.

We've listed some of the more typical features that can be implemented below. It's not a comprehensive listing and very definitely not a checklist, but may give you some ideas of where you can make some progression in feature development.

Gameplay enhancements

Game tutorial / introduction

Bosses, minibosses & AI variation

Powerups, pickups and collectibles

Scoring & Leaderboards

Adding engagement

Player customisation

Achievements

Stores, upgrades and unlockables

Social or online integration

Multiplayer

Local or networked

Competitive, co-op, social/world-building

simultaneous, turn-based, asynchronous

Game options

Accessibility support / options

Difficulty settings

Audio / Video

Multiple controller options

Customisable control system

edit: changed title to be less confusing...