Tag: GGJ

Dwarf Orders

Dwarf Orders is a local multiplayer party game, controlled with your phone and visualized on a shared screen where you send orders to a bunch of unruly dwarven miners, hoping they accomplish the shared goals.

In classic tradition we tried to do something ambitious tech-wise for the 2018 GGJ and finished the basics just in time, without much room for polish or fun.  We plan on trying to reuse the party game infrastructure at a future jam; should go much quicker the second time around.

How to play:

Download the shared screen game from the GGJ site, unzip and run DwarfOrders.exe, then follow the instructions on-screen to connect one or more phones to the game.  Press “Force Start” when ready.

Tap on dwarves then tap again to transmit orders to them to go somewhere.  They’re a bit unruly, so they might not do what you expect after reaching their ordered destination.

Jammers:

  • Michael Noland
  • Nick Darnell
  • Danny Gallagher

Additional assets:

  • “Industrious Ferret” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
    Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
    http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
  • Various assets from UE4 learning examples, licensed for use with UE4

Boops, Beez, and Bears

In Boops, Beez, and Bears, your voice is your weapon: hum, whistle, laugh, or cry – whatever works for you, just do it fast! It’s a cross between between a horde-mode survival game and a participatory art experience; best enjoyed with a crowd, who are likely to be amused by your vocal antics while avoiding the annoying beez.

You are armed only with the vox 9000 weirding module and must survive 10 increasingly difficult waves of derpy beez and grumpy techno-bears.

Download the game (and source code / assets) at the GGJ game page.

Created for the 2017 Global Game Jam at the UNC / NC IGDA jam site by:
– Michael Noland (Twitter: @joatski)
– Nick Darnell (Twitter: @nickdarnell)
– Nich Mebane (Twitter: @Sweet_Niche)
– Travis Thompkins (Twitter: @prezthompkins)

All content and new code created for the jam is placed under a CC0 license by the jammers.

Additional credits / licensed content:

  • SharedJamUI is used under the zlib license, (C) Michael Noland
  • kissfft is is used under the BSD license, (C) Mark Borgerding
  • Several assets were used from various free UE4 samples (Stylized Landscape, Infinity Blade Content packs, etc…), some of which are only licensed for use in UE4.  These include most of the environment props and materials, the particle effects, and the bear.
  • Some CC0 assets (e.g., monkey icon) from Kenny.nl
  • Bee model (CC0 asset) from TriflingMemory
  • Code by eXi used as a starting point for the audio processing
  • Microphone icon (CC0 asset)

Global Game Jam 2017

For the first time, we’ve actually got multiple sites in the triangle area for the 2017 Global Game Jam, but the one I’m attending and focusing on is the UNC / NC IGDA site. As part of this, I’m giving a two-part talk with Travis Thompkins at UNC about game jams and using UE4 on Tuesday, Jan 17th at 4 PM.

Here are the slides for the first part of the talk (game jam thoughts):

Game Jam Workshop – Part 1

They’re not really meant to stand alone so I don’t know how useful they’ll be in this form, with the exception of the resources links on the last few pages.

Unstoppable Grave Looter

An intrepid grave looter accidentally disturbed the ritual of the groundhog and was cursed to never stop running. Trapped in an eternal hell, they fall back on old habits and decide to loot some graves.

  • Each grave you destroy will either provide delicious loot or disturb the dead.
  • Collect ingredients to perform rituals that cleanse the restless dead. When enough have been gathered, cross over the altars dotted thru the cemetery.
  • Use your shield amulet in a pinch, or gather more armor from the merciful angels.

Made for the 2016 Global Game Jam

Download and Play

Unzip and run the executable for your platform. You may need to install the UE4 prereqs as well.

If the game feels sluggish, press F5 to run the automatic benchmark to pick better rendering settings.

Controls

You are unstoppable and are always moving!

  • Mouse or Right Stick – Change which way you are running
  • WASD or ZQSD or Left Stick – Strafing and backpedaling.
  • LMB or Shift or Gamepad A – Shield amulet (recharged via some types of loot)
  • RMB or Space or Gamepad B – Jump
  • Escape – Quit game
  • F1 – Toggle FPS display
  • F5 – Run automatic benchmark to pick the best quality settings for your PC

Team Credits

Content under a different license
“Happy Happy Game Show”
Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

Profile portraits of GIR, Hobbes, PrezThompkins, and Kevin MacLeod
Presumed fair use

All Infinity Blade content
Free for use in UE4 projects subject to the UE4 EULA

License
All other content is licensed under the WTFPL v2

Cowtastrophe

Cowtastrophe is the game I worked on for the 2015 Global Game Jam (Jan 23 .. 25). It’s sort of a co-op cow sandbox score attack thingy.  We start by assuming a perfectly spherical cow…

Premise

Overlord Phil has ordered all of his minions (that means you and up to three of your friends) to bring him cows, lots and lots of cows!

What do we do now? Cooperate to make Phil happiest or compete against the other minions to raise your status. Poor cows…

https://vine.co/v/OFPxulgKPDI/embed

How to play

  • Gather cows and deposit them into the ‘teleporter’ (marked by a hovering sphere) to gain points.
  • The overlord is a very fickle boss, changing the desired type of cow frequently. If you fulfill his current order, you’ll get lots of points, but any old cow will keep him pleased for a bit.
  • Feed cows hay first to fatten them up.
  • Keyboard+Mouse:
    • WASD to move
    • Mouse to look around
    • Space or Left-Mouse-Button to activate your cowscoop
  • Gamepad:
    • Left Stick to move
    • Right Stick to look around
    • A to activate your cowscoop

Team

Additional credits:

Download

Download the full package (including project files) or just the packaged game.

Tested on Windows and Mac, but the packaged release is for Windows only.  Multiplayer requires multiple gamepads (use the ~ key to enter the console and type  to add a 3rd or 4th player).

Socket Saga


Socket Saga is a deck-building card game where your vision of the cards shapes their behavior. Socket together cards and lock in edges to activate their abilities.

Earn internet monies, slay memes, and defeat your opponents for everlasting honor.

Developed during the 2014 Global Game Jam with Nick Darnell. Check out the card list and rules here, or the GGJ site for more pictures.

Undead Man Lover

Undead Man Lover is the game I worked on for the 2013 Global Game Jam at the NC State location.

The jam started off rough due to a nasty winter storm, which prevented us from meeting on Friday night. We did pitches/team formation thru a combination of mumble, google+, and a wiki. Thankfully the roads cleared up enough to open the jam site on Saturday around 1 pm and we were able to jam in person for the rest of the weekend.

How to Play

  • As one of the last humans alive, you need to love you some zombies to save the human race.
  • Revive zombies and help the un-undead escape thru the portal.
  • Zombies love beating hearts, distract them with yours.
  • Spells and running take a toll on your heart.

Controls

This game can be played with a keyboard or a gamepad.

Keyboard controls:

  • Arrow keys – Movement.
  • Z – Revive the nearest zombie.
  • X – Repulse nearby zombies.
  • C – Meditate to calm your heart.

Gamepad controls:

  • [Left Stick] – Movement.
  • [A] – Revive the nearest zombie.
  • [B] – Repulse nearby zombies.
  • [X] – Meditate to calm your heart.

Download

Download either the full package or just the game.

You need the XNA4 redistributable package to play the game:
http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=20914

Concept

The theme was [sound of a beating heart], and we had initially been stuck in a rut creating ideas that were just ‘it’s like X but’… ‘ you manage heartrate’ / ‘in a heart’ / ‘to the beat’. After a few of these, Nick and I threw some heart-related words into the venerable madlib generator and went thru the list.

“Undead Man Lover” was one that immediately clicked, although some of the off-theme ones looked good too (maybe for a future jam…). Our final game ended up surprisingly close to the initial pitch, with only a shift from a post-apocalyptic cityscape to a fantasy setting due to art availability.

Credits

Jammers:

Additional content used under license from:

Planes on a Snake

This past weekend was the 4th annual Global Game Jam, and we hosted a site in the triangle again. I was an organizer this year, but I still had plenty of time to jam, creating Planes on a Snake with my team. The theme was a picture of an ouroboros, which we interpreted by setting a shmup on the back of the world serpent.

Brief Play Description

A rift in spacetime has resulted in a large number of World War II era planes getting stuck on the world snake.
Join the frequent fliers club of Ouroboros Airlines, racking up points while taking advantage of the torus nature of your new environment.

(video contains some strong language)

You have three weapons at your disposal:

  • Single shot – the default weapon
  • Spread shot – Three times the fun
  • The Lazër – A beam weapon that goes to 11

You progress thru the weapons as you collect powerups dropped by fallen enemies.

Once the meter is at least half full, you can activate the lazër, which fires until your reserves are depleted.

Scoring

  • Bullets will fly around and around forever, so watch out for crossfire from your own shots.
  • Earn more points by hitting adversaries with shots that have been flying for a long time.
  • Death is transient on the world snake, both you and your adversaries will eventually respawn.
  • Make as many points as you can during the time limit to earn your place in the frequent fliers club.

Jammers

  • Stephen Hodgson
  • Scott Jacobs
  • Luv Kohli
  • Michael Noland
  • Chris VanderKnyff
Additional graphics by
  • David Gervais

Original GGJ page.

Download

Download the game or source code.

Screenshots:

Global Game Jam 2012

I’m happy to announce that we will be hosting a Global Game Jam site in the NC Triangle area again this year, January 27th to the 29th at Joystick Labs in downtown Durham. Sign up now at http://globalgamejam.org/sites/2012/triangle-game-jam.

More information will follow shortly, but the format will likely be very similar to past years:

  • Getting started around 6:00 PM on Friday, announcing the theme, brainstorming ideas, and forming teams, etc…
  • Full day of work on Saturday
  • Finishing up on Sunday by 3:00 PM, showing off the games to each other afterwards.

This is the 4th year of the Global Game Jam; to get a better idea of some of the cool things possible in a weekend, check out some of the games made in the triangle area in past years:

Cross-posted from the Triangle Game Jam site

Hubert’s Safari Adventure

A game for one player using an Xbox controller or mouse and keyboard, wherein you exterminate dodos for a tyrannosaur named Hubert.

  • Hubert runs a park with the allegedly extinct dodo.
  • You have gotten a pass to go hunting on his lands.
  • Kill as many dodos as you can in the time limit.
  • Use ice cream to attract the dodos, and then crush them!
  • Drive them before you! Hear the lamentations of the hens!
  • Bonus time and money is awarded for high-efficiency extinction.
  • The game ends when time expires.

This is the game I worked on at the 3rd Global Game Jam, where the theme was Extinction. You can see more screenshots and download the game at the global game jam page.

Team:

  • Alexander C. Park
  • Autumn Ford
  • Chris VanderKnyff
  • Harrison Moore
  • Michael Kelley
  • Michael Noland
  • Nick Darnell