SyntaxBomb - Indie Coders

Hi..

Suggest, propose, debate and consider here.

Thinking, thinking, thinking..... Nope, I have nothing.

• Isometric
• 3D
• Limited number of lines
• AI

Quote from: Qube on April 13, 2019, 03:18:02
Thinking, thinking, thinking..... Nope, I have nothing.

Hi..,

You always have creative ideas.

Quote from: therevills on April 13, 2019, 03:34:30

• Isometric
• 3D
• Limited number of lines
• AI

Hello,

Interesting ideas!

3D in 2D, like Xybots ..

@NA, now there's an idea  :P

Although, it may be a little restrictive for some....

How about 2D-3D Vice Versa.....

1. Taking a 2D game and changing it to 3D.

Or

2. Doing 3D to 2D

Or.....

3. Doing the Xybots style thing

Or ....

4. Isometric 3D.

Can't think of a fifth one......

Wait, here we go:

5. 3D wireframe style, no textures.....

Bit of choice there, variety is indeed the spice of life..... :D

Next compo was said to be a theme/keyword thing, not a technical restriction/conversion

3d to 2d
2d to 3d
... all of these things restrict game types already.


Nonetheless: with the current amount of "votes" and possibly the connected lack of sparetime it might not be the best idea to already discuss the next competition. Maybe do something "non competitive" for the next month. People should try to build up frameworks, try new languages, learn new stuff - play some games to gather ideas. Maybe there is interest to build a little game together - means providing assets, scripting stuff - of course this does only work if people try to learn a new language together or are knowing the language of choice etc.
The idea is to improve project collaboration skills like asset work flows (creation tools -> export -> usage in game ...) or project structuring/planning (holding deadlines etc).
If people could not agree on languages they could even split up their work into "main program", "tools", "assets", ... so some code little tools easing the workflow etc.

Also of interest is creating a little tutorial for your language - something which might show why you choose your language instead of others - show how efficiently you can code up stuff there or similar things.



bye
Ron

Quote.   Also of interest is creating a little tutorial for your language - something which might show why you choose your language instead of others - show how efficiently you can code up stuff there or similar things.

     

Sounds intriguing.

Xybots looks like a cool game, by legendary 'Gauntlet' programmer Ed Logg.  Maybe a Gauntlet style game?

Quote
Maybe do something "non competitive" for the next month. People should try to build up frameworks, try new languages, learn new stuff

This is what I'll be doing.  The competition really brought home how ill-prepared I was for a game competition in a matter of weeks.  I hadn't written a full game in a long time for a start, it took me 2 weeks to decide on a game, I knew only the basics of AGK, had no animation or tile designing software, needed more practice with pixel art and so on.  So sadly I didn't make the deadline.

Having said that I thoroughly enjoyed the competition.   :D

Quote from: therevills on April 13, 2019, 03:34:30

• Isometric
• 3D
• Limited number of lines
• AI

All definitely more challenging than a retro game, I think. I'd have no idea - currently - on how to approach a 3d game, or an isometric, but that probably wouldn't put me off. I'd try to veto a limited number of lines competition straight off though because I'm using Gamemaker to create my games currently and that doesn't have a code narrative flow like other languages. Everything is built of objects and usually I'll have  a game handler object within each room - or use a game state system so the whole game can be run by duplicating the handler into multiple rooms, if required. Every object would have its own events system and the handler mainly keeps all of them working together correctly. It's possible to work round that to an extent - so I can have a rough idea how many lines of code I'd be using - but it would be messy and I'd hate to work that way.

Kind of like having an Aston Martin in your garage that you only use for school runs where the speed limit is a constant 20mph.

Don't forget we also had the isometric idea come up previously as well as the Match 3 concept - which hasn't resurfaced thus far.

Or we could even just go back to the basics of the original competition where Qube nominated an arcade game type and (Asteroids in this case) and everyone made their own take on it. I'm not sure how well that would go down with the guys that like to be challenged, however, but personally I find every game I write a challenge so I'd be happy with any kind of decent idea really. I've found I've always been able to adapt the concept into something that I've always wanted to do but failed or never started previously anyway. All five of my competition games - I'm including the one I didn't complete - have been based on some blitxmax project I've worked on and abandoned.

If all of us are clever enough to not pirate existing ones (borrowing ideas is allowed): what about a "software board game"? I would of course also allow a "Mario Party"-style thing (boardgame + minigames).

Match-3: or a solitaire one or mahajongg ... or ... think of any other casual-game-exhausted genre ;-)


bye
Ron

I'm with Xerra on this: about the limited number of lines - it's actually very difficult to limit or quantify what is a line and what is a library. And as stated different languages use lines very differently.

I also agree that all the entries complete or not has given the writers a challenge (one way or another - learning a new language, new concept, UI, etc)
Even something simple is rewarding to finish.

I do like the concept of 3d in 2d - but everything about that is not straightforward or simple... How would one approach an entry that wrote a 3d renderer in 2d?

As for the next ideas - I'll go with whatever bubbles it's way to the surface :)

I'm with Derron on a collaborative project, everyone could have similar tasks, with collaboration we could drive each other to learn new skills, with the quality of the entrants last time, collaboration could realise something unique. :D

At least we would create a endless-discussion-thread with a new record of sub-pages :p


bye
Ron

The only issue with collaboration is who does what, how and in what language.
A only works in Unity
B refuses to work with Unity
C will do all the code as long as it's in AGK
D want to do music, but as realtime and not streamed
C wants 3d graphics
A wants 2d graphics
Q wants to rule the world
etc...

> Q wants to rule the world

Wonder why you've chosen Q  :))


@ collaboration
Games should be little projects then as it has to have an "end" somewhen. Also - sorry if that sounds arrogant - people of similar knowledge levels should try find together. It is not satisfying for a beginner if the others nag around for the time it takes to come up with some not-that-decent artwork or if the code runs sluggish and only after 10 posts in forums on how to tackle it.
Discussing about game play stuff is also most often ... extending into a multi-page-discussion without a single conclusion. Seems there is a reason to have game designers :-)

Nonetheless programming can be split into various sections: game play, core, AI, tools ...
(still above said about "beginners/experts" is still valid there)

bye
Ron

Also, with the varying interest in languages, there's almost enough to have a melding of AGK and blender. Plenty for people to get their teeth into there. There's even scope for two 'teams' collaborating within similar but different languages to achieve a similar goal. As Derron says there's AI, level creation/scripting, graphics, textures, creation of possibly 3d entities. Just some thoughts....

I know all aren't comfortable with 3D, 2D is also fine, but maybe a chance to embrace a collaborative 3D project, possibly a Tower defence genre utilising physics libraries to save on brain ache?

And as for Q, he can go to the back..... Of the Queue. I'll get my coat.....

..much as collaboration sounds attractive, it was proven in past that it doesn't end up well..for sure it will be interesting to watch it and how it is evolving, but i personally, do not believe it will work out well..

Quote.   ..much as collaboration sounds attractive, it was proven in past that it doesn't end up well..for sure it will be interesting to watch it and how it is evolving, but i personally, do not believe it will work out well..   

.... Yeah, it can be a journey, we could still make it a 'competition' by dividing up the team's into levels of experience and stuff. If there's more than 9 entrants for the next compo.... We could have 3 teams.... I know, the complexities of the real world infringes on everyone's indie coding time.

However, thanks to the last 8 bit competition, I now have a man cave to squirrel away and code in. It needn't be a competition, more a drive to learn new coding skills collaboratively..... :)

Would you be playing/ coding NA?

The only way you could possibly do any kind of collaboration thing on the code side would be some kind of main project which could launch other executables from the main project. Then you could have everyone write a mini-game for the main project - only condition is it has to load the main menu or launching game back when the player exits.

I don't think it would work either but you never know.

QuoteWould you be playing/ coding NA?

..im playing and watching..hehe..no time for coding as im busy with some other things to code (some hardware stuff)..but i enjoy a lot, watching guys kicking out ideas and artwork here..very nice..

Quote from: iWasAdamQ wants to rule the world

Quote from: DerronWonder why you've chosen Q  :))

Wants to rule the world?. I already do. Ask around who Qube is. No-one knows, super spooky eh - But be careful who you ask as you never know who's connected to the inner circle :o

Quote from: 3DzForMeAnd as for Q

Go back from whence thou came or thou shalt most certainly die! ( something like that ) <--- For all you trekkies.

@Collaberation - I'd love to see a team collaboration on the comps but to state the obvious .... We don't have enough participants. We could get a list of entrants and then select the teams but then we come up against the list that iWasAdam posted. Also, does anyone work as fast to keep up with the production rate of iWasAdam? He'll be screaming at you "It's only 4am.. keep coding!!" :D

Unless someone comes up with a super duper eureka inducing idea then the next comp will be a random generated one via PHP script. But keep debating as something crazy awesome could crop up and get our coding juices flowing ;D

How about combining "AI" and "Board game", and competing to write AI "players" for a specified game? The obvious problem is that we'll all write in different languages, so we might need to agree how to pass the board state between programs, and/or set up some sort of framework to run the opponents alternately/cyclically.

Not sure what game to go for - noughts and crosses clearly too easy, chess probably too hard. It could be something less predictable, like Monopoly, or the Really Nasty Horseracing game?

It avoids the issue of judging, too: you simply play some sort of round-robin tournament, and see which player wins the most games.

Alternatively, I'd prefer to see a "theme-based" topic, rather than a coding restriction.

Best wishes,

D

If all languages could create DLLs... We could use that approach.

Another solution would be to use Lua for the AI.

We already had the topic AI suggested and some were not pretty fond of doing such a thing.
Also we would need a proper client (the game itself).



Another compo suggestion is "multiplayer" (internet/lan, not just hotseat). Think most of us have no experience with it...so this means we all learn something new.
And if properly done, we could play some of the entries together ;-)


Bye
Ron

only 5 mins of battery left.... heres my 5 p

Macs and Linux don't use dll, they use something different. And dll would need to have a very strict compile base

Lua - so you now have another language being used on top of some language that no one can decide with.

If it is some form of client server, then you will need someone/where to host it.

The arguments about how, etc can go on for days... that is why you have a single vision and specs, and people choose to be part of or not part of. More than likely the single responsible person/manager would then dictate exactly what and how contributions were to be accepted.

They would have the responsibility to ensure everything was correct, refactor things that are not correct, and probably have final code say. So they would also be one of the primary programmers as well.

Initially the area of a simple collaboration has the potential to become the opposite

The kind of thing I had in mind is a host program running the game itself, which would pass a data structure representing the current position (perhaps as a file) to the player programmes in turn (for example by running them), which would return a valid move (if necessary, in a temporary file). Depending on the game, the player programs might need to hold game state information (for example, info revealed in previous moves) somewhere (for example in a data file).

That should be achievable by pretty much any programming language?

Obviously it's much easier if everyone uses the same language (we've done Reversi like this in BB4W) - you just implement the players as procedures, and call them as needed - but that doesn't seem sensible in this context.

If there is serious interest in this idea, and we can agree a game, I might be up for setting up a basic core program, and defining how data would be passed (i.e. the format).

Any thoughts on games? Involving luck, or defined? Needs to be mathematically hard enough not to be (easily) soluble in a "sensible" move time (say 1 minute - or 1 second?).

Quote from: iWasAdam on April 16, 2019, 10:11:40
Macs and Linux don't use dll, they use something different. And dll would need to have a very strict compile base

Lua - so you now have another language being used on top of some language that no one can decide with.

call it .so or .dll the principle is the same.

But as this might create issues one could even say we use a TCP/UDP based communication and some RPC calls. Means you just communicate via networking. One could even ease the pain a bit more:
The (local) server acts as a kind of simple webserver: it listens to a given port (eg 12121). Commands are simply string based stuff with eg. comma separated params:
command: "GetPlayerPosition,1"
return: "1,10,10"
First value is the result code ("OK", "FAILED" ...) and the other stuff in this case simply the X and Y position (on the board or on a grid or ...).

That way the (local) server exposes the whole "API" ("GetPosition", "MovePlayer(playerID, x,y)", "GetBoardTileInformation(x,y)", "AddPlayer()") and so on.


What benefits do we have:
- this server could run locally, remote, ... could even be implemented in Perl, PHP, ... so people could observe the whole game in their webbrowser.
- the clients can be written in any language as long as they are able to send simple requests to an "IP:port" (so in this very example TCP/IP packages).


If one wants to do such a thing and we eg. decided to write it as a webapplication we could even develop the "server" in collaboration. First of all it needed the basic functionality (the API containing stuff to create test games, add and remove players, handle drop-outs/time-outs ...). So we would create a server which allows to create games we could use to test our "bots" (each dev can play its own games). It must of course also allow to register bots (you receive a unique key) which would allow multiple bots to get executed on the same computer (they then send their unique key as identifier for the server to distinguish between multiple incoming requests).
Once this all is working, people could try out basic bots to see if communication works as they want. THEN ... then it is time to decide for a game (hidden, not publically) as the game logic would need to get written too + API to expose. Once the server is written the game would be announced and people could start writing the actual AI/bot.
There is a lot of more to do and I want to avoid derailing the thread with an idea which is not of interest for all.

The whole server-program-creation already will take a lot of tinkering already - surely way way more than creating the bots (as you do not have to deal with all this ACL, GUI, ... stuff).

Once this is done you can use the base for many other bot-game-experiments.


Am pretty sure that there are some interested in such a thing - but most will try to avoid these kind of "experiments".



bye
Ron

i like the general idea of 2d = 32
cards - however interpreted

Quote from: iWasAdam on April 18, 2019, 11:06:14
i like the general idea of 2d = 32
cards - however interpreted

What on earth would 2d = 32 cards be interpreted as?

Maybe I've picked up the chat wrong but the idea of creating an AI bot for someone elses program (which has to be written first) does not appeal.  It's seems overcomplex and would be difficult to measure/judge.

Personally, it should be about creating a fun game.  Collaboration would be fine but I don't think I could do that due to programming OCD  ;D

I always liked the idea of re-imagining a 2d game in 3d or vice-versa - even just sticking to a random theme/genre sounds good to me.

oh crap 2d = 32 :o
meant to be 2d = 3d!  8)

I think it's time for me to give these chicken fingers back, or at least wash all the grease (geese) from my keybroad...

Quote from: iWasAdam on April 18, 2019, 14:26:03
I think it's time for me to give these chicken fingers back, or at least wash all the grease (geese) from my keybroad...

I am sure you meant keybread.


bye
Ron

 ;D

Quote from: iWasAdam on April 18, 2019, 14:26:03
I think it's time for me to give these chicken fingers back, or at least wash all the grease (geese) from my keybroad...

If you got KFC there then you need to be sharing the wealth, dude. My missus is Vegan so I don't see stuff like that too often :-(

Are you only eating what your wife cooks?

My wife is vegetarian but sons plus me do not have to "suffer too. The benefits of daddy cooking the majority of the meals :-)


Bye
Ron

Quote from: Derron on April 18, 2019, 18:16:04
Are you only eating what your wife cooks?

My wife is vegetarian but sons plus me do not have to "suffer too. The benefits of daddy cooking the majority of the meals :-)

I'm no cook but there's no way I'd expect her to be cooking stuff that she couldn't stand to even smell. She's pretty tolerant but I'd be a bit of an arse if I did that. Luckily she's happy to cook with dairy like milk and eggs so mostly I'm eating vegetarian. If I want something like pepperoni pizza then I take her out to dinner. That's the ground rules. I can live with that :)

QuoteIf one wants to do such a thing and we eg. decided to write it as a webapplication we could even develop the "server" in collaboration. First of all it needed the basic functionality (the API containing stuff to create test games, add and remove players, handle drop-outs/time-outs ...). So we would create a server which allows to create games we could use to test our "bots" (each dev can play its own games). It must of course also allow to register bots (you receive a unique key) which would allow multiple bots to get executed on the same computer (they then send their unique key as identifier for the server to distinguish between multiple incoming requests).
Once this all is working, people could try out basic bots to see if communication works as they want. THEN ... then it is time to decide for a game (hidden, not publically) as the game logic would need to get written too + API to expose. Once the server is written the game would be announced and people could start writing the actual AI/bot.
There is a lot of more to do and I want to avoid derailing the thread with an idea which is not of interest for all.

The whole server-program-creation already will take a lot of tinkering already - surely way way more than creating the bots (as you do not have to deal with all this ACL, GUI, ... stuff).

Once this is done you can use the base for many other bot-game-experiments.


Am pretty sure that there are some interested in such a thing - but most will try to avoid these kind of "experiments".

I've a little server / worm application written in my fave coding language I'll share once I fire up the old XP Box (W7 up until recently....). Gives a good idea (I think anyhow) how Derrons idea could be implemented.... Although I appreciate this may not be everyone's cup of tea.

Might try and hang together a worm in another language to demonstrate how connecting to a server could be (easily ?) achieved.

QuoteQuote from: iWasAdam on April 18, 2019, 02:26:03 PM

    I think it's time for me to give these chicken fingers back, or at least wash all the grease (geese) from my keybroad...


If you got KFC there then you need to be sharing the wealth, dude. My missus is Vegan so I don't see stuff like that too often :-(

I sympathise, my wife and daughter have been Vegan since January, my son and yours truly are 'semi-vegan'. Driving back from Corby last sunday, was struggling to stay awake so stopped of at a chicken joint in grantham for 5 sizzling chicken wings, 2 chicken fillets and chip and fizzy pop, yum yum! :P  The whole family used to go there.... :'(   Kicks KFC's arse every day of the week!

Here's a suggestion, I was considering a retro 16 bit competition, but it would seem 32-bit, yep 32 Bits is entering retro-ness already.

Unity..... Beginners 64 bit only.
Cerberus.... The same.

I wouldn't mind but I've 32 bit machines galore.

So, next competition, 16 bit or.... 32 bit?

Dunno what you want to say with this motion-blurred shot of your short throusers and some computers ;-)


bye
Ron

Quote
yep 32 Bits is entering retro-ness already.

Already?  When were 64-bit Intel chips mainstream, 2004?  Yep, standardisation of 64-bit only software is fast approaching, a good thing I think.  Certainly from a developers point of view (less systems to support).

Thing is, I recall the discussions whether 64-bits could be fully utilised, after, 32 bits does allow for a little space in itself.

Are 64 bits being truly utilised.... Or is it another means of forcing an upgrade for upgrades sake. How long before, 64 bits doesn't cut the mustard, you need 128... Not a luddite... I think...

Quote
How long before, 64 bits doesn't cut the mustard, you need 128

But 128-bit chips aren't available for mainstream computers, so that's irrelevant.  64-bit computers have been around for a very long time (in computer terms) and we are still not taking advantage of them fully even now.  For example the various Operating Systems that were 32-bit running on 64-bit hardware - let alone software.  The 64-bit OS is very common now, so the next logical step is 64-bit only software.  Even the £30 Raspberry pi 3 has a 64-bit chip!

Quote.and we are still not taking advantage of them fully even now.     

So, it begs the question, in this capitalist consumer world.... Did we even need to go 64 bit at all, could we have waited until 2020, 2025?

Yes, to access and use efficiently the huge memory and hard drive sizes we also have these days.  I'm not into upgrading for upgrades sake, but getting everything on a 64-bit OS with 64-bit software would be a solid standard.

QuoteDid we even need to go 64 bit at all, could we have waited until 2020, 2025?

If I remember correctly wasn't it Bill Gates who once said:

QuoteThere should be no reason why anyone would need more than 640k of memory.

Quote from: iWasAdam on April 23, 2019, 05:58:34

QuoteDid we even need to go 64 bit at all, could we have waited until 2020, 2025?

If I remember correctly wasn't it Bill Gates who once said:

QuoteThere should be no reason why anyone would need more than 640k of memory.

It was :P just your typical marketing blurb. Then again he also believed the internet wouldn't become popular.

I know you've all been wondering wheres the wormserver.... Here she is folks, just in time for the weekend 8)

https://www.syntaxbomb.com/index.php/topic,857.msg1846.html#msg1846

I somehow assume nobody of us did a "pinball" game yet ...


bye
Ron

Poke, poke... Xybots anyone. 2d=3d=2d  ;D, Sod it! Doom?  :-*

Just restarting this one :) :P

ooh, style - how about comic or 2000AD <grins>

2D Side Scroller

Run, jump, drive, fly from left to right. Collect all you need, kill all the enemies. Theme is up to you.

Quote
   .... .   Also of interest is creating a little tutorial for your language - something which might show why you choose your language instead of others - show how efficiently you can code up stuff there or similar things.       

Well.... I've just proven to myself how (little) I understand (or have forgotten) how Blitz3D syntax works. I just thought I'd see if my Wormserver and client code would compile on a W10 box. The Wormserver code had some minor modifications stopping it from compiling - sheez, an hour later it works.

types and stuff, mad.

Quoteooh, style - how about comic or 2000AD <grins>

Sounds cool - or how about your choice of comic style - bit of a challenge in the old graphical creation front  ;D

Or how about we keep it simple and go for the best bullet hell shoot-em up?

Or maybe do a take on arcade legends? Space Invaders, Asteroids (I know it's been done as a standalone before), Missile Command, Pacman, Mr Do, Centipede, Robotron. Qube puts up a list of what he thinks are the top ten arcade classics from the early eighties and we pick one.

I'm kinda itching to do another adventure game but, yeah, I'll keep quiet about that idea, eh? Oops!

The Match 3 idea was bandied about previously.

A sports game of any type. Football, Tennis, Baseball, Rugby, Boxing or whatever.

Or how about a one button press type of game. You only press fire once after the game has started and it's down to timing on how the level plays out.

A betting game where you don't participate in the sport but bet on the outcome of the event.

Just throwing a few ideas into the pot.

@ Xerra
Writing clones/remakes ... can lead to copyright issues. So no Pacman, no Tetris, no ...


bye
Ron

I'll launch our next comp soon-ish :) - It'll be randomly generated and there may be a choice of 3 available "themes". Not sure yet but I think a wider choice based comp could be good.

Quote from: Derron on June 01, 2019, 23:24:19
@ Xerra
Writing clones/remakes ... can lead to copyright issues. So no Pacman, no Tetris, no ...

Don't be such a killjoy, Derron. You ever charged for one of your compo games? So you're not making money from it. You're using your own graphics. What would be the point of a company coming after you because you wrote your own version of Pacman, for example?

The game's been cloned already millions of times and it hasn't been making any money for many years for the original creators.

If you reused the graphics from the arcade original and then maybe tried to charge a fiver for it then maybe someone could have an issue. Other than that, why would they waste their time going specifically for an non-profit indie game-jam project?

how about 'inspired by' rather than clone/remake  :D

but...
Tetris and anything with Mario (even in the title) will result in takedowns from the parent company - even if there is no money involved.

So it is much better to be safe - The Companies MUST (by law) come after you if they feel their rights have been violated. If they don't it sets a legal precedent  :o

Thanks Adam.

Yes. They are forced to come after you as soon as they find out about the game. Depending on the country of the webhost (AND of course developer/publishing identity) this nice "letter" can be free of any costs - or already presented with a costly fee (depending on the value of potential financial loss they "see" with your game - multiplied with eg. download counts).

So nope, no Tetris, Mario, Pac-Man, ... from me (I paid for infringement of trademarks/image marks by others in the past ... so I am a bit more "alerted").

They even tried to secure game play but for now chances to not get sued there are high enough to at least try.


@ inspired by / tributes
This might be possible as long as visual discrepances are there. Tinting ghosts in PacMan differently wont help. Also "Super Fartio" with a farting yellow-clothed-plumper might still be too much.
US Citizens have some more chances with their laws regarding satire/art/...  or even their "fair use" thing.



Best bet is to do how Qube suggested: random theme and done.


bye
Ron

In my twitter feed I noticed a that a youtube video by Seth Everman was taken down for a short time. He with humor covered a song by billy ellish. He racked up 25 million views! It seems you can not even replicate a melody without getting in trouble.

In the 90's, with my Amiga sampler I recorded sound effects from various sources, tv and such. These were published by a pd company(17bit) I noticed they can not be found online anymore either. I think back than it was less dangerous to do things like that. Even police officers were copying games.

Clearly disney and google play dont give a toss about copyright anymore.   See attached.  Been out for years now this one....

How long is that up in the store? I tried to republish my Neon Command game again after sevetal years. I was not allowed as i left the term Missile Command in the description. So there is some kind of IP checking going on.

4 years and counting....

it'll be interesting to see what's in stall for this comp.

Instead of a certain type of game or style make the next comp about a certain game language.
Pick a free one anyone can use and do what ever you want. New Amos language comes to mind.

Brilliant idea. I vote for COBOL  :P

Or maybe a shoot-em-up programmed only in MIDI and playable on etch-a-sketch!

A "choosen language competition" might put off some people - some might know the language alreas - some computers might not be able to run the compiler (mac, linux ...) and would have to boot up another OS just for compo development ... nah

Best is ...to stay with the "random theme" output by that little script - maybe we could/should add some new keywords. If people want this then Qube could post the current keyword list.


bye
Ron

I don't have a MIDI compatible etch-a-sketch  :(

Quote
I don't have a MIDI compatible etch-a-sketch  :(

You need an appropriate dongle for that.   ;)

Nevermind.... http://etchasketch.fun/

I'll not have the time to enter, but here's an idea...

Whoever enters, each person gets one specific item/object they have to create a game around, each item/object is picked by random and assigned to an entrant by Qube, maybe using something like:-

https://www.randomlists.com/things?qty=1&dup=false&show_images=true

That'll be interesting!

EDIT: I've just hit a run of 10 presses on the generator and got Soy Sauce Packet, lol! :D

Dabz

lol @ Brucey  :))

Quote from: ThickO on June 04, 2019, 14:46:09
Instead of a certain type of game or style make the next comp about a certain game language.
Pick a free one anyone can use and do what ever you want. New Amos language comes to mind.

God no. Unless we had a choice in languages, maybe. I'm not putting bloody Unity on my old Mac again. Took me ages to get anything done when i last used that and I didn't enjoy the experience.

Not sure i'd really want to learn something new and get a game out there within a tight deadline, however. People use the tools they use for a reason. Although I'd be tempted to stump up for the new AGK (i probably should have done while it was still half price) if I was, ahem, forced to, so I could enter :-)

Quote from: iWasAdam on June 04, 2019, 15:23:36
Or maybe a shoot-em-up programmed only in MIDI and playable on etch-a-sketch!

GREAT IDEA! I'll start work on mine now.

Erm, anyone got a real etch-a-sketch they could lend me?

Quote from: Brucey on June 04, 2019, 16:28:34
I don't have a MIDI compatible etch-a-sketch  :(

Brucey, don't make excuses just because the challenge is above you ......


:-)

Quote from: Dabz on June 04, 2019, 17:25:41
Whoever enters, each person gets one specific item/object they have to create a game around, each item/object is picked by random and assigned to an entrant by Qube, maybe using something like:-

There's something delightfully sadistic about this idea. Bet I'd end up with a flippin' OXO cube or something.

Brucey found a way Xerra.   ;D

Ok, so I'm just going to make Jet Set Willy 3 and tick off all 10 of these in the first level :-)

Quote from: Steve Elliott on June 04, 2019, 17:39:39
Brucey found a way Xerra.   ;D

He's just showing off  ;D

here's a few more:

rogue / roguelike

card mechanic

even strategy?

- balls (pinball, marble madness, sport games, ... hey even some interactive erotic fiction would fit into it - just to take away your chances to have some pun with my post)
- reaction

input limitations:
- one key (or button)
- no mouse / only mouse (mouse driven jump n run :-))


Next to genre it could be interesting to have an additional noun which has to be part of the game:
- carrot
- garden
- ocean
- rabbit
- ...
but as there are hundred of thousands of words... this wouldn't always result in some good random choice. Maybe it's better to choose 10-15 words out of community suggestions and then randomly choose one of this limited selection.
Carrot one-button strategy ;-)


bye
Ron

Sound-alike competitions to choose from either the words:

Reign or Rain

Desert or Dessert

Break or Brake

Lose or Loose

Plain or Plane

Dual or Duel

Bite or Byte

Die or Dye

Gorilla or Guerilla

Knight or Night

(not serious) Pea or Pee

Sale or Sail

Steel or Steal

...

Most of them at least allow for a multitude of game genres.



Edit: another option would be to choose words where the removal or appending/prepending of a letter makes a big difference:
(R)Evolution
(S)Port
Kin(g)
Fun(d)
T(rim)
Sea(l)
...

bye
Ron

..... Crepe or Crap (stale crepes)

Bait or Bat (fishing with a batty slant)

Flew and Flu (flappy birds with a bird flu strain twist)

And finally, 6 options decided by the roll of a dice.......

Threw and Thru  8).    (Coconut Shy game)

Blew and Blue (a windy game)

Wait and Weight (A physics game......)

Monthly reminder to prompt Qube into kicking off another compo .......

:P

stealth
spooky
lets stick with the s theme:
splat
shoot em up
sci-fi

sneak and creep  :o

snail and fail
snail rail
rail fail
bail snail

glue vs clue
money vs monet
tanks vs thanks


there is a lot of this laying around to get picked up ...


bye
Ron

How about "Vector"

What about a one liner as a theme like "Holy Shit!"...and a game has to reflect that feeling. Like a 2nd level of a shooter game that turns the casual fun into a bullet storm hell and we're not sure if it was wise to break through the first defence line. And all kinds of unexpected surprises.

Similarly the theme could be "In Medias Res" where the gamer find itself in the middle of the action, the hardest part of the game, and has to fight through it to get to the more relaxed places etc. So the game starts as a total chaos...middle of a battle kind of thing...but there is a way out, there is a chance to survive, and more we progress the easier it gets. What do you say people of syntax bomb? Should we explode...I mean explore this one???

:D

Just have seen a "clickomania"-screenshot in the syntaxbomb gallery ... and got an idea.

"arcade/casual outbreak"
Base your game on a simple casual / arcade game (clickomania, coloumns, mahjongg, solitaire) and bring this game to another genre.
Eg. the inital game looks like a Dr. Mario but in the intro/automated movement the game changes on the first "removal" of a block: viruses fight against the medicine particles invading the environment (galaxy/r-type).

pong: paddles need to get painted in the right color to create points (logic game)


Might be a bit hard to find good suiting ideas but maybe others have some?


bye
Ron

Kris, I remember a scenario in Age of Empires where your only hope was to get a man into a boat and sail away from the rampaging hordes, to set up a new empire in another corner, before storming back to total victory... Not so much hard-to-easy, as a lull in the storm...

:)

D

Didn't play Age of Empires (shame)...gotta check it out. But yeah same basic concept. Put a player in a position where there is no way to win but have a chance to escape, then collect, build, get stronger and come back and win. And you can make all kinds of games, gives you lots of freedom.

Qube!?

8)

Someone mentioned erotic interactive fiction.....for some reason I think of an rpg styled like this...enjoy.

why not have a comp with no monetary prizes  8)

any comp is better than none  :P

Quote from: iWasAdam on August 14, 2019, 08:26:44
why not have a comp with no monetary prizes  8)

any comp is better than none  :P

It's not the winning but the taking part that counts. Having a monetary prize is good and all that but I agree with Adam that it's not the only incentive. I like the buzz of getting a game out of the door in time and then seeing how it compares to other peoples efforts.

I seem to recall this discussion came up before and got vetoed, or there were general comments about not entering if there's no financial incentive, however. I could be mistaken though.

I should be finished with the current mountain of work next week so if members want a competition then I can set one up next weekend?

I don't mind shoving in a prize fund but it won't be £500+ as these comps are costing me a fortune :P

So who's up for a comp even with a smaller prize fund?

Interested yes, but it depends on timeframe, theme ... and what my family is up with when time of the compo comes near.

bye
Ron

Quote from: Qube on August 15, 2019, 22:30:56
I should be finished with the current mountain of work next week so if members want a competition then I can set one up next weekend?

I don't mind shoving in a prize fund but it won't be £500+ as these comps are costing me a fortune :P

So who's up for a comp even with a smaller prize fund?

I should be game.  The prize fund doesn't motivate me - more whether I can nail down a concept that's worth developing and fits the theme.  :D

I've been slacking last few weeks on a game I'd been working on so need a kick up the arse by having a deadline. I'll have a go if I can come up with an idea based on the theme.

me me me  :D
depending on the consistency of the custard!

How about "dungeon master" like games ;D

AlienZ

Fight them, fight with them, fight for them, make them evil, make them neutral, make them friendly. Any alien world/worlds, lifeform/lifeforms from A to Z that is an integral part of your creation will qualify your game.

Nah! Forget it...

"Finish what you started" should not be a competition but more a "mantra".

Why? If you compete with someone who only requires to create some levels for a fully working game while your game is ....only a prototype, then this might become unfair.


bye
Ron

Agree with Derron.

mmm, not so sure on that front.
The SyntaxBomb winners are always finished games, and pervious winners have been people with very different skills/styles/resources.

All right, all right I see your point...it was just an idea. Thought I throw it out there. So let's do the Alienz idea of mine?

;D

Actually a Dungeon Master like game is a pretty cool idea Adam! The question is what's the emphasis on? The real/pseudo 3D movement, RPG fantasy settings? Or both? Or the game could be an RPG-ish space-base crawler?

good points. I would have thought the interpretation would be up to each person - just as long as you can see 'generally' where it came from.

So, yep - go fo 3d or go for 2d. maybe a space setting... who knows.... ::)

Make a tribute game to Dungeon Master with your own spin? Me likes Adam's idea!

Next planned compo was a random-mix thing ...we should keep that and use this discussion here for the follow up compo.


Bye
Ron

Does it have to even be a game?...Can it be a graphics demo to show off your coding skills?

Quote from: Steve Elliott on August 22, 2019, 18:57:40
Does it have to even be a game?...Can it be a graphics demo to show off your coding skills?

That's a cool idea but wouldn't those with super cool graphics win?. I do like the idea of a pure coding comp so perhaps the comp could provide a few images / sprites that the entries have to use?. Could be interesting...

If you predefine graphics / sprites then you most probably will also predefine the genre - or at least say "favor" a genre.

Aside of that I am with you Qube, the ones with more skill graphics wise (shaders, rendering, pixeling, ...) will most probably gain more votes and so the "game itself" is less important.
Nonetheless the idea to "show your coding skills" is not that new - I brought up an "AI wars" thing somewhere buried in the "next compo ideas" threads/derailments. There people could show their coding skills to compete against each other.


As said before: the next competition should be one of the "two random genre/theme"-things. So that mixtures like "Sport + Fantasy" (Mud?) or "Dungeon + Sport" are possible ;-)

bye
Ron

i'm voting Sport down  >:( and Spurt up   :D

Quotethat would also predefine the genre

not if you think about it. any style of graphics 'could' be rendered in an many different ways.
Especially if the graphics were not sprites, but textures

Quote
That's a cool idea but wouldn't those with super cool graphics win?

Not necessarily, when there's a game competition I don't vote for the game with the best graphics, I vote for the most interesting/playable game in my eyes.  So a photo-real scene would be quite boring as a demo (although very clever).  Where as some wacky Jeff Minter-like surreal demos would be more interesting.

Quote
and so the "game itself" is less important.

There is no game it's a non-interactive demo, and you don't need to draw traditional sprites if you don't want too as Adam clarified.  Jeff Minter is not the best artist in the world, but some of his animation work in-game is surreal and interesting visually.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuzliMrJH8o

OK, for the next comp who'd like :

1.. Show off your coding skills and imagination - Code a demo - a selection of graphics provided but how you use them is up to you - 1 month comp
2.. Code a game ( random theme(s) ) - 8 week comp

2 for me.  Skills and imagination are a given  ;D

#2

(Option 1 would give those who are a whizz with GPU shaders -- i.e. not me! -- one heck of an advantage)

#2
I think it's best for option 2.

Much as number one sounds interesting I'd probably not be able to compete with the guys who can do shiny really well. I'm for no.2 and working on a game as usual.

It was just one of many suggestions here - I go for number 2 too.

Quote from: Steve Elliott on August 24, 2019, 01:02:22
It was just one of many suggestions here - I go for number 2 too.

I liked #1 as a concept :P but I'll happily go with the majority. Will launch a new comp tomorrow night when I've added more to the generator scripty thingy ;D

#2 for me too  ;D

Quote from: Qube on August 24, 2019, 01:15:33

Quote from: Steve Elliott on August 24, 2019, 01:02:22
It was just one of many suggestions here - I go for number 2 too.

I liked #1 as a concept :P but I'll happily go with the majority. Will launch a new comp tomorrow night when I've added more to the generator scripty thingy ;D

If I remember, the last random theme gave us 3 options.  Maybe upping it to 5 might increase the number of entries - the more then merrier?

If you go for 7, The compo could be the Magnificent 7  :))

Or deadly sins...
Gruesome twosome
Terrible trios
The list can go on and on...

So it's number 2 then? Cool, when do we start?

Quote from: Amon. on August 24, 2019, 11:01:20
So it's number 2 then? Cool, when do we start?

Tomorrow night Qube is going to post it up.

Quote from: Xerra on August 24, 2019, 12:35:55

Quote from: Amon. on August 24, 2019, 11:01:20
So it's number 2 then? Cool, when do we start?

Tomorrow night Qube is going to post it up.

Come on, Qube, get on with it. Give me something to think about when I sit in front of the computer with a slab of beer after watching Peaky Blinders this evening.

Looks like everyone quite enjoys a good old number 2! :D hehehe

*Sorry, I couldnt resist*

;)

Dabz

Quote from: Dabz on August 25, 2019, 20:23:09
Looks like everyone quite enjoys a good old number 2! :D hehehe

You are such a child.. But I love it :))