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Boston Game Devs Make 8 Games in 36 Hours

Posted by Zonk on Fri Jan 26, 2007 02:08 PM
from the much-better-than-american-idol dept.
Programming Entertainment Games Technology
Darius Kazemi writes "This past weekend, a bunch of Boston-area game developers got together and did a 36-hour Boston Game Jam, inspired by the Indie Game Jam. We made eight games in 36 hours based on the theme of 'shift' for platforms as diverse as PC, GBA, and cell phones. The games range from a surprisingly complex behavioral sim to a game where you have to squish your opponent in a 2D physics deathmatch. Most of the games are available for download right now, and some of them even include the source code. In days to come, we'll be adding developer diaries and other goodies."
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    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Odin_Tiger (585113)
      You know it's a dead horse of a joke when FP gets modded Redundant.

      • Attention Stupid People (Score:1, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward
        No, actually, there is nowhere on Earth that indicates that Slashdot's "Redundant" moderation is intended only for comments which are redundant of only previous comments in the same story. Even bullshit about redundant first posts are redundant.

        "Redundant" rings true of any comment involving

        - the welcoming of overlords (of any class)
        - netcraft confirmation
        - it's a trap re: "Microsoft Blows Sunshine up Linux's Butt" and related articles
        - Soviet Russia making you the object of some verb
        - planetary landers, w
      • But don't you see? A first post can't be redundant.

        Simply hilarious!

        Get it??? Get it??!!

        :-)

  • flocking Flash.

    I hate it when sites make it impossible to navigate unless you have flash installed. Anyone have a direct link to bypass the flash?
  • What would be a new "Innovation" in game development? With all of the functionality now pushed to chips, is it now in the harware engineer's realm? Perhaps more creative artists and plots. I'd be curious to know just how much other mainline medias such as video and audio communication/content is integrated with games.

    • Re:Innovation in Gaming? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Altus (1034) on Friday January 26 2007, @05:58PM (#17777516) Homepage

      you have fallen into a trap. You believe that an innovative game means finding a new way to push bits around faster or better than before. It does not. A better game is created by designing something that is fun to play. Innovation comes in the form of new game play mechanics, new input styles, new types of stories.

      Making a game with 10 times the polygons of the closest competitor is not really game innovation. Graphics innovation sure, but you could make pacman with everything bump mapped and shaded and such but it would still play like pacman.
      • So when virtual reality comes out (it exists now but not in a feasible form) and games take advantage of it, that won't be innovation? Only input devices matter, not output?
        • It will be innovation, but not all the same innovation.

          Hardware innovation - There will be specialized equipment required for this, whether its headsets, body suits, a Matrix-esque server or a holodeck. The development of this is innovation.

          Graphical innovation - Somewhat tied into the hardware innovation, but also something that can be pushed at a software level. This is also innovation.

          Input and/or Gameplay innovation - How people actually code and use the system is a separate innovation from the others.

  • They had 8 groups of people all make a game each in 36 hours.

    Impressive still, but not really news.

      • Re:8 games by 8 teams... (Score:4, Informative)

        by jbreckman (917963) on Friday January 26 2007, @03:51PM (#17775282)

        I don't know what that means.

        Two people making a game in 36 hours wouldn't be news. Eight sets of two people making games in 36 hours becomes news?

        • It isn't the games, it's the way they were made. Also, I generally consider 8 new games in 32 hours with documentation, and for free to be news -- most stuff is either commercial, or a knock-off of something else. Of course, I think this is more developer news than games news....

  • One artist? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by SpaceToast (974230) on Friday January 26 2007, @02:55PM (#17774150) Homepage Journal

    Very cool, but why one artist and one sound designer, floating between fifteen developers? Every team should have at least its own artist -- and don't think [wikipedia.org] we aren't [wikipedia.org] into this sort [wikipedia.org] of thing [wikipedia.org].

    You've got the Massachusetts College of Art, one of the best and one of the scrappiest art schools in the country, right across the river. Next year, think about reaching out. You'll be amazed at the response, and the amount of polish these kids can do on deadline.

  • Their website is useless (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    That's neat, I guess. Too bad they don't explain:

    Who?

    According to the home page they're "a bunch of professional game developers from around the Boston area". I know of no game development companies from Boston (and I live next to it!) so some idea of WHAT kind of games these developers have worked on would be helpful.

    What platform?

    What platform is required to play the games? Not even the game download page really explains how to play the games. Apparently some are cell phone and GBA games, with no indicat
  • This reminds me of 24 hour comics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/24_hour_comic) which are 24-page comics drawn and inked in--you guessed it--24 hours. There's an annual 24 Hour Comics Day event that usually compiles a number of hand-picked comics made by artists and writers across the country. Italy's started their own version of it. It'd be cool if this was made into a annual challenge for dev's around the globe.

  • But where... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Cervantes (612861) on Friday January 26 2007, @03:54PM (#17775354) Journal
    But, where's my Duke Nukem Forever? I'm pretty sure that a hardcore 2 day coding crunch would end up with a better game than what they have so far...
  • What languages were used? I would think that, given the time limit, something like Python (with PyGame or PyOgre) would be preferred over the more traditional C++?
    • If I recall correctly: Python, Torquescript, C++ (with and without PopCap framework), Flash, Flash Lite
    • I did Slidewalk. We used Python, PyOpenGL for graphics, and Pygame for sound. We definitely preferred it over C++ for the reason you stated.
  • I'm a 'musician' (clue : it's not what I get paid for). This is the second story I have seen recently where creative fields are given a limited time to come up with 'product' as part of a community project. As a lone musician I spend too much time in a bubble re - recording things time and time again even though the first take was probably good enough (which ultimately has the potential to stifle further creativity) - I can imagine the same happens to writers/artists/musicians or any people from any creativ
  • Well, all I can tell so far is that Squish seems to work very strangely under Ubuntu/Wine.
  • alt_title = 1 / Duke Nuken Forever

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