Indie Game Jam 2004 Recounted

scishop writes "While most of the gaming world has been focused on the dazzling smoke and mirrors special effects of E3, Gamasutra has published an interesting article on a different game convention: Indie Game Jam '04 where two dozen game developers spent four days creating a variety of games built around the same engine in an effort to encourage innovation. The results included apps centered around boxing, yoga and flaming hamsters." Our earlier story over at Slashdot Games has more links and information.

Innovation?

[Anonymous Coward]

If they wanted to promote innovation shouldn't they have avoided one of the biggest problems with stale modern gaming?

Don't use the same engine...

hmm..

[manavendra]

I think there exists a strange paradox in the gaming world - there is a growing, dedicated and rapid effort to make the games graphics simulate reality as much as possible, the actual gameplay is still quite far from it. Quite so many times we see in third person shooting games that the player can withstand several bullet shots, run indefinitely (ok Far Cry changed that), etc... Is it possible in reality for one guy to take on 100?

I'm sure the exponents of the game will argue and say that's precisely why it's the game - an experience that you go through. But, in this world where the experience is being brought closer to reality, why not the game play and feel then? Sure it would make the game harder to play, but the degree of hardness would increase in doing "simple" stuff and the game designers wouldnt have to think of complex/hideous creatures who by virtue of their design become harder to kill

On the other hand, games that have provided a total and absolute break from reality, but with a goal that is difficult to achieve, yet forcing you to jump through mostly similar hoops - have become popular as well. That's because, IMO, they were able to trigger within us the simplest of all human desires - to succeed

I believe a game to become interesting and popular has to not only have stunning visuals - sure they enhance the gameplaying experience, but I don't think they always make such a big difference. The factors that make a game popular is how much variety and challenge the game provides, how much it enables a player to "relate" to it (the "relation" to game is most always in a phantom sense - no one goes on a killing spree in real life) and how involved it makes the gameplayer.

Games don't have to have dazzling graphics. I think it's a sense of attachment, of being able to relate to game that becomes the prime factor in the game popularity.

Re:You can play them with WINE!

[INeededALogin]

Point taken, but I am wanting to play them on Mac.

From the glutil.h(a common header):

...
#define WIN32_LEAN_AND_MEAN
#include <windows.h>
#include <windowsx.h>
#include <math.h>
#include <gl/gl.h>
...

I don't think I will be able to compile this natively:-( Sorta sad that they picked opengl and then didn't go the next step with a platform independent wrapper.

Re:Innovation?

[ecc0]

The point is to show that you can make vastly differing games with the same "engine." You don't need to make a Quake clone only because you use the Quake engine. Some people use open engines to make games that are very different from the games the engine was originally developed for, like Unreal Annihilation [tauniverse.com], Total Annihilation (a Real-Time Strategy game) reimplemented with the Unreal Tournament 2003 engine.

Re:Are not games all the same in the end

[DourSalmon]

That's like saying that books are boring because all you ever do is look at them and occasionally turn the page. You are missing the point. Games (and just about all fiction-based media, for that matter) exist to place you into a different frame of reference, to experience something you do not do in real life. The fun of games is not the input that is used, but rather the imagination that you use to enjoy them. If you are sick of games, do not play them. (but if your experience is based solely on fps or mmpogs, I think its time you branch out and discover something new. if you are still bored, go for a bike ride or camping or something.)