Boston Game Devs Make 8 Games in 36 Hours 52
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."
Re:Fast track development... (Score:2, Insightful)
One artist? (Score:4, Insightful)
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)
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 indications on how you'd play them.
License?
What license are these licensed under? Presumably some proprietary license as there's no indication of source code being available.
All in all, the webpage is basically worthless, giving no useful information about who these developers are, what the games are for, why they were created, how they're intended to be played - anything.
Overall - useless.
Re:Innovation in Gaming? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.