Upcoming game jams of interest

jstrout

Text Only Jam — a fun opportunity to see what you can do without any pixels or sprites! Use the text display (or several text displays?) to create your game. Or you could use a PixelDisplay, drawing mainly with PixelDisplay.print (which gives you access to the small and large fonts in addition to the standard font). "You can make interactive fiction (text adventure), an ASCII game (in a terminal/console), a game using nothing but GUI, or even a 2D/3D world where the only shapes are standard ASCII characters. There is no requirement to lock your text to a grid." Runs tomorrow through December 20th.

SynapticBytes

If I had the time I’d give it a go, but just too much happening for me at the moment unfortunately.

This brings back memories of my early days of programming. My very first computer was a TRS-80 Model 1, with a massive 4K of RAM! Spent $1,000 for the upgrade to 16K. Just about everything on that one was a text program. I had a big book of game programs you typed in to program it. Still, I doubt any of those programs could even place in a game jam these days, as the thoughts of what could be achieved with a computer back then were so immature compared to the concepts being used these days, it’s like learning to spell words vs learning to write novels.

jstrout

Possibly. But I think most game jams are more about having fun and sharing a love of coding (and playing), than they are about worrying who gets the top prize. Some jams aren't even rated. It looks like this one is, but still, they seem like a pretty casual bunch.

I think I'll probably enter this one... I have in mind a little "hacking" game where you log into the EvilCorp mainframe, nose around until you figure out how to fix the buggy Orbiting Brain Laser project, change the Moon Ransom script so it deposits money in your own Swiss bank account, and retire a bazillionaire.

But then again, I was also thinking about recreating "Ant Race," a little text-based horse-racing simulator I played on an actual mainframe as a kid. So who knows.

SynapticBytes

Well it is my last day of work before holidays, so if the family demands aren’t too great, maybe I could come up with something basic just for the fun of it.

How would you deploy it for others to play if written for MiniMicro? I doubt you could ask everyone to install the client, could you?

Russell.

jstrout

Ah, good point. I would use a web build (like this and this). These aren't hard to make, though I haven't quite gotten around to posting the needed directions and resources yet.

So, if you (or anyone) make something you want to share, just ask me and I'll get you set up in no time. (My last big project for the year is due on Monday, so I'll have considerably more breathing room after that.)

jstrout

Well the theme for the Text Only Jam has been announced: "Dragons and Dungeons" (apparently because they feared copyright infringement if they called it Dungeons & Dragons). Hmm. Neither of my game ideas really fit that. Now I'm not sure what to do... but since my final project still isn't done, I guess I can mull it over for a couple of days!

SynapticBytes

Well that’s a bit cliche.

”You open the door and see a humongous dragon, asleep on a mountain of gold coins, shining armour and precious gems. A tunnel vanishes into the darkness to the east, and another door, half covered by the gold coins, lies open just beyond the dragon.”
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jstrout

Yep, that's the obvious way to go — either a traditional text adventure (a la Zork), or a Roguelike game.

But the organizers are encouraging people to think outside the box, and not take the theme too literally. I think I'm probably going to turn my ant race into a dragon race... with hapless adventurers employed as the "rabbit"... 🤔

jstrout

Another interesting upcoming jam: Sandbox Mayhem.

This jam is all about sandboxes! Destruction, building, exploring... Anything that gives the player a state of freedom while playing! If you want to enter, make a game about the things mentioned above (desturction, building, exploring) or even make a mix of them! Or if you want to... You can even come up with an original idea!

With Mini Micro, there are a lot of possibilities here combining sprites with pixel displays (much like Annelids). It's easy enough to dig/build/blow-up pixels, and have this affect where your sprites can go. Something like Terraria or Lemmings, for example, would be right up this jam's alley, and reasonably easy to do. (Of course you would want to scope small, especially if this is your first game jam, or your first time working with the sprite and pixel displays in Mini Micro.)

SynapticBytes

Umm, should that jam name be hyperlinked? Where do we find it?

jstrout

Doh. Yes, I meant to link the title. I'll go back and fix it, but it's: https://itch.io/jam/huberts-sandbox-mayhem

SynapticBytes

Thanks. This would be something I'd have trouble staying within scope on. I like sandbox games but my ideas far outstretch by ability to execute usually.

jstrout

I totally know what you mean. 🙂 To me, that's a big part of the fun of game jams... a properly-scope game jam (which to me means 2 weeks or less) forces me to stay on target and deliver something, and leave the scope creep at the door.

Though now part of me wants to host a "Scope Creep" game jam... still with a 2-week deadline, but encouraging players to throw in every feature they can think of! 😛

SynapticBytes

Haha, that actually sounds fun. Make a million features even if they're only half baked and don't necessarily work as intended 🙂 Actually, this brings back thoughts of Warioware - lots of short minigames that were stupid but as a whole it was surprisingly fun.

jstrout

Here's a fun one: the 16 x 2 character jam!

You can make any game you want, as long as it looks like it's using one of these 16x2 character displays. You might want to implement this in Mini Micro using a TileDisplay. Or, you could simply use gfx.drawImage to draw your character set into each block of the display.

The game jam rules don't put any restrictions on input, so you could use the keyboard, mouse, game controller, etc. What sort of game would you make with such a tiny display?