[SA Game Jam 2018] Inkumbulo

edited in Online Competitions & Jams
SA Game Jam 2018
Project name: Inkumbulo
The team consists of young professionals and students. None of us are game developers and this is my second game.
72hr entry

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The game’s name is Inkumbulo

The game’s name means memory in Xhosa. the games theme is centred around the experiences of South African Millennial, particularly black folk, entering the university space after having graduated from High School.

The game’s protagonists is a high school graduate coming from the Eastern Cape who has their eye on completing a university degree in the Western Cape.

The game’s introductory animation gives a user a view of the protagonist’s experience driving down from the Eastern Cape in a bus. With cutaway footage beautiful South African landscapes.

The game levels all take place on a university campus where the protagonist has to do has to complete a degree whilst avoiding certain game objects and seeking certain game objects.

The game objects that the University student has to seek include discipline-specific textbooks e.g Communication. Each textbooks unlocks certain skills for the protagonist.

The enemy objects that the protagonist has to avoid include on campus drones. The player can kill the drones by throwing fidget spinners at them.

The artwork of the game should speak to the current context on University campuses making specific references to fees must fall and Rhodes Must Fall activities and events. Photo and video footage from the movement is available and can be used in the game.

This will be a 2d game made using the phaser library.

Comments

  • Visit https://github.com/xdossantos/swissarmycrew , clone the game and run it on your local system
  • Can you provide a game description / screenshot of the concept? I think this will make feedback easier to deliver!

    I am also having trouble following all the instructions for downloading and running (not sure which index file I should be opening or why certain things aren't responding, etc). Wondering if you can simplify the process for some people -- the judges can probably troubleshoot and review after the competition but it will limit the number of folk who can give guidance on your project during the jam.
    Thanked by 1xdode
  • Agreed on Nandrew's points. Most of us are cramming on our own games, and having yours a bit harder to setup than others will hinder people taking time to get it up and running.

    That said, once my game is submitted I will try and get yours going to review it.
  • I tried to open every index.html file but nothing happened :(
  • image

    I've got node, followed instructions. :(
    Capture.PNG
    623 x 329 - 24K
    Thanked by 1xdode
  • @PartyPanda you need to set up a Phaser dev server on your system in order to get the game running. What OS are you using ? Here are instructions for Linux https://oskarkunik.wordpress.com/2015/02/28/how-to-configure-a-basic-phaser-development-environment-on-linux/
  • We will be deploying the game to Heroku in the next hour where other people can play it, Will keep people update via the thread
  • Hi There,

    You can find my team's game at https://inkumbulo.herokuapp.com/ . Zoom in and out if the graphics are extending beyond your screen size.
  • Press s to shoot the drones, every time you collect ten books another drone is deployed onto the scene. You can kill the drones however, by shooting at them.
  • edited
    I have a few concerns. Firstly, the books only feel on the right hand side of the map, maybe by spreading it across the map will make it more challenging.
    Took me a second to figure out the controls myself, if you can introduce the player to the controls in the game that will be awesome. Maybe also make use of WASD controls and ( feels a bit more comfortable ).
    For the shooting, I think a cursor will help to help the player know where he is going to shoot and don't limit the shooting just to sidewards. If you let the cursor move with the mouse and make shooting LMB, you can solve that pretty easily.
    The resolution was bit messed up , so the game was cut of underneath and at the side, only after figuring out the controls and I jumped I noticed the character.
    Maybe consider adding different move patterns for the drone, for example one that goes only horizontal or one that follows you if your knowledge surpasses a certain number and later on their speed can increase to add to the difficulty.
    Thanked by 1xdode
  • @lugi_weo Thank you for your feedback. I am looking at making this an open source community run project, over the long term. The community developing this will look into spacing out the books so that they fall all over the scene. Our original concept for the introduction of the books into the scene was very different but I am glad the objects are atealst colliding and affecting the player at this point.

    I will also look into creating setup text when the game state loads. I was really struggling with the timer method on phaser. I had made a few attempts, with my small team, to resolve this but with very little luck.
  • Hi all, my feedback is as follows:

    I'd like to raise a concern about the UI. As a player, I'd prefer the knowledge score counter be positioned in such a way that it isn't quite a static background element that takes up a significant chunk of screen real estate (on my machine some of the text is cut-off before moving across the map) but rather is more like a traditional score counter that moves as the player moves and maybe just sits in the corner of the screen. Same with the Game Over message, which was actually cut-off for me.

    Also, I'd like to suggest adding a UI element for the controls in the game, so the player can just look at an element on screen or access a pause menu or something of the like to view them in-game, instead of having to work them out or look at this thread to see what they are.
    Thanked by 1xdode
  • @themasterof37 I completely agree with you on the fact that the UI needs a lot of work. I am looking to introduce a points counter outside of the game canvas. We had a problem doing this during the jam but the point count should actually be above the game canvas on the top left. We were also looking to introduce profile pics of the character and dialogue that would take place directly below the game canvas , as seen in traditional RPG games.
  • Wow making a game is so exhausting. BTW we decided to try host it on Heroku as a response to the feedback we were getting that people were struggling to play the game on thier local system
  • We figured out why the game just freezes at a certain point. Turns out that after you kill the drones they don't actually die, they just become invisible. So I am working on a fix for this.

    The game will end if the player collides with an invisible drone
  • Thank you to Mandla Mlangeni for providing music for the game.
  • Here is a link to Mandla's facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/mandla.mlangeni.9 - Support them please !!! Buy thier CD!
    Thanked by 1NickCuthbert
  • I really like the music. It's so soothing and makes me feel a little sad. Great job on that!

    Unfortunately I can't seem to play the game. I'm sure I'm missing something with my browser setup or something. Is there a specific browser/setup that I can use that will run this for sure? Also, it might be worth it to put the working link in the first post. I almost gave up when the instructions to clone didn't work out for me.

  • Simple game, well done on getting it out there.
    Nice music.
    good work on getting drones and items spawn progressively.

    Here's what I think may be made better
    -spreading out the items
    -having more fluid movement controls
    -UI could use some work too, auto resize based on computer resolution, and none obtrusive wording.
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