@SebastianL Dude! You should come to the Cape Town game development community meetup this month! (It's the last Wednesday of every month at the Microsoft offices in Pinelands).
It's a free meetup where we demo our games, or give talks, or chat etc. You've got some brilliant game dev skills, so even if you can't learn much from us, a lot of the attendees could learn a lot from you (should you choose to give a talk at some point).
If you come early there is free chicken provided by Microsoft : )
...
@Everyone ... Dawid and I recorded a video of us fighting in Yojimbrawl. For those of you who don't have a friend handy to try it but still want to see it in action (as played by two surprisingly average players):
Infected Very nice polish for a jam. Quite enjoy the interpretation of the theme. Overall I feel enjoyment of these games comes down to balance which is hard to achieve in a jam. Options for would be to either emphasize tower defence angle with bigger play area more towers etc, or else emphasize survival. More shooting, better rate of fire etc.
Superland shark missile attack Okay, get the feeling you're trying to make something vlambeer and crazy-indie-radical. I feel like for me to enjoy the game it would come down to gratuitous death animation and violently murdering puny humans for humorous effect. But that is all about polish. Either way hope you had a ton of fun making this and probably learnt a lot about working in 3d.
Yojimbrawl! Somebodies been playing Nidhogg! Looks sexy though. Keen to play with someone.
Lair M.D. Holy polish guys! Awesome. Also a really interesting concept with a lot of potential for humour and charm. One thing I found very jarring and unnecessary was the time limit. I'm sure it's there for a reason and a way you intended the game to be played - but as someone still trying to figure out the system and get to grips with it the game over screen was as welcome and unexpected as dropping a brick on my foot. Much better to let me explore first. At the very least there needs to be way more time given before you run foul of the clock.
Artic Antics Simply lovely. Please take this further! I found the orca quite daunting to deal with. There's already plenty of fun in trying to figure out skating and getting pages. What makes it worse is that the orca leaves holes, so not only is he a mortal danger, but the holes in the ice make it much harder to skate. Whilst that is a cool challenge I wish it would only come later.
I can totally imagine a winter wonderland of ramps, bumps, obstacles and tracks you have to ski and explore across. That reminds of old school snes games in the best way possible.
The Compression Problem Nope, couldn't figure it out. But @Raxter, your challenge for the next jam is to make something that is no way whatsoever inspired by Zachtronics. :P
Thanks :) I learned LOTS about Unity 3D building this, and especially from all the other awesome jammers at the LD. So no matter what else that was absolutely my takeaway from Landshark :) As for what I was trying to make... I think it's interesting that you've thrown vlambeer into the description cos I thought their games are all a lot more designed and less chaotic than what Landshark is, I'd compare it to Goat Simulator at the moment :P
And the more I work on it the more I think I'm actually building that MECHA GAME I'VE ALWAYS WANTED TO BUILD. But instead of mechs I have sharks :P With aerial action instead of being slow and lumbering, with big explosions and plenty of footsoldiers to off... with ridiculously visual and powerful weapons :) Yeah that might be closer to what may eventually come out :)
And a pun:
Special Marine Forces. It will star Landshark, Hammerhead Hank, Manta Ray, and Willy the Whale.
@FanieG That's a bronze, not 3rd, cos there's no way in hell my entry was 2nd in the comp (silver) :P They divide the field up into percentages and offer gold silver and bronze so you know you're top x percent. I dunno what the percentiles are though...
That said, Yohjimbo is pretty dang awesome :) They got a gold for fun! Best! :D
@Tuism - Oh sorry. I followed the Top 100 Jam entries link http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-29/?action=top&cat=Overall(Jam) and that showed that Yohjimbro was 3rd. Yep. Pretty sure that means 3rd overall. You got silver for 1 of the criteria. They were 3rd overall - based on all their scores :)
yes the (jam) is actually part of the link, but got cut off when I pasted it. That is why I posted the screenshot afterwards. Anyway I think it is great that local devs ended up in the top 3. Great stuff again guys.
Comments
It's a free meetup where we demo our games, or give talks, or chat etc. You've got some brilliant game dev skills, so even if you can't learn much from us, a lot of the attendees could learn a lot from you (should you choose to give a talk at some point).
If you come early there is free chicken provided by Microsoft : )
...
@Everyone ... Dawid and I recorded a video of us fighting in Yojimbrawl. For those of you who don't have a friend handy to try it but still want to see it in action (as played by two surprisingly average players):
No Hawking
Infected
Very nice polish for a jam. Quite enjoy the interpretation of the theme. Overall I feel enjoyment of these games comes down to balance which is hard to achieve in a jam. Options for would be to either emphasize tower defence angle with bigger play area more towers etc, or else emphasize survival. More shooting, better rate of fire etc.
Superland shark missile attack
Okay, get the feeling you're trying to make something vlambeer and crazy-indie-radical. I feel like for me to enjoy the game it would come down to gratuitous death animation and violently murdering puny humans for humorous effect. But that is all about polish. Either way hope you had a ton of fun making this and probably learnt a lot about working in 3d.
Yojimbrawl!
Somebodies been playing Nidhogg! Looks sexy though. Keen to play with someone.
Lair M.D.
Holy polish guys! Awesome. Also a really interesting concept with a lot of potential for humour and charm. One thing I found very jarring and unnecessary was the time limit. I'm sure it's there for a reason and a way you intended the game to be played - but as someone still trying to figure out the system and get to grips with it the game over screen was as welcome and unexpected as dropping a brick on my foot. Much better to let me explore first. At the very least there needs to be way more time given before you run foul of the clock.
Artic Antics
Simply lovely. Please take this further! I found the orca quite daunting to deal with. There's already plenty of fun in trying to figure out skating and getting pages. What makes it worse is that the orca leaves holes, so not only is he a mortal danger, but the holes in the ice make it much harder to skate. Whilst that is a cool challenge I wish it would only come later.
I can totally imagine a winter wonderland of ramps, bumps, obstacles and tracks you have to ski and explore across. That reminds of old school snes games in the best way possible.
The Compression Problem
Nope, couldn't figure it out. But @Raxter, your challenge for the next jam is to make something that is no way whatsoever inspired by Zachtronics. :P
Sorry that's all I have time to play for now.
Thanks :) I learned LOTS about Unity 3D building this, and especially from all the other awesome jammers at the LD. So no matter what else that was absolutely my takeaway from Landshark :) As for what I was trying to make... I think it's interesting that you've thrown vlambeer into the description cos I thought their games are all a lot more designed and less chaotic than what Landshark is, I'd compare it to Goat Simulator at the moment :P
And the more I work on it the more I think I'm actually building that MECHA GAME I'VE ALWAYS WANTED TO BUILD. But instead of mechs I have sharks :P With aerial action instead of being slow and lumbering, with big explosions and plenty of footsoldiers to off... with ridiculously visual and powerful weapons :) Yeah that might be closer to what may eventually come out :)
And a pun:
Special Marine Forces.
It will star Landshark, Hammerhead Hank, Manta Ray, and Willy the Whale.
YES.
Here are Landshark's results:
That said, Yohjimbo is pretty dang awesome :) They got a gold for fun! Best! :D
Coolness 69%
#202 Humor 3.11
#347 Fun 3.28
#447 Theme 3.38
#709 Graphics 2.92
#753 Overall 2.97
#765 Audio 2.33
#820 Mood 2.69
#1081 Innovation 2.28
Again Congrats to everyone.
Strange, it seems like if I follow your link we end up on different pages :/ I can't see the "jam entries", dunno where to click for it...
CONGRATS YOJIMBO!!! :D Yet another one on their list of must-make games :)
yes the (jam) is actually part of the link, but got cut off when I pasted it. That is why I posted the screenshot afterwards. Anyway I think it is great that local devs ended up in the top 3. Great stuff again guys.
South Africans did pretty flipping well this time around. I saw Team Infection in the top 10 in "Overall", "Fun" and "Graphics".
RetroEpic came #1 in the "Graphics" category!
I hope I'm not missing other entries...
Yojimbrawl came #3 for the "Overall" category for the jam entries (which doesn't mean 3rd overall, just 3rd in "Overall").
AND Yojimbrawl got #1 for the "Fun" category.
AND #10 in the "Graphics" category (which was actually it's highest rating at 4.6)
I can see all the rankings on this page: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-29/?more=1
I think our crappy tutorial really let us down, but we're still super proud!
And well done to everyone else! Some mad skills up in South Africa!
http://indiegames.com/2014/05/broswer_pick_broforce_devs_yoj.html
Arctic Antics did fairly well, I'm pleased with the results. Congrats to everyone who entered.
Arctic Antics did super well! You're set for a release already ;)
Lair MD was amazing to take its well deserved first place in Graphics for Jam :D
Yojimbrawl is also well on its way! Very awesome :)
Overall we did super well and I'm so damn proud of MakegamesSA, all of us :D