Competition H: T-minus Seven
Competition H: T-minus Seven
Les Jeux du Jour
Current Entries, in Alphabetical Order
The Credible Machine - @Fengol - Link
My Plane Leaves in 7 - @FanieG - Linke
Princess - @cairnswm - Welcome back cairnswm!
BubbleGrab! - @WilliamHK - Linque
Shape Shooter - @vince - L'inque
Theme
Many of us have spent tens, if not hundreds, of hours finishing and mastering games that we loved, whether they be grand RPG epics like Mass Effect or technical combat masterpieces like Dark Souls. We also know games that are prone to padding themselves out to artificially extend play time, or games that over-rely on overarching progression (such as XP unlocks) to make dull, repetitive play sessions more bearable. Creating a compelling, self-contained play experience that lasts just long enough seems to be quite a design challenge, doesn’t it? Let’s see if we can do something about that.
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to create a game that ends definitively within seven minutes. In other words, any given play session of your game must conclude in seven minutes or less, whether in glorious victory, crushing defeat, or with a stunning conclusion to your story. In addition, play sessions must be self-contained - although the player can replay the game as much as they like, meta-progression elements are NOT allowed. This means no character persistence, no “legacies”, no cross-session XP-based unlocks, or any of that jazz. Anything that happens in your game, happens in those seven minutes. Make the most of ‘em.
(Yes, you can have a menu system and difficulty levels and options and such. Just make sure anything else relating to actual gameplay stays put in its seven-minute slot.)
Rules
To enter the competition, start a thread titled “[Comp H] NameOfYourGame" in the forum’s “Online Competitions and Jams” category and post your design ideas and game releases there. As you release files, edit your first post to point to the most recent versions available.
Other people will reply to your post with their feedback and ideas. Please do your best to take any and all feedback as positively as you can and use it to make your game better. Consider releasing your source code and/or original files, it helps us pinpoint problems that you might be having and benefits the community as a whole.
Once you’re finished with your game, we suggest you write a (optional) mini post-mortem. Try to answer the 3 questions: "What worked well?", "What didn't work?", and "What would you change or do differently?". Note that this is completely optional, but we think it’ll help you.
Advice
Good luck and enjoy the competition!
* (Downloading and using Game Maker is recommended for beginners or if you've never prototyped a game before)
Les Jeux du Jour
Current Entries, in Alphabetical Order
The Credible Machine - @Fengol - Link
My Plane Leaves in 7 - @FanieG - Linke
Princess - @cairnswm - Welcome back cairnswm!
BubbleGrab! - @WilliamHK - Linque
Shape Shooter - @vince - L'inque
Theme
Many of us have spent tens, if not hundreds, of hours finishing and mastering games that we loved, whether they be grand RPG epics like Mass Effect or technical combat masterpieces like Dark Souls. We also know games that are prone to padding themselves out to artificially extend play time, or games that over-rely on overarching progression (such as XP unlocks) to make dull, repetitive play sessions more bearable. Creating a compelling, self-contained play experience that lasts just long enough seems to be quite a design challenge, doesn’t it? Let’s see if we can do something about that.
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to create a game that ends definitively within seven minutes. In other words, any given play session of your game must conclude in seven minutes or less, whether in glorious victory, crushing defeat, or with a stunning conclusion to your story. In addition, play sessions must be self-contained - although the player can replay the game as much as they like, meta-progression elements are NOT allowed. This means no character persistence, no “legacies”, no cross-session XP-based unlocks, or any of that jazz. Anything that happens in your game, happens in those seven minutes. Make the most of ‘em.
(Yes, you can have a menu system and difficulty levels and options and such. Just make sure anything else relating to actual gameplay stays put in its seven-minute slot.)
Rules
- Competition starts on 1 June 2016.
- Deadline for entries is 30 June 2016, 23:59 (UTC+2).
- Use whichever language, tool or development system you are comfortable in.*
- Ask for help when you get stuck.
- Your game must follow the theme.
- Your game must contain all files needed for it to run and should not require other bulky systems to be downloaded or installed, exceptions are browser plugins like Flash and self-contained DLLs distributed with the game.
- Your final game entry must include a readme.txt that EXPLAINS THE CONTROLS, RULES and any other information you want to get across to your users. If you have web builds, make sure the page serves as a readme.txt!
- Competition is open to entry for South African citizens, current residents of South Africa and South African passport holders.
- You retain all copyright to your work.
- The use of copyrighted material will not be tolerated. Do not steal!
- All risk or liability in case of copyright infringement or other legal issue resides with the entrant, MGSA takes no responsibility for entered games.
- The organisers’ decision is final and no negotiation will be entered into.
To enter the competition, start a thread titled “[Comp H] NameOfYourGame" in the forum’s “Online Competitions and Jams” category and post your design ideas and game releases there. As you release files, edit your first post to point to the most recent versions available.
Other people will reply to your post with their feedback and ideas. Please do your best to take any and all feedback as positively as you can and use it to make your game better. Consider releasing your source code and/or original files, it helps us pinpoint problems that you might be having and benefits the community as a whole.
Once you’re finished with your game, we suggest you write a (optional) mini post-mortem. Try to answer the 3 questions: "What worked well?", "What didn't work?", and "What would you change or do differently?". Note that this is completely optional, but we think it’ll help you.
Advice
- The idea is to see how you can use the time limit to drive your game and make things more interesting and fun for the player. Please try your best not to simply slap an arbitrary seven-minute time limit on a game that could exist without one.
- Seven minutes may not seem like a lot of time, but with some clever design you’ll be surprised how much compelling gameplay you can squeeze in. Think carefully about the objectives and progression of your game and how you can use the time limit to increase tension, or introduce predictable milestones that allow clever forward-planning on the player’s part.
- You’ll want to ensure that those seven minutes are engaging without being overwhelming or inaccessible to the player, so frequent playtesting will be essential. Get a playable prototype out as early as humanly possible and get as much feedback as you can to fine-tune as you go. Don’t stress about people “stealing your idea” - they’re too busy with their own. ;)
- Just because you only have a seven-minute window doesn’t mean you can’t mix things up a bit. Procedural generation and randomisation are very handy tools for making each play session feel unique, but beware: without a good understanding of what makes your gameplay work, even the best procedurally-generated content will fall flat on its face. Procedural systems and randomisation also require a great deal of tweaking and balancing to produce consistently acceptable results - make sure to take that time into account.
- As always, don’t be afraid to approach other community members to contribute to your game, whether it be art, audio, writing or programming. Alternately, don’t hesitate to contribute your talents to an entry that catches your attention!
Good luck and enjoy the competition!
* (Downloading and using Game Maker is recommended for beginners or if you've never prototyped a game before)
Comments
Also thang odd that no one mentioned "You can't play Super Hexagon for 7 minutes" since I'd probably spend my time on that instead of making a game…
Also, time constraint doesn't necessarily MEAN time constraint in the sense you're seeing it. For example each fight in Clash Royale is like 3 minutes or something - there is a timer that does hard cap the game, but the game design is so tight that games are usually over well before that. Devil Daggers is just so damn hard that seven minutes seem impossible anyway (the world record is 10 minutes or so)
@Tuism I was not arguing to stretch 7 minutes over 7 days, I was trying to see if I could do something interesting with the flow and sequence of time.
Btw I think Devil Daggers is an AWESOME game, but a bad example of designing within time constraints. I think a good example would be Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes
What's important is looking at games like Clash Royale and other mobile games where they are acutely aware that they want short game sessions, and thus actively design towards that goal. Heroes of the Storm was designed towards 20 min game sessions (as opposed to every other MOBAs of about 40 min), and while sometimes it overshoots, the design is tight enough to enforce that time constraint more often than not.
So it's not about a timer. It's about a design that delivers a good experience in that time. If there's a timer to do that and it DOES do that, then cool! But it doesn't have to be.
Anyway, looking forward to see what you make :)
I have NO idea what i'll make, let's see :)
I think if you're inspired to do that kind of thing, then you should do it. There are so few games that manipulate time as part of the experience of the game, it'd be a shame not to explore that space.
Also, it can be an interesting commentary on what @Gazza_N mentions in the original post, that developers keep adding time to their games to make them longer, while not adding compelling reasons why the game should be that long. Really scrutinizing the use of time in a game, or making time precious, something the player has to fight for, can buck the trend that this competition is set up in response to (and buck the trend in a potentially more self-aware way than just making a short game).
You might have to explain your thinking to the judges, but if you've made an awesome game you've already won!!!
(P.S. Broforce was made for a jam where the theme was "Small World". It didn't end up mattering that the theme didn't feature in the game, even if we were scored low for theme at the jam.)
As is traditional at this point in the competition, I'll begin updating the first post with a list of all the current entry threads as they pop up. Feel free to take a look and comment, compo fans!
I'm finally on vacation so I have some time, and I want to try and see what I can do in these last 2 weeks.
I just have a question about the rules.
It says any game-play must be confined to the 7-minute slot but menu's etc is allowed.
So is the following fine:
1. The game increases in difficulty as you complete a 7-minute session? (Same game, just numbers balanced to make it harder etc) Edit* I guess this won't be allowed as it does rely on previous sessions
2. Scores are kept between play sessions. For example how many collectibles you've found, sessions completed etc. Won't affect anything in-game, but could be effective if you can get the player to care about these "stats".
Thanks
Until next time, Compo Fans!