Peace and axle grease.

The idea would be to spice things up from another normal day/night of programming, by picking some target goals or numbers for things we want to work on to accomplish as a group (working on our own projects).

For instance, we could say "We're going to try to write 1500 lines of code tonight as a group, fix 10 bugs, add 10 features, and make 30 commits."

The numbers are all measured collectively as a group (though I could be talked into splitting into two teams and competing or something) so it would add a sort of cooperative feel to this month-long challenge. We could probably all drop our numbers into a shared Google Spreadsheet. (The numbers above are picked out of the air. We'd pick our own numbers together as a group.)

The numbers, of course, would be adjusted based on how many people are doing the coding marathon and how long we decide to do it for. (Though in my head, I'm imagining like an 8 hour overnight thing or a 12 hour day-long thing.)

We could either arrange it for Friday/Saturday overnight, Saturday/Sunday overnight (all-night code marathons are where the good stuff is!) or we could to a Saturday-long coding marathon.

If we all lived nearby each other, I'd totally buy us pizza and turn it into a party…

This could be a good opportunity for people who have gotten derailed by something in the first half of the month (or newcomers) to get back on track, or for others to get a little speed boost heading into the second half of the month.

If this doesn't interest you, no worries. Just do your normal game development. If it interests you, let's start formalizing some plans!

You're past the initial excitement of building a game, and you've began hitting your first big, nasty bugs, and you're struggling with the limits of your chosen architecture. Perhaps you've even had to refactor your architecture a time or two to allow yourself to keep moving forward. On top of that, there's still a ton of game left to make, and with some setbacks or distractions popping up (and life trying to catch up to you again) Week 2 can be pretty rough.

So the purpose of this thread is to talk about what can you do to overcome the mid-month struggles?

I'll go ahead and add a couple of thoughts of my own, but please tell us all what you're doing to survive to the finish line!

Here's my thoughts…

Cut scope ruthlessly; Aim for an MVP. In the startup world, and MVP is a Minimum Viable Product. It's the absolute minimum that you can do and still have some value to somebody. An MVP for a game would be the absolute minimum that would be entertaining to somebody.

Take a few minutes and look at whatever it is you're currently working on. If you you dropped it from the project, would people miss it? If not, it's time to switch to a different feature to work on. That's especially true if it's giving you headaches. It's not worth spending time scrubbing the baseboards in the spare bedroom if the couch in the front room still has your laundry all over it.

Pick the features that are the most useful and do them first.

If things go well, you can always revisit these "should have" or "could have" type features, after the "must haves" are complete.

And the challenge of making a game shifts dramatically after you've got that first playable MVP. There's a "complete" game there, and nobody can take that away from you. For the rest of the month, you can work on growing it from something that barely scrapes by as a minimum into something cooler and cooler every day.

Please don't take this post as me being "preachy". Week 2 has killed me in both of the other competitions… I'm posting this as much to help me motivate myself as anybody else, and I'm certain I could benefit from the things you guys are doing as well. So please do share your thoughts!

I started a post the other day that was supposed to fill this no-update void, but thanks to an accidental hit of the 'back' button on my browser, the whole page got destroyed before it could make it live. Anywhos, just thought I'd throw up what I accomplished over the weekend, which is somewhere between not much (game wise) and a decent amount(object design wise).

Thanks to some constant nagging of RBWhitaker, I picked up a lot on the use of interfaces, as well as some general game design knowledge. That's lead me to rework my game framework somewhat. In the end, I think it will work a lot better with cleaner seperation of code/objects. Below, you'll find the flow chart of the new game framework I'm shooting for. Maybe it can be useful, or just interesting.

So, going by that design, I was able to get the basics working, and create the parallax scrolling backgrounds Castlevania is famous for. I made a video which you will see below. This was mostly for testing things out, and as such when I was creating it, I actually inverted the speed of the backgrounds. That is to say, the stuff in the background is moving faster than the stuff in the foreground. That's been reworked a little, and once I get a little more completed, I'll post another video.

Ok, as it turns out, I made another video with the speeds corrected:

At any rate, still just a little demo to make sure things are working out as planned. I've started work on the texture animation atlas, and should have an update where you can see the player running around shortly!

I started working on a game I've dubbed "Uber Questing" which is really just a simple classic Zelda clone with online multiplayer. I've done networking before but not with .NET sockets so it took a bit to work with but I got the game to have it working. Two days before this post I got to a point where I had 9 map regions in the game, 3 of them being a basic dungeon, and had a working server/client. The only problem I faced was that both the server and client had fixed assumptions about how many enemies were in a region. I wanted to change this and thus ended up with a bit of a nightmare of noticing some design problems on my part. This has caused me to have to use my Pong clone backup for this competition's entry so at least I have something to show for a month of programming on and off lol.

Here's some pretty pics of the Pong clone: Wow I can't even post links to pictures due to low karma…sorry folks. Don't worry you aren't missing out on anything.

It's Pong so not much to expect there. Controls for Player 1 ( Left ) are A and Z while Player 2 ( Right ) has Up and Down. The ball changes speed randomly and the starting speed/direction is also random. There's no cap score like 10 or anything, the game will keep letting you play until you feel bored. Honestly it's not much but at least I can say I didn't come in empty handed :P.

Download Link: None since after trying for 15 minutes now I still can't get around the "too low karma" for links in my post. It's Pong, so not much to expect.

For those of you still interested in Uber Questing ( sorry we haven't ended up playing it yesterday like I hoped :( ) I'm still working on it. I'll keep everyone posted for sure, most likely on the IRC first. I'm hoping after this I'll feel much more comfortable using C# and XNA.

Oh and if anyone here has had experience designing networked games ( I've only done two and only one of them had any serious features ) please feel free to shoot me some advice!

EDIT: So apparently I have too low of a karma to even post links. That will resolve itself the more I'm active here but until then that sucks. Thankfully it's just a cruddy Pong clone.

These achievements are self-claimed. When you feel like you've met the criteria for the achievement, then claim it as your own accomplishment! (Most people list their achievements in their game's development thread, but it's not required.)

It's Just Temporary: You put in artwork in your game that you claim is temporary, until you or your friend can provide you with better art.

The Apprentice Becomes the Master: The competition ends and your temporary art becomes permanent without ever being upgraded to the final version, which was never made. (Requires: "It's Just Temporary")

Law of Live Demos: You show your WIP to somebody. Something goes horribly wrong.

Game Over: You implement the ability for players to lose the game. (Also, you just lost the game.)

Gratuitous Blood: Your explosions and deaths result in far more destruction than is necessary or even believable.

Happy Accident: You accidentally create a bug that leads to humorous results. Post the video or screenshot in the Happy Accident thread.

Time Machine: Worked for over an hour on code that you rip out later that day.

Ninja's Don't Take Off Holidays: Created an Easter Egg featuring a ninja.

Konamified: Make the Konami Code do something interesting in your game.

Head Banger: Use recursion in some form in one of your games.

8 is Enough: Use old school 8 bit graphics or sound/music in your work. Could also be a midi file on the music side.

Occam's Razor: Simplify overly complex code into something smaller and more efficient (The simplest explanation is usually the best)

You've got Class, Baby!: Comment all your classes so they are easy for others to reuse and understand. Since this one may go on forever depending on your number of classes, to earn the badge, you should hit a minimum of 25 commented classes.

That's a Lot of Text!: Comment every line of code in your project to spell things out clearly.

Vincent van Gogh: You create your own artwork for your project.

I'm a Lover, Not an Artist!: You get all, or most of your work, from online sources and do very little of your own artwork.

Special Thanks: Create a credits screen which list all those who have contributed to your project.

"Research": You spend a few hours playing a game when you should have been making one.

50 Hours: You spend at least 50 hours programming your game during the month.

100 Hours: You spend at least 100 hours programming your game during the month.

Moral Support: Leave a comment on somebody else's game thread with (constructive) feedback.

Leveled Up: You learned something that you didn't know that you can reuse in other games or other programs.

3 AM Code Fest: You spend several hours programming your game between the hours of midnight and 6 AM. Beer and pizza optional.

Prototype: You have something that could loosely be called a working game by the end of the first weekend.

Back of the Line: Don't get started until the competition is well underway.

The Thinker: Spend a hour thinking through a complicated piece of code and get it right first try.

The Tinker: Fiddle with a complicated piece of code and get it to work only after a lot of failed tweaks.

You Got Tropes: Use at least three tropes of the game chosen as the theme.

What, Writing, We're Talking About a Video Game: Create a story (however simple) and implement it into your game.

Way to Brag: Claim at least 15 achievements.

Monday: The entire weekend went by and you didn't get any programming done.

Victory: Beat your game for the first time!

The Buddy System: Spend all or part of the challenge building a game in a team.

Mission Accomplished!: The challenge ends, and you actually have a game to show for it!

Wait, We Were Supposed to Make a Game?: The challenge ends, and you don't get the Mission Accomplished! achievement.

½KLOC: Your game reaches 500 lines of code. You're off to a great start!

1KLOC: Your game reaches 1000 lines of source code. Making progress! Excellent!

2KLOC: Your game reaches 2000 lines of source code. Keep it up!

3KLOC: Your game reaches 3000 lines of source code. Your game definitely has some weight behind it!

5KLOC: Your game reaches 5000 lines of source code. Well done!

10KLOC: Your game reaches 10000 lines of code. That is a lot of zeroes! And it's 16 in binary! (That makes it sound… rather unimpressive!)

15KLOC: Your game reaches 15000 lines of source code. Are you programming in your sleep or something?

20KLOC: Your game reaches 20000 lines of source code. Are you just copying and pasting lines of code to unlock achievements?

25KLOC: Your game reaches 25000 lines of source code. OK, you must be cheating. How are you writing this much code?

Better Late Than Never: Complete your game after the competition has ended by less than a month.

You're Still Working on That?: Complete your game after the competition has ended by more than a month.

Silence is Not Golden: Add sound effects or background music to your game. 8 is Enough optional.

The Great Unveiling: Provide a download for your game.

Applying Research: Spend at least an hour programming when you should be doing something else.

That's Quite a Bite: Eliminate at least one game feature due to time pressure or lack of programming knowledge.

Additions: Add at least one game feature that you weren't planning on or didn't think you had time for.

Jurassic Programming - While making your game run into a situation where you must add a ton of code lines to get something to work. (IE: adding points into a collision detection array) - "I wrote a million lines of code to run this park!"

Now! As I've already mentioned, I'm going to be pretty busy this next month, and so, quite naturally, I've chosen an overly ambitious project. I haven't worked out the details, and this is all subject to change, but the idea is this: you're in a house (a spooooooky one), there's some mysterious creature in there with you, and you're trying to get out with limited resources. This will be difficult because of the maze-like quality of the house you're in, among other, undecided upon, but surely chilling obstacles. One thing I definitely want to do is have light play a prominent role - the house will be dark, and you'll have a flashlight, and that will do something. Something awesome!

Yup, that's pretty much it. Simple idea, I know, but I came up with it in about half an hour, and I'm hoping it'll be something I can actually complete. Fingers crossed!

I'll likely make another post later today to give an update on my progress.

-

Tropes:

Upgrade, Upgrade, Outdate (Done)
I never even saw it coming (Done)
Camera Centering (Done)
Newton's Laws (Done)

Achievements:

Vincent van Gogh: You create your own artwork for your project.
It's Just Temporary: You put in artwork in your game that you claim is temporary, until you or your friend can provide you with better art.
You Got Tropes: Use at least three tropes of the game chosen as the theme.
Are We On?: Join the live chat.
Experienced: You've joined 3 competitions or more. (Here or anywhere.)
The Great Unveiling: Provide a download for your game.
Moral Support: Leave a comment on somebody else's game thread with (constructive) feedback.
Gossip Girls: Talk in chat for over an hour instead of programming your game.
Leveled Up: You learned something that you didn't know that you can reuse in other games or other programs.
Victory: Beat your game for the first time!
Applying Research: Spend at least an hour programming when you should be doing something else.
Simple, but not so simple!: Spend way more time going over a question than was anticipated.
George: Ask RB too many questions.
Game Over: You implement the ability for players to lose the game.
½KLOC: Your game reaches 500 lines of code. You're off to a great start!
Way to Brag: Claim at least 15 achievements.
Time Machine: Worked for over an hour on code that you rip out later that day.
The Tinker: Fiddle with a complicated piece of code and get it to work only after a lot of failed tweaks.
1KLOC: Your game reaches 1000 lines of source code. Making progress! Excellent!
Additions: Add at least one game feature that you weren't planning on or didn't think you had time for.
Jurassic Programming: While making your game run into a situation where you must add a ton of code lines to get something to work. (IE: adding points into a collision detection array) - "I wrote a million lines of code to run this park!"
Lonely: Program on a Friday or Saturday evening.
The Apprentice Becomes the Master: The competition ends and your temporary art becomes permanent without ever being upgraded to the final version, which was never made.
Special Thanks: Create a credits screen which list all those who have contributed to your project.
Mission Accomplished!: The challenge ends, and you actually have a game to show for it!
2KLOC: Your game reaches 2000 lines of source code. Keep it up!
Silence is Not Golden: Add sound effects or background music to your game.

Download Link:

https://bitbucket.org/TheMazinTar/shadows-veil/downloads

Basic setup:
-You can pick between 3, 5 and 7 (for PC only because of the much larger screen) lane mode
-Your car is in the middle lane
-Your car moves faster then everybody else's
-Everybody else's cars are randomly spawned in lanes (each lane has a spawning point and a car spawns after a random amount of time - between two numbers to prevent crowding and emptiness)
-You can't control your car, but you can control everyone else's (one at a time and you can switch between them)
-You have full control of the car: Accelerate (then you become faster than your car), Decelerate (you become slower than every car you're not controlling), Left (switch lane to the left unless you're on the edge), Right (Left, only the other way).
Goal:
-You mustn't cause ANY collisions, and your car must pass
Game Modes:
-Survival, more will be considered
Might be implemented:
-Of course, to make some money for the Android, some adds and/or in-app purchases (none of these for PC)
-Skins (like you have cars, then you can have helicopters, boats, spaceships etc.)
-Different game modes
-Power-ups
Two scenarios: pick up during play and instantly use or pick up during play and put in storage and can be activated at any given time (this would also allow power-up purchases - not greedy, just looking at possibilities)
-Shield: shields your car from collisions (pushes other cars away or makes them go through your car), might change name to anti-magnet (since most people associate magnets with pulling, rather than pushing), might have a duration, might be instant
-Enable collisions: You still mustn't hit your car, but you can hit anyone else
-I want MY CAR: You get to control your car for a limited amount of time!
There might be more
Pickup method: still undecided

The speed of the cars is a variable, and will be decided after thorough testing. Difficulty MAY increase over time, or it will stay the same because the sheer amount of multitasking MIGHT be challenging so there wouldn't be a need for the increase in difficulty

So what do you think?
Also, what would you suggest for the OR parts? (Which thing would you pick?)

If you have any suggestions, feel free to post it

Extra information: We will be working in Unity, because of Android (I don't "speak" Java and ADK)

And I would just like to wish everyone who participates (including myself) good luck and lots of enjoyment!

For others reading this later on after the competition has already started, it's never too late to sign up!

But at the moment, I'm drawing a blank on the tropes that show up in Castlevania. Can somebody get the ball rolling on these tropes? (PiscesMike?)

I won't commit to daily updates or anything like that (which I've done in the past). I just don't know how things are going to go.

What I will commit to is at least 5 downloadable updates, hopefully mostly on Sunday nights, starting at the end of the first weekend.

I've been pretty busy doing some design work, and I actually made some pretty significant changes to what I want to build to try to bring the scope a little more under control.

I'm still open to team mates if people are interested, though I know it would probably be helpful for me to post some more details on the game. I'd love to find an artist to work with me, but if I don't get one, I've already decided that I won't stress about the art side too much, and just focus on making a game that functions well. (The art has been my downfall in the past…)

I'm hoping to post a "2-page sales pitch" in this thread soon (tomorrow?). Hopefully that will give people a better idea on what the game I'm trying to make is. (And hopefully it will clarify things for me as well.)

Aside from that, I'm hoping to spend a good part of the weekend doing some UI framework development. I think I might stream some of it live on Twitch, in case you're interested in that…

These rules are tentative. Discussion will follow below, and any changes that are agreed upon will be updated in this post.

0. Winning Conditions: You win if you complete a game in the allotted time. You lose if you do not. (You get a partial victory for creating a partial game.)

1. Create a complete game in the allotted time frame. For Competition #3, this is 31 October 2014 to 30 November 2014 (31 days total). The word complete and game are pretty loose. If you think it's complete, it is. If you think it's a game, it is. But it probably means not starting on your game early, and it probably means not having (many) bugs, and it probably means not leaving any half-finished features on the last day. (You can continue to work on the game after.) Starting on the design early, or working on generic cross-game framework code are both allowed.

2. It should be sellable. Not that you have to actually attempt to sell it, and not that if you tried to, somebody would pay money for it, but you should pay careful attention to licensing agreements and avoid copyrighted material (or get permission from the copyright holder). For anything that requires attribution, the copyright holder should be listed in the credits.

The purpose of this is to (a) push people in the direction of making sellable, marketable games and to consider what that might take, and to leave it open as an option, and (b) to make it easier to post images and videos and even sections of your source code to the forums here for bragging/feedback/discussion.

3. Show it off here. To claim victory, you must show off your game here in the forum. A download link is preferable, but screenshots, video captures, and cool descriptions of what you did is sufficient as well.

While not required, consider creating a thread (or more than one) for your game, and give us updates, or get feedback on what others think. Likewise, if somebody is asking for feedback on their game, take some time to give constructive feedback as well. (Please be respectful of the hard work that others have put into their games.)

4. There are no restrictions on team size. If you want to work alone, do it. If you want to work with somebody else that you've found on this forum, do it. If you want to work with some friends, do it. Teams of 1 and teams of 100 are accepted.

5. There are no restrictions on what engines, frameworks, or platforms you use. I suspect most people will use XNA or MonoGame considering that's been the focus of this site, but if you prefer Unity, JMonkeyEngine, or something else, feel free to do so.

Theme: Castlevania. The theme for this competition is Castlevania. That means some people are going to be creating clones of Castlevania or draw from elements of Castlevania, like the "haunted" theme or the 2D sidescrolling platformer trope. But there are no requirements to stick to this particular theme, and many other people will be doing something completely unrelated. (The theme is mostly here to give people some ideas and a starting point, if you're at a loss for ideas.)

I have a rather long list of expectations that I would have of any team members, but probably nothing too surprising. I think the biggest catch is that I basically want to be the one to pick the game, because I have something specific in mind that I want to do, and I'd rather do the idea alone than do another idea with a team.

But before I took the time to actually list them all out, I wanted to just put some feelers out to see if anybody was maybe interested or open to considering it. (If you've got a specific game in mind already, or if you prefer to work alone, then you're probably better off without me anyway….)

If it makes a difference to you, the game I want to make is, in a nutshell, a space fleet strategy game with a simultaneous turn-based mechanic. It draws pretty heavily on the few space-themed tabletop wargames that I'm familiar with, so think of Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures, but on the fleet scale instead of the squadron scale.

It's ambitious, to be sure, but I think having a team rely on me will force me to stick with it better than I have in the previous two competitions. Perhaps that applies to you as well.

I'm not looking for firm commitments right now. I just want to know if there is anybody who is open to considering it, in which case we can get into the details and my lengthy list of expectations. (I'm quite certain that there's nothing that will catch any of the "regulars" off guard in my expectations.) You can establish your own expectations as well, and if we all feel good about it, we can formalize our little team and start making plans!

As always, if you don't like the theme, don't hesitate to try something a little different by reusing some of the tropes from the game or by just doing something completely unrelated!

Since we all seem to pretty well agree that the third programming competition will run from October 31st to November 30th, I think it's about time to decide on the theme.

The last couple of times, we've chosen arcade type games for the theme, and, if there are more good ones out there that we can all agree on, I'd like to continue with that trend. Another thing I think we should keep doing is using tropes - I think that it's a really nice balance for the games made being similar while still allowing for creative ideas.

What do you guys think?

Here's the idea.

1. At the start of the competition, people can optionally pay $25 into a pot. I'd collect the cash (probably through PayPal, though perhaps a check or something could work as well). Obviously, $25 is pretty arbitrary. It could be $10 or $50 or whatever. We can sort the details out as we go.

2. The people in this category might have some sort of extra accountability requirement that they need to follow during the competition, like required weekly updates, or X number of daily updates, or something of that kind. (Or not.)

3. At the end of the competition, you must declare whether you won or not. If you won, you must submit your game in a format that is distributable to the crowd. (This can be pretty flexible. We don't need your source code. An EXE or a free account on the finished web-based game or something. Just something so we can play it.)

4. Regardless of whether you won or lost, you'll get a copy of all of the games in this category. Sure, they'll mostly be kind of silly, simple, cheesy games. That's OK.

5. If you lost, you don't get any money back. You can consider it a purchase of the games you receive from #4.

6. The collected money is divided out to the winners equally. If you won, this is payment for the game you made! Congratulations, you sold some copies of your game to real customers! Depending on the number of people who sign up, and the number of people who complete the game, as long as you win, you'll get at least your own money back (plus the games in #4 for free). But if 8 people do this, and 4 drop out, you'll actually make a profit!

For me, what I think this would accomplish is that it would give us all more motivation to finish our games. If you put a small amount of cash down on it, you'll be more motivated to finish it. If you think you might end up with some extra money, you'll definitely be more motivated. And to top it off, you'll be able to brag about how you sold some copies of your game!

I'll handle the money, and I'd pay any overhead charges (like from PayPal). You'll just be responsible for getting the money to me, and for building your game.

So. The question is, if this were an option in this upcoming challenge, would you participate or would you pass?

The Goal: The goal of the competition is to make a complete game…
1. On your own (teams are allowed, but this should be your own creation, not stolen or half stolen from the Internet)
2. In the allotted time frame (usually 31 days, see here for more info)
3. Preferably sellable (bug free, usable, and keeping an eye on the licensing and copyrights of the art assets you… ahem… "borrow" from the Internet.

Non-Requirements: Aside from that, things are pretty casual. There are no limits on…
1. Team size. While most people have been going alone, if you've got a friend or 10, you're still allowed. (More people isn't always better though.)
2. Tools/frameworks/engines. This site has a pretty heavy XNA/MonoGame focus, but if you want to use SharpDX, C++, WebGL, Unity or anything else, go for it.
3. Type of game. We often chose a theme of some sort, but it's never enforced, and only occasionally followed. Naturally, some types of games are more complicated than others (RPG, RTS, FPS, or anything with MMO in the description). Most people pick casual or arcade style games, but feel free to do whatever you want.

Winning: So how do you "win"? On the last day of the competition, you log into the forum and you say, "I won!" Seriously. Nobody is really going to enforce it. However, most people tend to post periodic updates. We all like sharing our progress and getting feedback in the forum and chat room, but all of that is optional.

What Do I Get For Winning? Five million dollars. But first, you have to give me $10K so I can get it from my bank in Nigeria. Honestly though, what you get out of it is a working game, that you could theoretically sell! That's a huge deal! It looks great on a resume, it feels great as a developer, and if you actually sell it, you might actually make a little cash on the side.

We've talked about some sort of other small prizes. That's a possibility, but the real prize of the challenge is in creating a game. So lying about winning only hurts yourself.

Signing Up: Usually, we post an official signup page in the last week or two before the competition starts. There, you can tell us about yourself, introduce us to the game you want to make, and we can get an idea of how many people will join. (The last two times, there have been 6 or 8 people who signed up.)

If you have questions about how these challenges work or what to expect, feel free to ask!

So far, we've done these competitions as month-long challenges, and that time frame has worked pretty well for people. (Enough time to do something serious, without being so long that you feel like you'll never get your life back.)

I propose that we go for another month-long challenge. (Though if you want a different length, now's the time to speak up!)

I'll also propose that we run during November.

Technically, we would run from the 31 of October to the 30 of November to get the weekends on each end. We've typically done 31 days, and set it up to cover four weeks plus a weekend. Unless we change the duration, I don't see a reason to change that.

Thoughts?