Via Slashie of Temple of the Roguelike, news of a NEW game programming challenge: Tiny Game 2010.
A full game in 40×30 PIXELS, using the 16 color EGA palette. I remember EGA; I wrote an EGA video driver way back when I worked for Digital Research, Inc. The original one.
Rules are: 40×30 (or 30×40) pixels, written as a Java applet with no external libraries required.
I’d wanted to write my 7DRL game as a Java applet, but I had concerns about that, as my tests showed troubles running applets on a wide variety of browsers. Nonetheless, I program in Java for a *living*, so the real question is, can I (without the one week time pressure of 7DRL) actually make a *fun* game?
I didn’t get high marks for my 7DRL, and it’s no surprise. I spent almost the entire time working on the engine and the game itself I programmed in about four hours on the last day. Next year, I will start that project with a completed engine, so I will have 7 days for the game.
The real question is, what kind of game to write? My first instinct was to go for a Wizardry-like first person dungeon crawl game, but I saw over on the site that someone had been working on a Eye of the Beholder clone, so that’s right out. So I think it’s the right time to leave my RPG comfort zone, and try something a little new — a rhythm music game.
6 thoughts on “What? A new game programming challenge?”
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Rhythm games are washed up. I’d go for something like a game of Risk, because I think it would be interesting to play something like that 40×30 pixels at a time… new meaning to the fog of war. Just an idea 😛
If I wasn’t lazy, I’d learn more about programming than my current hack skills and make something myself. But then again my 8 month old would have to sleep for more than 3 hours a night before I try to do anything these days 😛
Truth is, nobody is going to actually PLAY any of these games more than five minutes, if that. They’re going to be placed all together on a page. It will be a miracle if anyone spends more than 30 seconds on one of them. So all I really have to do is make a game that will be fun for 30 seconds. I think Risk is a little out of scope, here 🙂
Ha, finally this sounds like my kind of programming. Perl, Java, Python and their ilk are entirely greek to me but I did once as a gawky teenager bang out a playable game in basic on my 16k ram ZX-Spectrum. The screen size was 32×24 if I recall. The game itself involved a runaway tractor that could not be stopped but had to be steered using the arrow keys in order to pick up certain items (turnips no doubt) while avoiding others (rocks). It is possible to make a half way convincing tractor with a surprisingly small number of pixels.
I like to think that “Tractor” was the pre-cursor of such modern classics as Canabalt but my game actually eclipses its better known successor in the sense that while Canabalt only has one control key I was already experimenting with two key (left and right) control back in the early 1980’s. I will happily relinquish all claims to copyright if your muse inspires you to create an agriculturally themed game.
Maybe a Daleks like game, but where you are one little colored pixel on the grid. And the Daleks are other pixels. Most Daleks/Robots like games are relatively simple; the robots only move once every time you do, and the point is to make them run into each other. But maybe you could expand on the theme.
I wonder if we could do a really close-up version of that Doctor Who game…. that might be cool.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see a lot of puzzle games. You *could* make an adventure game; old-school pixel-hunting would be less painful with fewer pixels to hunt in.