Global Game Jam 2013 – Deprivision

Written by MentalFish. Posted in Games

On this year’s Global Game Jam I teamed up with Stefan Svellingen to create an augmented reality game we titled Deprivision. It is a game where you don’t see the game world, but have to use audio only to navigate the level to avoid pit falls and monsters. The player uses a wireless headset with a PlayStation Move controller duct taped onto it. The move controller tracks the player’s position and rotation, and via the PS3 move.me application this is sent to Unity for us to use.

Deprivision

This is how the level looks like for the audience watching it being played, while the player don’t get to see this at all, while playing.

When coming close to a pit, the heart rate increases and the monster is making monsterish sounds such as flapping its wings and growling. When turning the head the player can get a sense of direction to where things are in the room, and the sound volume + heart rate indicates proximity.

The shape of the level is the same as the field of view of the PSEye camera and the player is supposed to get to the other side of the level without dying.

The concept works and is quite fun to play, but we would have to optimise and tweak it some more for it to play better. The concept was thought up on the saturday with only 24 hours to go and all the Move gear was bought that same evening. It took six hours to get the move.me app purchased and downloaded since we are located in Norway and I guess we are not supposed to have it? Is my 100$ not good enough for you Sony? The game itself got implemented on the last day, during the 6 last hours of the game jam.

All the visual assets are from the Unity Asset Store, so props and thumbs up goes to the amazing people of the Unity community.

This is my January #1GAM entry.

Download for:
Windows
Mac
Linux

A new year, and a new game, every month

Written by MentalFish. Posted in Games

A new year, with new opportunities and good times ahead. It is early in the morning 6.30 right now, and I am about to go to regular work, but first I’ll do a quick post about my first entry to the one game a month challenge. I have decided to join this, to push myself into finishing 12 small game projects throughout 2013. It will be a challenge for sure, since it will not be a full time endeavour. I am sure it will teach me to think small and scope projects accordingly. Some months I might fail the challenge, but all in all I hope to get a double digit game release count this year.

Some of the games will most likely be a joint venture between me and Leigh Bamforth as well as the great peeps from Henchman & Goon, while some games will be solo projects, programmer art and spaghetti code FTW.

First project up is a Word War I plane game, inspired by classic Amiga side scrolling shooters as well as modern infinite runners with simple tap and swipe mechanics. Visual art style will be heavily influenced by art deco. Even thought the style came just after the war had ended, it works well when portraying bi-planes and anything that would look like war propaganda. Perhaps an unholy mishmash of art deco and art nouveau will be the way to go?

Unity will be the game engine of choice, of course, and LightWave will the trusty steed for content. I’ll be posting mini updates on twitter while major milestones will be posted hereabouts.

…2013, bring it on!

Unity+Android on Mac

Written by MentalFish. Posted in Games

Right off the bat, installing the Android SDK was a bit of a “huh?” moment, but I came across this nice guide for getting up to speed with installing the Android SDK on a Mac: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTh1i-7D75o

So to recap and make it more geared towards Unity peeps, do this:

  1. Download the latest SDK: http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html
  2. Unpack it and place it somewhere, i.e. /Developer/android-sdk-macosx/
  3. Fire up a terminal window go to /Developer/android-sdk-macosx/tools and execute the Android SDK Manager:   ./android
  4. When the window pops up, check the boxes for target APIs you need, and hit “Install x packages” <- x the number of packages to install
  5. Connect your Android device to your Mac with a USB cable and go to it’s Settings->Applications->Development->USB debugging and turn it on
  6. When you build for Android in Unity the first time, point it to the /Developer/android-sdk-macosx/ folder when it asks for the SDK location

Tadaaa!

if(Tadaaa==false)
{
RestartUnity(“BuildAndRunAgain”);
}

Game Dev 2012

Written by MentalFish. Posted in Games

Its 2012 and the local peeps are awesome. After attending Bergen Game Jam last weekend and the first international Join Game conference yesterday and today, one can not help but to be excited and inspired to get back into the game dev mode. I need to update some LScripts and I think some Unity/C# scripts should be released too. Sharing is caring.

If you so happen to be a Norwegian or a local Bergeneese, head over to spillmakerlauget.no and join in on the game dev fun. If you are in the 3D/CG realm, then also head over to cgbergen.org and join the mailing list.

Full steam ahead!

Holocron

Written by MentalFish. Posted in Games

It’s been a few days since the Android version went live, and I am awaiting the approval process from the App Store. In any case, the swtor.com RSS reader marks the kick off for many iOS and Android apps in the coming months.

New game in development: B.A.G.

Written by MentalFish. Posted in Games

MentalFish and Scary-Monsters have teamed up to deliver an absurd experience in the form of a 3′rd person shooter named B.A.G. The game is a tribute to the 80′ies comic D.R. & Quinch and will feature ridiculous weaponry for disposal of annoying aliens.

Leigh Bamforth has created some awesome models and first up is one of the two characters:
Unity turntable of Quinch in all his splendor.