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This has been turning into a very nostalgic Wizard Jam for me. Maybe it's because it's the last, and maybe it's because I've been digging deep into the podcast data. Here is a link to all of the header images used in Idle Thumbs podcasts available via the RSS feed. (I set a 10 day timer on this link because that seemed sane, but if you would like it after that feel free to PM me here or in slack ) Idle Thumbs All Pod Images I started making a submarine game, as I just finished up Outer Wilds and absolutely loved it, so I was inspired to make a dark space exploration type game. I have dreams of creating a puzzle like exploration experience, but in the remaining 5 days that isn't going to happen. At the very least I want to give the player an interesting environment to traverse and collect all the IT Pods of the past. Initial movement and mood. It probably won't be this moody but I wanted to make sure the plugin was working.

The game is up at stillworking.me. It’s still got some placeholder audio in the intro, but I’ve inserted the dialog you would have heard as text. Give it a shot! —————— A couple friends and I came up with the idea of a desktop simulator with two windows. One is where you're doing some kind of repetitive work, and the other is a twitch stream. The stream window occasionally moves and resizes itself, and you have to move it out of the way in order to keep working. We'd like to come up with some custom content for that twitch stream, maybe telling some kind of a story related to the work you're doing. I have no idea how it'll turn out in the end, but you can follow along here! I've got a very basic version up on heroku where you can "answer" "questions" while a stream plays (if the random streamer I picked is playing). https://immense-retreat-08775.herokuapp.com

Playable jam version here: https://mantiseyelabs.itch.io/thats-the-stuff Hello, friends, long time listener to Wizard Jam and Idle Thumbs (also I helped make the website, sorry), first time Wizard Jammer! I mostly wanted to participate because it's the last one. Anyway I picked "That's The Stuff" because I've always wanted to make a weird inventory management game. Also it seems like something I'm pretty likely to finish because it doesn't involve any complicated game mechanics or interactive systems (more on that later). Maybe. Plus I can write the entire thing in javascript. The basic idea is you collect "stuff". You have limited spots to store your stuff, but you want more stuff because... having stuff is cool. You can polish your stuff, change your stuff's color and probably level up your stuff. Along with the stuff there are also various non-stuff items you will collect on your journey such as stuff polish and stuff spraypaint. How do you collect stuff? You click a button that will let you find some stuff. You'll find stuff and also inventory items (for your knapsack). You can also earn gold chips, which you can use to buy things that are non-stuff, such as more slots to store your stuff and more space in your knapsack so you can store more inventory. You earn gold chips by having stuff, with different stuff generating gold chips at different rates. None of this is implemented yet, instead I spent entirely too much time working on UI and animation. So here's a gif of that: And yes the game will only have four colors. The game may not be fun but it will hopefully be very addictive! That's the stuff!

Hey everyone, was meant to try and start this one earlier during the holidays but I got really ill just before and spent pretty much the rest of my time recuperating, oh well... on to the Game I'm making a game where you are the shitty wizard and are being chased by a void that is consuming everything in sight. Your goal is to be to outrun the void, avoiding/destroying things in your way and collecting the thumbs cast along the way to the end of the level. Game is 2D and you will be driving down one of multiple lanes, swapping lanes when necessary. I'm working in 2D because I have very little time overall and most of my experience is in 2D anyways. And even then I'm using some Kenney Assets to give me head start. I've been splicing some audio snippets from the podcast like when you pick up a thumbs cast member they say there name and I'll hopefully be able to have some more easter eggs and stuff like that in the game by the end of it so fingers crossed haha! WIP of where I'm currently at, should hopefully have backgrounds and variations etc. soon... Hopefully I'll be able to post some updates before the end date if not I'll at least post one once the deadline has passed

So for this jam, I had the idea for a mechanic where you need to use enemies as resources to continue to the next level. And because I'm a one-trick pony and can apparently only make games where you lift things, lifting and throwing things is going to be the central game play! Here's what I have so far: Enemies shoot patterns of bullets at you, where the pattern is dependent on their level, and each enemy can be between level 1 and 5; A receptacle in the map requires you to throw an enemy of a specific level to unlock the next receptacle and eventually the next map; To upgrade enemies you dive at them to pick them up and throw them at each other. They upgrade based on the combined total of their levels. That's about it! Thanks to help from everyone in the slack channel, I've got this rough demo going already: Things left to do are the receptacle system, levels, menu, health/punishment mechanic, and some basic level design (probably using the same free models I used for WotB). Not sure if that will all come together but I'll see how I go!

[EDIT] The game is now released! I have no idea if it'll break on everyone else's machine, but it seems to be doing okay on mine. Get it here: https://itch.io/jam/wizard-jam-9/rate/457257 -------------------------------------------- Hey everybody, I've been working on this for a bit now, but held off on posting anything because I wasn't sure if it was going to go anywhere. I'm still not sure, but I guess I'm holding myself accountable with this post. This is my first game jam, and my first time using Unity for anything other than a place to dump a bunch of text for other people to deal with (I'm the writer on Beacon, which uses Unity). Given my inexperience, I wanted to keep things very simple. The basic idea is to make a vaguely Papers Please-style game where you have to sit at a desk and sift through an ever-increasing pile of random tweets, pairing them up as iambic pentameter rhyming couplets – essentially being Pentametron in a shitty analogue office setting. I've got the basics up and running, with ~250 different iambic tweets that can print out with maybe 40 or so different possible rhymes, and a scanner/shredder to feed them into to submit them as pairs. Realistic next steps: • Add a basic scoring system to keep track of the ones you successfully pair up. • Add in a bunch of non-iambic pentameter tweets so that you're also tasked with counting out the beats in your head. Optimistic further goals: • Add in distractions and 'events' that will get in the way of you doing your job. • Sound effects. • Create a win state and fail state for the end of the work day. Pipe dream goals: • Create a weird wobbly physics arm and robot claw to replace the cursor. • Make it fun? • Mostly the weird physics arm.

Update - final jam version here: https://rks.itch.io/all_must_fall Hello wizards. I'm attempting a 'Getting over it' style physics climber. You play a creature who can only move by shimmying up and down along a pole that is permanently attached to you. The character is controlled by manipulating the center of gravity by leaning, swapping sides, and shifting the pole. I've got the character controller working. I'm pretty happy with it, although, it can become disorienting when the creature is upside down. Keyboard or Xbox controller controls are: Move up/down pole : W or S - controller: Left Joystick up/down Lean (has no visuals but moves center of gravity): A or D - controller: Left Joystick left/right Switch sides (Has to have room on other side, so doesn't work on ground or when against a wall) : Space bar - controller: A Move Pole: Shift + W or S - controller: Left Trigger + Left Stick Restart (If you get stuck): R - controller: Y

The game has been released! Check it out here: https://itch.io/jam/wizard-jam-9/rate/456934 https://jmolenaar.itch.io/motormouth _______________________________________________________________________________________________________ For this wizard jam I am working with a friend, who may also post some later updates in this thread. This will be his first game in Unity and my first time collaborating on a two-week project. To ensure that we can finish it, we have come up with a simple concept that should be very doable but could also be extended if we have time remaining.The basic idea is to have a 'simon says' main game mechanic where the player is presented with a series of instructions and then has to repeat them. As the game goes on the instructions could get more complicated or have to be completed faster. The visualization for the game is based on the endorsement of 'interacting with humans', from episode 7 of Important if True. The player supports a robot learning to talk and interact with humans. The concept is a bit like the 'First Contact' minigame from rhythm heaven, but it should be pretty different in practice since there is no rhythm element and the input uses different types of buttons. We hope to at least implement conversations and maybe also gestures and other ways of communication. To be clear, there is no real choice in how to communicate, it is just for visual interest and feedback indicating if the right buttons were used. In the mockup above the console and buttons are shown in the bottom of the screen. The buttons flash in sequence and the player presses them in the same order. The basic gameplay is currently implemented, but it is only a single fixed sequence with no loop or randomization. The slider and radial buttons are also not functional yet. We hope to have all the planned control types implemented by the end of this week, as well as having the animations, sounds, etc. hooked up so that we can run through a single complete sequence. After that we should also have a better idea of how we can best set up randomized instruction sequences.

After trying my hand at a heavily authored "experience" last time, it's time to go back to what I like and know-ish: procedural generation. My plan is to have an infinite city where you walk along streets with buildings on both sides and occasional landmarks. I've done a little bit of prototyping and have a basic system for generating a curved road between two points with blocks of varying size as building placeholders. (and there already is a bug...) The big problem right now is how to generate points with connections between them that obey certain rules so the streets don't cross/intersect in weird ways. I've implemented Poisson disc sampling for picking points that are not too close together and now the best step seems to be using Delaunay triangulation to turn that into a net-type thing. Implementing a weird mathematical procedure seems pretty daunting. Further plans/challenges: generate a city-like map of points and lines properly connect streets at intersection points generate building facades out of parts add special features like open squares etc cull/hide streets you can't see for performance dynamically delete old and generate new sections of the city cutting scope for time reasons

Hey all, after a 2 year game making hiatus I am back My game is going to be based on Chris's endorsement on "Sliding down the stairs on your heels as a kid (or something)" where you have to slide down the stairs on your heels(duh!). The game mechanic is going to be something like the grinding sections in a tony hawk(tm) game where you need to keep your balance whilst sliding down the stairs without falling backwards/forwards etc. leaning too much in any direction will cause you to fall and lose your points/multiplier and you need to avoid slipping on toys or getting spotted by your parent. I will try my best to update this thread as I go along My first goals will be making the sliding and leaning mechanics so hopefully will have something to show soon.

Hey all! With the new endorsements theme I have decided to go with Jake's endorsement of the Barbie Trashes Her Dreamhouse gallery by artist Carrie M. Becker. It's really an incredible group of exhibits and I urge you to check it out. As far as a game goes, I have decided to do a first person exploration type game where you roam around Barbie's Dreamhouse and navigate the hordes of trash. I want to try to capture the clutter, and claustrophobia of a real Barbie horde of junk. With the time allotted I have decided to keep it in it's clean plastic mint as unwrapping and texturing all that stuff would be tough. I would like to add some physics to the whole thing as well, but we will see how that plays out. Hopefully in hilarious and dramatic failure. I am away all weekend so I have been working on the dreamhouse over the last few nights. Here is where I'm at so far. Good luck to everyone this weekend, and I'll see you later!

[EDIT] It's playable now: https://wstacey.itch.io/a-christmas-blast Hey everybody! I humbly offer up my late submission to this wonderful jam. A CHRISTMAS BLAST is Die Hard meets WarioWare. Frantically play through all your favorite Die Hard moments: show John McClane the watch, welcome Al Powell to the party, help Hans Gruber shoot the glass! Looking forward to playing through all the submissions!

1.10.19 Long time follower of the Idle Thumbs and Wizard Jam, first time game maker! Started a day or so ago researching what software I’ll build the game in and brainstorming ideas of what will be interesting and the ‘easiest’ for me to do. I’m interested in story and character, so it made sense to begin with something simple using dialogue choices and information. Looked through some titles and found some very evocative ones for Terminal 7. ‘Eventually Your Breathing Will Stop’ has the biggest emotional impact on me so I went for that.. I wanted to tell an engaging story so a Myst-like, point and click game will be easiest for me. I wanted to utilise any vaguely relevant skills I already have, rather than trying to learn too much, so I decided to use pre-rendered 3D backgrounds from a previz app I use called FrameForge. I can very quickly create sets/rooms/backgrounds, then filter them in Photoshop to create a ‘look’. I’ve been researching different options for the engine. Stuff like Twine, GameMaker popped up. The one I’ve settled on, for now, is Unity + Fungus. The challenge will be setting a tone for the game, and keeping things realistic, without feeling too much like an RPG. I’ll be stripping back as much of the Fungus UI as possible. Plot outline: Eventually Your Breathing Will Stop In 1920’s Birmingham, a police inspector is brought in to talk to residents on the street he grew up in, to determine the perpetrator of a recent murderer. There are three suspects - some more likely to be the murderer than others and one very unlikely; an ‘easy’ conviction. It’s your job to find the truth. Feel and Tone Realistic. Nothing surreal, or magical. Simple, engaging story. About people and truth. The player has to deduce based on what they learn. There’ll be no inventory or notebook in game, so they’ll have to take notes as they go. Inspired by games like Sentient, LA Noire, Deus Ex, Thief, Baldurs Gate.

UPDATE: The game is finished and playable here: https://teljoor.itch.io/unmasking-the-brain-burglar And here is the jam entry page: https://itch.io/jam/wizard-jam-8/rate/361002 _________________________________________________________________ Time for another wizard jam! What I want to do this time is create a sort of puzzle game where the puzzle is the Brain Burglar's mask. You'll basically be pulling and prodding different parts of the face to reveal new parts and interactions and finally find the zipper to tear off the mask and move on to the next disguise. It is sort of inspired by the interrogations in the Ace Attorney game series and the game GNOG (though I am basing that on just the trailer, since I haven't yet had a chance to play it). I included limited facial animations with separate features in some of my previous games and I hope I can go a lot further with that here. So far I have ideas for four different phases/faces and at least three should hopefully make it in, with more if time allows. I will be reusing and extending the dialogue system I made for my wizard jam 6 game, The Rooster's Stupid Secret. I am also planning to reuse some of the detective characters from that game so I can quickly set up the premise, so it will be sort of a sequel. I hope to have the first two faces with all interactions and script more or less done by next weekend. Here is a gif of the first face I'm working on. The interactions are pretty basic right now, but hopefully I'll be able to include some real puzzles in later faces. I am using Unity again. It would probably work in 2D, but I am working in 3D with an orthographic camera since that's what I am used to.

"Welcome to the year 2145, [BRaIN 32]. In the face of ballooning human population, you and 44 other Biological Resource and Intelligence Networking System (acronym subject to change) have been tasked with constructing 45 Mega-Towers, where you will manage human power with the goal of preserving an acceptable percentage of human population." Hello all, I'm making a dystopia simulator. It's basically Civ Lite, where rather than overseeing an expanding global empire, you manage a single tower, constructing different sections of the building layer by layer. There's nothing revolutionary in the design at this point; just 3 resources (Money, Happiness, and Production) with a basic buildings/sections corresponding to each (Bank, Mall, and Factory). I have plenty ideas for other systems I want to integrate, such as random events deck that basically functions like Monopoly Chance cards, and buildings like Police Stations which will lower the chance of certain events like riots. Beyond that, we'll have to see how long implementing these elements takes. P.S. Ok one bonus idea: I'm considering including a "character" select where you can choose your BRaIN. Anyone know if there's a list of the brains that were accounted for on Important if True?

Hi folks! I'm going to be writing and illustrating an interactive story for this wizard jam. Took a little bit to find myself again after finishing uni but now I'm working as an artist/illustrator and loving it. I'm teaming up with Jordan Hartley on this, he's composing a lovely score to go along with the story! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Mailbag for a Tattered Nation, an interactive short story This nation is torn, tattered, and bereft. Resources are scarce; hope, long forgotten. This is it, all there is. You find three letters in an old mailbag on the street. You haven't been warm in weeks, this is your chance. Which letter do you want to burn? Whose unfinished story is it time for the world to move on from and forget?

Greetings! The easiest way I can come up with to describe the game I'm planning to make this Wizard Jam is, a breakout versus game where you control your own group of blocks and you are trying to get hit. I am still ironing out some gameplay stuff to see what is best for pacing and balance so things may change. As the title implies, at least to me, you are a sarcophagus falling down a giants esophagus. As you slide down towards the stomach your goal is to shoot objects in the environment that will assist you in digesting/destroying yourself before the other player is able to. At the beginning of the game you are tasked with building your esophagus 'clump' in whatever layout you want, however you are required to include a certain number of blocks. These blocks have a variety of functions, one allows you to fire a projectile to interact with other objects tumbling down, one acts as a traversal block which allows you to move around in the space, etc. I want to also include a single player mode but haven't quite figured out how that will work yet. Appropriately the aesthetic I am going for as I described in slack is "medieval gross". So, kinda dark and dirty, but because you are sliding down an esophagus it will be gross. I foresee the gameplay of this game to be a bit of an adventure, so I'm looking forward to discovering fun and also terrible experiences along the way. Hopefully I can remember to document them here!

I wasn't going to jam this time around, but I couldn't stay away. I decided to do something small as I knew I had limited time, and if posting a dev log after the submission date doesn't give it away I am not done yet. So, I am going to post some of the assets I've done so far, as I continue to refactor my code over and over in an effort to make the most flexible, and scaleable thing I can. (Because apparently I think that's necessary right now) The main point is I want to build a random item generator, similar to the system popularized by Diablo. Here is my sprite sheet thus far. I've been restricting my color palette to 16 colors, and recreating some of the more interesting item types in Diablo. The Hair one was necessary so I could actually roll an item called "Plaited Haircut of the Whale". Mullets are funny, but perhaps I should actually make it plaited. Hmm.

Now available on itch.io: George Fan George Fan, creator of Plants vs. Zombies and Octogeddon, was the titular guest of Designer Notes Episode 28. George Fan: The Game is completely inspired by discussion from the episode. Designer Notes has become one of my favorite podcasts, and the George Fan episode is one that I particularly enjoyed. Soren and George had some good laughs, and I figured I could bash together a game out of it. Since I was crunched for time (and energy), I relied heavily on the Unity Asset store, and other free/affordable resources. This was my first jam to really do this outside of sounds, and I definitely couldn't have made a project even this simple without them. Thanks to all in the Idle Thumbs and Wizard Jam communities for holding this jam and supporting each other. Can't wait to play your games! P.S. If George Fan is reading this, I realize this probably seems weird. I apologize for that, but I assure you I just thought this would be a fun jam game to make and play. Also, listening to bits of this episode again made me download Plants vs. Zombies (the first one) again and I am more into it than any mobile game I've been into for years. Can't wait to see what you come out with next!

You can play it now! https://zirrrus.itch.io/the-fresno-experiment - - - I've been tinkering on this since the start of the jam but don't have much to show yet. It's supposed to be a simple horror game, set in the foggy Fresno swamps(which I assume exist). You walk around and are stalked by a terrifying monster while collecting items/clues to solve a puzzle. That's the idea anyways. So far I have spent most of my time using Unity's tree creator to make some trees(which always end up looking way too vibrant and cheery the intended atmosphere): Played around and found pretty good settings for an ominous fog: And the monster: Right now it looks like I won't be able to make the game I had in mind originally but a heavily downscoped version should be possible.

Get it and play it here: https://fartsatchel.itch.io/wordtris --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Aka they came through the floor. I was indecisive. Meteos but with words. Make words to ignite them (red temp tiles), sending all letters above the completed word's letters up and out of the board. New letters come through the floor. Let the letters stack too high and you lose. I want to add special tiles (clears a line if used in a word, etc), power ups (bombs that you only get by using "B", "O", "M", and "B" tiles to form words), and an adaptive soundtrack like in mini metro. I've never done anything mulitplayer but a versus mode could be super fun. That's WAY down on the priority list though.

Hello! So this wizard jam me and @Synnah have decided to team up and work on an Unreal game together. Unreal both in terms of the engine we're using and our idea's basis in Norse mythology. We've been inspired by the recent God of War game as well as the prevalence of Marvel films which both draw heavily from Norse myth. Specifically there is a mechanic in the new God of War where you have ten seconds to move a *thing* between different nodes, which node the thing is currently in then has a specific effect on the level. For example opening a specific door. Which then closes again once the *thing* is removed. Here's a video if you've either played/watched GoW or don't care about spoilers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJnQOfk_JY8 Our plan is to use this as a basis for a 2.5D platform puzzle game. We'll post more once we getting going but for now here's a wip logo.

UPDATE: The game has been released. You can play it at https://teljoor.itch.io/our-weird-monstrosity ___________________________________________________________________________________________________ For this jam I plan on making a kind of creature creator game based on the episode title 'Our Weird Monstrosity' (Idle Thumbs 300). I really enjoyed mixing facial features to create randomized faces in the game I made during wizard jam 4. This idea will hopefully let me do some more complex stuff in that direction. I am working in Unity and will be using the Doodle Studio 95 plugin to do the graphics. With the plugin I can draw animated textures directly in Unity, so I should be able to quickly get a prototype going. Below is an initial mockup of what the game would look like. You can drag body parts over from the menu on the right and attach them to the base body shape at preset anchor points, kind of like in dress-up games. This should be easy to do using Unity prefabs. It would be great if I could also add a show mode where you can have your monster run around after creating it. Perhaps there could also be some goals in that mode, like earning new monster parts or fighting computer-controlled monsters. I won't really consider that until the base editor is finished, though.

It's done: https://pdotjpg.itch.io/buried-treasure Hope you enjoy! Looking forward to feedback. ====== Based on this Idle Weekend episode. I spent about 2 hours looking through titles of all the podcasts yesterday and brainstorming, and somehow I wasn't getting any interesting ideas, so I settled on this pretty straightforward title. The game's gonna be exactly what it says on the tin: the player will be dumped into a small 3D environment and look for treasure, based on vague directions and crudely drawn treasure maps. I'm basically copying the treasure hunting quest chains in Skyrim and Red Dead Redemption. Those navigational puzzles were basically my favourite parts of those games. This project is also going to be as much about practicing 3D modelling and animation as it is about gamedev for me. My goals for this: A fully animated 3rd person character, and a camera to go along with it A small and pretty 3D environment that can facilitate 5-10 different treasure locations and has solid landmarking Haven't had a chance to work on this yet, but I'm hoping to have a character modelled and rigged up by tomorrow night.

UPDATE! Though the actual game is still far from finished you can play Build the Nublar: Evolved: Prologue, the world's first text-based dinosaur theme park builder, right now! ____________________________________________ ORIGINAL POST So, this is gonna be a weird one. For Wizard Jam 2 years ago I made a game called Build the Nublar. It was a pretty straightforward dinosaur theme park builder and you can play it over here: https://nkornek.itch.io/build-the-nublar For a long time I've actually wanted to come back to the game and flesh it out further, but I refused to just go with a straightforward "add more content" approach. I wanted to change the focus of the game as much as possible. Recently, I came up with an idea of how to do that. My favourite part of the original game was actually that it was impossible to succeed at for more than a few in-game days. No matter what you did eventually the dinosaurs would break out and start eating people, causing you to move irreversibly closer to bankruptcy. I realized that if I took this hidden system and made it the core loop of the game I could make something very unique: A theme park builder roguelike. So, here's the gist: You build your dinosaur theme park, survive as long as possible, and inevitably fail. Then, just like the real Jurassic Park, you come back a few years later and just rebuild right back on top of the ruins of your past attempt, with slightly better tech and potentially salvaging some of your old buildings. The catch: Any dinos that survived your previous attempt can re-emerge from the wilderness to ruin your day. The only problem: Somewhere in the past 2 years I lost all of the source files to the original game. SO I've started remaking the entire thing from scratch. Over the past few weeks I've been working to get some of the baseline systems up and running again, however I'm well aware that there's no chance of my getting all of these goals accomplished by the end of Wizard Jam. I mostly just want to use the next 2 weeks as a chance to really focus my free time towards advancing the project and getting as much as I can done. I may keep this dev log going long after the jam ends just to share progress as I go. ANYWAYS The game is looking pretty cool so far. Having two more years of experience doing programmer art means that the game will look significantly prettier than it did in the past. Here's some progress: I'm keeping the 2D cutout style for the characters and dinosaurs but this time they're rigged onto 3D meshes that can be fully animated. The effect is quite silly looking: The people now come in both Pants Wearing and Dress Wearing forms The snazzy new Visitor's center (This one is a static image but the little fires burn and the fans on the big A/C unity spin, it looks great) And there's still a lot more to come! I've mostly been working on back-end systems like camera control and building placement but now that those are mostly done I can spend the jam focused on making cool content. So stay tuned for updates!