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Hello again, friendly people! In case you're not on the Slack or Discord, I am running a new game jam in the spirit of Wizard Jam for Nick's streaming community (https://www.twitch.tv/idlethumbs... you might know it!) We are starting this next Thursday, The Fools Day, and working all through the first 3 weeks of April, finishing up before the end of the month, and then having Nick & others stream in May. Much like Wizard's Jam past but now annual and slightly longer & tweaked. The spirit of Dot Gobbler remains, folks are encouraged to contribute however they can and try new things. Really whatever you want to do or create to have Nick or pals experience on stream. No worries bout finishing either. Just good vibes and friends makin fun stuff~~ COME JOIN US More details can be found here: https://itch.io/jam/jam-baby-jam-2021

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

This thread is for folks seeking a team to work with! If you have a particular set of skills and want to contribute to someone else's game, post in this thread, preferably in the below format. If you find a team, please edit your post and note that. If you're looking to recruit members for a team, and there's no one here who fits the bill, you can pimp your team in the team recruiting thread. And everyone can join the #wizardjam channel on the Idle Thumbs Slack channel for team-building, advice or just live chit-chat while we're working on our games! Format: What I'm Doing: What you're able to contribute and your experience level Contact Info: Your contact info (PM, email, whatever) And optionally: Time Zone: It's probably easier to work with people who aren't 12 hours off from you? But maybe it's fine. Portfolio: A link to your portfolio / website / whatever if you have one, so people can check your style. [Then whatever else you want.] Example: What I'm Doing: Programming; I'm a web developer and don't know any game engines but would like to learn. Contact info: PM me on the forums or message me on the Idle Thumbs Slack Time Zone: EST (UTC -5) but I'm usually up late Portfolio: I've never made a video game but here's my website! www.puffin.biz I've been programming for a long time and am a terrible artist, I'd like to team up with someone who has a little Unity experience that can help teach me and also do art. Willing to work 24 hours a day for 2 weeks straight and my cat can do a perfect Wario impression. Template: What I'm doing: Contact Info: Time Zone: Portfolio: Thanks to those who came before me and created this thread format. I am standing on the shoulders of giants.

This thread is for recruiting team members! If you have a game idea and need help from a reader with a particular set of skills, post in this thread, preferably in the below format to make it easy for people to find you. Once you have enough members, please edit your post and note that. If you're an individual looking for a team to join, and there's nothing here that suits, you can pimp your skills in the team-seeking thread. And everyone can join the #wizardjam channel on the Idle Thumbs Slack channel for team-building, advice or just live chit-chat while we're working on our games! Format: Pitch: Game Pitch (Try and keep this to one or two sentences!) What I need: What you need (Artist, programmer, writer, etc) What I'm doing: What you're contributing Contact Info: Your contact info (PM, email, whatever) And optionally: Time Zone: It's probably easier to work with people who aren't 12 hours off from you? But maybe it's fine. Portfolio: A link to your portfolio / website / whatever if you have one, so people can check your style. [Then whatever else you want] Example: Pitch: I wanna make 'You, Fisher', a 3D stealth fishing game about casting lines without being spotted by security, and catching as many fish as possible before sunrise. I want to learn UE4 and C++ What I Need: 3D artist who can animate some fish (and help with design!) Audio person to make some sneaky music and fish noises. Smoky jazz? What I'm doing: Programming in UE4, Sam Fisher impressions Contact info: PM me on the forums or message me on the Idle Thumbs Slack Time Zone: EST (UTC -5) but I'm usually up late Portfolio: Here's my website with some gifs of other games I've made! www.puffin.biz I've been a fan of Splinter Cell since first seeing screenshots of their dynamic shadows in ~2005 and I have a Sam Fisher bust above my fireplace. I'd like the game to have a light stealth system, fully rigged realistic humanoid characters, and a dynamic music system that's entirely early-2000s style drum and bass but made exclusively out of samples of water splashing and seagull noises. Template: Pitch: What I need: What I'm doing: Contact Info: Time Zone: Portfolio: Thanks to those who came before me and created this thread format. I am standing on the shoulders of giants.

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!

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

I wasn't completely sure that I would have time to make a game this time around, and that uncertainty remains, but I'm going to try goshdarnit!! I am basing my game on Nick's endorsement from Episode 3: Finding and frequenting your neighborhood bar. Whether it will make for a good game or not, I decided to do an NES-style mashup of Wizardry/Dragon Warrior (Quest)/the Mac Venture Games. Is this too ambitious for this jam? Probably so, so I am going to adapt as I go. I will try to cut things down to their essence as far as battle/item systems go. Also, I am not sure yet if the game will involve one trip to the bar or let you come and go several times until you can "conquer" it. This whole thing is being developed very free-form, so I just don't know. So far, I have created the basic layout of the screens and started coding up a system to display each space on the map in the "corridor" view window. I also set up the system to display the text character-by-character at a reasonable speed, as shown in my one lowly screenshot so far. Hopefully I can get about done with the mapping/viewing system tonight and then on to movement.

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!

This thread is for recruiting team members! If you have a game idea and need help from a reader with a particular set of skills, post in this thread, preferably in the following format to make it easy for people to skim the thread and find you. You should also look for collaborators in the team seeking thread and come join the #wizardjam channel on the Idle Thumbs Slack channel and see if anyone can help out. Or just drop in and chit-chat with us while you're working on your game! And if you have enough members, please edit your post and note that. This is the recruiting/LFM thread; if you want to post what you're able to contribute and have someone else find you, use the team seeking/LFG thread. Format: Pitch: Game Pitch (Try and keep this to one or two sentences!) What I need: What you need (Artist, programmer, writer, etc) What I'm doing: What you're contributing Contact Info: Your contact info (PM, email, whatever) And optionally: Time Zone: It's probably easier to work with people who aren't 12 hours off from you? But maybe it's fine. Portfolio: A link to your portfolio / website / whatever if you have one, so people can check your style. Then whatever else you want. Example: Pitch: I wanna make 'You, Fisher', a 3D stealth fishing game about casting lines without being spotted by security, and catching as many fish as possible before sunrise. I want to learn UE4 and C++ What I Need: 3D artist who can animate some fish (and help with design!) Audio person to make some sneaky music and fish noises. Smoky jazz? What I'm doing: Programming in UE4, Sam Fisher impressions Contact info: PM me on the forums or message me on the Idle Thumbs Slack Time Zone: EST (UTC -5) but I'm usually up late Portfolio: Here's my website with some gifs of other games I've made! www.puffin.biz I've been a fan of Splinter Cell since first seeing screenshots of their dynamic shadows in ~2005 and I have a Sam Fisher bust above my fireplace. I'd like the game to have a light stealth system, fully rigged realistic humanoid characters, and a dynamic music system that's entirely early-2000s style drum and bass but made exclusively out of samples of water splashing and seagull noises. Template: Pitch: What I need: What I'm doing: Contact Info: Time Zone: Portfolio: --------------------- Thanks to @Dinosaursssssss and @zerofiftyonefor writing the original set of team building threads this was based upon and @Spenny who I flagrantly just ctrl+c & ctrl+v'd into this thread with a different title with formatting I like less upon reflection. I also updated the link to the other thread. Exhausting.

This thread is for folks seeking a team to work with! If you have a particular set of skills and want to contribute to someone else's game, post in this thread, preferably in the following format to make it easy for people to skim the thread and find you. You can also drop by the #wizardjam channel on the Idle Thumbs Slack and chat with people to find teammates. Or just drop in and chit-chat with us while you're working on your game! And if you find a team, please edit your post and note that. This is the team seeking/LFG thread; if you have a game idea and want to recruit people, use the recruiting/LFM thread. Format: What I'm Doing: What you're able to contribute and your experience level Contact Info: Your contact info (PM, email, whatever) And optionally: Time Zone: It's probably easier to work with people who aren't 12 hours off from you? But maybe it's fine. Portfolio: A link to your portfolio / website / whatever if you have one, so people can check your style. Then whatever else you want. Example: What I'm Doing: Programming; I'm a web developer and don't know any game engines but would like to learn. Contact info: PM me on the forums or message me on the Idle Thumbs Slack Time Zone: EST (UTC -5) but I'm usually up late Portfolio: I've never made a video game but here's my website! www.puffin.biz I've been programming for a long time and am a terrible artist, I'd like to team up with someone who has a little Unity experience that can help teach me and also do art. Willing to work 24 hours a day for 2 weeks straight and my cat can do a perfect Wario impression. Template: What I'm doing: Contact Info: Time Zone: Portfolio: --------------------- Thanks to @Dinosaursssssss and @zerofiftyone for writing the original set of team building threads this was based upon and to @Spenny who stole the previous version which I have copied here, including this final line.

https://itch.io/jam/wizard-jam-9 Hello and welcome to WIZARD JAM, the bi-annual Idle Thumbs community-run game jam! With two of the vanguard podcasts from the Idle Thumbs network on indefinite hiatus, we are going to change things up a little, so make sure you read about the new theme below! Wizard Jam is not a contest; the main emphasis is to celebrate the Thumbs community through sharing and collaboration over the course of a fortnight. We write devlogs and post GIFs. We offer support and volunteer music, sounds and other assets. We play each other's games and stream them. It's a lot of fun! The other thing we try to emphasise is encouraging people to try making something new and unfamiliar; or to try game development for the first time entirely (quite a few of the entries we've had in the past are from complete first-timers to gamedev!). We run the jam over the course of two weeks to give people the room to try something weird and see how it turns out. Use this subforum to make development log threads, recruit folks, and chat about development related stuff! There's also the game development subforum and the #wizardjam slack channel. Not in the Slack? You can join us by CLICKING HERE! We're here hanging out in between Wizard Jams too, come say hi! We have a twitter account, @wizard_jam, to help share everyone's progress or just let the fans follow along! Tag @wizard_jam or use the #wizardjam hashtag when you post progress updates so we can retweet your stuff! Wizard Jam - Friday, July 12th to Sunday, July 28th Showcase Weekend - Saturday, August 3rd to Sunday, August 4th The Idle Thumbs Podcast Network is alive and well, but the many of the 'casts haven't had a new episode in a while. To give some relief to the database of episode titles, we are going to try a new theme this jam: Endorsements. Each episode of Important If True featured the hosts' endorsements of all sorts of things they found helpful, enjoyable, or enriching. Fortunately for us jammers, these are great inspirations for games! Choose an endorsement from an episode of Important If True and use it as a theme prompt for your game. A spreadsheet of the endorsements has been compiled here, and if you need further information (like links and humorous alt-text), you can get the full details in the show archive: https://www.idlethumbs.net/importantiftrue/episodes If you have been planning on making a game based on an episode title, feel free to do so! As reinforced in the "Important Points" below, we don't have a lot of strict rules and want you to be excited about what you are creating! This jam is not a competition, and there is no minimum level of game development experience needed to join. People from all backgrounds are welcome to participate. If you're new to gamedev, let us know! Join us on the forums and on Slack; where you'll find help, advice and encouragement from the community. Wizard Jam began out of a desire to help people get starting making games, so don't be shy! Aside from the next 2 administrative points, there are no rules. You don't HAVE to use an endorsement. You don't HAVE to make your entire game in the 2 weeks allotted. Most people will, but if you come in a little late, or get started a little early, or submit something unrelated to the podcast that's A-OK! Entries containing any form of harassment or hate-speech are not permitted. Anything crossing into this territory will be removed. If an entry is clearly from someone trying to use the jam page on Itch to promote an unrelated game, we'll contact the submitter and the entry may be removed. Stay spicy!

[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!

"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?

Edit: now available at https://ke51n.itch.io/meet-the-kerfluffles In this game you play as the Kerfluffles. Your goal is to infect all humans and turn them into Kerfluffles. The plan is to have a open world neighborhood you can move your Kerfluffle army through and infect all humans and add them to your ranks. There may be some light puzzle solving such as dealing with armed humans, humans refusing to get out of their cars, humans in pools (Kerfluffles can't swim), etc. This gif is a very early test of animations and the basic mechanic. From here, I want to implement flocking behavior to allow a whole swarm of Kerfluffles to move around semi realistically, starting to design the environments, and getting the humans moving around. Based on https://www.idlethumbs.net/idlethumbs/episodes/meet-the-kerfluffles

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!

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.

Just thought I'd make a quick thread for my game before Showcase Weekend. No screenshots or game footage unfortunately because my computer shit the bed the very next day after submitting Cavorting Amongst the Corpses is a basic platformer where my design focus was mainly on combat and enemy behavior. In a system inspired by Viewtiful Joe, enemies will telegraph whether their attack will be high or low, and you'll have to block accordingly in order to stun them and counter attack. There are four enemy types, each with a unique twist. A boss battle was cut for time, so the game doesn't really have an ending. This is my first jam game, and I hope people will enjoy and leave plenty of feedback. Game located here: https://itch.io/jam/wizard-jam-6/rate/210893

Il Panino di Brutto Sogno is a sandwich making puzzle game I made for the jam. I didn't really keep a Dev log, but it was really fun to make. It combines the order system of Overcooked with the tile matching of a game like Bookworm. You can play the game here: https://kleinzach.itch.io/panino

The Genie of Hoisting is probably going to be about managing an island, simulated really simply. You'll be able to ask the Genie for "wishes" along the lines of "I wish that a plant were in this spot" or eventually "I wish all poo disappeared from the island". I haven't decided how frequently you get to wish. I had a couple days to get it going last week and have been able to chip at it for a few minutes here and there since then. Right now, I have a few entities rudimentarily modeled: - People - Poo - Plants - Meat They eat, they die, they decay, and plant life springs anew from critical masses of poop, just like in real nature (I assume). None of the wish stuff is there, and a lot more needs to be modeled. The events need to be presented in a far more graspable way. Then, maybe graphics?

PING (now released) My Wizard Jam Oeuvre: Devil’s Snuff Box – Wizard Jam 2 (aka Winter Wizard Jam) Cool Blob Future – Wizard Jam 4 Suddenly, the King of France! – Wizard Jam 5 I also helped out on Eyes of Luigi for Wizard Jam 3, primarily making sure that Luigi’s singing was synced with Drake! Source Title: Idle Thumbs Episode 205: LPBs and HPBs [Low Ping Bastards and High Ping Bastards] Background: Growing up, I loved to play submarine combat games, particularly GATO and Silent Service II. Then there was Hunt for Red October, which had me completely entranced with submarine warfare, and particularly the use of sonar for navigation and combat. I’ve been interested in making a game about sonar, but don’t have the bandwidth, team, or knowledge to make a complete submarine warfare game. Enter Wizard Jam and an episode title conveniently containing the word “ping” in it. Surely I can try to capture some parts that I loved in those sub games without just copying a sub game. Well, maybe not so surely, which is one reason why I’ve waited this long to start a devlog. I’m feeling good about the concept now, so I’m finally getting this going! Game: You have been placed in a cobbled together underwater defense system to prevent the incoming assault on your home. Your station is a vertical tube, with the ability to monitor the four cardinal directions with active sonar (pings) and fire torpedoes at hostiles that encroach into your defense zone. Pinging targets and then evaluating which ping hits should be used to create a firing solution is how you must supplement the defense tube’s computer and defend your zone. Gameplay will involve visually evaluating the area through your portals, pinging in the different directions, and then evaluating the recorded data to destroy enemies. Here is a look at the current views within a zone. There will be more elements in the main zone soon, but everything is there to track and attack enemies now. The goal is to create a tense, always busy scenario where you are constantly swapping between viewpoints and performing actions with in-game interfaces. I accidentally settled on an aesthetic of “how I remember Myst.” I am not going to ruin my vision by doing research, but just try to make it have a similar electro-mechanical not-quite-right vibe to it all. I am hoping that gifs and updates that I post will slowly make everything more clear. I plan to have some in-game instructions and other elements to help players grasp what’s going on, which is… How You Can Help: If you are interested in any of the below, please feel free to send something to me. I am on the Idle Thumbs Slack, and I can send you my email address via the forums PM if you’d like. Let me know if you would like to contribute! I would really appreciate it. Candid photo of you, a pet, or someone you know and have their permission to put into a random WizJam game. A picture someone else took is preferred, as opposed to a selfie. I hope to use these as possible decorations in the tube to help keep players oriented. I might apply filters to your photos to make them look older, or similar processing, but I won’t do anything mean. Also, try to avoid having any sort of technology in the pictures… Like you on your mobile phone or draped across a sports car. One person to do voice work. Needs to be someone who sounds serious and commanding. Need not be male or female specifically. Think either a military person or maybe a slightly off-kilter genius/scientist type. Should mainly be a few intro lines and maybe a handful of other sayings. Thanks for reading and considering helping me out! I will start posting updates and gifs ASAP from stuff I have already done so you can get a better feel for this. The game has been released! Please give it a try! https://whogas.itch.io/ping

Hey everyone! Group of friends and I finished our first Wizard Jam game. Play Tetris while other users submit blocks through http://endingthealphabet.xyz/. Loosely inspired by the jackbox series and designed to be played over a twitch stream. Hopefully we can get a big crowd of people submitting blocks over next weekend, time to be determined!

The objective of the game is to delivering advertisement pamphlets by mail to people who don't want it. The player must travers a small neighbourhood and deliver several pamphlets right to peoples’ doorsteps. The way there is somewhat hazardous, with dogs and robot mowers in the way. The game looks and plays like a classic Zelda game. The player can walk in eight directions, talk to NPCs and must complete missions for them to progress. As I am planning to use a lot of the assets and behaviours from this game in a larger project I am working on, everything will take place in one level. The player can walk around and is only limited by "hard gates". For example, will a street be blocked by a police car, which can be moved if the player helps a suspicious individual in the neighbourhood. Because I want to use the assets later, the world is built to be flexible. The world consists of several sectors. These are one screen in Zelda games. Each sector also holds a set number of squares. To continue the analogy with Zelda, Link takes up one square in the classic games. Each square has a list of possible assets it can hold, for example a hedge or a mailbox. The parameters of the world can be changed and everything within it will follow. If the world scales, the assets will follow and I won’t have to align everything again. By building the world this way I hope it will save time when the detail designing of the level starts. Each number represents a sector. The lines between them divides the NavMesh, with confines NPCs to one sector. The parameters for the game world. Each square's content can be changed. Sector one with empty squares. Sector one with some squares with hedges.

Hey all! I've started work on a tiny Wizard Jam game with the title "Great Play, Dad!" The back-of-the-box summary is this: Impress your kids by putting on the theatrical experience of a lifetime! Unfortunately, it looks like the rest of the stage crew called in sick, so you'll have to work hard if you want to hear "Great Play, Dad!" when the curtain falls! The game will be a single-screen 2D platformer where you play as the only member of a theater's stage crew who showed up for work today. You'll have to perform all the various tasks of the crew: running the sound board, operating the spotlight, changing out scenery, etc. This will be done by running around backstage and on the catwalk and interacting with different stations, responding to prompts coming from the stage (for example: an actor saying "He's got a gun!" will require the player to run to the soundboard and select the "Gunshot" sound effect). Each job will have a small minigame-esque task the player will have to perform in response to each particular prompt. As the play goes on, the prompts will start occurring with more frequency and the player will have to run around to get to them in time or else be penalized (likely with boos from the audience). I'm hoping to go for a Cook, Serve, Delicious kind of increasingly-frantic vibe, with a control system similar to Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime. As of now, I've got a simple platformer up and running, using Unity's built-in 2D Platformer assets with some tweaks made to allow for things like ladder-climbing. I've got placeholder sprites in for the backstage environment and the soundboard, and I've set up the scripting for the soundboard interface. I'm in the middle of setting up a GameController to manage when prompts appear, the player's score, ending the game, etc. Hopefully soon I'll have a vertical slice with all of the game's basic functionality, and I'll be able to add more prompts and tasks as time allows. I've had trouble in the past leaving projects unfinished, since I try to make everything perfect as I go and try to do everything myself. I'm making an effort to organize this project into discrete tasks that allow for multiple iterations, so I don't get bogged down with one aspect for too long. I'm also forcing myself to use things like Unity's 2D Platformer package rather than making all of that from scratch, which is what I've tried to do in past projects. I have to keep telling myself that it's better to finish an imperfect game than to give up on a perfect one.

Hello, Thumbs! What better way to make your first ever post than to start a dev log for Wizard Jam! "Our Weird Monstrosity" is going to be a pretty simple RPG where the Thumbs hosts emerge from the studio into a completely different reality... of their own crazy imaginings! The game will take place on RPG Maker style traversal maps and a battle system of my own design. It's a pretty loose concept which should allow me to make a bunch of references to the podcasts. Help Wanted (this'll be in the recruiting thread as well): I'm focusing on mechanics and implementation for the first week, by the second week I'll have a list of art assets to create. Now, I could create them myself but they'll look pretty terrible. So, if anyone is interested in helping with this I'll be looking for artists in the second week. (I'm going to very conservative with my asset requirements, and I'm looking for RPG Maker VX style graphics for the traversal and maybe bigger sprites for the battle system). Also, I'm making my own engine in the process, 'cause that's a rational thing to do. Here's a screenshot of my progress so far; Yeah, got a bit to go.