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Wizard Jam - Idle Thumbs Game Jam Interest Gauge / Chit Chat corner

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With the announcement last week that Unreal Engine 4 is now free*, and Unity 5 will make all its pro features available by default, there has really never been a better time to start learning game development.

 

So let's make some games!

 

I'm sure there are a bunch of folks here who have ideas but are intimidated by showing up to a real life jam with no experience, or have always wanted to learn the tools but needed a little push. I really do think jams are one of the best ways to learn; it's incredibly easy for new developers to wildly over scope projects, and I think having a short window to work on something is a good way to force yourself to think small and not be disappointed with yourself when/if you don't finish. It's low stakes, but there's also no reason you can't continue to build on what you make if you're happy with it. And I'm sure this community will go on to make some really interesting stuff.

 

This would probably need to be on the longer side; most of the jams I've done have been 2 days or a week but since the focus is on learning, I think 2 weeks would be perfect. I'd like to pull together a handful of folks who could act as 'experts' on topics and be available for asking questions and maybe throwing together a quick crash course in their field. This'd probably mostly mean being on IRC and answering questions.

 

I'd probably borrow the rules from the 7DFPS jam.

Rules, FAQ, Theme
Rules Make something.
Theme  There is no theme.
FAQ Q: Can I - A: YES..

 

Tools people use would be unrestricted, though if you want to learn something like the Torque engine for example, there will likely be a lot fewer people who can help you out with it. Games also wouldn't have to be Idle Thumbs related, but obviously there is an audience on these forums for your Big Dog horror-comedy that might not exist elsewhere.

 

Before picking a date or anything, I'd like to know...are people interested in this? Would people be willing to do some teaching? Does that format sound good or do folks have suggestions?

 

* I take some issue with a 5% royalty being presented as 'free.'

 

Edit:

 

It's An Itchio

 

April 10 - 24

 

Theme: Episode Titles!

The theme is optional, but also pretty broad, so I imagine you'll be able to fit your idea into one of the 200+ absurd episode names.

This page will show you a random episode title (thank you Panzorfork for this)

This page has every episode title.

 

Even though the theme is announced, pleaaase don't get started on your jam game yet. Doing this at the same time as a buncha other readers will be more fun for everyone.

 

Never made a game? No idea what engine to use? Try out this sweet tool by Zoe Quinn for figuring out what tools to use.

 

Helpers
Dinosaursssssss - Unity, UE4 blueprint, C#/JS/html5.

Spenny - Unity

clyde - Unity, TyranoBuilder

BigJKO - Photoshop

zerofiftyone - UE4

undermind - Photoshop / vector art

Blambo - GameMaker, general programming

elvaq - Unity / C#

Deadpan - Twine

 

Looking for Teams

Clyde - Unity, Weird Stuff

Blambo - Art

SuperBiasedMan - Wild Card

Coods - Music / Code

Simbiotik - Art

elvaq - Looking for an artist(s?)

Gwardinen - Is a programmer, looking for art

 

Free Tools!

 

Pixel Prospector - Lots of good resources.

 

Engines GameMaker GameSalad Construct2 Unity Unreal Twine

Unreal, Twine, Construct2, and GameSalad all have scripting systems that doesn't require writing code. Playmaker ($95) is a visual scripting plugin for Unity that has been highly recommended to me.

 

Art paint.net inkscape (vectors) playscii (ascii) blender (3d modelling)

If you're interested in 3D, I also recommend getting the free 3-year student license for Maya. It's an industry standard tool, and only requires that you put in a bogus .edu email address.

 

Audio bfxr (fx) bosca ceoil (Music) audacity (recording/audio editing)

 

If you're interested in learning some basic programming, I highly recommend Code Academy, which will teach you some Javascript.

 

If you need art assets, you can also peep this thread.

 

Or just swing by the Game Development subforum and hang out.

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I'm super down for this game jam. I'm willing to help out in an expert role. 

 

I'd be interested in knowing what technical barriers people are thinking they have. For example, "I don't know how to code", "I don't know how to use Unity", "I don't know how to use Photoshop".

 

Oh, and also, I generally like themes or other points of inspiration and constraint. It kind of ensures that people are creating for the jam, but more importantly imposes a constraint on the project. Designers need constraints.

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At this point, I will be disappointed if this jam doesn't happen.

I'm interested in helping beginners in any way I can though I only have a limited knowledge of Unity. I would also be excited to help anyone out if they want to participate in the jam but don't want to learn a game engine. So for example, if someone has some songs and/or art and want to just put them in a simple gameplay environment without much more than player-movement involved, then I could do that for them.

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I might be interested in this. When would it take place?

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I might be interested in this. When would it take place?

 

Are there any major holidays / events on the horizon that would hold people back from participating? I'd imagine 2 weeks is very generous for most of life's considerations.

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Consider me also interested. I have enough experience in Unreal Engine 4 to teach someone the basics, so I'd be happy to give guidance.

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I'd love to do this, but I'll probably be too busy to take part in any meaningful way. So how about we make this a big success so we do more of them in the future?

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Interest! Also, I am regularly on IRC and thus am volunteering to impart my expert programming skillz onto people.

Or not.. I guess I can teach people how to Photoshop?

AAND, of course, partake in the jams! Yeah, this'll be fun! :tup: :tup:

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I'm also interested, though I may or may not have time to actually do this. Ill see! I've been wanting to start messing around with game-dev for a while

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Very much interested!

 

Oh, and also, I generally like themes or other points of inspiration and constraint. It kind of ensures that people are creating for the jam, but more importantly imposes a constraint on the project. Designers need constraints.

Yeah, some optional themes/categories would be nice. It should be interesting to see in the end how different people approached the same topics.

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I would love to be involved in this but I don't think my dinky laptop could run programs like Unity or Unreal? Maybe I could Twine it.

 

I can for sure offer to do music for a game or two. At the very least I am going to play all these games.

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This is really cool. I am, however, quite busy with a bunch of projects involving other folks at the moment so I'm not sure that I could actually steal away two weeks.

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I would ideally love to take part, it'd be a lot of fun!

 

Would people be mostly going solo or doing groups at all? Just cause groups might make some less experienced people more comfortable even though it's more work to organise that way.
 

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oh man, i could submit the first few scenes of my AGS game, Nerd Alert! Space Quest 3 era-style. given that i made like 3 rooms, a few walk cycles, and some dialog before washing out. A preview of what I was hoping to do, at least. 

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I would ideally love to take part, it'd be a lot of fun!

 

Would people be mostly going solo or doing groups at all? Just cause groups might make some less experienced people more comfortable even though it's more work to organise that way.

 

 

Yes this, and it would let group members specialize.

 

I really just want to make art.

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I'm super down for this game jam. I'm willing to help out in an expert role. 

 

I'd be interested in knowing what technical barriers people are thinking they have. For example, "I don't know how to code", "I don't know how to use Unity", "I don't know how to use Photoshop".

 

Oh, and also, I generally like themes or other points of inspiration and constraint. It kind of ensures that people are creating for the jam, but more importantly imposes a constraint on the project. Designers need constraints.

 

I certainly don't know how to use Photoshop, and my coding is limited.

 

The biggest thing holding me back is I don't have any ideas. I've always been better at interpreting than creating- acting rather than directing, playing music rather than composing, etc. How do people come up with ideas to make stuff?!

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How do people come up with ideas to make stuff?!

 

"What if I did IDEA FROM OTHER THING I SAW, but with MODIFIER TO CONCEPT/MIXED WITH OTHER THING I SAW?"

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I have an idea for a shitty wizard thing that I almost certainly won't do because game jams stress me the fuck out but I might who knows.

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I've been meaning to look into Unity a little, or I might use this as an excuse to finish my Twine prototype at least, but then I'm also usually quite busy so I don't know how that two week stretch is going to work out.

 

I'll probably play to lose, and then y'all can feel better about what you achieved in that time.

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I could pitch in a couple of weeks if it's during the summer, but I only have rudimentary programming skills to offer.

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I've been meaning to look into Unity a little, or I might use this as an excuse to finish my Twine prototype at least, but then I'm also usually quite busy so I don't know how that two week stretch is going to work out.

I'll probably play to lose, and then y'all can feel better about what you achieved in that time.

This might not be helpful, but I figured I'd offer it. I could make a project file with very few things going on in it and then send it to you. Replacing the assets and making easy changes might be a good way to get introduced into the environment.

Again, I have no idea if this would make it easier for you to learn a little bit about Unity, but if you get overwhelmed when trying to start you could look around the project file I make (or I suppose following a tutorial and altering it might be better).

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Dinosaurs was talking in the IRC about maybe doing some streaming of development as a live tutorial.

 

2 ways I was thinking I could help would be to create a very basic photoshop tutorial focusing on the super basics of photoshop, cutting, cropping, resizing etc. The other would be to set up a skeleton project that has some very basic gameflow, say something like Start, end Round, and Restart sort of flow.

 

What do you folks think?

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The biggest thing holding me back is I don't have any ideas. I've always been better at interpreting than creating- acting rather than directing, playing music rather than composing, etc. How do people come up with ideas to make stuff?!

 

I'm writing something right now and it's terrible!  Make something terrible!

 

Or adapt something.  If someone already created a beginning, middle, and end for you, you can riff on those themes.

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