“My best advice for students hoping to break in: Make games. Make a lot of games. Don’t stop making games. Learn from every game, good or bad” – John Siegel (Twitter, 2011)
As part of their studies of becoming successful game-scholars, 1st year Games Computing students at the LSoC (CGP1001M) have to use and learn existing tools to rapidly develop and extend original game design ideas into fully fledged playable games. One of our favourite approaches to the introductory of game studies is the use of game developing challenges. The rules of challenges: Make a game based on a given theme, within the available time scale. Volunteering students present and discuss their game in front of a playful crowd made out of their colleagues and university staff members.
Challenge #1: Make a ‘One-Button’ game in GameMaker. Use a single button as your player(s) input. Inspirational games: Canabalt, B.U.T.T.O.N, Poto and Cabenga or Super Action RPG.
This year’s student outcomes were astonishing. We had plenty of submissions, and students who presented their games heftily discussed their design and implementation process. Ben recorded the presentation sessions and created a short show reel video. The video is available on Youtube and gives a good glimpse of what is happening during the challenge sessions!
Additionally, we have hand-picked the following submissions (now with download links!)
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Dungeons of Nariek – Kieran Hicks Play as a brave unnamed knight as he delves into the treacherous Dungeons of Nariek. The evil Nariek has put a deadly curse on the knight and he can only perform actions in certain directions. Jump & Fight your way to victory! Controls: Spacebar – Jump & Fight. Download |
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Fly, Square, Fly – James Brown Circle was Square’s only love until she was kidnapped by the evil, moncole wearing, Dr Triangle who took her to his underground mountain base. You must rescue her! Controls: Spacebar – fly up. Download |
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Lunar Descent – J McDonagh Can you master gravity?Bring the lunar 1 module to a safe landing on the moon by controlling your fuel and avoiding all the asteroids. Lunar descent consists of 10 levels of addictive one-button game play. Controls: Space bar – thrust. Download |
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Starcatcher – M Northover In Starcatcher, players have to catch stars and avoid meteors as they jump between two buildings. Get as many stars as possible and to challenge your friends to see if they can do better! Controls: Spacebar – jump. Download |
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Goldrush – T Pendle Avoid fire, Collect as many gold coins, diamonds and rubies as possible. Controls: SpaceBar – move! Download |
Great work guys! Challenge #2 is around the corner and will be unveiled in the next weeks!
The camerawork style was inspired by dramatic shows like 24 😉