Global Game Jam Game Jam Boat Game
As you play Global Game Jam Game Jam Boat Game (GGJGJBG), you will be using your arrow keys to control the HMS Lag through treacherous waters. You will notice some areas are coloured differently, this is to represent the apparent safety/danger level of that area - the likelihood that there is a mine there. You can affect this danger level yourself, reporting whether or not you were hit by a mine there. Mines don't go away after just one hit, but it also takes more than one hit to sink your ship. You must decide if you want to be honest and help others to avoid mines or if you prefer to deceive them and wreak havoc. You will be rewarded accordingly. Next time someone else plays, their game will be directly affected by your actions. Oh, and also, you can plant more mines. Good luck!
The University of Wales, Newport was once again, one of the many worldwide locations to host the second Global Game Jam, in 2010. I attended with a much better idea of what to expect and with more friends than the previous year. This years theme and some constraints were: The theme was: "Deception". And each game should be also be related to one or more of the following: "Rink", "Sink" or "Wink". This time around, there were also various achievements to aim for.
David Prior and myself worked together again, but with two new team members. Chris O'Donovan from last year's Team 4! and Martyn Poole, a newcomer to the GGJ experience. Together we developed and released what could be described as an online version of Battleships in just 46 hours. For this game, Dave, Chris and I worked in Microsoft's XNA GameStudio 3.1. I worked on the gameplay programming, such that with just my code, the game was still completely playable. However, Dave added network functionality to award us the "Community Game" achievement and to give the user the ability to interact with other players across the globe. Chris worked on the GUI and Audio while Martyn created all our art assets, all using a total of no more than 16 colours which awarded us our second achievement, "EGA Lives Game".
Sadly, you have some hoops to jump through if you would like to play GGJGJBG: You'll need Windows XP (Service Pack 2) or later and a screen resolution of 800x600 or higher. You will also need to install .NET Framework 3.5 or higher with either XNA Game Studio 3.1 or higher, or XNA Framework Redistributable 3.1 or higher, Visual C# Express 2008 or Visual Studio 2008 and Microsoft Games for Windows Live Client. Lastly, get yourself an XNA Creators Club Premium or Trial Premium Membership.
The official Global Game Jam page for GGJGJBG is here.
