I haven’t posted about my entries to “One Game A Month” for a while, but I’ve still added some prototype things there each month. Here’s an update with links to G+ posts I originally mentioned them.

Update early 2019: Since Google+ is shutting down, I edited this post to contain content from the original G+ posts rather than just link to them.

May: My first try playing around with Unity and the Oculus Rift SDK. Not much gameplay there, but with a bit of goodwill you can think of this test as a game, where you have to “Find the hemisphere”.
—
Continuing with observations about Oculus Rift HMD.

It’s good to pay some extra attention to aligning eyes with the lenses. It’s quite easy to be a bit off vertically, at which point things appear blurrier than they should. At some point I kept shortening over-the-head strap, trying to fix that problem. Until I realized I should actually lengthen it a bit and tighten the horizontal strap instead.

A bit more testing of OVR SDK with Unity… I noticed I get considerable amount of extra tracker lag if I use the Direct3D 11 renderer. I don’t know much about the innards, but my wild guess is that maybe there’s longer swap chain or something. So I guess it’s better to disable the D3D11 for now.

Here’s my first test to play around with OVRPlayerController from the SDK. Better to start with the basics. :) If you like, you can think of this as a game where you have to find the hemisphere.

Windows executable: (link deleted, the build is obsolete)

June: Proto_Chessman – Minimal gameplay prototype, asking the question: What if you take chess pieces out from the traditional board and put them somewhere else? (There’s pile of bugs, but you can get the idea.)
—
Here’s one minimal take on that idea. You’re playing a single random white piece, and your task is to eat 5 opponent pieces before they get you. There’s addition of landscape types — water, walkable stuff and impassable rock. Dandy types of pieces don’t want to go to water, and none of them can pass deep water or rock.

There’s pile of subtle bugs so just hit restart if it goes sour somehow. Didn’t have time to sort through them since the one-game-a-month deadline is looming. :)

(link deleted) build is obsolete, as it required Unity web player

July: Betripled – Game mechanic prototype about what you could get if you combine the swap-match-3 game logic with matching-cluster-removal (e.g. Bejeweled & Sega Swirl). The swap-match-3 generates single new tiles for the removal-part at bottom. (Note: here’s no score count or ending.)
—

It’s a game mechanic prototype about what you could get if you combine the swap-match-3 game logic with matching-cluster-removal (e.g. Bejeweled & Sega Swirl). The swap-match-3 generates single new tiles for the removal-part at bottom. (Note: here’s no score count or ending.)

I made the prototype using Processing, but for some reason it didn’t work with as a web .js version, so what you can get is a Win32 download for an executable version (you need to have Java installed).

Scroll down the game list to find the “Betripled” one.
(link deleted; something was changed in the onegameamonth website and my profile page stopped working)

The 26th Ludum Dare game making contest was held last weekend. The point in the contest is that you have to make a game in less than 48 hours, only by yourself. This time the theme was “Minimalism”, which was actually sort of weird, since the same theme was used also back in 2008 for the 11th LD! Back then I made the game warrior, which did very well.

However, for the latest compo I made a game called llab. It is a little bit inspired by the beginning of Wizball where you could only bounce. I also used Unity3D for the engine this time, which was a nice choice since it meant a lot less coding and more time for other kinds of pondering.

Fun fact: The sort-of-music you hear in the menu is made by making sounds to a voice-changing toy megaphone and then editing it slightly afterwards in Audacity.

(Note: Removed link to play in web browser, as Unity player plugin is now deprecated.)
(more…)

Another “not really much of a game” entry for the One Game a Month. Toyed around with Processing, here’s a minimal game controls prototype. Sorry, you should use a mouse with this (and left mouse button), a touchpad is probably not going to be handy at all.
(more…)

Shumpless
Shooter without enemies.

This is not much of a game, just a minimal test about a shooter where only your own bullets are the dangerous thing. Control ship with arrow keys, shoot bullets with Left Ctrl key.

(link deleted) build is obsolete, as it required Unity web player