Build a Game This November with GitHub Game Off

https://github.blog/2020-10-27-github-game-off-2020/

by todsacerdoti • 6 years ago

104 61 6 years ago

remram2• 6 years ago

Well finally I get the link. GitHub has been sending news about their "Game Off" in their weekly "GitHub explore the week" newsletter with a broken link. I should have known it would be somewhere on itch.io, doh!

lee3372• 6 years ago

Thanks for the heads up. Will get that fixed :)

remram2• 6 years ago

Still broken, the link is `https://github.com/explore?auto_subscribed=false&email_sourc...`

wryoak• 6 years ago

Would participate, love game jams, but November is nanowrimo

Waterluvian2• 6 years ago

I don't want to fuss with a feature filled game engine. Does anyone have any suggestions of a code-based game engine that waaaay simplifies and restricts you in some way?

I really want to make a game based on strict limitations but to write it in code and not some graphical editor.

I'm two hours in witu phaserjs and I've just done boilerplate with cameras and scenes. It looks great but it's overkill for me.

Edit: thank you all. So many great leads here.

lee3372• 6 years ago

Sounds to me like you might be interested in fantasy consoles like

* LIKO-12.........https://liko-12.github.io/

* PICO-8..........https://www.lexaloffle.com/pico-8.php

* Pixel Vision 8..https://www.pixelvision8.com/

* TIC-80..........https://tic80.com/

BigBubbleButt• 6 years ago

I second PICO-8

VinzO• 6 years ago

I also second PICO-8

modeless2• 6 years ago

Pico-8? https://www.lexaloffle.com/pico-8.php

Or PuzzleScript https://www.puzzlescript.net/

mrspeaker• 6 years ago

Pico-8 (or one of its knock-offs like Tic-80) is a great choice for just concentrating on making something. Built-in gfx, map, and audio editors: 8x8px sprites. Very limiting, but very fun. I prototype everything in Pico-8 now.

gg8019• 6 years ago

https://www.raylib.com/

eivarv• 6 years ago

Pyxel: https://github.com/kitao/pyxel

rstupek• 6 years ago

Solar2d https://solar2d.com/

dljsjr• 6 years ago

Bevy is an up and comer code-only engine (in Rust) that's still very young but has a decent collection of examples: https://bevyengine.org

CSSer• 6 years ago

This might be the opposite of what you're looking for, but p5.js[0] is a decent candidate if you want to build a barebones game (physics) engine yourself. It may sound like a lot but you may be surprised to see how far you can get depending on what your end goal is, and you may just create something novel as a result. See here[1] and here[2] for a rudimentary example.

[0] https://p5js.org/

[1]https://dev.to/soorajsnblaze333/how-to-create-a-simple-physi...

[2]https://dev.to/soorajsnblaze333/how-to-create-a-simple-physi...

NortySpock• 6 years ago

And P5.play is an expansion library for P5.js that gives you sprites, collision detection and a virtual camera, while still being unminified and reasonably easy to read. https://molleindustria.github.io/p5.play/

I did have to pin p5.js to v0.5.4 as apparently p5.play hasn't been updated and didn't play nicely with newer versions of p5.

krisoft• 6 years ago

If you are looking for strict limitations check out the arduboy: https://arduboy.com/

It's a credit card sized game system which you can program with the Arduino IDE.

bogwog2• 6 years ago

Love2D is not a bad choice. As far as restrictions go, I'd say Lua is a pretty limited language lol.

dllthomas• 6 years ago

For something a little different, there's code.world

badjeans• 6 years ago

I quite like nico: https://github.com/ftsf/nico

It's got similar functions to PICO-8, but instead of lua you write it in Nim, and instead of an integrated editor, you use whatever editor you want.

Perhaps most of all though, the author also wrote some pretty cool games with it, which are also open source, so it's proven tech and you can learn from them.

pradn• 6 years ago

https://ledoux.itch.io/bitsy

"Bitsy is a little editor for little games or worlds. The goal is to make it easy to make games where you can walk around and talk to people and be somewhere."

Play some Bitsy games here: https://itch.io/c/90743/bitsy-games

Feeble• 6 years ago

https://craftyjs.com/ supersmall lib.

However, you will probably enjoy Phaser the most of all listed once you get comfortable around it. It's not that complicated.

Waterluvian2• 6 years ago

I'm trying. Really fighting with the coordinate system. I want to spawn things into a world where the coords aren't screen coords. So on a smaller screen everything shrinks rather than gets hidden.

But you're probably right. I just like being able to make toy games in a weekend without dealing with the plumbing a lot.

empressplay• 6 years ago

Turtle space is 3D Logo with dozens of primitives to make game making easy

Turtlespaces.org

danbolt• 6 years ago

I'm two hours in witu phaserjs and I've just done boilerplate with cameras and scenes.

I feel like Phaser is interesting as their samples/demos feel very "single page"[1] but can be inverted into something with scenes like you mention. It's often the first thing I reach for if I want to hack something in 2D, but often those hacks become larger things so quickly!

[1] http://labs.phaser.io/edit.html?src=src\tweens\single%20prop...

Ibethewalrus• 6 years ago

Idea: a game where you fight DMCA takedowns...

justinclift• 6 years ago

Perhaps a dual game setup, where one game is fighting DMCA takedowns, and the corresponding other game is a variant of whack-a-mole? :)

wyldfire• 6 years ago

Are there any boilerplate projects providing a demo of an open source 2d or 2d+physics game engine? (Presumably the answer to that is yes). Bonus points if I can use rust/zig or easily target android or iOS.

tgb• 6 years ago

When I started programming, it was to make games during middle/high school and I always had the problem of getting them running on anyone else's hardware. I haven't touched that for years, so what are the easy ways to make things that will run on someone else's computer and will still run in 5 years without futzing around?

crispyporkbites• 6 years ago

HTML and JavaScript aren’t going anywhere fast

kfarr• 6 years ago

Yes web is where it's at!! And tons of nice gaming libraries

cxr4• 6 years ago

Making something built to run in the Web browser is the only thing we have if your interest is in checking all the relevant boxes instead of lying to yourself in some way. Drawbacks, in order of decreasing importance:

1. Terrible, terrible tooling

2. Hostility from browser vendors themselves

3. Many APIs are still non-standard/officially "experimental", even if implemented

4. Possible performance issues for ordinary programs, likely issues for many games

5. People will make fun of you for this

modeless2• 6 years ago

I'm interested to hear more about 1 and 2. In what way are browser vendors hostile to games, and what are the biggest tooling problems?

tpxl3• 6 years ago

Making something built to run in the Web browser is the only thing we have if your interest is in checking all the relevant boxes instead of lying to yourself in some way.

What. Using a mature language and not relying on feature of the day will produce a game you can compile 5 years from now and it will just work.

Use SFML or something to provide a cross platform way to create windows and interface with the system and you're pretty much set.

If doing all the drawing and physics code is too much for you to do, use a game engine or a physics library. Those will also compile in 5 years from now and run on other people's computers (assuming you get the source).

doomlaser• 6 years ago

If you want something simple, restricted, and programmer friendly, PICO-8 is the way to go https://www.lexaloffle.com/pico-8.php

And in the spirit of open source, I couldn't not recommend the open source game engine Godot, which is rapidly closing in on its proprietary competitors like Unity and Unreal: https://godotengine.org/

monksy• 6 years ago

youtube-dl- the game of wackamole

bogwog2• 6 years ago

Coincidentally (maybe), today also marks the end of perhaps the most popular game jam event, Ludum Dare.

Which I find kind of interesting. Even though LD has been around for a long time, I would've thought a Github-sponsored game jam would get a lot more participation. This blog post says that their previous jam had over 200 submissions, whereas the latest LD had nearly 3300 in a 72-hour period.

xmprt• 6 years ago

End of LD 47 to be precise. I thought for a second I missed something that said LD was ending for good.

LD 48 is still scheduled for April 2021

reificator• 6 years ago

Coincidentally (maybe), today also marks the end of perhaps the most popular game jam event, Ludum Dare.

Don't scare me like that!

wheybags• 6 years ago

Ludum dare is a weekend. This is a month, which is a big turnoff. Case in point: I made an entry for the most recent ludum dare jam, but I probably won't enter this one, because it's just way too long.

flixic• 6 years ago

This year's GMTK GameJam had 5477 games submitted, I think the biggest game jam in history.

Google234• 6 years ago

But can I get a tshirt if I contribute 4 pull requests in other people’s repos?

nimbius• 6 years ago

from the article...

Heck, we’ve even had Commodore 64 and NES games submitted!

I certainly hope those games weren't intended to circumvent the logic of the 10NES checking Integrated Circuit chip as that would be a clear violation of the DMCA.

daijj• 6 years ago

I would really like to participate but I don't have much knowledge in game development (mostly JS stack for me). If anyone is willing to take on a total noob at this it would be awesome. I'm passionate about RTS and would love to build one together (a simple one ofc).

rouxz• 6 years ago

Does the participating game have to be open sourced? Can't find the info on blog.

p2detar• 6 years ago

Yes, with your repo put on GitHub.

ArtWomb• 6 years ago

I'm down, in lockdown. Maybe WebGL 2.0 showcase. Or realistic physics with gpu accel. Orther-wise I'd love to try my hand at something classic action arcade style for an emulator, C64 or DOS or Amiga or even GBA. But targeted for running in the browser

Hit me up if you wish to collab ;)

bloopernova• 6 years ago

My game idea that I don't have the motivation or skill to start:

2 player co-op. One player pilots a tank with a forward facing gun. The other controls a turret with a big gun, small gun, and grappling hook. Power ups can be grabbed by the hook, as can terrain and enemies. View is top down arcade style. Gameplay is shoot em up style with weapon and tank power ups. Tank would have shields, and an energy system that can be allocated to shields, repair, guns, or engines, in various proportions. Pilot controls this allocation.

Enemies wouldn't use the same formations and paths each run, so you can't learn their patterns. Gameplay could be as fast or slow as you want.

Feel free to steal this idea, or pour scorn upon it. I've had this idea for 35 years now.

nextaccountic• 6 years ago

I'm tempted in implementing this idea. But don't be discouraged: you should make this game anyway!

mpd• 6 years ago

I think there's still a ton of good stuff like this to be mined out of asymmetric multiplayer games.

methodin• 6 years ago

I like the idea. Hell you wouldn't even need co-op at the start if you can implement a decent pathfinding AI and be able to swap between tank/turret. Would even be a bit more depth since you'd have to think about both things and make decisions when to swap.

djfdat• 6 years ago

Not an exact equivalent, but there is some interesting designs to draw from: https://youtu.be/FD5ug5jD-q4?t=44

kiddico• 6 years ago

oooh, that attack where the second player has to time the damage is really cool.

I wish I could keep all the verbs for that sort of game in my head. It feels like every game I completely forget I have an ability, and miss opportunities to use it.

That's probably why I stick to counter strike and it's 5 actions/verbs: shoot, scope, jump, move/walk, and throw. (and maybe buy, but that's getting into the weeds...)

No need to outsmart my enemy when my crack hands can just out-react them ;P

whateveracct• 6 years ago

cool to see the Haskell shoutout :)

gitgud• 6 years ago

Side note:

Does anyone know if there's an Open-Source game store? where I can browse/install games that I can contribute and make PR's to!

fctorial• 6 years ago

https://github.blog/2020-01-14-game-off-2019-winners/

Build a Game This November with GitHub Game Off

Related Stories