30 games in 30 days for GameMaker

edited in Projects
Hi Everyone,

@HermanTulleken and I are at it again :) Some of you may have seen our (Gamelogic's) 30 games project last year where we used our Unity plugin Grids to make 30 small prototype games for Unity, in 30 days. The campaign was a huge success on many fronts. We learnt a lot about our tool, made a massive amount of new tech, got great exposure, increased our sales and made many new examples for our users (which have proven very popular).

We recently ported Grids to GameMaker, and ever since we have been desperate to do a 30 games campaign with that too. The one problem was time; we are a bit short of it lately. Last year we had the mighty @Rigormortis on board and for this project to go ahead we once again needed some help. So we’ve teamed up with Two Plus Games and the Microsoft App Factory to make the project possible. We’ve got a bunch of developers helping out at the App Factory, in particular @SUGBOERIE and @DraughtVader. And obviously @Tuism will be spear heading things from Two Plus’s side.

We are damn excited!

Development started yesterday and we have a game in the bag and should have the second one done within a few hours. We gave ourselves a week buffer this time as the logistics of managing ~10 developers over three companies called for a bit more leeway. So the focus this time won’t be as much on the heroics of a couple of individuals but rather the collective efforts of a team of developers with varying levels of experience.

We’ll post each game on this thread starting from Monday 6th October. We’re also uploading them to Windows Phone 8, so they will need to be a bit more complete this time.

Each developer will be credited with the game and we’ve told them that they’re welcome to take their game forward. So I’m sure feedback would be appreciated.

Here’s to a crazy awesome month :)

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Comments

  • Very excited to be part of this! Pre-rAge preparations are gonna be taking up a lot of time so I'm so glad I get to still be part of this even without being able to do a full 30 days :D

    Here's to a crazy month!
  • This is fun. Played around with the tool. Makes the process a lot faster.
  • Do you still need another gamemaker developer for this?
  • @Boysano we have enough developers but if you're interested in getting involved in the project, send me an email and we can chat about it. jonathan@gamelogic.co.za.
    Thanked by 1Boysano
  • Hi Everyone,

    Game 1 is up and running so our second 30 games project has officially begun. Today's developer is Kevin Marais (@DraughtVader) from the AppFactory. Our first week at the AppFactory went very well and we're off to a great start. A week in and we're 7 games down; so far so good. Most of the team took a little while to learn the basics, but still managed to get a game out, so this week we are expecting everyone to ramp it up a bit.

    Day 1 Game 1
    Game 1 is a version of the game Solitaire (or solo Noble), played on 13 different boards using a rect grid.
    Check out Game 1

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    680 x 340 - 68K
    Thanked by 1Boysano
  • please make a basic version of Settlers boardgame!
  • Boysano said:
    please make a basic version of Settlers boardgame!
    Settlers of Catan? I think there might be some copyright issues there.

    Nice work guys, been thinking about a way to use your Grids to make a game, particularly interested in making a hex grind on a sphere, not enough time ATM, but it sure is tempting :)
  • @Boysano we'll look into Settlers; although, I wonder what kind of version we'll be able to get out with only one day of dev ;)

    @critic thanks for the feedback. Hopefully this project will give you some ideas and show you that you don't need that much time when you're using Grids :)

    And in case you haven't seen this example already for hex's on a sphere: http://gamelogic.co.za/grids/features/examples-that-ship-with-grids/tiling-a-sphere-with-hexes/

  • edited
    Today's game was made by Robert Bogle (Microsoft AppFactory) and Munyaradzi Zinatsa. Rob has been dabbling with games for a month or so and Munya is brand new to game development.

    Day 2 Game 2
    Game 2 is a version of the game Flow played on a hex grid.
    Check out Game 2

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    680 x 340 - 53K
  • edited
    Today's game was made by @SUGBOERIE, Cukia Kimani (Microsoft AppFactory).

    Day 3 Game 3
    Game 3 is called Laser Bomb and is played on a rect grid. The aim of the game is to fill more of the board than the AI by strategically placing red laser bombs.
    Check out Game 3

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    680 x 340 - 45K
    Thanked by 1SUGBOERIE
  • Today's game was made by Griffiths Sibeko although we stepped in to help with the art and added a few iterations to the mechanics. After making it almost impossible at one stage, I'm happy with how it worked out. Brace yourselves for some Sea Work madness in our next couple of games :)

    Day 4 Game 4
    Game 4 is a version of the classic game Lights Out, with a couple of twists that include 3 cell states and neighbors of edges. We call it Power Out!
    Check out Game 4
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    680 x 340 - 56K
  • edited
    Day 5 Game 5
    Think Pac Man, but on a Hex Grid, and under the sea!
    Developer: Robert MacLean (Microsoft AppFactory)
    Check out Game 5

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    680 x 340 - 254K
  • Day 6 Game 6
    Sea World Merry-go-round by Lebogang Madise.

    Day 6! Today's game is a simple match game with a rotation mechanic, where your goal is to make as many matches as possible in two minutes. As with many match games, the tricky bit is not the rules but the transitions, which makes up the bulk of the code.

    Check out Game 6

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    640 x 320 - 299K
  • Today's game was made by Kevin Marais, @DraughtVader. The mechanics of this game evolved quite a bit from the initial idea to the end product. It was a great example of starting out with a base mechanic, and adding components (and tweaking) to make it more fun. One week down!

    Day 7 Game 7
    Game 7 is the first game to use a wrapped grid! Get your ship to Castle White and avoid the cannon balls shot by Castle Black.
    Check out Game 7

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    680 x 340 - 558K
  • edited
    Today's game was made by Robert Bogle (Microsoft AppFactory) who is showing some awesome improvement with each game he makes. We are also increasing the art intensity with each game and we're feeling it! :)

    Day 8 Game 8
    Game 8, or Temple Escape, is a maze like game where the walls of the temple change with every move, and your way out is hidden until you reach get close to it. And oh yes, rooms are going up in flames!
    Check out Game 8

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    680 x 340 - 250K
  • In today's game Rob (Robert Bogle, Microsoft AppFactory) again showed how well he's progressing. The game has more depth than previous ones and includes powerups and particle effects. I'm a fan.

    Day 9 Game 9
    Game 9 is Bug Wars! Survive an attack from the evil bugs while trying to collect powerups to increase your chances of survival. Watch out for the powerdowns, they will surely be your doom!
    Check out Game 9

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    680 x 340 - 277K
    Thanked by 1dislekcia
  • edited
    Today's game is pretty basic but adding some reflective patterns and pretty art turned it into something quite enjoyable.

    Day 10 Game 10
    Game 10 is a simple memory game on a rect grid. Find the cheeses or die trying.
    Check out Game 10

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    680 x 340 - 80K
  • edited
    Today's game was made by @Tuism. A really interesting design which took me a bit of getting used to, but once I did, a lot of fun! 6 more games still to come from Twoplus Games!

    Day 11 Game 11
    Game 11 is called Add Down. It's a matching game where you add blocks of numbers together. To clear numbers you need to (horizonatally or vertically) mimic a 3 digit number above the grid.
    Check out Game 1

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    680 x 340 - 45K
    Thanked by 1Tuism
  • Today's game was made by Robert Bogle (Microsoft AppFactory)

    Day 12 Game 12
    Game 12, or Fruit Harvest has a simple goal: harvest the fruit before they hit the ground. Look out for golden fruit and watch out for rotten fruit!
    Check out Game 12


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    680 x 340 - 75K
  • Today is @Tusim's second game. It was actually the first game he made :) An awesome idea!

    Day 13 Game 13
    Game 13 begun as a desire to use Conway’s Game of Life in an interesting way. And so, Convader was born.
    Check out Game 13

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    680 x 340 - 13K
    Thanked by 1Tuism
  • edited
    Today's game was made by @DraughtVader and @SUGBOERIE.

    Day 14 Game 14
    Game 14 is a racing game where instead of controlling your car, you control the environment. Create a safe path for your rally driver!
    Check out Game 14


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    680 x 340 - 71K
    Thanked by 1Bensonance
  • Today's game was made by @Tuism!

    Day 15 Game 15
    Game 15, or Cave Lander, requires you to fly a spaceship through a cave, refuelling on the way and trying not to critically damage your armor.
    Check out Game 15

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    680 x 340 - 3K
    Thanked by 2Bensonance Tuism
  • edited
    Today's game was made by @DraughtVader and @SUGBOERIE.

    Day 16 Game 16
    Game 16, or Purple, is a sliding puzzle game where the aim is to get down to one purple tile, by blending blue, red and purple tiles.
    Check out Game 16

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    680 x 340 - 2K
    Thanked by 1SUGBOERIE
  • edited
    Today's game was made by @Tuism. My favourite game of his yet! Sorry about the executable, our pain with GameMaker and html5 continues. But be sure to give this one a go. There are also some interesting insights from @Tuism in the blog.

    Day 17 Game 17
    Game 17, or Tetrifender, is an action puzzle game using tetrominos! Tower defence meets Tetris in a game where you must protect your fort and sink your enemies!
    Check out Game 17

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    Thanked by 2Tuism Boysano
  • I feel it is important to point out that this one has screenshake, and therefore must be a real game :)
    Thanked by 2Fengol jsgbailey
  • How could I forget to mention that :)
  • edited
    Today's game was made by Robert Bogle (Microsoft AppFactory)

    Day 18 Game 18
    Game 18, or Flipex, is a version of the game Fault, played on a hex grid. How many matches can you make before getting trapped?
    Check out Game 18

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    680 x 340 - 17K
  • Today's game was made by Robert Bogle (Microsoft AppFactory). This is Rob's 6th game!

    Day 19 Game 19
    Game 19, or Triangles, is a puzzle game on a hex grid where the name says it all; make more triangles than the AI.
    Check out Game 19

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    680 x 340 - 35K
  • Today's* game Hexavity is another made by @Tuism. It has an interesting gravity-change mechanic combined with line-matching.

    Check out Game 20

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    *Today in certain time zones :P
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    680 x 340 - 74K
  • Another jewel by @Tuism: Pixel Perfect. Place blocks and match the given shape to clear cells.

    You can check Game 21 here.

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    680 x 340 - 34K
  • We had a small emergency today, which means I get to sneak in a game of my own :P

    Game 22: Make the longest possible path by following (and repeating) the given pattern.

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    680 x 340 - 60K
  • Today's game was made by @SUGBOERIE. With a bit of juice, I think this game has a lot of potential!

    Day 23 Game 23:
    Game 23 is a matching game where the cells continuously die around you. The aim is to match them before they do.
    Check out game 23

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    680 x 340 - 49K
    Thanked by 1Tuism
  • Game 24 (!) by Lebogang Madise, where you have to zap bees and not the ladybirds while they go around-and-round!

    Check out Game 24

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    680 x 340 - 252K
  • Our first game on a triangular grid.

    Game 25 is by Robert Bogle from The AppFactory.

    Check it out here or play in your browser.

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    680 x 340 - 369K
  • edited
    It's the last few games! This is Game 26 by Robert Bogle. You fly around trying to reach the goal. If you bump into a wall you die. You can only fly diagonally, but flip either your vertical or horizontal direction.

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    680 x 340 - 109K
    Thanked by 1Tuism
  • Game 27 is another game on a triangular grid, by @DraughtVader. In this game, you have to connect the top-left to bottom-right by rotating the cells.

    You can check it out here or play it straight in your browser.

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    1000 x 500 - 66K
    Thanked by 1Tuism
  • Oi, Game 28 almost didn't happen. GameMaker just refused to combine our files. We spend more time on actually trying to combine all the code than we did writing any of it. In the end we had to scrap our original mechanics and replace them with some emergency mechanics.

    @DraughtVader did the bulk of the logic (although he has not seen the overhaul yet... o.0000). Anyways, this is a Lights Out variation. You flip rings and sectors (drag in the direction of either the ring or sector you want to flip); the cell where you start your drag does not flip. You have to make all the cells blue. It's surprisingly difficult.

    Check it out here.

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    680 x 340 - 57K
    Thanked by 1dammit
  • edited
    Here is @SUGBOERIES last game. One more game to go!

    Day 29 Game 29:
    Game 29 is a spin on a Rubik’s Cube, but played on a 2D square. We call it Rubik’s Quared.
    Check out game 29

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    680 x 340 - 17K
    Thanked by 2Tuism Boysano
  • So day 30 has finally come. It sure has been a crazy month! We're very glad that we managed to squeeze this in before jetting off to Chile, but I wouldn't advise running a 30 days campaign which ends 2 days before you leave the country for 6 months :). Luckily we had an awesome team making games with us. We'll give our full feedback on the project in the next week (we have a lot to share). Things like having a big team with multiple companies and using GameMaker instead of Unity will be major talking points.

    But with out further adieu, here is the last game from one of the champions of our 30 days in 30 days project, @Tusim.

    Day 30 Game 30
    Game 30, or Hex Raid, is played on a hex grid with clever tile design to simulate isometric art. Collect the coins and shift the cubes!
    Check out Game 30 (it's on html YAY!)

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    680 x 340 - 29K
  • I was looking at @Tuism's post on the TwoPlus about the 7 games they made. From Hexavity:
    tuism said:
    Now for an impromptu lesson in game design – This game suffers from what’s known as lack of agency – the player has one of six choices to make (five if you don’t count the direction you’re already going in), and not one of those choices are really predictable of success. It’s next to impossible to tell which hexes will land where after a shift, so… it’s not a lot of fun.
    At least you picked that up at prototyping stage. Infinite Interactive, the guys that did Puzzle Quest, also did a hex-grid based puzzller called Puzzle Quest: Galactrix. It suffered from this exact problem, predicting hex behavior is just too damned hard to do at a glance. It slows the game down and sucks all the fun out of it (and this is coming from a HUGE fan of Puzzle Quest). How they put out a game like that, without eliminating the hexes as an option early on, I have no idea. They could easily have stuck with the block approach and repurposed it for a space theme.
    Thanked by 1Tuism
  • One thing I discovered while working on a hex game is that you can sometimes solve this problem by drastically reducing the board size (maybe even as small as 2/3 rings). When faced with micro-levels, the player can track future actions, and the solution space really tightens up - random play becomes strategic. It's definitely something I would try with that game. The flip-side is that because the solution space is so small, it's really easy to generate puzzles that cannot be solved. So you need to spend some time designing the generation algorithm of the puzzles, or designing the puzzles manually.

    (Of course, it may also work completely differently on this game, but I'd say it's worth a try, because the concept is compelling.)
    Thanked by 1dammit
  • @Tuism

    (Sorry for invoking this thread from the dead).

    Just found this game which has similar mechanics to yours; I thought you may find it interesting.

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