Game Design Challenge: Wii U

This is probably the fastest GDC submission I've sent. From inception to emailing in barely 90 minutes. And, surprisingly, I'm quite proud of it. Still, I can't avoid thinking I've seen a very similar idea somewhere. EVE: Dust 514? Somehow, but not quite. Nintendoland? I didn't know much about it until 20 minutes ago. Sanctum? Iron Brigade/Trenched? These focus more on the tower defence side of things.
Anyway, meet Squad Action

Squad Action: Working Title

SA:WT is a hybrid DOTA/RTS multiplayer game for Wii U which takes advantadge of the console's online platform and varied controller possibilities.

Teams of 2 or 3 players work together to destroy the enemy base while keeping theirs safe. Each team will count with one commander and one or two ground troops.
The commander surveys the battle ground using the Wii U Gamepad and its touch enabled screen in RTS fashion.
The soldiers play in the main TV screen, FPS style, using a WiiMote and Nunchuck. They will traverse the combat area fighting the rival players and structures.
In local games the TV screen can be split up to four times to accomodate 2 full teams (plus two Gamepads), while online teams can play from different locations and screens.

Resources are collected by soldiers while alive, at a rate of one unit per second (main advantadge of killing enemies), defeating enemy troops or buildings and disabling the enemy commander's droid. Most of the resources collected are sent to the team account and a small part is kept for personal use.
Ground troops can return to the base to buy basic equipment and heal, but they cannot upgrade their loadout. The commander can offer equipement recommendations and loan part of the team resources to a player, so she can acquire equipment out of her reach. These loans would be later discounted from the players' collected resources, trading a short term advantadge for future income problems.

Options available to the commander:
- Build gates, sensors or turrets in their half of the map.
- Upgrade soldiers' armour and weapons.
- Buy and drop temporal buffs almost anywhere on the map, which can be picked by allies or enemies.
- Place warnings or attack signals on the map. In local games these can be seen by the enemy!
- Browse available equipment and mark recommendations.
- Loan resources to team members.
- Deploy a remote controlled droid.

Remote droids are controlled from a FPS perspective in the Gamepad display. They have limited combat capabilities but are the only way to build the most powerful structures, repair damaged equipment or resurrect team members before their respawn time arrives. However, while the bot is deployed the commander can do nothing else and, should the bot be destroyed, they'd be unable to play for 15 seconds, or up to a minute late into a match. The bots can self-destruct without penalty, but it takes 10 seconds until the sequence completes, during which the robot cannot move and is open to enemy attacks.
The bot can also transform into a stationary turret atop the team's base core. These turrets are very powerful and provide extra protections to nearby allies, but turn slowly and if destroyed will damage the base noticeably.

The winning team will be the first to destroy the enemy base or reach a set amount of resources, depending on game/map type.

Update: SA:WT is one of this month's highlighted entries! I'm glad that someone has enjoyed my idea. One more for the list of pending projects!

Global Game Jamming!

This weekend (28-30 January) I've participated in the Global Game Jam, the largest 48 hours game dev jam so far. It's been awesome, frustrating, funny, tiresome, stressing and a bit unhealthy. But I survived the ordeal and came out with a finished game, which I still find amazing.

Technology and engines have advanced so much and become so cheap (free as in "free beer"?) in the later years that it is possible to do quite a lot in very little time. This has increased the number of people willing to take part in such events, as well as the average know-how. The most beloved dev platforms seem to be Unity 3D and XNA. I was expecting some Unreal Engine projects, but none surfaced at my location. There were also no iPhone, Windows Phone 7 or Android, so Flash, Java and self-developed engines filled the minority ranks.

The game I worked in is No Ground Left, developed by a small team of two programmers and an artist. Since it was created in Unity, we have Windows and MacOS binaries (tested in Windows 7 and MacOS X). The complete package, including sources, is available from the previous link.
We also have a browser version of the game hosted on GGJ's servers. It has not been extensively tested and content streaming seems to cause some troubles, so you might prefer to try the full application. Also, Unity's Web Player is not as stable as I'd desire.
However, the web version, which was uploaded some hours later, includes an important bugfix and some menu improvements, so it is closer to a good version of the game.

Everything developed during the Global Game Jam 2011 is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license, so everyone is free to pick our game sources, change them significatively and distribute the results (for non-commercial purposes), as long as we are credited as the original authors.
I took advantadge of this license to include some professional music in the game. Especifically, I used three slightly and quickly modified cuts of Nine Inch Nail's The four of us are dying for the ambient music. Trent Reznor released that track's album, The Slip, with the exact same license GGJ required us to use, so everything fit perfectly.

Game Design Challenge: Time for Change (part 2)

And this was my second proposal for the gender altering challenge. It was just an idea I found funny, so don't take it too seriously.
I would have loved to send another one, this time changing Gabriel Knight's assistant Grace Nakimura into a sophisticated adult man. He would have served as a balance for Gabriel's untidiness, and I was considering whether to present him as a sexual rival or partner. Or both. But alas! I didn't have the time to think it properly and compose the text. A shame.

But here you have Canabalte!

Canabalte

The moment you heard of the robot invasion in the Capital, you knew your little Canabalt would leave his apartment with the first clothes he found and without brushing his teeth. That's not the way men should run around, even when the world as we know it is collapsing. So, you have taken your car and driven as fast as possible from the suburbs to the outer limits of the Capital. From here on, you'll have to run and jump to reach Canabalr's apartment before he leaves.

Game Design Challenge: Time for Change (part 1)

I loved the concept of changing a game by shifting the main character gender, so for this particular challenge I sent a couple of ideas; one serious, the other not so much.
The first of them, Princess of Persia made it to the second place, in a draw with another Prince of Persia re-imagining. Although I don't like Shin's display of the female character, I have to admit that his/her game is quite a funny take on Ubisoft's 2008 reboot of the franchise.

Some time after the results were published, I found a forum of female gamers/game designers in which they discussed the finalists*. I would have loved to get something from there, mainly because they criticized my Princess. Unfortunately, I got the impression that most of the critics barely read the first two paragraphs.
However, their point that women are not that much interested in the archetype hero journey made me wonder. In the end, and judging from best-selling books, movies and classics, I think women do connect with the archetype about as much as men, but from a different perspective. But this is another story which shall be told in another moment.

* Being the pile of shit google search is starting to be, I am unable to find it again. If someone stumbles upon it, notify me in the comments and I'll gladly update the post.

Princess of Persia

After 30 minutes, only two choices remain: marry the Vizier to save your lover's life or after his execution. Your last hope for rescue dead, you call the Vizier to submit, but suddenly realize it is up to you to save yourself. The Vizier grinning in front of you, you slowly manipulate your braid, look him in the eyes and smile when your small dagger rips the vermin's chest. After seething it back in your braid, you leave your royal chambers, with one half of the sand silently waiting to reach the bottom of the clock.

"Marry me... or he will die within the hour."

Game Design Challenge: iPad

Coinciding with the launch of Apple's gadget, and much like with the 3DS right now (January 2011), GameCareerGuide requested ideas for iPad games.
Some time ago I had quite a laugh watching youtube videos of finger skaters in toilets, desks or cardboard parks. Given that my favourite winter sports are curling and figure skating, I decided to adapt that finger experience to the iPad.
I didn't make it into the honorable mentions with Fingur Skating, which really made me wish there was some kind of feedback to the proposals. Is it the name? I knew I should have gone for Fingure Skating! Or the idea could be clearer? I know some of the mechanics are not that fleshed out, but that's not a problem usually. Mmmh.

Fingur Skating

Youtube's major impact in society has been the revelation that supposedly niche hobbies were not at all. People started timidly uploading their videos, just to find they were not the first to [weird things here]. One of the most endearing trends I found were the finger skaters, with their absurd tricks. I don't enjoy skate boarding that much, but I love figure skating and abdsurd games. Fingur Skating is the perfect blend of both.

The idea is simple: move your fingers on the iPad screen simulating the movement, spins and, to a certain point, jumps of a professional figure skater. Thanks to the size of the screen, you have the freedom to move graciously around and even play with a partner, with little scrolling. The ice rink would fit in 4 screens. The action will be followed from a cenital camera, with the player synchronizing the fingers to the skater's limbs, usually the feet, with both fingers while skating and only one when doing spins, following the curves traced by the feet or arms.
In the normal playing mode, the skater will perform a preconfigured series of figures and acrobatics, with the player going along. There will be visual cues signalling future movements, unfolding as subtle lines, in the manner of minimalist vines, and fading behind the skater, leaving small trails on the ice. Failure to properly execute the movements will result in drops and desynchronizations, which would show in the final punctuation.

Game Design Challenge: The New Sound

This was my submission for 2009's December challenge. It is not that bright, mainly because it was a last minute improvisation. My original idea, which had nothing to do with this one, became too ellaborate (and awesome). I'll revisit it soon and post the final version, which I hope to turn into a game in the relatively near future.
Instead of re-writing the whole composition, I just gave a shot at this different approach. I had been thinking of a subway mobile shooting game, similar to Virtua Cop 2's train section. In the end it turned out a little more like a simplified graphic adventure.

At least, I'm glad I didn't make a game like 80% of the nominees, which just used input commands as both control and sound. Rythm games have a lot more potential.

Proposal: NOISE ATENUATION SQUAD

 The situation in public transport is getting out of hand. Portable music players are people's biggest worry today: either they want to travel undisturbed or they want to listen only to their own music. Attacks have been triggered by this and the government fears a riot might explode soon.
 Only one solution would work, but the budget for the Omni-Happiness Machine did not pass the latest votings. A cheaper proposal, however, was approved: an untrained, unequipped, almost unsalaried squad has been built to make sure noise is kept to acceptable levels, preventing further violence outbursts.

Game Design Challenge: Sidekick

I've decided I will post my past submissions to the Game Design Challenge, while I finish writing and editing the stuff I have pending.
My first submission, according to my mail search engine, was for 2009's November challenge, in which participants were asked to create a sidekick to breath new life into an old franchise.

My idea was based on Doom, and offered the possibility to play with Pinky as a demon companion. I'd love to have the chance to, sometime, create this as a mod for DooM 3. Or see someone else do it.
It got an honorable mention when the results were published (yeah!), and the Game Career Guide staff was nice enough to add a picture of Pinky to my submission. I must admit I didn't consider that people not too familiar with the Doom universe would have no idea who Pinky is.
Lesson learnt: adding some art can clarify things you did not know need clarification.

Series: DOOM
Sidekick name: Mr. Pinky

"You killed its brothers, destroyed its master and melted its home. Thrice. This time, it wants to share the fun."

In Hell, waiting for the next Earth invasion, demons are dead bored. Craving for some more fun and a chance of survival when The Marine comes, one of them has decided to change sides in the coming war.

Game Design Challenge: A Holiday

EDIT: We Damn the Night! made it into the Honorable Mentions! Yahoo! I really, really need to work on some art for these things, though...

As every month, GameCareerGuide issued its challenge, with an unbelievably original holidays theme. It's been months since I last ssubmitted a proposal, but I gave it a try again today.

So, wihtout further ado, I present We Damn the Night!. I hope you enjoy it.

Title: We damn the night!

The Winter Solstice has always been one of the most important dates in the year, marking the return of light to the world and banishing evil for another cycle. Although not as common as in the Summer Solstice, it is still usual in different parts of the world to light bonfires, helping the forces of good recover their strength.
In We Damn the Night! you have to build up a flame hihgher than any other in a given time (2-10 minutes), to receive the favour of the new Sun. But to do so, you must confront your rivals and the forces of evil.

We Damn the Night! is a 2D game played from a typical beat'm up perspective, with 2D graphics in a pseudo-3D environment (think Streets of Rage, Final Fight, Scott Pilgrim). The player must pick up/break objects from the scenary and throw them into its fire to make it bigger. Different materials burn at specific rates and produce lower or higher flames. There are also objects than can reduce the strength of a bonfire, like water bottles. These can be thrown at a rivals' conflagration.
Players can only carry one object at a time, and meanwhile can do nothing but move and throw the load.