Category: Prototypes

Aubjects, or: The last game I’ll ever make in 2013

For every month of 2013, I’ve released (at least!) one game – except December. Luckily, there’s still a few minutes left, so I present to you my digital web/desktop/Android adaptation of a board game we once made at my university!

Aubjects

Your job is to locate six mysterious Aubjects
on a foreign planet – via triangulation.
To make it more exciting, you decided to have a contest!

Enclose exactly one Aubject to score.
For every additional enemy probe you get one bonus point.

Become the Master Triangulator in:
Aubjects, a game of skill for two players.

Play it right in your browser!

Download it for:
Windows
Android

Credits:

This game is based on a board game made at the HTW Berlin, designed by:

  • Tobias Müller
  • Anthea Neums
  • Nathanael Siering
  • Tobias Wehrum
  • Florian Wokurka
 

Balls & Balloons

Another month, another jam, another crazy physics game. In the beginning, this one was inspired by the awesome Drei, but it quickly steered away from that and became something… uh, else. I dunno.

Balls & Balloons

You control two balloons attached to a paddle.

Use it to get balls in your colored bottle!

Or you could just remove the ones your enemy has…

(You’ll need two XBox360 controllers.)

Play in your browser!

Download for Windows!

Credits:

  • Programming: Tobias Wehrum
  • Music: Kevin MacLeod
  • Font: Ben McGehee
 

webcat

For a university course, I was tasked to make a thing with JavaScript/Crafty. Since I am not particularly fond of HTML5, I wanted to do something playful that I couldn’t do with any other technology. Please welcome with me: webcat.

webcat

webcat

1) Take this link up there and drag it to the bookmark bar or favourites.

2) Go to some other page (Wikipedia works well, for example).

3) Click on the bookmark/favourite “webcat” link!

There isn’t anything to do but running around and double-jumping, but hey, now you can add a cat to any webpage you want!

Credits:

 

Robots Love To Do People Things

Last jam, I started something I called “Remote Person Control“. This jam, I refined what I had back then:

  • The Player holds a tablet with a soundboard, showing buttons like “Left”, “Right” or “Grab”.
  • The Robot is blindfolded and has a smartphone with headphones – and when the player presses a button, the robot hears what he pressed.

It’s still no game, but a VERY fun toy! I recorded three videos to show what the current prototype can do:

Robots Love To Make Sandwiches

Robots Love To Draw Pictures

Robots Love To Play Board Games

For those interested, here is the complete soundboard:

And here are the voice samples for you to listen to! I love the last one.

Inspiration

While I like to think that I came up with the idea myself, I obviously had inspirations. Here are those I can remember:

  • Signal Delay by ChrisGaudino: A Ludum Dare prototype about remotely controlling a mars rover.
  • Octodad by Young Horses, Inc: Octodad – Loving Father. Caring Husband. Secret Octopus. A game where you pretend to be a human by doing mundane tasks, but being an octopus with an incredible awkward control scheme makes this quite hard and incredibly funny.

Credits

Thanks a lot to our artist and the robots in the videos! Our sandwich-making robot is Adam “PunyOne” Streck. If he isn’t making sandwiches, he’s making games – you can find some of them at http://justaconcept.org!

 

Hammertennis: ChainJam 4 Players Edition

A few weeks ago, I participated in the ChainJam. It was about making 4 player local multiplayer games, each lasting only one minute – and then we’d take all of them and string them randomly together, playing one after another and keeping the score throughout the game. It’s pretty well explained here!

Since my previous tries to remake my beloved Hammertennis as a Unity game failed, I used the ChainJam as an excuse to experiment some more. After a day of coding (and a little revision later to make it able to work as a stand-alone), I got this:

Hammertennis: ChainJam 4 Players Edition

Try to keep balls in your territory to score points!

Playable with gamepads or multiple keyboards.

Play it online here!

So – am I content with it? Gameplay-wise, I am not – it keeps the uncontrollability that was fun in the original Hammertennis, but because it’s so cramped and you now have 4 players instead of two, the interaction feels more meaningless. I learned to use RageSpline and Farseer though, and I am quite happy with the visual look I achieved. I think it’s a huge step forward from my usual programmer art. So – no, the game isn’t that great, but I think it’ll help me a lot when I try to make the next revision in the Hammertennis prototype series!

Credits:

 

SwapSwatch

Many moons ago, when the earth was still young and Astrid and Pete still lived in Berlin, Heiko, Kelsey and me formed a jam team with them – a team whose epic adventures will be told throughout the centuries. We also made a silly little jam game for a theme long forgotten:

SwapSwatch

You’re trying to collect all the colors!
Sadly you can’t suck colors yourself.

Cuttlefishs to the resue! Don the right cuttlefish
to fill your color reservoir in the respective zone.
Also do the reasonable thing: Let him spit ink at your opponent!

But beware of the police clouds, giving fines to everyone
who is in the wrong color zone with a cuttlefish.

A super serious game for two players
on keyboard or XBox360 controllers!

Download for Windows!

SwapSwatch: Cuttlefish Color Collector

I have no idea what we were thinking. Don’t ask. I regret nothing.

Credits

 

Predator vs Predator – A Stealth Duel Game for Two Monitors

A few months ago, a Mini Game Jam. The theme was “hiding”, and the artist Leith Gow and I made a stealth duel game for two players – on two monitors.

Predator vs Predator

Lurk in the shadows.
Lie in wait. Ready your laser.

Feint. Grab the points.
Be aggressive.

A Stealth Duel Game for 2 players with
XBox360 controllers and 2 monitors.

Download it for Windows!

Predator vs Predator Gameplay

Credits

Programming: Tobias Wehrum
Art: Leith Gow
Music: Kevin MacLeod
Sound: Moritz Ufer, Marcus Lee
Font: Guy Buhry

Two monitors made possible by SoftTH.

 

Massive Defense: A Cooperative Game for 27″ Touchscreens and Android Tablets

Game Jam time! And when I saw Heiko with this beauty of a touchscreen, I knew that I had develop for this. We wanted to do something where players can cooperate against a common thread. 8 hours later, we had this:

Massive Defense

An asteroid storm threatens your mission,
but your trusty spaceships stand ready.

Defend your home base!
Defend your friends!

Try to survive as long as possible in this
cooperative asteroid defense game for 4 players.

Exclusively for 27″ touchscreens!
(Or alternatively for 4 XBox360 gamepads.)

Download:

Windows (Gamepad Version)
Windows (Touchscreen Version)
Android

Video

While it’s certainly possible to play on a tinier touchscreen, playing it on 27″ was a lot of fun! Here’s a video of us playing it at the jam:

Massive Defense: A Cooperative Game for 27″ Touchscreens and Android Tablets

Credits

Programming:

Art:

Sound Design:

Music:

Fonts:

 

Monster Pit: Team Building As Seen By A Mad Scientist (for up to 8 players)

Next jam! The plan was to make a little game and spent the remaining time with a university assignment like a responsible person. Then “Dark Science” was chosen as a theme, so I was like “I got to get my priorities straight” and concentrated solely on making this little gem:

Monster Pit

In the current economy, teamwork is all!

The mad scientist’s way to find the best monster for the
job is (obviously) to chain two of them together and throw
them in a pit with fireballs and other monsters.

Each of you is one of these monsters.
Work together and win as a team!

The winner will be used for further experiments.
Good… luck, I guess?

Play it in the web player!

Download it for Windows/Mac/Linux!

Monster Pit Gameplay (4 players)

Credits:

  • Programming: Tobias Wehrum
  • Music: Kevin MacLeod
  • Fonts: Nate Piekos and GemFonts 98
 

Kinect Artillery: A 9 hour Kinect prototype

Another Berlin Mini Game Jam was upon us, so I thought I’d prove once again that I have no sense of how much time certain things need whatsoever. I had the feeling that making a Kinect game would be a good way to do that, and together with Heiko Weible and graphics by Jana Leinweber I actually finished not too much after the allotted time frame.

Kinect Artillery

You fasten the grip around your gun and
check your shield once again: Everything’s fine.
You’re ready.

Will you shoot down your enemy?
Or collect enough stars to win?

Whatever you goal is, do your best to win in Kinect Artillery!

Download it for Windows!
You’ll also need the Kinect for Windows Runtime.

Kinect Artillery: Berlin Mini Game Jam Presentation

I’m quite proud with how that turned out. Obviously we didn’t write all the code in the 9 hour timeframe, but I think it’s still an impressing feat to pull off – and it plays fine. While it’s a bit awkward to turn to the side, seeing your silhouette following your motions is very satisfying, and the general look works surprisingly well.

Credits: