This year’s theme was “Waves”, and I found myself in a team where I didn’t know a single person – which is always challenging, but also fun! The development went nearly without any hitches and I’m really content with our result:

In the game, you are a bat flying through a cave looking for its bat pups so you can go hunting. The cave is dark and the pups are tiny, so you use your echolocation to see and hope the pups answer. You steer with the gamepad – but to use the echolocation, you have to whistle into a microphone! (Like the title suggests, this is definitely the latest in bat simulation technology.)

Here’s a video of our presentation after the GGJ (starts at 0:29):

And a small trailer video Emily and Caroline made:

The game and its source code is available at its Global Game Jam entry page.

Before I talk a little more about the development, here’s the team:

• Caroline Clark (@lineyjane): Programming
• Emily Claudet: Game Design, Sound Design
• Frederik Lindemann: Level Design, Game Design
• Miranda Tung: 2D Art/3D Art
• Tobias Wehrum: Team Lead, Lead Programming

We also used some assets:

• Dark Forest font by dcoxy – Greg Medina
• Universal Sound FX by Imphenzia AB
• 3D Particles by Unluck Software

Okay, on to the development! This time (and very atypical for me), the concept was rather simple. A single player game with no really hard development challenges – well, that leaves more room for polish, and sounds just right for 48 hours!

This was also one of the few times where the game design didn’t change much over the course of the weekend. Everything just worked. In the end, we actually finished the game with all the features we wanted! We even removed some features we already implemented because they made the game less accessible and weren’t as much fun as we had imagined: Dizzyness when the bat crashed into a wall, and not being able to call out to children when there’s a wall in the way. We also wanted to add monsters that follow sound, but in the end the game turned out to be plenty fun without the added complications, so we decided not to go that route.

The microphone implementation was incredibly easy, more so because this isn’t my first microphone controlled game. I just had to sample the input volume and detects peaks.

First I wanted to do the echolocation waves via shaders, but that that would’ve taken some time. Then I remembered something I learnt about in a Pluralsight video tutorial just a few weeks ago: Light Cookies, which allow you to put shadow masks on Unity3D lights. The final echolocation waves are just multiple spotlights with a circular light cookie mask shining from above, and the angle gets progressively bigger. That way it “runs” across obstacles and scales walls and stalagmites instead of just looking like it’s two-dimensional shape projected from above. The effect is a bit hard to describe, but you can see it quite often in the videos linked above.

I am really happy with our result! Thanks a lot to my team for being the best team – and to the location organizers and the Global Game Jam team who made it possible for us to jam without worrying too much about such mundane things as work space or food!

#043: Das Kollektiv

This is the first time one of my artworks is inspired by music! The song in question is Das Kollektiv by ASP. I’m taking a fairly literal interpretation of a swarm of little entities in between the walls, sucking out the essence of the “guests”. The images are pretty dark; you might need high contrast settings.

#044: Into Oblivion

This next one isn’t just inspired by music, but directly driven by it! There is already a post about it, so I’ll just post the visuals here.

Here is a video using a shortened version of Push Every Button by Lapfox:

#045: Canada’s Marvelous Singing & Dancing Animals

The next one is an animation driven by music – less a visualizer, because it needed to be heavily parameterized and the song isn’t as exchangeable. It’s also, uh, slightly more silly than the previous one.

The song is Python by Rolemusic and the images used are all public domain/CC0.

(Oh, and if you wonder why you can’t find this in the repository: It was made with Unity3D, not Processing.)

#046: A Slice of π

When making Into Oblivion, I was a bit frustrated that it was rather hard to gain good information from the FFT analysis and that it was utterly impossible to find which instrument was playing. I found both in MOD files.

If you want to learn more about it, head over to this blog post.

The song used are, in order:

• Rivendell by radix
• phantasmagoria by 4mat
• rsectro by 4mat
• zapped_out by 4mat

#047: Fractal Flames

After finding out about fractal flames in Apophysis 7x and discovering in the fractal flames paper by Scott Draves that the algorithm that creates those beautiful images is (for the most part) actually pretty straightforward, I just had to implement this myself in Processing. So yeah, nothing original here, but I had a lot of fun with this.

What fascinates me most is that the algorithm is based on an extremely simple concept: Pick a random position, transform it with a formula, draw a dot, transform it again, draw a dot, repeat. Throw in a few parameters and coloring based on how often a dot is visited. Then layer multiple of these formulas together. Nothing arcane here, yet the resulting images look both pleasing and complex!

#048: A Stroke of Color

The next one isn’t original either: I tried to recreate something similar to the stunning Composition #72 by Patrick Gunderson.

#049: Burrowers

And the last one for this batch. Just a few agents, running around, drawing lines, carving a nest for themselves in the digital earth.

As always, the source code for most of these can be found at the GitHub repository, open sourced under the MIT License.

If you want to run the sketches yourself, you just need to download Processing and open the PDE files. Sometimes you need to add a library, but mostly it’s really straightforward. If you need any help doing that, just send me a mail or comment here.

GitHub repository

Class Documentation

Overview

• Countdown: Useful for things like cooldowns or spawn delays. It is also helpful for tweening things by using the PercentElapsed property.
• EditorHelper: Gets the [Tooltip] attribute content of fields for editor classes. Might get more helper methods in the future.
• LINQExtensions: A collection of extension methods for IEnumerable, List and arrays.
• MathHelper: Helper methods for time-independent eased lerping, mapping and angles.
• MeshCreator: Makes it more convenient to create meshes via code.
• NoiseOutputValue: Enter a range and a speed in the editor, get an output value that fluctuates over time using Perlin Noise.
• RandomBag: A RandomBag gives you random items from a group while ensuring that in a certain interval every item was given back the same number of times.
• Range: Editable data types that take an int/float range. Used for things like “Spawn 2 to 4 enemies.”
• RollingArray: Collection that keeps the last x elements that are added to it.
• Singleton: Allows easy and convenient creation of a Singleton. Optionally makes a Singleton persist between scenes while ensuring that only one exists.
• UnityHelper: Contains a plethora of useful extensions and helpers for Transform, GameObject, Vector2/3/4, Rect and more.
• XmlHelper: Serializes data to XML strings and makes accessing optional element content and attributes in general XMLs easier.

Usage

To use the scripts, just drop them into the Assets folder of your projects. Or better yet, make an “Assets/Extensions/TobisUnityUtitilites” folder and drop them there. Hurray for proper organisation.

You can also just use selected scripts, but you should check the “Dependencies” section in the respective folder to make sure you copy everything you need.

#029: Plasma Blob

This one isn’t terribly impressive, but it was made in a few minutes to demonstrate Processing to a colleague and is reasonably nice to look at.

#030: Mara’s Ocean

A typographic variation of #028: Isles using the Mara’s Eye font.

#031: Chimera Maker: What Has Science Done?!

The sillyness levels go through the roof with this one. For executables for Windows, Mac, Linux and Android and for more pictures, check out it’s own blog post!

#032: Grass Tree

Another ad-hoc Processing tutorial I gave for a ground of friends. This one was a bit more involved than #029: Plasma Blob and looks pretty nice!

#033: Dance of the Fireflies

An experiment with boids/flocking. Unfortunately a little dark-ish, so it’s best observed at night – just like real fireflies!

#034: Living Constellations

Stars float around and form constellations with nearby other stars.

#035: Smoky Silk

Yet another silk variation.

Download

Windows (32 bit)

Windows (64 bit)

Source Code (GitHub, MIT license)

Instructions:

• Plasma Blob: Left-click to refresh.
• Maras Ocean:
  • Left-click or X to refresh.
  • Right-click or C to refresh, but keep color palette.
  • Middle-click or V to refresh, but switch colors.
• Grass Trees:
  • Left-click to refresh.
  • Right-click to instantly finish growing.
• Dance of the Fireflies
  • Left-click to refresh.
  • Middle-click to take 1000 steps and pause.
  • Right-click to pause/unpause.
  • A to refresh and finish 1000 steps with same color.
  • S to refresh and finish 1000 steps with changed color.
• Living Constellations
  • Left-click to refresh.
  • Right-click to pause/unpause.
• Smoky Silk
  • Left-click to refresh.
  • Middle-click to take 1000 steps and pause.
  • Right-click to pause/unpause.

If you’re not on Windows, fret not; for some reason I can’t compile for Mac and Linux, but you can just download Processing and open the sketch files. Sometimes you need to add a library, but mostly it’s really straightforward. If you need any help doing that, just send me a mail or comment here.

The song is Python by Rolemusic and the images used are all public domain/CC0.

If any of the animals aren’t Canadian after all, this is an unintentional error; I just identified them by the way they move their snouts.

My goal was to make a game where people have to cooperate and that scales well with different amounts of players. To ensure cooperation, the game would feature two radically asymmetric roles: the Shooter, which can attack but dies to a single hit, and the Defender, which has no offensive capabilities, but whose shield can absorb any amount of damage. In the center of the games are the Cores which the players have to defend. Enemies come in from all around the screen and try to destroy the players and the Cores, whatever is nearest. The enemies’ projectiles are heat-seeking – they will always hit something, so without the Defenders, the Core and the Shooters will be destroyed rather sooner than later; but without the Shooters, the defenders could not destroy a single enemy.

This was a jam game done in about 12 hours and everyone around me was busy, so I there was no way I could balance it properly. I solved that dilemma by assuming the role of the game master: I would sit at the keyboard and spawn enemies.

Apart from troublesome connection problems, the game worked rather well for a jam game and the crowd loved it. Here is a video of the presentation:

The video was filmed by Iwan Gabovitch and the sound effects are from the fabulous Universal Sound Effects which I can very much recommend.

Connection problems aside, I am very content with how the mechanics worked out and I think there is a lot of potential there. I will probably revisit this prototype some day and make a proper game out of it.

Six druids have come together to perform
the yearly Super Important Ritual.
But unbeknownst to them, two traitors
have infiltrated their ranks!

Complete the rituals, but watch out for
those which fail – and who participated!

Watch your fellow players!
Identify the traitors!
(Potentially) Save the world!

A deceptive platforming game for four druids
and two traitors with XBox360 Controllers.

GGJ Page with Windows build

Credits:

Since the last time, I picked up generative art to make interesting backgrounds. After a lot of experiments, I finally settled for a background that looks similar to the old one, but more interesting and with more dashes of color – and because it’s procedural, it will always look different.

I also visited the AMAZE Indie Festival in Berlin and got lots of great feedback that I used to improve this build.

Here is the changelist:

• New procedural background
• Made level transitions more fluid
• Tweaked movement and net opening/closing
• Replaced A-F rating with stars
• Added a score malus for death
• Added a particle mouse cursor ingame
• Capped player ships at screen border
• Improved “Sector Clear” screen
• Improved rocket visibility
• Improved level progression
• Improved tutorial
• Improved feedback
• Fixed several bugs, including net collision problems with fast-moving enemies

You can download the current versions here – and if you do, please give leave me some feedback!

• Windows
• Linux
• Mac

A few examples of the new background:

Another thing that changed is that enemies now have appearing animations! Instead of just suddenly being there, they are generated out of particles using Particle Playground:

Next up:

• Prototyping and testing of two new game modes
• Experiments with limited net count
• Improved sound effects
• Rework the whole ingame and menu UI

I had a lot of fun with electronics in my last project, so I wanted to do more of that. And I still had a Touch Board that I never had time to use so far – an Arduino with capacitive sensing, which, among other things, can do this:

It worked quite well for very low ranges (<4cm), which was suitable for our purposes. At first we tried to make one crystal which players can touch from multiple directions, but players used to swirl their hands around it like it was a crystal ball and that didn’t make for very predictable controls. In the end, we settled for 5 cardboard crystals, each with only one function and aluminium foil inside. The capacitive sensing actually worked really well through the cardboard! Some crystals controlled movement, and the closer you got to them, the faster the movement got. (And not being able to see why cardboard can sense how close you get to it added a fun technological-magical aspect to the whole thing.)

Apart from that, we also wanted to have generative creatures – kind of like my Chimera Maker, but this time I also got to procedurally animate the creatures! Kailin Zhu drew them and created the crystals you see in the video and pictures below, Titouan Millet made beautiful generative cloud shaders and Peter van Haaften generative music and sounds.

Oh, and I also made the creature nest, a separate executable which showed the creatures flying away from and returning to earth, seen in the video on the monitor. It communicates with the main game via a server using the Yahoo Games Network (formerly PlayerIO). I tried to make it work with standard Unity peer-to-peer networking, but the University network didn’t like direct connections at all.

Finally, all this generativeness combined resulted in:

Magical creatures have escaped into the heavens,
and the player must sift through layers of clouds
to bring them back to the earth.

Using a set of five crystal touch/distance-sensing controllers,
the player wanders through a generative audio/visual cloud world
to catch these lost mythical beings and return them to their home.

Credits:

• Titouan Millet – Programming and generative visuals
• Kailin Zhu – Craft and illustration
• Tobias Wehrum – Programming, electronics, and generative creature engine/animation
• Peter van Haaften – Generative music and sound engine

The video footage was recorded by Mattias Graham and Tobias Wehrum.

This project was made possible through the Technoculture, Art and Games Research Center’s Critical Hit: Games Collaboratory and the support of Concordia University and Dawson College and financial contribution of the Ministère de l’Enseignement supérieur, de la Recherche, de la Science et de la Technologie.

Work in Progress and Playtest

The player is ill – their heart rate, body temperature and digestion are either two high or too low – and so the player tries to get healthy by eating foodstuffs. Each foodstuff raises or lowers one or two of the aforementioned properties. (To keep it replayable, those effects are randomly decided at the start of each round.) It’s a logic puzzle: The player has to find out what each foodstuff does by eating them, then look at the current status on their apron, and in the end figure out which foodstuffs to eat to get healthy.

The core concept didn’t change much except going from multi- to singleplayer – this week was mostly about finishing the hardware (last week we only had a digital prototype to test with) and figuring out how to teach the game to new players.

We came up with two ways:

1. Starting simple, upping the difficulty: First there is only “temperature slider and 2 foodstuffs”, then there is “temperature + heart and 3 foodstuffs” and finally we get to “temperature + heart + stomach and all 4 foodstuffs”.
2. Using a screen which displays hints for the effect of all 4 foodstuffs in the beginning (“Kiwi: -1 temperature”, etc.) and then reducing the amount of hints by one every round.

In the end, we couldn’t decide which one we prefer and implemented both: One version self-sufficent with just the apron/fork/Arduino, and one version with an additional screen.

And now, without further ado…

Malnutrition is making you sick.
Luckily, you have found some healthy-looking
food, but you don’t know what it does yet.

Pick up your fork and watch as what you eat changes
your body and figure out the right combination.

Munch your way to health in FruitFever!

Source code available at GitHub.

Made possible by Critical Hit 2015.

Credits:

• Owen Bell: Electronics
• Milin Li: Sewing, Soldering
• Mónica Rikic: Sewing, Programming
• Tobias Wehrum: Programming

This project was made possible through the Technoculture, Art and Games Research Center’s Critical Hit: Games Collaboratory and the support of Concordia University and Dawson College and financial contribution of the Ministère de l’Enseignement supérieur, de la Recherche, de la Science et de la Technologie.

More “Working on the Game” Photos

(You can find the images from last week here.)