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Hey!

Straight back to course work for me!

I am slightly disappointed with my submission. I didn't get anywhere what I wanted to get in there done, ended up with a basic arena shooter with some serious network issues :c

Looking back I would have kept it to single player to focus on game play instead of focuses 90% of my time on network code. Although for a project I put about 30 hours into it is not to bad but if the networking had gone smoother would have got much more done but swapping between this and course work any only getting maybe an hour a day for this.

I would say that there are at the very least 5 games better than mine (I haven't played all of them) so holding no hope for getting into the finals this time but managed to learn some stuff on the go.

If I have learned anything from this it is UNet's high level API is simply terrible, the problems I had where all over the internet with completely no response from Unity. I will defiantly stick with Photon Network or TNet in the future as I have made many multiplayer games with those with almost no issue at all.

Regardless good luck to all, it was a fun challenge!

Calum.

So for my project it is currently 100% online multiplayer due to not having enough time to put in single player.

My issue is that I am using Unitys Multiplayer services and it turns out the 4kb limit of bandwidth literally means my game disconnects after about 2 minutes of having it open without fail! And paying for an upgrade is impossible :s

Anyone used these services before and found a work around?

Hi Lizi,

Yes thanks that helps! I have done my best to use this way of doing it, although it makes it slightly harder to set up UI elements such as buttons as you can't just assign a function directly to the button instead the UI managers need to handle everything by getting access to scripts from the other scenes. But the loading times are already visibly faster!

Thanks again!

Calum.

Hi Lizi,

I never thought about using this to make better use of source control, definitely something I will take from this!

As for loading in like this to avoid slow downs on start, would you say this makes a large difference with UI scenes? As I understand it loading in scenes is quite heavy in itself.

At the moment my first scene is entirely a UI Canvas as it is a lobby for my multi player but I will try and make my in-game UI work in this way :)

Thanks!

Calum.

Just wondered what people thought of the A-Sync loading of a UI Scene into the game as it is in hte base project.

A-Sync scene loading is great for large scale games but using it simply to load in a scene with a UI Canvas in seems a bit much. the only way I can see it being of use is if you have lots of scenes all with the same UI but then using DontDestroyOnLoad works just as well.

Maybe I am missing something?

Singletons can be amazing and I make good use of them, I have never come across anyone with such a stigma against them but I also know they can cause lots of problems in handled badly.

Use them well and they can make everything much easier!

I am in the same situation as Alphie275 at this point, a few days left and I have done close to no work on my project :/ I am the secretary of the Games Development Society at DMU which means I plan and run events, one of which was a game jam that I just got back from which was going on since Friday, and now to keep up with course work I need to finish least 2 modules of work by the end of the week!

I will submit what I have regardless but at all it is, is a online multiplayer system and you can see the other players moving around which pretty much no game play :( But this competition is right in the middle of the all my final year projects and keeping my grades above 70% comes first!

Hey!

Good to see someone else active on the discussion boards! Game jams are all about networking with other jammers!

I have no idea what to call mine, I will be posting some dev blog/posts soon though :) Mine is a multiplayer arena game which takes large influence from the first Geometry Wars game mixed with Asteroids. I am a big fan of the neon line art style. I guess I should come up with a name soon though! Sadly my art skills are lacking so I don;t have any icons quite the elaborate.

Would be great to see some more of the work later on though!

Good luck.

Calum.

Hey everyone,

I have mistakenly been in the Search for a Star group up until now as I followed the link in the email we got not the one in the brief!

Many people in the other groups have been talking and sharing their project ideas and generally networking with other contestants. So now I am in the correct group thought I may as well try and start it over here as well.

So far I am working on a game that is a cross over between the arcade game Asteroids mixed with Geometry Wars but have added in some extra features such as online multiplayer where you are fighting each other as well as the environment.

It would be great to see what everyone else has been up to.

Good Luck!

Calum McManus - De Montfort University Leicester - BSc Computer Games Programming (Hons)

Hey Josh,

Interesting, I posted in the help section about how much of the original code should be used but no answer. Although it may make you set apart from the rest of us!

I feel the same way, all my deadlines are a week after this competition so I may only get 2/3 days to put into it :(

Would be interesting to see what you come up with, keep me informed with how it goes!

Goodluck!

Calum.

Hey Jim!

I feel the same way haha, coming up with creative game ideas has never been my strong suite.

I feel that keeping within our bounds would be a wise decision, one impressive system that is perfect compared to many systems that are not entirely complete may be a better option. Local Multiplayer is what I plan to stick to for this but building alone side a single player mode while keeping the AI simple enough to fit into my time frame. Although I wish I had time for all of it!

But it seems I am up against some good minds! I will have to try and prove my worth haha!

Good luck!

Calum.

Hey Dale,

I am from De Montfort University in Leicester doing BSc(Hons) Computer Games Programming.

I agree with both of your replies. I have been a network programmer several commercial games unitising unity's multiplayer services before so I was hoping to show off that experience while keeping the game simple due to the time frame, network code will take up half my time and I am trying to fit this round my course work which all due in March as well!

I would say the current mechanics are lacking in most areas, the current set up has objects to small / seems zoomed out for a playable game. The flocking mechanics are a little bit useless with the default speed of objects, in the pre-made scene repelling the red box pushes it so fast that near by blocks don't get a chance to move, but I assume this was to make sure we change as much as possible otherwise they would just get their code back!

I am playing with many ideas but none that fully utilise the original code, primarily I like the idea of reversing the magnetic code so that the player can control it. Mixing that with the fast pace arena style would make for a fun game, but completely remove the object grouping and require massive changes to the magnetic code. The other option is to a game similar to asteroids and using the attraction mechanics mixed with softbody physics to allows blocks to join together like jelly!

I think I may be here a while coming up with an idea haha. I'll post on here as soon as I get started.

Good luck!

Calum.

Hey Everyone,

I was thinking sharing ideas and maybe helping people find inspiration would be a nice and as the judges can see this I feel we won't have to worry about people taking ideas from here as it will be clear if they copied it entirely.

My opening thoughts where that the person who made the base project clearly had an idea of a game in his head but the whole thing seems to be a confusing collection of scripts and give no direct indication of a idea behind it.

My current idea is to utilise the magnetic theme of pushing and pulling objects to form a 2 player sports game, similar to a top down 1v1 rocket league except you control the magnetic force of your car being able to drag the ball without then swapping to repel to fire it into the goal. Although I hope to add a lot more to it, a multiplayer network version along with a single player v AI would be fun to add in. This idea requires massive changes to the base project so hearing everyone's thoughts would be great!

It would be nice to hear what everyone is thinking! Although we are competing, networking during Game Jam events can be the most important part!

Thanks.

Calum.

Hey,
I was wondering how much of the original code would be advised to use. I have an idea of what to do but one script in-particular would become redundant.

Also, just to confirm, is the project expected to run on Windows/Desktop OS's or could we go for Android? Can we specify that it has been tested and works on one platform?

Thanks!
Calum.