March 01, 2008
February 2008 Meeting Recap
The Philly IGDA hosted about 2 dozen gaming enthusiasts on Wednesday February 27th, 2008 for our monthly meeting.
We had a lightning tour of the proposed chartering of the local IGDA chapters. Equally quick was our whirlwind recap of GDC 2008 - the stuff we loved and the stuff that we will avoid like the plague next year.
The highlight of the evening was the live demos of the games created during the 2008 Philly Game Jam. Representatives from all 4 teams were on hand to show off the 6 new titles they created.
The games were all built in under 48 hours trying to incorporate the theme "Energy and persistence conquer all things" and using, where possible, the color 'red' and the object 'a flag'.
Team CGGT led of the evening showcasing "Cars with Bawls" - a top down, 2-player, 3D capture the (red) flag driving game built in C++ and OpenGL. Beware not to bump too many obstacles or your vehicle's energy will be depleted with a loud BOOM!
Next was Team Drexel showing off the first of their 3 titles - "Brain Bros." Brain Bros. is a top down 3D shooter where 2 brothers - one human and one zombie - must defend a flag against hordes of swarming enemies. See Kevin Nyman's project page for more information.
Tom Bennett from Team Drexel followed up with his "Shotless Shooter" game built in XNA. Tom stepped off the beaten path of traditional single player space shooter games and created an experience where the player must use his enemies against each other while evading their energy blasts. If the player does not carefully conserve his own energy - all is lost.
Team DMD was next showing off "Tesla Wars" built in J2ME and playable on Java capable phones. Tesla Wars pits 2 players against each other in a race to route energy through pipes from the starting point to the finishing flag. Strategy is important as you utilize powerups to damage, steal, or reroute your opponent's energy flow.
Team The Cake is a Lie followed with their Flash-based puzzle game "TraceBug". TraceBug tasks a single player to solve the levels by exploding the geometric shapes in the proper sequence so the circle is the last piece to be destroyed. If you click in the wrong order, you can risk leaving energy on the board or find yourself without the energy to explode the circle.
The final offering from Team Drexel was "Telekinetic Stickman and the Bowling Balls of Doom". This Flash game allows you to play as the great red-caped hero, Telekintic Stickman, as he tries to avoid being crushed by the downpour of Bowling Balls of Doom. If you are quick and careful enough to get under a falling powerup, your telekinetic energies can be used to repel the bowling balls back from whence they came.
Excellent job by everyone and we can't wait to see what gets cooked up in Philly Game Jam 2009!
Gameplay video and downloadable versions of the games will be posted on phillygamejam.com shortly.
Posted by DanielHettrick at March 1, 2008 12:07 PM