Jam Theme: Unconventional Weapon

Before going into the jam, I knew that I was going to use Pico-8 to create my game. It allows for quick game creation by handling all the code, art and sound within a very small and tight package. The limits of the fantasy console helped keep the scope of the project small and within reason for a short weekend.

The idea of Write Fight was to be a fighting game, but instead of punches and special moves, a controllable line would be drawn to deal the damage. I pictured it as a side scrolling platform, akin to Smash Bros, but once I started to build the characters and draw mechanic, it became clear that side-scrolling wasn’t suited well to this method of attack. Instead I chose to go with an overhead view, like Zelda: Four Swords or Bomberman, and I think it was the better choice. It makes more sense to be standing still than allow falling while drawing.

First characters and pen sprite in Pico-8 Editor.

The game was made rather quickly, on Friday night/Saturday morning I created the code for drawing lines. On Saturday afternoon, I was in a tournament for Magic: The Gathering, so I spent time in between rounds drawing characters and the tilemap walls. The rest of the weekend, I had to juggle my time between caring for my 1 1/2 year old son and not completely ignoring my wife. The game came together late Sunday when the power-ups were added and a game end was included. The lined paper floor was created just a few hours before the turn in time of the jam, as all the previous floor patterns I tried were too busy, too dark or duplicated colors I wanted to use for characters (Pico-8 has a palette of 16).

Play the jam version here

While making the game, I really didn’t have a chance to play with another person until Sunday night, so most of the design decisions were theoretical. My wife played many matches with me (after I submitted), and the game turned out very fun. The power-ups were very important to keeping the gameplay moving, as being too greedy with collecting usually turned into game loses. Strategies emerged from our gameplay as well. The lines you draw will continue to do damage if walked into, so barrier lines crossing wanted paths or in the way of power-ups became a common tactic to trip up or slow each other down. Making sweeping lines around the opponent also forced them to stand still and wait for the lines to clear up before moving again.

After the jam, I could not stop thinking about the game, so I continued working on it at night during the week. The power-ups I had planned, but didn’t get to during the jam were added (sandwich and heart). Also: a title screen, multiple characters, selectable colors, best-of-three matches (which is adjustable in code), multiple maps to randomly choose, and breakable blocks to give the drawing mechanic more utility.

Bomberman inspired level.

I’m quite proud of the final version, it does everything I wanted the game to do and turned out more fun than expected. To test the final version, I took my laptop and controllers to Friday Night Magic (the week after the jam) and invited players to try the game in between matches. It was well received, as the noise level of the players disturbed people still playing cards at the nearby tables.

Post-jam, Version 1.0

Play the final version (1.0) here

iCade and iCade 8-bitty are bluetooth game controllers that passes keyboard button presses to your portable device. They make great controllers for touch-screen only devices and even for playing on a laptop.

One of the things I’ve been looking everywhere for is an easy way to include an iCade controller in my Unity projects. The only one I could find is the plugin from Prime31 for $35. It seemed odd to me that there is a free SDK to make iCade work with native Xcode projects, but no free Unity integration. So I decided to write it and share it.

Download the scripts from Github. The following videos explain how to test for iCade button presses, and make your iOS device send the button presses to your Unity game.

Video part 1 covers adding the scripting to your project to detect for button presses.

Video part 2 covers setting up Xcode to sync the button presses.

Below is an image showing the names to use in your scripts for each button.

Button layout for iCade 8-bitty.

// Examples
// isDown returns true if the button is down this frame
if (ICade.instance.isDown("UP")) {
Debug.Log("UP button is held down.");
}
// justPressed returns true only on the single frame when the button was pressed
if (ICade.instance.justPressed("Y")) {
Debug.Log("Y button pressed.");
}
// justReleased returns true only on the single frame when the button was let go
if (ICade.instance.justReleased("Y")) {
Debug.Log("Y button released.");
}

I haven’t used the Prime31 plugin, so it may work better than my way.

At this year’s PegJam, I decided it was the perfect time to put together my idea for the Experimental Gameplay Project Sifteo Cubes Competition. I’m partial to dungeon crawlers, so my first idea was to make a random map, which you can move about by connecting cubes to see adjacent screens and then moving your character between them. I also wanted to keep it very simple, so it could be completed during the weekend. So, the game became a multiplayer “Capture the Flag” game. Unfortunately due to time, I didn’t get to the random map generation part. But overall, it turned out pretty good.

Prototype Screens

Each player takes a turn where they can move 5 screens, trying to be the first to visit all three flag checkpoints. The first to do so wins. Simple enough. Players begin in a random spot in the map, each flag is also placed randomly. Each quadrant of the map has its own color floor, with a strip of white floor separating the four quadrants (it’s a 7×7 map). While playing, the other players should be paying attention to the others movement and placement to figure out where all of the flags are. When a player has used up all of their moves, a notice pops up for players to switch, and the screen focuses on the next player when all cubes have disconnected.

Taking this idea forward, I want to give the game more of a board game feel. So here’s a bulleted list of what I would add:

• 2-4 players
• Menu/options
• Orientation not matter
• Graphics/Animation!
• Randomly generated maps
• Shake to roll dice for # of screen moves this turn
• 1 time bonuses found in map, (i.e. extra moves, limit other players to two screen view limit for a turn)
• Mini-map of where you’ve been on disconnected screen(s) — if it doesn’t make it too easy
• Pac-man style wrap-around tunnels
• Other gameplay modes (Hide & Seek)

Download the prototype: https://www.dropbox.com/s/4h5maujsuts8qc1/MazePrototype.elf