Oxeye Game Studio » Competitions

Crunchin’

jeb — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 00:38:14 +0000

Crunchin’ is not like surfin’ – not as cool and far less enjoyable. For some.
To us it’s a lifestyle. Crunching (intense working that more often than not leads to bloodshot eyes and veins being popped) is what we love – and crunching to get the IGF demo ready is what we’ve been doing the last couple of weeks.

So what have we learned?
First and foremost we discovered that our main character’s name is Cobalt and not Blueface or Shitface or Metalface or whatever we’ve been calling him/her in the past.
We’ve established a direct line of communication to Cobalt (who is currently stationed at Trunkopia) to avoid further confusion.

We’ve also discovered a new talent amongst us! Actually he’s not new, he’s pretty old (member of Oxeye), but when it comes to words the only ones Jens have been cranking out have either been code related or hasty words of affection jotted down on postcards .
Until now that is.
Surveys show that since he took over the editing department of the Galactipedia Encyclopedia Profundus customer satisfaction has gone up exponentially.
Confusion remains unchanged.
A sample of his latest creative outburst can be viewed below.
In fact, he’s writings have been so popular at the company HQ that he’s taken the prodigious Mattias (aka Anosou) as his writing apprentice.

Speaking of Mattias, another thing we’ve learned during these past few weeks is that his musical genius spreads beyond human comprehension. He’s fast to. You only have to hint the idea of a new tune and before you’ve uttered the last words explaining the song you’ll have it blasting through your headphones.

We’ve also been tinkering with co-op. Cobalt has been nagging us about it for some time now. I guess loneliness knows no decency.

Last but not least, I, Pontus (Kinten), have had to slowly accept the fact that I no longer sport a fantastic beard. I accidentally shaved it all off using a rogue trimmer.
Support mails concerning this are appreciated.

Until next time, swim calmly (Swedish expression).
/Kinten

House Globe, Space RTS in the Second Dimension

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 19:00:22 +0000

Remember “Because it’s fun, Fay?” It was a game we made for the TIGSource Procedural Generation Competition, held earlier this summer. We created it using our Lua script engine, Daisy Moon, which we usually use when we want to prototype different game ideas (we also use Multi-media Fusion sometimes, depending on the situation). The game turned out to be a two-player platform game with one character living in a rotated dimension, and with a JRPG end-boss fight. Maybe not our greatest game, but if you haven’t tried it, you can find it here.

Now it’s time for a new TIGSource competition and a new game! This time the theme is Bootleg Demakes, and people have posted over 100 threads about competition projects. A “bootleg” means “inofficial copy” and “demake” means “that is made to look as though it were running on older-generation hardware”. We could obviously not resist competing again and, using our Daisy Moon engine once more, created House Globe.

Hit the jump for the full story!

Artifact’s House Globe – 2D Real-time Strategy Game

Our competition entry is a demake of the classic Homeworld by Relic. If you haven’t played it, the short story is that Homeworld is a real-time strategy game in space. Your fleet is centered around your Mothership, which constructs units and is the drop-off zone for resources. In the game you are travelling through space in order to find your homeworld, while evil aliens attempt to destroy you (obviously).

When we began making the game we set our hardware target at the PC games of the mid-ninetees, think Dune 2 (i.e. the 320×240 resolution is intentional). We wanted to translate Homeworld’s 3D view to a flat 2D version, while keeping the key features that made Homeworld the game it is. That means your Mothership (called Maternal Vessel in House Globe) is the center piece of your fleet and will construct all units. It also means that we wanted to keep the tactical/strategical toggle that Homeworld has.

Beyond those initial concepts, we felt quite free to design our own game. We put much effort on making the “micro” part interesting (good control/response when moving units), and having a balanced technology tree. In the end we believe we managed to make a really good game in only 10 days or so.

Features:

2D RTS
Single-player practice vs the computer
1on1 online multi-player
Replay recordings of multi-player games

Screenshots:

Downloads:

Check the readme for game controls (it’s fairly inituitive). If you play any multi-player games, please send us the replay files! And… have fun!

/ jeb

Because it’s fun, Fay

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 21:29:24 +0000

During the last couple of weeks we’ve been working on a small game for TIGSource’s Procedural Generation competition. The deadline is tonight, and we are just finished! The game’s called “Because it’s Fun, Fay”, and is about a woman called Fay who has been trapped in a tower by a lonely fairy known as Cornipolous. Not interested in being anybody’s pet prisoner, Fay decisively begins to find her way out of the tower. Cornipolous knows there are many dangerous monsters around, and he doesn’t want her to get hurt, so he’s forced to assist in her escape.

You can either play yourself or cooperatively with a friend, but in both cases the objective is to get Fay and Corn to the top of the tower, where an evil boss awaits. The topic of the competition was that the game should be different every time you play, so the game’s level and boss are randomized when the game begins. Download the game here:

Mac OS X: http://www.oxeye.se/files/stuff/BIFF_Mac.zip
Windows: http://www.oxeye.se/files/stuff/BIFF.zip

Like the mods for Harvest, this game has been written completely in Lua. This has been an interesting experiment, and feels like an easy and quick way of testing new game ideas. You will probably see more of this from us

Hit the jump for a screenshot from the game…