Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

I will post the DaisyMoon presentation as soon as I’ve had time to edit it.

Also check out our new widgets at the bottom of our blog! Thewreck spent an afternoon installing all of those, and hopefully it will make it easier to find old Oxeye articles

/jeb

What…?

Subversion, or SVN for short, is a version-control system that keeps track of our project files when we work on Project B and other games. Think of it as a wiki for files that we add and update files on. Each time a file is modified, SVN keeps track of who made the changes, and makes backups so that changes can be reverted if necessary.

Each commit is also tagged with a small comment describing why the commit was made. It’s this comment that our bot picks up and puts on twitter.

Why…?

Because we can! Also, because this will let you keep track of Project B. We want to be more open about the project, and this is a step in that direction. Actual game information, such as screenshots and a game name, will come later.

/ jeb

I think a lot of game developers have this kind of problem. They know what they want to create, but the finished product didn’t really turn out as they had thought. It can still be a good game, but it’s missing something. It’s nice to hear a solid reason why you should keep on going, and not just empty phrases like “believe in yourself.”

The other parts of the inteview are interesting as well.

/jeb

Oxeye consists of five people who are in different stages of life and with different abilities to spend time on game development. Our process for selecting which game to work on thus needs to be rather “loose.” The most important thing is that we feel that we are having fun (and releasing games is fun!). Our process can obviously not be applied to all kinds of companies, but on the other hand our company is not the kind of company you read about in business books.

The Concept Phase

In this phase there’s only a game idea and a very short draft for the game. A game concept should be descibed so that it fits on a single A4 paper. I think we have 7 of these concepts on our office wall at the moment. To be honest, I think the font size has gotten smaller for each new one, but we still try to keep these concepts as short as possible.

Light Prototyping

In this phase one or two of us creates a simple prototype to test the game idea. Nothing more than our valuable time is invested on this prototype. Games such as Jet Engine Nights and House Globe are considered light prototypes, even if House Globe never was intended to be anything else than a TIGSource competition entry. Anybody can start a light prototype when-ever they feel like it (unless there’s a time-crucial deadline coming up, of course).

Heavy Prototyping

In this phase at least 3 of our members have decided that we want to put a little more effort on the prototype. The difference to “light prototype” is that we can use our savings on buying stuff for the prototype (such as music and other material we can’t create ourselves).

Green-lighted

Only one game can be “green-lighted” at a time. The green-lighted game will be our main project and all effort will be put into completing the game. A prototype can only be green-lighted once everybody agrees that it’s a good idea, and that we have some kind of plan on the scope of the game and how long it’s going to take to finish it. Our current project is “Project B.”

Green-lighted games can still be abandoned, though. Every two months we have a reschedule meeting (using Skype) to keep track on progress and to update the plan. If we realize that we have mistaken ourselves on the game idea or our ability to create the game, then it will be dropped. Obviously not an easy decision to make!

/jeb

“Whaa?! What’s this? They’re EXPELLING me from the Society?! Who put vegetables in the pot this time? I will SHOW them! Oh yes… putrid peach soup, they will regret this!”

Agatha puts on her cape and prepares for the long journey to Blue Hill, where the witchcraft society’s leaders rule the esteemed organization. For who would believe the worth of her crooked fingernails if she didn’t qualify as a member? No, things must be set right!

With frantic eagerness, she bangs her bony fists on the great castle doors, announcing her arrival,

“Let me in! How dare you lock me out? These walls will not stop ME! I’ll turn stone into tofu if I must!”

From a small window above the ugliest of the witches, the Keeperwitch, points out her wart-ridden nose,

“Oh, we’ve been expecting you, Agatha! Why don’t you fall inside?”

“Fall? Did you’re as stupid as a faun, Keeperwitch! Now unlock the door!”

With a small *tick* the door opens… under Agatha’s feet! She falls down, straight into the Blue Hill’s prisons. The welcome committee is already there – all of the society leaders: Broomwitch, Greenwitch, Fairywitch, Nightwitch, Manwitch, Robowitch, Keeperwitch, Sandwitch and the meanest of them all, Master Witch! They all carry smug smiles on their faces, bringing Agatha to the boiling point!

“There’s no locking ME up! I will turn you all into salted slugs!”

Which is where our story begins…

Thanks Alex

/jeb

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…

I must say, after having been a bit disappointed by some of the downloadable games at the SGA web site I was pleasantly surprised by this year’s line-up, especially by Blueberry Garden and Swarm!
Hit “Read More” to see the winners and video coverage of the ceremony!

Best Innovation: Blueberry Garden

Best Execution: Boingo

Mobile Games with Netbeans 6.0 & JAVA ME: Swarm

Game Of The Year: Magicka

Congratulations and thank you for this year!

/Kinten

It all stared a time long ago, in the age of the Amstrad. His father had just sold the tape-version in favor of a diskette version! Oh the joy of basic 1.0 – Many text adventures and fake operating systems later thewreck felt ready to take on his first sprites – and on what system you ask?

On the Atari of course! This is where he made his first acquaintance with Clickteam through their game making environment STOS. It came complete with a lovely scripting language and a sprite editor! In it he made many feeble attempts including the legendary ninja game where the shuriken was on the same sprite as the character (what was he thinking really?)…

With years he grew wiser and 8 years old he now moved on to the amazing PC with its super quick – yes you know it – Quick Basic! The colorful random lines applications were numerous – and to this day he continuous to blame the movie Real Genius for it. A couple of Pong clones, yet another fake operating system and a couple of viruses to harass his brother he was now finally ready for the turning point of his career; K&P.

Thewreck can still remember the days… The good old Klik&Play days when dodgy physics and clip-art graphics was all you needed to have a fun game. It was simpler times, times when conversations such as these did not seem odd:

X – “Do you want to play with me after school?”

thewreck – “Do you have a computer?”

X – “No”

thewreck – “Then no.”

It was also at this point in time that he developed his life-long skill of never completing a single game – the alluring “new” button was far sexier than the “open” button it had seemed. To thewreck’s dismay, very few games remain from this time. About half of them are missing in action since the “I MUST install Descent and I need 35mb of space!” incident. The other half is simply missing – God knows where. He takes comfort in that they will forever seem more wonderful in his head than they would ever have done in reality.

After an age of fun, The Games Factory appeared on the scene. It was revolutionary. I mean – SCROLLING! You could make scrolling games! And INI FILES! You could save game data on the hard drive!!!11. It was also around this time that he, forcefully learned to sprite. To this he owed two dudes both named Jakob who electrocuted him each time he reached for the infamous library graphics. This produced classics such as: (Following games are Windows only!) “Bilen som Hoppar” (The Car that Jumps, Warning: Contains pixel nudity!), “Superman“, “No Way Out 1″, “No Way Out 2” (with lots of stolen graphics from a very famous K&P game, and a Chainsaw!), “Mage Batle“, “Bowman“, “Jippis” (a gruesome street kicking ass game) and “Orc” (platform rpg) among others. Thewreck takes no responsibility for understanding how to play these games.

This was a time of learning – a time of getting to know the medium. He learned many valuable lessons such as keeping the amount of buttons to a minimum, giving proper feedback, informing the player of what to do and drawing less naked angels in favor of proper characters. In retrospect, its easy to tell which things thewreck liked to focus on. Presentation and Explanation surely were not among them. But all that was about to change when MultiMedia Fusion entered the house!… Or was it?

Sites like the Vitalize Arcade (now called V-Cade) and the Daily Click were providing a showroom for everyones creations. Thewreck started to get involved with game creation teams online and spent a good bit of time in the #k&p channel on IRC. He ventured into terra incognita by making networked multiplayer games and also got his first contact with Jens by hopping on the “Whispers in Akarra” project. This was the beginning of a great age, but it is also where this part of the story ends. To give you a glimpse of the coming story, here follows a sneak preview:

/thewreck

In my humble opinion, the best part about working with game development is that it potentially involves many different skills, like programming, sound editing, composing and graphic design.
The downside of this of course being that each branch comes with an expensive license for the application involved.

Or does it?

Today the open source scene sports a great deal of alternative applications for the low budget project (read sensible people who doesnt feel like spending a lifetimes savings on digital property).
Oxeye Game Studio uses a number of programs that are available free of charge (SPECIAL PRIZE, ONLY FOR YOU!).
These are, in no particular order, Audacity, for sound editing, gmax and Blender for 3D modelling, Gimp for 2D painting and retouching, among some.

To get a good base for our sound effects we utilize a free sound directory, conveniently named The Free Sound Project.

Theres always the option to take in freelancers. The internet is full of people learning their trade who’ll do your bidding for a cheap penny. Watch your back though, don’t just share sensitive information with anyone without some sort of official agreement first.
No one likes one night stands without protection!

Speaking of freelancers, be sure to stop by Youtube and watch the Harvest intro with voice acting added (powered by Audacity of course)!

/Kinten