F*ck This Jam Entry (And Beyond Probably) - Calorie Quest!

After a 7-month hiatus I'm gonna work on making a game for the F*ck This Jam. The concept is to make a game in a genre you hate; my chosen genre is "fitness games." I don't particularly hate the genre, I simply haven't found a good one yet, so I'm gonna see if I can make one in the week that the jam gives me! I'm gonna share my progress on here as it goes, although in all honesty, with a full work week at my "real job", I'll probably take more than just one week to work on it.

I realize I've been far behind on this blog, and especially on the huge collection of games I need to review, and I really appreciate your patience! Gamedev is just an irresistible thing, no matter how time consuming, difficult, hair-ripping-out-ing and challenging as it is.

The concept of the game itself is pretty simple and subject to change: think old-school RPG meets exergame. You fight different enemies, but you're given a few different choices for each attack, and each one is a different exercise and time amount or reps. For example, you might be able to choose between jogging in place for two minutes, doing 5 push ups or 10 sit ups. Of course, the game doesn't actually KNOW when you've done it (except for timed things, the game will have a timer that you can start when you're ready), so it will trust you when you click that you completed it.

I'd also love to add modes where you can enter your total # of calories for the day and then face off against the calories you've eaten, or where you can just set a target number of calories to attack, etc. The tough part about this will be actually finding out the number of calories - there are sites, like SparkPeople, that can track it, but I really don't want to make people go over there to figure it out and then come back to the game. We'll see! :D

"CANDY CANDY CANDY! Oh, and CANDY!" - A Game Jam and a Horrible Twist of Events

For those who aren't aware, King.com, the developers of Candy Crush Saga, the match-3 game that everyone and their grandmother plays and brags about making it to level 795 after a billion hours of failures and barely-successes (or lots of invested money) has officially trademarked the word "Candy". Already, apps in the iTunes app store are being told they must be removed for having the word "Candy" in the title. Oh, it was made 3 years before Candy Crush Saga? Too bad! You can read lots more about this much more eloquently than I could ever say right here on Rock Paper Shotgun. Oh, and you can also play the very first game I ever finished - Candy Catastrophe - here as well. It's not a match-3, but it IS close! Good thing it wasn't a mobile app...

Despite being developed nearly five years before Candy Crush Saga, it's quite obvious that I ripped it off on purpose to try to make lots of extra money.

Anyway, on the up side, there's a game jam that's taking a subtle little stab at this horrible turn of events... The Candy Jam! The goal? Make a game and submit it before the 3rd of February, use "Candy" in the title, cleverly steal millions of dollars from King.com since no one could possibly associate "candy" with anything but "Candy Crush Saga", so they'd immediately get excited and be unable to resist buying it... Okay, maybe not the last part, but you can (hopefully) expect a lot of games with the word "Candy" in their title soon!

Oh, and one more thing... I think I'll be making a game myself! Candy Catastrophe 2: The Saga of the Witch's Bubble that Stole Pear's Papa and His Loop De Hoop! I'll be patenting "The", "Of", "Bubble", "His", "Loop", "Hoop" and "2" myself once it's done.

Charity Game Jam II Turbo Coming November 23-30!

The awesomest promo image for a game jam ever, btw.

One Game a Month and Games for Change, two really awesome things on their own, are coming together this time around for Charity Game Jam II Turbo! The concept is really simple but really great - game developers can make a game specifically for the CGJ or edit one they've already made, but either way the game needs a "Donate to Charity" button that's been specifically made within the game. This link can go to any charity that the developer chooses! With any luck, this will not only get a bunch of fun indie games made and shared, it'll help raise money for charities as well!

But don't just take it from me, check out the keynote video below!

I plan on making a game for this myself, although I still have no idea what I'll make... If you're a fellow game developer, I really hope you'll try to come up with something too! Regardless, however, expect some fun, creative games to be listed on the site soon! :D