#8Weekgame - 1st Week Update

8weekgame (Competition-3) contestants

 

So apart from Project Personal I’m also organizing a Indie “Make a Game” competition 8Weekgame. As the name suggests, it is make a game in 8 weeks, using XNA oe Monogame for the PC or Javascript and HTML5 for browsers. Historically this competition has been a closed affair with only the voting open to the general public. This year though due to the interest, we have opened the entries and have gathered the following crew who are participating:

1. Shaw Young
2. Natasha Hampshire
3. Martin Elsworth
4. Charlie Walter
5. Charles Humphrey
6. Peter Lamb
7. Andrew Carmichael

This time around (we are calling it Competition-3) we have prizes thanks to the kind and generous sponsorship of Pluralsight, an invaluable video library for Developers and ZiiP GameStore, a leading UK Indie Online Store for PC and Console games.

So the Competition-3 kicked-off on the 3rd December and will run until 3rd February 2013, so how have our Developers been fairing? Lets take a look…..

Peter Lamb

Peter is aiming to create a 3rd Person Shooter called Uprising using XNA for Windows.  So far Peter has the basic screen navigation done and has started building the collision and drawable entity engine. Peter also has some thoughts and ideas for his character models and the visual style for Uprising.

Martin Elsworth

Anyone remember Manic Martin from competition 1? No, well no-one does! Martin hasn’t confirmed what his game is though is the 2nd time round. One thing for certain though he is using XNA for Windows after experimenting with Javascript. So far Martin has the base classes written and animation working but not finished. Game State and Level Editor up next!

Charles Humphrey

An interesting concept from Charles called Road Rumble, which in Charles own words is “Top down drivy, shooty thingy” and again being written using XNA for Windows. Charles so has written the logic to read the the game world from a texture, has the cars and people moving about on the world with Physics thanks to the Farseer Physics Engine. Charles  also has a particle system base in and smoke trails. Tackling next will be the Game State Manger plus some video clips of the game to show us.

 Charlie Walter

Our 1st Javascript game, Charlie is attempting a RPG Platformer titled Age of Vampires. Charlie has even given a detailed description

In the Age of Vampires, no one is safe, enjoy this adventurous platform game, where your jump straight into a world full of mythical and supernatural creatures, where you play as your choice of race. Improving your skill set, improving your weapons, armor and completing quests.

Charlie has even started showing off some of his art he has drawn.

 Shaw Young

Shawson is our current champ from a previous competition. He stole the show with his Manic Miner clone, Manic Spaceman, written solely in Javascript and HTML5, and won by a mile. I still remember my wife playing Shaw’s game more than my version (Manic Mummies) during the voting stage, and even my wife voting for Manic Spaceman. So this time around Shaw is using Javascript for his undisclosed game. All we do know is he creating his Level Editor which is using Bing maps.

 Natasha Hampshire

So far no update from Tash, but we know she is using Javascript. Personally I think Shawson has locked her away until after the competition, too scared of Tash’s Javascript skillz.

 

Andrew Carmichael

This cannot be a coincidence can it? No update from Andrew, and another Javascript game, plus another person who Shawson is close to on a regular basis…..could Andrew be held up in the same cupboard as Tash? Watch this space!

 

So congrats to the contestants so far. I will blog next time for week 2 plus hopefully screen grabs from their games. Exciting times.

Microsoft XNA (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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