Week of Awesome 2 - The Toys are Alive - #1

Published September 22, 2014
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So Week of Awesome 2 starts on the day I have a half-day of job interviews and a demo of a product I'm working on. From 10:30am to about midnight tonight, I'm either driving somewhere or trying to present myself as awesome and totally not a slob at all. But tomorrow, I should be free for the rest of the week.

The theme is "The Toys are Alive". A title comes to mind, "Adult Toy Story". Nah, that's too obvious.

The key to a good game competition entry is to have a simple concept, executed well, completed early, to which "polish" is added with the remaining time. Yes, polish is a positive addition of things, like sprinkles on a cake. Also, to not neglect sound. Even the most basic sound instantly increases the quality of a submission 10-fold. One should stick to things one knows well. Venturing into new territory is a good way to get "stuck in the weeds" and fail to complete a submission.

With that in mind, I should probably be making a business intelligence suite, perhaps a series of reports demonstrating the effectiveness of a hospital full of toys. "Toy Hospital Administrator Simulator". I'm sure to win[1]!

Since I still don't have a real concept in mind after half an hour of typing, I'm going to continue to fill space with useless junk about strategy.

Ideas:

  • HTML5/JS game. I'm going to reuse my growing project template for doing HTML5 web apps. It's all just boilerplate stuff for loading bars, rounded corners on buttons, that sort of junk. Other people might use something like Angular or Bootstrap, but I am too old for that shit.
  • 2D graphics. I'm still learning Three.js in my WebGL Virtual Reality[2] project, so I'm going to stick to what I know and do Canvas 2D instead of WebGL 3D.
  • 3D audio. It's just so easy to do in modern browsers, why the hell not?
  • Mix of procedural and static content: Maybe a static level-select map and procedural levels.

Issues:

  • Figure out a proper concept to meet the theme
  • I don't currently have a good system for easily specifying and running keyframed 2D animations. Will have to figure something out here. Might be where I spend most of my time on this project.
  • I have simple boilerplate code for doing multiplayer stuff, but I feel like only a really good concept should have it. To add it as a gimmick would be detrimental.


Okay, that is all for now. I'll update this post here if I think of any concepts.



[1] Only if there is a "biggest Poindexter" award.

[2] Check it out. Star it. Follow it. Fork it and make contributions. Ask nicely and get direct commit access!
2 likes 7 comments

Comments

Stormynature

Everyone begins somewhere - but more importantly good luck with your interviews :)

September 22, 2014 01:27 PM
0sok
I am a fan of your attitude, interested in what you will churn out.
September 22, 2014 03:12 PM
Thaumaturge

Good luck with your interviews, and good luck for the contest. ^_^

With that in mind, I should probably be making a business intelligence suite, perhaps a series of reports demonstrating the effectiveness of a hospital full of toys. "Toy Hospital Administrator Simulator"

You say that in jest, but I could see something like that working: you take in toys and have to repair them effectively while remaining within budget.

September 22, 2014 06:00 PM
slicer4ever
[quote name="Thaumaturge" timestamp="1411408814"]Good luck with your interviews, and good luck for the contest. ^_^ [quote] With that in mind, I should probably be making a business intelligence suite, perhaps a series of reports demonstrating the effectiveness of a hospital full of toys. "Toy Hospital Administrator Simulator" [/quote] You say that in jest, but I could see something like that working: you take in toys and have to repair them effectively while remaining within budget.[/quote] Haha, i was just about to say something like this, it sounds like a potentially great idea.
September 22, 2014 07:08 PM
Eck

Good luck on your interviews man. Sorry you lost a day. Hit it hard tomorrow!

- Eck

September 23, 2014 12:14 AM
capn_midnight

Thanks everyone. The interview went well. I just am not sure I want to move to the left coast, no matter how big and awesome the company might be, or the fact that they contacted me directly.

So I'm thinking a really neat game would be a variation on this Hospital idea, and the facetious "sex toy" idea. If the toys are alive, then the toys fuck! And what happens when people fuck? THEY MAKE BABIES! The game is (probably, maybe, maybe not) going to a breeding game, where features of toys get shared and tested against children in focus groups. How well they test relates to how well they will do in the market, leading to better income and maybe even access to breed with "stud" toys.

September 23, 2014 12:30 AM
capn_midnight

So yeah, turns out I'm working on a VR game and that took priority over this.

October 14, 2014 09:32 PM
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