Rekenopolis Dear fellow gamers, There is a dutch game-maker-contest for high school students. For this contest I have been making a game. It was a very tight fit but I managed to get it up and running just before the deadline. Now all games are online on the site of the contest, waiting to get a vote. Important notes: The aim was to create a educational game, so that has to be involved. Also the game was not allowed to be violent, so it's not a fps. Also it's a 2D game, because the program you have to use to make the games is designed for 2D games. I chose maths for my game, because it is simple to add, to do, and a lot of people, especially kids, have a need for practise. My game only includes adding, multiplying and square roots. Hence the three levels. The game that makes itto the final round is determinded mostly by an online jury. Everyone can sign up as a jury, and then vote on games. I am not sure how this is done exactly, most likely you will not be able to randomly choose a game, but you will be given a game to vote on, and then another, etc. PLEASE help me get to the finals I've put a darn lot of effort in this game, and although its no match for TF2, L4D, CSS or any of those games, I think it's one of the best in the contest. Also I programmed it all by myself, graphics are done (for about 50%) by a friend. I have had a few months to program besides school and TF2 so of course it's no pro game. Please note that my game has the educational element at it's core, it is the aim of the game. Most other games let you play a level and come up with some quiz questions every now and then. This is very cliche, overdone and not the most appropriate way. The link to my game is http://tqwms.kennisnet.nl/tqwms/openInzendersRegulier.do?competitionId=261021&begin=27. Note that my game is the one on top, Rekenopolis. I know the loading screen says rekonopolis, this is because of a typo of my teacher ( :evil: ) Please note that the last level, with the bunnehs, was made WITHIN A DAY. Therefor it is not as super as it could be, and the difficulty is very unbalanced due to lack of testing. It is an .exe but is completely safe. Known bugs: For some reason the game sometimes crashes in the harbour level, this is not a programmnig error, since it doesnt give an error message. What IS the problem is unknown. Also when you leave the UFO level while fires are burning the sound keeps on going throughout the entire game untill you play again. If you don't want to be a jury at least play it and tell me what you think. HAVE FUN!
For the non-dutchies: This game is in dutch. Why? Because it's a dutch competition of course! And it's a better way to approach 12-year-olds in dutch than english. So here are english instructions for you: Main menu: 3 buttons: Nieuw spel = new game Spel laden = load game Credits = guess what smartass Game menu: Click on the traffic light to choose your difficulty. Red=hard (for anyone 16+), yellow=normal (for the kids), green = easy (for retarded fishfrogs that had buttsex with a mutant monkey, see south park season 10) Then click a level you want to play, press enter or spelen to start. Dutchies:READ THE FUCKING INSTRUCTIONS. I have had so many people saying they didnt understand shit about the game because they just skipped the instructions head-on. Harbour level: You have to add containers on the trucks before the timer runs out. Do this by clicking the right containers untill the weight adds up to the needed weight on the truck. Match colours to the truck to get double score! This is not necissary however. White bonus trucks give triple score to any type of container, so load em up! 4 smilies give you a bonus truck, 3 baddies give you game over. SUCKERS! UFO level: Best, first, and favourite level in the game. Aliens are attacking the town. Defend the town by shooting the the UFO's out of the sky. make sure that the value of the light laser, multiplied by the value of the right laser, gives the value of the UFO If a UFO crashes the building starts burning, press on the fire to axetinguish it. This costs water which is restored by every killed ufo. You are game over if your town burns up too much, 10,15 or 20 blocks can be lost depening on difficulty. Controls: arrow keys or wasd, and mouse. Bunneh level Bunnehs are all over the park! They are hungry for the flowers. Select the right square root of their value and fire the carrot! Good carrots will feed the bunnies, wrongs will speed them up. Devoured flowers make you go game over! Controls: mouse (arrows or wasd optional)
Ok few remarks i noticed so far: less text! Many text won't be read, people skip it. Maybe make a few screens people will have to go through to go step by step what to do with each game. Shorten the levels. I felt they were pretty long. On the containerlevel: I didn't notice at first you can select any container, regardless where it's located. I first only wanted to choose the top ones.
I tried the screen thing in a previous game but it takes lots of more work, and much more space. There is a file size limitation and I only just made it this way. And I didnt have any time, I send it in 15 mins before the deadline And you know me, lots of text I only have 3 levels so I made them a little longer. If you look at the total amount of stuff you do it's not that bad. I agree the harbour level is long, thats why I put in the white truck. again, due to lack of time and space, I was unable to extend this level with stuff to make the level shorter. IMO the bunneh level is quite short, and the ufo level length depends on the difficulty. Hard gives 3 waves, which you really need to be prepared for. For me its just hella easy so its hard to measure that. Normal is 2 waves and easy 1 wave. Thanks for the commment anyway ^^ Plz keep em comming guys, and as stated before, I'd love it if you'd vote
U used game maker? It's a fun program really easy to understand and such. It's a funny game you made. But still needs work. Gj
Yea I used Game Maker. I'm quite familiat with the program so I was able to do a lot of scripts. But apart from the contest and more for my own development, what parts did you guys like, what didnt you like, what are you missing, what should be added. I wanna learn from every game I make to try make the next one even better
who do you think is going to play that ^^. all of these guys here play fps games, exept jer9 he plays teletubies THA game ^^.
I used to looooveee gamemaker I made several top notch games like - ontsnap uit de gevangenis (escape from the prison, with a bug in the last level that allowed you to walk trough walls ) - Kill kim 1 & 2 (Cheap 3D example where i edited the sprites) - Emoshooter I,II,III (Arcade shooter with online highscores: Cicero had the highest score because he used an exploit ) And finally my masterpiece: (tum tum tum) - Orpheus ( a game I made for Latin, we had to make something creative out of the story of Orpheus et Euridice, most groups made movies, photocollections, etc but we made a game ) -more crap like "The fristiman game" etc Anyway good luck with your game, ask any questions and I will try to help you
Now on topic I just played your game and its amazing I had quite some fun playing (altough I sucked) Maybe add a little more detail to the gfx, but thats the only negative point I could find. So gratz and I hope you win
Very good game! liked the particles, music, the games themselves.^^ I did managed to not being to able shoot anymore carrots, due carrot-spamfire :lol: the instruction did felt a little bit long at first, but overall they're good I've really enjoyed the alien invades city part, because it's fun to blow up aliens and seeing the city burning! :badgrin: Let's hope that your game is going to win!
Now thats more like it ^^ thanks guys! I will try to make walkthrough tutorials more next time, and decrease the text. Any idea how insecure you can get about the obviousity of a level if every playtester misunderstands something else, or the same things? I dont want the jury to not understand my game. Now I can just say RTFM About the graphics, the ones made pixel by pixel, like the truck, the UFO, the city, the ashes, the containers, they are all my graphics. I try my best, it's not HQ but it is sharp. The other images, like the forest, the sea, the sky, the grass, they were all made by my friend who uses photoshop on pictures and drawings to create... well... this. So thats not my part Graphics are not my stronges point, programming and development usually are. I've been aware of that carrot bug, although I havent been able to spot exactly where it went wrong. I thought it had something to do with shooting at a rabbit that was too close, or a rabbit passing over the carrot launcher. anyway, the bug didnt show up to much with me or my testers so I rather spent time on something else (like the manuals, the carrot level + manuals were 1 afternoon of hard stressy work) So thanks for all the replies, feel free to put it on your desktop or in a file (would be honoured) or just trash it if you want to. I really hope I win, and although I doubt any of you are going to be jury I'd still like to ask. But I'm very happy with just playing
I've recieved word that my game has made it to the finals, which will be held on the 16th of June in the Efteling, a dutch theme park. Not that you care but I'm bored
Wow man. Respect for doing that.... (I just realised I suck at math The aliens totally pwned my ass.) As for positive feedback: The controls on the alien level aren't the best choice if you ask me. Depending on how wide you're going to spread your game it might not matter, but in belgium, lot's of people have azerty-keyboards, so the th wsad-keys are srambled. It might be better to use the arrow-keys instead, since they are universal. Other then that, great work.
azerty keyboards? you guys in belgium are really freakin nuts O. Like Kill said arrows work as well. RTFM :evil: :badgrin: !