[Challenge] Make a short h-game in 72 hours!

[barreytor]

Re: [Challenge] Make a short h-game in 72 hours!

Regardless what the author might have intended

Well, there isn't really much to it. Was going to challenge Azure to get something done in 3 days, then thought people other than him would have fun doing the same challenge.

Real developers ignoring this thread is pretty much what happened, and honestly, all the better for them. They already have their work schedules and their projects with tons of required work and participating in this would be completely pointless for them.

If I had to say who this was geared towards, it'd probably be those "up-and-coming" devs who don't really have any titles to their name (and Azure).

The people who do follow said challenge will probably be a bit proud of their work, and will either be VERY sensitive to criticism, or/and try charging money for it.

Also, my personal reply to this is that I can't really be proud of releasing a RPG Maker thing because I didn't check for game-stopping bugs.
And yeah, I might try and charge money for my game, but after adding more content and making sure there aren't any more glaring errors.
Like Mayak would do, I'd use my entry as a demo and have the real game be bigger.

Anyway, that thing aside, if anyone else wants to join in and do something, there's like two hours left to say you join, and around three days to post any game even if you don't say a thing.

 

[Shadow the Fallen]

Re: [Challenge] Make a short h-game in 72 hours!

I kinda Agree with stiff in that There seems to be a huge decline in the games but I think that could be the nature of the economy during this time.

That being said I really don't Like RPG maker games either but The Game devs in this thread also make a good argument that people aren't required to buy the RPG maker games they find a distaste for.

The issue of Making a living also comes into this as well I Think this thread personally seems like those 2 hour art challenges its nothing more then playful competition between game devs to show off what they can create in a short time that being said I think surgeon simulator was made in either a week or a month which was basically a challenge similar to this thread.

I wont pretend to know what everyone is thinking in this thread but I do like the idea of people challenging them selves to be creative.

 

[Jane Doe]

Re: [Challenge] Make a short h-game in 72 hours!

Half a year/a year ago, I could hop on ulmf and always find either an update to a game I like, or a new game that really tickled my fancy.. As it is, we're getting flooded with mediocre RPGs, baby-projects that never get past beta, and uppity ambitious devs specifically making/advertising games on this forum just to guilt anyone out of asking "Okay it looks great but.. Where's the pirated version?".. (You know who you are)

Just being "that guy" again, saying how it is..

You want to end this decline?.. Well, I won't say anything like "Go make your own!" because the whole point of that brings up a few issues..

At the risk of being rude, "ending this decline" is a preposterous notion. If people stop caring about the genre enough that people no longer take the time to try and make their own entry, it will be a sign that it's in (most likely permanent) decline; when people see something they enjoy, a significant portion of the audience wants to put their own spin on things. Twist the plot a bit, envision a new mechanic, ask how different types of characters would respond to a similar plot, so on and so forth. Few of these will ever result in a real project, but it's one of the most common motivations (even if it's not consciously realized) for a person to start their own project.

Most of these works, however, will end up being poorly-executed or abandoned entirely. The quality of most work (creative projects included) is reliant on practice and experience; most authors of any genre (be it books, music, webcomics, or H-games) won't have any such experience, being new to the field. It takes a lot of trial and error to find what works and what doesn't, after all, especially when you're attempting something new or unusual. This, naturally, means that you're going to see a lot of flawed works relative to the gems, unless everyone but the long-established developers have given up on attempting their own works, which (as hypothesized by my first point) is only possible if the genre is in decline.

Or, if you require the Teal Deer version of things... Sturgeon's Law applies to H-games as well.

---

That said, I've never had any problems finding a couple of games a month that I'd at least be willng to try, well more than I have enough time for. It doesn't particularly matter to me that there's dozens more that I'd never glance at again, given such circumstances.

That said, I've not noticed any particular decline in the genre over the last year; if you do, perhaps it's simply because more games are getting dedicated threads these days? It used to be that projects people weren't interested in saw a couple of posts in the RPG Maker Game's master thread, and were forgotten; now that more games get their own thread, you're more likely to notice these more forgettable games.

-----

Finished my game just about on time, but I'm having difficulties uploading it. Bear with me!

Okay, my game is done!

Now, I must admit, I cheated somewhat. I'm no good at art, so rather than commission it (expensive!) or draw it myself (awful MS Paint stick figures!) I've, um, stolen it. All the coding and writing was done from scratch, of course.

The game is basically this one: http://www.ulmf.org/bbs/showthread.php?t=368 but from the antagonist's point of view. Plus I wrote all the scenes and whatnot myself, so I guess really it's quite different...

Oh, I remember that game... I quite enjoyed that one, although the "move your mouse quickly!" mechanic was annoying.

I thought it a nice touch that all three plots were completely different, although the youngest sister's plot felt a bit like it was written on drugs, if you ask me.

 

[azurezero]

Re: [Challenge] Make a short h-game in 72 hours!

Oh, I remember that game... I quite enjoyed that one, although the "move your mouse quickly!" mechanic was annoying.

I thought it a nice touch that all three plots were completely different, although the youngest sister's plot felt a bit like it was written on drugs, if you ask me.

I had it on a laptop, the mouse really was annoying

 

[Jane Doe]

Re: [Challenge] Make a short h-game in 72 hours!

I had it on a laptop, the mouse really was annoying

Same, actually. I wonder if it worked better with a real mouse, compared to the touchpad my laptop has...

...Thank goodness throwing stuff was always an automatic success, ne? Let you bypass that whole messiness -entirely-, if you used the right stuff. Made it much more enjoyable, although it gave me less of a reason to change clothes...

 

[djweish]

Re: [Challenge] Make a short h-game in 72 hours!

Same, actually. I wonder if it worked better with a real mouse, compared to the touchpad my laptop has...

Yeah, playing in full screen with a real mouse the only real way to fail the shaking screens is if you want to, which kind of removes the tension from the game. Not sure if there's a better way they could have done it... It's obviously the equivalent of the original Clock Tower's panic button, so maybe they should have based it on quick clicks instead of shaking the cursor.

 

[Slimeria]

Re: [Challenge] Make a short h-game in 72 hours!

Really, I'd like to see the challenge be "Take longer than 72 hours to make an h-game" or "Make an h-game that doesn't use a terrible "8 bit style", then on top of that don't even make it truly 8 bit because you can't be bothered. That's not 8-bit/retro, that's lazy.

Truly complete-feeling h-games like Kurovadis, and/or h-games with interesting mechanics (rather than generic platformers and rpgmaker games) are in short supply. Is anyone really impressed or excited for something someone cobbled together in 72 hours? Even Xenotake, which I criticized of having very poor game design decisions, had a great quality artstyle to it which still made it enjoyable in a way that it wouldn't have been otherwise.

Right now we're in a situation where most of the h-games the our english communities churn out are very mediocre or 3/10s at best that you cannot criticize for fear of hurting someone's feelings, or are very unfinished like ImpregDef. A truly complete game that has any content at all (and if this is your first project I do recommend starting small), you should still take more than 72 hours unless you're really half-assing it, which is bad form.

 

[azurezero]

Re: [Challenge] Make a short h-game in 72 hours!

Really, I'd like to see the challenge be "Take longer than 72 hours to make an h-game" or "Make an h-game that doesn't use a terrible "8 bit style", then on top of that don't even make it truly 8 bit because you can't be bothered. That's not 8-bit/retro, that's lazy.

Truly complete-feeling h-games like Kurovadis, and/or h-games with interesting mechanics (rather than generic platformers and rpgmaker games) are in short supply. Is anyone really impressed or excited for something someone cobbled together in 72 hours? Even Xenotake, which I criticized of having very poor game design decisions, had a great quality artstyle to it which still made it enjoyable in a way that it wouldn't have been otherwise.

Right now we're in a situation where most of the h-games the our english communities churn out are very mediocre or 3/10s at best that you cannot criticize for fear of hurting someone's feelings, or are very unfinished like ImpregDef. A truly complete game that has any content at all (and if this is your first project I do recommend starting small), you should still take more than 72 hours unless you're really half-assing it, which is bad form.

what do you define as properly 8-bit? cause i know i dont use more than 256 colours on my sprites

 

[TitanAnteus]

Re: [Challenge] Make a short h-game in 72 hours!

..as far as I can see, he's using it as a fun way to get people motivated to just make some fun, short little games. At the risk of being too repetitious in my speech, it's supposed to be about.. you know.. fun. I really don't think this is an attempt to stem the tide of crappy H-games to try to get people to make higher quality games...

...Somebody shouldn't be belittled because they don't have enough time in their lives to make a porn game from scratch...

...Sure, it sucks to find a great sounding project and have it never become a reality, but I don't think it's very fair to try and scare people away from trying....

...You're shoving words into the mouth of every dev trying to spread the word about their game....how else is word supposed to spread about a project?...

Definitely in agreeance with this.

Also stiff you said "But this just isn't the time or place to do that.."

And all I could think is, when and where would be?

 

[AlternateRealityLabRat]

Re: [Challenge] Make a short h-game in 72 hours!

what do you define as properly 8-bit? cause i know i dont use more than 256 colours on my sprites

The way I see it, real 8-bit style games should be conceived around 8-bit limitations.

Graphics:
Screen size: 256x240
Active Limit: 64
Backdrop Limit: 960
Color Limit: 56
Colors per sprite: 4 (including transparent color)
Backdrop size:8x8 or 16x16
Sprite Size: 16x16 or 24x24
No more than 16 colors can be on-screen at once.

Audio
No more than 5 channels
Mono sound only

So yes, those limitations are harsh, but that's the point of 8 bit style games, shovel knight respected most of these limitations and it's regarded as one of the best retro inspired games out there, retro city rampage does too.

Also, thread couldn't be more derailed lol.

Some people take things WAY too seriously around here.

Don't like incomplete games made in 3 days? Ignore them and move on.

Some random dude (with the biggest red bar ever) complains about said games? Ignore him and move on.

Truly, it's not that hard.

 

[Sithri]

Re: [Challenge] Make a short h-game in 72 hours!

man this silly little challenge got some controversy out of nowhere

whats so bad about new up and comers trying to make games as some experience building?

i know for a fact if i never failed first at anything or did any shitty thing first my good stuff wouldn't exist

what this challenge should be is a learning experience for both experienced and new people

for new people, learning the ropes of what small things make a game better

and for experienced ones, how much more efficient they can be by trying to get stuff done in time

that way experienced devs find new ways of completing their big projects or even just new methods that just work better and new folks can get critique

if any dev feels that this challenge is a waste of time, they probably have their own stuff to do anyways and wouldn't bother with silly things like this

 

[freeko]

Re: [Challenge] Make a short h-game in 72 hours!

Well it looks like at 5am I actually have some time, aka one whole hour, to actually try to do something toward the game I wanted to make for this.. I gotta love it when a 4 day weekend just turns to shit and I end up having a 0 day weekend instead. Between getting lawyers up and running and my job being anything but cooperative with actually leaving me the hell alone for a holiday weekend, I have not had any real time to sit down and even remotely work on this challenge.

I should be able to do most everything tomorrow, but who knows I will probably get shit on again with something at work which will stop me from doing anything of use for this challenge.

 

[barreytor]

Re: [Challenge] Make a short h-game in 72 hours!

Well, I guess we can say it's been enough time, and that we can wrap this up.

After all, it had some participation (which is honestly far more than the "no participation at all" that I expected), so I'm going to post all the games that were posted along with a word or two.

In order of posting:
1) Azurezero with "Succubus kiss", an RPG Maker game that didn't get a proper H-scene put on it.
2) Mayaktheunholy with "Space Slaver!", a game in Construct2 with four nice animated 3D scenes.
3) Golwas with "Atari Girl", a tiny 1-screen game with a single GOR as H-content
4) Barreytor (helped by Lustfire on the art department) with "Fractal Dagger of the Twisted Maid", half an RPG Maker game with too many flaws and bugs to count. Also comes with an alternate version in a 640x480 resolution that doesn't break if the other does.
5) Djweish with "DrillMan", a fancy Ren'Py game that uses borrowed art from another game to give another point of view on the story.

Well, that's all of them. It'd be nice if you mentioned which one you thought was better, but in the end this was all about having fun.

I'll say, though, that I think mayak's "Space Slaver" is a pretty good foundation for a full game.

 

[azurezero]

Re: [Challenge] Make a short h-game in 72 hours!

Well, I guess we can say it's been enough time, and that we can wrap this up.

After all, it had some participation (which is honestly far more than the "no participation at all" that I expected), so I'm going to post all the games that were posted along with a word or two.

In order of posting:
1) Azurezero with "Succubus kiss", an RPG Maker game that didn't get a proper H-scene put on it.
2) Mayaktheunholy with "Space Slaver!", a game in Construct2 with four nice animated 3D scenes.
3) Golwas with "Atari Girl", a tiny 1-screen game with a single GOR as H-content
4) Barreytor (helped by Lustfire on the art department) with "Fractal Dagger of the Twisted Maid", half an RPG Maker game with too many flaws and bugs to count. Also comes with an alternate version in a 640x480 resolution that doesn't break if the other does.
5) Djweish with "DrillMan", a fancy Ren'Py game that uses borrowed art from another game to give another point of view on the story.

Well, that's all of them. It'd be nice if you mentioned which one you thought was better, but in the end this was all about having fun.

I'll say, though, that I think mayak's "Space Slaver" is a pretty good foundation for a full game.

drill man

 

[mayaktheunholy]

Re: [Challenge] Make a short h-game in 72 hours!

I'll say, though, that I think mayak's "Space Slaver" is a pretty good foundation for a full game.

Thanks, and I do intend to flesh it out more at some point. I was going to wait till this was over, and I'm back to working on Planet X this week anyway.

As far as which game is better, I was waiting to play them all until the deadline was up. I'll check them out today or tomorrow. Unless participants are excluded from judging? That would make sense.

 

[barreytor]

Re: [Challenge] Make a short h-game in 72 hours!

I think that excluding the participants from judging the other games would be kinda pointless. I mean, even being more for the fun of it I don't see why would it be restricted even if it was anything more serious.

Or in other words: Fire away.

 

[AlternateRealityLabRat]

Re: [Challenge] Make a short h-game in 72 hours!

Drill Man: Most complete game overall, but it's kind of to be expected since the maker didn't have to spend time to make art.

Space Slaver: the 3D animation seems pretty good, it could use more ease-in and out, offsetting and fine tunning, but I understand the time constraint. The game part is the usual Construct drag and drop space shooter so not much to go on to talk about here. I think gameplay and h should be more integrated together, as it's now, it feels like 2 separate games (or maybe I got my hopes up for some trading sim due to the intro).

Fractal Dagger of etc: Great art as usual from lustfire, the 3d models looked good but a bit creepy for an h game. The game part, walked forward until I got killed, rpg maker combat bore me to tears nowadays, didn't like seeing all the unfinished tidbits, should have at least hidden them. Expected more from the only 2 man team.

Atari Girl: Nice sprite, but not much of a game in there lol. The platforming felt solid, but the girl's attack range felt awfully short.

Succubus Kiss: Cute art, not much else to say. Guards seemed to be more like randomly walking around rather than chasing or patrolling.

Congrats to everyone, you got something actually done which is 100% more than the just of us.

 

[lazycat]

Re: [Challenge] Make a short h-game in 72 hours!

- -a Well, a bit of an off-topic, but I recently saw this:

You must be registered to see the links

\- -/ Not sure what exactly it is but seems to be something similar to what's happened here (more time obviously)

 

[Lyde]

Anyone knows how to find the drillman game?
sorry for the necro