Posts

Getting in early 0

voxel • 10 hours ago on 15th Kajam 

Looking forward to another Kajam, thought I'd sign up a little early and make sure it's in my calendar. Bummed I was unable to join the most recent alakajam, so now I have to wait in jam-jail until May.

Hopefully the theme will be something retro-friendly, I haven't done any 'modern' gamedev in a few months now - old consoles and computers are better (and people will say 'wow this runs on DOS? so cool!' and ignore the fact that the game is awful).

Also I'm hoping we maintain a no-AI or 'all AI content must be declared so voxel can downvote it' stance on jam submissions. I'm only interested in playing things made by the alakajam community, not content fever-dreamed by water and energy guzzling ML platforms trained on stolen content, thanks!

DOS Kajam? 0

voxel • 10 months ago on 13th Kajam 

The 13th Kajam coincides nicely with the Dos Games June 2023 Jam, so maybe I'll make a DOS based entry. This might make any kind of networked realtime multiplayer quite complicated to implement, unless the game is hosted on a BBS or something. Maybe I'll create a 'play by mail' game where each player takes their turn and then emails the save to the next? Interested to hear what everyone else's ideas and plans are

I'm in 5

voxel • 1 year ago on 17th Alakajam! entry  FISH

I've been a bit disengaged from AKJ but I'm looking forward to participating in AKJ17, which will finally be the jam where GIANT ROBOTS is chosen as the theme

Lately I've been dabbling in NES assembly programming, so that's probably what I'll use. I've done a (not great) NES entry using C before, but I've honed my 6502 assembly in onehourgamejam to the point where I can definitely cause some trouble in a jam timeframe.

Starting an hour early 3

voxel • 1 year ago on 12th Kajam entry  CYBERVAULT RUSH

I'm starting an hour early because I'm a dirty cheater. Current plan is to do a Game Boy entry…

IN 4

voxel • 2 years ago on 14th Alakajam! entry  Unfungused Game

For the last few days I've been putting together a little cross platform game engine. It's not at all ready for use but a good JAM will make the problems with it pretty obvious real fast, so that's my plan for the weekend - write game in unfinished engine.

Also if the theme is boring I will make a GIANT ROBOTS game regardless, thanks.

Project setup: Websockets and workflow 2

voxel • 2 years ago on Multiplayer Kajam 

My current plan is to use the haxe programming language to create my kajam entry. In theory I can write a single codebase that can be compiled down to a headless (no graphics) server to run in the cloud, while having that same code be able to produce the playable version of the game. In order to get multiplayer support in the browser, I'll also be using websockets.

But more importantly I want to be able to quickly iterate on my entry during my free time, so I've set out to automate as much of the build and deployment workflow as possible. Nothing fancy, just a makefile that builds the server, deploys it to the remote server and launches it. I can then launch the client on my local machine and see messages passing between the server and client, which seems like a pretty important precursor to a remote multiplayer game. Testing with a local server on your development machine is OK but bypasses a lot of the issues that can occur with a 'real' server out on the interweb.

The test was successful but revealed that terminating the server on the remote server left a zombie process sitting on port 8000, which means that attempting to run the server again would fail as the port was unavailable. This behaviour didn't occur when hosting the server locally, so there's some instant proof that it's worth testing on as realistic a setup as possible. Hooray.

Postcards from level 1 2

voxel • 3 years ago on 9th Kajam entry  RAYKA


Checking out the prison cells


Meeting a doggo in a tunnel


Might have made a mess here


Meeting the staff and students in the re-education centre


A very blocky train at the yard

Made some progress 4

voxel • 3 years ago on 9th Kajam entry  RAYKA

Added directional sprite support to my raycaster today, so now you can see FRIENDLY WORLD INHABITANTS from multiple directions

7th KAJAM 6

voxel • 4 years ago on 7th Kajam 

Welcome to the 7th Kajam!

From the 1st of April until the 28th of April, everyone is invited to create a game! There are only a couple of rules, covered here.

Details of the theme are in the announcement video above! I encourage you to make a game that can be played on genuine hardware of the era, but that's completely optional! Interpret the theme however you like, just remember to have fun.

Some suggested resources for anyone interested in making a game for genuine 1996 hardware:
Gameboy development
PlayStation 1 development
Tapegro: write DOS games in javascript!
Nintendo 64 SDK
Sega Saturn Jo-Engine

🤔 HOW TO ALAKAJAM? 🤔 4

voxel • 5 years ago on 5th Alakajam! 

A few people have asked how to actually DO alakajam recently, particularly wanting to know how to submit their game, so here's a basic guide:

  1. Sign up for a free account on alakajam.com! That's this website, you're already there 👍!
  2. Pick which category you would like to enter. Your choices are:
    • SOLO: 🧑‍ The traditional gamejam where you work ALONE to make a game within 48 hours, creating your assets from scratch.
    • TEAM: 🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Identical to SOLO but you can collaborate with teammates to create your masterpiece within 48 hours.
    • UNRANKED: 👽 A whole extra day gives you 72 hours to make your unranked game. Almost anything goes, and you can even continue work on a project you previously started.
      The full details of what's allowed in each category is available on the rules page.
  3. 🚦 When the jam starts, the theme will be announced here on the website, in the discord channel, the irc channel and on the alakajam twitter account.
  4. Make your game, adhering to the 📜 jam rules 📜 and incorporating the theme into your game in any way you like. If you're entering the SOLO or TEAM categories, your use of the theme will be one of the categories your game will be judged on.
  5. Submit your game before the deadline! ⚠️You don't upload your game to alakajam.com ⚠️. Instead, you need to host the game somewhere else, such as dropbox, google drive etc. My recommendation is itch.io, which lets you create a free store page for your game, hosts the game for you and can even accept payments if you decide to charge for your game later on. Once your game is uploaded, you link to it from your game entry page on alakajam.com.
  6. Vote! Making a game for alakajam is only 51% of the fun. Once the jams have finished, the voting and feedback phase begins and typically lasts for a couple of weeks. Your game will be played by other entrants and they will be able to rank it on various criteria, such as graphics, audio, etc, as well as leaving feedback comments 👍👎. You can do the same for their games too, and the more games you vote on, the higher your karma score. The higher your karma score, the nearer to the top of the entry list your game will be displayed, which means more people are likely to play it. If you don't vote on other entries, your game is not likely to receive enough votes to get a score in the final step.
  7. Ranking results! After the ranking period has ended the votes are all added up and a score is given to your game. If your game places in the top three for any of the category you will receive an amazing 🏆 virtual trophy 🏆 and be the envy of all your friends.