[disc] Flashkit Minigame Marathon - proposal and discussion

[kdsh7]

Hi guys,

Following the interest in Willoughby Jackson's "Crazy Games" thread, I thought we could go into detail of this particular game design here. Willoughby, Aditydenis and Chopsticks have expressed interest and Willoughby has agreed to help with the management of the (proposed) project should we, as a community, decide to go ahead with it

The appeal of a project like this comes from the fact it's very little work for each person involved but the final game creates something much more than the sum of it's parts. Anyone who's played Wario Ware on the Game Boy Advance will know what I mean - for the uninitiated Wario Ware is essentially a collection of 200 minigames, extremely basic in nature, and each one lasting not more than 3 seconds. This requires the player to not only complete the minigame within 3 seconds, but also to adapt the next minigame as soon as he's finished the first. The GBA games were very basic and each one only used the control pad and one button. In flash we have the advantage of being able to create original experiences using the mouse.

If everyone here made one minigame, it would be enough to make the game work. I believe it's the kind of game that can only be made by using a lot of people because that way each game has it's own style and feel. I'm going to outline the basic way the game design seems to work in my head. I'm not going to flaff on PR-wise about it from here on - down to the nitty gritty...

The game structure
The game could start by loading a menu screen, and an XML file with a list of all the mini games available. All these minigames are swf files in the same directory. The game randomises the list and puts them into an array - this becomes the order of the games for this particular session. It then preloads the first 5 games in the list into a queue and brings the player to the main menu.

When the player clicks start the first game will commence. Each game could commence with a very brief screen with a title below a picture of either a keyboard or a mouse - signifying whether the game uses mouse movement and left click, or the arrow keys and the space bar.

The game lasts 3 seconds (or it could be 5 seconds - but the time for all the games should be the same) so within that time the game must require you achieve a certain task. If that task is completed, then a point gets added to the player's score. If not then one life is taken away. Once the game is finished, the game is unloaded from memory and the next game is loaded up in the queue.

Once all the lives are used up, the player can enter his/her name on a high score table.

The Community Contrubution
The game's foundation is based on the games that are contributed. These should be very light on filesize (about 20k) and have parametric levels of difficulty. This would give each game unlimited levels. For example, imagine a game like Squize's Harold & Joe where you have to aim for targets using the mouse. You could set the targets speed as so:

Target speed = 2 * (currentLevel -1)

So if the game happens to be the first game loaded then the targets would not be moving. To complete the level the player only has to hit static targets. But if the game doesn't come up till level 20, then the speed of the targets would be 38! The reasoning behind this system is, that no matter how good the player, the game will keep up. And the high scores would genuinely reflect the players with the higher skill.

After every game has finished, the game will 'shift' the games in the queue and add a random game to the end of the array.

worth it?

I think this game could be a worthwhile project for the flashkit board. But it would only work if a lot of people contributed to it. Designing a 20k game can be as simple as a clicking targets game or seeing how many times you can press [space bar] within 3 seconds! We can use this thread to gauge interest, and see where it can go from here. If nothing else, it would be somewhere to put all those half finished demos we all have in our experiments folders

[Ihoss]

sounds interesting, but 5 seconds? is that a game? what can u do in 5 seconds? those of u who have played that game, can u give some examples of what was there?

[kdsh7]

The games in wario ware were varied - but there was so much originality on display - something which I think could also be done with the ideas on Fk

in Wario Ware for example, there was a level where there was a cat walking in the rain. You had to press left and right to control a floating umbrella to keep the cat dry. If the cat gets wet - you lose a life, but if you keep it dry for 3 seconds, you get a point. Another game had a finger moving left and right below a big nose. You had to press the button at the right time so the finger goes in one of the nostrils! If you miss or don't do it within 3 seconds you lose. Of course, hardly any of it is explained - you have to look at what's on display and quickly figure out what's required of you... - and then you have to do it...

[Squize]

"what can u do in 5 seconds?"

I've disappointed a fair few women in that amount of time.

kdsh, I must admit I'm struggling to get my head around it though, having never played wario ware.
The concept seems kinda cool, but I can't see how the games can be much more than a "click in order" kind of thing. Perhaps the challenge is for coding them, to come up with something more original than the next person.

Do you wanna post a stage size, file size and time span and see what people produce ( You could always get the ball rolling you know ). Also, how long a delay have you to get your bearings ?

Squize.

[Ihoss]

squize, we've never been interested in ur private life

[twitchymart]

The idea sounds very cool, if you can give maybe a few example games in flash I would be interested in helping out.

[Blatant publicity/steal :P]
On a side note I was working on something abit similar to this, where the user can sign up to play games in a sort of miniworld. http://www.draconnect.com/~twitchy/FFA/arcade.html Its far from complete but I have already built up a framework to put in games.... once I make them
[/Blatant publicity]

Anywho, I am in, just as soon as I can think up some good ideas.

[WilloughbyJackson]

I have not played Wario Ware yet, but I will be contacting my GBA hook up and see if they have it.

In the meantime, if anyone has a good speed connection, I recommend signing up for a free gamespot complete account and looking at the demo movies of this game...

It is truely insane!

http://www.gamespot.com/gba/puzzle/warioware/media.html

I HIGHLY recommend watching them since it is NOT anything like a typical game.

Here's a list of stuff:

Instructions

As mentioned by kdsh7, there should be a very basic instruction screen about whether each game is mouse or keyboard. BUT because of the speed nature of the game, it is very important that these instruction images are universal. We must make sure the user can never be confused by having 3 different graphics for use the spacebar and arrow keys, or mouse.

Even though part of it is, let the play figure it out, some of it does have images of the Gameboy joypad and such...

Solution: I have a photo CD with tons of images of mouses, keys on the keyboard, and things like that. I can select some of the images, and people can download them for their game(s). I can also write up a BREIF summary on how the instructions should work in general.

EDIT: After thinking about it more, I think we should make it Mouse OR Keyboard and Space.. I prefer Keyboard and space...


Variables

We need to brainstorm a list of universal variables related to time, or level, and such which can be easily accessed through all the games, and used by all creators...

And here is some other thoughts

Making this different than Wario World by adding a character select.

People select a character and then they are on a game-board like screen. Their character would run between the games as the player's movie loads in the background.

I have hundred of ideas on how to do this, but I want to hear everyone's concerns and ideas and then will stir them in a big pot and do this bad boy...

"Do this bad boy" ugh, everything sound dirty since chatting with Squize...

EDIT: More direct link to the Gamespot movies..

-pXw

[mbenney]

http://www.warioware.biz/

^^ anyone who doesnt have a clue what were all talking about should go and have a quick nose at this...

kdsh, great threath!

my input:

in order for this to work there must be:

• standardardation of time, timers must act the same look the same and be the same, a drag and drop component or library mc would rock. it would be too confusing to have to learn a new timer every game.
• standardisation of instructions, there should be some graphics made up... arrow keys and mouse pointers and so on with a set background.
• not tooo many input methods, cursor keys and mouse should be fine i reckon (making the point above easier to implement) maybe the instructions should all be predefined and in the holder movie, could just be specified as a variable in each game.
• a dedicated project manager with intention to finish!

[m]

[Squize]

Put me down as doing some games for it.

kdsh, post up some info to get things started angel

Squize.

[WilloughbyJackson]

I think we could actually handle the timer element in the _parent movie, so people won't have to worry about it... Just worry about making their game work...

OF COURSE, then the user would have a harder time testing the game... -_-

Should we put a file size to make sure the movies load fast, keeping the panic element?

-pXw

[Squize]

Just using mbenney's timer prototype will be fine for testing. Easy to use, and works a treat.

How about 32k for the filesize ? Add to the challenge of writing it.

Squize.

[Ihoss]

yep, a file size is good. i made a lot of LLG (Load Less Games) before. theyre great when u just want something to do and u dont want to use ur brain. and there should also be a limited screen size. since its only a 5 sec game, having a big screen will be frustrating and no fun, so the screen should be about 400x300 or something.

[kdsh7]

i'm just in the middle of dinner at the moment (mmm...noodles) but as soon as I'm done satisfying my basic human needs (no - not that Squize!) I'll run up a quick demo and framework so we can see what we need to do to make it work. All of you have hit the nail right on the head regarding basic requirements! I was thinking 20k filesize restriction, but maybe we can stretch to 32

[thehumanchimp]

oooooooh. sounds fun. count me in (not that my game will be any fun...hehehe)

[Ihoss]

but i think everyone who submits a game should be alowed to have their logo/link/whatever show for 2 secs or something. it could be shown during the instructions.

[WilloughbyJackson]

Okay.. Here's a rough layout design...

Action screen layout would be 400 x 250

I put a place for your game name, author and logo.

Score... (and yes, I think we should make points insanily large like this...)

and Lives.

The timer has been moved to the left side of the screen.

I have many other ideas to seperate this from Wario World. Should I start listing them?

-pXw

[gaming monkey]

This idea sounds very interesting, can't wait to see the final product! If any one wants some ideas, just ask. I'd be happy to help.

[Squize]

All sounds good so far Willoughby. I wouldn't worry too much about moving it too far away from wario ware, cause it's only a for fun thing. It's just the newest 48hr compo really

Squize.

[Ihoss]

lets make really large scores, scores that noone has ever gotten. and not only 32 and 10 zeros, but complicated scores

and i want my game to be called "blah blah blah". sorry, noone else can take that name. hahaha :P

[WilloughbyJackson]

Originally posted by Squize
All sounds good so far Willoughby. I wouldn't worry too much about moving it too far away from wario ware, cause it's only a for fun thing. It's just the newest 48hr compo really

Squize.

I'm cool with that, luv...

Still, I don't see this as a 48 Hr compo (though I think we should put a time limit for the FIRST BATCH OF GAMES).

I see this as something which if we do it right, this could be something people could just add their game in, and eventually make a MONSTER game of chaos!

Something which will have 1000 games in it 5 years from now...

and then we take over the world...

-pXw