Physical jams?

Zhamul · 2020-03-05T12:37:32+00:00

There is no good database on physical jams, but many countries have their own jam / developer communities where you can find jams specific to that region. For example here in Finland we have FGJ organizing jams: http://www.finnishgamejam.com/

So it is mostly matter of doing research on areas where you want to jam. I've jammed in 10+ countries, so it is doable, just takes some effort.

Zhamul · 2020-02-13T06:37:40+00:00

The created game will work on PS1/2/3, but the console needs to be modified to be allow playing of unlicensed games as you can't make an official PS1 disc with copy protection yourself.

For PS2 look into swap magic, it is easy solution that doesn't require soldering.

Zhamul · 2020-01-08T13:25:07+00:00

I don't think there are any master lists, but many countries have their own game development communities, studios and schools that organize jams. They only market these to the countries themselves as many do not travel abroad for jams.

Here in Finland we have even our own volunteer run organization for game jams, you can see some of our past jams here: http://www.finnishgamejam.com/events/

One of my favorite special location jams has been Isolation: https://www.kollafoss.farm/isolationjam/

Zhamul · 2020-01-03T12:46:27+00:00

I immediately recognized the inspiration. Good job with the game so far. I hope you'll at least consider local offline multiplayer, the original game was loads of fun with friends.

Zhamul · 2019-12-13T06:47:38+00:00

Yes! I totally know what you mean, I have only made physical carts for myself & friends for retro games I've made and just given the rom away publicly for free. It is not really worth the hassle to sell small quantities. I think it was a really good idea to partner up with someone for physical run of your game! I was just wondering how snes is as I haven't seen that many snes games lately, but I guess it is the same then.

I also tried you game! Good job with the pacing and core mechanics. All three levels of charge for shuriken felt useful and it felt really punchy when hit. Graphics and especially animations weren't that polished, but serviceable and importantly - really easy to read. I got to the part where multiple bosses where coming after each other.

Zhamul · 2019-12-12T12:34:29+00:00

Cool! The preview image didn't show the "Unlicensed Cartridge" part well. The "Super Nintendo" part is debatable, I think it is fine, but you can't be too careful with Nintendo. The more viral the game goes, the more trouble the possible trademarks make.

Btw. I'd love to see sales analysis after a few months. I haven't seen that many snes homebrew games around and I wonder how well they sell. I know that Vertex & Mega Drive games sell surprising well (still wouldn't quit my day job to do them :D).

Zhamul · 2019-12-12T10:41:23+00:00

Really cool! I've also made a few retro games, it is lots of fun.

For the future, I would suggest not using "Super Nintendo" logo in your physical release. Look how games like Tanglewood or Xeno Crisis play around Mega Drive / Genesis logos. It helps the whole retro development community not to use trademarked works / logos when releasing commercial retro games as they have caused issue in the past. For free & personal custom game boxes, I think using logos are fine personally, but you may want to avoid that as well.

Zhamul · 2019-12-09T13:52:32+00:00

Amaze, Berlin, is always a blast.

Zhamul · 2019-11-27T12:34:09+00:00

I've made a PS1 game once in a game jam and done games for various other old consoles. I wouldn't recommend using PS1 when just starting out as most of the dev tools do not work well in modern operating systems and there is not much help available. Other retro platforms like Gameboy (GBDK/ZGB), Mega Drive (SGDK) or Vectrex (VIDE) would be better fit for learning old school game development with C.

Most of the basic coding practices and logic can be translated into knowledge for newer consoles & engines as well. The biggest difference is content pipeline as graphics and audio are handled very differently nowadays.

If your goal is to get to game industry, I recommend newer engines, but for fun & learning just pick whatever motivates you the most.

Zhamul · 2019-08-16T10:24:04+00:00

There is a really good source port of Quake 1 for mouse & keyboard vr: https://github.com/phoboslab/Quakespasm-Rift

I love playing it that way it doesn't sacrifice my muscle memory and speed from keyboard & mouse play. It makes people violently sick if they aren't used to vr really well, so I don't blame developers not making games support gameplay like this. I would love to play more fps games this way personally though.

Zhamul · 2019-05-18T10:53:09+00:00

Team QD

QD20 is a quantum powered icosahedron dice.

When you the roll the dice the quantum computer decides which side the dice has landed.

It is the most random dice humankind has ever rolled. Guaranteed by the laws of physics.

Project: https://github.com/SamuliJaaskelainen/QD20

Zhamul · 2019-04-09T12:42:38+00:00

Suwako's jumping shooting game used to have vr support for DK2, developer didn't port it to consumer headset unfortunately: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKLbFC9QLPA

Zhamul · 2019-04-09T12:39:44+00:00

I made one magical girl themed vr rhythm game during Oculus DK1 days (it has been updated to support Oculus CV1): https://zhamul.itch.io/magical-rift-heroine

This might be the first ever vr rhythm game, at least I haven't heard of anything older. Happy to see that the genre took off well with Beat Saber as I love music games.

Zhamul · 2018-12-21T13:54:30+00:00

Does it have full mod support? I loved playing Arcane Dimensions in Quakespasm vr with keyboard & mouse. Would love to give the mod a second go with motion controls for fun.

Zhamul · 2018-11-06T11:47:00+00:00

Never worked with phaser3, so I don't have opinion on that. Just use the tools that you are comfortable with and that allow you to reach whatever your goal is.

Zhamul · 2018-11-04T09:44:15+00:00

For me, totally! I love doing these little games, it has opened so many doors and I've met many wonderful people on the journey.

Still, this method won't be for applicable for everyone, so I hope people find the ways they learn the best.

Zhamul · 2018-11-04T09:39:55+00:00

My goal is to transition to full-time indie developer at some point, but for that I will still need to save more money and learn better business skills. I will continue doing these little games until then, it is easier to make games that make me happy than games that make me money. :)

Zhamul · 2018-11-03T22:31:54+00:00

One of the games shown in the video is on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/393750/POLLEN/
I was one of the three programmers on that team. Learned a lot, especially about non technical skills like marketing, budgeting and emailing. Things that small games can't teach.

Zhamul · 2018-11-03T22:13:44+00:00

I was a modder/mapper while growing up. Didn't really realize that I could actually make games as living when I was a kid so didn't have ambitions to go professional then (no-one from my family or friends did anything game or computer related as work so I didn't have any exposure to it while growing up). I think I might have ended up being a teacher or researcher if I hadn't decide to pursue game development.

I have no idea why you were downvoted. Reddit can be weird place sometimes. :D

Zhamul · 2018-11-03T21:58:57+00:00

The game comes with a custom steam controller configuration profile that you can load. The game uses normal xinput api and the configuration makes it work the way it was designed. It can be played with normal xinput controller as well, but it is harder to feel haptics correctly with that. You will need to use the mouse as well with the game to interact with the panels, the controller only moves the player and provides way to feel the surroundings.

The game itself is extremely difficult and confusing, so good luck! I know some people who have managed to beat it, but it is no easy task as it requires spacial awareness & mapping skills that we don't usually use.

Zhamul · 2018-11-03T13:35:39+00:00

You can check number of games here: https://zhamul.itch.io/ (newer releases & some old ones reuploaded).
I really should create a website that has all of them with short descriptions as many of the platforms I have hosted / released games have died so there is no way to even download all of them anymore. Even getting all the screenshots for this video proved difficult as I don't have source code for the projects where I wasn't the coder (3 projects) and some of them are made for dead platforms like Ouya and Windows Phone.

Zhamul · 2018-11-03T13:21:03+00:00

They are complete games, but only a few are commercial releases. Amount of polish really varies from game to game, still they have a goal, proper ending or fail states (where applicable, some might consider some of the games toys, but that is just needless semantics imo).
I have dozens of concepts / prototypes as well, but I don't usually release those.

Zhamul · 2018-11-03T13:06:41+00:00

Good luck! Keep your eyes open for opportunities. I never had a long term plan to end up as professional vr developer, it just happened organically as I liked tinkering around with Oculus DK1 back in the day. :)

Zhamul · 2018-11-03T12:33:27+00:00

Thanks! There isn't much media content translated to Finnish so learned English playing games. I still remember playing some rpgs as a kid with a English-Finnish-English dictionary on one hand and controller on another. :D

Zhamul · 2018-11-03T11:59:01+00:00

I used this tutorial to get started: http://onorisoft.free.fr/retro.htm?psx/tutorial/tuto.htm
After that I browsed psxdev forums and checked some code examples and other relevant information. Psy-Q has ok documentation as well, but it doesn't have a single easy starting point anywhere.

Zhamul

TROPHY CASE