Dinopunk! 


Yes, Hideous; it's a style of music called "skatepunk" (more like  "scatpunk" amirite)

*runs*   

Remember the "####punk" prose competition that was happening during the Demakes compo? How about applying that to games!
Make a game in the style of "something"-punk, whether an existing or well-defined genre like Cyberpunk, Steampunk or Biopunk, or an underexplored one... or even one you make up yourself just for the game.

This would satisfy all the folks who've been asking for a Steampunk compo, too.

*tries to think of a new ####punk genre*

... Origamipunk!
A dystopian world where just about eveything is made of
(and can be made of) folded paper... 
O
0
o

This is a really fun game! Thank you for making it.
(Although I couldn't get past the guys with whips.  )

[The "Singles" Compo!]

Single-Enemy
Single-Screen
Single-Level
Single-______  (Where "______" is any major element of a game)

The "Singles" Compo!

Deadline: Valentine's Day.   

I don't know how I'd go in an AI compo but I would certainly give it a decent shot. It might just turn out that my "A" isn't particularly "I".

Ah. Good thing I didn't suggest my other idea, "Make a game based on a 4chan thread", then... 

Click "Random article" on Wikipedia (or EncyclopediaDramatica for moar lulz) and make a game inspired by the page that comes up.


Here's three doozies I got off ED:

http://encyclopediadramatica.com/Zero_Whitefang
"Zero Whitefang is a fatass weeaboo furry who is on an epic quest - to gain as much f***ing weight as he can. Appropriately enough, his fursona is that of a morbidly obese dragon."

http://encyclopediadramatica.com/Port_Arthur_massacre
"The Port Arthur massacre is Australia's staged, lame-ass version of 9/11, with only 35 people dying, and they actually caught someone doing it."

http://encyclopediadramatica.com/Catnarok
"The most awesome thing the world has ever witnessed
Longcat and Tacgnol will meet at the chosen ground on Caturday and begin their long, sacred battle. This battle between light and darkness will endure for a thousand æons, but the passage of time will seem like just a few seconds. It will be an even match, a purrfect balance, so neither can fail. It will thus be an epic win, as the world is cleansed of faggotry and AIDS."

  _

Hells YES.   


The only problem I see with that is people inventing a genre they've never known to exist, only to have it shot down partway through production when it turns out it already has been done in some way or another. A lot of topics would pop up only to be abandoned. (And bumped again by people discovering more examples of the genre.)

But yes, that would be a great challenge.

Wordless Games Compo

There must be no words (written or vocalised) or other abstract symbols in your game. Everything in it must be "real" to the environment. No arrows showing you what buttons to press, no musical notes, swastikas, power button symbols, or even those abstract symbols that appear around some anime characters' heads to let you know what their overly-simplistic faces fail to communicate.
 No written instructions - so it has to be intuitive. The controls and gameplay (at the beginning, at least) ought to be easily figured out. Or not! Maybe you'll go against normal interactivity conventions and see how long it takes players to work out how to play. 

Twist Ending Compo!

Make a game that ends with a twist.
It could have a surprise ending to the story, such as "Lol, all those zombies you slayed were just kids in halloween costumes!" or "turns out you were killed back in level 1 and since then you've been a ghost like Bruce Willis!"

Or the twist could be part of the game, but near the end - like in Halloween Harry, where the final boss (who appears during the game as a silhouetted bad guy with glowing eyes) turns out to be... [spoiler]Zombie Elvis Presley from Outer Space[/spoiler]!!!

Or, y'know, you could do some completely irrelevant twist, such as a game of Tetris that ends with the message: "CONGRATULATIONS YOU WON. OH BY THE WAY, YOU WERE ADOPTED". 


A nice side-effect of this compo is that it encourages us to FINISH making our games... 

an entire game of just one massive multi part boss? YEAH!

But won't the gameplay be mostly either shumps or side scrollers?

Probably.  Unless we get some more 3D entries.

Of course you could always go with an RPG or tactics style boss.  Or take the "boss" concept literally and make a game that takes place in a work environment.

Or have your game be about Bruce Springsteen.  Or Boss Hogg.  Or Jermaine Dupree.  Or Tony Danza.

Or Judge Judy.

Or a game in which you ARE the "boss". You sit around waiting for a series of incarnations of some computer game hero to work his way up to your level to fight you. And try to stop him from grabbing extra lives/health/ammo/points.

(Like in Reboot!)

["Unorthodox Hardware Use"]

I'm generally happy with whatever's picked, but whipping out ideas is fun too.

"Unorthodox Hardware Use"
Make games that are intended to be played in ways that use the computer and/or its human interface devices in unusual ways... For example:

* Holding the keyboard as if it were a guitar, certain keys act as strings/frets/etc (I am not familiar with guitars myself)

* Some parts of the game involve you having to turn the mouse back-to-front

* Turn the mouse upside down and run your fingers over the sensor

* The more keys you press at once on the keyboard controls the power of your character's weapons or tools (punches etc)

* Games with effects that require 3D glasses to truly appreciate. Or Magic Eye images. Or "St3r3-O-Vision" (2 nearly-identical images onscreen; cross your eyes so they become one 3D image)

* Games where the user is encouraged to stick pieces of paper on their monitor to remember where the invisible walls are. :D Eventually it might make up an amusing collage, worthy of posting photos thereof!

"A Sprite Walks Into A Bar..."

Games based on well-known jokes.


(I call The Aristocrats.  :D )

I failed to produce anything this time around, after all. Sorry, pinball fans. 

I sorta hit a wall in the "starting from scratch" attempt and ignored the project for a week or so. So yes, getting a physics engine for Flash would be a good idea.

I'm trying out that Box2D one now.

Mr. Hideous, I also have Flash 8.... But it's not CS3. And the last time I tried to download the trial of CS3, it said it would take a week to download... I hope my new connection is faster!

Thanks everyone!

But jeez, creating pinball physics in Flash from scratch is hard. 

I'll try to incorporate a number of the Commonplace Book suggestions (and of course Cthulhu) into this Lovecraft-themed pinball machine I'm making in Flash. I've probably played fewer pinball machines than I could count on one hand (virtual pinball machines included) so any suggestions from pinball veterans would be appreciated.

However, I intend to take advantage of this being made in Flash rather than in reality, so I can add some strange hyperdimensional twists to the machine.

Not going to make anything too complicated, though. :3

[IN]

My family doesn't live anywhere near a castle

I never said you lived near a castle, I said INa castle.

Exactly, if I live in a castle, I live very near a castle.

And what DO you reside in? An attic or sumpm? ;p (YES I WENT THERE)

Games based on your horoscope reading?  :D

Mine today was: "You're in an unusually conservative frame of mind right now and might resist change that you would ordinarily embrace. Be true to yourself -- but don't be too surprised if you change your mind later!"

Hmmm, okay, maybe not.

Doozies:

181 Inhabitant of another world—face masked, perhaps with human skin or surgically alter’d human shape, but body alien beneath robes. Having reached earth, tries to mix with mankind. Hideous revelation. [Suggested by CAS.]

...And wacky sitcom antics ensue.

158 Man has terrible wizard friend who gains influence over him. Kills him in defence of his soul—walls body up in ancient cellar—BUT—the dead wizard (who has said strange things about soul lingering in body) changes bodies with him . . . leaving him a conscious corpse in cellar. [Thing on Doorstep]

You play a lone zombie against an army of the living!

128 Individual, by some strange process, retraces the path of evolution and becomes amphibious.

Aquamaaaan!