Gaming

GameJam Japan 2008

"Oh! .. Tomorrow!?" was the reaction from everyone when the team for the GameJam Japan 2008 was assembled last minute, friday evening march 7th .. Although more people responded with great enthusiasm, five could actually make time to spend a weekend for non-stop brainstorming ..

The assignment was to create a game concept for mobile phones in Japan, to promote Holland and Dutch creative competence ..

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Team O!

Everyone's first reaction "Oh! .. Tomorrow!?" seemed nice inspiration for the name name of our ad-hoc formed team "O!" :

- Florus van Beek
- Joost Broersen
- Rick Companje
- Ralph Kok
- Matthijs Rouw

We were connected via each other but did not know each other in person yet .. It's an HKU/Uni Leiden combination and a great way to meet new and interesting people, and during the weekend we've had heaps of laughter ..

After two days of brainstorming and some serious crunch-time on Sunday evening our game Happyard ended up with the final three! However, the Dutch jury decided to choose the two other games to continue in the competition ..

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Happyard nominated by Japanese jury

On march 14th, the organisation of GameJam Japan 2008 sent us a mail .. We were picked by the Japanese Jury (quote: 'game development and industry experts from Cell and Taito') as finalist! Here's the Jury report:

"... the game development and industry experts from Cell and Taito strongly advice/urge us on the following two points:

1 - Happyard should be allowed to be finalist number four. As an exception increase the number finalist with one, or have two numbers three.
Argument for Happyard: "The nature theme works well, the design and scenario are very promising and the game is truly innovative and we very much also desire to see the demo of this game. Right now the game is technically too complicated and the controls do not seem intuitive (motion, gps, camera) but we are very curious to see a demo of this game when the developers for example only use two of the technologies mentioned, like the weather."

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Happyard mentioned in Japan Times Online

March 19th, the official press release was sent out .. An article in the Japan Times Online wrote the following about Happyard:

"Originally the contest was intended to only have three finalists, but both the Utrecht and Japanese juries decided that "Happyard" from O! had so much potential that they deserved a wild card entry. The game integrates real world parameters with a virtual garden environment and sets the player about hunting animals for their collection."

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Working on the demo

Needless to say, we are using almost all of our free time to meet-up and work on the demo, since the winner of the competition gets to develop the game, which will be presented at the Tokio Game show ..

Maybe, just maybe .. we might be spending summer in Japan!

Oh, yeah .. we claimed happyard.nl and happyard.jp since we came this far already ..

Also read teammates' blog items about this:
Item by Ralph Kok
Item by Florus van Beek

I used to game a lot .. No, really - a LOT, on PC .. They were multiplayer games (mainly quake 2 & 3, counterstrike up to 5.1b) which I played both online and on LAN parties .. I get bored easily, and playing against other people is always different .. But yesterday I tried Super Mario Galaxy on the Wii .. I hesitated, because I was disappointed after playing Super Paper Mario - which was fun for only an hour or so ..

The setting is a Galaxy of small planets, sometimes as a platform, sometimes like an actual planet with gravity in all kinds of shapes - of which you can not fall, sometimes totally different :) .. Super Mario Galaxy features some very nice graphics (if you use your engine and hardware right, you don't need hardware like a PS3 or a Xbox 360) that suit the setting of the game, it's characters and their animations (their sounds are good as well) .. The scary bosses are too cute or funny to mention :)

It's fun to play and features more than just getting to the end of the level and features little puzzles and skills (hardcore Mario players would say that that's all what Mario is all about, but I am not a hardcore Mariophile - yet) .. What I also like is that you can earn and find heaps of lives; I am not anxious all the time because of a possible Game Over after losing all your lives ..

Every galaxy has its own theme and every planet has its own style .. Hell when I am at work I want to play the game at home .. I have not been this addicted in years! Of course, the Wii controls (you need the Wii remote and the Nunchuck) and their characteristics are nicely implemented by Nintendo - you shake the remote and combine remote and Nunchuck buttons and so ..

They I came a long way, from here:

(oh I played that a lot on my Commodore 64)

to Super Mario Galaxy:


Oh yeah, the goal is to save the princess and her castle and some star but for now I can not be bothered by that ;) ..