Broken Brothers
August 18th, 2009
By Michael Todd
Broken Brothers is a RTS game. Gather, Survive, Expand, Unlock.
About the Game
The first thing you do in Broken Brothers is meet Malakai. He has lost his brothers, and is feeling hopeless. Your objective is to bring hope back to him, so that he can use his increased zeal for life to summon units for you. You can then use these units to defend against the giant flesh-eating bugs, survive, expand, and rescue Malakai’s lost brothers.
Recovering one of Malakai’s lost brothers inspires him to unlock new units, including Bombers, Anti-aircraft and Motherships.
This game was made in 7 days, with around 70 hours of work.
It would not be possible to do this game if it was not bare minimum. I chose a slightly too large project idea, and even now the result is a very edited version of the original concept. I chose to go with a ‘Bare minimum’ art style, which allowed me to have fast enough content creation to be able to make the game. This stark contrast style turned out well, but it is ‘Bare minimum’ in several ways. ‘Bare minimum’ sound design, in that there are almost no sound effects. This is countered by the game being designed to the feel of the music. And a very simple RTS gameplay system, with no buildings, a very simple tech tree, one resource, and a very simple AI system. But designed that way, so still fun, I think.
Download for PC: HERE
We're a group of indie game developers, running a friendly competition every month. The rules: Make a game based on the month's theme, and don't spend more than 7 days. New games posted at the end of every month. 
on 
on 
on 
on 
on
21 Comments, Comment or Ping
Very nice game :) Challenging . I like the music :D
August 18th, 2009
AWESOME! Very Nice! I loved it. I did cheat a little tho. I destroyed all the spawns first then got the guys XD
TACTICS FOR THE WIN!
August 18th, 2009
O M G It`s !!!AWESOME!!!
I love it!
August 19th, 2009
I like the style of the game. There are some functionalities missing that I’m sure would be added if it was developed further (like asdw scrolling, among other hotkeys). It is pretty tricky to get past the onslaught of insects – once you get behind you can’t catch up in production. The gameplay itself isn’t anything particularly new, but it is well integrated and I was never left clueless.
I really like the tanks, it reminds me a bit of DEFCON actually. It also makes me want to see what your motorcycles would look like. :)
All in all, a very stylish 3D RTS game for a week of development!
August 19th, 2009
Awesome game !
The music is cool ^^
August 20th, 2009
Thanks guys, some great feedback there.
Yes, I wanted to added asdw scrolling, control groups, etc, but the time limit is harsh.
However, good news. I’m fairly certain a larger version is on its way, say, (maybe) around November for the igf.
August 20th, 2009
Impressive
August 20th, 2009
Michael – How did you make this? What did you use? I notice that many of the game submission are .exe files and that makes me curious as to how they were made? I guess I was expecting that there would be more Flash games on here. The reason I’m asking is because I have been searching for a powerful game creation platform that won’t require that I learn some crazy hard scripting or programming language.
Do you have any suggestions?
August 20th, 2009
Dan – I’m not sure what Michael uses, but I know that 2DBoy released a framework development platform. You can get it here: http://2dboy.com/2009/05/27/rapid-prototyping-framework/
August 21st, 2009
I used Gamestudio A7. It uses a scripting language called WDL, which is a C based scripting language with OOP. I like it right now because it’s very fast, and very good for 3D or 2D, singleplayer or multiplayer. It’s not very hard to learn, maybe a little harder then php.
It costs a thousand bucks, but the basic version is a hundred and twenty.
http://www.3dgamestudio.com/
They also are very good at keeping the engine up-to-date, with new versions released every year or so.
The only two problems I have are that it only runs on windows, and that it can’t run in a browser. It does have nice support for the wii though.
August 21st, 2009
@CasualSax, thanks for the link. I saw that 2dBoy posted that there but was convinced that using it would be beyond my capabilities. I really want to be an independent independent game designer . In other words, I’d like to be able to design and develop my own games but I have zero programming capabilities.
@Michael Todd – Thanks for the link. Any programming has me very intimidated, but I noticed on 3d gamestudio’s site that they seem to have a fair amount of educational materials. I’m game to try and learn but feel pretty intimidated. Have you ever tried Multimedia Fusion? That seems to be a game dev platform without the bad programming aftertaste. Have any opinions on Multimedia Fusion?
Thanks again
Dan
August 22nd, 2009
@Dan, don’t fret about programming so much. It can get complicated, but doesn’t have to be. Start small, fool around, and you’ll be shocked at what you can pick up. There are countless resources online (there are more google hits for “how to program” than “how to have sex”!)
If you’d rather dive into game development without programming, my best suggestion would be to take a look at Warcraft 3’s map editor. It has a simple trigger mechanism, and it can be used to great effect. This is what launched the tower defense and demigod style game craze. :) Starcraft 2 is also coming out soon…ish, and it will have an even more powerful map editor. It will also have a way to sell maps online.
If you want to take a stab at full-fledged programming, drop me a line. I can run you through the basics, and it’d be a good refresher course for me.
Past that, I’m curious what you stumble upon in your search for an easy game development platform – keep us posted!
August 22nd, 2009
I have made a game fits with that theme in two ways.
First way in graphics as I only make the game graphics from circles and lines and rectangles no other shapes
The Second way which was something strange which is something in the story as you play with a bacteria called Bactoriam which think that if it destroy viruses people wont consider the Bacteria as minimum bare living organism and will respect them.
Hope that I am not late
here is the link: http://gamejolt.com/freeware/games/shooter/bactoriam/641/
This game is made in 5 days no more.
Sorry for disturbance :) Hope I am not late :)
August 23rd, 2009
FREAKING BRILLIANT!!
I loved it.
August 25th, 2009
Well this is in my eyes a perfect little game. I liked everything about it. And I’m really looking forward to the expanded version mentioned above.
September 25th, 2009
Very nice, well polished game. I guess I’m not good at RTS because I could not get past the first onslaught. I like the story and the controls were smooth despite being minimal. :)
October 1st, 2009
There is a free, expanded version at my site: http://www.spyeart.com, as a half-way step between the game-in-7-days and the full being-sold game.
November 8th, 2009
Reply to “Broken Brothers”