Sifteo Cubes Competition in January and February
January 3rd, 2013
Sifteo Cubes Competition
For the next two months, we’re partnering with Sifteo to bring you the Sifteo Cubes Competition. Your challenge: Design and create a game that runs on stackable, rotatable, shakable, touchable Sifteo cubes.
Round 1 in January: Design and Prototype
Round 1 is all about design. Spend the month thinking about how you can uniquely use a pack of three Sifteo cubes to construct a game or experience you would not otherwise be able to create. By the end of the month, submit 1. a small prototype you’ve built with the Sifteo SDK, along with 2. any other images, video, etc so other readers can get a sense of your design without having to install the SDK. Simply post a link to your entry in the comments section below.
EGP and Sifteo folks will judge the designs and select several finalists (probably around 10%?) to move on to Round 2! Remember, the judges are humans too, so think about how to make your design stand out and show us that you have the ability to execute your vision in Round 2!
Round 2 in February: Build It!
Each finalist from Round 1 will be sent a pack of Sifteo Cubes. Spend the month of February finalizing the game you designed and prototyped in Round 1. Be sure to take advantage of Sifteo’s support staff and community forums if you need any help!
In addition to your working game, you must also submit a video of your game being played, uploaded to YouTube or similar site that we can embed here on this site. When you are ready to submit, simply post links to your submission in the comments section below.
Prizes
- Internship at Sifteo – We are pleased to be able to once again offer an internship as a prize! This is an optional prize for students or other designers looking to get into the game industry. Past EGP competitions have placed interns at EA, THQ, and RedOctane and this remains our favorite and most valuable category of prize to give out!
- Sifteo Cube Sets – All finalists selected to continue on to Round 2 will be mailed a set of 3 Sifteo cubes.
- Publishing & Promotion – The winner will be guaranteed a publishing deal with Sifteo that will be equal to or a little better than the regular publishing deal they give to other indie developers. Additional details are still being worked out. More info soon. The winning game will also be featured on the Sifteo site, featured prominently at Sifteo’s GDC booth and at other jams and events.
How to Get Started
The folks at Sifteo have put a lot of thought into making the cubes easy to develop for. There is a freely available SDK here. And the video below provides a quick intro for developers.
Good luck everyone, and have fun!
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.
129 Comments, Comment or Ping
Are developers from outside US elegible to participate?
January 4th, 2013
We have a set of original sifteo cubes. Can we make a prototype for them, and than port it if we get to round two?
January 4th, 2013
Yep, any location should be fine, provided you have postal service!
January 4th, 2013
If you already have a set of Sifteo cubes, that sounds like a good way to prototype something – do it! You just might want to be aware of the differences between the old cubes and the new cubes.
January 4th, 2013
I am assuming we get more than a week on this one?
Seemed like you never mentioned the 7 day requirement.
January 4th, 2013
Hi, are the cubes you sell at the moment in your shop (or that are sold on Amazon for International Customers) “second generation” cubes? The same cubes that will be used for the competition?
January 4th, 2013
Chad, the 7 day requirement is mostly just a guideline to help alleviate the pressure of having to build something perfectly polished and to allow for maximum creativity. Feel free to take more time if you like, especially for a more difficult challenge like this one!
Phillippe, yes, I believe the second generation cubes are indeed the ones that will be used in Round 2.
January 4th, 2013
Since all finalists selected to continue on to Round 2 will be mailed a set of 3 Sifteo cubes, I guess we are supposed to build a prototype with only 3 cubes?
January 4th, 2013
Regarding designing for 3 cubes, Sifteo says: “It’s highly recommended that the games CAN play on 3 cubes. Whether it is better on 3 cubes more 4+ cubes, that is up to the designer. The reason for this answer is that most people who own the system will have 3 cubes, so ultimately for the games to be played by the most people out there, there should be a 3 cube version of the game. If a designer feels that the game works best on more cubes, they should put that in their design document and we can judge the game with more cubes.”
January 4th, 2013
I heard about the SDK being released at the end of December, and started tinkering with a game over the holiday break (basically, a few days before Christmas through New Year’s). Can I enter that project? Or do I need to come up with something that didn’t predate January?
January 4th, 2013
I’m using Unity to develop games. Any chance the Sifteo SDK will works on Unity3D?
January 4th, 2013
Hi there, we’ve syndicated your post over at the Sifteo blog! The post is here: http://blog.sifteo.com/2013/01/design-a-game-win-the-sifteo-cubes-competition/. Please let me know if you have any questions. We’re very excited to be working with you to have this competition!
January 5th, 2013
I am pretty sure that if you want to write code that will run on the sifteo, you need to actually use their sdk. It is available for a bunch of platforms though.
January 5th, 2013
Hey everyone!
Very excited to see so many questions already. Kyle’s been awesome in answering some of the questions related to Sifteo SDK, and we at Sifteo will also be helping answer questions about our platform here. Stay tuned as we will be posting, early next week, a couple articles (either here or as a link) that helps with technical onboarding and design guidelines.
Also feel free to check out our tech blog where we will start to post interesting articles in 2013. In fact, we have a new one here:
http://tech.sifteo.com/2013/01/03/neighborhoods-and-locality/
With regards to some questions from before:
– Gen 1 vs 2 cubes: This competition is for our Gen 2 cubes only. Gen 1 uses C# and is not compatible with Gen 2 cubes that run on C++. We would not recommend developing your game for Gen 1 for this competition.
– Where to get Gen 2 Cubes: The cubes for sale on our website: https://www.sifteo.com/shop and on Amazon are our Gen 2 sets. Just make sure you see the set that comes with a mobile base station and not the ones that require you to plug a wireless USB receiver into your computer.
– Working outside of Sifteo SDK: Currently people can only develop games on our cubes with our SDK, but we have good documentation on our developers’ website and have people who will answer developer questions promptly. So if you have any questions, check out our dev support site and post your questions there:
https://www.sifteo.com/developers
http://support.sifteo.com/categories/20026413
https://developers.sifteo.com/docs/SifteoSDK/0.9.8/index.html
Hope that helps!
January 5th, 2013
Can I get a tutorial on how to develop(or at least get started with developing) a game for the Sifteo SDK?
January 5th, 2013
Bryce, there are several example programs in the SDK download, and the SDK also comes with a docs/ folder that, in addition to the reference files, has several overview documents that introduce the concepts you need to know, including building and running the example apps, how to prepare assets, etc. It’s not a full-blown tutorial, but the SDK is simple enough that going through those two things should be enough to get you started.
January 6th, 2013
All right, but what’s the *real* January theme?
January 6th, 2013
Where do I submit my project with the prototype, images, videos, etc…
January 7th, 2013
My game development class is psyched about this challenge, as our professor decided to use Sifteo cubes for our next project, the prototype for which is due the end of January. :)
Is the competition limited to solo entries or can projects from a small student team (3 or 4 people) be entered?
January 7th, 2013
Hey guys, feel free to work on this one in small teams, as this is an especially tricky challenge.
January 7th, 2013
You’ll need to post your submission on your own site, or youtube, or some other area of the internet. And then link to it here in the comments.
January 7th, 2013
Make creative use of three small cubes with screens on them. See above. :)
January 7th, 2013
I’d just use your best judgement. Re-using any sort of engine you’ve built or code you’ve built around the SDK is probably totally fine, and what we all do anyway when building new projects.
January 7th, 2013
Hey all! This competition is so exciting! I hadn’t heard of the Sifteo Cubes until this post, so regardless of how the competition goes, it has been awesome already :D
I will be posting progress, tutorials and eventually, my submission on this blog:
http://alternativeartisgames.tumblr.com/
Good luck all!
January 8th, 2013
Hey, I had fun today making my first Sifteo game! It is a Rubik’s cubesque puzzle game. I posted about my experience on my blog along with a video and elf you can download…
http://frankforce.com/?p=2956
January 9th, 2013
Hey Everyone!
As promised, here are two articles on our tech blog that will help you think about game design on Sifteo Cubes and also how to onboard yourself and learn the SDK.
Scott’s, our creative director, article talks about “12 Tips for Making Sifteo Games”, which serves as a good design guideline for developers:
http://tech.sifteo.com/2013/01/08/12-tips-for-making-sifteo-games/
Daniel’s, our Evangelist, article helps onboard developers who don’t have specific C++ knowledge but coded in higher level languages like Flash or Processing:
http://tech.sifteo.com/2013/01/08/getting-oriented-with-the-sifteo-sdk/
Happy game making!
Bernie
January 9th, 2013
I have an idea for a game that doesn’t use neighboring, and it seems like neighboring is the main feature of Sifteo cubes.
BTW, it’s a multiplayer (4+ players) game that requires creativity, fast thinking and good communication between teammates. I’ve tested it with my friends. Seems pretty fun and has a good replay value, but I’m afraid it’s not really what you’re looking for…
What should I do? Should I forget about it right away or is it OK to not include neighboring?
January 9th, 2013
I made a build environment for Visual Studio 2010 Express if anyone is interested. I recommend using this over notepad++ because it enables IntelliSense which makes development so much easier. Also you can just hit F5 to build and run the project which helps speed up iteration time. You can download it on my blog…
http://frankforce.com/?p=3039
January 10th, 2013
Hi Stefan,
Your idea seems interesting. While neighboring is a very important part of the Sifteo experience, NOT including it doesn’t necessarily mean the game is not a good idea. I have 2 suggestions for you.
1. Go forth with the idea and if your game delivers creativity, fast thinking, communication, social play, and lots of replay value, I think it definitely has as good of a chance as a game with neighboring.
2. If you’re really not sure, we can take a look at your idea and give you a simple “go forth” or “probably not a recommended Sifteo game” feedback. Before the 1st phase of the competition ends, we believe it’s fair to NOT give any game improving feedback to any team, but I think helping you decide to move forth or go with another idea is ok.
Cheers,
Bernie
January 11th, 2013
I have finish my paper prototype today!
And I think than my idea is working pretty well.
It´s an adventure creator playable for 1 or 2 players.
It´s Something between the game of the goos, The Legacy of Siboot and Children color cubes.
I´ll need the help a a true Developer to make it real.
I got big problem to integrate an random tile map system.
Contact me if you are interested to be part of this project!
January 12th, 2013
Hello there! I just wanted to say that the Sifteo SDK was pretty fantastic to work with aside from the initial learning curve and a couple of quirks that I either figured out or worked around. Here’s my submission for this month:
Blog post/info: http://retiredsphinx.tumblr.com/post/40379540224/introducing-siftrinth-a-game-prototype-for-sifteo
Direct download link: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/31816885/siftrinth.elf
Since I’m on limited-bandwidth Internet at the moment, I can’t upload a video, but I’ll be sure to make one by the end of the month.
Thanks!
-RetiredSphinx
January 13th, 2013
Hey, I finished up another prototype, this one is tentatively called Peong because it’s kind of like pong for Sifteo. I wrote up a blog post about some of the design decisions I made during development and technical details. There’s also a video and download link.
If anyone has a set of Sifteo cubes and gets a chance to check this out please let me know how it goes, so far I’ve only played it in the emulator, thanks!
Blog: http://frankforce.com/?p=3080
Download: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/42191645/Peong.elf
January 13th, 2013
Hi everyone ! I have just done my prototype in a week. You can watch a video of it and download it here : http://blog.fredericvauchelles.com/2013/01/colorball-a-prototype-game-for-sifteo-cubes/
I hope you will enjoy the prototype !
January 14th, 2013
Hi Bernie,
I wrote all the details of our idea here:
http://ticklebot.net/saywhat.pdf
As you can probably tell, English is not my native language :)
Sorry for the mistakes, I hope that will make sense to you.
I still don’t have a playable demo, but I’ll make one if you give us a green light.
Thanks for your time.
January 14th, 2013
Hey Everyone!
For those of you who don’t follow our tech blog, our resident developer, Max, has posted his second article:
http://tech.sifteo.com/2013/01/10/content-and-latency/
@Stefan, thanks for the document. Let me check it out and get back to you. Is there an email address I should send feedback to?
@everyone who submitted: Awesome for being so on top of things and submitting early! =)
Bernie
January 14th, 2013
Here is my submission for this:
https://github.com/mclark4386/1GAM-Jan-Snowboard
besides art it’s pretty much where I want it…
January 15th, 2013
Here’s my entry!
CUBE CAFÉ is a fun time-management game which has you fulfilling customer orders by shunting foods around a virtual kitchen.
After quite a bit of trial and error, we settled on an intuitive mechanic where you bump foods from one side of a cube to another, giving the game a really satisfying, tactile feel that you just can’t get on traditional platforms. It was a blast to develop – I really enjoyed using the Sifteo SDK.
It comes with a tutorial, several levels with unlockable kitchen elements, and high score tracking.
You can see video of the game in action here:
http://barkingdoginteractive.com/cubecafe/
And you can download it here:
http://barkingdoginteractive.com/cubecafe/cubecafe.zip
(Currently, the game has placeholder art and not-done-by-us audio, so don’t take the art or music to be final.)
I’d love to hear any feedback you guys have. Happy cooking!
January 15th, 2013
@Bernie
You can send it to “stfnnklc” at Google’s mailing service.
Thank you.
There are some pretty cool games already. Congrats to everyone who participated.
January 15th, 2013
@Stefan –
I just read your PDF for your game. Sounds fun! It’s an interesting little party game mechanic that I think would probably work pretty well in practice.
@FRÉDÉRIC –
That game looks like a pretty mind-bending puzzler, especially once you start getting multiple balls and more than three cubes. I could see the frustration level being high if things get out of hand, but by the same token, satisfaction when you solve one would be high as well. Fun idea.
@FRANK –
Peong looks clever. I like the idea of tilting the cubes to accelerate the ball back towards the other player. I’d suggest tinkering with the amount of force the tilting puts on the ball – it looked like it would be more fun if tilting the cubes would affect the ball more, so that it was more like rolling a ball. But the idea is pretty neat.
@RETIREDSPHINX –
I like the idea of Labyrinth games with portals to other cubes. That “blocking in” mechanic adds a bit of puzzle-solving to the game, too, which is fun. Some ideas for extending the game:
* Keys and doors.
* One-way doors.
* Treasures to pick up which don’t count towards the stars you have to pick up before using a portal (for adding puzzles where you have to traverse cubes more than once to collect them).
* Moving hazards.
* A two-player challenge mode with two balls, with puzzles like “player 1 has to sit on the button on cube A to open the door on cube B for player 2″.
Good job everyone so far. Some cool game ideas from everyone!
January 15th, 2013
CC CHAMBERLIN – Thanks, but I think you are hung on on the tilting. The primary control mechanic is rotating your cube, tilting is a secondary mechanic that is more of a subtle way to direct the ball but not the main way your return shots. The goal is to not have the ball bounce and if tilting was much stronger it would be too easy to direct the ball without it ever bouncing. That being said I’m sure there’s plenty of twists on this formula to experiment with.
You’re prototype is really nice btw, I can totally see how this could be a marketable Sifteo game. The demo pacing feels a bit repetitive, I got bored. I think you should reduce the amount of customers each round but add stronger feedback when the player is slow like having customers get up and leave or food burning if you don’t take it off the grill.
Stefan – Interesting idea, it sounds a bit familiar to an american TV show called Password. I like the concept of players having hidden information, but maybe there is a way to make the Cubes more essential to the gameplay process.
MATT CLARK – You have a really good start there but I’m having some difficulty with the controls. One thing that would help big time with the fun is instead of game over when you crash, let the player get back up and keep playing, crashing just slows them down so they get a slower time. Then give them a gold/silver/bronze medal or something depending on how fast they finish the level. Also, I like how the green grass makes it easy to see the path but it doesn’t fit the theme very well, it could be as simple as changing it from green to light blue.
RETIREDSPHINX – Cool little puzzle game. I felt like it was too easy at first, then it got a bit harder but it crashed before I could complete it. You really need a way for the player to select levels even for this demo because the initial difficulty ramp is a bit slow and levels can take a while to complete. I noticed an issue where multiple balls can be on top of each other, which is a problem because they can no longer be separated and the logic when it hits a wall can be a bit unintuitive. Maybe balls should bounce off each other or something to prevent that?
January 16th, 2013
@FRANK –
I understand.
Another idea I had was to give the first player something to do while the second player is working on returning the ball. Maybe he can pick up his cube and tilt it to move a small “shield” around his play area. Or maybe once you’ve returned the ball, you influence the trajectory by tilting your own cube, allowing you to essentially put “spin” on the ball, making it harder for the other person to return it.
Regardless, good luck with the game. It’s cool.
And thanks for your comments on Cube Café. I appreciate you checking it out. The plan is to add customers getting angry like you mentioned in a future version if we can. Not sure about the food getting burned thing. Since that’s something that can happen offscreen, it feels like that could be a little problematic from a gameplay perspective. But if we can add it and it’s fun, then we will; several people have mentioned that as a possibility, so it’s probably something that would feel like it’s missing if we don’t add it…
January 16th, 2013
how do you get the games to work on the aksureal cubes not the vitureal [ i have the 2nd gen.]
January 16th, 2013
sorry about the spelling
January 16th, 2013
@Frank Force: Sorry, I’m a bit confused here– Are you referring to Frédéric Vauchelles’ game? It doesn’t quite sound like you’re describing mine.
January 16th, 2013
@CC Chamberlin @RetiredSphinx I think that your comment is about my puzzle game.
You are definitly right about levels. If I am chose for the second part, I will make a menu for that. Moreover, I intend to add a mode to play a randomly generated level and thus need a menu to select the play mode.
The “story” mode is intended to be playable tutorial that introduce mechanics step by steps and increasing difficulty through the levels.
For the issue about the balls, there are several solution I though about like having different speed, or a cube that change the direction of a ball depending on its color, etc…
A lot of fun things can be done here !
Finally, I think I will push the game to be a multiplayer puzzle where each player can participate to match the colors. (using multiple balls, moving balls from one cube to another, etc)
@CC CHAMBERLIN Your prototype looks really sweet ! I sometime get addicted to Dinner Dash and I think it is clever to use a physical artifact to move the orders or to cook. About your demo, I shared the same feeling of @FRANK FORCE about repetition and I think the pacing is still to be tuned.
January 17th, 2013
@Bernie
I hope you had time to check my idea. I look forward to hearing some feedback so I could continue or try something else.
Cheers
January 18th, 2013
@Braxton
Once you’ve built your .elf file and you’ve got the Sifteo base plugged in via USB. Use the command:
swiss install [filename].elf
This is instead of :
siftulator [filename].elf
For more information, check out this guide: https://developers.sifteo.com/docs/SifteoSDK/0.9.8/device_mgmt.html
January 18th, 2013
Added some new features to Cube Café today:
* Foods now animate from cube to cube, making it easier to understand what’s going on. (Plus, it looks nice.)
* You can now exit a level by pressing the button on the base station.
* Updated and improved tutorial.
* Other minor fixes.
The new version is downloadable from the companion site:
http://barkingdoginteractive.com/cubecafe/
(Again, still placeholder art and audio.)
January 19th, 2013
hey everybody,
I have create a blog to share my progress and explain the concept of my game/toy prototype.
http://cubeheart.tumblr.com
I´m actually fighting with the graphic part, I hope to be able to share a video of the game in action next week.
January 19th, 2013
@ARNAUD –
I checked out your game video and read the description. It looks interesting, but I’m still a little fuzzy on how the game actually works. You say, “The both player should try to use is mind to create the most incredible story as possible. He can use is precognition ability to make the story the more exiting as possible.” I take this to mean that it’s basically a rubric for storytelling (right?), which is a cool idea.
But I’m fuzzy on what the meaning of the cube faces are, and what it is supposed to mean to move the cubes around. Is there something significant about, say, moving the “BOOM” above the dog and have it turn into a cat? Would it have done something differently if you moved it somewhere else, for instance? I’d like to hear more about what is going on “under the hood”, and what you envision the player experience to be.
I also wanted to say that I like the art style. It generates curiosity and invites you to pick up the cubes, so it’s a nice fit with the Sifteo platform. Looks like a fun experiment.
January 19th, 2013
@CC Chamberlin Thanks for your comment.
And excuse me for my english.
The toy I´m trying to propose is a “surrealist “storyteller.
The possibility to have the same story will be really complicated. (They´re is 2 different random function running on a asset of more than 50 pictures who got each one 48 possible moves.)
This make than a party could have a duration of 2 second until various minutes.
I´ll spend the next week trying to find the best asset of pictures as possible.
My envision of the player experience it´s to propose him a toy who will remember is analog childhood toy ,mixing it with the power of the Sifteo technology. My drawing set was based on the The Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations of George Polti.
In parallel I´m going to have a second set of drawing provide by Arianne Foks ( http://www.asnootyfoksproject.com).Each set of drawing, will give a new possibility and universe to “love Conspiracy”
January 19th, 2013
@ARNAUD –
Sounds pretty offbeat – it’s certainly in the spirit of “experimental gameplay!” I’m looking forward to checking out the .elf.
January 19th, 2013
Excellent, thanks for the contest! Very inspiring.
January 20th, 2013
My Entry: SHIFTED!
SHIFTED is a challenging new puzzle game for Sifteo cubes. Its roots in classic “handheld” puzzle games from the past are combined with the exciting new Sifteo gaming platform, resulting in (hopefully) something quite difficult to put down :)
This prototype has 4 sample levels that increase in difficulty. Ideas to improve the game further in the second round include:
– Add numbered blocks that must be arranged in consecutive order.
– Size can be adapted to more blocks per side, or fewer.
– Animation when shifting.
– Hints for the user, in case he or she gets stuck: the shortest route to a solved configuration can be calculated and shown.
– Option to add more cubes (than the current 3) for increased difficulty.
Please read these instructions first:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/iswnhyu2np61q4u/Shifted.pdf
The ELF file:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/pbd5h0sh4brzpvl/shifted.elf
Enjoy!
– Niek van Suchtelen
P.S. Great SDK: I’ve done a lot of mobile development over the years, but this SDK (and its accurate emulator!) is better than the majority of SDK’s from big phone companies. And it was easy to integrate with Eclipse on OS X. Also, I really like the efficient design of the whole platform.
January 20th, 2013
Hi guys, here is my entry: Kokoy.
Blog and video: http://www.muterama.com/blog/2013/01/20/kokoy/
Download link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/qv3xqrc7gqp68b0/kokoy.elf
It is an arcade-style game for 2 to 4 players (the prototype only allows 2 players). It can be set between 1 and 3 rounds. In each round the players must defeat opponents by collecting 10 lightnings to hit others with an electric shock or by drinking a potion that turns the player into a monster that eats other players.
I would be very grateful if any of you checks this out in a set of Sifteo cubes and gives me some feedback.
January 20th, 2013
Hi everyone,
Here is my minimalistic Game Design Document for the Sifteo competition:
http://www.attiksystem.ch/sifteo/billy_fruit.png
Hope it’s sufficient to get an idea of what the game is about. All the labyrinth is made up of repeating tiles of 32×32.
Tilting gesture will have the effect of applying forces to the sprite, thus allowing a fluid movement of Billy.
January 21st, 2013
Hi there,
I am actually studying Game Design in a French school and I just discovered the Sifteo Cubes and, moreover, this contest.
Since my mates and me shouldn’t be able to create something at the end of the month, is it still possible to send you a game project (when it will be done) so we can have some views about it ?
Thanks, regards,
Enzo
January 21st, 2013
@Enzo Certainly! We’d be happy to give you all some feedback.
January 21st, 2013
@Niek: That “Shifted” game looks pretty nice! I like the abstract artwork and overall visual design of it. I’m going to try to download the .elf and try it this evening. Sounds like an “easy to learn, difficult to master” kind of puzzle mechanic, which is perfect for Sifteo cubes.
@Omar: Kokoy’s visual aesthetics are really inviting and pitch perfect for the game. Looks great. Again, I’m looking forward to trying out the .elf.
@Philippe: Billy Fruit looks fun, and the art is inviting. Seems like it would lend itself to having some interesting environments for an exploration mechanic. Are you working on a prototype?
January 22nd, 2013
Hi,
I have built a prototype of a game heavily inspired from the 80s memory game huge success: “Simon”. I remember receiving one when I was a kid!
Here is a video showing what I have for the moment:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cds1Wo340Gc
An elf is here:
http://www.attiksystem.ch/sifteo/simonteo.elf
Just like on the Simon game, pattern playback accelerates when you advance in the game, making it more and more complicated.
I intend to add a few things to it:
– Very important: sounds. A friend will do that for me these next days.
– Exploit the Sifteo sensors: when a Sifteo lights up and emits a sound that “vibrates”, it means the player has to shake the cube instead of pressing on its screen. I imagine there are other good ideas in order to beef up the patterns to remember. Finding something cool with “neighboring” would be cool, but on the other side the game has to remain super-easy.
– Add explicite multiplayer mode: the first player that makes an error has lost.
– Make it graphically more attractive.
– Make it work with more than 3 cubes.
Philippe
@ CC Chamberlin: I don’t think I’ll have time to code a prototype for “Billy Fruit” before the end of january…
January 23rd, 2013
@Philippe –
Simonteo looks like a pretty solid, simple gameplay mechanic, and it sure is reminiscent of Simon.
Your “exploit the Sifteo sensors” idea was exactly my first thought when watching the video. You could start with simple taps and then proceed to neighborings and shakes.
One really cool thing about neighborings would be that it would create “chords” with the sound, right? When it plays two colors at once, you have to neighbor them, and it will play both tunes.
One problem with neighborings would be that if the sequence ends in a neighboring, the next sequence would start with those cubes neighbored already, so the player would have to decouple them before re-neighboring them. Maybe presenting it as a “bump” instead of a neighboring would be a better way to think about it.
Anyway, it’s a fun, simple idea.
January 23rd, 2013
The winner wins an internship. That’s quite something–to take part in that would the winner have to move to california or something like that?
January 24th, 2013
@ CC Chamberlin: Thanks for your valuable feedback! Here is a new version of Simonteo, with cubes bumping, and cube shaking:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kmARwNXL5s
With so many different gestures and compositions of cubes, I have noticed you have to be very careful not making the game too complicated for the player. If you let everything being chosen random, the gameplay is not that much interesting, because much too difficult.
January 25th, 2013
Hi here’s my entry,
Racer is a racing game for 1-4 people where players compete to be the first over the finish line while trying not to fly off the track by going too fast. Each player holds a cube, tilting it to control the speed of their car like an accelerator pedal. The car changes color to according to how fast it’s travelling, glowing white it’s going too quickly. If the car glows white for too long then it will fly off the track which wastes time as you wait for the car to be returned to the track.
Bigger tracks use multiple cubes making for longer tracks and ‘tunnels’ between cubes where your car is not visible for a short period.
You can find out more (like videos on how the project has evolved) at
http://www.pjwcreations.com/sifteo
and download the latest version at:
http://www.pjwcreations.com/files/racer.elf
**This file will continue to be updated** so please check back from time to time for improved versions :)
All feedback gratefully received. You can contact me at:
contact@pjwcreations.com
Thanks
Paul
January 25th, 2013
This is my entry:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/bcbrwklgkzjpx21/BlindWalk.elf
Video:
http://youtu.be/IDkb2ug_7lI
No sound was recorded
In this game your goal is to guide the character to the checkpoints by laying tiles with roads in front of him. Every time you reach a checkpoint the next checkpoint will be further away. The hard part of the game is that the character slowly accelerates. After reaching a checkpoint the speed of the character resets. Because the distance between the tiles keeps increasing the average speed increases as well. if you fail to place a road in front of the character you lose.
I haven’t added any art, music and some sound effects yet. I also plan to add power-ups on the tiles to force the player to make decisions.
I’ll add those if my game makes it to round 2
Thanks for this competition. I had a lot of fun making this game and got some experience making games too (I’m 17 so i don’t have much experience)
January 25th, 2013
This is my entry – Cube7
https://www.dropbox.com/s/byg8rqdlawrwgsv/krisifteo.elf
Video:
http://youtu.be/5OWmgUTCbMQ
This simple game is to add up the numbers in to the cube to 7. You can also tilt the cubes to adjust the number values in the cube in case there is a stalemate.
I am now trying to add in a Timer and a Score mechanic so that each game will last 60sec and there can be a High Score screen after each game is over.
All in all, great experience and got to learn more about C++ programming. I see great potential in the cubes as a group travel game and that is my key inspiration for building this game. Once I get more familiar with the SDK I would hope to build a much more complex game with it.
Feel free to feedback to me on kristalize@blackcowstudios.com.sg
Will be great to know more passionate game developers!
January 25th, 2013
@Hamvar: For the full-time internship, we do prefer that the intern be located with us in California. If there are significant difficulties in making that happen, it’s something that can be discussed.
@All: Excited to see so much discussion and so many cool prototypes! 5 more days left! =)
January 26th, 2013
This is my submission for the game competition. The game is based on four in a row or connect 4.
January 27th, 2013
This is my game submission. It is a sifteo version of four in a row.
http://ultimate4game.blogspot.com/2013/01/sifteo-cube-competition-game-submission.html
January 27th, 2013
Hey all, here’s my submission. It’s been so fun to make!
http://alternativeartisgames.tumblr.com/post/41691839149/back-from-the-queen-of-towns
I’ll try play through some games now, give some feedback for what it’s worth, but amazing stuff so far.
@CC Chamberlin, holy wow.. Cube cafe is looking pretty sick!
January 28th, 2013
@Kris – I like the idea of trying to solve those puzzles fast, but could you also include a mode where the goal is to complete in the least number of moves? Also instead of numbers you could easily create an interesting narrative although I get the feeling that’s the plan anyway
@DanielNL – Very nice mechanic and the story of the “blind walk” works really well with the gameplay. They reinforce one another and that’s something you should really push :D
@Paul – The racer looks cool, especially given you can play alongside a friend. I feel like just having the accelerator might be a bit too much of a one-to-one relationship. One thing that it reminded me of are those bead-tracks that you get for babies? Perhaps if you could accelerate the car in each direction around the track, ie: You turn a corner and you need to change the direction in which you are accelerating…. hmm hard to explain, but like I say looking cool!
@Omar – The game looks really fun! Especially the side-by-side battle nature of it. It feels like, although both the lightning and potion mechanics are really interesting, the eating one is a bit stronger, I think because it’s a little easier to understand? The lighting one is cool because it is very original, I just wonder if there is a way to communicate it more clearly.
These games are awesome guys! Perhaps my feedback can help at least one of you as we cram as much into the last two days of the month as possible :D haha peace!
January 28th, 2013
This is my entry:
http://ultimate4game.blogspot.com/2013/01/sifteo-cube-competition-game-submission.html
January 28th, 2013
This is my submission:
http://ultimate4game.blogspot.com/2013/01/sifteo-cube-competition-game-submission.html
January 28th, 2013
My game is a new take on a four in a row game:
http://ultimate4game.blogspot.com/2013/01/sifteo-cube-competition-game-submission.html
January 28th, 2013
@RYAN LOADER
When i download your game i get an empty ELF file, it looks cool tough. I really like the speed element to your game and the ability to compete with other people. The choice to move the people or re-arrange the floors is interesting too. Maybe add a bonus when 2 people get to their floor at the same time.
January 28th, 2013
Hi Everybody!
Here’s my submission !
Love Conspiracy and Love side-B
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ocj7og79pdf1twn/loveconspiracy.zip
You can see some video of the game in action on
http://cubeheart.tumblr.com/
Feel free to feedback me!
I´m really happy to see so many developer with good ideas!
January 28th, 2013
Ah! Thanks DanielNL, I fixed the download it now just downloads a zip of the source with .elf included. Getting multiple people to get a bonus is really interesting too, way! I’m so excited to get back to developing this!
@Kent, that game looks really interesting! Looks like something I’d be absolutely terrible at too haha. You’re onto a good thing.
@Arnaud Awesome game/story/thing. I don’t understand but that’s why I love it! :D
January 28th, 2013
Hi folks,
I’ve gone ahead and added a demo of my EGP entry ‘scrambled’ to http://chrisnash.github.com/sifteo_scrambled/ – screenshots and an ELF file provided.
It’s a spin on moving tile/rolling ball puzzles, using the ability to move the cubes as a way to change what moves are possible. The idea was also to give a puzzle cube feel by the player holding cubes in each hand and doing a ‘twist’ to move the balls.
As with a puzzle cube, solving one color is fairly easy. Solving all the colors, not so easy – obviously extends to more than three cubes, and three difficulty levels provided – the largest has 66 balls to solve!
January 28th, 2013
@Ryan Thanks for your comments!Your concept look pretty fun!
I have uploaded 3 videos of the game in action.Don´t forget to turn on the sound!
One video of LOVE conspiracy in english
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CM0L8DZxs7c
One video of LOVE conspiracy in spanish
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9qfJrQafrE
One video of Side B of LOVE in English
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCZalwnFzqQ
I´ll really need to have true Sifteo cubes to experiment this game with various/different player, and test them in Live condition.
January 28th, 2013
Here is my submission. It doesn’t have a name yet, but it’s a multiplayer “Capture the Flag” type game.
http://mattfoxgames.com/2013/01/28/sifteo-prototype/
Download the file here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/4h5maujsuts8qc1/MazePrototype.elf
January 28th, 2013
Hi there,
Here is my entry: Little Conquerors!
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/11255149/littleConquerors.elf
It’s a multiplayer game where players have to conquer lands (special cubes). Each player can create their own army solving a minigame. Better combos in minigame = better soldiers.
See video for more info:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vj0vJJxTRc&feature=youtu.be
I haven’t the Sifteo Cubes, so it’s very hard to playtest this game in the emulator. The game is just a prototype and need a lot of playtesting and tweaks (only works with 3 cubes for now).
Greetings!
January 28th, 2013
I may have went a little overboard with my 3rd Sifteo prototype, it’s an open world puzzle platformer called Squaresville. I’m really proud of the tech I developed for the engine, it was a challenge to say the least. The world itself is fairly huge, composed of 24×24 screens, though I’ve only polished about 10 for this prototype. I also created a custom editor that makes it really fast and easy to build the world. There’s much more information about it on my blog if anyone is interested.
Blog Post: http://frankforce.com/?p=3188
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CjHFTaGziE
Download: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/42191645/Squaresville.elf
January 28th, 2013
Here is my entry: Cricket Maze
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0JJCA_bihQ
Elf: http://mark.goadrich.com/sifteomaze/cricketmaze.elf
Your task is to help a cricket find its way home in less than one minute. In addition, you must use all the paths in the maze, and each path can be used only once.
The maze is all visible all the time, but distributed across the cubes such that you need to shift, rotate and move the cubes so the cricket can complete the maze.
Going forward, I will definitely incorporate better graphics in extensions of this prototype. I built the game abstractly enough to allow for multiple levels of difficulty and multiple maze configurations. It should be straightforward to add more cubes for larger mazes. I also want to see if I can find an efficient algorithm to procedurally generate these types of mazes, one that guarantees they are solvable, have paths to visit all interior waypoints on a cube, and of sufficient complexity.
I had previously worked a bit with the Python SDK for the older version of cubes, thanks for the contest, it was a great inspiration to learn the new C++ SDK!
Wow, the other entries look amazing! Time to download some elfs and start playing. :)
January 29th, 2013
Hey everybody, I finished up my second prototype: Mixteo
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5BlEFX0jos
Elf: https://www.dropbox.com/s/cdvkdzyqxej9n8e/mixteo.elf
It’s a three-player cooperative game where each player controls a character in a primary color (red, green and blue). The objective of the game is to collect as many gems as possible.
The level is randomly generated and some obstacles like doors in different colors appear. To open a door, the player must stand in front of it and be in the same color.
Players can mix colors by bumping cubes together.
Red + Green = Yellow
Red + Blue = Magenta
Green + Blue = Cyan
Any other mixture of different colors produces white.
Touching the screen resets the primary color.
January 29th, 2013
Here is my entry
Game Title: Where is my Ball
Elf: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/15948899/WhereIsMyBall.elf
Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/audio?v=9RXdDBzSu8c
“Where is my box” is a puzzle game to helping the baby monster find his toy in the woods.
One day, BB Monster wake up on his bed and he couldn’t find his favor toy which a wooden ball. He look at the opened windows and thinking the ball is in the wood. He run into the wood and player need to guide him to find his toy now.
In the game, player can position & rotate cubes to find the right path for BB Monster to explore the wood. When 2 cubes is neighboring each others, player can touch on the cube to instruct BB Monster walk to the destination cube. Stage clear will BB Monster got his ball on hand!
There are many potential gadget I planned add into the game. For instead teleporter, breakable wall, movable wall and etc.
I has a lot of fun while prototyping the game. Thanks Sifteo Cubes on open competition for us to participant and explore on the SDK.
I am welcoming all sort of suggestion regarding the game. Thanks!
January 30th, 2013
Sorry for wrong youtube link in previous post. Please allow me to re-post my entry!
Here is my entry
Game Title: Where is my Ball
Elf: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/15948899/WhereIsMyBall.elf
Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RXdDBzSu8c
“Where is my box” is a puzzle game to helping the baby monster find his toy in the woods.
One day, BB Monster wake up on his bed and he couldn’t find his favor toy which a wooden ball. He look at the opened windows and thinking the ball is in the wood. He run into the wood and player need to guide him to find his toy now.
In the game, player can position & rotate cubes to find the right path for BB Monster to explore the wood. When 2 cubes is neighboring each others, player can touch on the cube to instruct BB Monster walk to the destination cube. Stage clear will BB Monster got his ball on hand!
There are many potential gadget I planned add into the game. For instead teleporter, breakable wall, movable wall and etc.
I has a lot of fun while prototyping the game. Thanks Sifteo Cubes on open competition for us to participant and explore on the SDK.
I am welcoming all sort of suggestion regarding the game. Thanks!
January 30th, 2013
Here is our game!
Game Name: TUG OF CUBE
Elf:https://www.dropbox.com/s/jtxwj2ayau8bmpf/TugOfCube.elf
Youtube GAMEPLAY: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qy_A1w3ozS0
Youtube SDK: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teYlZxLZqDk
Inspiration:
A modern representation of ‘Tug of War’ designed to bring the outdoor game, inside and to a table top near you.
Gameplay:
*see youtube video*
A center cube displays a knot on a rope that moves from side to side each time a player completes an action and updates the center cube with their player cube. A timer shows how much time you have left for the current action. Current actions include shake, flip, and tap.
To ‘Restart’ , simply flip the center cube after a game ends.
Team members:
Ryan Stush —–email: ras8502@rit.edu
Adrian Aiken —–email: aca6943@rit.edu
Taylor Nycum —–email: taylor.nycum@gmail.com
Christopher Blackman —–email: crb9826@rit.edu
January 30th, 2013
Hi,
Here is my entry:
http://www.othiago.com/2013/01/sifteo-virtual-chemestry-lab.html
You can find everything on this post, all the explanation, photos, videos, elf, etc are there.
Thanks,
Thiago Garcia
January 30th, 2013
Here is our entry,
Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qy_A1w3ozS0
Youtube SDK: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teYlZxLZqDk
Elf: https://www.dropbox.com/s/jtxwj2ayau8bmpf/TugOfCube.elf
Our was inspired by the ageless pass-time of Tug of War. We designed ‘Tug of Cube’ because we believe that Sifteo cubes reach their fullest potential when multiple players are available.
Gameplay:
The game starts when the center cube is ‘tapped’. Players must then compete via mini-games to ‘tug’ the knot in their favor. Current mini-games include tap, flip, and shake. To restart the game, simple flip the center cube over.
Team:
Ryan Stush
Adrian Aiken
Taylor Nycum
Christopher Blackman
January 30th, 2013
Forgive my second post, the first wouldn’t display for several hours.
January 30th, 2013
Here is our team’s student entry from the Rochester Institute of Technology: the fast turn-based dueling card game, Beastmaker!
Design doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Kwmf9sLvgMgsRTTX5rv5dDkcli_HNUYodYnrE7x9pjY/edit
Elf: Coming soon tomorrow
In Beastmaker, two rivals pit their monstrous creations against each other to determine who is the best Beastmaker of them all. Players use potion cards to create and augment their monster and hinder the other, while the beasts clash until one is destroyed. Beastmakers must judge a tight balance between power and risk, as stronger monsters are harder to control, and more potent potions can so easily backfire….
We wanted to post the elf today, but unfortunately the flu is going about and half our team has caught it. We wanted to post the design doc for thoughts and comments, and the elf will go up here by evening tomorrow latest.
Team:
Logan Malinowski
Jack Merideth
Dan Pascucci
Nathan Popham
January 30th, 2013
I have a game to submit for the contest! It’s a cooperative cooperative mini-game collection for couples/lovers called Love Tester 1985 where a pair can win by communication, knowing each other, and working together (don’t worry, it’s safe for work) . Here’s a blog post explaining the game:
http://superwes.com/?p=298
I’ll update it if I can get a video put together soon, but I wanted to make sure I got my submission in.
January 30th, 2013
Here’s our entry.
elf: http://ticklebot.net/saywhat.elf
Explanation and rules: http://ticklebot.net/saywhat.pdf
All assets are just placeholders. Currently there are more than 600 words in the game. Some will be changed and some added. I hope you can get a sense of our game with the provided files. For any additional info contact me on stfnnklc at Google’s mailing service.
Team:
Stefan Nikolic
Milica Andjelkovic
There are some brilliant games here. I’m really proud to be a part of this. I have a few favorites, but I’m not gonna to tell :)
Cheers
January 30th, 2013
Here’s another entry!
DUNGEON DOORS
Web site with explanation and .elf file: http://barkingdoginteractive.com/dungeondoors/
Video explaining the game (also at the web site): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oq0c4YcXy8o
This one isn’t nearly as fleshed out as Cube Café is, but that’s what month two would be about, right? I’m inspired by all the cool games everyone else is showing here, so I felt like sharing what I was working on.
Basically, it’s a number puzzle game that would double as a really good exercise for kids in the math classroom. A monster attacks with a given number, and it’s your job to arrange your heroes to match its number by forming a mathematical expression. Each hero can contribute one of four numbers to the expression and an operator. By arranging the heroes to form a mathematical expression that matches the monster’s number, you defeat it!
I’m actually really happy with the mechanics of the game. It surprised me a bit how natural and fun it feels to work with equations and expressions on the Sifteo cubes – the physicality of the cubes lends itself to experimentation and play with mathematical concepts, and the game mechanics themselves encourage some pretty deep strategic thinking and help develop some solid number sense.
The game is challenging in its own right, but it’s also a compelling game to put in front of kids around third or fourth grade. For instance, learning your order of operations is really going to mean something here! Plus, Sifteo cubes seem like a natural platform to show up in classrooms, so I think it’s important to get some good educational games out there, and make sure that they’re not just vapid “drill and kill” games. In my brief playtests with kids, I saw some “aha” moments and collaborative problem solving with this game, even at such a rough stage, so I think I’m on to something with this particular mechanic.
The game as shown uses four Sifteo Cubes, but the game idea is malleable enough that it could be played with three cubes (by looking for pairings of numbers instead of triplets, or perhaps by showing the target number on all three cubes).
Hope you enjoy it!
January 31st, 2013
Oh this is unfortunate. Can we get the rest of this weekend to submit? And are paper submissions accepted (no prototype)
January 31st, 2013
@All Thank you all for your submissions. So exciting to see all the great games. Also thanks to everyone who has been providing feedback and help to other game creators. It’s this sort of community that helps makes independent and experimental development so great to be a part of.
@Yorrick Paper submissions in the form of design documents and production plans are accepted.
January 31st, 2013
@Daniel technically, there still are a few hours until February, and I still have a bit of work left on my game. Will you be accepting “really end of January” submissions?
January 31st, 2013
Wow, I finally got a chance to sit down and look at all the new entries pouring in to the competition! I haven’t had a chance to play them all, but I looked at all the new pitches and tried to give feedback on each one. EVERY SINGLE ONE was pretty interesting, and for a surprisingly diverse array of reasons. There were a few fairly similar offerings (like “Cricket Maze” and “Where is my Ball”), but even these brought unique mechanics to the table between them. This is a fun competition!
@PAUL – Your racing game looks interesting. I like the mechanic where you tilt to control your car on a track – looks like a slot-car racing type of dynamic. Fun!
@DANIELNL – Your game looks like it would pretty frantic, and really shows off the unique features of the Sifteo platform. I can see this one polishing up nicely with lots of opportunities for nice environments, like a Sifteo version of “Temple Run”. Nice. One possible extension would be obstacles on cubes which you have to shake or tap away before the character reaches them.
@KRIS – As someone who deals with math education in his day job, I sure like seeing games with mathematics as a core concept. It’s pretty simple as presented, but I can see a lot of ways for it be expanded.
@RYAN LOADER – That elevator mechanic is interesting – it’s odd because you’re moving something (the elevator) by moving something else (a non-elevator floor). That forces you to have to wrap your head around the mechanic and do some thinking ahead, which is usually a great sign for a puzzle game. Nice.
@KENT – That connect-four mechanic looks pretty interesting, especially that part about needing five in a row to win. I find that with evenly matched players in the real-world connect-four game, the only way to win is usually with a diagonal, though – is that possible with the way the cubes are placed?
@CHRIS – I like the ball-shuffling mechanic. This is a pretty solid puzzle design – I’ve played something similar with a handheld puzzle game. It’s the sort of thing you can sit down and work on for long stretches at a time.
@MATTHEW – I like your “capture the flag” mechanic, especially the way you set up the two-player turn-taking relationship. Being able to watch what the other player does in the game world makes it a pretty cool dynamic, and adds an interesting memory aspect to the game. Looks fun. (One hint: since your game doesn’t support rotation yet, you might be interested to know you can lock the rotation of your cubes in the simulator so you don’t have to deal with them rotating while you test. Press the delete key. When I discovered that, it made testing Cube Café a lot easier!)
@ALEJANDRO – “Little Conquerors” looks fun! That mechanic of making units and sending them onto the field of battle looks like a really great little two-player mechanic. Some ideas might be to have “factions”, where the types of units each player can make are different, or have a “rock-paper-scissors” effectiveness trait, so that you can have some strategy about what type of unit you create and send. I also liked the idea of having more battlefields with more cubes – maybe they could have different traits, too, like it being easier to defend on some terrains than others, or some favoring certain types of units. And of course, adding other cubes could mean adding more players, too, so that you have more than two players vying for a piece of land. Really looking forward to checking out further development on this one.
@FRANK – “Squaresville” looks fantastic. Some really nice polish there, and the gameplay looks pretty solid, too. I’m particularly impressed you have a level editor working with the game – that should let you flesh out levels really easily.
@MARK – “Cricket Maze” looks like a fun maze-navigating mechanic. Like Alex’s entry (below), it sounds like a pretty solid puzzle mechanic, and your added twist of only being able to use paths once will make it particularly challenging, I think.
@ALEX – “Where is my Ball” looks like a solid, mind-bending puzzle mechanic. I like the ideas you have for future development like the breakable and movable walls. Another extension might be to have TWO monsters that you need to solve the maze with simultaneously, which would add challenge if they can’t pass each other on the paths…
@THIAGO – As someone else who is interested in doing educational apps for Sifteo, and who has made virtual chemistry labs in particular, I was really pleased to see your submission! It sounds like the way your “game” works is similar in some ways to how we did Cube Café, with cubes representing containers which you can neighbor to move substances between them. It’s a satisfying and intuitive mechanic that works pretty well, so I’m interested to see how it applies to chemistry. I really like the idea of having a whole series of cubes that allow even more complex chemistry experiments. Really, really cool!
@RYAN STUSH – I like “Tug of Cube”‘s mechanic of scoring a bunch of mini-games with a tug-of-war metaphor. Very clever, very intuitive, and easy to tweak the sensitivity of.
@NATHAN – “Beastmaker” looks cool. The “beast battling and collecting” genre is a solid one to add, and I think the Sifteo cubes make for a great little metaphor for individual creatures or characters – it’s sort of what I was thinking in Dungeon Doors, too. I particularly like the “shake the cube to make the potion stronger but more volatile” mechanic – that adds a really compelling risk-taking mechanic in a very clever way. Nicely done.
@WES – “Love” the “Love Tester 1985″ idea. I like how it incorporates several mini-games with the goal of getting people together. Nice. And bonus points for doing it for the Game Jam!
January 31st, 2013
Here is my entry :
http://antoine-teuf.fr/SitePerso/projets.php?idProjet=7
The elf file, the explanation and some images to explain it are on this page !
Thanks for the subject and good luck everybody ! :)
January 31st, 2013
Here is my entry which contains some images + details about the game. Didn’t manage to finish the .elf in time… hopefully won’t be that bad :)
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/462510/games/egp/jan_2013/proposal.html
January 31st, 2013
@Logomorph Yes we’ll be accepting entries up till the very end of January.
January 31st, 2013
@TEUTEUF – Interesting game idea. I like the maze exploration but with timed elements, and I like the idea of having other mouse characters peppered around that you can help by incurring time penalties.
@TIMOTEI – I sure like your Tetris-like game idea. The “undo” functionality, I think, will be key to setting the tone of the game. Without it, it would be too frustrating to have very complex and dead-end puzzles, but with it, it will have a more deliberative play style. Either way, I think the puzzle design is pretty clever, and the fact that you think you can get procedural content in there is even better for long-term replayability. Nice.
January 31st, 2013
Here is the entry of the Uchuu Sentai Pastagaga collective.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1090047/SifteoEGP-PubRoulette.zip
Every feedbacks are welcome :)
January 31st, 2013
Hi guys,
Our entry is called Parapluie. On this prototype we’ve been working last weekend with 4 people (a game designer, a sound designer, a graphics designer and a programmer)
Parapluie is a fast & competitive multiplayer race game. Each player must lead a cyclist in a maze to find the hidden “treasure”. The first to return it to the exit win the game. The game is about dexterity and spatial orientation since you’re running into different corridors.
Here is a two-pages document about the project: http://www.oneliferemains.com/games/parapluie/PARAPLUIE.pdf
A one minute video is available here: http://vimeo.com/58656910
The prototype (.elf file) is available there: http://www.oneliferemains.com/games/parapluie/parapluie.elf
So many project for those crazy devices. How exciting, right? :)
GLHF @all!
January 31st, 2013
Hello, again.
Here’s my game: http://awkwardgames.wordpress.com/2013/02/01/rolling-boulder/
It’s a bit inspired by Temple Run, I guess, and it’s a bit hard to play it on the simulator, but I think it should run well on the actual cubes.
Cheers!
January 31st, 2013
Beastmaker elf!
https://www.dropbox.com/s/t2r31cl8ksuvfim/beastmaker.elf
It’s rough right now, a good prototype to build from more than a full game yet. Select potion cards with the Menu cube, neighbor them with one of the other cubes, and tap the potion to use it. Once you’ve used two potions on a cube, it will create a monster. Once both monsters are created, they can duel — once again, neighbor your monsters and tap one of the beasts to clash. You can also use the potions on either monster after it is created — red will damage it, green will heal it, and blue will boost its resolve.
At the moment, the volatility system isn’t implemented on the cubes. We’ve decided to work on animations first, to be show something strange just happened, rather than leaving a player to figure it out for themselves.
@CC CHAMBERLIN Thanks for the comment! As a tactical card game with random elements, it’s been tricky to balance, but the upside is that it’s easy to create a physical prototype that’s directly applicable to your game. We put a lot of effort into physical prototype testing, and we got some excellent feedback about the quick risk/reward nature of Beastmaker.
January 31st, 2013
Ok guys this is my entry for this month EGP: NumbErs.
This is a very simple game, the goal is to score as many points you can before the time runs out. Here are the rules:
1. A move is amde when you put a cube next to other.
2. A move is legal if the number on the side of the neighborhood of the cube you move is GREATHER than the number on the side of the other cube.
3. You can not move the same cube twice in a row. The last cube used to score a point is marked red (this means it can be moved again, but another cube can be attached to it following the greater than rule.
4. Each legal move gives you one point and five seconds.
Ok, here’s the linkt to the elf file:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/rt1gu89x82mhsce/amdos.elf
And a video on youtube featuring the gameplay:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=En0wGgXJvuA
Thank you very much
Amdos64
January 31st, 2013
Here’s our game, ACCUSATION! on Space Station Zeta. It’s a social party game that’s a bit like Werewolf (or Mafia, etc) except you only need three to play. Since it depends on hidden knowledge, it’s hard to play through the siftulator, so here’s a short video showing how it works: http://youtu.be/dHeCMuPRoWM
The .elf is available here: http://studiocypher.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/accusation.elf
Each player picks up a cube and is secretly assigned a role: Detective, Killer, or Fall Guy. The Detective gets points if she accuses the Killer while the Killer and Fall Guy get points if the Detective accuses the Fall Guy. The Detective can shake her cube to get another clue, but that reduces the number of points scored at the end by 3. Since the Killer knows all of the clues and the Fall Guy knows none, a canny Detective can use these clues to trip up the Killer.
Occasionally, the Fall Guy will receive a message about a Snitch and must tell the Killer to silence them by shaking, tapping, or staying still. If the Killer does, the Killer and Fall Guy get points. Otherwise, the Detective gets points. However, silencing a Snitch may make it obvious which player is the Killer, so you might not want to chance it!
The game ends when the Detective accuses another player by neighboring their cubes. Everyone’s role is displayed and then their scores. In the current version the Killer and Fall Guy will end up with the same score, but the final version will allow players to maintain their cubes across games so they could play several rounds.
When in doubt, tapping the cube continues.
I welcome feedback!
January 31st, 2013
What a day! It’s been a like a game jam today trying to pack as much into my prototype as possible.
My demo has changed quite a bit since my last update so for anyone who is interested you can download it at:
http://www.pjwcreations.com/files/racer.elf
I have added a brief video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIPlpU8rMbo&feature=youtu.be
I plan to take it easy tomorrow and am looking forward to checking out what everyone made :)
January 31st, 2013
@CC CHAMBERLIN – You can read my mind. It is cool to have it, for instance the hidden teleportor only open its gate while a monster stand on the trigger to let another monster enter the teleportor.
Thanks for your feedback. It is valuable!
January 31st, 2013
We’ve designed a multiplayer game for Sifteo cubes. Now it’s just a basic prototype but we will explain what we are going to do on next month. The game can be played by two players on three Sifteo Cubes where two of the cubes are used as player “base”s and the remaining one is used as the “arena”. The basic idea is battling against your opponent by producing melodical lines using your cube. However, in order to attack, those lines must cross over the arena to reach the opponent’s base, i.e., you need to connect your base to the arena to deliver your troops. There are four kind of attacking units with distinct perks which will be represented with different colors and audio elements (different instruments/variant loops). For instance, when you attack with a drums loop unit, they will be faster but less stronger than bass loops. To create those units (lines), there will be number of mini games which are based on basic rhytmic reflexes for supporting the musical atmosphere.
Inner dynamics of the Game:
– Arena: The middle Sifteo cube where the lines are positioned. The player needs to attach his/her base (cube) to the arena – by the neighboring feature – to transfer the unit s/he chose to the arena. The transferred unit will start moving automatically to the opponent’s base. If two rival units encounter on the arena, they will destroy each other according to their perks which are determined by their colors. When the successive unit manages to pass over the arena, it will damage the opponent’s base accordingly. The opponent also has a chance to reduce the damage by flipping his/her cube backwards before the collision.
– Control Unit: We will use simple mechanics such as presssing the screen on time etc. on mini games. We are inspired by “2 Player Reactor” game on mobile phones on this approach. Additionally, it will be possible to save and strengthen (increasing the size of) the units by winning consequtive games on the cube. However, the units are vulnerable to incoming attacks in the base as well, which may result a loss even before using them. Also, small sized units are faster than the big ones while they have weaker endurance. We believe that with these kind of tactical details player will be encouraged to develop strategies and more intelligent tactics.
– Music: Even though it is not included in the prototype yet, we are ambitious about integrating the music and audio effects in our game. The intention is to add the musical pieces in such a way that the game creates the musical harmony itself while playing it. Hence, the more chaotic the game becomes, the more exciting the it will get. We are really exciting about enhancing the experience by creating this musical atmosphere.
Prototype:
This first prototype we have implemented covers only the very basics for the proposed game design. It contains the base controlling mechanism in a very limited way, providing a sinlge “silly” mini game for now – click when the white rectangle shows up to create a unit. In fact, as expected, most of the features mentioned above is not yet implemented such as unit collisions and the interactive audio. Nevertheless, we believe that it’s somewhat sufficient for demonstrative purposes for the first stage.
– Video: http://youtu.be/cxoWdGaD02A
– Export: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/19989225/Linearena/Linearena%20%28First%20Prototype%29.elf
Thank you, and all feedbacks are welcome. :)
Cheers,
Alper
January 31st, 2013
@SHIFTYWEB – Interesting physical use of the cubes with the “defend your cube from getting bumped” mechanic. I do wonder how feasible that is in real life – couldn’t someone just cover the cube with their hand to prevent it? If it works, I’ll bet it’s a lot of fun, though, since it adds physical competition between players in addition to the interaction with the Sifteo cubes.
@SIMON – Parapluie looks like a fun, competitive game. Restricting your actions to just the two cubes makes the gameplay look pretty streamlined, and I’ll bet that mechanic could be used for all sorts of gameplay styles (race to the finish, tag, hunt and evade, capture the flag, etc.). I really liked your demo video, too. Looks great.
@LOGOMORPH – The rolling boulder is a fun mechanic, and seems like it would make for a fun, time-based activity. I particularly like that you can control the difficulty of the game as you go by slowing down or speeding up the boulder. That will open it up for both kids and adults to play it at their own skill level. And, as I’ve mentioned with some other projects above, your game gives some good opportunities to reward the player with new environment graphics as you go – roll the boulder for 20 screens and you’re rewarded with a new environment tileset, for instance. Looking good.
@ALVARO – NumbErs seems like it’s a good timed-reaction mechanic. It’s complex enough to keep you on your toes as you play, but simple enough that it doesn’t overwhelm. The stark, numeric display was a little intimidating when I first saw it, making the game seem more complex than it really was, but I think that’s easily addressed by an art pass in month two.
@WILL – “Accusation! on Space Station Zeta” looks pretty awesome. I like how the cubes are able to bring some Werewolf-like mechanics to smaller groups, and the way you’ve implemented the snitch, I think, is particularly clever – I like how it uses inter-player dynamics in addition to direct interaction with the cubes to work its magic. Well done!
@ALPER – Your game sounds a lot like Alejandro’s “Little Conquerors” game, with some of the differentiators I mentioned in my comments to him (namely, different unit types). His game is more concrete about what is going on, but yours has an interesting musical twist that gives it a different feel and dimension. Sounds like these “each player gets a cube and a third cube acts as a common area” games are a pretty solid mechanic, because several people are coming up with games where it seems to work well.
January 31st, 2013
Here’s our game, Rock-Scissor-Paper!
http://chinesecold.com/Rock-Scissor-Paper/
January 31st, 2013
Hey everyone, my game is called Lost in Space. It is a platformer using the accelerometer as a means of applying force to the character. The design decisions as well as gameplay can be seen in my video (I’ll have a link to youtube shortly with the audio and video synced)
Video file: http://www.char68.net/main/content/GameJams/LostInSpace.mp4
Audio: http://www.char68.net/main/content/GameJams/LostInSpace.wav
Elf: http://www.char68.net/main/content/GameJams/LostInSpace.elf
I reused the audio from the stars game, thanks for the great tunes!
To play the audio and video just start them at the same time (although the audio from the mp4 video should be turned down)
Thanks for watching and playing my game everyone!
-Dennis McGrogan
January 31st, 2013
Chicken Run
An intense game of concentration for any number of players.
Gameplay
The player will place cubes with randomly generated roads, direction arrows and car arrows. If a tractor hits the chicks or the player removes a cube with chicks on it, those chicks will die.
Every second 1 Score Point is added x the number of chicks.
When a cube is removed, its random road and tractor arrow will spawn. The Seed Timer will reset as well.
When the player collects 3 seeds, an egg will spawn and the seed number to become 0,
Game Over
If the main chicken touches the side of a cube with no cube attached, the player will lose.
If the player allows too many chicks to die, the player will lose.
Controls
Tap – The Player may tap the screen to generate a new road, seed, movement arrow and tractor arrows. This will reset the seed to not ready and cause its timer to reset.
Place – The Player may place a cube causing it to lock its settings.
Tilt – The Player may tilt a cube to get rid of upcoming traps for that cube.
Tractor Arrows
Type
Single Arrow = Tractor lasts 1 cube screen
Double Arrow = Tractor lasts 2 cube screens
Triple Arrow = Tractor lasts 3 cube screens
Multiple Car Arrows
One Car = Added to the random generation at 5+ chicks
Two Cars = Added to the random generation at 10+ chicks
Three Cars = Added to the random generation at 15+ chicks
Four Cars = Added to the random generation at 20+ chicks
Seeds
Seeds will have a timer to show when they are Ready. Once they are Ready, they will have a timer to show when they are Rotten. The player wants to place the tile down when the seed is Ready. The seed will lock into its state when placed.
Seeds will have 5 seconds before they are Ready and 5 more second before they are Rotten. The timer will start when the cube spawns the road. The player may reset the timer by tapping the cube.
White and Not Ready = -1 Chicks
Green and Ready = +1 Seed and +10 Movement Speed for 2 cubes
Yellow and Ready = +1 Seed
Red and Ready= +1 Seed and -10 Movement Speed for 2 cubes
Black and Rotten = -2 Chicks
sifteo cube prototype: https://github.com/stevesan/kfc
or
https://docs.google.com/a/cca.edu/file/d/0B7YwZPuLYVVya0FKRHdnTEJIbVk/edit?usp=sharing
February 1st, 2013
Chicken Run
An intense game of concentration for any number of players.
Gameplay
The player will place cubes with randomly generated roads, direction arrows and car arrows.
If a tractor hits the chicks or the player removes a cube with chicks on it, those chicks will die.
Every second 1 Score Point is added x the number of chicks.
When a cube is removed, its random road and tractor arrow will spawn. The Seed Timer will reset as well.
When the player collects 3 seeds, an egg will spawn and the seed number to become 0.
Game Over
If the main chicken gets hit by a car or touches the side of a cube with no cube attached, the player will lose.
If the player allows too many chicks to die, the player will lose.
Controls
Tap – The Player may tap the screen to generate a new road, seed, movement arrow and tractor arrows. This will reset the seed to not ready and cause its timer to reset.
Place – The Player may place a cube causing it to lock its settings.
Tilt – The Player may tilt a cube to get rid of upcoming traps for that cube.
Tractor Arrows
Type
Single Arrow = Tractor lasts 1 cube screen
Double Arrow = Tractor lasts 2 cube screens
Triple Arrow = Tractor lasts 3 cube screens
Multiple Car Arrows
One Car = Added to the random generation at 5+ chicks
Two Cars = Added to the random generation at 10+ chicks
Three Cars = Added to the random generation at 15+ chicks
Four Cars = Added to the random generation at 20+ chicks
Seeds
Seeds will have a timer to show when they are Ready. Once they are Ready, they will have a timer to show when they are Rotten. The player wants to place the tile down when the seed is Ready. The seed will lock into its state when placed.
Seeds will have 5 seconds before they are Ready and 5 more second before they are Rotten. The timer will start when the cube spawns the road. The player may reset the timer by tapping the cube.
White and Not Ready = -1 Chicks
Green and Ready = +1 Seed and +10 Movement Speed for 2 cubes
Yellow and Ready = +1 Seed
Red and Ready= +1 Seed and -10 Movement Speed for 2 cubes
Black and Rotten = -2 Chicks
prototype:
https://github.com/stevesan/kfc
or
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B7YwZPuLYVVya0FKRHdnTEJIbVk/edit?usp=sharing
February 1st, 2013
@CC Chamberlin – Thank you for the fast feedback. Well we expect some fair play from the players. Also if you pick up a bad item I’m sure you’ll try everything to get rid of it. :)
February 1st, 2013
Greetings from Sifteo,
Thank you all for your amazing submissions. Everyone around our offices is utterly floored by the creativity, drive, and collaboration this community has put forth. It is inspiring to all of us to see so many creators excited about building games on Sifteo Cubes. We have set ourselves to the task of playing every entry, but I just wanted to convey how cool we feel this competition has been thus far.
Cheers and happy game making,
Daniel and the team here at Sifteo
February 1st, 2013
Hi, I just made a video that might give a little better explanation of our idea. Watch it here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDR1t_5QUio
I suggest you to watch it in fullscreen to make sure you’ll see all the details.
Cheers.
February 1st, 2013
@Stefan –
Do you have rules for your game for three or five people?
February 3rd, 2013
@CC
Yes, but since I made a prototype only for a team play I only explained that version. Everything is pretty much the same except for the scoring. The clue-giver would also score some points for dropping good clues.
If one only player answers correctly – clue-giver scores 2 points.
If both players answer correctly – clue-giver scores 1 point.
(because the goal of the game is not to be too obvious nor too obscure)
If nobody answers correctly – no points for the clue-giver.
Cube passing at the end of a turn would be different, too. I would make sure that everyone plays against everyone.
But I still think the first version would be much more fun. I really enjoy playing games in teams. It’s always better if you can share the joy of wining (or the sorrow of losing) with someone.
Thanks for asking :)
Good luck
February 3rd, 2013
Hi all! I just posted the video to my prototype “Lost in Space” with the audio and video synced, as well as some editing to the video. You can find it here: https://vimeo.com/58832020 (see my prior comment for the .elf file). Thanks again for checking out my game, and feedback is much appreciated. This month of development has been awesome!
-Dennis
February 3rd, 2013
I realize I’m late to the party, but this still sounds like a really fun project. I’m having some difficulties finding some more technical specs on the little buggers though (granted, I didn’t look SUPER hard…) What is the range of the communication? How sensitive are the accelerometers? I’m assuming the y (or z, whichever method you use for up/down) will show -1g while stationary, thus always knowing “down”? Is it 3 axis, or 6 axis? (then again, it never mentioned gyros, only accelerometers…so my assumption is 3?) How do they know they’re in contact with each other…if it’s distance, do you take into account their orientation, thereby allowing one to be flat, and the other to be vertical, and still register as having contact? I may have more questions later, thanks!
February 3rd, 2013
Hah…right on the main site…3 axis…good job, me!
February 3rd, 2013
@Stefan – Nice. Thanks.
February 4th, 2013
Hi Experimental Gameplay & Sifteo,
What about the results of the first round of the contest? Did you select some prototypes for “further refinement” in february?
Best regards,
Philippe
February 6th, 2013
@Philippe We’ve all been playing the entries and judging for the last few days. There’s a lot of entries and we’re working to make sure we give each of them their due time. We’re almost done. You can expect the first round results very soon.
February 6th, 2013
For those of you who bookmarked this thread to follow the competition (like I had), the announcement for the results of the first round was posted as another blog article here: http://experimentalgameplay.com/blog/2013/02/sifteo-cubes-competition-round-1-finalists/
February 7th, 2013
I only found out about this competition today. It’s too bad – I would love to have participated in Round 1, since game design is what I do best.
February 12th, 2013
Reply to “Sifteo Cubes Competition in January and February”