Quack House at Three Thing Game

At 3:00pm this afternoon we shipped “Quack House”. It kind of works. You can even have a go yourself here. It supports loads of players (we were surprised to find) and the goal is to attract ducklings and steer them to your badly drawn duck house. There are some gameplay issues. The ducklings are attracted to ducks and will follow you although they are very determined followers and an unwary duck can end up pinned to the side of the game environment by ducklings.

We are all quite proud of it. I did the graphics, the sound and the music in a style that I am calling “placeholder”. David and David (which made for confusing team conversations) did most of the code, but I did just enough to be able to convince myself that I contributed something.

The other teams had produced some really splendid stuff. One of the things that struck me was that they were all focused on making a game with a beginning, middle and end rather than just a tech demo. There was a nice mix of technologies and some of the teams had dedicated artists for sound and graphics which added a huge amount to the quality of the finished products. The games will all be placed on itch.io once the teams have finished tidying them up. I’ll post the links here when they are available.

As usual, I learned a ton from the experience. Not least that phaser is a splendid framework and that creating server based games is nothing like the challenge you might think it is. And also that the flame of Three Thing Game is alive and well and still burning brightly. Thanks to David for inviting me and letting me see what the students are up to these days.

Overhead Duck Pictures for Three Thing Game

Nothing like starting the day with some duck photography. I’m using the same duck as appears on the cover of the “C# Yellow Book”. We’re using the Phaser game framework and the socket.io framework for the communications to create a multi-player browser game where you control a duck seeking to attract ducklings back to your duck house. It’s going OK so far.

Return to Three Thing Game

I’ve got very fond memories of Three Thing Game. It’s a game development event run by the University of Hull. Entrants get three things and then write a game that incorporates them. I was invited by the estimable Dr. Parker to take part this weekend as part of the “Spooky Elephant Collective” team.

We were all gathered together (in an on-line kind of way) for the Thing Auction. We had a menu of things to bid for and some “Bank of Thingland” virtual cash to spend. We ended up with “building, duckling and resurrection”.

Its going to be a fun weekend.

Hull University Rocks

Hull University was very good to me. It paid off my mortgage and helped me get my kids through college. Admittedly I was there a bit longer than I planned. Went for a three year degree course and ended up staying for another 35 years, finishing up as a lecturer in their wonderful Computer Science department.

I left a few years ago but I’m proud to be a fellow of the university and I’ve been able to watch them try to respond to this awful pandemic thingy. One thing I’m sure of is that all the staff will be moving mountains to make things work going forward and they’ll do it with the best interests of the students. Because they always did.

This is a Hull Computer Science speciality. Three Thing Game. If you fancy having fun writing games you form a team and you get given three things to base it on and a weekend to write it. I took this picture in 2013. Quite a few of the people in the shot are now out there making games of their own. You can find out more about it here. It’s hilarious whether or not you want to end up a game developer.

If are looking for place to study, don’t for get Hull. Lovely place. Lovely people. Find out more here.

Three Thing Game Fun

These are the winners of Three Thing Game November 2017. If you study the picture carefully you'll notice that not one of the people in the picture is me. Oh well.

But quite a few of these folks are First Year students from Hull, which bodes very well for the future of Three Thing Game (and game development in general). They made a lovely sequence of mini-games that chronicled important milestones in the development of Hull. It looked fun to play and had some splendid graphical touches. 

As always, I really enjoyed taking part. My team, as frequently happens,  was probably a bit more ambitious than we should have been, trying to create a networked multi-player game in around six hours. However, we got darned close.

The three things we were asked to base the game around were "Hull", "Culture" and "Change". Our game used the medium of Venn Diagrams (which were invented by John Venn, a mathematician from Hull) to explore Hull Culture. I'm most proud of the moment when the judges asked "Where's the change in your game?" and I replied "It costs fifteen pence to play". 

After that, the discovery that we hadn't won was a real surprise.....

Three Thing Game. Like Old Times

Staying up late. Writing programs to impossible deadlines. Such fun. 

I'm back at Three Thing Game as part of the Spooky Elephant Collective. The organisation is great and the pizza delicious. I managed to stay sentient until around 11:00 pm, which is actually quite impressive for me. The game that we are making celebrates the great things about Hull through the medium of Venn Diagrams. 

Wish us luck. 

Judging Three Thing Game

I stole this picture from David Parker

One of my fondest memories of working at Hull University was the Three Thing Game hackathons. Teams spent a chunk of time developing a game based on three "things". What they came up with was always impressive.

David was kind enough to ask me to help with the judging on the latest competition, so I headed into the university this afternoon to see what was going on.

Answer, a lot. More than 80 students. Over thirty teams. APD providing pizza,  Lee Stott and Simon Jackson with game ideas and devices, Adam from BetaJester, the Visr crew .  Just like old times. Only better. 

I saw some awesome games and had some great conversations with students, some new, some I knew. Unfortunately I had to zoom off just before the prize giving, but Lee has got some great pictures on his Twitter feed. 

Congratulations to the Hull team for running such an awesome competition. 

Betajester get a place in the Tranfuzer programme

I've known BetaJester since before they were BetaJester. They've been Three Thing Game stalwarts since forever. And, like quite a few TTG alumni, they've become quite successful. Latest success is winning a place in the Tranzfuser talent development programme. As the press release says:

"Successful applicants have been awarded a £5,000 budget paid in stages to replicate the real world for them to allocate to allowable costs throughout the 10-week long competition. At the showcase event later this year, selected teams will be invited to pitch for follow-on funding of up to £25k from the UK Games Fund (also operated by UKGTF) to commercialise their game and launch a company."

Well done. Onward to victory.

Spring Three Thing Game Springs into Action

Of course we had pizza - lots of pizza

Three Thing Game Spring 2016 got under way tonight. Unfortunately I'm not going to be around for the entire competition because I've rather stupidly double booked myself, but I've left things in the capable hands of David, Simon and Warren and so I know we'll have a happy ending tomorrow.

I did manage to make it for the pizza though. 

I wandered around the lab and took some pictures of some of the teams. You can find all the pictures here. 

Three Thing Game Springs into Action

Spring Three Thing Game got going today with the "Handing Out of the Things". I did something rather tricsky, which was to give teams exactly the things that they asked for. One team, feeling rather smug about having added the word "moist" to the things, was then rather surprised to find it included in their things. Such fun. I took some pictures of the lucky teams and their things.

Development starts on Friday. Should be fun

Spring Three Thing Game Registration Now Open

It's that time of year again. Three Thing Game Spring 2016 registrations are now open. The event runs from 15-16 of April. Usual rules, usual fun, different things.

The next Three Thing Game will be on April 15-16

Simon and I had a top level meeting today. Well, we were on third floor. We decided that the next Three Thing Game will be over the night of 15-16th of April.

Registrations will open on Monday 4th April at www.threethinggame.com

I think we'll use the "Thingomatic" for this one.....

Josh makes the Top Thirty

Josh Naylor is one of what I call our "Three Thing Game Alumni". These are graduates who, when they were students at Hull, took part in lots of Three Thing Game events.  And he's doing rather well for himself. In fact he has secured a place in the "Thirty under Thirty" list published every year by Develop magazine.  Well done sir. 

Suiting Up Pays off

The "Black Godzilla" team in Three Thing Game made an awesome game. And they turned up at the Finalist Presentations fully suited and booted, and looking really sharp. Like winners in fact. I caught up with one of the team today and he told me that they had decided to dress properly for the event. 

I think this is a great idea. Way back when I was mentoring Imagine Cup Teams I had a habit of nipping down to Asda and picking up sets of matching shirts for the teams that I was looking after. This got a bit expensive when we had four teams in the UK finals one year, but it made a huge difference. For one thing, the students looked like proper teams.

If you're engaged in any kind of team work it is well worth giving some thought to this. It doesn't have to be expensive, just all get the same style T shirt or whatever. And the funny thing is, once you look like a team you start to behave more like a team too.

Three Thing Game Video Links

Awesome competition yesterday. And here are some awesome videos fromthe entries:

Here's a stupid video I made in five minutes detailing my Three Thing Game entry. I did text because talking was too hard. Ignore my awful "comedy". More details below: Team Name: Twich Plays Three Thing Game Team Members: Just me Words: Blank, Minded, Thought Idea: The idea of the game is that you are a newly awoken artificial intelligence with barely any grasp on the world.

Our Spooky Elephant production for the November 2015 Three Thing Game. Our three words were Like, Hate, and Why which we used to create multiplayer networked game of intrigue and manipulation.

I'll be putting these videos on the official Three Thing Game site, so if any other teams have got videos that they want to share, please send them through. 

Three Thing Game Finals

These are the hardy survivors

By the end of the competition we had around 20 teams that wanted judging. This is about par for the course for the November Three Thing Game, as people discover to their cost what happens if they ignore my "Keep it Simple" advice and end up with not a lot at the end (although I would strongly advise teams to always submit something for judging - you may not win, but you'll get a lot of good feedback and very likely some respect to).

By the end of the judging pass we had the top finalists, and they got to present their games. Here they are in no particular order:

First up was first year team TBC with an astonishingly rich text based adventure game written "because we don't know enough XNA just yet". They'd managed to fashion a compelling narrative from the things "shoe, horn and cream". Very nice work.

Next we had the "Ice Team Cones" who had created "Bereavement Bonanza", a fast paced shoot-em-up where you have to fight for your inheritance, from the things "Inheritance, property and goods". Some nice gameplay twists around what happens when you die (other players get your goods) and "retro-cheese" graphics in this one. 

This is team "Penetration Innovation" with their zombie game created from "dread, dead, grave". It's a bit hard to see the zombie hordes chasing the player around a scary village, but they all use some very clever algorithms to get an effective chasing action. 

Team Baeshaw are a bunch of Three Thing Game old hands, and they brought some lovely polish to the competition with a musical line following game inspired by "Equation, crescent and curve". Players control the waveform type (sine or square) and the amplitude with the aim of following the target line and hitting all the notes. Get it right and the music goes up a gear. Miss a few and the tune reflects your lack of skills. Very nice work, one that should go for sale I reckon. 

This is team "Just One Guy" got the words "hot, cold and bear". He was showing off  a lovely puzzle platformer built with a bear that could heat to steam to fly, wander round as cold and then turn to ice to freeze over the watery barriers. The artwork fitted the theme perfectly and the gameplay was beautifully thought out and with great progression as the various "states of the bear" are used to solve puzzles. 

If there was a prize for the sharpest dressed team in the competition it would have to go to the "Black Godzillas" who still managed to look freshly pressed after a night of development. There game, inspired by the things "Why, are and you" had a fighting knight forced to re-examine his choice for a peace-full life when his quiet village is razed to the ground by invaders. The animation was jaw droppingly good and the storyline intriguing. 

I didn't envy the judges their task when they went out to pick the winners, but they managed somehow to come up with four teams who were announced, as is the fashion, in reverse order.

Team TBC came away with fourth place, the judges praising their story telling and how much content they'd managed to create and fit together in the time they had.

Team Baeshaw were third, being singled out for the polish of their creation and its "just one more go" appeal.

Team "Penetration Innovation" were second. The judges were hugely impressed with their algorithms to give the Zombies a life-like (or should that be death like) behaviour as they hunt down their prey.

Which left "Just One Guy" to pick up the First Place. Judges were full of praise for the way that the artwork and the gameplay complemented the things and the overall thought and design that went into the finished product. A stunning piece of work from just one developer. 

After the main prizes had been given out the judges wanted to specially commend a few teams. Here's Lee (on the left) giving awards to "Twitch Plays TTG", the one man next to Lee and "Spooky Elephant", Warren and David on the right, for their technical innovation in gameplay.

Final award of the night went to team Alex² + 2AlexDan + Dan² who produced something really special with an adherence to theme that was above and beyond the call of Three Thing Game. You have to see the video to find out more. 

Thanks go to Lee and Lilian from Microsoft for their support, to Derek for judging, for the team from BetaJester who not only helped with judging, but also served the pizza, Louis for judging assistance and the 3D viewers given to each team  and Lindsay from Platform Expo for helping to judge and also producing some much appreciated alcoholic prizes for the winning teams.

Three Thing Game will be back in March next year, but keep your eyes open for Global GameJam Hull, coming at the end of January.

I'll post links to the videos later. 

Three Thing Game Overnighter - It Begins

We started the overnight portion of Three Thing Game November 2015 today. We handed out the things and got folks going early in the evening. Lilian from Microsoft came along and told us all about the neat cloudy things available for students from Azure (find out more here) and I did my "Keep it Simple" routine where I advised teams to start with something simple that works and then build on that. We'll see how many follow my advice....

After the briefing, and once the labs had finished, it was time to head for the various computer rooms around the campus and for everyone to get set up. I was very concerned that we wouldn't fit in the department but as it turned out everyone spread themselves around the department rather handily, with four different labs playing host to teams of developers.

I settled down in the Fenner Computer lab and tried to get a few things done, in between ordering pizza and sorting things out. The pizza was a little bit later than I planned, but we did have a lot of pizzas. Three car's worth.

By the time we had fed everybody there were a few pizzas left, but Warren reckoned that by the morning they'd all be gone.

Once food had been had everyone settled down for the night. I'm now much to old to work overnight so around 10:45 or so I gave Lilian a lift back to her hotel (and had some wonderful shenanigans outside Hull Paragon Station where I tried to drive the wrong way a Taxi rank (they didn't like that).  I think I had the look of Uber about me. 

Anyhoo, things look set for some interesting games tomorrow. I took a bunch of pictures of the teams as they got started. You can find them here. 

Biggest Ever Three Thing Game - with added thing trading

If you download the big images from Flickr you can just about read the things at the back...

We launched our biggest ever Three Thing Game today. We have over 200 students and 50 teams taking part. I'm a bit worried about fitting everyone into the department on Friday night.

I had this theory that quite a few folks wouldn't turn up. But in the end we had all but three teams come along to get their things. This year I've used the Edinburgh Associative Database to produce sets of three related things. I've written a little C# program that reads the network of words and produces enough sets of things for the competition.  I'll put it on GitHub when I get round to it. 

Thing Trading

This year, for the first time, we are also allowing teams to trade their things with each other. This resulted in a flurry of activity and some very strange sounding conversations. 

The development starts now, with the overnight session on Friday and judging on Saturday. Great fun. 

Three Thing Game November 2015 is Coming

A date for your diaries folks. The game development part of the November Three Thing Game will be over the evening of Friday 13th and into Saturday the 14th of November. This is the second time this year we've run the competition on Friday 13th. Talk about tempting fate.

You can find out more here.

Game Mechanics and Raspberry Pi's running Windows 10

I had a go at writing a game for Three Thing Game last week. Just to be different I thought I'd do a hardware game using Windows 10 on the Raspberry Pi. We had some fun and games getting the Raspberry Pi to work in the labs, mainly because the lab network didn't give them a network address when the Pi asked. That and the fact that for some reason Logitech USB mice just don't work on a Raspberry Pi running Windows 10. No idea why. They just don't.

Anyhoo, we got everything working and I started building the game. I connected two leds and two switches to the Pi and got them working. Then I built the game mechanic. This is the way that the game is supposed to work. My first idea was that the player would have to press the button when the light came on, but I decided that this was a bad idea because after a while the switch will get destroyed by people bashing it in a hurry.

So I switched it around. When the light goes off you need to release the button as fast as you can. I called the game "Lift Off" because that's what you are supposed to do, and I made it competitive. The idea was that two players would compete in a number of rounds over a 30 second period. They'd press the button, the light would come on for a random time and then go off. The game would then time how long it took the player to release their button and then add that time to the player's score. At the end of the time period the player with the lowest score wins.

I got the code working and it was OK. But then I came across serious flaw in the gameplay.

You could win by not pressing the button at all.

If you never press the button, the light never comes on or goes off, and you end up with an unbeatable score of zero points. So I'd invented a game where doing nothing was the absolute best winning strategy. Oh well.

I've now added a timer so that if you don't press the button you get a big penalty, and I'm tuning the gameplay at the moment. I'll blog how the code works a bit later, once I've got the gameplay mechanic properly sorted - something I should have thought about earlier. Another lesson learned.

The experience of writing a C# XAML application for Raspberry Pi was a bit strange, but in a wonderful way. Everything was exactly where I expected it to be, but I was targeting a tiny device. I had access to all usual development tools. I could step through code and view variables in Visual Studio, use all the libraries that I know and love, but I was targeting a device that costs around 25 quid. If you're running Windows 10 and you've got the Visual Studio 2015 preview running you should have a go at this. It is going to make it much, much, easier to create rich applications for cheap embedded controllers. Very nice.