Hamada X Postmortem

Hey all,
This post will be just talking about the game and the jam time (GameZanga).
This year GameTako finds a partner in Egypt (The District) to host the GameZanga event so for the first time I attended GameJam at the venue with other developers. I didn't only attend the venue, I also volunteered to help to make the GameZanga happen.

This year theme for GameZanga was "Freedom", so I was thinking what I can do about that, I got an idea about a boy in a room where there is a great watching eye (like eye of Sauron from Lord of the Rings) where it tells the player what to do and what to not do and if the player followed the rules nothing happens but if you decided to break the rules then you advance in the game, its a mixture between Tower of Heaven and Decpit1.

I started drawing the eye, and thinking for a better idea but I didn't get an idea till Ahmed Saker suggested to collaborate and work on a game. Since Saker uses Unity3D so we decided to use it (it was the first time to use it).

Saker wanted to make a game complicated and contains puzzles like Increpare games, and he wanted really to make a game where all the puzzles lies in the visuals and pattern recognition (like Activate the Three Artefacts and then Leave) but I thought it needs too much time to be finished so we decided to change the idea but keeping in mind to make it a puzzle game.

So I got a great idea what about the game is just something happening in your brain and whenever you fail you loop inside the same room till you changed the way you think to solve the puzzle.

We loved the idea and decided it is the one we want to make, so how that relates to freedom?? any guess??

This is pure Freedom, as we said that the player won't go out of the room and will loop in it(which have the meaning of following Routine which cause your life (game) boring with no new stuff) if he always restrict his thinking in a particular way, for example you have a poor guy and a rich guy and have two types of food (cheap one and expensive one). The common sense will make you give the cheap food to the poor guy and the expensive food to the rich guy but why you do that because its the normal thing that happens (the word normal thing is against freedom because you put chains on your way of thinking so we want you to free your mind from all chains that is against freedom). So the game will be sequential rooms with doors at the front and end and there is a puzzle in the room if you solved it in normal common sense way the door will open and you will enter and find yourself in same room but if you solved it in the abnormal way you will advance to the next room and so on.

May be someone noticed something that the game is solved in only one path that I had decided will making the game which means that is not Freedom and that was intended as there is nothing called Freedom in my view and Saker view too. Freedom is just a word but in the end everything you do follows certain rules in your brain and never noticed that.

That was the intention of the game and how it is related to Freedom and as I said in the previous post that we only finished a prototype so we didn't have time for text or making more than one room or anything of these stuffs (we only work for 1 day and half maximum on the game).

Here is a timelapse video:



Here is a link for the Prototype of the game.

That's everything for now stay tuned for more game releases soon.

Bye Bye

How Zebalooz is created for GameZanga

Hey all,

I know that this post is not interesting at all but I wanted to share how Zebalooz was made for the GameZanga as its my first time I submit a game to a GameJam every year I participate but never submit (ex: U.F.O.)

First of all after I know that the Theme was Social Problems (@Thursday 15/12/2011 00:00 CTL) I start thinking about problems and the two most problems that take control of my brain were She7ata problem in Egypt (people that doesn't work and want money from you (begging problem)) and the second one was about Sayes problem (Its another form of begging but instead of asking money he stands beside the sidewalk and help you to park your car a little although you can park it and ask you for money)

After that I start thinking how to make that nice and playable and a small game that can be finished quickly especially that I was travelling next day to Luxor & Aswan where it takes about 10 hours journey by train so I wanted to make the game simple enough so I chose the She7ata Problem and started thinking how to make it so I thought first that you have different begging methods and you must satisfy each method with the correct person (ex: if one setting in car with a girl use the famous word "Ellahy tetgawez el 3arosa elly gambak, ellahy tetgawez elly bet7ebaha, ...etc" which means (Give me money and I will ask god that you marry this beautiful girl beside you) and if the car doesn't have a handkerchief sell to it some one with twice price and if the car appears dirty try to clean it using towel.

But where is the catch in the game so I asked myself I can make police officer look in opposite direction and if he saw you begging while he moves he is moving around he will ran after you and you should hide in garbage or behind anything till he returns to his position again (inspired by Mailure) but when I think in that I found also it is not funny nor entertaining so I thought why not make the cars can hit you and you must move your player away before car moves.

But still the game is missing something its not nice so I thought why not make them team of Beggars where each one is specialized in one of the previous stuff and you switch between them and move them to make begging. By that time I though its interesting so I wrote all these data in text file and go to sleep.

@Friday morning I started to make the game assets as I wanted to finish most of the game before 17:00 where I will be going to train station and thnx to Saker who encouraged me to work with the 4 hours laptop battery on the train.

While I was making the cars in the asset sheet I though about it I found the game is very large and won't be able to finish it on time so I deleted everything and started to think in new idea also what turns me away also that a friend of mine (Ahmed Hassan Salem) also making a game about begging problem so I thought its time to change it.

I was brain storming again till I found the idea the Garbage problem in Egypt and I inspired by Mountainer to make the game that way.

So I started to making assets I made the player and backgrounds and buildings and garbage bag being thrown and other garbage stuff on street, Then I started to code that by 17:00 on Friday I finished the graphics and coding the background and started to code the buildings.

Then after I reach the train station I found a plug in the wall at the information desk so I sat on my bag and work for 1 hour to make the static objects and make garbage been thrown from mouse position when I clicked with the mouse.

Then on the train for 3:30 hours I continued to work and make the buildings throw garbage with timers and made the car and made all static objects that hit the player.

Then when I reached Luxor it was on Saturday 18/12/2011 I searched for a Plug in and found on in the Cafeteria so I plugged in laptop and started to code the player for 1 hour.

Then I continued coding after taking the breakfast in the hotel for 3:00 hours I was tweaking the collision and all other stuff.

and at last I went for free tour in Luxor market so I went to McDonald's and worked for 2 hours there and returned again to the hotel by that time I finished everything except for the menus and how to play, and all other these stuffs.

By time I returned to the hotel it was 22:00 so I had only 2 hours left to make loading screen and site lock for the game and all menus and story and everything so I started to finish all these in 1:15 hours and started packing the game to send to the GameTako GameZanga Competition where I send my entry @23:40 on Saturday 18/12/2011 :)

Hope my story is not boring and hope it influence people in creating better games than mine :)

Hope everything is fine with all people and bye for now

Bye Bye

Zebalooz new game

Hey all,
I have participated in an arabic GameJam called (GameZanga) hosted by GameTako website where the theme was Social Problems like Stealing, Marriage Difficulties, Poverty...etc.

I decided to make a game about Garbage called Zebalooz its written in arabic so I will explain it here "you need to avoid garbage from falling on you or hit by car or stop from stop moving forward and your controls is the arrow or WASD and Space bar for jumping.

These are all entries of the competition if anyone want to try other games from the GameJam here is the (link) but I have a request can you vote for my game as my game is down rated and the rating will affect the results of the GameJam competition. Here is the (link) again.

Last thing is that Mountainer has been featured by Slumlord27 Channel on youtube as an Under the radar and here is the video.



This everything for now but plz before you go vote for my game :)

ByeBye