The 8bitrocket 24-hour game challenge

Over on 8bitrocket Jeff is going through the motions of creating a game in 24 hours (that’s just 24 man-hours.. not all spent at once) and is blogging about the process.

The game he has settled on is a loose remake of the Atari 2600 game Air-Sea Battle. In his first entry he’s spent an hour going over the different game types, how this could map to various levels within the game, and what his next steps will be.

I have to admit I found the post very interesting. Both from the point of view that I’d love to do something similar (a 24-hour game challenge for myself), and also because I think he’s spent too long on stage 1 🙂 Planning is crucial, no doubt about it, but I think the plan is far too complicated at the moment and has too many differing factors in there (game stages, different potential level designs, etc). So I’ll be curious to see how many items on his list actually make the final build, because 24-hours for a complete game with original non-ripped graphics (kudos to him for using them) is actually a very short time.

I also think because he is such an experienced programmer I bet it will take him a lot longer than say someone like Emanuele Feronato, who claims to create whole games in 45-minute plane trips (when you see the code, you appreciate why). I do wonder if Jeff will fall into the trap of wanting to make it sound on a code-design basis as well as game-design – and that takes precious time. Can’t wait to see how this plays out 🙂

Posted on July 22nd 2008 at 10:41 pm by Rich.
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