Kodewerx

Apparently CMU is made of win and turkey chunks. There was this idea that a couple of grad students came up with about 5 years ago, called The Experimental Gameplay Project. Now, the EGP was set into motion as means to study creativity, as I understand it. But it has produced some epic games.

More recently, they run their own dedicated website where anyone can contribute a game. But, there are rules:

• Each game must be made in less than seven days,
• Each game must be made by exactly one person,
• Each game must be based around a common theme i.e. “gravity”, “vegetation”, “swarms”, etc.

Interestingly, the guys running EGP these days somehow come up with a new theme each month. No one knows the algorithm or methods they use. Some speculate there is Voodoo and foul play involved. In any case, only seven days out of the month can be used for the actual development time, or else you're a cheater!

I don't yet know what this month's EGP theme is, but when I find out, I am going to consider working on an entry. It's only seven days, that should leave plenty of time for life projects, right? And if I actually go through with it, I'm pretty much stuck. I will be rapid-prototyping games like a woman on her period for the rest of my life.

Sounds like fun!

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I have to return some video tapes.

Feed me a stray cat.

December's theme is "Drawing" ... I don't know if I want to take this one on, because all I can immediately think of is:

• Crayon Physics
• Kirby Canvas Curse
• Linerider
• Trace

Nothing original at all. :\

_________________
I have to return some video tapes.

Feed me a stray cat.

Wasn't Scribblenauts supposed to have an actual drawing interface? You draw the shit and it comes to life instead of just giving a name? I don't remember it actually doing that.

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Manifestation is one of the game mechanics already explored. Like, if you drew something resembling a tree, an actual tree would be manifested into the game environment. Remember, this is the Experimental Gameplay Project. Originality and creativity is what the originators of the project were going for, and what I would really like to contribute, if anything at all. But that's just me.

_________________
I have to return some video tapes.

Feed me a stray cat.

I failed to hit the deadline for December, putting only six days into my project: http://www.doodleearth.com/ Since this was a failure, I did not submit it, and do not consider it to be anything more than a framework for a drawing application. I did purchase a domain though!

That out of the way, January's theme is INANIMATE. And good buffy Tony gave me an idea for it, so the hardest part is out of the way. Now just 7 days to implement it! Since I have a framework in place, I can spend most of that time working on the theme, rather than background work.

We'll see how it goes.

_________________
I have to return some video tapes.

Feed me a stray cat.