I assume you know about DBC? If no, you can read my previous posts (there are all about DBC) or check out DBC’s webpage: http://dbcamp.org

Yeap! Our website is on, so there won’t be any more reports from DBCs here. Every new report will be there, on our website so be sure to subscribe it to your RSS reader!

Just in case, DBC are a series of meetings concentrated on working on games, but not only to make them. It’s a initiative held currently in Warsaw and we want to study games, analyze them, create some really crazy game concepts, game mechanics, learn new technology and just hang out with each other. Ohh, and of course we play, too

Now on, in my *free time* besides working on DBC, because I’m its founder and CEO I also work on two game projects:

- I started to learn Construct2. Constrcut2 is a tool in which you use visual programming language to make stuff. I like it, because I found it to be really good for making 2D game prototypes. You can make them using it fast. Also I think it’s a great tool to learn game implementation. Maybe not so good, but it’s HTML5 only, so games you create are exported to HTML5. I don’t know if it’s something to worry about looking how fast HTML5 is developing. Besides, there are just simple prototypes! If you’re looking for tool to implement 2D game prototypes in a efficient way be sure to check it out.

- To implement something simple, just to learn Construct I came up with a simple game concept I called: Space Lasso. It is a 2D horizontal adventure shooter (?)

In the game you control a spaceship in some long-away galaxy. Galaxy full of worm-like aliens who fly in different directions. Your race is so strange that they never invented anything like an engine. Instead, they made use of those worms. You can shoot a line from your space ship. If this line will catch the worm then you will fly after the worm But there are some dangers! Black holes are flying there and they can drag your spaceship into their center destroying it… Better be sure to always have a worm to connect to or otherwise you’ll end in one of those pesky black holes!

About its implementation… I have its elements, but it’s still not ready to show. I have to sit and take some hours to connect all of those elements so it will work great If I find those couple of hours free, I’m should I’ll manage to do it. If… there won’t be any new problems with the implementation of juts with the game system

- And the other game project, my new one, is a game concept called Save my sushi! It was made on DBC and working on its prototype not only to make it playable, but also to make a review of the process in which I create it. This review is one of my idea about my future TALK on DBC. I want to show people how I managed to do what I did, how my process looked like in details so they can, maybe, learn something from it

Popularity: 13% [?]

DBC · gamedesign · games · implementation

DBC is only two months old, but it’s quite active for its young age. Enough said, after the last Saturday’s meeting, my personal ToDo list have grown by around 20 new items — all DBC-related. So yeah, things are moving forward. We’ll have a full-fledged website soon, we are starting to accept virtual members (people who want to be a part of the community, but probably won’t appear in person), and there are some related events going on (we went for a couple of beers, few people stayed at my place for a co-working session, etc.).

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Popularity: 14% [?]

DBC · gamedesign · implementation · workshops

Another DBC is over!

Each DBC apart from having great fun is a real learning experience for me. Not only on designing/implementing games, but also about managing quite a big group of people. DBC are a free game design workshops on which everyone come just because they want to. We’re a mix of people with a really different set of experiences and skills, but still – no one can’t sit alone doing nothing. If it happens then something is wrong and that’s the first thing I’ve tried to change after the first DBC…

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Popularity: 29% [?]

DBC · gamedesign · implementation · prototyping · workshops

So last Saturday I was on DBC, that is a game creating workshops, were run for the third time. This time I also wanted to think about the future of DBC. That’s why I did a little brainstorm about: DBC of my dreams. Brainstorming and then analyzing it took us about two hours and I was quite happy of the result, because I felt it was the time to do such thing, to think about the future, to be able to develop further On the other hand I was feeling bad, because I was taking their time for *this* instead of some solid game designing… But it went good. This is what we came with after about 20 minutes of brainstorming (with a timer on ):

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Popularity: 28% [?]

DBC · gamedesign · workshops

As you see DBC workshops are feeling fine. Indeed, second DBC was even better than the first one. We had 17 people at place, from which 16 people stayed until the end. I think that’s a great result for such a newborn initiative.  I’m really, really happy that I stood up to do this kind of stuff

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Popularity: 42% [?]

DBC · gamedesign · prototyping · workshops

My turkey workshops inspired me so much that I had to do something to bring such cooperative game making atmosphere to my place, so I wouldn’t have to wait for next Turkey visit Just joking, but the thing is, last Saturday we opened game design workshops in Warsaw which will take place every two week. We did some brainstorming, we wrote some game concepts and started to work on our game prototypes. All of this in eight hours, so it was impossible to finish all of this! I’ve named our little meetings as: DBC, that is Design Boost Camp (in polish it’s a more crazy name ).

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Popularity: 60% [?]

DBC · gamedesign · prototyping · teaching · workshops

Yeap, it’s done! It was a great experience for me being an instructor on such workshops. I did the workshops with my friend, Alek (http://sigmagames.pl/), for the game developers team of Turkish game dev studio (C-reate Game Studio). We knew that this team is already doing games, but we thought that they lack tools and some thinking landmarks about game design in general. That’s why we talked about game definitions, some other discussions about games, about game concepts, creating documentation for the game and at least, about physical prototyping. I think that physical prototyping part was the most interesting for them. If you did some physical prototypes then you know that it’s super-cool way to design games. If not, you should try. So we did couple of physical prototypes, first of some iPhone game concepts that were invented on the workshops. And then a whole day long we’ve prototyped cool idea of FPS game. Well, I’m not good at describing such events, but it was fun and really nice experience. I think we managed to do this workshops really good. I’m really happy that I could share some of my knowledge to the people that appreciate it.

I love working directly with game mechanics and resolving problems that came when we add something to our ‘game’. And we did stuck for a while prototyping the fps game. I think that was a nice lesson for them and for us in general about designing game systems. I’ll try to describe it as I remember it.

So we were prototyping and doing some simple model of fps game in order to build upon it all of our cool ideas inside the game concept. So we had: a board, avatars, a mechanic for avatars movement, mechanic for killing and mechanic for fog of war (already working like it should in the real game). And all of that, it was working and there wasn’t any problems. One thing you could feel about it, is that it was nothing interesting, really. But that was just a base for our cool ideas. There has to beginning somewhere, right? This foundation is very important. You have to built it very carefully, otherwise the game will fall apart just like a house built on to weak foundation. Foundation has to be strong.

So after we thought we have something simple, working like it should, we started to think about adding more to it. We thought that some obstacles would be nice. But then a chaos came In a moment the board was full with many obstacles… I don’t mean just walls or some wall-like foundation, but we had also some hills and the bridge! Crazy! And then we started to add rules for these game objects. Walls? Simple, if you’re behind it enemy can’t see you and you can’t shoot through the wall. Even with this we haven’t think if the avatar behind the wall can be see by enemy diagonally, that is on some angle? Playing we decided that yes, he can be seen in this way. But what about hills? Shouldn’t they be something more than just an ordinary wall? So you could climb up them and shoot from them and if you’re on the hill you have a bigger range so you can shoot from the distance… And people on the ground? Well they can’t see you if you’re on the hill and only from another hill if they have you in range then they can kill you. I think it was like this at first. And… MANY problems emerged. As we started playing with this rule-set we saw it very fast that the game is unbalanced now, because if you’re on a hill you basically won a game… So it was a game about getting first on the hills… Bad! So we thought how to make being on hills less rewarding for the player? So we said that if you’re on the ground and you have in your range the guy in the hill you can kill him easily. But this way being on the hill didn’t give you almost anything. Getting on the hill cost more movement points, it was more costly then normal move and it didn’t give you anything cool, really. So it was bad again. We were thinking about changing movement system, so you could move more spaces in your turn. We also redesigned level… for the hills! And still, the problem was the same. At least we made a rule that you if you want to kill the guy on the hill you have to climb up there and then you can kill him. Also getting on the hill cost you less, so that climbing up and killing was possible in one turn but firstly you had to in the previous turn end your movement by the hill. But that was stupid to do with these rules, because you was then easily killed by the guy on the hill. So again – the problem wasn’t solved. Some of us wanted to add a shooting game mechanic now, because they thought it would solve it. But I thought that it would just add more chaos to this simple prototype. We gave ourselves a least try to make it work just with the systems we had already. And it did! We added a mechanic that said that all hills have a dead spots. I mean, they are circled with the walls. So a player can in one turn come close to the hill and wait safely to climb up in the next turn. Also the guy on the hill can’t shoot gut at the hill, but he has time to escape on the other side of the hill. So we made it working! But it took us about two hours and well, we could easily dump those hills away or never put them so early, because the game wasn’t about hills. We didn’t say anything about them in the game concept. Great lesson for all of us: just add one system, make it work nicely and then add another. One by one, and concentrate on the core gameplay.

It was great to be with you, guys! Hope to see you again in the future, you and your games

Popularity: 57% [?]

gamedesign · prototyping · teaching

I don’t write so frequently, because…

1) I started to love running. I try to run everyday, in the morning. For now on, after about a month of running my record is: ~8km ran with two stops only That of course interrupts my other plans: a morning, about 6AM is a great time to work on something absolutely for yourself before working on something more serious… And that time was taken by my running sessions, but once my passion for them calms down I promise that everything will come back to normal!

2) I’m working on some cool game projects for Mass Creation Stay tuned, so you can play iDevices games I’m working on

3) I don’t know what to write about… I was pretty amazed by this post. Also if you’re looking for some great and different game experience check out this game. It really proves that games can be very powerful just experiences. You don’t need any high conflict, because there’s still a conflict in this game, but it’s good – without it won’t be a game. This game moved me a lot in this strange way… Maybe in the future I’ll write more about those artsy-experience-only-simple-games.

4) Ohh and BTW you must-read Understanding Comics. Really great book. Eye opener about many things not just in the world of comics, but our whole world and game world, too. It’s amazing to look at comics as a type of symbolic language. Maybe we should do the same with games to discover some usable stuff?

Popularity: 59% [?]

books · English · games · healthy ways · iDevices · random rumblings

Hello! I have couple of things to say

I’m glad you came! And…

You can access my old blog here: http://samur.pl/blog.old/

Last time my blog was mainly in Polish. Time for change. From now on I’ll try to write as much in English as I can. If I make many mistakes, then forgive me – it’s not my native language. Of course some posts will be only in Polish – maybe later, if they will be popular, I’ll rewrite them in English.

I’m having affair with game design since couple of years, so I’ll write mainly about games and stuff like this. Hope you like it.

I didn’t have time to write on my old blog for a long time, but now I have a plan and I think it’ll work out So tune for more!

Popularity: 47% [?]

English · Other