Rob Loach .Net

The third Toronto Independent Game Jam has been announced for May 9th, 10th and 11th. TOJam is an annual event in Toronto where game developers of all ages come together and spend the whole weekend making video games. There's a common theme required for every game entry, and prizes to be won at the end of the event.

Last year, some really cool games were made, mine being TOBam. I'm not too sure if I can attend this year, but we'll see. If you love making games, and live near Toronto, go and register for this event. I had an amazing time last year, and am really looking forward to see what games are put together this year.

I got a short and sweet e-mail from Jim McGinley informing me that TOBam was posted on the TOJam website. He did a great job putting the page together, making sure the video was there, the groovy screenshots. He even wrote a nice note about the game:

"Did you see all those planes? That's NUTS! While it starts seemingly like Capcom's 1943, the sheer number of planes makes this a different beast altogether. I love playing this game on hard. When level 3 hits - you're DEAD. Perhaps the most thrilling game created at the jam. The movement of your plane is subtle and classy, and Toronto makes the perfect scrolling background."

The bad news is that I unfortunately didn't make it to the second day of Drupal Camp Toronto, so I can't post part 2 of my Drupal Camp notes. The good news, however, is that I talked with the people at TOJam and they're giving us until the 21st to prepare our game for final release. This means that I can put in some things that many people have requrested as well as some gameplay balancing.

Although TOBam was finished and complete two days ago, I haven't gotten around to releasing it. It still is available through Subversion at the project page. I'll get it up on this site eventually, once I figure out where to upload the 20 megabyte binary.

Multiple enemy unit types, different kinds of bullets, collision, scoring... All of these are elements that were put into the top-down shooter (TOBam) earlier today.

More progress has been made with TOBam, the top down shooter based in Toronto. The players can now move around the screen, and enemies fly towards them.

I stayed the night at TOJam, sleeping on a cough upstairs. It actually was pretty comfortable, considering it gave me a good 4 hours of sleep before I returned to putting in the enemies class.

The main menu has been implemented and it looks pretty good. I used some very nice articles posted on the XNA Creators Club website. Now that I have the base game state system of the game down, I can move onto gameplay.

The Toronto Indie Game Jam has just begun. We're given two and a half days to create a video game. I'll be attempting a top-down forward scrolling shooting game using XNA. I will also be posting a status update every stepping stone.