The Weekend of the 24-Hour Mobile Game Design Competition
24 straight hours of work, 32 hours of non-sleep, 5 Cornell Students, 1 faculty member, 1 mobile game.
This past weekend was the Mobile Game Mosh, a 24-hour game design competition hosted by Parson’s in NYC. The goal: design and make a game for a cell phone in 24 hours. We went, we worked, and we did pretty well.
What it was like:
10AM
Our team, “Two Bit Operation” , consisting of myself, Brenda Chen, John Berges, Chris John, Hari Nathan, and our faculty advisor Mohan, arrive at Parsons.
10:30AM
Tutorial time…they had problems making the multiplayer flash demo work…so immediately we decided against that…
Noon
Envelope opens, we find out the four verbs that define our design constraints: suck, grip, conjure, and fade. John proceeds to celebrate over the words “grip” and “suck.”
1PM
We start making our game in Gamemaker.
2PM
Lunch, yaaaaaay!
4PM
Overdosed on Tylenol Cold…you’re suppose to take it every 6 hours not 4!
7PM
Dinner
8:00PM
Broke out the first caffeine drink…much more to come….
8:30PM
First wave of professional game designers arrive to critique our game. First piece of advice: “Lay off the vitamin c.”
9:00PM
Major redesign
2:00AM
Pizza!
Noon
I don’t remember what happened between 2:00-noon…but we finished
Consumption (whole team):
8tbsp - Tylenol Cold Medicine
2 cans – Starbucks double shot
~15 cans – Red Bull
~40 pieces – Halls Vitamin C
Interestingly enough, the contest was partially sponsored by Red Bull…so we had an unlimited supply…
Our finished game, entitled Vac-Attack, was a sort of Tetris-like block game where you can suck in blocks and shoot them out in attempts to collide it with other blocks. Unfortunately, I think that’s all I can say…and I can’t put up a copy of the game for download because we signed our rights away too Atari when the contest started…but it’s all good.
We finished runner up in the Top Game category. The winning game, Moth, was a puzzle game developed in Flash by a group of graduate students…so I’d say they had some edge over us.
There should be press about the event out around this time, including Gamasutra and Electronic Gaming Monthly who were with us for the whole 24 hours. Also, a number of New York newspapers covered the event. Here’s the press:
- Here is an article about me in Chinese.
- An article in the New York Metro featuring Brenda asleep on a tablet and the rest of the team (except Hari) in the background, as well as a quote from me.
- The full Gamasutra coverage of the event…including a picture of me looking like a supernerd (I was sick that day, not my fault)
Anyway, it was a very exciting event…too bad I won’t be a student next year to do it again…
Next up: The Games 4 Girls Game design competition, entries due this week…wish me luck!
Haven’t I taught you anything?!