Retro handhelds games and retro games still have a unique charm among gamers. Recently, BOOOM GameJam, co-sponsored by the handheld developer clockwork and news site Gamecores, came to an end in Beijing. The game jam asked developers to complete a demo game with core gameplay playing with the idea of time, according to the theme “SHIFT.”
D.B.M., a five-member team exhibited two GameShell handheld games developed using Cocos Creator: The science-fiction puzzle game “The Code” and the shooting game “Shoot the F.” Developers, artists, and programmers worked together to bring about the pure creational pleasure brought by a challenge that game jam game development brings.
We sat with D.B.M. and asked them about their impressions on the games, Cocos Creator, and coding for a new handheld device.
The Code
Description: Science / Decryption / Text / Single-player
“The theme of ‘SHIFT’ makes us deeply feel that in the modern era with all this advanced information, could we control the public opinion to change the development of science and technology?”
“I just chatted with my friends about people becoming ‘bionic electronic sheep.’ Suddenly, I felt that if this topic combined with ‘one-sidedness of information interpretation’ can complete a more holistic game, so this is the story of The Code.”
Game Background
In the era of mechanical
fanaticism, mysterious scientists (players) intervened in the mechanized public
opinion of the current society by compiling scientific theories or refuting new
ones, which caused people to distrust and panic about mechanization.
Gameplay
Players use dictation to compile Moss Code to give media contacts and publish opposition information to scientists, authoritative media, and scientific conferences on industry forums, to achieve the goal of interfering with scientific processes.
According to the difficulty, each piece of information has different content. If the information compiled by players is accurate, the public opinion will respond positively, and vice versa.
Shoot the F
Description: Shooting / Single-player / Survival / Food
“When we laughed at the theme ‘SHIFT,’ we suddenly thought of removing F is S**T. Ha-ha! Then immediately there was a new game inspiration: to make a shooting game with ‘A Dung Beatle Going Out for Food.’ They thought it was interesting, and the workload was not significant, so we made a game “Shoot the F,” and our group name ‘Dung Beatle Group D.B.M’ was born. When you are worried about today's setbacks and difficulties, you may not realize that life is a cycle of s**t day by day.“
Using Cocos Creator for their games
“GameShell's system contains a compiled NWJS execution package of the ARM chip. With NWJS, we can run arbitrary web projects on GameShell. While satisfying the need for JavaScript programming and the ability to quickly export the engine from a Web project, we first thought of Cocos Creator.”
“Cocos Creator has a mature and powerful cross-platform capability, using Cocos Creator to develop, to facilitate our subsequent release of games to WeChat games, computer web pages and even Steam and other game platforms. It doesn’t support the handheld device currently, but if many developers call for it, we will consider embedding this platform support in the next version.”
About Creating Cross-platform Games
“Maybe many developers don't have Game Shell handheld devices, but that doesn't prevent you from trying these games.”
“As mentioned above, Cocos Creator has mature and powerful cross-platform capabilities, so it took us less than an hour to successfully export the web edition. You can open the game directly on the web.”
Contest Impressions
“BoooM Party has a great atmosphere. It's a Carnival Party for developers and hardcore players. They can introduce their games face to face before the booth and has a special sense of accomplishment when watching the players try it out. Cocos Creator is very efficient in developing two complete games in three weeks, which is really inconceivable.”
If you want to download and try out their games, download the game from their itch.io page:
The Code：
https://dbm-inc.itch.io/the-code
Shoot the F：
