SWAMPHEN’S ANTENNA CHOICE

Saturday was a double first for me, I created my first video game and took part in my first game jam!  Thanks #flickgame16, I had a great time and can’t wait for next year.

Flickgame is a web-based platform that allows you to make simple video games, in the creator’s own words flickgame is ‘a tiny game engine with online sharing as well as stand-alone export’.  Created in May 2018 Stephen Lavelle’s flickgame gives you 16 colours to choose from with 16 different screens to create images on.  The game part is created by hyperlinking the colours you have used in one screen to a different screen.  So, to progress through the game you click on the different colours in the images and see where it takes you. 

 

The game jam is run annually, and continuing the theme of 16, you create 16 flick games in 24 hours.  This year was on the 15th of June, and I decided to join in the day before as it sounded like a fun thing to do.  However, due to the last-minute nature of my involvement and an already busy Saturday, I only did 1 game.  I am in planning for an improved number next year though. 

 

I decided to make a game based on swamphens and antennas, just combining two of my favourite things that I guessed no one else would be doing!   To play swamphen’s antenna choice you can either go to my twitter account (@swamphenents) and click on the link there or go to https://www.flickgame.org/play.html?p=d0ca0975deafee073d04eca433ed0695 .  If you want to play the game with no spoilers, then play the game before you read on!

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Swamphen’s antenna choice tells the story of a swamphen who is building a nest to incubate their egg, but then realises that it is actually a bit boring waiting for the egg to hatch as they can’t move off the nest.  So, to pass the time they choose what antenna they want to use to create some entertainment for themselves.  There are 4 antennas for the swamphen choose from:

-          Monopole

-          Offset reflector

-          Yagi - Uda

-          Cassegrain

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Each antenna provides a different form of entertainment for the bored swamphen, so they have to choose carefully.  The swamphen could end up:

-          Doing La Macarena whilst using the monopole antenna to listen to music on the radio

-          Chatting to a moorhen in the UK via an offset reflector on a satellite internet link

-          Watching Bohemian Rhapsody on digital TV through a Yagi-Uda antenna whilst eating popcorn

-          Doing radio astronomy on results from an array of Cassegrain antennas fed directly to their computer

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In this game we do have a happy ending, the swamphen is entertained and the egg successfully hatches into a little ball of black fluff that is a baby swamphen.  You can start again and check out all the possible options for entertaining the swamphen. 

Follow the fun on twitter using #flickgame16 and check out some of the amazing games that have been created in this year’s game jam.  For the graph lovers out there, you can even find a post showing how the clicks of different screens in a game link together.  If you want to do your own game then head to https://www.flickgame.org/  If you want to check out some of the other great games by the same person go to: https://www.increpare.com/