this is a small project i created over the last approximately one and a half weeks. It's in fact nothing but a ball which you can move (I didn't use a physics engine) with the cursor buttons. The background is created dynamically as you play. When the timer runs out, the 'game' automatically exits...



as the game is programmed quite inefficiently (i guess) it won't run on weak/old PCs.



The .net Framework 2.0 is needed (should already be installed on most PCs !)

here's the download link : aGame.zip

the background looks nice but the gameplay isn't that exciting yet. the background doesn't get influenced by the ball, right?

the music stuttered a bit but i was rendering something in the background with all cpu cores so maybe my pc was too stressed out.

you could look into the c# port of box2d and add some 2d physics gameplay elements. 2d physics games can be a lot of fun. a lot of stuff works better in 2d because it would be too complicated for the player in 3d.

The game is really cpu hungry, as every frame results in at least some hundred random calls ^^
Yes the background is independent from the gameplay - in fact the whole 'game' is just about the background because i found it interesting to have a dynamic background - in fact the intention of the game and it's countdown, the limited play time and no real goal or points - was what a player would do in a game which in fact is no game in the classic sense - no goal, no points, no competition(thus not having at any time the feeling - it would have been better if i had done that...) so to say. In fact increasing the game time to infinite, maybe removing the music and sending the results to a server would be interesting - so one could see after which time the player would just close the game, or just stop moving the ball...On the other hand, the countdown and the time limit the player has, should keep him longer in the game than he normally would i guess...
It's interesting because there aren't really many non-competitve games (in the truest sense) afaik (at least i don't know any) - and after all, if the competition is taken from a game, only the sensual experience could keep the interest of the player i think.
The approach of audiosurf and beat hazard is an interesting one, they include music that one really likes - your own ^^, but are still totally competitive, an interesting idea would be to create some kind of audiosurf or beat hazard, with no enemies and no points, just for the visual and audio experience so to say.... - but as soon as the player would interact in the game it would become competitive i guess, because then the player has options and an option can result in the feeling of 'damn the other option would have been better'... so are non-competitive computer games with interaction of the player even possible ?

The graphics are really nice. Don't know, why I missed this thread.
It runs okay on my quite old pc.

oh! it was a test. yes, it probably would be better to embed something like this on a webpage and collect some results.

hm... non-competitive games in the truest sense...

http://www.opserver.de/ubb7/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=340587
have you watched those documentaries i posted a while ago? they contain some interesting stuff in that direction...

nope haven't watched them yet, big thanks for the thread and it's links !