A reusable repository for helpful information surrounding the Dream Build Play Competition
Welcome to the Dream Build Play resources site managed by SimonDarksideJackson This site is aimed to provide helpful information and resources surrounding the Dream Build Play Competition
Dream Build Play is well under way and everyone is hammering away at their keyboards (or waving their arms in the air for Mixed Reality entries) working to perfect their masterpiece entry for the competition. Your journey however should not be an isolated task, you need to tell your audience what you’re doing, what you’re up to and the challenges you face. You need to shout about it to let everyone know how hard you’re working and these days, you can even earn some extra cash for doing so.
If you haven’t done so already, check out Andrew Parsons latest news post, updating everyone on the progress of the contest!
As promised in my recent posts about the Dream Build Play contest, a new challenge has arisen in addition to the main event. The challenge is to chronical or tell the story of your DBP journey from its humble beginnings to your final submission.
If it’s a competition, there must be rules of course but these thankfully are fairly easy to manage:
So a minimum of 5 posts, text or video, that cover a period of more than 30 days. E.G. Post 1 on 1st September and post 5 after 1st October
Last day to qualify for the Diary competition and still have a chance of winning is 1st December 2017, giving you 30 days with the last post no sooner than 31st December, closing day
Through the course of your journey, keep in mind the judges are looking for some specific content in your posts, namely:
Above all, just have fun. I’ve found such activities a nice distraction from the pain of developing projects / titles, they help you reflect on what you have done and can even give you fresh perspective hearing yourself talk about it out loud.
Highlighting this from the Diary Competition T&C’s, these are the specific criteria the judges will be using for reviewing and scoring your Diary Entries. The entries are taken as a whole, not on a per post basis (unless one of your posts doesn’t qualify against the above criteria)
There are soo many options these days for Blogging / Vlogging / Logging, it can be hard which to choose. Ultimately you want something easy to use, doesn’t require a lot of work and above all, is FREE.
One tip I usually give out is NOT to use your personal service, unless it’s one you have specifically about the game itself. Setup a new account for EACH game or project you work on so that the content is focused on that game. Later you may include some of that content in your Game Studio’s website, but keep each projects blog info in a single place. if you need to refer to other game / video / content, then just link / embed it. Just keep each project focused so that readers don’t get overloaded or lost.
So, let’s run through a few of the options open to you:
First let’s run through some of my personal favourites in the blogging space. As you know I blog a LOT and syndicate that work out, so I’ve tested and used practically all of these services in some shape or form. In no particular order, I’d like to introduce:
DevPost is a great service that is geared around development projects and hackathons. It gives you options to detail your project, the team and even offers GitHub integration that links with your project as well.
To top it off, it also has a Blogging service centred around the project for you to post updates and news about your project. Note that the site uses Markdown as it language of choice for writing posts. DevPost does have one really annoying feature to be aware of, it is a “Fire and Forget” post system. Once you hit POST, you CANNOT update it Confused smile
Devpost is the syndicated site I use for all my DreamBuildPlay resources and posts
Unaware to most, unless you actively use it, is that GameDev.NET (A premier game development info/news site), also enables anyone to create their own community blogs on the site itself. I myself recently set one up to syndicate my DBP content there. It has a very friendly interface which should be very familiar to anyone who’s commented on any site and you can attach images / videos and such to posts if you wish. My only real complaint with this service, is that it doesn’t support draft posts, so you have to create any publish in one go.
WordPress has been the mainstay of many a blogger for many years with a very stable platform. They also offer a FREE service to host your blog under their Internet namespace (e.g. "myblog.wordpress.com") with a massive 3GB of storage space, which is more than enough for a lifetime of posts with fairly hefty images (just not your Unity builds). If you want your own custom domain name for your site, they offer paid plans to upgrade to as well. I Personally use WordPress myself but installed on my own hosts as the software itself is also freely available. Most of my blogging is done using the tools listed below in the “Useful Tools and Resources” section, so I don’t even have to visit my site if I don’t want to for posting. It really is a versatile and free platform!
Itchio is a well-known and much-loved distribution service for games, near rivalling Steam and other outlets but completely FREE. It also offers options to sell your game as well. It’s also fantastic for GameJams / Hackathons or any case where you want to distribute a release or tech build of your game to the wider public. You can keep your game up to date either with DevLog posts and / or new releases, either of which (provided you meet the post requirements) will be sufficient for DBP
Most tech-bloggers and content creators as well as some game developers have already used Patreon to operate as a crowdfunding system, in fact, quite a few game dev bloggers use it to generate income for tutorials and some really kick-ass stuff. The charging is optional however and you can choose to simply run it as a blog and selectively charge if you wish, giving you many options for how you run your page. It can be a bit cumbersome to get started with all the options they throw at you but once you are up and running, it’s fairly easy to navigate around. Patreon also recently launched a “Live Stream” feature, so you could also use this as a video service if you so wished.
Of course, if (like me) you prefer to control your own destiny, you can just use either your existing blog site (so long as you tag DBP posts separately and use that link) or use Azure to host your own Free blog site (both Ghost and WordPress are good free options on Azure).
There literally are no limitations with regards to blog services, so long as the URL you post to your Diary Contest entry ONLY has those posts listed. If judges need to wade through other non-DBP content, it will likely not bode well for you. Like most tech-pundits and reviewers, they only want to see quick and easy to reach content about your specific product, so bear that in mind.
If you are more visual and/or are already fed up of typing with all the development going on, you can always just switch on your camera and talk to your hearts content. Some find it easier, others can become shy but just go for it. Talk about your project as if you are telling a close friend, cry on their shoulder with the troubles you face and scream with excitement at the challenges you have overcome. It can be just you, or a presentation you are talking over. Just make it interesting to watch and above all, have fun!
For the bravest amongst you, you might live stream record your journey, which is a great way to pick up fans and have people talking about your project. just be sure to edit it down for the diary competition entries, the judges will have tons to go through, so be sympathetic to their plight.
Just make sure your Videos for the Diary (play-throughs don’t really count) need to be at least 8 Minutes long and keep in mind, don’t make it TOO long, else Judges will either fall asleep, or potentially get too engrossed watching!
Without further to-do, here are some of the recommended services you can use for your video diary:
Mixer is Microsoft’s own video stream service (previously called Beam), with a ton of features focusing mainly on game streaming. As you can already see from the DBP competition, Microsoft already put a lot of emphasis on using Mixer with your game (if you can). For extra Kudos, you should take advantage of Mixers unique brand of Game Integration capabilities for streamers through an extensive API, allowing consumers to directly influence a Streamers broadcast through the click of a button or even controlling with a gamepad. That being said, if you are going to do Video diaries of your game, I highly recommend setting up a free account and using Mixer. I would even go so far as to also recommend streaming / recording play-testing of your game on Mixer throughout the lifetime of your game (even beyond the host competition). You can even add rewards for viewers with your game if you offer DLC or add-in content, so repeated watching actually earns people “stuff” (Just checked and I recently earned some WOT, Halo Wars and Battle Islands free DLC, just for watching)
Twitch is Mixer’s main competition (except YouTube) and is the original “streaming” service available to most games. Its popularity skyrocketed since its launch being used for games, live tournaments and Vloggers alike. It’s an obvious choice if that’s what you are used to and offers a host of built in tools to get you up and streaming / recording fairly quickly.
YouTube is as YouTube does, we all know it is a fantastic and easy to use Video hosting service and in recent years also started offering its own brand of streaming service to keep pace with the streaming trend. Only recommendation when using YouTube, is to create a separate dedicated Channel for your DBP entry (actually, it’s good advice for any new project.
Just DON’T use your personal account). You don’t need a separate login/account, just create a new Channel. Give the new channel a name and what it is about and you’re done. Best of all, it’s FREE!
Vimeo is the unsung hero of the video world, but offers enough tools and support to rival its bigger brothers. It’s hard to say why it’s not as favourable but it is a very capable service. You can create a new account for Free and start uploading straight away and it offers some interesting tools to help you on your journey.
Now I would be remiss if I didn’t round off with a little extra help and walking you through some of the tools I use to integrate with the above services. Whether you are typing, videoing, streaming or annotating, there are tons of resources out there to help you get the best professional look. Granted a lot of the services above do provide their own editors and content management systems, so these are tools I use to enhance my experience but they are mostly optional.
Here’s my list:
OpenLiveWriter – My go-to software for writing posts for WordPress, it does however support many other blogging software like Google Blogger, Sharepoint, TypePad and more.
Markdown Monster – A monster Markdown writing tool with preview / editing / publishing and rendering features. Very powerful (although personally I currently use VSCode for Markdown, MM is tempting me over with its extensive features)
SnagIt – Need a snip off the screen, a quick video / gif of what you are seeing or even a Panoramic capture of a scrollable area. This is my absolute must tool for scraping and quick recording (also used to help create this article!)
Camtasia – My go to software for desktop recording and all in one multi-track video/audio editing. It’s not free but does have a free trial and there is an older FREE version of Camtasia for quick screen recordings if you google it
XBox Game bar – Most still don’t realise there is an in-built full game (and screen, nudge nudge) streaming recording system built direct in to Windows 10, on both the Xbox and PC. Just hit Win+G and up it pops. Even supports broadcasting now as well.
Audacity – For the audibly inclined, Audacity is the go to tool for voice / audio recording and editing tool. Tons of features with multi-track support, you simply cannot go wrong with this tool. (useful for audio podcasts and diaries too)
Quite a few devs have already taken up arms in their race to meet the demands of the DBP Diary competition, with some awesome shots of progress so far. I do hope they make playable versions online we can try:
Make sure you take time for yourself with the competition. Unlike most gamejams, you will take regular breaks, sleep and maybe even take in a movie or two, so don’t sweat it too much. So, when you are taking breaks, contemplating your project and where it’s going, also think about jotting down your thoughts in a post or video and you may end up with an extra cheque in the post (do they really still have those?) and bag that extra cash.
If nothing else, you will have loads of extra material to showcase your game to players and get them playing!
Above all, HAVE FUN!
If you are building games and projects in Unity and targeting the Universal Windows Platform (UWP), you may have noticed than in the recent Unity releases this was actually broken. What you end up seeing in your build UWP project in visual studio is the following error:
The command “”C:\ \Export\UWP\Unity\Tools\SerializationWeaver\SerializationWeaver.exe” “C:\ \Export\UWP\GeneratedProjects\UWP\Assembly-CSharp-firstpass\bin\x64\Debug\Unprocessed\Assembly-CSharp-firstpass.dll” “-pdb” “-verbose” “-unity-engine=C:\ \Export\UWP\Lonely Shadows\Unprocessed\UnityEngine.dll” “C:\ \Export\UWP\GeneratedProjects\UWP\Assembly-CSharp-firstpass\obj\x64\Debug\x64\Debug” “-lock=C:\ \Export\UWP\GeneratedProjects\UWP\Assembly-CSharp-firstpass\project.lock.json” “@C:\ \Export\UWP\GeneratedProjects\UWP\Assembly-CSharp-firstpass\SerializationWeaverArgs.txt” “-additionalAssemblyPath=C:\ \Export\UWP\Lonely Shadows\Unprocessed” “-unity-networking=C:\ \Export\UWP\Lonely Shadows\Unprocessed\UnityEngine.Networking.dll”” exited with code 1. Assembly-CSharp-firstpass C:\ \Export\UWP\GeneratedProjects\UWP\Assembly-CSharp-firstpass\Assembly-CSharp-firstpass.csproj
If you dig further, you may also expose the underlying error code here:
System.Collections.Generic.KeyNotFoundException: The given key was not present in the dictionary. at System.ThrowHelper.ThrowKeyNotFoundException() at System.Collections.Generic.Dictionary`2.get_Item(TKey key) at UnityEditor.Scripting.Compilers.NuGetPackageResolver.Resolve() at Unity.NuGetAssemblyResolver..ctor(String projectLockFile) at usw.Weaver.ReaderParameters(String assemblyPath, ConversionOptions options) at usw.Weaver.Weave() at usw.Program.RunProgram(ConversionOptions options) at usw.Program.Main(String[] args)
This prevents you building / updating projects from Unity to the UWP Platform.
Once discovered, both Unity and Microsoft worked closely together to resolve the issues and updated their respective parts as quickly as possible.
The fix for this problem is fairly easy. However, it is a little time consuming (unless you have a mega fast download connection) as mostly it requires updating to the latest Unity and Visual Studio patch releases.
The first step, is to simply update your installation of Unity:
This will update both Unity and your install of the Visual Studio Tools for Unity
Once Unity is up to date, you will need to update your installation of Visual Studio. If you are still on VS 2015, then there is no action but you won’t be able to build UWP packages targeting the newer Creators update and won’t be able to build Mixed Reality platform.
I highly recommend updating to 2017, even the free Community edition of 2017 (which is free) if you are doing UWP development. It’s just better.
To update Visual Studio 2017, simple close all open instances of Visual Studio and launch the Visual Studio Installer
Once it’s running (the first step may be to update the installer first), simply hit “Update” on your specific instance of Visual Studio (the installer will happily update ALL installed instances if you wish) and once it’s complete you will be on the latest version.
Open Visual Studio to verify, click “Help –> About Visual Studio” in the menu and you should be running 15.3.3 (or newer). If not, check your internet connection and try running the installer again.
Not strictly required but highly recommended for UWP projects, is to update the .NET Api Compatibility Level that is used in your built project. This allows you to use more modern C# 6 functionality if you wish without causing errors when you build it in Unity.
To update this, open the Player Settings window in the editor using either “Edit –> Project Settings –> Player” in the editor menu, or using the “Player Settings” button on the “Build Settings” build window. In the Other section on this configuration page you will find the following settings:
Not to be confused with the “Scripting Runtime Version”, which I’m told breaks UWP project builds (although I haven’t personally tested yet)
To build for Modern UWP, you need to be targeting a minimum API level of 14393 (Anniversary Edition), For Mixed Reality builds you will need a minimum API level of 15063 (Creators Update). Either will work but you need to ensure you select the version that is right for your target. The current advice with new builds is to always target the latest but that is completely up to you.
You will find the SDK selection on the “Build Settings” screen when you have the “Universal Windows Platform” target selected:
Once you have built your project, open it in Visual Studio to continue.
In testing I have found this is critical still for existing projects or when you build your first (ever) UWP project, you need to have the latest NETCore NuGet package downloaded and available else it will fail. you don’t have to update the other NuGet packages if you don’t want to (UWP Packages come bundled with the Application Insights NuGets for Windows Store integration for example), just the NETCore package.
When writing this article, I tried to replicate the error (after fixing it) and couldn’t generate the error even with new projects. This step may not actually be needed but I still Highly Recommend updating any and all NuGet packages in your built project.
If you are unsure as to what NuGet is, you can read all about it here. Basically, NuGet is a dependency manager for .NET solutions, allowing you to disconnect your project from the source of a dependency. It can then be updated independently without affecting your project (unless the API changes). You will find most modern .NET packages from Microsoft (like the .NET Framework) are now NuGet packages so they can more rapidly update the framework without having to build and distribute new MSI packages.
To check and update the versions of the NuGet packages, right-click on the “Solution” in the “Solution Explorer” within Visual Studio and select “Manage NuGet Packages for Solution…”
Alternatively, you can also simply right-Click the “References” branch in your projects structure, also in the “Solution Explorer” in VS, this however will only show/update the NuGet’s installed in that single project and not the entire solution:
Once the NuGet manager is open you will see the installed NuGet packages, with a notification if any updates are available (provided you have an internet connection).
Simply select the NuGet package to update, NETCore in this case, select the version to update to on the right and click “Install”. You will then be walked through a set of screens to accept the license for that package (if one exists) and then a final “get out of jail free” accept or reject screen. Once complete, all the required references included in that package will be updated.
With everything in place, all that is left is to build your project. By default, Unity still insists on selecting the ARM platform as the default (don’t know why but I guess it’s too small a thing to want to change), so you will need to update this to the x64 platform (don’t use x86 unless you really need it, most UWP systems all target x64 now). After that, you can build.
If you are unsure about which Solution Configuration to select (read, Build Type), remember what they are there for:
Used obviously for debugging, enables extra debugging information to be sent to an attached instance of Visual Studio (whether you run it from Visual Studio or just “attach” to it later). Will cause a performance hit when running but this is needed so you can walk through the code if there are any issues. It will also enable the debug window inside Unity to report errors to the screen should they occur.
Builds the project but without all the debugging stuff. just runs your project. With Unity however, it’s keen to note you are still running your entire project with all the superfluous code that Unity has in a project. DO NOT SHIP THIS!!!
This is a special Solution Configuration (just for Unity) that also runs code in Unity to strip mine unnecessary code / services and packages everything together neatly. This makes your Unity project run as fast as it can. <- SHIP/PUBLISH THIS!!!
With everything in this article, you should have no further issues building your UWP projects and once you have gone through it at least once (I’ve found) you need not do it again (apart from updating NuGets, you should always do that)
Any issues, let me know or comment on this post.
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Many devs I’ve spoken to or given advice for with regards Dream Build Play all worry about one BIG thing – Will It all be finished ready for the Big December deadline!
My answer is usually, SLOW DOWN and stay focused.
It might seem an odd statement but I’ll explain why.
The aim with Dream Build Play is NOT to have a complete, finished, polished and published game. (although if you do, kudos to you!)
What you are aiming for is enough to demonstrate your game, it’s gameplay and enough content to showcase your dream. Let’s expand on what I mean by that in this article.
The minimum you should be aiming for with the Dream Build Play competition is a MVP or Minimum Viable Product. Not to say that is all you are aiming for but it is your bare minimum. What I mean by this, with regards to any game, is to have fully working gameplay with enough content to elaborate the vision for your game (and it shouldn’t crash ).
This may also mean:
All in all, you are aiming to showcase what you game can be and how it stands out from everything else.
Even with your MVP, try to add other elements which may or may not relate you your core game mechanic, including (but not limited to):
Doesn’t need to be anything major or too flashy. But ensure it’s in the theme / style of your game (not a template). Include credits and if possible a demo reel (again keeping it simple)
Show how your game will have services integration like Live Logon, Leaderboards (even just one), Achievements. The Creators Club portal has tons of information on integrating with Live Services, samples and even an easy to implement API pack for C++ / Unity or C#.
If you can, also look in to some basic Mixer support to really shine.
If you want to maximise your potential once you have your base game running, also think about existing to other categories, like Azure, Mixed Reality and so on. Don’t go too mad but with your MVP ready for contest submission, see what else you can add.
These are small things that you should have in your final submission, as shipping something that just jumps in to gameplay (unless it’s intended, if so mark that in your submission) doesn’t show good form.
With your submission ready and if you still have time, there are a few other things to consider:
Have a little fun, play the game, record it, mix it and have some interesting voice over (if it suits). You might find by playing your game from a different perspective that you will find some last-minute tweaks you can add for even more fun.
This one I can’t stress enough.
Once you do have an MVP, or at least enough to play test, use the community, shout out to friends and have others play your game for feedback (and cookies!). Remember, you don’t have to implement all their feedback for the submission, some can wait until after. But look out for those crucial things that could lose you marks, like hard to use controls (not everyone thinks like you do), obscure UI (not everyone thinks like you do),
Nothing shows sheer determination than to show support for more than just a single language in a product. It demonstrates you understand the global market and what it takes, plus you are serious about the attraction of your game
You can do Trailers and some other activities (like a post-mortem post) after the submission is posted, so keep that in mind when balancing the time budget. But be careful, if you suddenly find something after you’ve submitted you will likely slap yourself in the face, like REALLY Hard.
Right, I got a few more posts lined up I need to work on, but I’ll sum up here with the lasting points.
If you can delight your followers throughout the competition, you’ve won half the battle already. Granted the same can be said of normal game development but here, you have a more focused audience to appease. Later when you release you will get tons of backing, even if you aren’t the final winner. It’s a win – win overall with the amount of media attention that Microsoft and it’s partners have lined up
Good luck to all
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As noted from my previous post on Dream Build Play, the competition has now roared in to life and everyone who registered is now able to start filling in their profile and highlighting both their existing games and their future competition entry.
If you haven’t done so already, Update your Profile and publicise your games and entry!
However, what is not immediately apparent, is that the profile system is there not just to showcase yourself, but to also offer your services to other devs who either are turned away at building something so big and new or need a little extra help on their project (I’m specifically looking at you, all those with skills beyond programmer art and play the guitar )
Dream Build Play is meant to inspire all of us to Dream Big, Build the most uber project we can so everyone can Play it! But we don’t have to do it alone!
Thanks to the profile system, if you don’t feel up to building your own project, then simply offer your services for either a share of the prizes or a share of the mountains of cash when it’s on sale (or just for recognition and thanks?). This enables anyone who’s already in the competition to look for help they need and recruit you in to their projects.
Also, if you have this brilliant idea and not sure how to build it (or your art skills are like mine and a stickman is a bit of a challenge), then search for potential team members, reach out to them and then enter as one team, the choice is up to you.
If you are advertising your services on the site, be sure to highlight exactly what you are good at! (and willing to do!)
In the profile screen, you’ll see a lot of details you can enter. Everything from Your nickname, country and a sneaky little avatar picture, along with all your networks, connections and such. like Github, twitter, facebook, etc.
What’s important if you want to put yourself out there, is a description of yourself and your Skills in the dedicated area.
Focus on the description as that is what is shown on your public profile page!
I’ve pictured mine just for reference (sorry, I’m not really available as I’m already busy )
Once done, you will be available on the site for all to see:
Now comes the fun bit, whether you are searching for your team mates or someone else is looking for you (best not to advertise it you’re wanted in some regard ). From the Community panel, you’ll be able to search for friends either by name, skills or where they live (so make sure you put down the skills you have)
So, whether you’re looking for an artist, programmer, modeller, animator or just someone to make coffee in your local town (I joke, as there isn’t a coffee Skill. But there SHOULD be!) then this feature will make your life much easier. once you are done searching, reach out get chatting and, more importantly, GET BUILDING!
P.S. As with last post, If you’ve read this far, be sure to check out my upcoming post about game dev diaries. In short, if you haven’t already, START ONE NOW!!
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The excitement is growing and a whopping 1500+ people have registered for this year’s competition, that’s by far the most entrants the event has had in a single year. initial reports show over 60+ projects already in the works, so it’s lining up to be a great competition. I’m not usually one for small titbit posts but I’m going to shout out a few to focus on a few aspects of the competition that really need some notice!
With the competition well under way, the second phase of the Dream Build Play site is now live, showcasing both the developers and artists that have registered for the completion. It also houses another section dedicated to the games either being worked on or historical games that devs have already published. Now if you haven’t already, you should fill in your profile on the site, this is great for several reasons:
There is a huge amount of traffic being reported on the site, not just by devs but also by people interested in the games being built. So it builds up some prestige and gets people following you. (see 2) Your profile talks about you, what games you’ve built, where to find them, where to find more out about you. You are in fact selling yourself as someone to take notice in for the duration of the completion and beyond! Don’t sell yourself short!
People are repeatedly coming back to the site now that the profile system is up and running. Reviewers, youtuber’s and review sites are already doing the rounds checking on the entries. There is a lot of weight behind this competition, not just from Microsoft but also from its partners, sponsors and a fair amount of media backing as well as the whole gaming community. Dream Build Play even in its early XNA days of Windows / Xbox and Phone always got a lot of attention. Now that the net has widened with so many more chances to win.
Note **You don’t have to enter just one category, you can ENTER THEM ALL, with either the same game or multiple!*
If you are struggling, you can use the site to find other people in the event who may be able to help you out. Some even may be there to just offer their services! I’ll follow up on another post about this specific service later. Remember, these profiles advertise you as much as they advertise everyone else. If you’re stuck, shout out for help. if you have time to spare or a fantastic set of skillz, then offer your services (and maximize your potential for winning!)
A few smart devs have also started listing their existing projects that are live. Whilst not official entries, it highlights the devs capabilities for the projects they have already worked on. like a person’s game, check out the rest of the catalogue and get excited for more! Give people MORE reason to follow you! Give people more reason to follow your project and help you promote your entry. Feel free to put up demo’s / alpha builds on demo sites (like Itchio!) and go wild to showcase why yours is the best game in town. All this will lead on once you eventually publish your game as well!
For now, all the best to everyone competing! It’s already starting to shape up like the best Dream Build Play competition of all time and we’re only a few days in!
P.S. If you’ve read this far, be sure to check out my upcoming post about game dev diaries. In short, if you haven’t already, START ONE NOW!!
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It’s official, the world has ended as Microsoft has resurrected the hugely successful Dream Build Play challenge for 2017. The biggest main difference in this resurgence, is that you can now use any tool, framework or language you wish, So long as it targets Windows 10 UWP!.
The competition is broken up in to 4 main categories with various Prize levels for each, totalling a MASSIVE $200,000 prize fund for entrants to win!
The competition is open to all (AS IN WORLDWIDE) with only a few of the usual exceptions:
If you are up to the challenge, there are a few key dates to be aware of!
Dream Build Play which ran from 2007 through to 2012, has birthed some of the most famous Indies in the years gone by, including:
To name but a few. Most Studios and 1 man bands, especially those that won, have all gone on to do great things and that was only with a single framework to build it in, Microsoft’s XNA Framework.
You can read more about the Dream Build Play History here on Wikipedia
Now, with the new and improved Dream Build play, the competition is open to anyone and everyone, with any tool, framework or language you wish, with only one single requirement:
It must target the Windows 10 Universal Windows Platform (UWP)
Now you might think this is just one big push to get developers to build games for Windows 10 and you would be completely right in that but nothing says more than “come build for my platform” than the promise of money. However, this competition is SOOO much more than that.
The Windows 10 UWP ecosystem is a singular platform for building apps/games for Windows 10, it simply allows you to build a project once and then ship it to any client within the Windows10 family, such as:
All of which are available to deliver to with a single package. Granted, given some have different screen sizes (some with no screen), you still have to think about how your game will work in each target but that is no different than if you were building for the Web, or for other platforms, such as Android tablets and phones.
If you want to read/see more about building for UWP, then check out the recording of my Future Decoded 2016 “Building UWP for Windows 10 & Xbox” talk.
Where previously the competition was limited to Microsoft’s own game development framework XNA, this year the doors have been flown open to any Tool, framework, middleware that you can use, so long as it’s able to target the Windows 10 UWP platform. To make things easier, many of the largest companies already provide “out of the box”, so shipping to Windows 10 UWP is usually no more than a few clicks away.
For instance, these companies all support UWP natively as an export platform:
And that’s not to say you can’t just go your own way, as UWP has a full D3D rendering surface under the hood, so you can always roll your own C++ engine and just start firing things at the screen.
As ever with these competitions, it’s all about making your game stand out, making your Unique features scream at a judges face saying Pick me. Microsoft has already gone a long way to give you some pointers to make your final submission a big success, such as:
It’s no secret that most big games these days need some sort of backend infrastructure, whether it’s for a MMO or PVP arena, or just for chat systems. The competition literally screams out, do something unique with a cloud backend and make it scale. The platform however, will have to be Microsoft’s Azure platform. To help with this, Azure already has loads of samples and integrations ready for most of the big framework providers and if that wasn’t enough, there are open source libraries as well.
It’s fairly easy to pick up and learn if you are new to the area, so simply plan for it in your design and do what you can to stand out.
Microsoft provide the Xbox Live platform through their new Xbox Live Creators Program, which offers you libraries, connections to provide serviced for game engines include Construct 2, MonoGame, Unity, and Xenko (others are available as well). This enables you to Integrate with Xbox Live social experiences such as sign-in, presence, Leaderboards, and more. If you want more services, you can sign up with ID@Xbox to get access to the full range of services.
It should be no surprise that everyone is jumping on the Mixed Reality bandwagon, offering games that work in VR, AR or Both. Adding this in to the Mix of your game will go a long way to impressing judges if implemented well. One note to remember, is you need to also think about special audio and give a good audio experience with your 3D game, just having a pretty 3D scene will NOT be enough.
Originally called Beam, Mixer is Microsoft’s new Collaborative Video streaming service with a heavy focus on games (Like Twitch), what sets it apart is that you can now integrate the service directly in your game, giving YouTubers and players the ability to interact with the audience through the game (A truly mind bending experience). So, if you chose to make your game “YouTuber” friendly and build a project that includes not just the player but an audience as well, you will be well on your way to a prize!
No one said you should make your life easy. Providing you don’t go too far out of your comfort zone, do it ALL (or at least more than just a game). Gamers today are always demanding more and to keep pace you should find ways to give them more, quicker and easier.
Dream Build Play is back with a vengeance. You should look on this competition as the mother of all Game Hack events with huge prizes and goodies.
More than that, every previous DBP comp has always birthed new Game Development Super heroes as the competition really highlights just what devs can do (especially with limited time) and then go on to be uber rock stars.
From what I know, there will also be more info incoming, like Monthly Draws, Game Spotlights and much much more. This isn’t just a one big bang event, expect there to be a few surprises along the way!!
So, what are you waiting for, the clock is ticking. Get registered and be ready to submit by:
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