Who says you need gigabytes to make a cool game?
As Kotaku reminds us, the contestants are in for Java4K - a competition to build the best game using 4K of data, or less. The winner will be announced on March 16.
Why 4K?
"4KB is the smallest unit of file possible on most operating systems, if you create a file that contains only one character (or one byte) it takes up 4KB on the disk," according to the contest's coordinators, "...it's a perfect fit for 1 person to work on."
I love this idea, because it strips games down to their raw essentials. This weekend, I was at a house where a 9-year-old was playing videogames. He had a Wii with about a dozen games, but you know what he liked most? He had a Jakks videogame collection - a bundle of classics including Ms. Pac Man, Pole Position, and, the kid's favorite, Mappy. The games come in a joystick that you plug right into your TV. Mappy was made 26 (!) years ago, and this kid spent more time with it than Super Mario Galaxy. Just goes to show that it's not the eye candy, it's the action.
Posted by David Kushner on March 9, 2009 2:08 PM
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