A piece about trainwrecks

Hello! So, I am planning on writing something about Glorious Trainwrecks (this is very over due), and would like your help!

First, who are the people involved in maintaining the community these days? I will have to chat to them at some point! Or even if you're just an active member of the current community. I may want to chat with you too, depending on how everything else goes.

I'd also like to know which trainwrecks on this site are your favourites. It doesn't matter if you or someone else made them, anything goes! Age of the game also doesn't matter (in fact I'm hoping to find some golden oldies I missed).

I would love to ask everyone what GT is/means to them, but I don't want people to put effort into such a thing when I know I'll have limited space and won't be able to use much.

I've no idea when this will be finished too - it will be worked on in my spare time purely for LOVE.

But still, if you want to supply some input, I welcome it!

everythingstaken's picture

Seems like Dattorz does a

Seems like Dattorz does a lot of stuff, though I'm not 100% sure of what they do on here other than that they are working on what seems like a Glorious Trainwrecks 2.0 website. Seems like the admin SpindleyQ isn't around quite as much as they used to, but it seems like they do still do stuff. I typically make the Klik of the Month Klub events which is a previous staple of this site, but it seems like people gravitate to a lot of the different other events now.

Probably my favorite Trainwreck is Castlevania 10. I also really like Rainy Day Adventure - A Glorious Trainwrecks Knytt Stories Collaboration a lot and it kinda made me rethink what kinda what this style of trainwreck game was. I'm a big fan of Johny L's games too. Probably the people who really got me into games here was thecatamites and sylvie's stuff.

To me, Glorious Trainwrecks is a place where people can have freedom to do more of what they want with game if you even want to call them that. Glorious Trainwrecks games push the boundaries of what's acceptable in every different direction. GrTx games don't care if you don't like them. GrTx games are not held back by anyone's expectations of what is accepted to be good or not.

sergiocornaga's picture

Note: I wrote this at the

Note: I wrote this at the same time as everythingstaken, hence our near-identical opening paragraphs.

SpindleyQ is less active here at the moment, but would still be very relevant to talk to. everythingstaken set up the last couple of KotM events and has uploaded at least 3 games every month this year. Dattorz runs the Sekret Santa event and was working on a (presumably abandoned) site upgrade a while back. I'd also suggest talking to all the other recent event creators, or frequent supporters such as ghettoshamrock a.k.a. bc_.

Most of my favourites are on my list. It includes several of thecatamites' marker games, which are available as a fabulous compilation being discussed at length here. It excludes games submitted as blog entries or comments; everything prior to the system set up for Pirate Kart 2. I'd have to do some digging for some real golden oldies. But offhand, I'm a massive fan of snapman's klik masterpieces, like Fred's Exciting Adventure 1& 2 and Scorpion Psychiatrists of Saturn.

Glorious Trainwrecks feels to me like a place that will always be receptive towards the games I make, whatever they may be, even if they aren't trainwrecks. It's somewhere I can usually go to get out of a game development slump. It's a place where cool things happen, regardless of who make up the community (the regulars have changed a lot as time's gone by). Or something like that, idk.

GT:me::?:?

I don't think I can add much more to the roots of Glorious Trainwrecks other than what's already been mentioned, so I'll focus on that "what GT means to me" bit.

Once I wandered into this community, I realized I honestly could relive the days of yore (in my case that would be circa 1995), downloading games from AOL on a 56K baud modem, made by people using the Klik n' Play tools I'd never even seen but instantly fell in love with. If I had the game "Choppy the Porkchop" to show you, that would be a prime example of the aesthetic I'm trying to emulate and foster with each of the games I make and show here. Fortunately for me, most commenters seem positive and forgiving.

I immigrated here from another game-dev community site that kinda dwindled as the years went on, not knowing whether it wanted to stay casual or pursue commercial attention. Though I'm personally receptive to critique and feedback, I prefer a more low-key and forgiving environment (at least in terms of game-making), so I stayed here.

My favourite events seem to be the Sekret Santa events. The notion of coming up with a game based on someone else's wish list seems fascinating and liberating to me, in a creative sense. And besides, everyone loves pressies, AMIRITE?!?!!? And although the event structure has become decentralized over time, there are still plenty of events or reasons to keep making and sharing games here.

Look for the Professor EagleEye games. I like those quite a bit. They're a traditional and accessible game style, but as the series has gone on they've wandered different, odd directions (mostly because the author is riffing off the banality of a typical "find the differences" game). Lots of "unapolagetic" enthusiasm seems to have gone into making more than half a dozen of them. Here's the latest installment I could find:

http://www.glorioustrainwrecks.com/node/7094

To take a broader view: GT fosters unbridled, uncensored creativity regardless of platform/tools used (new or old), and seems more interested in what people do with tools as opposed to attracting a mass-market audience. The front page mentions the word GUSTO as a criteria for games here, and I think that's a fitting term, though open to interpretation. Other words that come to mind are:

- HUMBLE: since I've yet to see anyone with an out-of-control ego, or flame war, here.
- SELF-REFERENTIAL: how many games here exploit and revel in buggy built-in movements, which are welcomed with open arms here but would be trashed in other "more refined" circles?
- CLEVER: for the many directions people go when it comes to making "games."

It's not as simple as "short games for short attention spans," but it has just as much appreciation of enthusiasm and creative spirit as it does for technical prowess.

...Sheesh, this is long. Sorry! :D

Danni's picture

One thing I like about

One thing I like about Glorious Trainwrecks is the wide variety of games that folks make for it. The site started out as mostly a place for hastily made Klik & Play games but now you can find all kinds of stuff here:

- Klik & Play games using the stock assets. I feel like there ought to be a term for this. Like Klikcore or Klikwave or something? The fun, inviting side of Klik.
- Klik games with more original assets - perhaps the campier side of Klik.
- Games made in other 2D game making tools, like Game-Maker, Game Maker, Construct, RPG Maker, ZZT, among others.
- Games programmed in LOVE2D and PyGame, among others.
- Puzzle games made in PuzzleScript.
- Interactive fiction made in Twine, Inform, and RenPy.
- Experimental Unity games - these are often beautifully minimalist.
- Levels and level packs for existing games like Knytt Stories and Chip's Challenge.
- Probably a lot of other things I've missed.

Style now varies a lot too, as do the motivations. I think when GT was originally founded it was meant as a relief from overly ambitious projects, since throwing together a two-hour game in Klik & Play at least feels like you did something. This also often meant liberal use of Klik & Play's pre-packaged assets, as you could get your ideas on screen a lot quicker than with making your own graphics. Now we're seeing some bigger projects, too, and plenty of games that have had more than two hours put into them.

We also used to primarily focus on "Klik of the Month Klub" where everyone would gather once a month to make games. Now we have folks submitting games whenever, and I think that's pretty neat. We even have people setting up their own events. We allow any user to create a new event - there is no central authority to go through. As a result folks are participating in new ways, which is cool.

Some games I like:

Why do musicians always have to wear a hat, a very surreal game that I think nails the Klik & Play aesthetic quite nicely.

Yoshi's Whaley World, a super campy fangame I made using The Games Factory, an outdated direct sequel to Klik & Play.

100 Free Assets, a Unity world created entirely using 3D models from the Asset Store.

Heart Pounding TrainWreck Marathon, a collection of fun, short games mostly involving action and conversation puzzles.

thesycophant's picture

I haven't been active here

I haven't been active here in a couple years, but I'm hoping to rectify that. Finding Glorious Trainwrecks is one of the most best things that's happened to me creatively. Having a place that validates and encourages small, quickie game creation and allows me to make whatever I want, be it a dumb joke or just an interesting game concept experiment has been really great. I've gotten a lot of support and inspiration for games here. I'd love to say more, and I could, but I'm pressed for time at the moment. I'll put up some of my fav GT memories instead:

My "favorite games" list is pretty good, but here's a narrower list of some of my favorites:

And then my favorite/most memorable of my own 50-odd games.

snapman's picture

a place for things

Glorious Trainwrecks is a place for stuff. And I mean that in more than just terms of storing the files for a silly game you dashed off for the heck of it, but as a place for that singular idea to live and breathe. Glorious Trainwrecks and its community are welcoming in a way the internet has long forgotten about. Thanks in part to its weird structure, the site has never suffered a major influx of new users that might have crowded out your chances of someone seeing what you did and having something interesting or appreciative to say back about it. And yet somehow it has also never stagnated with the same crowd making the same things forever. As time went on, new users came and went, each finding their own purpose for the site and the community's open-ended challenge of "make a game." Glorious Trainwrecks has done big things and small things. It has produced tremendous, inscrutable Karts that grabbed headlines and left people scratching their heads in stunned, comic awe. It has celebrated the tools of digital creation, ranging from the new, to the old, to depricated, to deceased. Glorious Trainwrecks has had a booth at GDC, played host to personal stories in interactive form, introduced newcomers to the principles of game development, and welcomed back old-timers with the nostalgia (and untapped possibilities) of tools they had discarded years ago. Glorious Trainwrecks is a very important place to me. It's a place for stuff. It's a place for stuff you won't find anywhere else, because everywhere else isn't Glorious Trainwrecks.

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As far as recommending games on here, I'd be remiss to not include Baby Kicker Pro for its subtle and clever progression, Can You Jump It? for its unbridled joy, and Burrito Adventure for its tasty burritos. thesycophant already linked River Stay Away from my Door, so consider this another vote for that one.

Of my own games, I'll only mention MicroMove, because it is secretly a game about this website.

Thanks for everyone's input

Thanks for everyone's input so far! It will be a tremendous help.