It’s sunday, 1:02 AM. I’ve been working on/off for 12 hours and I’m pretty happy with the result. Now is time for sleep!
My game is shaping up to be some kind of adventure game set in a cold wintery environment with simple tasks that chain together to get you to the goal. The entire game will take place in a single 640×480 window… so the sprites are all very small.
I went to the launch exhausted.
On Friday, I consulted with my family: should I participate?
Previous LD gave me a serious push towards my dream.
But now I’m afraid to grub and the strength to finish.
It took me almost 6 hours to crystallize the solution for a given topic.
I will continue to learn Unity and make a clone of the game from my childhood.
This time I will no graphics – only squares instead of walls and hero.
Good luck to everyone who makes their game this weekend! 😉
So at the fall of our beloved ☃, myself and my partner could not come up with a solid game idea soley off of the theme “Entire Game on One Screen”, which I think is not a theme but a technical limitation. As I’ve stated on Twitter, this does not influence one’s idea, just how it is presented, which in my opinion does not improve the jam.
That said, we decided to essentially go with the theme of ☃ anyway, while accepting the limitation of keeping everything on the one screen. While searching for inspiration, my partner found a screenshot from a game named Nox Timore, which piqued his interest. We haven’t played the game itself, but that image gave my partner the idea to have a Slender-esque game of a protagonist stuck in a forest, beset on all sides by advancing snowmen. They can only be fended off by throwing snowballs, which require the player to look down to collect.
I’m not a huge fan of horror or horror-esque games myself, but as we discussed it a slightly different design grew, with influence from the limited movement and actions of Five Nights at Freddy’s. Our protagonist is now at an abandoned Christmas tree lot, being hunted by the snowmen as they slowly advance on the player’s position. They dart behind obstacles and can only be clearly seen (and slowed) by turning on rows of christmas lights, similar to the door lights in Freddy’s:
The player must still gather snow to make snowballs, but while doing so takes his hand off the light switch, plunging the entire lot into darkness. While I’m still not entirely sold on the horror concept, I think this might have enough strategy to still be fun and engaging. We’ve laid out the scene similarly to the concept art as shown below:
The green blocks will be trees which the snowmen hide behind. Gameplay should be possible in the next few hours here, wish us luck!
We never know what can happen when we do evil stuff with some TNT…
First time using RagePixel for LudumDare, its really nice, but I need more time…as always.
Finished parts:
– Main concept is there
– Santa can move and fire (animations are there)
– Monsters are spawning and moving
– Snow flakes are moving 
ToDo:
– Santa can shot monsters
– Monsters can eat presents
– Monsters spawning from air
– Scoring
– Santa lives
Good luck everyone!
Stage 1 almost done
Got the surveillance monitors working, and a very basic level design. We’ll get there…
And this little trouble maker is on the way
Count me in for liking this theme. =)
I’ve been looking for an excuse to do a football game for years, and I realized this is a good fit for what I want to do. Not much to look at yet, but I’m feeling pretty good about it so far!
What do you guys think?! 😀
We’re getting some good progress in, despite an extremely (~18 hour late) start. Hopefully this won’t bite us in the butt later on.
Currently we only have the character and the general game space designed. There are still a lot of UI components to build out, as well as art for the actual game itself. Once again, half of us will be busy tonight (lame -_-) but let’s hope this all works out in the end.
Our main character seems to resemble a familiar face from 6 LD’s ago… (MEMEX, LD25)
We swear, this is semi intentional! 😛
Tags: ld31
Going to bed now
Yet another screenshot from the game I’m making! It’s very basic, I’m not very proud of it per say, but I’m proud to be making my first game, to be doing my first jam and to be part of something great!
Once again, you can see what I’m up to and give comments or pointers on twitch right here!
Thanks for the opportunity, and have fun!
Hi,
This is my basic prototype, some code, some prototype art, and minimal mechanics.
This is not a spaceship game, sprites will be substituted by rpg elements, with experiences gained, infinite monsters e maybe select class of hero(if have time to develop).
I still working in mechanics.
See you soon.
Quick preview of some engine mechanics.
The game all takes place within one room, and various characters will be introduced, both via the computer and coming to visit. It’s set in the late 90s, where Erica, a double agent for a hacker group and a government agency, must make choices as to which causes she truly wishes to support by making various choices throughout the game, and prevent people who want to kill her from realising her associations.
Your choices will determine the path you take through the game, eventually ending up in different endings, much akin to how visual novels work.
Some of the biggest inspirations as of yet include the play Journey’s End, in which the entire play takes place in one place, and characters develop based on certain events, The Matrix’s late 90s sci-fi setting, Memento XII from Ludum Dare 23 and it’s small rooms where you make choices, and aforementioned VN mechanics.
A lot of how the game plays out from here will depend on my storytelling skill, other than that there’s very little to do left other than question options and a few more character images for different characters.
So after a few distractions I managed to get the input working. You can click and drag to select coloured tiles. You can’t move to non-adjacent tiles, across colours or back onto a previous tile in the current chain. I managed to get some graphics to show the chain as it is being created:
So now it’s time to move on to the player and their movement using the chain. Looking at the time I don’t think there’s going to be any enemies, and I’m worried about how much time I’ll have to polish the game up.
Oh well. I’m learning a ton about puzzle game development and I’m enjoying the concept of this game so nothing lost and everything gained.
A few hours later.. A clean install (multiple beta installed got in the way :s ) and a big fear when I though Unity just couldn’t open the project anymore (hopefully, removing the Library folder fixed it), it’s time to go to bed !
What we have now :
– Up to 4 players (I told you !)
– A player select screen (from 2 to 4 players, you can not select your character yet)
– No cat yet, no music nor sound effect yet
– Random spawn positions (well, random choose from the available pre designed positions of course)
– Some change in the level: it’s really bad for now, but I had to try the mechanics and tweak the physics. That’s not perfect yet, but the feeling is good.
– Snowmen can be.. well, just watch the GIF, that’s funny.
Good night !
Tags: screenshot, snowman
Ok, wow – that was a veeeeery long day! 😀 But we wanted to get a solid base done, before we’d go to bed. Let’s see how much we can get done tomorrow and how close we can get to a game that’s fun to play and challenging.
We’ll close the livestreams for now and say “good night” with a screenshot of the current state:
Game:
There is just nothing on!
With another 21 hours to go its time to make some art for me.
Also have to make another good scoop of levels but that shouldn’t be to hard.
The game is about switching TV channels and getting to channel 99 (If I make it that far) ;
though my interwebz is horible Im streaming the whole ordeal:
http://www.twitch.tv/emotionelebagage
There is just nothing on!
Most stuff done now(Mostly ai,score and sound missing), I really have to get to sleep now but I’ll continue in the morning.
Basic game concept:
Gather Golden carrots so you get more snowmen following you(basicly snake) while a kid tries to hit the snowmen with snowballs that causes you to lose all snowmen behind the snowman hit, then get over the road so all the small snowmen disipear/turn into points, repeat until time runs out.
So I have attempted a few previous jams but my other responsibilities coupled with my low attention span has contributed to my not completing any yet. I finally have a cool wacom tablet and the time so I am DOING THIS! I have been working on art since yesterday and I am ready to get some code written. I think I will use Phaser as I have a little bit of experience with that on my passion project (also needing attention). My game will fit in a 576px by 576px square composed of 18×18 32px squares. It’s a light turn-based strategy game about manipulating an erupting volcano to save the villagers living on the mountainside. It’s called Vulcano! and it’s got some sweet hi-def graphics:
lava terrain flow
terrain and building sprites
Bulldozer moving animations
So that’s where I’m at! I have enough to get much of the game coded up. Still need to do a few graphics for earthen walls, channels (for lava directing), wet earth(for lava slowing),bulldozed lava, and exploded lava. But I am going to take a break and do some coding.
What a day… this Ludum Dare I wanted to use Blender as a level editor for my Three.JS engine to play with:
It worked!
It’s super, super hacky but I was able to use bones as entity data, where the first bone in a chain had the type and location of an entity, then I used child bones to indicate other parameters. This way I could configure the size of doors, the paths of entities, the size of things etc.
This is the end of the first day for me and I am ecstatic to be able to say I have my game’s level fully designed and playtested. It takes about 10 minutes to beat so that feels about right.
Tomorrow morning I’ll be doing the sound effects and music first (so easy to overlook), then it’s polish time – as much shiny as I can squeeze in in the time remaining. It’s taken all my willpower not to try to do something about the dreadful graphics today. I added no shaders, no parallax effects, no particles, no textures, no lights. The geometry, other than the collision mesh, is just what Three.JS lets you generate procedurally. I am growing as a person by embracing my inner programmer artist.
TIME FOR SLEEP.
Tags: blender, development screenshot, development update, three.js
The sound in my head right now. Time to sleep. #gamedev #LDJAM #LD31 https://t.co/zNmRL1GhkK
— Mattias Wargren (@mattiaswargren) December 7, 2014
Tags: before sleep
Pretty much done main gameplay. Now, gonna juice it up, make sure it sounds good and tweak stuff.
It’s going to be called 000 : Press “Z”. No choice now.
I’m streaming at twitch.tv/alvaro_as/ and I’m using Construct 2. Come hang out.
I’ve just started xD
Woke up at around 11AM and spent a good 4 hours or so brainstorming and thinking of ideas before settling on a direction. I’ve just now booted up my IDE, ported over my stub code, made my bitbucket repo, and started coding. However, it’s also time to grab dinner ;P
All the while, the time ticks by…ah well, what can you do.
Just doing some good ol’ spartan warfare
I’m calling it a day after about 17 hours work. Didn’t get quite as much done as I would have liked, but I think the progress I have is good and I should be able to get something fun out of this tomorrow.
Good night internet friends!
So I just got collision implemented, and I made it so the character renders behind or in front of the walls to a certain point.
Also here’s a random level:
Super Duper happy with my first six hours progress. Maybe another 10 hours tomorrow and I’ll be done? I hope.
Yes, finally have scoring added to the game. All the pieces are in place to finish the game. So excited!
should quit changing the title
There’s a couple little graphical bugs that I still haven’t sorted out yet.
My game is simple but is working, the coins are removed, the sound is playing and I still have a day to polish.
Now with more Snowman.
Try it here.
I just made the movement of the character, and jumping on cubes and over gaps.
I’m working now in the terrain generation, which I think will be tricky.
Ah, and I put a toupee on the character.
It almost looks like a game! 😀
Zombie tornado!
I’ve got a fully working game! Woo hoo. It’s a minotaur’s labyrinth as a sliding puzzle, now I just need to add the minotaur and tlc. See a video of it in action!
Which makes things really tough. Although, I have a basic menu system working, player and A.I. characters and scope to add multiplayer tomorrow and to tune up the gameplay and A.I. so they are a little more challenging.
Also, I just spent the last 10 mins watching these 3 blighters duking it out to become the largest.
Here’s hoping for a finish tomorrow!
I started to polish the visuals a bit by paying with alpha values to smooth out the rough edges. I still have work on the sprites themselves but I don’t know if it’s worth it for now.
I fiddled a bit too long on the particle system of Game Maker: Studio to create the effect for the thrusters. Looks ok I guess.
And finally, I added the first item: a medkit!
Ok, so let me start by saying that I never expected to ever see one of my theme suggestions to even show up in one of the voting rounds, much less as the actual theme of an LD. I’m overwhelmingly excited to see that enough people liked my idea to vote for it.
Next, I’d like to clarify what I originally thought of this theme as meaning (by no means should you limit yourselves to my original idea for the theme). By “Entire Game in One Screen,” I meant that you would have to make your entire game take place within one, non-scolling game window, like Pac-Man – where everything is right in front of the player. This introduces a couple really interesting design concerns that you don’t see every day. First and foremost, it makes you really have to think about space allocation. Since nothing can be outside the screen, you have to find a way to make complex levels or interesting interactive environments in a very small space. Second, it is vague on purpose. It allows for a huge variety of possible games, which is cool but also challenging in its own way, since – unlike other LD themes – you’re not just spoon-fed a game idea.
*Also, if I see one more post asking whether the theme just means that the game has to be on a single computer monitor, I’m going to bash my brains in. WHY THE HELL WOULD THAT EVER BE THE THEME?! I’ve seen some really interesting interpretations that I never even thought of, but that one is just plain stupid.
Ok, so next I want to apologize. Although I still my theme is pretty cool, I realize that many people disagree. So, that being the case, I’m sorry to the LD community for making a bad theme. I never intended for it to ruin this LD for some people, but that’s exactly what it did, so I am truly and deeply sorry.
I really love Ludum Dare. I love the community. I love the concept. I love the passion. Everything is amazing, ans I’m sorry for kinda inadvertently making it temporarily less awesome.
Thanks for reading.
All the sprites done, better movement, too! And my base here is so OP.
Time to work on sound, I think…
Hey!
This was going to be my second time in a row missing Ludum Dare since I started, in LD24… because I received a ton homework to do this weekend (it’s my first semester at university :D).
But I ended up making something interesting anyway!
I basically made a random puzzle generator with the simple mechanic of dashing/sliding in each direction. The difficulty of each level is quantifiable. In fact, the blue square is positioned in the hardest spot to land in the entire level, each time 😉
Latest version, and older placeholder version:
I’ve gotten genuinely stuck on some of the harder levels it generated. Perfect! I love a good challenge! >:3
So anyway, maybe I’ll make it into something worth submitting by the end of Monday. I have a plan, but it’s a lot to do in the time I have available with school and all.
Good luck, everyone! I like what you’re making 😀
– Zanz
So.. I’m done for today (2am in europe 😮 )
Last screenshots for today:
There is still much left to do for tomorrow. Looking forward to it, this is fun
Had a late start today due to sleeping and shopping, but I’m getting there! I got two of my three basic hazards implemented. Going to do the third next and then it’s on to some enemies. I also got a persistent timer setup to track how fast you complete the game. I’m hoping to have it save a local file with top scores, but we’ll see if I get that far. After enemies I think I’m going to take a coding break to mix up some quick sounds and music. After that it’s level building time and then, if I have time, I’ll start replacing all the place holder art and UI. Having fun so far, and I think I will definitely finish a game this time. I’m just not too sure how pretty it’s going to be ^_^
Full size image: http://s13.postimg.org/xauq3n84n/prototype_1.png
First of all…thank you guys for reading this…
As I will be setting up multiplayer for my game…a kind of sandbox’ish game
All the players have the same screen and must communicate to each other for different strategies…or just have plain fun!
The current multiplayer will allow you to block and friend people on your account…
Current bugs:
Player logged in already (Just keep pressing login, this happends when you log out too quickly)
Rarity: Little to none
Player moving other players cameras
Rarity: Sometimes to probably…
This just happends when the server has no syncing going on, this will be fixed very soon
As for the actual game itself I have not ran into any problems…
Screenshots below
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MidnightsHouse (for current game updates)
A few notables:
Mods will be submitted to me for review to put into the game…
The process will look something like this:
1) Submit the project files to me in a .unity3d package..
2) Give instructions on how to implement the project over a network
3) Each of these mods will eventually come out through steam for your pleasure…wether or not we split the money or vice versa is a different topic..
4) Enjoy! You will get a version of the game dedicated to your mod!
More side notes:
Map in opening scene is a Easter egg.. figure it out
Le’ts just put a pre- FAQ here…
Portforwarding?
Most defiantly yes…you also have dedicated servers aswell..this will not cover the cost of portforwarding though…
How does this fit with the theme?
The entire terrain is a screen your entire sandbox is played on the “screen”, “terrain”
Can I join off of my friends on my list?
Yes! We have this feature
Screenshots:
Needs some more levels and music now me thinks.
A slow first day, a large portion of code is written and … hopefully working. Starting knocking out some of the art.
A lot of reusable scenery is done and drawn (lazily in illustrator … hail the brush strokes), and I’ve started whipping up the main scene.
The entire game is on one room divider screen. Each panel of the screen is a level and the levels are rendered into a texture that gets overlaid on top of the active panel. As you clear stages you move from panel to panel along the screen.
Progress is running along smoothly! I plan to be done with the game tonight. Late … LATE tonight 😛
Now for some screens!
Here’s the area you start out in:
Here is the whole game (Click on the image to see it fully):
The camera zooms out once you leave the starting area. Also, areas you haven’t explored yet are not visible. Also, the player jumps sideways … Yeah this game is kinda bananas.
The player can now move correctly around the tiles. Now all that’s left is to have the player remove (and replace) tiles as he moves.
Then I’ll have to decide whether or not I’ll have time to put an opponent in. And then the scoring system has to be added.
Then polish time.
So after long a philosophic discussing about what a “One Screen” is (here including that the monitor was a screen, the window of the game was a screen etc.) we dragged to the conclusion that what this theme must mean is that you should not have big fancy popup guis, and a mess like they have in MMOs but all infomation should be on the screen at all time, sort of like the old Amiga Dungeon Crawler games. The conclusion we took was that you didn’t necessary need to see the entire level of the game on the screen at once. We began to look at it make some rules to follow like; you should never be in need of waiting on a loading screen, need to have popup windows, or have a huge Gui to popup. You should simply have every single importance to the game shown on the screen at anytime!
With the rules set we made a brain storm and the idea we first began to relate to and find interesting was resource management. We than started to slowly find ideas we then started to look at basic game mechanics and stuff to get started and we decided to make a pixelated game in outerspace where you need to manage your crew members and resources of the ship, as well as buying and selling to aliens to survive your mission in space. Maybe most importance is the treats to the player, Pirates, Asteroid Storms, Oxygen, black holes, and many others we’ll probably won’t have implemented in the first version, but most important to manage your limited resources on your trip through space!
Now my fellow game developers, I give you one days hard work! https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/13581369/Game.gif (Image too huge to be uploaded – Sorry)
Watch me crack up about destroying children.
Quite a great first day! This time I got lucky and the theme I wanted was chosen, so I had an idea already in my head. As a kid, I loved drawing mazes for my friend to solve – then I stopped doing that. I remember the feeling of the whole thing in a single sheet of paper, full of keys, traps and monsters that required a specific item to be killed. This is it, translated into a 2D platformer. Yes, Castlevania in one screen ^_^
I have published a few games, and I have lots of prototypes in my hard disk… but I’ve never built a 2D platformer before! So I was a bit unsure about this.
But things have gone great so far! I can easily edit the map in the editor, so building the level shouldn’t be a problem. Player movement is not that bad, either. I’ve been tweeting this all day, but here’s a summary:
He can walk and jump. Wouldn’t be a platformer otherwise… but jump height depends on for how long the jump key is pressed (a la Mario Bros). That’s a nice touch, I think:
He’s also able to climb ladders, but I feel they are a bit weird and I’m not using them. I also managed to get one-way platforms working, from which you can jump down if you need to.
The player is also able to slide down walls, climb and wall-climb. That’s why ladders are not that useful anymore.
I finally added switches, which are able to open doors or disarm traps. Traps or lava pitfalls kill you instantly, but I also added safe points to which you return when killed. There are also animated traps (those three moving things on the right side), which require a bit of timing.
Not that bad at all, considering it’s my first platformer ever and that I’m building it from scratch. I’m pretty happy.
Tomorrow I’ll draw a new tileset (the current one is not mine, but a free one I borrowed from Derek Yu), make a bigger level (you know, the whole screen) and add some basic enemies and fighting if I have time. May probably be forced to dump those, though…
Tags: platformer
Don’t lose your head over this:
Visually, the only new differences are in the microwave. I made the buttons look a bit nicer, and added a clock. The clock displays your current computer time, so that’s pretty cool.
Not even close to where I want to be…but it’s something. A lot farther than I expected for my first Jam and being a tad underprepared!
We have managed to get our coins to move through the pipes correctly
I usually don’t have much time because of circumstance and other things. Which happened today. Last night I had to do the dishes and fell asleep right after, losing lots of time. This afternoon I lost it to going to town for gift shopping. HOWEVER. I have managed to get some work done.
This is all I have for now. The smaller bobber follows the larger one staying just below it. Next is shoreline, actual fishing, keeping track of progression. Hopefully done soon. Oh how do you like the name?
We are very tired.
Started at 9 o’clock (LD start was at 2 o’clock) in the morning.
We where totally surprised about the theme.
But no problem, i love challenges!
So here are the first screenshot about our game…
a simple room.
Tags: 1 day, progress, screenshot
Sountrack evolves Every Pattern will be matched randomly with others.
Check out the guys from SteinImBrett Sounddesign
http://steinimbrett-sounddesign.blogspot.de/
https://www.facebook.com/steinimbrett?ref=hl
gl&hf!
Haven’t done much game stuff for a while, mostly doing pretty polishings and things. It all flashes and moves and pulses and blah. I wish this was a video.
Im surprised myself but Im done! well I guess I will use the extra day to polish and add extra features like powerups!!
I started a couple of hours ago after getting over the theme. Probably just going to make some kind of shmup. As this is my first time participating in LD, I definitely don’t want to give up.
First day is hereby coming to an end! I’m making an rpg game, a sequel to the one i made for 0h gam jam! Aaaaaand here’s the screenshot:
I hope it’s more or less readable.
Cheers!
RSG in numbers so far
Characters: 4.082
Words: 668
Passages: 11
Links: 8
The first day was a slow start because of ~personal reasons~, but it was a decision we made since there is a big event happening here in São Paulo and the deadline for the jam is three days. Work a bit less today and compensate on the other days.
The major obstacles I’ve encountered so far was to find the right tone of the narrative. The next big item on my To-Do Trello list is to set the scope straight, in order to not be overwhelmed later.
So, just after I wrote my last post here, I came up with the definite game mechanic:
It’s in a very raw state, with some platforms failing to register collision at at, but it’s playable.
I also came up with a name: Jetpack Floating Island Inspector
Tomorrow, I plan to finish at least some more of it and hopefully fix that bug. Too bad I have a family lunch to attend to (hopefully, isn’t going to take the whole day).
The way I see it, it’s great already – I have accomplished this much in a little over 12 hours of hard work. Specially considering that I started with a blank Emacs screen and I’m only using C++, SDL and SDL_gfx.
Screenshot from the ARM version (have some timing issues, but it’s playable):
BTW: source code available at https://github.com/TheFakeMontyOnTheRun/island-domination
BSD License.
Someone with a Raspberry Pi, PLEASE COMPILE THIS!
So I know this is a little late, but I’ve decided to join the Ludum Dare. Now, I would try and make something for the competition, but I fear I’ve started too late. Instead, I’ll be joining the jam so I have a chance of getting in on time. I already have an idea of what I’m going to do, I just hope I’m skilled enough to pull it off.
Essentially, it’s a short game about a bored kid/person/whatever stuck inside on a snow day and reading a book. The room that the kid is in will change to match the story he is reading, so the game will be like a bunch of themed mini games.
I’ll be using Haxe and Flixel to program the game, Ogmo to edit the level and some image editor to make the graphics. Sound will likely be from Sfxr or something, I haven’t actually thought about what to use.
As day 1 has drawn to a close, so has my energy so iv’e decided to pack it in for the night, all i can say so far is that i have just created the biggest sprite sheet of my life scaling in at 28800×1620 pixels, 46 Megapixels!!! well it’s been eventful today with lots of arguing over things and redoing literally everything at least twice. So for tonight, good luck, have fun and remember sleep is actually a necessary thing for every human being 😉
It’s 2.37 am here right now so it’s time for some sleep… But first I’ll do a short post of my day one-ish work.
So only a bit of work done today mostly due to family dinner and problems with the well known flippers in pinball machines.
So I came up with a different way which was way easier to implement and to make feel right.
I’ll introduce to you, the “Arc Pad” … Or something like that :p
At the moment they’ll just float in mid air, I’ll need to create a propper housing for them still.
When activated they’ll change color (probably will change this) and they’ll pop out a little in their normal direction.
The ball will be pushed in the direction based on the hit angle between the ball and the bad.
This allows for quite some interesting gameplay options where you’ll have to use the pad when the ball is at the right angle or arc.
Tomorrow I’ll implement enemies, bumpers and do the (hopefully) full “level” part.
Audio should be added soon as well…. So much work, so little time :p
Tags: pinball
More Progress =D
So.. I’m apparently doing a fishing game!
Art is going to be a pain.
.gif
It’s 3am in Germany and I guess we go to bed. It was a productive day, although we are not where we wanted to be. But I guess that’s normal. 😀
(click on the image ;))
Just need to draw a door and a key…then level objects are finished!
Some things aren’t featured here because there simply isn’t enough room on the screen for all of them at once!
As incredibly plain as this still looks, it was the most complex modeling I’ve ever attempted.
Here’s a shot of the layout, though it’s technically cheating to look at it…
All those cubes are my camera triggers. Enter one, and the active camera switches, and the viewport layout resizes. Piece of cake! Now I just need to write a complex AI and make a game out of this….
Not much but still working 😉
No music/sounds, no title screen, etc.
Gameplay only.
No title yet 
Here is the title screen. Now, I’m going to work on Instructions and Credits menus. Then, coding again.
“There must be a more efficient way to do this, but I don’t have time to figure out what it is”
As a programmer my kryptonite is art, but I like the look and feel of the game at the moment. Now I’m going to code the game mechanics, basically AI, score system, respawning, and player inputs.
In this game, the player can only make melee attacks, but doing at the correct moment, can also reflect the bullets of the enemies. If the time is good with me, I’ll add another player and a competitive mechanics, basically, kill more than the other player, reflect the bullets to him.
The game is written in pure Java, and I decided to forget about playing with lwjgl 3 for the time being – I’ve had a really busy day, and will be again tomorrow. I’ve spent about 4 hours on it this evening and its now nearly 2am lol…
I have all the basic mechanics of the game in place now, simple as they are, and am at that stage where I need to start fleshing out the content.
The premise of the game is simple – you control a (very 2D!) galleon and must travel from one side of the ocean (screen) to the other, before running out of supplies. Easy, right? At the moment, yes lol… But I’m planning and slowly implementing “events” that occur along the way, such as storms that move your location back (or forwards!) a few tiles, mutinies that cause food to be destroyed, shoals of fish to restock supplies, icebergs… That sort of thing The graphics are – hopefully – extremely temporary; I intend to up the resolution when I’ve finished the actual game itself.
Other than that I’ve already mentioned, I’m going to write a midi sequencer and add some simple tunes to the game, and then I’ll probably submit a first draft I expect to spend about 8 hours out of 48 on the compo, but depending on the state of the game… and whether or not I accidently sleep through 2 or 3am the deadline tomorrow… I might enter the Jam instead as I’m actually quite free on Monday.
Going to try and attach a screenshot… If it doesn’t show below, I’ve messed up!
Cheers!
Andy
Mechanics are in place!
First day is over and the game is getting some shape finally. It was a tough day but I’ve had very slow tempo today so I will need to hurry up tomorrow. I am really excited about this game but it’s time to sleep now, only 24 hours left.
Yeah, I tried to make something too big, and too complex to figure out. So, i’m restarting, with a small, fun and simple game in mind. I’ll try to enter the compo, but i’ll go into the jam if necessary. I can’t restart until three hours later as of posting this, because of a photo shoot I need to go to.
Why I’m making this post is, i’ve learned a lesson from this experience, and I want to let other ludum darers know.
Before you make something, know that you can actually make it.
Well, I got some art together, just need to get the hit detection working, then I can add some animation. I started using the http://mightyeditor.mightyfingers.com cloud editor which saves a lot of time I’d usually spend positioning objects in the right places and getting the scale right. I’ve watched the vid about 4 times now, but tv doesn’t help..
If I made a song from scratch in fami tracker, but it was a copy of a very popular song. Would my game still be enterable if I used what I made in that game?
Jake is a gambler, a heavy one but he’s always had tons of luck, one day his luck changed, and he won a Mansion in a game of high stakes poker. Upon visiting the Mansion he finds himself locked in by a mysterious force, sitting inside is a flashlight and a note “The only way out, is hidden within these walls” and on the back “You’ll need this” with a picture of a flashlight .
After inspecting the flashlight, clearly a children’s toy. He began wandering around the halls. He noticed 3 tables, a Blue, Red and Green table, similarly he noticed the Flashlight could change color to Green Red and Blue. He changed the color to blue and shined it at all the tables. He was about to look somewhere else, when something sitting on the Red table caught his eye that he swore he hadn’t seen before. Another note from the psychopath this one read: “Now you may be getting the hang of it, Blue to Red, to Red to Green, Green to Blue. ” it finally donned on him, the only way to escape was to play his game. Flashlight in hand he headed deeper into the house.
God…. EVERYTHING I spent today making the Mansion, controls, lights, and mansion graphics. Here’s a List of what’s left:
I just finished streaming the WHOLE first 24 hours of my game development, Time to pass out and get started again in a few hours!
Hello everyone!
It’s 3am in Spain so it’s time to sleep but first I want to share with you a few screenshots
We are working on a horror point and click adventure for the Jam.
These screens are not too creepy but soon they will be 😛
I hope you like it!
Got some basic pathing working now. Nothing spectacular but hey it works. The co-op backend is coming along nicely also. We’ve got game session joining working. Time to get back to the grind.
http://forgottenstarstudios.com/ld31/index.html
[Prior to LD31]
I payed attention to the voting results from rounds 1-4 and tried to predict the theme. My prediction was unicode snowman, and if not that, artificial life. Before snowman results, it was looking like artificial life for sure, so I started brainstorming on that. The idea I came up with was a robot that escapes from a scientists lab, the robot runs out into the wintery world and jumps into a snowman to hide. The game then jumps ahead in time to a boss battle between you (robot inside snowman) vs the scientist. After I saw how well snowman scored, I started thinking about taking that idea and making snowman the primary theme. From that I settled on the idea of a fighting game sort of like SSB. Instead of damage making hits push you farther, I decided to make damage reduce friction, and have the battlefield be ice. I wanted to make controls reasonable to be playable on a single keyboard because I don’t have a joypad/controller to test with, so I ended up with the following control scheme:
up: jump
left/right: run forward/back, double tap to dash
down: guard on ground or smash in air
Damage is done via collision rather than having buttons to attack with.
The only character would be snowman, and when he dies little kids would come with balls of snow and rebuild him quickly for the respawn animation.
Keep in mind, this is just my brainstorming before the theme was announced.
In the final voting round, I voted for artificial life, unicode snowman, and everything on one screen, because my idea would work for each of those themes.
[LD31 begins]
To my surprise, everything on one screen won out, but my idea still fit, so I got right to work.
I started out trying pomodoro technique for time management. I began by creating a list of tasks that would need to be done for the game, keeping in mind how many sets of pomodori I had for a day. Next I ranked each item on the list. From my previous attempts at ludum dare, I have learned to go into it expecting to cut features, so prioritizing what to implement when is crucial.
[Physics hell]
Late at night my code base began to grow complex enough to have physics bugs crop up, and I realized how hard writing the physics code for this actually is. I’m not using a physics engine like Box2D or Chipmunk, and I have never made a game like this before.
During this time I realized that hard debugging is best done without the pomodoro technique.
I think it is better to slow it down a gear and avoid letting frequent breaks interrupt your flow, although the pomodoro technique was definitely a huge win in the beginning when it helped me organize & plan, keep track of my progress, and take care of my health with frequent breaks.
The vast majority of my development has been spent fighting with my physics code. In honour of this great battle, I have decided to name my game…
So guys, physics is KINDA HARD
So far I have managed to implement forward and back dashing, jumping, collision damage, deaths, respawning, players face each other, life display + damage display, a bit of quick artwork, and a couple sound effects from bfxr. I’m currently trying to get the bugs ironed out of forward running. I don’t expect to have time to polish much, but my goal for this ludum dare is to try get all the core gameplay features implemented before the deadline
It’s beginning to look a bit more like a thing. I’d like to make the rope attach at the mouth, but having the attachment off center-of-mass makes the physics wacky (and less fun), and drawing the line at a different position than the attachment makes it really confusing. Might be best just to move the center of mass to the mouth.
Also, the rings look dopey. I don’t know what to replace them with.
Still undecided what to do… Good night.
Made an ornament for my mini-tree. Thought it might console Unicode snowman people haha
I’m wrapping up my first night of jamming with some pictures. We’ve settled on three levels, two types of enemies, and our main characters design. Night all!
I’m making a First person-Horror-Pacman type game. With the limited first person view its impossible to avoid the monsters in the level while collecting the orbs but you get a handy tablet that lets you see the whole map with the price of not moving. Halfway through and being the second game Ive made in Unity Im really happy with the results so far. I’m hosting my latest builds on github-pages so feel free to try it out!
My second Jam Game,
My first Jam Game alone
and My first Lundum Dare Game!!
Maybe its a bit too simple.. but I’m very proud of my creation!!
Thank all of you for the great time!
http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-31/?action=preview&uid=36676
Now I get some sleep and then i’ll play all the great games!!
Fly you foool!
Well here’s my little update post, since apparently I should make one 😛
This is my first Ludum Dare, and I’m happy to announce that I have a playable game already. It’s called Moose Meat. Basically, you’re a moose (the darker brown one in the picture), and you just are supposed to get to the exit of each level before the time runs out. There’s various obstacles which make your task harder.. Ice, Lava, Trees, Water, and your fellow moose friends who wander around and block your path. It’s basically done. I think I’m just going to add some more obstacles, hazards, and levels. (maybe some new mobs too?)
It is pure Java. GitHub Repo: https://github.com/bugbytemike/LudumDare31
End of day1’s work. Most of the mechanics are working so far.
Tomorrow I’ll make proper graphics and stuff.
Day 1 is just about wrapped up! I’ve got collision, particles, movement physics (except for brake and turn) and basic multiplayer down. Tomorrow I still need to implement shooting, special weapons, scoring and UI/game state stuff so that games can actually end with a scoreboard.
So here’s a multiplayer demo! Controls are:
Since I have to like, sleep, I’m only hosting this for about 15 minutes. Invite all your friends! Find ALL the bugs! Get the legendary “undefined” flip!
(it’s over :'()
My 24 hour mark, so far so good! 😀
24 hours later, I have the basic gameplay running, including pause, lose and re-play. Also, the “title screen” and “credits screen” were added.
Now the focus is to add some gameplay content to spicy it up and the rest: graphics, audio and music xD
But, at least I have a game.
Now, I wanna hear you. Do you prefer minimalist graphics or a normal one (not too much, because of time)?
I’m kind of satisfied with the state of my game. I have a spaceship that moves well. I have ennemies with different way of moving. I have asteroids that shape the levels in realtime. I have turrets that shoot projectiles. I have medkits to recover health.
I still need to implement collision between player and hazards (should be easy but very important). Once that done, I will focus on the title screen, menu and game over screens.
Then I’ll do music and sfx. If I have time, I’ll try to implement a high-score leaderboards or something.
But for now, I?m tired, sleepy, ready to go to bed.
G’night y’all
