Once again I am taking part in Ludum Dare, had a tough decision this year as I could have gone to a discussion on Alan Wake and met Sam Lake, however that was cancelled due to travel issues (plus I chose to go with Ludum Dare when deciding anyway).

So I’ve started my day with an awesome breakfast

Beans on Toast (apologies for the low res image, having internet issues so i had to keep it small)

I have an idea for my game, just gotta start getting it altogether now, I would mention it, but I want to keep it a surprise Hopefully nobody else will be using my idea, keep it nice and original, that is as long as I can finish it in time

Oh yeah and I’m using Game Maker, as I can hardly code.

Tags: beans on toast, ideas, islands, LD17

I’ve written up my first update (6 hours) here, with a screenshot.

It wasn’t nearly as productive as my first Ld16 segment, but I’m feeling good about it.

Heading to bed, but pictures will be posted in the morning!

Good morning everyone.. Just woke up and trying to get started.. “Islands” as a theme.. Not the worst of them all, but it will likely some time to figure out something original.. Also the tech is totally open. I’m somewhat tempted to go with .NET, F# and SlimDX. Meaning at most 3 people will try out the game, so it becomes more of a story + screenshot competition. Good luck everyone and have fun creating your entries!

Tags: LD17

Hi everybody!

Islands sounds like a good theme and I’ve already got a fairly good idea for a game which I might just be able to pull off in the next 48 hours.

So for this entry I will be using:

* Python
* Pygame
* Pygame-fenix
* Pycatcher (If I can get it working)
* Graphics gale
* GIMP
* Rosegarden / Cakewalk
* Sfxr

One of my main goals this time round is to get some music in there, so I’m going to have to round off my gameplay and graphics with plenty of time to spare for that, I think.

Anyway, good luck everybody!

Tags: hello, theme, tools

Ok, I’m in. And I’m hungover. This will be interesting.

I’m moving pretty slow, I admit.  But I do have a little bit to show.

Jealous Gods: Prototype #1

There’s not much to see, but all the internal structure data is in the game.  Level definitions, where to position the islands, what their initial populations are, etc.

food is crap, well sorta a nice hot cup of stout tea, and a pre-packed honey bun

So progress, starting to feel nappy, hence the tea + sugar, I have been up since 7am, worked a full day and am now on hour 7 of ludum dare (4 am the next day, hardcore!)

have love loading my collision map no problem, and have the ui part of the game pieced together, about to start on the water animation

game mechanics seeming to be ok on paper, so far, so good

Workspace #1: Starbucks.

I’m all done for today and I still have enough caffeine in my system to keep my dreams strange. I goofed off a lot during these first few hours and didn’t get any real work done. I did come to the conclusion that my favorite audio sequencer available for Linux is now Renoise. It’s not open source, but damn if it’s not a cool piece of software. It’s not Ableton Live, but then, Live doesn’t run on Linux, and it costs three times as much. I feel a little silly sticking myself with a new tool to learn in the middle of the contest, but I’m determined to get some music in my entry, and also work completely in Linux while I do it. Good night!

Tags: linux, music, workspace

Since I’m late, I’m obviously not ready yet.

OK, now i set up my enviroment and am ready to go:

Coding: C + Allegro + AllegroGL + Code::Blocks
Craphics: GraphicsGale
Music: FLstudio
Colour theme: “Borland nostalgia”

So I’ve inked the map and scanned it in:

…and I think I’m going to try and use watercolours to colour it.  I’ve not used watercolours in ages, so this may turn out to be a bad idea (test colours after the cut).

The large blue green blob at the bottom right is probably going to be the sea, with the grey-ish one in the middle being the land.

If it all goes wrong, I at least have the plain inked map on my computer as a backup.

My first screenshot of some generated islands. I’ve done the preliminary graphics, and constructed the generating algorithm. Now I have 256 more or less unique islands to choose from.

I have a solid idea for a game of sorts, and I’m positive I will be able to finish that. But it’s probably not the best of ideas. Still I don’t have a very good track record for LD entries. I’ll take a short (family forced :P)break, and think this over. Maybe I can come up with something better that will incorporate these islands.

Tags: generated, islands, screenshot

I’m not even remotely an artist, but I do like my pixelz in this lil’ prototype!

Tags: flash, pixel art

Oh Ho Ho! The island creates itself! Now to work on water and the player movementation.

Woke up, had a small fit with the theme ( my original ideas wouldn’t fit for it ) so made some tea and had a think.

Hmm… Islands…

After some scribbling in GIMP, I ended up with this.. so a piratey game sounds like it could be fun to do!
Also, I’ve already done most of the tiles I’ll need now, and they’re not too horrendous for a change either.
Enjoy the test tile grid I created.. now to actually get some code done!
Decided I’ll be using SGZEngine again… but perhaps gutting bits out as I go in preparation of redoing the thing.
More details about YARGH! ( working title, though it’ll probably stay ) as I think of them!

YARGH! Tile Example

Initiations are today, and papers/finals are starting to collide now, so I’ve come to accept that I won’t be able to finish a game this weekend. Still, I hope to learn a lot so I can compete for real next time.

Tags: newbie

Ok, it’s my first time in LD and I hope I can make at least something playable. I was looking forward to the theme parallel universes and had some interesting ideas for that, but I guess islands will have to do

First hour I spent figuring out what I was going to do. Then I got a half decent idea and had to decide whether to do it in 3d or in 2d. I wanted some animation to it and I don’t like sprite sheets, so it had to be in 3d.

I’ll be writing it in C++ with OGRE. I hope to have something playable in about 6 hours.

Here’s something I made for it in about 40 minutes. Models are made with 3ds max and textures with paint shop pro. I’m a lousy artist but I guess this will do.

oh god. I 100% want to make a rebirth of Republic … a political simulation. It will take place in vienna and i already extracted a smaller set of rules and am ready to go.

Not sure how to strap islands onto that pig, though. We’ll see…

Tags: concept, simulation

So, after staying up till 4 AM waiting for the theme announcement, and then staying an extra hour thinking about ideas, I finally went to sleep after I got a decent enough idea.

It’s morning, and it’s hour 8 of the competition, and all I have so far is an idea that I’m trying to think of how to implement in 3D and without dreaming up any fancy artwork (because I am capable of none!). I went through the posts people have made so far, and I can already see I’m behind, people posted their first screenshots already! I guess I better get coding!

But, I think I need some breakfast first…

Thrown some graphics together, let’s write some code.

Just woke up and had breakfast, after a quick peek at the theme… Islands?

I won’t say I hate islands, but I kind of did a game with islands on the last competition, which sucks…

No idea on what I’m going to do, but I’ll try to stear clear of the exploration, Sid-Meier-esque thing…

Time to think about an idea…