LD14 April 17–20, 2009

Queens

Better late than never! Took me a little under 72-hours, but finally managed to finish this to a point where I’m happy to release it. It’s a flash game, so you can play it here:

http://phuce.com/uploads/queens/release/

Thoughts before I crash:

  • Flixel is awesome.
  • Not having a level editor to use with Flixel is not so awesome. I am now very competent at adding and subtracting multiples of 32 for manually typing in levels. -cry-
  • Pixen… ah, pixen. Also not so awesome. Only good pixel editor I could find on Mac (I normally dev on my Windows box), and it had a ton of issues. Wouldn’t export sprite sheets correctly, kept crashing. I ended up having to patch the src for it multiple times over the weekend.
  • Someday I will learn to finish gameplay before art.

Fun!

Tags: queens

Comments

30. Jun 2009 · 09:29 UTC
Heh, this is excellent. Had a lot of fun working it out before I finished it. Absolutely love what you did with the theme :)
dertom
30. Jun 2009 · 18:32 UTC
I just can agree….that one is realllly goood! Good work…Keep on rocking! 😀
30. Jun 2009 · 18:46 UTC
A++++++. Would play again.
tmp134
02. Feb 2010 · 17:21 UTC
I particularly liked the icing on the cake – frills like randomly placed skulls as bushes. The game looks very polished and complete.

The gameplay however leaves something to be desired. As you said, you should have finished the gameplay before the art. This is most evident in the fourth screen, which is ruined by faulty game behavior- walking into a motionless stone pillar kills the character. This is something that should have been worked out before publishing, unfortunately.

Congratulations on your LD entry.

wwwwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh

Nothing done yet; my laptop spent the weekend in the service of a higher power.  I’m going to get started on something tonight, though :)  Better late than never…

Comments

30. Jun 2009 · 19:08 UTC
Can’t wait :)

After School

So, uh… I just finished my game. I made it with Game Maker 7, and it took aaaaaaages because I was essentially learning how to make games. At this rate, I’m glad I made it, even if it did take me a little under five days to make (eek!).

I’m really happy with it. It’s a game where you pick dialogue options. Try not to give Ted’s Mom a reason to hit him.

afterschool_title

afterschool_dialogue

Any tips or criticisms are warmly welcome.

Yoyogames play/DL page
Download Link

Tags: final

Comments

30. Jun 2009 · 19:07 UTC
Just tried it there; I like the concept a lot, but I couldn’t seem to select anything in the first menu (clicking didn’t do anything), so I couldn’t play it…
30. Jun 2009 · 19:26 UTC
Ruh roh! You mean that first set of dialogue choices, like in the screenshot? I can’t seem to make that happen on mine. I’ll try getting some friends to test it. Anyone else having that problem?
30. Jun 2009 · 19:30 UTC
Yep, exactly like that! I wasn’t able to highlight it red – all three options were in white.
30. Jun 2009 · 20:57 UTC
Holy cow! This game most definitely does the theme justice!
30. Jun 2009 · 21:38 UTC
Excellent work! I left a comment on twitter :)
30. Jun 2009 · 23:25 UTC
I’m probably gonna upload the source somewhere, then. I can’t replicate that problem at /all/. The highlighting and click detection are triggered by watching mouse_y, so maybe that’s it. Hmm. Do I sound like a programmer yet? I’m using Vista… maybe I’ll hack together a keyboard number-selection thing.
01. Jul 2009 · 14:13 UTC
jaz, drop me a line when you upload the source. i’ll look it over.
01. Jul 2009 · 17:07 UTC
I sent you an email, dess, and I can confirm that it seems to have this problem on XP and not on Vista, and that XP people can /sometimes/ play it by *shudder* installing the yoyo games plug-in and playing it in the browser. Eek!
eoferr
02. Jul 2009 · 00:49 UTC
I enjoyed this. I think that the only problem it has is the length/ability not to fast forward through conversations. I understand that this adds to the mounting sense of frustration and desperation, but I think that if you wanted it to be an effective anti-DV ad that would reach more people (as the ending seemed to indicate), it needs to be standard ad-length (or be more varied).
02. Jul 2009 · 08:55 UTC
Oh, you can press space to skip text. I was thinking of shortening the in game “days” and making them a little less independant (even though this conversation in real life really /is/ like talking to a primitive NPC) so she’ll, like, remember if you said something nice yesterday or whatever.
eoferr
02. Jul 2009 · 21:23 UTC
Ah space bar. How silly of me. I think that renders most of what I said invalid.
03. Jul 2009 · 05:04 UTC
Not at all, I didn’t mention it anywhere. I should have really let any key do it. NO WAIT NOT LETTING ANYONE SKIP IS A GREAT IDEA HOLD ON ITS PART OF MY VISION
increpare
15. Jul 2009 · 17:48 UTC
hmm; getting problems with mouse selection; it doesn’t seem to work (Except when my cursor is in the top-left-hand quadrant of my second screen, and then clicking doesn’t work). I have a feeling that a windowed mode might fix this. ah well :/

Representing Africa

I have come across Ludum Dare via the LibClan website.  It looks like an interesting concept and hell I’ve decided to give it a try.  Especially since it looks like there are no other Africans and that is just wrong.

I am still very new to this though and I have a lot to learn to be ready for the August competition.  For instance I am not even sure whether a blog post like this is alright.  Well I guess it’s trial and error from here.

Things are still a bit confusing and I haven’t figured out yet on which day the competition starts in August.  In the meantime though it’s all about getting ready.  Such as getting my toolset ready and knowing it well.  Especially ClanLib.  It’s a great library but I have only started working with it about a week ago and I will have to know it well come competition time.  As for a graphics toolset and something to create music with, well I’ll still have to decide on that.

It’s exciting though and I’ll try and keep this blog updated as to how things are going and which tools I’ve decided upon and why.

Tags: Africa, ClanLib

Comments

increpare
01. Jul 2009 · 08:33 UTC
Welcome, dude!
05. Jul 2009 · 00:48 UTC
Hey, welcome … always good to see more representation from the Southern Hemisphere !

Saurabh Swarms


This is (was) my entry to LD #08 48hr challange. I wanted to post it earlier but constraints of time and space delayed it. I wanted to update it a bit but I am posting it ‘as is’ back then. It was done during the contest.
I am glad that I took part in this contest and very glad to the experience I achieved thru it. I also liked it a lot to interact with all the contestants during the actual time and how things worked out. There was no intention to score but the only task was to be able to complete it in that duration which I did. Since it was one of my firsts I simply could not stand the stress after the compo though! I had a lot of headache’s hehe. But since then I became more strong physically. Later I did a lot of such “night stands” dusk to dawn to noon for other tasks in life.


LD48 CHALLANGE.

Hello!

Final Release of my LD48 Entry.

GamePlay:

1 Use key W A S D to move around

2 Use key R to Reset the Game

3 MOUSE to Look Around

4 Esc to quit(Dont Quit!)

Playing

1 Goto the Rolling pillar to to Improve Health but be carefull, the pillar will
throw you away if you go too close to it.Just stay close to it to improve health
and dont stick to it

2 Goto the Exit Post to goto the next Level. Exit Posts change their
position every time level changes so you have to find its location.

3 When Level changes,Position of player changes

4 Stay away from swarns they eat you like crazy.

5 Dont foget to look around for the new position of exit post

6 Use Less Brightness and Contrast as possible :)

Suggestion: Tryto play upto 25 levels.The 25th level is most difficult.THe planes will lock you up you you go close to them

FeedBack Nessary!

StartTheGame by going into Folder SaurabhSwarm
and Clicking SaurabhSwarm.exe

This game was made in DXSDK 8.1, VC++6.0,Jim Adams dx libraries.

All Coding & Artwork Done by me Groundup including 3DMeshes and Textures

Art Softwares Used: Photoshop and 3DMax5.Panda .Xporter

saurabh <AT> ITnauts.com

DOWNLOAD http://www.itnauts.com/LD/SaurabhSwarns.rar:


Best Regards
Saurabh!

Tags: #8, DirectX 8, ld, panda xporter, Saurabh, swarms

Pixel Extravaganza

Dear Ludum Darerers,

Are you tired of programmer art? Don’t you hate making sprites? Well, here’s the Solution: Pixel Extravaganza! PEx is an application which creates EVERY possible sprite EVER possible with 4×4 Pixels! All you have to do is press SPACE when you see one you want! PEx will save 3 different sizes of the selected sprite and put it in the \sprites folder! :O If you want a completely different sprite, press ENTER to randomize all colours! If you think it’s going to slow or to fast just press the UP or DOWN arrow key to adjust the speed! Marvellous isn’t it?

Okay, the shouty-add part is over. Now a little more serious. I found Dr Petter’s SFXR which can be used to create any retro game sound you want. So I thought…Mmmm, can’t that be done with sprites too? Well, the answer is obviously no.  Still, this is what I made and I wanted to share it just for the fun of it’s ridiculousness. Maybe it could be used to inspire graphix or ideas for a Mini-LD? But mostly it should be used to laugh at and then be forgotten again! ^^

Download PEx.zip

Cheers,

~Igor

Comments

PoV
11. Jul 2009 · 14:49 UTC
Haha, Nice. 😉
11. Jul 2009 · 15:16 UTC
Thanks! XD
SpaceManiac
11. Jul 2009 · 19:47 UTC
Yay?!
SpaceManiac
11. Jul 2009 · 19:49 UTC
I lack alleg42.dll, sadly.
12. Jul 2009 · 07:43 UTC
alleg42.dll can be downloaded like any .dll =D
14. Jul 2009 · 13:37 UTC
Well, it may be a good idea after all… Maybe I’ll try my hand at something similar.
14. Jul 2009 · 17:46 UTC
Actually, it’d probably be best as a community thing, so here’s my proposal:
PoV
14. Jul 2009 · 19:51 UTC
If I understand correctly, Petri (KlooniGames, Crayon Physics) has been experimenting with this sort of thing for creating Space Invader’esc art.
15. Jul 2009 · 04:07 UTC
Wow! It was nothing more than a stupid idea XD
16. Jul 2009 · 10:08 UTC
Wow! Awesome you started! =D

It’s a pity I have no clue on how to see what it does right now… :(

Convenience

Convenience

I had a summer course and couldn’t enter at the time, and then I decided to fix every design flaw, but increpare said (and confirmed :P) the deadline is not-too-strict so that’s okay.

I have no experience with domestic violence, so it’s more about that one time I was in a bad mood.

Play until the end!

Download (Windows)

Tags: final, tigs

Comments

15. Jul 2009 · 09:13 UTC
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH
Banni
18. Jul 2009 · 08:24 UTC
Is it me, or is that game really difficult? That little guy at the bottom certainly makes me want to inflict some domestic violence him! Why won’t he just stop. Please!
Super-Dot
20. Jul 2009 · 17:29 UTC
That’s what the down arrow key is for! 😀
Banni
21. Jul 2009 · 20:42 UTC
Ahh….

Now I managed to get the thing :)

“Domestic Violence”

Prompted by Superdotman, I’ve been working on my own Domestic Violence game, helpfully titled ‘Domestic Violence’. (I actually started after the deadline – the original one – so it is hardly any later now than it was to start with!) I did not really feel like making a game about depressing real-life things. So instead, I made a game about houses beating each-other up with cannons and giant wrecking-balls.

Domestic Violence

The thing on the left is a mobile home, shooting at me with its cannon. (It is also like a Siege Tank from Starcraft, just because I really liked the way they deployed.)

Anyway, that is a thing.

Comments

SpaceManiac
23. Jul 2009 · 19:37 UTC
Try to pick a nicer window title than “tk” :p

Coming Soon: July Mini-LD

Just a heads-up, July Mini-LD (mini LD#11) is coming up next weekend (7/24 – 7/26). Expect a “classic” format, should be a nice warm-up for August LD.

Comments

increpare
20. Jul 2009 · 15:49 UTC
excellent :)
20. Jul 2009 · 20:47 UTC
Ohhh… classic… does that mean pixelized stuff?? or oldies??
jovoc
20. Jul 2009 · 22:06 UTC
nah just “classic LD rules”… even though I’ve been really enjoying the creative mini-LD’s rules a lot — the ms-paint level editor was brilliant…
noonat
21. Jul 2009 · 01:31 UTC
woo, excited!
21. Jul 2009 · 02:44 UTC
You stay classy, Ludum Dare.
21. Jul 2009 · 10:11 UTC
Awesome!
bluescrn
22. Jul 2009 · 03:45 UTC
If it’s the last weekend in August, I might be able to join in the fun… any earlier and I might have to work :(
22. Jul 2009 · 09:39 UTC
But PyWeek starts on August 30th so that could be a conflict for some people…
increpare
23. Jul 2009 · 09:25 UTC
but that’s not overlapping at all!
24. Jul 2009 · 07:11 UTC
At what time will the theme be announced?
dertom
24. Jul 2009 · 09:54 UTC
That is a good question and I hope you didn’t meant with “classic” format strict (time)rules. Especially for us europeans it was really nice that the last MiniLD’s themes were announced quite early so we could start on “our” friday evening and were not forced to start at 5 am on saturday….

GFXR

Dear Ludum Darerers,

I suppose all of you (or at least a lot) know about Dr Petters excellent SFXR application so Jonny D and I have decided to (specially for Ludum Dare) create an application called GFXR! Yes, that’s right! A Random Graphics Generator =D

In my attempt of making something (altough it was mostely a joke) I create PEx. Jonny D however was inspired to actually give the idea a go, and so the GFXR project was born.

We personally invite you to help in on this project, to make sure it sattisfies all your LD needings. If through coding or even only brainstorming, every help is gratefully accepted! This project is made for you, so your oppinion is highly valued! ^^

Don’t be afraid, please give us a hand and leave your thoughts in our Brainstorming section right here: clicky =D

Cheers,

~Igor

Comments

increpare
23. Jul 2009 · 09:25 UTC
hmm; one of the main motivating reasons given behind sfxr was that people don’t put effort into sound effects; people already do put a lot of work into gfx, though, so I’m not sure it can philosophically parallel it too closely.
23. Jul 2009 · 09:50 UTC
That’s true, though if gfxr can do for ‘programmer art’ what sfxr does for ‘programmer sound’ (i.e. replace ‘bad’ with ‘cheesy’), then it’s a job well done ;P
25. Jul 2009 · 06:27 UTC
Cool idea. Can’t wait to see some screenshots.
26. Jul 2009 · 23:08 UTC
I mentioned this in IRC, so I thought I’d mirror what was said here. Petri’s experiments in creating Space Invader’esc graphics… a-la a GFXr. I believe he ended up using it in his post-it-note game.

Ludum Dare 15 – August 28th-30th Weekend

Greetings Sports Fans,

Phil and I have been incredibly busy as of late, but it’s that time of year. Ludum Dare time.

The 15th Ludum Dare 48 hour competition is scheduled for this upcoming August 28th-30th weekend. As usual, theme voting will take place the week of, and the competition will start at the usual time.

Theme suggestions are now open, so share your ideas on the Wiki.

http://www.ludumdare.com/wiki/ld15:themes

Before I talk about the other stuff, I’d like to quickly let you know about Mini LD #11 this weekend… tomorrow actually. It’s hosted by Jovoc, so tune to the site tomorrow for the theme.

http://www.ludumdare.com/…/july-mini-ld/

Now, the other stuff.

As you may or may not have heard, Phil and I were both finalist in the IGF this year. We flew out to San Fransisco for GDC in March, and exhibited our iPhone games (Phil with Galcon and me with Smiles). Between everything that happened, we still managed to run a competition a month later in April. Somehow, that competition was our biggest one yet with an incredible turn out of 121 entries! So wow, it seems we’re surrounded by awesome.

Our hope was (and still is) to set some time aside to improve the site and how we run the competition. But wow… I’m not sure who’s to blame (the IGF or the “hotness” of the iPhone), but stuff since GDC and the IGF has certainly snowballed in to lots more work for us both (especially stuff right now). We’re going to do what we can to try and make things run smoother, but I wouldn’t expect the super-magical perfect revamp by the end of August. We’re both quite fond of and committed to the community, but timing is such a delicate thing. ;)

As always, feel free to leave us comments and feedback (call us slackers, etc).

Regards,
Mike Kasprzak (AKA: PoV)

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This entry was posted on Thursday, July 23rd, 2009 at 1:23 pm and is filed under LD #15 - Caverns - 2009. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

July Mini-LD — SANDBOX

The gameplay theme is “Sandbox”. Sandbox games are about exploration and unexpected interactions. They often focus on emergent gameplay rather than scripted events, and avoid explicit goals even going so far as to omit explicit win/loss conditions. Examples range from simulators like SimCity or “toys” like the creatures in Black & White, to the non-mission-based parts of open world games like GTA. Alternatively, you can take the theme literally, and make any sort of game about sand or boxes or boxes of sand. Or really, any other interpretation of the theme that you can dream up is perfectly valid.

In addition to the gameplay theme, in keeping with the classic LD format, there’s also an “aesthetic theme”. The aesthetic theme is Cute (or Anti-Cute). As always, the aesthetic theme is COMPLETELY OPTIONAL and you are free to ignore it.

  • There’s no strict start/end times, just limit yourself to 48 hours over the weekend.
  • All gameplay code, art and assets must be created by you during the 48 hour period.
  • You may use any tools, engines or libraries you wish (unlike regular LD which has some restrictions on allowed tools).

That’s it!  Have fun!

Comments

increpare
24. Jul 2009 · 14:38 UTC
hmm…cool
24. Jul 2009 · 15:16 UTC
Awesome themes!
24. Jul 2009 · 17:37 UTC
Oh neat, commitment-free weekend and it turns out there’s a mini-ld! With a cool theme to boot! yay :)
24. Jul 2009 · 17:56 UTC
quite good theme :)
Super-Dot
24. Jul 2009 · 18:18 UTC
This should be interesting! I’ve been wondering how to make emergent gameplay.
24. Jul 2009 · 18:38 UTC
I’m out for this one, but I’m looking forward to playing the games :)
24. Jul 2009 · 19:11 UTC
I wish these Mini-LDs were a bit longer, and not on the weekends… I can’t do shit in those two days, but I’d love to participate in one. Oh well.
SpaceManiac
24. Jul 2009 · 19:30 UTC
Boxes of sand! Fun.
24. Jul 2009 · 22:55 UTC
I hope I can spare a day to make something for this. Something worthwhile, hopefully.
25. Jul 2009 · 02:58 UTC
Good luck people!

Super Action Ninja Agents

Well, I think I’m gonna be taking part in this LD. I’m going to be using Flex with the flixel framework (http://flixel.org/forums/index.php?topic=6). I’ve only worked with Haxe for flash so far, so it’s gonna be a bit of struggle (Last LD taught me to never go into a competition with a language/toolset that you haven’t used before), but with any luck my Haxe knowledge should be translatable enough.

My game is going to be called ‘Super Action Ninja Agents’, and it’s going to be a procedurally generated side-scrolling sandbox game. The focus of the game is going to be on cool fluid movement, so hopefully you’ll have a ninja rope that you can swing with, along with being able to jump in any direction, and being able to run on the top, the side, and the bottom of platforms. I’m not sure if I’m going to have time to add things like enemies, so it might just be a pure platformer, where you search for coins or something.

Here’s a concept scribble:

Check out all of its majesty!

The black line is the path the character takes. The ball represents the character at different times in the navigation. The long white lines represent the start and end of using the ninja rope. The short white lines directly under the character show when the character would be jumping.

Hope that lots of people participate in this mini-ld!

Peace out,

Gilvado

Comments

jovoc
24. Jul 2009 · 18:55 UTC
Looks pretty cool. I like the idea of a procedural sidescroller (i did one for TINS once). That looks like it will work great with the ninja rope.
SpaceManiac
24. Jul 2009 · 21:25 UTC
Looking good. I can’t wait to play it.

A map

Well, I’ve got some kind of iso map goodness going on. what’s next? critters I guess..

Little Quirks

So I’ve decided to attempt this mini-LD, even though the last two main LDs I’ve taken part in, I’ve been unable to finish ( LD5 and LD11 )

Hopefully, this time due to it being a miniLD, the rules aren’t completely strict so that if something crops up, I’ll be able to finish it just slightly later.
I’m completely mad for doing this with the amount of work I have going just now, but my concept is quite simple, and so is my art!

So, without further ado, I give you my concept graphics:
Little Quirks Concept

Looking somewhat like “Steg the Slug” rejects, these little guys love climbing around things.
They can stick to walls pretty well and clamber over 45 degree inclines, but as our little red friend in the top right shows – they can’t do 90 degrees.

The colours are important too… but I’ll explain that a bit later once I have something running!

I’ll be using my SGZEngine again, as I did for GeVolve for LD11.. though no adding whole new renderers this time, which should allow me to actually finish it! 😉

Tags: concept, little quirks

King of the sandbox

Title for my miniLD11 entry. I decided to take make a sandbox type game of an actual sandbox. After the first day, I haven’t put much work into it, but I have a sandbox i can display and I can shovel the sand around.

Todo:

*Add phisic to the sand, making it collapse when a pile is too big.

*Add bucket with water. Wet sand has better building propreties ( I guess 😛 )

*Add some candy like music.

*Figure out some king of gameplay. :S

Tags: screenshot, TODO

Comments

25. Jul 2009 · 19:24 UTC
I actually really, really like this idea. At first glance it seems like you’re making fun of the theme, but it could really be fun just to pile up sand and make things. Much more fun than making a “linear” game about a line travelling in a straight line to throw a line into a line.

Space mining

Here’s a progress shot of what I have so far. I’m not totally into the game idea, but i’ll see if I can continue until it reaches at least a playable state.

It’s supposed to be a game about mining asteroids/stuff using your spaceships’ super-heated laserbeam.

I’m not entirely happy with the looks of the spaceship, but since it takes me forever to make anything (except asteroids) in blender I’ll probably skip that to gain more time for game mechanics.

Peace.

hmm

no pictures to show yet (mainly because i’m doing my stuff on an internetless laptop); but i’m getting something done anyway :) hopefully will be less than three weeks late this time ;p

End of First Day

That’s the end of the first day and I’ve got quite a bit done.. most of the state machine for the Quirks is complete so they act… Quirky? 😉

Anyway, for a windows binary to see how it’s progressed click here.

Screenshot 2

I also managed to do authentic Spectrum style attribute clash by accident!
I’ve left this in for retro goodness, hehe.. I know what I did wrong too ( my pixel replacement routine goes over the entire screen buffer, rather than the individual animation frame buffer ) so it’s all good.

Basically there’ll be two modes.. puzzle and sandbox.
Puzzle is basically a Lemmings clone, get them from A->B without killing them ( falling from a great distance will kill them! )

Sandbox is a bit more interesting… taking on GEvOlve’s territory again, they breed.. and this is where the colours come into play. Each offspring is a combination of the parent’s colour :) should be good for a random screensaver like thing! Basically, just keep them happy by building them things to clamber over and have them breed. As the puzzle part relies on everything in this mode, this is being done first ( and it matches the rules anyway 😉 )

Hopefully I can get this done for tomorrow night, so till then, enjoy the little quirks running around 😉

Tags: little quirks

Comments

25. Jul 2009 · 21:26 UTC
they move pretty nicely :)