I’m definately not going to be able to add everything I wanted.
Oh well…

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 14th, 2013 at 7:18 pm and is filed under LD #28. 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.

That was intense. I can’t believe how much I have finished the last couple of hours. There was no time for updates though, so here they are. All in one go!

Try the game out here:

I’ve made a timelapse of the making of my entry “Moon’s quest”
which you can play here
 

I’ve also made a graphic, which shows me some interesting things.

*Apparently, I’ve spent as much time on the concept as I have on eating things.
*For the first time, I’ve spent more time on audio than on graphics. I spent 7 hours on music, but I did end up with 8 tracks.
*Scripting an RPG takes a lot of time. Even in gamemaker.

A proper post-mortem still to come!

Play the game here:
http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-28/?action=preview&uid=5496

I notice it’s getting harder to do post mortems, since things have stopped to go terribly wrong. I’m still pushing what I can do in 48 hours (as I think this game shows), but I have gotten a lot better at shrinking the game down when I notice it can’t be done within the time before it is too late. Here are some things from the original concept that didn’t end up making it.

*A world map and more than one village
The original plan was to have a worldmap with 5 different villages and 5 caves. You wern’t supposed to start with all 3 allies either

*Experience points and leveling (The light orbs ^ have taken its place, easier to implement and balance out)

*Magic points
You might have noticed that older screenshots had an MP stat where the Maximum HP stat is displayed now. To make up for the lack of MP points in the game, I gave characters with stronger spells lower HP instead. This has the same effect, characters with powerful spells should be used with a lot more caution.

*Smarter enemies
Enemies attack completely randomly. They both attack their own and heal their enemies. Because of this, I made the actual attacks more powerful, and made a lot of battles where the attack matches the elemental allignment of enemy parties, so that they always heal each other instead of hurt each other. It actually made it possible to add more variaty.

*16 types of enemies instead of 4

*equipment to change a character’s elemental alignment
This was supposed to be part of the storyline. The main quest was to collect three “dark rings” so that party members could absorb your attacks and you could function as a healer to your party, which would have been essential for the bossfight. Instead, the boss himself now turns your party members into dark aligned.

*You were supposed to be able to switch between party members between battles. You would have started with just one character and the other classes would have joined later. Some optional. This would have allowed me to ease the player into the mechanics more, with only light aligned heroes in the beginning of the game, and the fire and frostlings, which cause some confusion now, much later.

Instead, you get only four party members out of the 11 classes, all chosen at the beginning of the game, which makes choosing the right party a bit too important.

But none of that really takes away from the fact that I got A LOT done in 48 hours, and that the game is still very playable. A lot more so than the RPG I made for ludum dare 25. I’m still improving thankfully. In the post mortem of that game (critter criminal) I said the following:

Yes, I did end up choosing a concept that was way too ambitious. But in the end I did have fun trying to do the undoable. I’m proud of what I did manage to do, and I will probably try to do something insane like this again next time.
Some things you just never learn.

I know myself well.

I think there is only one thing I do regret:

What went wrong
What I regret most is that the size of the concept made it impossible for me to add a proper storyline, since that was such a strong point of my game last time. The storyline was supposed to be about accepting that everyone has a dark side, even yourself, and that it is better to aknowledge it than to pretend it isn’t there, since when you aknowledge it, you are able to control it. Pieces of that storyline are in the game, even bits in the gameplay, but not enough for any emotional impact. I guess that’s my one true “what went wrong”

I’m using the theme “Facade,” and am interpreting it very broadly.

I’m using:
*Gamemaker studio
*GraphicsGale
*Anvil studio
*Ableton live 8
*SFXR

WIP

I don’t really know what this game has to do with the themes anymore, but I’m going to finish it anyway.

I am making a sliding puzzle game. You have to manipulate gravity to get to the door of your house. (Because you are too lazy to walk.)

Okay, I admit it, my weekend was hardly MiniLD-centric. I slept normally and did a healthy amount of other things.
The result is a game that doesn’t really follow the theme and has only 10 short levels. But I did try out some things that will be useful for me in the future.

Here is my entry. Windows only:
Link!

Tools
Gamemaker studio
GraphicsGale
SFXR
Audacity

I also might be using an autotiling script that I wrote during the last miniLD I entered. Those scripts, along with an example on how to use them, can be downloaded here:
http://www.jajaben.com/LDExample.zip

(I’m not claiming these are well-written/efficient. I’m not a programmer. I’m just saying I might use them, and that’s why I’m sharing them)

If you use this tileset as a base, import it into gamemaker as a sprite (create from strip), then delete the 6 black squares, it should work then.

I feel like I should be more stressed. I don’t have a real concept, and I’m not really getting stuff done, but still I’m quite relaxed. This is unusual.

I feel that this concept is completely unoriginal, but I’m not going back now. At least I think I’ll be able to design some nice puzzles.

My game is going to be called “Orange.” I’m in a mysterious mood so I’m not going to reveal anything on the story yet, but here is the first song of the soundtrack. There may be more if I have time. But this fits the overall mood of the game well enough.

Now it’s time for breakfast!

I’ve finished a lot since the last update, just didn’t have much to show until now. But here it is, the first screenshot:

You play as an orange person in a blue world. That’s all I’m going to reveal for now!

I have a submittable version of my game finished and I’d like to hear as many thoughts as possible now that I can still change stuff. Note that the full story is already in the game and all that needs to be added is more puzzles, so huge SPOILER ALERT.

I can’t seem to post any links, so click on my name which will take you to my submition page, I believe, the demo is over there.

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-30/?action=preview&uid=5496

I would have liked to spend 3 more hours on this for polishing, but I’m afraid I am going to create more mistakes than I am going to solve in this state…

I’ve made a timelapse of the making of my game “Orange!”

As for the post-mortem, there wern’t any real problems this time.

What went right?

• I had a clear vision of what I wanted to make very early on.
• I had a good idea  of what was most important, and what could be cut early on.
• I chose a graphical style that was simple enough so I could get all the assets done.
• Scripting went smoothly. No headaches.
• I slept a reasonable amount. (12 hours over two nights) So was able to keep focussed.

What went wrong.

• I Would have liked to have more time for music.
• Gameplay could have had more depth and variation, but my focus was on story, so that’s fine.
• Finding people to test your game in the last 12 hours of the competition is hard. I need to find some people to test my game before the competition starts next time.

You can play my game here: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-30/?action=preview&uid=5496

Ro-bat was a game I made originally for a last-day-of-the-year Jam (nothing official) on 31 December 2010. A few months back I started working on an iOS version with extra stuff, and that game just went live on the App Store!

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ro-bat/id892389144

This is my first “commercial” game!
For those of you wondering what happened to my entry of last years october challenge then, well, I wasn’t able to finish it in time, but I PROMISE it will be finished for this year’s october challenge. (It’s almost finished)

I actually wanted to submit this game for last year’s october challenge, but it actually took me a full year of working on it in between other projects to finish it. At least I’m finished in time for this year!

Here is the game’s ludum dare page: http://ludumdare.com/compo/october-challenge-2014/?action=preview&uid=5496

I have a concept, I’m going to make an adventure game that can be played both cooperatively and alone. I’ve started doing some tests. The concept seems to be working so far.

Graphics wise I have to keep things small, so I can fit more on one screen. Not the prettiest graphics I’ve ever done because of this, but I think I might have some time left in the end to improve them.

Second music track is a bit of a mess still, and short, but I have to move on for now.

I fear I didn’t rest enough before this Ludum Dare. I think I’m to tired to finish the game properly. I’m still going to try, but I’m not going to exhaust myself.

It doesn’t help that this is the ugliest game out of all 11 LD entries I’ve made. It is a direct and unavoidable result of the concept I chose, but still, it’s not motivating.