So, I’ve been working on a music-based puzzle game for quite a while, and it’s getting very near completion.  It’s something I want to release, but two things are bothering me as I’m getting close to the end:

1.  I should really make a trailer for the game, but being a puzzle game, there isn’t much that changes visually, which makes it hard to montage.  At least there are some graphical differences for each of the five songs, but they’re relatively minor.  I’m just trying to figure out the right way to go about this.

2.  My only other released game that people are aware of is a horror game, which is pretty much the polar opposite of a music-based puzzle game.  Will this vast shift in gears be too jarring, or shouldn’t I worry about that?

So long as the theme doesn’t completely leave me uninspired, I’m in.

Don’t know if I’m going to make it.  I still have a lot left to do…

I finished my compo entry, “Downbeat“.  I could probably add some extras with the extra time, but as usual I’m afraid about doing anything to break the game so close to the deadline.

So in the game, music is your weapon.  As you move around the maze, four-beat patterns are played on the left side of the screen.  Duplicating each pattern spawns musical notes that will attempt to home in on enemies to damage them.  The more accurate your rhythm is, the stronger the attacks are.  Touching an enemy results in a game over, while reaching the portal wins the game.

(There are a few issues with enemy spawning though.  It’s so randomized that in some rare cases, you can end up with too many or not enough enemies.  So if the game is either too easy or too difficult, try playing a second time to see if it turns out better.)

Ok, let’s talk about the good and the bad on my compo entry, “Downbeat“:

THE GOOD:

• This is my first attempt at pathfinding in a Ludum Dare game (and actually, in Unity in general).  I don’t know how to do 2D pathfinding, so it’s actually a top view of a 3D pathfinding area with sprites attached to the objects.  Obstacles worked with carving up the maze when it’s generated.  I will say that sometimes the enemies hesitate for reasons that are unknown to me (probably due to so many enemies re-calculating paths), but otherwise I’m pleased with how it came out.
• Music, as always.  I managed to get the whole rhythm thing working right, and even managed to get it to judge the accuracy of the notes well enough.  It keeps everything mostly in sync except sometimes right at the beginning of the game.
• I’m starting to get better with 2D animations now.  Not that I’m good at animating (just check out that split-leg run cycle on our hero there), but I’m understanding a lot how it all works anyway.  The spider crawl was creepy enough anyway.
• My first mini-map, and it worked perfectly!

THE BAD:

• As usual, graphics are still a weak point for me.  Animations aside, the walls and floor are kind of boring to look at.  I think if I had more time (and skill), I’d have made a much flashier and interesting level design, not to mention more variations in the rooms rather than just empty chambers.
• I really wanted more depth to the music system, but just didn’t have time to put it in.  I wanted it so that playing accurate notes for a while would build up a meter, and if it maxes out, you temporarily get some massive attack bonus that would come with a corresponding shift in the tone of the music.  It could’ve been sweet, but it just wasn’t in the cards it seems.
• Speaking of the above, more variation on the music would have been nice, but again, time.  Ideally I’d have wanted the song to be about four or five times as long before it loops.
• Enemy spawning turned out to be so random.  In rare instances, it will flood the player with a ton of enemies, or it might spawn very few at all.  On one game, I made it all the way to the exit without seeing a single enemy.  I know RNG = RNG, but seriously, give me a break.
• While we’re on the subject of enemies, there’s so little variation in them right now.  All we have is the high-HP slow green spiders and the low-HP fast red spiders.  It would’ve been nice to have ones that shoot at you or do other interesting attacks.

As always, it’s a learning experience, which is kind of the point anyway.  What I’ve picked up about pathfinding will help me greatly in future projects.

Still time left to try out “Downbeat“, my compo entry:

Music as a weapon!  Also, 48 hours isn’t a lot of time to get much gameplay done, so do you think a longer, more complete experience would be fun for me to make?  Maybe something with bonuses for a string of perfect combos and such, and of course more music variety.

I finally posted a trailer for the puzzle game that I’m working on, Chromaestro:

After several Ludum Dare compo entries, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s really difficult for me to make an entire entry by myself.  So to that end, I’d like to know if there are any Jam groups out there that would like to have an additional member.

My strengths are in music/sound design and game design, with a little bit of programming.  I’m most well-known for all of these in “Slender: The Eight Pages”, and I also did the music and some of the game design in “Slender: The Arrival”.

Please view some of my past compo entries to see examples of my other solo work.  Lately I’ve been doing a lot more with music than just having a looping soundtrack; I’ve been making tracks that change along with the gameplay (particularly with my entries Seed, Dreamshift, and Finish Your Project).  On other non-LD projects, I’ve also had some experience with sound effects and ambience.  Also, in terms of game design you can see some good ideas in my former LD entries that could probably have been executed better (particularly where it comes to graphics).

Anyway, let me know!

I’ve been doing LD solo for a while now, but I feel like maybe I should try joining a team instead this time around.  If I can find a good team to join that needs someone for music, sound, and gameplay, I’d like to do so.  Otherwise, I’ll just go solo again.

I should probably add that I have Unity Pro, in case that helps.

Well, I couldn’t really find a Jam team to join, so I’ll probably go solo and do the Compo again.

Finished with 2 hours to spare!

Beast Of The Woods

You must stalk and kill humans that venture into your woods.  If they see you, they’ll shoot you.  Can you kill all 18 of them?

I had a lot of fun with this one, and I think it’s one of my best entries to date.  Enjoy!

I think this is one of my better Ludum Dare entries!  I’ve been learning a lot from doing these, and I hope it shows.

Beast Of The Woods

GOOD THINGS:

1. Music:  As always, I think I did well capturing the tense atmosphere here, with the music that escalates as you get closer to your prey.
2. Sound:  I made all of my own sound effects for this, and had to get creative.  For the footstep sounds, I crinkled together some brown packing paper with a plastic bag.  For the gunshot, I recorded a hand clap and modified it slightly.  Everything else was modified vocal recordings.  I’m beginning to think I’m getting good at making monster sounds, based on this and my Dreamshift entry a few LDs back.
3. AI:  The humans have the most advanced AI I’ve programmed to date.  Granted, I’m not much of a programmer, and I’m sure others could make better AI, but given the timeframe I was working with, I was extremely pleased with the results.  I got the humans’ movement and decisions to feel somewhat natural.  I also decided within the last 6 hours to modify it to allow more than one human out at a time, and was relieved that I managed to implement it without having to change much.  This is also the first time I’ve gotten pathfinding to work reasonably well (Downbeat had some issues).

BAD THINGS:

1. Graphics:  Always an issue for me.  I got the lighting and stuff to come out okay, but I’m still not good at making textures.  Hence, all of the pixelated ones in the game.  One of these days I’ll get better at that, I hope.
2. AI:  There were still a few more things in the AI that I would have liked to tweak to make certain parts more unpredictable, but with the deadline looming I just decided there wouldn’t be time to mess with it anymore.

Overall though, I’m quite pleased with the results, and I hope others are as well.  If anyone can kill all 18 humans in the game (I did it once myself, so I know it’s possible), let me know!

Reaction so far to Beast Of The Woods has been very positive.  Even though it’s a pretty short game, all things considering, I was wondering if anyone thinks I should try to develop it just a bit more, as a post-compo version.  In particular, I think it could use some improved graphics, but even if I keep the graphics the same, I think it would be fun to make some kind of multiplayer version (one player is the beast, while the other is the human).  Anyone who’s played it, do you think I should go for it?

I had an idea for the mini-LD, but unfortunately what I didn’t have was time to work on it.  I barely got started, and the mini-LD is almost over, so I’m giving up.  However, I may complete the idea at a future time anyway, since I like it.

This time around I teamed up with Tifu, and our entry is “Nightlight“:

A child, afraid of the dark, must face his fears to stop an evil doll from growing in power…

Enjoy!

This is my first time entering the Jam instead of the Compo, and I did it with Tifu, a friend of mine that usually enters LD by himself as well.  Together, we made our entry, “Nightlight“:

I handled the programming, sound and music, while Tifu handled the characters, graphics and level design.

Things that went well:

• I loved the theme Tifu and I came up with while brainstorming ideas at the beginning.  Focusing on the “Growing” aspect, we implemented it three different ways: the growing fear, the doll growing in power, and the overall theme of the child growing up.  I feel that anyone who makes it to the ending will be able to fully appreciate the theme.  Also, though we didn’t specifically use the “Two Button Controls” theme, we did make a reference to it by naming the doll “Two Buttons”.
• I really like how the visuals came out.  Tifu had enough time to create separate animations for the main character for both normal and scared states, and I think little touches like that help add some additional charm to the game.
• Everything came together well for the sound, from the constant sound of rain outdoors to the intermittent flashes of lightning, and even very subtle things like the main character’s footsteps becoming louder with faster movement.  Anyone familiar with my previous entries knows that I like putting in dynamic music, so of course I had it increase and decrease the intensity of the music based on the fear level.
• I’ve never coded a dialogue system before, and while it wasn’t perfect, I’m glad I was able to get it working.  Using different fonts and colors for the text made it easy to tell who was speaking when multiple characters were talking.
• We were just barely able to get both the intro and outro completed before time elapsed, and I’m glad we did, as it would have felt very incomplete without it.
• The four photos that the player has to find are adorable; Tifu did a great job with them.

Things that needed improvement:

• While doing the movement coding, I had the semi-brilliant idea of making it so that as the player got more afraid, the main character’s movement speed would become gradually faster when moving towards light sources (or outlets while carrying the nightlight) and slower when moving away from them.  It made sense in a realistic sort of way, but in practice, I realized too late that no slowdown at all should have occurred.  As a result, some of the runs in the game ended up being more difficult than expecting, and the very first room of the game unfortunately ended up being difficult to pass (not a good first impression to make).  Unfortunately, I’m worried that some people may not have successfully passed it due to the difficulty, and this may have had an impact on the ratings they gave.
• As most LD entrants know, running out of time is the greatest problem.  While I’m glad we finished a complete experience, there were some things that were cut for time.  Most specifically, the doll (Two Buttons) was originally going to show up throughout the house to hound the player at random and not-so-random points, but we felt that this was secondary to the rest of the game, and focused on getting the core gameplay done first.  As a result, there aren’t any scares as we had originally planned.  In a way though, it kind of still works: there’s a constant fear of something scary happening that never comes, which fits in with the realization that it’s all in the main character’s head.  (I kind of wish we at least had time to implement the TV scare.  Tifu had animations ready for it, but I just couldn’t get it programmed in.)
• Originally I had set up a system by which light sources would cast shadows and consequently produce unlit areas that the player would still end up being in the dark and afraid.  In practice though, it didn’t look good with the perspective we chose, so I ended up cutting it out.  The only way it would have worked was if the perspective was directly top down, and I think I prefer the RPG-style top down we went with instead, since it allowed for more expression on the characters.
• I’d like to have put in a dialogue system that typed out what was being said, like most RPGs do (instead of having the text just appear), but this feature was very low on the priority list, so I cut it very early in development.
• With how much time everything else took, I didn’t have time to make a proper opening and closing theme to the game.  This is the first time I’ve ever had to cut music from an LD entry.

Anyway, there’s still time to play it if you haven’t yet.  We hope everyone likes it!

I’m already done with my entry.  This has got to be the fastest I’ve ever gotten EVERYTHING done.

I think I’m going to take the extra time to scour it for any bugs I may have missed, and maybe add in some special effects or something.

27 hours is a new record for me finishing a game.  Here’s “Symblyx“:

I’d do more with it, but honestly I can’t really think of anything else.  More puzzles would be about it at this point, but I already think the length of the game is fine for Ludum Dare.

And yes, I wrote the music in it.

I finally released “Chromaestro” for iOS devices (iPhone/iPad) last week.  Those of you who enjoy my music in my Ludum Dare entries, check it out!

Chromaestro

Chromaestro Lite (free)

A fun puzzle game, featuring Chromie the cat! Connect Green Gems to score points; the longer the path, the more points you earn. Red Gems will block your path and can create pits, while Blue Gems will restore tiles and give you a bonus. The positions of the gems will create music as you play the game!

Trailer from last year (graphics are very slightly modified, but the gameplay is still the same):

24 hours left!  Still time to try out my compo entry, Symblyx:

The Good:

• MUSIC!  I think this is probably some of my best non-dynamic music I’ve written for LD.
• The sliding of the rows was something I wanted to get used to doing, since I may need it for future mobile games.  I’m pleased that I managed to get it to work (semi-)flawlessly.
• Graphics:  They were simple, but they worked.  I also managed to get the still-unnamed character on the side of the board animated pretty well, all things considered.  I also like how the bubbles in the background and the random shapes flashing in the corners looked.

The Bad:

• There’s a bug in the sliding code that causes some problems for people.  I think I know what’s causing it, but unfortunately I also know that I’d have to completely change the way I did the slide for it to work.  At least most people don’t seem to be having the problem (it’s triggered by low framerates).
• I wasn’t very clear in the instructions, but you can slide rows and columns by clicking and dragging.  I thought it was intuitive, but in retrospect, it would really only be intuitive on a mobile platform with a touchscreen.  On the computer, I guess there were better ways I could have implemented the sliding.
• If I had thought of a way I could have made the music dynamic, I would have done it.  I tend to write dynamic music a lot, so this was a change for me to write a simple loop instead.  As I mentioned above, I still really like it; I just felt it could have been even better if there were a dynamic element to it.
• I spent 27 hours in all on it, and even though there were bugs, I just kind of stopped after that.  There were plenty more things I could have done to spice it up a little bit, such as more animations for the character, more sound effects for clearing shapes, etc.

Anyway, thanks to everyone who played it!