Well,…actually I tried to build a nice game with the codebase I created on miniLD. Well,…haha! I started with a tank-training scenario and in that I “just” wanted to build a method that let then tank-“tube” lookAt a certain point. My engine somehow cannot handle this if the tube is child of a node that already has a rotation,…Well,..I failed in this. So I really was killed by math. I tried and thought and thought and tried…a bit too confuse I have to admit…so my weekend-project stuck right at the beginning. But if you want to start the tank-training you can give it a try here:

http://thomas.trocha.com/games/tank/tank.html

At the moment the game violates the color-constraint…I will change this at the end. Here a screenshot:

Have a nice week,…

Yeah,…I’m really looking forward to this competition. As always I’m so optimistic and have the feeling I improved from the last event, but realistically spoken I know it will be hard work and I have really to be concentrated. Actually I quite often struggle in tweaking little things that actually are not so important but just eat time…

Ok,..here my setup:

java 1.5 / jMonkeyEngine / blender 2.49b / gimp / reaper with my keyboard’s VST-Plugin and maybe some sourcecode from my last LD’s exploration-entry.

Ok,…one week ago we were all still coding and developing like hell and it is again amazing what cool stuff was created. Big respect to everyone.

I as always viloated the “keep it simple”-rule and switched from a too complicated RTS approach to a not less complicated Third-Person-Shooter… 😀 That’s me, and even I know I decided to change my behavior for the next time, I’m sure I will fail again 😀 (until the complicated project works out)

Nevertheless I want to present you a little introductional video I created with blender and windows video maker. Actually I have absolutley no experience in that so expect not too much(click the image) 😀

EDIT:

I also created my timelapse video now. Have a look here:

http://thomas.trocha.com/games/ld17/ld17.html

After kicking my first try I started over again and started a new game called  ‘greedy fishing’.

It is about two competitors (one computer) who are on a sea in their boats trying to get most weight of fishes. It is round based and the player starts. Every turn you get a fish with different weight, so does the computer. The problem is you have to have an eye on the maximal weight of your boat and stop fishing if you think the next fish will break you neck. Get as far as possible to the maximum to beat you opponent. But if you get too much fish your boat will sink and you loose the game…

Here a first screenshot:

Ok, after some huddle with my gui I finally can present:

‘Greedy Fishing’

You and your opponent are fishing, trying to get the most out of the lake that can be handled by your boat. All you have to do is to decide to get another fish or if you think you got enough you can see what the computer is doing… Actually I wanted to add much more stuff, but time is running out, so have fun.

Follow this link:

http://thomas.trocha.com/games/ludumdare/greedy_fishing.html

Ok, I decided to invest some time to change my game a little bit. Most important, the guys are now able to drink beer! Therefore I modelled a can with the very uncommen brand: BEER 😀

But it is not only the beer drinking (the ‘punishment’ if you lost all your money) I actually changed the concept around the ‘blackjack’-scenario. Now it is more ongoing. You have money and decide how much you want to bet in a ‘match’ if you win you double, if not you lose it.And so forth…

Beside that I wanted to make the game more ‘game-like’ with an ‘esc’-key popup (resume,restart,exit) and a main-menu with instructions (that are for sure still very confusing), exit, infos etc. Actually I planned to change the mutant-fishes to real ones but I am too lazy now and somehow I feel cofortable now with my friends:’Hungry Eye’,’Hungry Eye’,’Glitshi’,etc (Who knows what kind of new fishes deep water horizion will produce…) . I added some birds that fly around, a wave sound and one nice fish (you can’t grab). Well,…actually as I wrote this down I wonder why this took me another 2 days and it is still such a boring game :D. It was for sure fun and I will upload it to a gaming-platform (the first time since my very first game ) and the people teact! (The first one I showed it was not very nice :D, but I don’t care!)

Here are the links:

WEBSTART WINDOWS .EXE

Ah here a beer-action-scene:

Actually I also planned to have gunshooting towards the opponet’s boat and fightings but first I rigged the models really poor for real animations and 2nd it’s enough now. I still have one game to finish and want to start something new… 😀

It was a pleasure. Looking forward to the next LD,

ToM

Ok,…let’s end day one.

Actually I’m a jMonkeyEngine-User but this time I want to create an android-app for my new phone. I use gdx that should help me a bit with that. Still I don’t feel too comfortable with that….until now I have build a TileMap-Reader that read my txt-based tilemaps with additional meta-data (postions of player and enemies). Actually there is no game play, yet!  But that will change tomorrow.

Here a screenshot:

This is more or less one to one to the android-version! As soon as there is some interaction I will publish an apk-file.

Yeah, it is WRC (World Rally Championship)-Time. At the moment they setup for the race through the city right in front my house. Actually quite cool cars, nevertheless I will switch to my office as this will go on like this the whole day and that cars are really “silent” 😀

Too bad that the race itself is not viewable from my house.

Okay,…time to start bombing some fuzzy-guys on my android-phone:

Keep on rocking and see U later!

Ok, two years ago I started with LD. Since then I produced a bunch of crappy unfinished unawesome java / jMonkeyEngine games. Here some screenshots( in chronological order):

I have the feeling that it is time for a change. So this will be my setup:

Unity3d / blender / gimp /chronolapse

Now I have from the beginning that game-framework I usually code during LD-Time. More time to concentrate on the game itselfs. BUT still enough rules for me to break in order to let this LD be a desaster as the ones before 😀

Let’s see what will happen….until LD starts I will not stop saying to myself:”Keep it simple!Keep it simple!Keep it simple!…”

So, just to be complete, here my computer setup(yes, I know too much front light ;D ):

And since I’m quite excited about the upcoming LD I made a simple wallpaper for my desktop. If anyone interested:

1920×1200:

1680×1050

Still, 6:40h to go…

It’s 3. Februar 2011 the discovery starts its last mission STS-133 . Commander Steven Lindsey see earth vanishing with discovery heading for its last ride in the universe…..

blablablabla Something happens => Wormhole => Millions of Light Years away, didn’t think too much about that (as I won’T have time for a story). You need to search all planets of the current solar system in order to get enough resources to jump to the next one. You can do following in order to control discovery’s path.

1) Starting direction (with an aiming utility (can’t be seen on the screenshot))

2) Start Speed

(actually that were the basic ones, followed by more advanced techniques in upcoming levels)

3) In(de)crease sphere of influence (the closer you are to the center of the planet the higher is the influence)

4) In(de)crease the size of the planet (a very new technique of relative scaling makes this possible :D)

Now, I make a break with coding and start with some asset-stuff before I go to bed.

Ok here’s a screen shot.

Just for the end of day 1 I made some sample assets. So here is my version of Discovery and a planet and first time ever: I made background-music 😀

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Ok, that’s it for day1. As summary it started as usual! 8h works -> restart -> …and then more concentrated works. Now let’s see how far I come. Mabye takeing the jam-option!? Cu tomorrow

Actually I made the whole gameplay a bit more stable and now I will start with designing some levels. It will be for sure not so easy to explain the whole gameplay as somehow the game turns out to be not that easy. I think a playable tutorial would be best…Here a screenshot with new models and background. (That are small discovery-shuttles inside that particles..hardly to see (at the moment)  😀 )

I was excited as always to participate in LD. After 2 years java I switched to Unity3d. But that didn’t prevent me from making the same mistakes as every time. I had an idea and started directly coding. Hey, it’s only 48h. No time to think ;D

As soon as I heard ‘Discovery‘ as theme I had the spaceship in mind. Spaceship -> Planets -> Gravity -> Resources . So that should be the four main points for my game. I wasn’t so sure how to handle. At first I wanted to let the player control the ship all the time but somehow that was no real fun and I couldn’t find a good setup. After 8h work I realized the ‘Keep it simple‘-Rule (that I seem to ignore quite often) so I decided to restart the project! So that you have only different parameters to setup like direction and speed of the ship and fields of gravity of the planets. That worked quite well, although you have to try and error at the beginning after a time you get a feeling on how to change the setup to control the ship. The one major problem is that simulation is much too slow. You see the result of your change much too late! I realized the problem but had no time to make a 1:1-simulator that fit. Too bad.

Nevertheless if you see what I have done in the last two years this is by far my most game like LD-Submission. So what are the next steps?

– Create a Timelapse

– Show a quick time simulation. Somehow this would make the other slow simulation senseless ;D But who cares. So I will include the ‘Evolution’-Theme (beside the ‘Discovery’ and ‘Title includes a Year’) to mutate my game until it is even better.

– Online Highscore

– Level-Editor

– Make it clearer what the goal is! As I showed the game two different people and noone took the time to read the shitty tutorial ;D I think that is common (I wouldn’t do it neither ;D )

Actually I don’t have too much time to make something for the jam! Hmm,…I have 4h! Let’s see if I can do something.

BTW: Here is the link! Play it

After regaining some energy after that cool but exhausting weekend I finally realized that quite a lot of people don’t read the text of the tutorial and therefore don’t get all options how to play the level. We all have to vote for about 250 games so there is no time for a tutorial….and to be honest I would skip it as well! 😀 Nevertheless that prevents people from knowing that you can change planet- and orbit-size as well which is actually the most important part…

To make it a bit clearer I just made my very first screencast… ;D so have a look

How to survive Level 2

Ok, finally I released the timelapse video for 2011 – Last Ride of the Discovery. I used windows video maker after trying lightworks which I could not make to load my videos!? So no cool overlays Maybe next time!

Here is the timelapse and don’t forget to have a look at the game itselfs.

Merry XMas everyone!!

PS: 248 Games is really lots of work! 😀 I’m voting like crazy and only got about 40 games (yet)! Ok still some time left!

After staying 2 weeks at home I finally came back to my office. And what was awaiting me? An XMas-Gift by Philhassey himselfs.

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So, what was in the Box? A bottle of maple syrup, 5 packages ‘microwave pork rinds’ and a photo of himself and the cool goat that pulled his coach in the ld#17(?) keynote.

I’m quite curious about the microwave pork rind…. 😀

Thx a lot!!!

PS: Hope there will be an secret santa next year again! It was fun! Thx for organizing!

EDIT: I finnaly ate some Pork Rinds and I have to say it is really good! Wouldn’t have expected that way! ;D

Ok, here we go! My first post for miniLD#23! I choose the year 1871 and the game is about the great fire of chicago. You are (or let’s say will) control the Springman, the only guy who is able to jump over fire spots with springs under  your feet. Your task will be to save people somehow. Actually I didn’t think that far. When everything works I will create an android game out of this. At the moment you can just jump through a little level using box2d. Have a look

1871 – The Big Fire

Ok, actually I’m quite statisfied. Got my engine and blender->libgdx/box2d level/editor/pipeline running. Tomorrow I can concentrate on some gameplay elements. Everything is a bit slow! Have to think how to get this faster… Have a look in the video:

or if you want to you can try it on your android-phone (2.2). Here is the apk:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/11752001/1871-TheBigFire.apk

Adios and cu tomorrow

Ok, I won’t finish! I’m quite satisfied with what I got so far. I have regions in that you die like fire/water, etc. After death you are respawned at the last savepoint. There are different regions your spring jumps different (red=higher). I implemented a mobile phone joystick that I’m quite happy with. I think I will finish a demo tomorrow and put it in a folder marked with “nice try”! 😀

Here what I got: