Language: Torn between the PlayCraft Beta, or C# & Silverlight 5

IDE: PlayCraft Beta orVisual Studio

Sound: Audacity

Graphics: GIMP, Paint

Writing C#/XNA

Tools: Visual Studio, SoundHelix, Ableton Live, GIMP & Blender.

So this was my third Ludum Dare game, “Less is More” – http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-26/?action=preview&uid=8404

Good:

• Streaming: I didn’t get many viewers, but having the sense of people watching over my shoulder, and not using a microphone made me write more comments and gameplay notes so people could see what I was thinking.
• Time-planning:  I finished 90% of the features I’d planned, working at an easy pace for all but the last three-four hours. I usually plan epic masterpieces which just won’t fit in a weekend, so that’s good progress.
• Music: This is the first game I’ve written which included a soundtrack. It’s nothing amazing, but the theme helped me start simple, and I’m really excited to have jumped this hurdle.
• Graphics: While I didn’t like the theme, it allowed me to do less work on the graphical side and focus on writing game code.
• Code Structure: I’m learning lots about writing code that runs in the immediate-mode environment of typical games; definitely valuable experience for future projects.

Bad:

• Theme: God, I hated the theme. I guess it feels like the artistic equivalent to a game mechanic theme, like “FPS” or “2D Platformer”; I really struggled to come up with an idea and whilst it may just be “developer’s perspective”, I don’t think the final game is much fun. In the end, I learned more about the grunt work of making games than any game design insights, but that’s as valuable as lesson, I guess.
• Interruptions: I never seem to have a whole weekend off; guess I just have to work on that Work-Life balance 😀
• Time: Thanks to timezones and daylight-saving, the jam started & ended at 3am – that means staying up late on a Friday to find out the theme, and then staying up late before going to work on a Monday, which gets rough.
• Focus: On top of interruptions, I can’t seem to focus on a task till the last few hours, but that’s a personal flaw I’ll just have to work on.

Fourth time in the compo; I’m using C# & XNA/MonoGame, Visual Studio and Gimp, Ableton Live & Audacity for graphics & audio.

Okay, the screenshot so far isn’t terribly informative; the idea is that you control a crew of robots aboard a distant starship, and you have to get them through various calamities by sending them instructions – but you can only send enough instructions to keep them busy for ten seconds, wait to see how that turns out, then send some more instructions, and so on. With the code progress so far robots will store and execute instructions, I’m just working on the UI for programming them.

Right, settling in for what is technically day one – aiming to get the game functionally complete today, so tomorrow I can flail ineffectually at the sound and graphics. In the meantime, I’m streaming my efforts at http://www.twitch.tv/facticiusvir/

Feeling really good about where I’ve got to so far – only 12 hours in, and the basic UI, programming & execution are all working. I’m leaving the graphics and most of the audio till tomorrow, but added some audio prompts on a whim and I /love/ how they’ve turned out. Feel free to try out the current version (requires .NET 4.5 & XNA): https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/74209405/Keeper.LudumDare.TenSeconds.zip

Select a robot to program it; each can take up to ten commands (one per second) but there’s currently no way to remove programmed instructions without executing them – sorry! Hit F11 for fullscreen, M to mute sound, and click the big Begin Turn button at the top to execute the current programs.

Oh, and here’s a current screenshot:

The gameplay logic is all there; taking a bit of time to redo all the graphics and replace the programmer art. Spent at least five minutes mesmerised by my own parallax starfield background, which suggests I may need more sleep…

Should have the graphics redone in an hour or two, then I have to package the below as a tutorial level, and add the random level generator. Unsurprisingly, I doubt I’ll get multiplayer working this weekend, but I’ll do that as a follow-up release.

I finally thought of a title for my game:

Hey all,

I suspect this has been asked before, but – if I’m doing the 48hr compo, can I ask some friends to provide voice/video acting, provided it’s me taking the recording, and I do it within the 48hr period?

Fifth time round, I’m switching from XNA to Unity3D – I much, much prefer the XNA architecture, but Unity is that much easier to distribute, especially with web-deploys. So…

Code: Unity/C#/Visual Studio 2013

Graphics: GIMP, Blender

Audio: Audacity/sfxr

Also, streaming via XSplit & Twitch

Running a little late on this report, had to take the dog for a stroll first…

Twelve hours in and I have the core conceit in place, but barely touched the graphics and audio yet; I usually do all of that on day two, after the gameplay is as finished as I can make it. Screenshots aren’t going to help you much yet, but you can play the current checked-in build at http://facticiusvir.github.io/YouOnlyGetOne/Builds/Web/Web.html – WASD/arrow keys and mouse to move, click/Ctrl to fire, Tab to switch modes. Now to build the tutorials…

Been feeling rough since I woke up yesterday, and it’s hit the point that if I do the work I need to get this game finished, I’ll not make it into work tomorrow. Was worth getting this far, though, I learnt a lot about working in Unity, implementing third-person shooters and switching between different camera modes in the same scene.

The idea I had was originally for the Corruption theme, but worked as well for You Only Get One – I wrote three mini-games, a third-person shooter, a sidescrolling platformer, and an isometric puzzler, but after you played the tutorials “hackers” broke in, corrupted all the game files and you had to play through a merged version of all three, switching between viewpoints whenever you wanted. Each game view had it’s own abilities, so the TPS character could shoot in 3D and clear away rubble, but the sidescroller character could jump, and in the puzzle you could re-arrange the tiles that were cover for the TPS character, and platforms for the sidescroller.

Current status: that moment when your galaxy generator is working pretty well, except for the sudden new bug where every planet orbits the single star in the centre.

Otherwise, it’s going pretty well – will find out if my idea is “good” or “wildly overcomplicated” today, and adjust my ToDo List accordingly. I’m also currently streaming at http://www.twitch.tv/facticiusvir if you’re interested.

It’s about an hour before the halfway point and I’ve just started streaming a mini-sprint (I mean, it’s not like I’ve omitted to code any gameplay or anything yet :-S) at http://www.twitch.tv/facticiusvir

Got the mechanics of my map, the interface and galaxy generation working though: 

So I’ve got the map generation, basic graphics and UI done (current WiP build is here) but I’ve realised that my original plan:

• Each system has resources
• Explore & open gates and build upgrades to spread resources to adjacent systems
• Each upgrade requires a minimum amount of resources in the system to build

would, if automatically balanced (in so far as I can in the next 14 hours), reduce to “click build and open repeatedly until you win”.

Need to think of a new game mechanic, and fast…

And I have my new game mechanic!

This has taken a bit of a narrative/moral choices turn, but I’m good with that. Lots of writing to do, though.

Current WiP: Unity Web Build

I’ve got the core of my re-designed mechanic in place, need to fill in some of the more interesting stories and extend it to include the win condition. Don’t think I’ll manage any major graphical or sound improvements now, but I’m pleased with the gameplay I’ve managed to build.

The idea is that you start on one world in a galactic network of stars joined by jumpgates – but more than a hundred years ago, the network fell and every world was cut off and forced to fend for itself. Your world was the first to develop a Pathfinder key – a way to force each gate open again and explore the galaxy. As you explore, you find major systems – centres of trade and manufacturing – surrounded by smaller, satellite systems. Each smaller system has its own story, and a way to feed back into the major system it “orbits” – get the major systems back to their full potential, and you can start reactivating the hub gates to explore more of the galaxy, and eventually the central hub of the whole network.

But not everyone wants to play nicely, and you may have to make some hard decisions to get the galaxy reconnected.

So here it is: the space exploration/empire building/moral quandarying game that is Fall of Man.

Had to have a big rethink of the core mechanic about 14 hours before the deadline, so my dedicated graphics & audio time…didn’t really happen – but I’m really pleased with the gameplay that came out of the rethink. Also had to stop streaming on day two, as my capture client went haywire and started consuming about 90% of my CPU :-S. But overall I think that went well, even accounting for time taken coming up with new idea to not horribly overlap with everyone else.

Looking forward to trying everyone’s games, and in the meantime, here’s mine:

Fall of Man

When does voting start?