8′ this morning, belgian time, we officially began our Ludum Dare jam, by gathering, the 7 of us, for a first brainstorming.
Lots of ideas, lots of motivation and lots of work ahead of us!
The participants :
Our tools :
Next update coming soon!!!
Just a glimpse of everyone’s jamming environment.
Sempai’s
Meririm’s
Ephy’s
Jonas’
Joan’s
Grungi Ankhfire’s
Our jam started this morning by a long brainstorming. From using evolution through a Darwin-themed game to controlling an evolving main character, loads of different ideas came up.
But what we settled on was the following concept :
– A platform game;
– and a game of which each stage will correspond to a graphical evolution, from 8-bit to 3D;
Player 1 and Player 2 are brothers. Player 1 always was the braver one, he always willingly set for new adventures, as opposed to Player 2, more shy and reserved. Player 1 and 2 just finished their game, and Player 1 only wish for one thing : explore a new world! Player 2 isn’t sure that’s a good idea, and try to change Player 1’s mind. But too late : Player 1 leaves on his own.
Player 2 begins to seriously worry as his brother doesn’t seem to come back. Maybe it’s time for him to be the hero and go help Player 1…
And that’s how Player 2 will embark on a journey which will show him how much video games have changed throughout the years, not always for the best. Maybe Player 2 will be able to find a better place for him and his brother to live as video game characters.
The nice thing about participating in a jam is to see talents gathered. Our four designers are doing a greaaaat work, and we’re very proud to present the first pics of game elements.
Isn’t he lovely, our Player 2?
A mysterious enemy..
A saloon, part of one of the stages’ background
They’re working their ass of too! The first gameplay screenshots are coming soon.
Right now, they’re on to the 2.5 D platforming. Physics kind of works, and they’re implementing visuals.
Stay posteeeeeed!!
Finally, we settled on our game title. Player 2’s adventure will be called…
Et voilà! :D
For those of you who didn’t read the story of our game & therefore don’t understand the title, it’s over here.
Next : short videos of some of us in the team of “Player 2, start!”.
I convinced some of us to get on camera and speak about their LD jamming experience. Enjoy!
And for those of you wondering what this post title is about, the answer is over here. Let’s just say, it’s kind of our sponsoring song for this levitating Ludum Dare of awesomeness!
We’re back for the 3rd and last day of our jamming frenzy! Stress is slowly building up, as well as the anticipation to finally present our – hopefully – finished game.
Let’s do a brief assessment of our progress so far…
Our developers, as the whole team, stressed, rushed, but happy! :D
The “Jurassic friends” level (you’ll understand the title later…)
Four levels out of 5 are now designed. Time for a wrap-up of the levels’ environments.
The first level is in 8-bit mode, and takes place in a western-like environment.
This one is in 16-bit mode, and taking place in a… wait for it… Jurassic environment.
A level with cuuuute inhabitants, and less cute ones…
Cute
Not cute
The 3rd level’s a low poly 3D, reference to our good old PSOne. The atmosphere could be described as a mysterious London…
A cat’s hiding behind a window… LYRA???
We had fun finding the title of that one. 
The evolving graphics continue : this one’s a 3D AAA level. The context? Well… war.
We don’t have screenshots for this level just yet… sorry!
The Indievisible Loot will be fuuuull of easter eggs (as you could see in a previous post), lots of references to famous Indie games! Why is that? The adventure of Player 2 will give you all the answers when you’ll be playing. We will say no more.
The level’s the reign of pirates, yarrr!
And that’s all for our ordered levels preview!
Howdy fellow jammers! It is now 1 in the morning here in Belgium, and believe it or not, we’re still alive with brains in almost perfect working order.
Just a short update to announce the level 3 is now being finalized. A quick screenshot to prove it :
Player 2 proudly standing in ‘Baker’s Borough’
And just because we love you, a small bonus : the end screens.
Well, thank you… in advance!
Yay us, levitating team of awesomeness!
Our blue mad hatter, ready to roll again!
This is probably the last post before the last (you see what I mean). So we already would like to thank all of you who took the time to flip through our blog entries and left little <3’s. It really is encouraging!
And we’re in for the Jam !
This will be our second participation as a team (first was LD24). We’re all very glad to be back!
Langage:
Python
Librairies:
Pyglet
Cocos2D
Code editor:
Sublime Text
BGM and SFX:
LMMS (Linux MultiMedia Studio)
SFXR
ZynAddSubFX
Graphic:
Gimp
Photoshop
Blender
Repository:
Github
Tags: LD #26
Helllllow fellow jammers!
Kind of late first post, but that’s how hard we’re working on our game. (Maybe.)
And let’s make it a minimalist one (ha ha) just to introduce our jolly little team.
Our developers :
Bastien
Thomas
Our graphic designers :
Christel
Cindy
The dialogs’ writer and yours truly :
Pascale
We’ll tell you everything about our game very soon!
A special big up to everyone jamming from our time zone (Europe, Belgium) !
Hello darers!
Our game has a name (hurray!) AND graphics (yay!) AND an ever-growing code behind it (yippie!) AND some music (Woooot!).
Everyone is working hard to make it a success, and so far, I must say things are looking good for us!
What will “Outside the box” be like? Nope, I heard you at the back, not a puzzle as the title could suggest, but a good ol’ J-RPG.
The story :
Everything begins in the small village of N among which live our two main protagonists : Nel and Nod. They’re both youngsters and are surrounded by adults scolding them all the time, telling them to respect conforming rules they don’t agree with.
Those two have friends, Nus and Nad, for whom the big day as come : the day of their coming of age ceremony. N the Wise, head of the village, directs the ceremony and forbids anyone to reveal what’s truly behind it.
When Nus and Nad’s ceremony is over, Nod and Nel undertstand the ceremony is not just a symbolic tradition : it changes people, it turns them into the exact copy of all the other grown-ups in the village, without a personnality, discarding ‘friendship’ as something unimportant. Nel and Nod know that if they stay, they’ll have no choice but to go through the ceremony, so there’s only one solution : escape, and find a better place to live.
(…to be continued)
Some pics :
Hello again jammers!
Loads of progresses have been made since yesterday (one should hope so with all these hours sitting in front of our screens, right?).
The graphics are mostly finished, as well as the sounds and musics. The battles are slowly becoming playable, with spells, items, and other fancy stuff! We’re also done with the maps’ design.
We’re actually hoping to submit our entry ON TIIIIME! (no kidding)
So, here’s for the juicy previews.
The musics, courtesy of Bastien : follow this link.
A battle’s screenshot :
Our heroes look kind of stoned in front of that big scary monsters. Hahaha.
The admirable credits full of people that worked admirably on this admirable game (and are still very much doing so).
Whoopsidaisies, I almost forgot to include our mascot in one of our posts.
I’m fine, thank you. And you?
And we’re in for the Jam once again! With the same team than last time…
Audio
Game Engine
Graphism
Others
And yeah, we’re going 3D, guys! Let’s start this!
Hello, dear fellow jammers!
First progress report of our merry little Belgian team!
We gathered this morning for the usual intensive brainstorming session, and we came up with a survival horror concept. Pretty exciting! But we won’t uncover our gameplay idea just yet (who doesn’t love a pinch of suspense, right?). Let’s just say that I felt stressed just talking about it, hopefully our players will be as impressionable as I am (if that’s possible..).
Our game will be called…. (drumroll)…. “Get well soon”
And the story will imply an accident, a disused rehabilitation center, and a pretty creepy path to recovery.
We’ll try to post some visuals soon, to give you a glimpse of the mood we try to set.
Good luck to everyone!!
P.S. Would you be interested to see more pictures from our (most of the time) hardworking team, you can follow us on instagram.
Time’s flying by, it’s already the evening of the first jamming day here in Belgium! But no pressure – yet – ’cause things are going smoothly.
We’ve got some screenshots of the level design in progress to show you :
Looking good! Well… an intended creepy kind of good!
Houhouhou, can you feel the shivers down your spine?
Now, a word about the gameplay.
Our character will wake up in a deserted hospital and will have to try to find a way out. She (yes, the hero is a woman) will soon be aware that she’s not alone : strange humanoid beings are looming around the place, attracted by sound, light and, of course, the character’s movements if in their vision.
The gameplay twist lies in the fact that our character can move and act during 10 seconds (there you have it!) while the monsters can’t move, and when the time’s over, it switches… And the player won’t be able to hurt the monster in anyway, if you get caught… game over. Of course, we will do our best to find the right balance for the difficulty level, the monsters shouldn’t be too quick for instance.
Scary, right? At least we hope it’ll be at least a liiiittle bit stressful.
Concerning the storyline, let’s not unveil everything here… Here’s the beginning from our character’s mouth :
“It was 5 months ago… I think. 5 months ago that the accident happened. We were driving in the night, back from a holiday trip. The girls were sleeping in the back while Jason and I were pounding about getting some rest in the next motel we’d find on the road. The truck seemed to come out of nowhere. They told me the driver was asleep when he hit us. I can still hear the scream of our beautiful baby girls… and Jason…
I stayed in a coma for two months, hanging between life and death. Had I known what happened, I would have gladly chosen the latter, but God clearly had other plans…
My physical remission was quick, according to the doctors, but they worried about my mental health. They considered me suicidal, and having no remaining relatives alive, they didn’t trust me to go back to my life, or what little was left of it. Instead they sent me to the GSM rehabilitation center. And truth is, I didn’t care enough for my life to protest.”
Well, well well… to be continued…
Second day of game jam frenzy, time for a quick update.
The first version of the gameplay is more or less finished, the dialogs have been written, many 3D objects have been designed, as well as most of the GUI. And we’ve also been doing some voice acting (that’s a first!).
Here, have a glimpse of the gameplay design process and result (unfortunately a static one..) :
Look at this little fellow down there, that’s one of our still un-textured monsters
“I may look stupid pretending to be a plane, but I’m gonna fiiind youuuuu”
One of the pieces of furniture giving our designers some hard work
This will be the basis for the inventory screen
Now, back to work!
Between intervals of collective laughing fits (it’s the third day, we’re tired.. like, really tired!), we’re working hard, and considering the results, it’s totally worth it!
Our survival horror game is slowly getting there, and we’ll probably be on time. That is, if we do not experience again the HUGE problems with Git that we encountered yesterday and this morning…hum. They almost made our developpers shed some tears, true story.
Now, off with the new screenshots :
The floors of the hospital have been populated with all kinds of furniture
Here’s to the beautifully implemented inventory, yaaaay!
The monsters now have a texture aaand.. a flashlight
Splash screen : the GSM Prods’ logo, creepy vintage version. When I think of it, those two kinda look like our developpers on a 3rd jamming day (and this probably signs my last day in the GSM team too).
The game intro will be graphic-novel-style, yo!
Hello all!
I am writing a bit of a rushed post to tell you about our experience with this (ongoing) Ludum Dare Jam! If you go looking, you will not find a “We are in!” post like we usually write, and for a very good reason : we did not originally plan to participate.
We all had a busy weekend, and felt it was safer to give this one a pass. Until saturday, of course… When we learned the theme, some ideas started forming in our heads, and a simple question, worded as “Say, why are we not doing the Ludum Dare again?” was enough.
The catch : we decided to start around 4pm (Central European time, so like 12 hours after the start of the jam), one of us was away for the remainder of the saturday afternoon, and due to the short notice, we decided to do the jam with only 2 of us. Oh, and we both work today, so that is almost a full day lost again (and for one of us, the evening will be otherwise occupied too), in addition to forcing us to go to sleep on sunday at a reasonable time.
What could possibly go wrong, right?
First progress pictures we shared on Twitter. At that point, we could already switch map, had our movement system in place, and the dialogs were starting to work.
As far as genres go, our game can be categorized as a light puzzler/adventure game. We decided early on that we wanted Zelda-style controls and separation by screen, so we went with that. We also divided the duties between us : one would do the coding, level layout and the music, while the other would draw all the assets (neither of us being artists by trade :p) and help with the puzzle design. So far, this is turning out fine! We have all the assets for our scaled-down (this IS a jam, after all :D) goals, and most of the things are already in place. The levels are more or less design, so we only need to get to town with our tile-based layout tool!
We even have music in the game!
We should be able to finish the game as we envisioned it, since we basically have a little mechanic (buttons that, when you stand on them, open doors, oooooh) to do, and the rest is the level layout. Good times.
Oh, and a name. We still have not decided on that!
And just to give you some more info on our take on the theme, you will play inside 2 “worlds”: the physical, real world (pictured in the screenshots in this post), and a digital world, connecting various parts of the first one. You will have to juggle between 3 characters while doing so, and use all that to solve a couple of very mild puzzles. We of course had more ambitious plans at the beginning (like combat and such), but you know how plans go during a LD : they quickly go out the window :D.
Hopefully, we will be able to post a playable version tonight, and you will all get to enjoy it 
Good luck if you are still jamming, and get some well-deserved rest if you submitted your compo entry already!
-GSM Productions out!
The City, making up the bulk of the “real world”, and the first protagonist of the game.
Except for a hurried half-participation to Last August LD, this will be our first LD since the one which saw Get Well Soon! born, LD27.
But here we go, we are back for the LD31 Jam!
Audio:
Game Engine:
Graphism:
Others:
Moreover a new graphist will join our little team for the occasion… More info during the LD!