So this is my first ever Ludum Dare, I’m excited and nervous and looking forward to getting my code on. I already have a pretty firm idea on what I want to do, it’s pretty damn simple but that suits me because I don’t have huge amounts of time to be doing anything really complex. So the theme is discovery, a pretty cool theme so I think I am going to go with a down right simple exploration game, where all you do is walk around. It’s going to be set in a space station, but not something like the ISS, it will be a great big sprawling space station with lots of places to explore. I’m going to be using a crazy masking pixel type thing I just thought of and the player will be a pixel moving around the map, the idea just came to me. I’ll get coding and then I’ll have more to show, I just woke up!

Quick Coding ahoy! You are the little red dot, everything else is the map. You can walk about and do stuff like walk into walls and all this. I only have scrolling left on my list and then the game is actually programmed. The work will be when I have to sit down and draw out the space station to explore, which from my notes scribbled beside me it looks like the place might be quite massive.

How the system works, which is so simple and is now finished is it takes two images, one which is the level and one that provides a collision mask. I’ve been drawing using simple colours and drawing out the space shuttle. I have a big list of things to get drawn, and I want the place to look like it could support 100+ astronauts.

Here is the collision mask. Below is the level file. I’ve got the living quarter started with communal bedding, I just need to add things like showers and stuff to that. Then there is the dining complex, with seating and a walk through canteen. Behind and to the left is a kitchen which connects to a freezer room. That black looking tunnel is one of the many access tunnels, only open to certain crew and maintenance.

MULTI COLOURED BEDS!!!!!1111!!11111ONEone111eleven

I’ve been working more on the map and decided to have a little progress up date. This is me on an EVA outside of the station near the docked space craft (you can walk in it). There is a bunch more stuff added and I’m slowly ticking things off my list. The recreation area at the top is somewhat small but I guess astronauts will have access to the tourist areas facilities which will have a casino ect.

Here is an updated map:

Those things to the left are the hygiene stuff I was talking about. The place is still small but I’ve got a central hub to add which all the other facilities will sprout from. My list is still full of some quite large and interesting pieces to add.

13 Hours left, will I be unlucky? Who knows. What I do know is that I have been working for 2 hours since I woke up and I just took a break to watch Heston’s Perfect Christmas. Now I’m back to mapping out the space station for my entry, I’ve drawn out a bunch of stuff and I’m currently masking the tourist complex. I have maybe 4 or 5 item’s left on my list. It doesn’t look like my space station is going to be as huge as I would like, but it will take a good few minutes to explore and look around which is all I could hope for anyway (I don’t expect to win, I just wanted to make something).

For now, good luck!

I would be done now but I realised not only can I add music but I can add lighting using the powers of BLEND_MULT! HUZZA! No really, I’ve finished the space station so excellent news. I swear to god I’ll have a picture for you next update and a download (that’s why I have no picture for you!)

Sorry for the spam but I have a working build for you all to try. I really do need people from any platform to try this because I am pretty sure it will work on windows but not so sure with mac or linux. Edit: Also, no music in this version and it still needs some polish.

Here’s an image of the lighting to entice you:

I’ll give you this in two flavours, the first is a RAR, you will need python 2.5-2.7 and pygame 1.8.1 to run.

ZIP: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/11377079/Ludum%20Dare/Space.rar

Or you can have a Windows only .exe:

EXE: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/11377079/Ludum%20Dare/dist.rar

As always, extract and then run either game.py or game.exe.

There is going to be errors so if you find any put them in the comments. I’m expecting python errors (if any of you python guru’s know any fixes that would be helpful – specially with the cross platform stuff). Other things I am expecting is missing .DLL errors and other weirder shit, so just report. I can’t even promise this thing will boot-up.

Seems to be a tradition to make a post saying your in. Well even though this is a mistake and I can’t really afford the time to do it, I am in.

I’ll be using:

• Python
• PyGame
• Photoshop

I think that is all, maybe sfxr or one of it’s derivatives if I have time.

So cool theme, I gotta have a cool game to go with it. I’ve decided to stick close to the theme and go for a game where you are stuck in an arena, fighting for your freedom and every day you must fight an increasing number of bad guys. The bad guys are all the same, they look different but you lose health if they touch you. There might be flying enemies. Every day (equivalent to waves really) the old man that owns and trains you gives you a random weapon and says the famous quote. Seems fun enough in my head.

So once you’ve written a content management system 20 times over and a state manger as many times as well you can write a two simple ones out very quickly. Now you might ask why I’ve written these two systems so many times? Well because I enjoy writing them, so there.

Anyway, first screenshot ahoy:

The Start Menu

Yeh, the todo thing is a joke until I get around to adding actual menu buttons. I might even go one better and just fake menu buttons entirely, just have some rects in position where the buttons should be. Actually, that is a fantastic idea.

So I’m working in chronological order in my game. I finished the menu buttons (there is only one currently) and you can go into the game now. The cut scenes are just a series of images that advance when you click, like a slide show. The first cutscene introduces you to your dad and yourself and why you are embarking on this adventure.

So I decided to keep things simple you just have random objects that you can throw rather than having guns and swords and all that complex stuff. The items spin through the air as you throw them and it looks kinda funky as it rotates from the top left, but I like it.

Simple damn gameplay!

Yay, only 6 hours after I started do I have something with game play. It’s pretty simple, enemies just spawn progressivly faster. At the moment it is very easy so I’ll ramp up the difficulty and make it possible to die. I’m probs not going to expand on the gameplay too much and work on adding more weapons, finishing touches and cutscenes. Possibly achievements!

So I got to the second day and a working piece of “thing” but it looks like I’m going to be unable to finish. Many real life issues have arisen (mainly focused around the proximity of exams) and I feel it’s probably best for my future If I spend this time focusing on those. It was fun for the time I was competing but I guess I couldn’t keep that part of my brain telling me to go study looked away.

Good luck to everyone else who is competing!

It’s not for sure, being at University studying an intensive course can do these things to you. On the one hand I’m a drama school student and I like to do a lot of socializing (part of show biz I guess!), on the other hand I really like ludum dare. I’ve got a few commitments over the weekend, mainly the Christmas ball. I have the excuse I was recently hospitalized and want my “rest” so that’ll free me up for quite a bit of time.

In terms of tools and the such I’m going with two options depending on the theme. Most likely I’ll be using Python 2.7, Pygame 1.9.1 and Adobe Photoshop. However, I really fancy the idea of learning to program IF using something like Inform or Twine. I haven’t played a lot of IF, so I have no idea what makes a good IF game so this might not pan out. If the right theme comes out there is a really slim chance that I might make something based off the mechanics of candybox and the like, in which case I’d probably be using javascript to some capacity ( I don’t really know js very well so I have no idea if I could make this happen).

I really want to try and do something I haven’t done before for this Ludum Dare, with a technology I’m not too familiar with but that I can get results from quickly. I’m a python guy at heart so we’ll probably see that. My first devlog here will announce what tech I’ll be using and obviously my game ideas. I’m looking forward to it!

I talked about doing an idle-esque game to the likes of candy box or a darmk room in my last post, this theme was perfect. In all of those games, in some way, you start with only 1 of something and rapidly expand from there. Both of these games however start with your one “item” already increasing.

This is different. This game is a story of you. You are homeless on the streets and you only have $1 left. Your goal is to become richer than your wildest dreams. The game will obviously go through several stages as your riches gain. My current ideas are that you have three main statistics : hunger, health and happiness. Emptying your hunger bar will cause you to lose health. Damage and fighting ect. will make you lose health. Being hungry will make you unhappy. Being cold will make you unhappy. As your riches grow so do your tastes. At the start eating a scavenged meal will make you happy, but when you have money to afford real food this will no longer make you happy. If you have no happiness you are depressed and will find it hard to accomplish any sort of real work without taking measures to prevent it.

I’m not doing too much planning in advance, I’ll let the game develop naturally as I program. I’ll be using javascript+jquery+whatever else I need in making this. It’ll be a bit of a challenge as I am unfamiliar with these languages, but the lack of need for graphics or sound save me time.

I have no idea what I’m doing.

Correction.

My programming has gone back to rudimentary smack stones together and hope for fire caveman style learning. It’s a lot of fun. I’ve been digging into javascrip and jquery and figuring out how to make this shit happen. I have no idea how any of it’s meant to be done and I feel like I’ve done some hacky things – tis’ the game jam life eh?!

Above is a screenshot of what has been achieved so far. The top line is your status, and will display a text representation of you health, hunger and happyness. Hunger decreases by 1 point every 5 seconds (I haven’t balanced this yet because I don’t have any other mechanics :P). Next I’m showing how much money you have and soon how much you are earning.

Below that is the recent event log, ala most turn based games / roguelikes. This was a bit of a pain to get working but now it’s a nice 10 message queue, with a fade in for the most recent addition to the list.

Finally is the action menu, which will slowly fill up with different actions as you gain more wealth and fulfill certain requirements for new abilities to earn money. I have a few ideas for what direction I want to take this in and I really want to focus in on some satire issues like high risk investing and extortionate health care.

I think I might add time to the game, and make time affect certain actions in game. It’d also be nice to have a daily news bulletin – mostly humor but maybes some significant events could happen? Events that only happen on some days? Things you can only do on some days?! The possibilities are endless.

In any case I’m going to wrap up for the morning. It’s 4:32 and I’m still recovering from a recent hospital visit. Tomorrow I should be fairly free apart from a visit to tesco and some socializing with my halls (their drunken escapades tonight are worthy of a little discussion in the morning ;p). Most of the boiler plate code is done so I’ll be able to burn through adding features now.

At first I was angry when my flatmates were shouting “CHRISTMAS SHOPPING” while I was sleeping, but then I realized I had to get up anyway. I’ve been working a way on the early game, as a struggling homeless man.

There is more I’d like to add as individual actions to this early game. Simulating fights with other scavengers, health care, getting cold and buying some clothes. However I’ll leave that for now and push on with the meat of the game – building your empire of money making doom. As it stands scavenging makes you hungry, and you buy soup when your rich enough. Various factors also affect your happyness, but it’s not balanced so it’s never really an issue as of yet.

I’ll be pushing on with hiring homeless people to find garbage and junk which will let gather on idle. For now, I need food!

I’ve decided to remove health, happyness and hunger as mechanics. It didn’t really fit with it being an idle game and required to much active attention. The game already has a better feel now without them and the mechanics are coming together in a nice cohesive gordian knot of code. I’ve added the ability to automatically gather garbage through garbage collecting employees. This required quite a bit of boilerplate code that will make future rate type things very simple to do, but it took me ages to figure out the math.

Really this is just a short check-in to organize my thoughts and keep with the spirit of sharing my development progress. I’ll be returning to work, but right now I need a break! Skyrim me thinks. I know, I know, dangerous right!