http://www.kchapelier.com/ludumdare31/

First build of the game (and first Ludum Dare too !), there’s still a lot to do and I’m starting to worry it might not be finished in time for the compo.

Submitted yesterday to the compo, just before I collapsed from exhaustion. The Harrowing is basically a bullet hell game with a clear influence from japanese danmaku classics. This is my first Ludum Dare so… I forgot to make sprites for the player and the enemy, enjoy your square fight !

This compo entry is my first attempt at making a game in several years. I previously had experience with QBasic on a old 386 with a nice monochrome screen and several attempt in XNA and D with Derelict 1. On my daywork, most of my hours are spent coercing web servers and web browsers to do my bidding.

The Harrowing is a bullet hell game heavily influenced by classic japanese danmaku games.

What went right

• Deciding to avoid monolithic frameworks and implement the game using mostly small and more focused libraries. This gave me a lot of flexibility and forced me to learn quite a bit in the process.
• The shadow around the player was initially made to make it easier to see the bullet near the player, avoiding contrast issue with the background. After some (lengthy) fiddling it actually became the most striking visual element of the game though. Shaders are great.
• I got very constructive feedback from the people who tested my game and I’ll certainly take them into account when making a more polished postjam version of the game.
• Incredibly enough, I managed to submit it in time for the compo.

What went wrong

• Poor knowledge of the compo rules. I initially decided to go for an art style which would have required lot of visual assets, as I’m not a visual artist by any mean I was planning to use creative commons contents to generate those. This caused me to go back to the planning stage at the beginning of the second day as I figured out it wasn’t allowed. Several hours went down the drain this way.
• It didn’t occurred to me until the very last hour that the game engine would need a concept of “scenes”, as a result the game menu/instructions were hacked in a very crude way, and it shows. This is the issue with not using a monolithic but battle tested framework.
• Severe balancing issue, most likely due to not enough play testing as the actual gameplay was implemented at the last minute. It was not supposed to be this hard. Possible fixes include : progressive difficulty, bombs, even smaller hitboxes, using round hitboxes (square hitboxes are tricky when moving diagonally).

Play the game

Tags: postmortem

For the third time, I’m in for the compo.

Last time was a failure as I did not manage to find an interesting idea matching the theme and quickly bailed out. This time I’ll do something to the finish no matter what, even if it means being completely off topic.

Tools of the trade : JavaScript / FL Studio / Audacity / Gimp / Blender / Git(hub) / Pen and paper

Good luck everyone !

Things are shaping up visually and musically, but there is no gameplay so far. I’m really tempted to make a bare-bone Magic Carpet clone though…

Tags: compo, LD33

…against all odds !

Play the game !

Subterranean is a Magic Carpet inspired game in which you must defend your nest against an endless wave of enemies. The development of the game did not exactly go as planned, a lot of it was rushed at the last minute, so I’m really looking forward to any feedback you might have.

The cavernous soundtrack is available on Soundcloud.

Tags: compo, LD33

The Sacrifice (jam entry)
A cruel management game with amazing arts and music.

Cutthroat You, Homesick Me (jam entry)
A short story driven game with nice graphics and character design.

Separated (compo entry)
A sad and moody little exploration game with great gameboy-style pixel arts and music.

Monster (jam entry)
A well written interactive narrative dealing with some heavy topics.

Melody Muncher (compo entry)
A simple rhythm game with a generous soundtrack of 7 nice tunes (plus some loops).
That’s right, 7 tunes for a compo entry.

My own entry, Subterranean, is available here.

I’m in for the fourth time !

2D or 3D ? Compo or jam ? Card game, silly action game, abstract exploration game or tough as nails bullet hell ? I don’t know yet…

Tools of the trade : JavaScript / FL Studio / Audacity / Gimp / Blender / Git(hub) / Pen and paper

Recent jam works : Öde (procjam 2015), Stochastèmes (procjam 2015), Subterranean (LD33) and Imithe (JSSTG 2015)

Good luck everyone !