After a lot of thought and some musical inspiration, I decided to try something different than top down or platform.

The basic framework is already done!

Now to make the guy move!

 

Walking animations take too much time!

Still needs work (front leg looks like it’s bouncing back and forth), but dammit, moving on!

In the wise words of Ash Williams from Army  of Darkness: “Oh nooo! I’ve slept too much!”

But having your batteries charged makes a big  difference. I can already think clearer than before. Here’s a simple screenshot:

 

What I’ve got so far:

1. Moving between rooms engine.
2. Crappy collision detection (improving that now)
3. Layers! You can walk behind stuff!
4. Walking and running, with animation. Looks pretty good in game. Running animation is just a sped-up walking animation right now.
5. The character also blinks. Not a huge thing, but these details are the things that bring life to characters.

Now to fix the collision and make locked doors and interactive objects.

 

Since I don’t have a lot of time to code anything complex, everything is being hardcoded and precomputed. Here’s what the collision map looks like:

Green is ground. If a color has red=255, it means it’s  a doorway or a “transitional object”. Run into it, and the game will pick up the blue component of the color as an ID.

This ID is used to load another room with a fade-out fade-in transition. Simple stuff.

The ID is not unique for the game, but for the room.  This means that, in a single room, I can have “doorways”  to up to 256 other rooms. Ain’t that cute?

(Currently, I’m just loading the same room over and over. It’s actually quite creepy. I think I’m gonna use this!)

When I change a rooms, I have a state object that gives me the previous room name. I can use this to place the character in the proper location in the new room, as well as run state-specific events later.

 

All right, enough talking. Must write more code!

Here’s a playable preview. Or just click on the image below.

Only a couple rooms to explore: the lobby, the lower door goes to the study room (seen above) and you can also go upstairs.

I’ve got more done, like three and a half other rooms, but it’s still way too far for completion. So I’m trying to come up with a plan B using the general principles I have now on the engine.

But in all, I was being too ambitious for 48h, which is sad, but it’s a good learning experience anyway. Well, let’s see what I can come up with for a Plan B. I’ve got just about 6 and a half hours to go, which should be enough.

Either way, I’ll probably make an actual game out of it after LD is over. No reason to let this work go to waste, right?

4

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 21st, 2011 at 11:44 am and is filed under LD #21. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Stay tuned for explosive action! :D

Atomic Rock Paper Scissors is a time-sinking puzzle game about explosions, rocks, papers and scissors. Perfect if you just want to zone-out and not do that important thing you were supposed to be doing!

Have fun! ☢ ᗝ ☐ X

I always enjoyed messing around with a game's code once it's finished, to see what else I could make it do. Here's me adding a ridiculous amount of nukes in our game to stress-test the engine and the audio volume ramping up:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyquWmEl0dU

Also feel like blowing stuff up*? Try our game: Atomic Rock Paper Scissors!

PS: I've been working on an update to be released after the rating round is over, so the game can live up to our original hopes. We're already planning a more polished mobile release sometime in the near future too! Wish us luck! :)

[ * But not on this scale! ]

Hello everyone! I hope you are all having a blast trying out all these crazy creations! :)

I figured I would write a few blog posts to bring attention to a few games I think deserve a lot more attention than they're getting now. Without further ado, and in no particular order, here's some currently underrated games you should check out!

(Click on the titles to go to each game's page)

Save the Reactor

Authors: MaximBegunov (@maximbegunov), Astrobionics (@astrobionics), and Tvorojok (@tvorojok)

Description: This exceptionally well-crafted game has you keeping an eye on the reactor control panel while the guy in charge of it goes off for a bit. Bad luck strikes when it all goes south while you're in charge. (But don't worry, the guy assured us "it's not very complicated!")

The gameplay consists of managing several interactive elements simultaneously, each using a different input method (mouse and keyboard in many different ways). It's all about multitasking and juggling different controls at the same time, and it's easier said than done!

It's actually quite challenging and exciting, and the beautiful art, banging soundtrack and sharply crafted interactions make every click and every button press satisfying and meaningful, and the immersion is guaranteed.

All this together with the excellent take on the "unstable" theme makes this a great entry for the Jam sorely in need for more plays!

CandleLight

Authors: Chacharl (@chacharl), Mathis Bressaud (@mathis-bressaud), and PaulLyaudet (@paullyaudet)

Description: An exceptionally executed game based on a great concept, with beautifully rendered graphics. In this puzzle platformer game you control a living candle trying to escape a dark dungeon/castle.

The sounds, graphics, level-design and gameplay are all done very well and coherently, playing on the concepts of the candle's function, and it's a great rewarding experience to go through it all. Clearly a game made with a lot of love.

Go give the authors some love back and go play & rate their game. I promise you won't regret it!

Unstable(d)

Author: minibobbo (@minibobbo)

Description: In this super cute game with NES-inspired graphics and sound, you control a little donkey that is just stubbornly trying to escape to the forest. But the farmers who kept you locked at the stable are not letting you get away so easily!

Don't be fooled by the deceptively simple initial gameplay concept. There's a lot to love about this game, with plenty of charm and humor, and some interesting layered gameplay for the overall experience. The animations are all very smooth too.

This is a super polished game and a cute creative take on the theme. You'll love playing with this donkey by the end of it!

Quantum Qitty

Authors: Jamphibious (@jamphibious), DFree (@dfree), and Mr.developer (@mr-developer)

Description: In Quantum Qitty, you control a cat with quantum tunneling powers! A masterwork of game creation all around, the game is a challenging puzzle platformer which require a lot of skill to use the power correctly, especially because you create an instability every time you use the power, which introduces a very interesting mechanic.

The art and music here are both outstanding and thematically relevant, and I beg of you to pay attention to the cat sprite because it's so well made and animated! The controls are impeccable and extremely rewarding to get the hang of.

I'm a physicist and this game has my seal of approval! Go check it out!

---

That's it for now. I'll post the next set tomorrow!

So keep an eye on the underrated games! There's plenty of hidden gems to dig through in the next couple of weeks. :D

A lot of games featuring original music never release a soundtrack, even though the music can be very nice.

Let's show some appreciation for the hard work of composers who participated! Share the links to the soundtracks of your games below!

Our game Atomic Rock Paper Scissors has received a lot of cool feedback, and we've been incorporating many of the suggestions into the code for our fleshed out post-LD release of the game.

Many of the suggestions involved bigger and more powerful explosions, especially if the nukes are activated with a big combo. This is now part of the new code, and you can see here how it would work. The size of the explosion (Bomberman-style! <3) is the size of the combo, and chained reactions lose power one by one down the chain.

Seen here is also the combo numbers popping out, giving extra visual feedback of the process that was sadly missing in our original release, as well as the new behavior of the nuke bar which allows you to accumulate nukes, which drop one by one every turn. This allows for all sorts of strategy to emerge in how one handles the pesky metal blocks that get in the way.

An updated version of the game should be available for playing after the LD ratings are done, and, after we're happy with the balancing, hopefully also with a leaderboard! :D

But we're saving our coolest ideas for the mobile remake we're planning. Either way, wish us luck!

We're still working on our game Atomic Rock Paper Scissors for a post-LD update. This new mechanic (suggested by @tomer-cool) of sizing the explosion in terms of the combo length is pretty fun! It allows for a spiral like chains of explosions that clear a ton of the level at once.

It's going to be tough to come up with the scoring mechanics for these new behaviors, but once we balance it out we'll have a leaderboard! :3

(We also edited the palette for the scissors so they are more visually distinct, as some people commented they can be a bit confusing.)

Coming soon in our post-LD update! For now, you can play the Jam version here.

You can never have enough special effects! Our game Atomic Rock Paper Scissors was lacking some visual feedback (which a lot of people have correctly remarked), but now every time you gain levels in the nuke/metal bars a little particle flash appears, as well as a nice green blast on the nuke icon once you got a new one. All accompanied by sound effects too.

It's looking good now! Can't wait to release the new version for you guys to play! We're almost there! Everything is 10x more satisfying! :)

Would have been easier to achieve all of this with a proper engine. A custom engine really makes everything many times more difficult. Lesson learned! :x

We're still hard at work (as time allows!) on our little game Atomic Rock Paper Scissors. The hope is have a playable post-Jam update by the end of the week with a leaderboard!

For now, you can Play the Jam version here.

Bigger and better explosions!

Other than tweaking the gameplay significantly, we've also been adding the little polish we were hoping for originally. One big such update is a more detailed explosion animation, which you can now see above. Much more satisfying to look! And explosions now are as large as the combo that triggered them, which allows for many interesting strategies.

Our combos go up to 11! (Visual feedback, bigger combos & rewards)

I've also added a special bonus for the maximum combo of 11 hits, when you clear an entire line. The pieces speed up and hit the edge of the wall, leaving behind a cloud of dust. Check it out!

It's pretty silly and easy to program, but the effect is so satisfying! (It also gives you a ton of points and two extra nukes!)

Notice also how there's some visual effects on the power bars when they increment, and the nuke icon flashes green every time you gain a new nuke to drop. The metal block also trembles when it's about to fall.

Gameplay tweaks & leaderboard!

The game is much more rewarding to play already with many gameplay tweaks. It is not so unrelenting with the metal blocks, and due to the scoring system you need to strike a balance between getting blocks and being able to destroy them.

But the last step is adding the boring features, like the leaderboard front and back ends. Having coded the game engine from scratch with no time to plan ahead has made everything much more difficult as I have to do every such addition also from scratch. :(

But we'll get there, and we'll have a mobile remake in the works with a lot more of the original intended features, and varied gameplay (special power blocks and other stuff). Stay tuned!

Soundtrack?

On a side note, I also gave a shot at composing an extended soundtrack for the game despite my zero experience doing this sort of thing. You can check it out here if you're curious, but this will probably not be the music in the post-Jam update!

My eventual hope is to have dynamic music based on the gameplay events, but this is probably too much to do in a hacked together JavaScript engine.

Our little strategical puzzle-action game Atomic Rock Paper Scissors just got a major update post-jam!

PLAY IT HERE

Plenty of new features and tweaks, and major gameplay changes that make it much more exciting and interesting. A ton of extra polish went into it! We even got a fancy intro now! :D

New features

The update includes:

• Better controls: More intuitive controls! Thanks everyone for the feedback! (Note: We tried the "flick" many suggested, but it felt a bit odd and clunky. We'll try it again in a future release!)

• Better gameplay: Many additions to the gameplay make it more challenging and interesting, like a move-based level system, larger explosions, accumulating nukes and a better difficulty ramp system.

• Improved graphics: new more satisfying explosions, smoother animations, a fancy title screen/intro!

• Special effects: puffs of smoke, combo numbers, more impactful movements and animations.

• Shiny new interface: featuring some pretty looking chrome numbers!

• Music & sound effects: a proper soundtrack (within my unskilled abilities!) and many more sounds!

• Specials & combos: a ton of cool little effects that make everything you do more exciting
• More rewards: the game is now chock-full of little score bonuses, rewarding better players
• Funny remarks: inspired by pinball machine displays, the game now teases you and describes what's going on!
• Easter eggs: many little Easter eggs are scattered throughout the game now!
• A new challenging block type: you'll have to play to find out!
• Mobile support: It should work now! If not, let me know in the comments.

Challenges

The game was coded from scratch for the Jam, the custom engine and all, which was pretty reckless for a Ludum Dare game! It doesn't help that we only narrowed down our idea nearly a day into the Jam and that I've been behind the times with JavaScript!

Working with a custom engine and rushed-in spaghetti code with outdated coding norms makes everything much more difficult, however. Even little features like a title screen or basic user interface become a huge hassle! So I did my best to fill in these gaps these past few days.

It's probably super inefficient and buggy, but it should be playable just fine. If there are any major bugs, please let me know!

Leaderboard?

One thing we're still hoping to add is a leaderboard, but we are unsure if there is even demand for it for such a one-shot Ludum Dare game. It would require a significant amount of extra work due to our custom engine, especially with a proper backend that's not trivial to post fake results. So we're still on the fence about it!

If you would really like a leaderboard, please let us know!

Post Mortem

Over the next few days me and @m1nus will be covering a few of the design decisions we've made, and document our struggles as novice game makers in approaching this game! Stay tuned!

Future

Over the past weeks we've come to be quite fond and proud of our little game. Me and @m1nus decided to save our best ideas for a future remake of it, using a proper full-featured game engine and higher quality graphics. So expect a mobile & desktop version of Atomic Rock Paper Scissors soon! :)

Go play it!

So if you have some time to spare: PLAY ATOMIC ROCK PAPER SCISSORS (POST-JAM UPDATE)!

Have fun! ☢ ᗝ ☐ X