I’d like to keep it simple and create a browser-based game using Javascript, CreateJS, Paint, and Notepad.  Sound is suspect.  Good luck, everyone!

Question: What’s a good file hosting service?

Going for a crude 2D shaving version of Surgeon Simulator 2013.  Imagine it’s the morning of that big job interview or business presentation.  You were up ’til 3 a.m. preparing, but you forgot to set your alarm clock and you’ve overslept.  Your train leaves in 10 minutes, so you only have a few precious moments to shave.   Still a little groggy from lack of a good night’s sleep, you struggle to control your  razor as you drag it across your skin.  Ouch!  A small cut, no worries.  Apply a little toilet paper.  Need to hurry!  Ow!  Jammed the darned razor into your eye.  That’s gonna leave a mark.  Jeez.  Another cut.  Bleeding pretty good now…  Time is slipping away.

THE STORY: Imagine it’s the morning of that big job interview or business presentation. You were up ’til 3 a.m. preparing, but you forgot to set your alarm clock and you’ve overslept. Your train leaves in 10 minutes, so you only have a few precious moments to shave…

THE PITCH: Since the dawn of time, mankind has yearned for a realistic beard shaving simulation.  The dream of virtual beard maintenance has sadly, to this day, proved elusive.  Today, however, I am pleased to announce that the most anticipated shaving game of all time is some other game which, quite possibly, doesn’t yet exist.  Until that game exists, until our collective grooming vision is realized, I humbly submit… Shaving Quest: The Razor’s Edge!

Let your creativity soar to new bearded heights as you nimbly create the perfect Fu Manchu, a razor thin pencil mustache, or perhaps the venerable Van Dyke.

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-26/?action=preview&uid=3609

… And the reviews are in!

Thank you to everyone who has commented on Shaving Quest!  You have all provided tons of encouragement and I thank you all sincerely!  Below is a sampling of the reviews (taken completely out of context).

What went right?

Mission Accomplished!  If the goal of LD is to create a game, and if the definition of “game” is relaxed to include such activities as erasing pixels from a bitmap image, then SQ is technically a game that was completed before the Jam deadline.  This was my first LD, so I was pretty much in over my head from the get-go.

Phun with Physics!  Box2DWeb was successfully incorporated into the game with humorous effect.  If you poke a man in the eye, does he not blink?  I think he does!  His nose also twitches in a totally unrealistic manner.

What went wrong?

Know thy tools.  I had never used Box2D and hadn’t spent much time with CreateJS.  I wasted several hours figuring out the API’s.  I should have invested some time during the week  leading up to LD26 to familiarize myself with both libraries.

The enthusiasm gap.  As the code got uglier and more convoluted, my enthusiasm crashed through the floor.  I slept in on Sunday.  I lost several perfectly good hours to the History Channel’s Vikings season one marathon.  As the compo deadline passed, so too had my will to continue.  However, the jam still had one more day to go, so I tinkered with it a bit on Monday and submitted what I had (sans shaving).  I was so completely overwhelmed by the amount of encouragement I received shortly after submitting that I decided to take a few hours Monday evening to add a crude shaving mechanic just before the jam deadline.  Feedback helps.  A lot.

You wanted to make a game about what?  So, the original idea was to make a crude version of Surgeon Simulator 2013, but with shaving.  Yep.  Shaving.  Somehow, late Friday night, that seemed like a good idea.  I imagined with glee that players would end up cutting, bludgeoning, or otherwise mutilating their cartoon selves.  I envisioned Dexteresque blood splatters, Gwar-tastic fountains of gore… but sometime Saturday evening I was regretting my game choice.  There was supposed to be a timer counting down and a blood loss meter that, if emptied, would cause you to black out.  You would be able to stanch the flow with toilet paper, and… and… as the hours wore on, it just seemed like there was too much to do and I found I had lost interest.

Conclusion

1. Know your tools.
2. Solicit feedback early and often.  It helps to maintain your enthusiasm.
3. Don’t bite off more than you can chew in 48 hours.
4. Keep your code clean and well organized.  You have plenty of time to comment and refactor, so there’s no excuse for messy code.
5. Maintain a good supply of Oreo’s and milk.  Seriously.

Happy shaving!

I hereby declare that I will be using the following tools, libraries, and services for Ludum Dare 29:

• LÖVE (Lua)
• bfxr
• Inkscape
• Notepad++
• github

Good luck and may fortune favor the foolish.

A game within a game within a game… Inception-style, sorta.  Galaga + Missile Command + Wizards of Wor.  Start in orbit above Earth… fighting alien invaders (Galaga)… they break through your defenses and begin to bombard the planet surface (Missile Command)… once again, your defenses crumble under the unrelenting assault… they make landfall and bury themselves into the ground… you must dislodge them by sending heavily armed soldiers into their subterranean hives (Wizards of Wor-like).  So, there’s a maze game within a missile shooty game within a space invaders-type game… with a dash of undergroundedness thrown in for good measure.  Seems do-able now… we’ll see how it looks in the morning.

A game within a game within a game is too complicated.  Not enough time to focus on one game, let alone three.

What if… humans left Earth to explore the galaxy… they stumbled upon hostile aliens… Earth is destroyed (think Titan A.E.), humanity is scattered… relentlessly pursued… by chance, they discover an ancient outpost beneath the surface of a rogue planet… accidentally activate the outpost’s power plant and discover a vast base carved deep into the planet (think the Krell city in Forbidden Planet).  It’s not long before they find devices of great power.  However, their pursuers have been alerted to their activities… and now it’s a race against time to exploit the ancient technology or face total destruction.  Initially, you have meager defenses (only what the humans brought with them, just a few missile launchers and precious few missiles).  As your scientists study the alien technology, they learn to tap its power, unlocking potent weapons.  You must defend the outpost and defeat the aliens by exploiting the outpost’s resources… the key to humanity’s salvation lies… beneath the surface.  Or… yet another Missile Command clone. =)

Had to throw out almost all of my original ideas and ended up with a Missile Command clone.  Between waves was supposed to be some base building, research, and upgrades.

Link to Game

If you used LÖVE (Love2D game engine) this time around, are you distributing the .love file, or are you making Windows, MacOS, and Ubuntu executables/apps/distros (or both)?  How many people used LÖVE?

What do people who are judging games prefer?

Thanks!

Assembling team to compete in JAM.