So I’m a very first-time Ludumite. Just a quick hello, then I’ll continue. Hello!

When I first heard “You Only Get One”, I instantly thought of Portal. You know, you only get the companion cube in that one section of the game, and you have to carry it around and solve physics puzzles. While thinking of whether or not it would be a good idea to essentially rip off a game that’s a piece of pop culture, I thought of using physics in another aspect; knocking things down. Then I thought, hey, why not use a single thingy to knock things down? Hence, Castle Toppler.You’ll be a spearman advancing on a fully topplable castle with a single spear. Use it wisely though, remember that You Only Get One.

The game will be a first-person, full 3D rail shooter.  I’ll be using Blender 2.66, and will have the .blend file and a .exe file available once I’m ready to distribute.

Remember this is my first go at a dare, and that I’m a pretty mediocre game designer. I’ve taken the dare to mostly prove to myself that I can design a game within a time limit. And, well, I hope I can do that properly!

Well thanks for reading! Keep an eye out for my little name soon. o.o/)

Hello everyone! I realise I’m probably a little late for my first update, but sleep is an important thing! ;-;

Anyways. Here’s what I’ve got so far.

The player rushes towards the castle automatically. This is castle level one, and the plan is to have between 5 and 10 levels. The dot in the centre is the aimer (which really doesn’t help much) and the tiny white bar to the bottom left is the power bar. The longer you hold the left mouse button, the harder your spear will fly.

Physics are also in place. When the spear hits the bottom block, it all comes tumbling down! Wheeeee!

Anyways that’s all for now. I’ll keep everyone posted, and I hope to have a finished game sometime tomorrow. Until then, good luck!

Hello!

So, “You Are The Monster”, huh? Cool. Here’s my idea: Yewarr The Monster

This will be a 2.5D sidescroller. Windows 64bit only. You play as Yewarr, a monster. (GET IT?! =D) Yewarr’s apple tree, his prized possession, primary food source, and best friend, has just been taken by evil Floofs. Yewarr needs to go get it back!

Run across 5 levels, spitting at the nasty Floofs trying to stop you. Get to the end of each level to fight a Mega Floof. Defeat the last one, and fight the King Floof to get your apple tree back.

Feeling low? Eat some of the apples that the Floofs dropped along the way! Get enough apples, and maybe your spit will become bad enough to wipe out a whole slew of Floofs at once!

The game will be developed in Blender v.2.66 with Python. As stated above, it’ll be playable on Windows 64bit only. I’ll be updating the post with pictures as I go on.

http://puu.sh/jK6BK/a548bf171d.jpg

What I’ve done:

Added a hitbox to the enemy to make detection of player’s touch easier

Made the player shoot a spit projectile upon pressing leftshift

Enemy dies to projectile

I've known about LD for years, and even entered a couple of times. Never finished. This time, though, I've got a new knowledge base. I've even finished a jam now! Super stoked to do this, and I'll be teaming up with a good friend of mine to make this happen!

Jam also starts 2 hours before I'm off work, so I have some time to think about how to work with the theme before I get started. So it's really a blessing in disguise!

Using Godot v3.0.x, all assets made as needed for the project. Gimme a good theme!

Instead of using the theme in a quote-unquote "creative" way, I decided to focus on making a simple game that combines the things I know I can do well, and fit it into the theme in the best way I can muster.

In Courier Panic!, you're a delivery driver on a basic shift. You'll start with a list of stops to make in your area, and you'll get a time limit to finish them. As you deliver things and get paid for them, pickup requests appear. Pick up parcels and add them to your run for more money, but pay attention to your time limit.

The theme comes into play in two ways. One, your truck's inventory is limited, and new pickups appear all the time, of varying distance and value. You'll have to plan out which ones to take and how many to deal with at once. Two, you lack space in the sense that you lack time to get to every delivery you want to make.

I like this idea as more than just a jam entry, so I may keep working on it after things are done. We'll see what happens, and if I even get to a finished state here...

Okay, we've had a night! I worked on my art for a few hours and made a mockup. This morning, I'm working on building the game core itself in Godot.

ss+(2018-08-10+at+10.34.19).jpg

I said that I'd be making randomly-generated worlds, but decided against it for time reasons. In fact, I feel like I spent way too much time on the art.

The musician on my team has made a really cool music loop. I like it, but he wanted to add some more stuff to it. He's now working on some SFX and he's even got some engine sounds we can tweak!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/vyujq7d4nrw57ja/LD42%20-%20Main%20Theme%201%20%28Rough%29.wav?dl=0

Working today as hard as I can. I want a game done.

Okay, here it is, Courier Panic!'s base game. ENJOY. REVEL IN THE SHEER BEAUTY. https://giphy.com/gifs/ld42-wHC1CzhQtIK3bMacQL

Courier Panic! is coming along nicely. I haven't put in any sounds yet, but the core is done (save for a game-over timer). You can pick up packages and drop them off.

https://youtu.be/8Hgv6TlKRL8

Next up is some UI, and to check on Picovolt's progres son SFX and music.

Still waiting on picoVolt's awesome music and sfx, but I have the game loop finished. Next up, I'll be working on the main menu. But the game's basically done, if I really wanted to I could submit it as is. But I want to get some music and sounds in it, and get a main menu working as well.

https://youtu.be/BTGeUOilYQQ

Had a good sleep, got my laundry on and breakfast in me, time to finish up! Went outside first-thing with an empty box I had laying around, took a picture, did some post-proc, and used it as my main menu background:

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/courier-panic

My second ever release, and my first one I'm actually really proud of! Please let me know if you'd like a downloadable release, and I'll make it happen!

HUGE thanks to picoVolt for being my teammate, and getting this awesome audio work done!

(tl;dr at the end!)

So I had to think about it... why did I enter this jam? I didn't enter it to get any sort of prize, or to see how much better my game is than anyone else's. I'm a hobbyist, I like to make games. The challenge was to finish a whole game in a weekend, a challenge I can now say I have conquered. I made a game that I think is good. I made a game that people have played and (seemingly) enjoyed. I think that, as far as LD goes, I've succeeded on a personal level.

I say this because I was starting to get a little stressed out about my "coolness" factor, and the need to go out and play/review a bunch of games just for the sake of getting my own game reviewed. Don't get me wrong, I think this system is great. I think the cycle of "review to get reviews" creates a very cool economy of feedback and criticism. And I'm not trying to say "well I want reviews and a score but I don't want to work for them". In fact, this is why I started thinking about why I'm here.

You might just say "well you're being lazy, and you're being whiny, and you're making excuses for being lazy and whiny". You can think whatever you want to think, because I can't change your mind. But I'll simply tell you that you're wrong and leave it at that.

I needed to understand, for myself, why I wanted a score anyways. Self-satisfaction? I have that, I finished a game and people liked it. To compete against other people and their games? Well no, why would I do that? Everyone's a lot more talented and experienced than I am, so it's hardly a contest in that sense, and even if it weren't true, art stops being fun for me when we have to say that it's worse than someone else's. To prove something to myself? See point one, I already have. Out of a gameshow-esque desire to keep shooting for the moon? Probably.

What I think I need to do is just relax now. Maybe play a game or two and rate it, maybe not. I'm at 20, with karma for a few more, so I'll hopefully get a score at the end no matter what. It doesn't really matter, in the end. I finished my game, so I won. That's something a lot of people can't say. A lot of people can, but now I can call myself one of those people, and that makes me feel good.

Also, I understand that this is just a part of life as a published game developer. Which is why I don't intend on becoming a game developer as a full-on career. I want to enjoy my time and have fun making games, hopefully gaining a fan or two in the process. Eventually I'll probably want more, but I'm in the hobby phase right now.

Anyways, thanks for getting to the end of this, if you did. It's off my chest now. c:

tl;dr I'm done incessantly rating and reviewing for the sake of my own game, happy with where my game is, don't care about what score I get, just care that I finished my game and that people didn't outright hate it.

Here we go, everyone. I've loudly proclaimed to the universe that I'm launching a game on Sunday so I can't back down now. Let's make this Release #5 for the fish!

So I tried to make an FPS character controller, which I've done a million times but for some reason DIDN'T WANT TO WORK LITERALLY AT ALL AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA anyway

I'm gonna make a 2.5D platformer. The player was cursed by a witch to fall asleep forever. They're slowly falling into a deepr and deeper sleep, and need to stay awake with collectibles. Their goal is to find all the ingredients to make a potion that counteracts the effects of the curse. As you get sleepier, sheep monsters come in and attack you. The sleepier you are, the more sheep come out.

Deeper and deeper into sleep. :D

Super happy about how this game has turned out! It's very simple, but very fun!!

Building an HTML, Windows and Mac version now. Getting some screenies together. Getting ready to launch. Here we go everyone, the exciting part of the jam!!

Here we go, game release #5!

Game's done! Ready for a nap! :smile:

Congratulations!

You've just completed a difficult step in your game dev adventure. You have a finished, released product. You have something to show your friends, family and peers. You've got something to show yourself as proof that you can, in fact, do this. And the best part is, you did it while doing what you wanted to do in the first place: making a videogame!

It doesn't matter what rank you land at. Sub 1k, sub 5k, whatever. Everyone that submitted a complete and functional game that people can actually play is a winner. And don't you forget that.

Go take the night off. You deserve it. See you in a couple of days when voting begins, and we're all buzzing around like honeybees to play eachother's latest creations. :smile: