I'll be developing a game in Roblox. I already have experience with it, so it will be kind of cool.

If you don't know what it is about, it is a gaming platform with user generated games, which currently has more users than Minecraft and some individual game developers grossing US$ 2+ million dollars/year (most Roblox games have tons of microtransactions and are pay to win using a virtual currency called Robux). You use its own IDE (Roblox Studio) and script in Lua.

Games made in Roblox run in all operating systems in the Desktop, all mobile platforms and also in Xbox. Also it is completely VR ready.

• https://www.roblox.com/
• https://www.roblox.com/develop
• http://wiki.roblox.com

Two genres that really doesn't mix together: screaming while trying to hide and while trying not be heard. You can only move if you scream, while having to stay hidden and unheard.

Enemies can both SEE and HEAR you. So you have to move quickly out of place, but to move you have to scream, but then the enemy can hear you. So you have to find a balance between timing and voice tone.

Sadly this didn't go through. There is a huge delay in capturing the voice with Unity, so the experience was not possible. I also managed to work just a few hours in the game, which wasn't enough to even have a playable concept.

I'll try to make post-jam adjustments to see if I get better mic and audio latency (or even use another engine).

The last time I made a game was in 2014, so I am really excited for this. The last time when I made a game Unity was still in version 4, then I've been experimenting with engines and art styles the past months and I am astonished on how much things have changed.

In 2 months I learned (and re-learned some of them): - Unity (it is super awesome now!) - Godot - UE4 - Game Maker 2

For art styles I tried: - Pixel art (I love pixel art, but actually doing it makes me angry/stressed :angry:) - Vector 2d (I do okish stuff/mediocre stuff :thumbsup:) - Hand painted (too hard :cry:) - Blender: Low poly 3D, vertex colors (lovely :heart:) - Blender: Low poly 3D, gradient textures (lovely :heart:)

For this LD, depending on the theme I may choose a 2D or 3D game, and then: - If 3D, I am picking Unity + Blender. - If 2D, Godot + Blender too (3D with frames exported as spritesheet in side or top view).

It will be a nice weekend, specially since we finally have sun in Denmark!

It's my time for "frustrating theme post", I just want to point out that it is basically the SAME theme again.

"Your life is currency" == "Sacrifices must be made"? https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/43

Either way, if someone wants I have gathered some inspirations in Pinterest: https://pin.it/twnios64mgy4id

I woke up at 5 a.m. to see the theme (Euroupean time) and spent the last 8h or so overthinking about it. I actually came up with many ideas, but they were too big or too shallow. I actually had given up... until a quick bathroom break gave me another idea...

... and then around 2h ago I finally decided on a game and I finished modeling and rigging the main character. Now it is time to animate it and start coding.

Made a character, 4 animations (but overwrote the Walk animation and lost it), made a pulsating heart, and basic point and click movement.

But I don't know what to do after this. After spending 10h+ thinking about ideas yesterday, the one I chose wasn't good after all.

There is still time. I may still do something else.

:dog:

I'm in and I want to make a 3D PS1-like game.

• Godot (with GDScript)
• Blender
• Krita and GIMP
• And for the first time, I'll also try to make some music using LMMS

I woke up at 5:00 am CEST, so just 2 hours after the theme reveal and I’m happy with the theme "Keep it Alive".

After just 1:30h if thinking I came up with a game idea and concept. It’s a kind of god + point and click game.

Rough creature kaiju concept - this is just the model sheet for modeling. Now I’ll model this guy in Blender.

That took a lot of time, but I'm very happy with the final result. Modeled, rigged, textured in Blender. Tried to go with a earthly/bio-monster look.

Facts: - This Kaiju is 540 meters tall. - I'm the model for this PS1 model. You will see my face a lot.

Started the 2nd day at 5:20am - I love waking up very early. Starting another Ludum Dare day with the main art already done is definitely a produtictivity boost. Now to launch up Godot Engine and start coding the game while also finishing the art. Art then code - "starting backwards".

Failed Gameplay Mechanic

1 hour later, I didn't implement anything because I don't think it would work. So I went back to the drawing board and came up with a new step by step plan.

I'll code the ending first and only if there is time, I'll implement the other mechanics.

Thanks Bob Ross for the inspiration

I spent a lot of time making the beginning and ending and then still no gameplay in my Kaiju, PS1, World Protector game. So I'll go for the Jam.

The full world has a radius of 45KM. The far clipping in the camera is pretty... far!

Easy to mix 3 completely different poses and animations.

Game: Kaoamaru

• A short and dark atmospheric narrative (or should I say, little movie?).
• Play and rate here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/46/kaoamaru-kaiju

Features

• A Kaiju (bizarre, japanese style monster) conceptualized and made from scratch
• PS1 graphics and aesthetics, Half-Life inspirations
• Multiple atmospheric songs
• Cinematrographic camera

Tools and credits

• Godot
• Blender
• LMMS and Audacity
• Everything was made in the Jam by me, without templates.
• Mini-documentary, timelapse and more coming after voting ends. I recorded everything.

What went right

• The theme and the idea. Idea and concept came fast in my mind. In previous Jams I would waste more than 5 hours frustrated with the theme. Not this time.
• The main creature (Kaiju) concept.
• The process of modeling, texturing, rigging and animating the Kaiju in Blender was my favorite part of working in this Ludum Dare. I turned out exactly the way I wanted and I couldn't stop looking at it and playing around with the rig.
• The art style overall, PS1 / Half-Life like.
• Intro animation and scripted camera.
• Staying healthy (I slept early and woke up at 5:00am during all the 3 days of the Jam).
• Mood and atmosphere turned out great.
• Using Godot, because of how lightweight it is, but mostly specially, due to the AnimationPlayer.
  • Controversly, using Godot was also a con. Unity Cinemachine would fit this project better. See below.
• Downloading some VSTs to play around in LMMS was a good choice, because with just little experiexperience in music making I managed to create the atmospheric music that I had in mind.

Lore Facts

• The name Kaoamaru came when I was making the meditation sounds, and then I kept repeating KAOA KAOA KAOA in my mind and I liked the rythm. Kaoamaru doesn't mean anything in real-life, afaik.
• In the meditation scene, the monks are saying the Buddhist Hearth Sutra, plus 2 phrases I created and plus KAOAMARU (which I enviosioned in tribal voices, but I failed to replicate that in LMMS, so I used a Choir Synth for the voice).
• I wrote around 100 lines of lore and story.

That's a lot of bones for a game jam

What went wrong

Little to no gameplay

I planned 3 gameplay mechanics and stages, but I spent 1 full day doing the 3D art and the other day moving the camera and scripting the intro and ending animations.

When I finished those items, there wasn't time left for the gameplay, ironically. So I prefered to do the music and pack the project, and consider it a short and dark narrative.

Even the art for the gameplay mechanics is done, but again, I focused too much time on the art. For example, there is a human model, fully rigged and animated that I made, but didn't use for lack of time. Also more island types such as factory, war, city, etc., which fit perfectly the lore, but I could put they in.

At least I love the final atmosphere in it, due to the mood of the art and music :)

Multiple endings stayed only on paper

Due to the previous items, I didn't manage to implement the multiple six endings that I planned. Plus an easter egg.

Tool hurdles and annoyances

• Moving and rotating a camera in the Godot viewport to create scripted camera events and animations is a pain in the ass. Since the game has a lot of scripted camera action, this was my biggest struggle in the project, fighting with positioning the camera. Godot needs a way to control to camera like Blender, where you navigate in 1st person view and move with WASD (fly mode and walk mode). I spent hours on this.
  • I found this old Github issue: https://github.com/godotengine/godot/issues/53 but nothing else is mentioned.

This is the thing: move the camera object itself and update its translate attributes:

Update: it is actually possible.

Align Transform With View does that. Thanks Rémi (Godot project manager) for the tip! https://twitter.com/Akien/status/1252559116029091842

• When exporting to glTF 2.0 in Blender, the NLA Stack / Animation Actions get bugged and animations get lost when you have more than two animations.

What I need to learn more and improve

• Godot tweening, easing, fade in and fade out.
• Better godot music and sound management and playback. Load music by code.
• Godot load and deal with resources dynamically: https://docs.godotengine.org/en/latest/gettingstarted/stepby_step/resources.html.
• Blender NLA Stack, the correct usage of Action Stash and Push Down.
• Music and sound production, well, everything about it. Although I made multiple musics for the game, I kind of had no idea of what I was doing. As of this writing, it's been only 10 days since I started studying music and DAW software.

What I plan to do next time

• Try to create a game with actual gameplay, think about something simpler
• Colaborate with someone else

Play and rate!

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/46/kaoamaru-kaiju

I'm playing, rating and commenting on everyone game's that also do the same for me :)

Game: Kaoamaru

• A short and dark atmospheric narrative (or should I say, little movie?).
• Play and rate here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/46/kaoamaru-kaiju

Features

• A Kaiju (bizarre, japanese style monster) conceptualized and made from scratch
• PS1 graphics and aesthetics, Half-Life inspirations
• Multiple atmospheric songs
• Cinematrographic camera

Tools and credits

• Godot
• Blender
• LMMS and Audacity
• Everything was made in the Jam by me, without templates.
• Mini-documentary, timelapse and more coming after voting ends. I recorded everything.

What went right

• The theme and the idea. Idea and concept came fast in my mind. In previous Jams I would waste more than 5 hours frustrated with the theme. Not this time.
• The main creature (Kaiju) concept.
• The process of modeling, texturing, rigging and animating the Kaiju in Blender was my favorite part of working in this Ludum Dare. I turned out exactly the way I wanted and I couldn't stop looking at it and playing around with the rig.
• The art style overall, PS1 / Half-Life like.
• Intro animation and scripted camera.
• Staying healthy (I slept early and woke up at 5:00am during all the 3 days of the Jam).
• Mood and atmosphere turned out great.
• Using Godot, because of how lightweight it is, but mostly specially, due to the AnimationPlayer.
  • Controversly, using Godot was also a con. Unity Cinemachine would fit this project better. See below.
• Downloading some VSTs to play around in LMMS was a good choice, because with just little experiexperience in music making I managed to create the atmospheric music that I had in mind.

Lore Facts

• The name Kaoamaru came when I was making the meditation sounds, and then I kept repeating KAOA KAOA KAOA in my mind and I liked the rythm. Kaoamaru doesn't mean anything in real-life, afaik.
• In the meditation scene, the monks are saying the Buddhist Hearth Sutra, plus 2 phrases I created and plus KAOAMARU (which I enviosioned in tribal voices, but I failed to replicate that in LMMS, so I used a Choir Synth for the voice).
• I wrote around 100 lines of lore and story.

That's a lot of bones for a game jam

What went wrong

Little to no gameplay

I planned 3 gameplay mechanics and stages, but I spent 1 full day doing the 3D art and the other day moving the camera and scripting the intro and ending animations.

When I finished those items, there wasn't time left for the gameplay, ironically. So I prefered to do the music and pack the project, and consider it a short and dark narrative.

Even the art for the gameplay mechanics is done, but again, I focused too much time on the art. For example, there is a human model, fully rigged and animated that I made, but didn't use for lack of time. Also more island types such as factory, war, city, etc., which fit perfectly the lore, but I could put they in.

At least I love the final atmosphere in it, due to the mood of the art and music :)

Multiple endings stayed only on paper

Due to the previous items, I didn't manage to implement the multiple six endings that I planned. Plus an easter egg.

Tool hurdles and annoyances

• Moving and rotating a camera in the Godot viewport to create scripted camera events and animations is a pain in the ass. Since the game has a lot of scripted camera action, this was my biggest struggle in the project, fighting with positioning the camera. Godot needs a way to control to camera like Blender, where you navigate in 1st person view and move with WASD (fly mode and walk mode). I spent hours on this.
  • I found this old Github issue: https://github.com/godotengine/godot/issues/53 but nothing else is mentioned.

This is the thing: move the camera object itself and update its translate attributes:

Update: it is actually possible.

Align Transform With View does that. Thanks Rémi (Godot project manager) for the tip! https://twitter.com/Akien/status/1252559116029091842

• When exporting to glTF 2.0 in Blender, the NLA Stack / Animation Actions get bugged and animations get lost when you have more than two animations.

What I need to learn more and improve

• Godot tweening, easing, fade in and fade out.
• Better godot music and sound management and playback. Load music by code.
• Godot load and deal with resources dynamically: https://docs.godotengine.org/en/latest/gettingstarted/stepby_step/resources.html.
• Blender NLA Stack, the correct usage of Action Stash and Push Down.
• Music and sound production, well, everything about it. Although I made multiple musics for the game, I kind of had no idea of what I was doing. As of this writing, it's been only 10 days since I started studying music and DAW software.

What I plan to do next time

• Try to create a game with actual gameplay, think about something simpler
• Colaborate with someone else

Play and rate!

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/46/kaoamaru-kaiju

I'm playing, rating and commenting on everyone game's that also do the same for me :)

Thanks everyone for playing and rating Kaoamaru Kaiju. The amount of feedback I'm getting is mindblowing!

I'm happy that everyone is enjoying the PS1 / Half-Life / Silent Hill atmosphere and mood that I created, even although the experience is very short.

I'm working in the post compo version of the game, which finally includes the gameplay mechanics, the scenarios and islands as I planned and multiple endings.

Follow me here or Twitter if you want to be notified :bird: https://twitter.com/SplitPainter

Scenario Revamp

From plain barren lands to lore filled grounds.

Want to try a dark narrative?

Play and Rate Kaoamaru Kaiju

This was my setup this morning: 3 screens scrolling Ludum Dare pages, comments and folders downloaded, playing and checking all the awesomeness that this community created.

I replied to each one of the amazing comment left in my game :v: I then also played and left feedback for each one that also left a comment for me.

Looking for a 3D, PS1 / Silent Hill / Half-Life inspired narrative?

[Play and rate Kaoamaru Kaiju]

Web and Desktop available, all platforms!

Want me to check out your game?

Leave a link for it in the comments here :) Web and Windows builds are welcome.