Just for tradition I’ll post my setup (now that the sun is up).

Probably the most low-key one for this competition but at least I have the cacti and garden to keep me company.

Took a break for a while. I’m counting the hours from the official start of the competition now.

Got the sun working now. As the number of fully grown flower increases the sun gets more power, starts to spin and the sky starts to light up.

When the sun reaching full power the player gets petrified. Still need to do that.

ToDo List:

• Sprites for the ground and troll
• Artwork for the sky
• Properly masked collision on plants
• Death animation / particles for plants and troll
• Multiple ground areas
• Ladders or transport devices
• Audio

Everything I have is now animated! Apart from the troll’s death it’s all there really.

Here are my little troll sprites.

ToDo List:

• Sprites for the ground
• Properly masked collision on plants
• Death animation / particles for plants and troll
• Multiple ground areas
• Ladders or transport devices
• Audio

Right most of the different parts of the basic game are together now:

ToDo List:

• Death mechanic and animation / particles for plants and troll
• Properly masked collision on plants
• Multiple ground areas
• Ladders or transport devices
• Audio
• Polish

Doing it right!

Petrified Trolls-a-go-go!

ToDo List:

• Properly masked collision on plants
• Multiple ground areas
• Ladders or transport devices
• Animation / particles for plants, sun and troll
• Audio
• Polish

We now have increasing difficulty over time, a multi-layered level and ladders to get around on.

The ladders have created some new tasks though. The collision between the ground and the ladders isn’t going well, and I’ll need some more animations for climbing.

After playing the game I’ve also realised that a weed-whacker power-up is definitely required!

ToDo List:

• Better ladder-ground collision rules
• Weed-Whacker Power Up
• Ladder Animations
• Audio
• Extra Animations / particles for plants, sun and troll
• Polish and Tweaking

Ladders Completed! Hooray! That coughed up a load of problems.

I don’t think I’ve ever done this much animation before. And I’ve never really done pixel art either. I’m glad it’s turning out quite nice.

ToDo List:

• Audio
• Weed-Whacker Power Up
• Extra Animations / particles for plants, sun and troll
• Polish and Tweaking

Yay! One of my favourite parts of game development is putting in audio!

Here’s a link to the current build. Remember to click on the flash window before trying to play.

http://sarah.draknek.org/Games/TrollWIP/

Finished the first pass on the sounds. I managed to find quite a lot of good sounds to use although most of them needed editing.

Now I’m into the final few stages (which is good because I don’t have much of tomorrow to work on this) so I’m breaking up the final tasks I have as much as possible.

The remaining tasks are:

• Fix jumping collision bugs
• Add another difficulty step
• Add credits page
• Add title page
• Add mute buttons / key
• Fading in and out screens
• Redo Sky
• Redo Sun
• Add particles
  • Ground flaking
  • Dead plants
  • Dying troll
  • Sun lighting up
  • Links from flowers to suns
  • Blooming particles
• Potentially add troll music for when it is completely dark
• Potentially add the weed-whacker power-up
• Add animated flower roots

I’m sure I’ll think of some other things whilst I go through this list. ^^

Fortunately this is all extra stuff. The game itself is pretty much done.

Added a good old mute key and a scoring system. Fixed up the collision resolution problems I was having.

Just have one more task to help me procrastinate before I actually have to think of a name for this game… man I hate that part…

ToDo List:

• Apply a custom font
• Add credits page
• Add title page
• Fading in and out screens
• Redo Sky
• Redo Sun
• Add particles
  • Ground flaking
  • Dead plants
  • Dying troll
  • Sun lighting up
  • Links from flowers to suns
  • Blooming particles
• Potentially add troll music for when it is completely dark
• Potentially add the weed-whacker power-up
• Add animated flower roots

After getting some sleep I awake to the same problem I had last night… what to name the damn thing…

Unfortunately I won’t be able to work on this from 11am until 5:30am (which starts in two hours time).

My objective is to get a good / reasonable / rubbish name for this game and get the title and credit screens together first.

Then this evening I’ll be rushing about trying to polish the game up as much as possible.

Any ideas for a name for a game involving trolls, plants / flowers and the sun? If it’s a pun, so much the better!

I honestly can’t work out the hours in to the competition we are any more, so I’m changing tactics and going with time left.

I managed to think up a name for my game and make up title, credits and instruction screens. They are very basic but nice to get out of the way now.

The game’s name is “Trolls: Where the Sun don’t Shine”.

Well I’ve been away from the competition for the day. Time to finish things off.

I’ve added in the button clicks for the menus. Still got a lot of ideas to carry on with. Here we go!

ToDo List:

• Find another main music for the troll
• Fading in and out screens
• Redo Sky
• Redo Sun
• Add particles
  • Ground flaking
  • Dead plants
  • Dying troll
  • Sun lighting up
  • Links from flowers to suns
  • Blooming particles
• Potentially add the weed-whacker power-up
• Add animated flower roots

Yay! After tearing my hair out for an age I managed to get particles working.

Now that I know how to do it, it should be nice and easy to slip in the rest. Or at least I hope!

ToDo List:

• Add particles
  • Dead plants
  • Dying troll
  • Sun lighting up
  • Links from flowers to suns
  • Blooming particles
• Fading in and out screens
• Redo Sky
• Redo Sun
• Potentially add the weed-whacker power-up
• Add animated flower roots

I’m really glad I did this LD. It’s really pushed me to learn about using particles with flashpunk – which I had never done before.

There are particles everywhere now!

ToDo List (pretty much all maybes):

• Add particles
  • Dying troll
  • Links from flowers to suns
• Fading in and out screens
• Redo Sky
• Add animated flower roots

Current build of my Ludum Dare entry:

http://sarah.draknek.org/Games/TrollWIP2/

I’m pretty pleased with how this turned out but I have plenty of time to make some changes.

Feedback is very welcome!

All wrapped up nicely. I would have submitted earlier but I was trying to get my time lapse published, but it’s not happening right now.

I’m really happy about what I managed to achieve.

Firstly I’m happy because the game is complete and fun to plan.

Secondly I managed to try out new techniques like pixel art and particle emitters in Flashpunk.

Lastly I was amazed at how smoothly it went. I’m not sure whether it was just because of the limited scope of the game, or that what I was doing was just easier for some reason; it just felt great to participate in this competition making this game.

So a great big thanks to all the LD Admins, the developers / judges and the community at large for hosting a great competition!

… Now vote for my game!!!!! (whilst I go and sleep)

Right, I’m up and brainstorming. The theme doesn’t inspire me perhaps as directly as others. But let’s see what I can think of.

Right, here’s the plan:

You control a bunch of viruses trying to survive in the body. You can control them using the mouse with a drag and drop and selecting boxes. You have to latch onto blood cells to eat them and get more viruses whilst avoiding white blood cells that want to eat you.

Should be fun!