Obligatory first post, it only exists because of a supposed bug. But hey, if it helps with both bot-spam, and motivation, I can’t say it’s a bad thing.

First dare to Ludum Dare, here. I’ve been a silent observer for quite some time (since somewhere around ‘Dare #21), but lacked the skills and courage to give the challenge a go. My inner pessimist is expecting failure, but heck, any excuse to, potentially, gain motivation to complete a project, is deemed worthwhile in my mind. Plus, it would be nice to put my newly formed skills to the test (I’ve been formally studying programming for just over a year now), and better yet, it would be nice to come out with a complete product, even if that product haunts me for multiple reincarnations.

Nevertheless, the plan so far is to join the 72 hour jam with my partner in crime. I shall work on the spaghetti, and my partner shall work on the pixel. Sound and game design are likely to be a shared task, but nothing is set in the holy stone just yet.

What definitely is decided is that a project will be started: a new GameMaker file will be created, a couple of objects will be added, and a few folders dedicated to artwork will exist. That’s a promise I can deliver. Hell that, and in just under 13 and half hours from now, I’ll have a bucket of chicken in one arm, and will be screaming LEEROY JENKINS! After all, the best way to beat a challenge is to just DO IT!, and you’ve got to have a war-cry to keep the spirits high… right?

Already posted one journal, so I may as well keep updating. With any luck, it should keep me motivated to see through to the end of the challenge.

As somewhat expected, my game design/plan of attack ended up being ambitious, even when using both the two button controls limitation, and the growing theme. Even so, I must admit, I managed to make a lot more progress than I had initially expected. With any luck, I should at least be able to finish the combat state of my plan. Can’t say I believe the game will be any sort fun, but hey, it’s been fun creating it, and I believe that’s what counts.

Either way, I’ve delivered on the promise of creating a GameMaker file with a few objects, and a folder dedicated to the project (I had low expectations). In addition to this, my partner has created a pile of art assets, and I’m currently working on the combat script. So far, not much happens aside from getting input, handling an action, and displaying the action’s symbol (there’s a lot of timing and state switching involved… no idea how I’m going to implement parrying), there’s also debugging commands. References to character stats (both enemy and player) are also working, so I can currently use the ‘attack’ button to diminish the opponents health (and, temporarily, use my ‘block’ button to heal the opponent).

The code itself needs to be refactored, not just for cleanliness, but also because my plan is to have both the NPC and Player run the same combat script (the script accepts two parameters: target_object, and input), so any changes to that script will carry over to any combatant.

I’ll reveal more about the game at a later date (there’s a lot of content I wanted added, but I doubt it will be). So far, the plan is to have you face off against enemies to earn experience. Earning experience levels you up. Levelling up allows you to choose one of two stat boosts. And every few levels, your character will visually evolve. This game will use only two buttons (excluding debugging commands, which will likely be quotes out prior to release).

Obligatory screenshot:

First Ludum Dare; end of day one. Attacking the opponent (ATK-CD is Attack Cooldown)

Yesterday (for us Australians), I managed to make almost no progress on my game. After quite a few hours of messing around, I realised all of my attack/defend systems were very flawed. I couldn’t get blocking to feel right without investing in a stamina bar, and parrying had no hope. On the bright-side, I’ve managed to pull together a very rough automatic combat system — which is exactly what I need for a game I’ve been working on for a few months (which has been put on hold due to Uni). It’s not all bad, I did learn a few tricks with GameMaker, so I should be able to organise code much more efficiently in the future!

With that failure, I decided that, this morning, I would start a new game from scratch (terrible idea, I know). However, I’ve managed to pull together a full game… at least full enough for the dare. It’s far simpler then my original combat mini-RPG, and it’s mildly entertaining with an end game of some kind. It’s nothing special, but hell, it’s not like I’ve actually completed a game before, so I’m impressed; Ludum Dare has worked, and I have high hopes for #35!

Anyway, this game is quite simple, you are a cactus who wishes to go to space. You control a circle within a bar; to earn points, you must keep the circle within the middle of the bar; after earning x amount of points, you ‘grow’ (you also visually change every 5 levels); but you must beware, if you touch the edges your points will rapidly drain, and you risk loosing a spurt. The aim is to beat level (aka ‘spurt’) 30.

While I’d consider the game ‘complete’. I feel I have enough time to go to bed, get up, add a bit more polish, and ‘ship’ it off. Regardless, it’s nice to actually have completed something! Especially something playable. See you tomorrow, fellow Darers!

After the first failed game, I decided to start fresh (with 24 hours left on the Jam-Clock)

Ideas didn’t stream as nicely as I’d hoped. That said I did manage to get something simple, and generic down. Better yet, it’s something I’ve wanted to make for a while: a 2D puzzle game reminiscent of ‘Adventure’ from the Atari (not that I’ve played it).

The game relies on the rather uninspired idea of pressing a button to change shape, entering portals of the correct shape, possibly collecting items with a limited inventory to unlock more portals, and reaching the goal flag. I’m also considering adding a step count—the fewer steps you take, the more points you earn. Very simple, should be manageable.

I’m at the end of the first day (it’s around 11:50pm onwards), and so I’ve decided to clock in, then head to bed. I managed to get the teleports to work with some level of abstraction (controller object calls scripts; global object holds keyboard values so, in theory, controls are changeable; can place multiple teleports, and they all teleport in order). Might not seem like a lot, but for an amateur who is still experimenting with scripts and states, I’m happy with my progress.

The plan for tomorrow is to add GUI and perhaps the keys, as well as make proper sprites—gods, I swear these are the worst placeholders I’ve ever used.

#gallery-1 { margin: auto; } #gallery-1 .gallery-item { float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 33%; } #gallery-1 img { border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; } #gallery-1 .gallery-caption { margin-left: 0; } /* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php */ Enjoy the eye-bleeding screenshot. It’ll look better! I hope…

Day 1 is over for me. I have made almost no progress in terms of gameplay, as I'm still attempting to figure out in what direction I should take the theme. However, I have completed the architecture, and implemented an odd mash of MVVM, ECS, and Event-Driven Functional Programming (its setup is something along the lines of: Views (UI Canvas) <- Controllers -> Static Behaviour -> Data-Components and ScriptableObjects).

As far as gameplay is concerned, I have, at the minimum, decided to make a 2D turn-based Roguelike in Unity. I think that by relying on the simplicity of bump mechanics, I should be able to cram out a bunch of functionality tomorrow without too much spaghetti code (or, at least with abstracted, pluggable spaghetti code). This means programming ought not to get too much in the way of design. But tomorrow will tell (although, if I am successful in this endeavour, I could eventually branch out this project, and create a kitchen-sink-style Roguelike).

At the very least, if I cannot manage to get some gameplay to fit the theme, I'll slap together a minimalist Roguelike with fishing and cooking. :D

It's the end of day one for me. I didn't achieve much. I was caught up figuring out a genre combination. My original plan was to make a tennis horror, then a tennis shooter, and then, finally, a sports beat em'up. So now I'm running with the idea of a basketball brawler with a blood-soaked horror theme (blood, brawling, and scoring are yet to be included).