Hey there folks–I’m hosting the Mini LD for the month of February and I wanted to announce the date!  It will take place the weekend of the 19th-21st.  I’ll have more specifics as the date approaches of course.

Hi everybody,

I’d like a quick show of hands who will be at the Game Developers Conference in March. I realize the IGF Mobile, IGF Student, and Gamma results aren’t available yet, but we’d just like to get a rough idea how many Ludum Dare folk will be attending (or *might be* attending). Post a comment.

Also, let us know if you’re a San Fransisco resident (or familiar with the city). We could use some expertise, as Phil and I are just tourists. We’d like to arrange some sort of Ludum Dare meetup one of the evenings, and could use some help picking an establishment.

Thanks!

I just heard about MiniLD being announced next weekend, and I plan to use an actual C64 this time to create a game.

I recently managed to get one cheaply, since I lost mine somewhere. I want to do it to prove that C64, even using assembly language hard-coded into memory and typed-in graphics can do well in tense development over a short period of time.

Using a freeze cardridge, like action replay or final would help a lot, but I will do with tape recorder as well.

Also, I hope I will be able to recall how it’s done, since I haven’t done anything for this platform for a couple of years now.

Wish me luck

I thought I’d take a break from coding, and share my next plan.

I’m planning a Java-based web game.

The premise of the game is this: It is a turn-based strategy game where instead of directly controlling your units, you must write their AI. There are more details about the game after the break.

Also, I’m looking for a host that can support the game. quin and demize have offered, but I’m still open to other offers. Support for Python on the site is definitely a plus, as I’d like to develop the site using Django. It’s not necessary, but it’s definitely something I want.

Read the rest of this entry »

I was going to do a clone of Berserk for my game.

I never got around to actually doing the game, but I did do some music for it.

I use a vocoder extensively in it. Some of it is kinda funny. You might enjoy it. There is definitely a lot of influence from the game Portal, and some stories I’ve read such as I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream.

Intro Song

http://www.bitjets.com/Music/StartGame.mp3

Level 1 Song (my favorite for some reason)

http://www.bitjets.com/Music/Level1.mp3

Level 2 Song (retro)

http://www.bitjets.com/Music/Level2.mp3

Level 3 Song

http://www.bitjets.com/Music/Level3.mp3

Lost Game Song  (this one is funniest I think)

http://www.bitjets.com/Music/LostGame1.mp3

Lost Game Alt Song

http://www.bitjets.com/Music/LostGame2.mp3

*** Note, I updated these files to MP3s so they would be more accessible.

Enjoy!

I thought I’d post a new screenshot here since I changed the main character, and was hoping to get some feedback. A lot of the work I’ve done since my last post was trying to make collision detection and response work right. I think it’s ok now, but I have a new idea that’s simpler and probably works for the benefit of playability.

So, any comments on the little moles? Or the old worm characters, as seen in an earlier post.

Dock’s game Tumbledrop is a finalist in the IGF Mobile, but he needs some help getting to GDC. For a small donation, he’s offering a nod in his current and next game’s credits. Visit his blog for more details.

http://starfruitgames.com/blog/?p=103

Have you ever found yourself in a situation where the more you mess with your game the less fun the game becomes?  This Mini Ludum Dare I decided to skip good programming practices and just hack stuff together to get gameplay up and running quickly.  The problem is, many of these messy ad-hoc solutions are now causing me trouble.

I don’t want to disappoint anyone, but I think I may take a break from this project.  If/when I pick it up again I will most likely do a complete rewrite of the code.

Here’s this years list of IGF finalists from the community.

Independent Games Festival

Sparky – Star Guard – Excellence in Design
crackerblocks – Enviro-Bear 2000 – Nuovo

Independent Games Festival Mobile

tonic – Stair Dismount – Technical Achievement
dock – Tumbledrop – Technical Achievement

Honorable Mentions
mrfun – Mind Wall (Ludum Dare 14) – Best Mobile Game Design

Congratulations everyone!

If I missed anyone (especially student competition finalists), let me know.

The mobile winners will be announced in a couple weeks (ahead of GDC).

- Mike Kasprzak (PoV)

I’m releasing a new demo! (Grab it here)

Now, the building will collapse if it takes enough damage. Damage to the bottom affects it more than damage to the top, so it will collapse under its own weight if the bottom is more damaged than the top.

Also, the building is randomly generated.

I’ve got a good feeling about this one…

—Mr.Dude

I have something to show for my efforts!

Download it here!

Click the building to damage it.

Left click is a small attack, middle click is a large but weak attack, and right click is a big, powerful attack.

Press R to reset the building.

It doesn’t fall down yet, and that’s for tomorrow, I think.

I’ve got a good feeling about this one.

—Mr.Dude

I’ve sumitted my game clone “funny frog” yesterday, here is the link to the entry:

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/minild-15/?action=preview&uid=1655

Try it and say me what you think!

So, I’ve been building a nice clone to a game probably only a few of you know. I’ll give you a hint: Maxis published this game in 1994. And for those of you who played the original probably already knew which game I’m cloning when you read the title.

And here is a screenshot of how I far I’m along:

Yeah, that’s not very far. Damn you, exams and stuff.
I’m planning on finishing my game by the end of the week.

I took a little bit of a break today and didn’t accomplish as much as I could have.  Since the animated gif I pretty much just added the title screen, a land mine that explodes, and the damage meter.  I still need a few more enemies, levels, sound and music, and a few other things.  The hardest part, I think, will be in trying to make tracks that are actually fun to play.

At the time of writing, I just got done playing a game of Rampage in MAME. Very inspiring, and very, very cathartic.

Hookay, tomorrow. Tomorrow, I’m probably going to be at school ’till the early afternoon, but I have the entire day after that point, and will use it.

Tomorrow, I plan to get the tiles for at least one color of castle done. I will also try to get one of the monsters done. I’ll post a screenshot once I have a complete building.

I’m thinking that I’ll make the hill giant (Gregor) first. His art will probably be the simplest, and he’s also the reference point for the balance of other characters.

For the rest of the evening, I’ll be hanging out on IRC, and then I’ll go to bed.

Here’s to inspiration, and doing what we love!

—Mr.Dude

The Greatest Game in the World... Tribute

A clone of Gameboy Donkey Kong (a.k.a Donkey Kong ‘94).

(there’s no winning or losing, just platforming around and watching the levels change)

compo entry page

PLAY ONLINE

Fixed version for folks without a sound device

Source code

Timelapse

I fell into an old trap. I put backend code before playability. As I’ve worked, I’ve gotten further and further from a playable demo. It’s a shame. I liked the concept, but I’d have to start over at this point.

Given that, I’m still going to be doing a game. It’ll hopefully be playable by Tuesday (That’s my personal deadline for having something done), and it might well be complete by then.

My concept this time around is much, much simpler. It’s a Rampage clone set in a fantasy/medieval world.

Instead of requiring mountains of hand-made content, this game will only require a moderate amount of it.

Each level will center around a castle that needs to be destroyed (The player, being a giant monster, needs to destroy these things, after all). Around that castle will be various towers (Including wizard towers), houses, and forts. The player will be assailed by wizards, cavalry, and footmen wielding all manner of weapons.

There will be three types of castle: White, grey, and black. White castles will have lots of cavalry, grey castles will have wizards, and black castles will have lots and lots of footmen. Also, white castles will be much bigger and have no houses outside (They will all be within the castle walls), grey castles will have smaller castles on the sides, and black castles will have numerous forts.

The player will have four monsters to choose from:

-Gregor – A hill giant with a club and big rocks

-Helga – An ettin with a hammer and big rocks

-Reginald – A dragon with claws and fire breath

-Alexis – An amazon with a sword and bow

I have lots of other ideas in my head, but this will do for now, I think.

Still need to add missile launching, enemies, crashing, exploding, mayhem and destruction.

I don’t have anything to show for my effort just yet, but I’m nearing the point of being able to demonstrate something.

Right now, I’ve got the world code mostly finished, and I have the majority of the code for the generic game agent.

I don’t have any artwork, and the first “Playable” thing I submit will be filled with colored blocks. Oh well, I want to get something I can play with, then I’ll worry about art. I was hoping to have the art for the default armor all squared away and have some baddies to blow up by the end of today. This is taking longer than expected, though.

By the end of today, though, I should have something playable. Don’t know that it’ll be pretty, but it’ll be playable.

Here’s hoping…

—Mr.Dude

I thought I’d like to make a Road Rash clone, cause that game was awesome. I was going to style it like road rash 3 and do everything fake 3d style. I wasn’t sure how to do the road in fake 3d though.
Then I remembered Away3D, a 3D engine for Flash I was looking at before and decided to give it a try. It’s a pretty complete engine, but Flash performance is still not the greatest so I can’t use all the pretty things like ’shaders’ or ‘correct z-order rendering’ or really most anything that makes doing a 3d game worthwhile.

I did get a kind of demo for how it might go though at
http://thegup.com/samples/flashy/lolbike.html
I also had to learn 3d modeling so my bike is kinda.. jaggy. And the textures didn’t load propery in MilkShape.

which leads me to maybe making a tron clone .. simple if any textures..

If I can get billboards working and scaling right then I might actually be able to make a game

With just enough Allegro bindings to allow for a simple point-and-click game, AllegTcl 0.9 is usable. Check out documentation.txt in the zip!

I’ve added shooting and aiming to Mato. I’ve also added gamepad controls, tailored for an Xbox 360 controller. The game currently has just one weapon, similar to the chaingun in Liero, but I’ll be adding more as I go on. The aiming is done with the second analog stick, while you can use the first analog stick to move left and right as well as control the direction of digging, so you can dig straight down, for example. The gun has analog control over the firing rate, with a maximum firing rate of 8 bullets a second. The clip is infinite right now, but that will change for the final version.

One thing I’ve noticed when writing Lua code is that it’s pretty easy to write horribly bad code. I don’t have to define classes, I’ll just use create an ad hoc table with the necessary fields. My code is a horrible mess right now, but I am going to refactor it eventually. It’s kinda nice to just make a mess of it all and write quick hacks.

I finally implemented NPCs. Well, they are dumb as hell, but they are moving from their own will. It is quite funny to watch them trying to break the wall! “YOU WON’T SUCCEED, LITTLE BLACKHAT-GUY!”

Hello everybody! Yet i have a first game screen. My game is a remake of an old russian game about a frog jumping on nenuphars

(guess what it is!), i’ve called it “funnyfrog”. It is written is java using the lwjgl library. graphics are made with inkscape and gimp.

funnyfrog

Super Game Boy changed my life.

Progress:  Spent WAY too effing long in Photoshop.  It’s way too easy for me to get distracted tweaking pixels.  I have an intro that I’m really happy with, but no gameplay at all yet!  Time to focus on that now.  Definitely NOT time to play my copy of Umihara Kawase DS that arrived yesterday.  Focus, Mike.