Wow, I’m simply amazed how good-looking my game is turning out to be! It’s basically going to be a pong game played inside a cavern with rocks and stuff in the way, the walls will also be slightly deformed for some interesting bounces. I’ve selected quite a simple game to implement because I really wanted to make it with OGRE and I haven’t done anything with it before. Let’s see if I’ll get something done by the deadline.

It’s midnight, and I’m reasonably happy with what I’ve got done so far, so time for bed. Just animated Ted – only 4 frames for walking, so it looks a bit pants, but I can always sort that out later if I get time. Some animation > no animation.

Otherwise, not much different from last update, so this is probably a bit pointless. Oh, well.

Tomorrow I might get around to actually making something playable. And with dinosaurs in.

Heading to the dog park soon, but wanted to release this before I left. Comments would be greatly appreciated! I’m especially wondering who all (if anyone) even has Python installed. Am I programming for an audience of zero?? I hope not

www4.ncsu.edu/~tamorgan/LD15.zip

P.S.: I’ll get screenshots up when I get back.

Woot \o/ my game is improving!

There is no scrolling, animation or collision detection but still it is an improvement

I think ill have to call it quits about here, I have critters and sheep (zombie sheep BTW) wandering around the cavern.

Good luck to everyone and remember to have fun! Cant wait to see what everyone comes up with.

My cavern generation if anyone is interested.. numpy is teh fun.

    data = numpy.random.randint(0, 2, size)
    alive = numpy.zeros(size, int)
    for c in range(iterations):
        alive[:] = 0
        for x in range(-1, 2):
            for y in range(-1, 2):
                alive[max(0,-x):min(-x+width,width), max(0,-y):min(-y+height,height)] += \
                                    data[max(0,x):min(x+width,width), max(0,y):min(y+height,height)] >= 1
        data[alive =5 ] = 1

cheers!

A.

This uses my level generator code: Lightning (Video)

I’m taking a quick break after wrestling with my own framework for far too long. I thought I would get done with heightmaps at 3…ended up being more like 6. Oh well.

Basically what I’m doing is generating a heightmap from the bitmap image of the level. Thus I can make silly levels and just plain not have to worry about collision detection for going up a hill or down one, which to me is pretty sweet.

Here’s a screen from a bit ago:

I had the height map flipped and visible so I could see the problem I was having with it more closely. Turns out I was scrolling the background for the level faster than the heightmap…stupid!

Also, lunch – a toasted sandwich with grilled chicken, spinach, tons of garlic, american cheese, and hot mustard. Delicious, I say!

I’ve built a cavern generator, and then put together a simple space partitioning thing to fill a world with caverns Next come the interconnects between caverns!
Here’s a shot of what it looks like – this is a lot smaller than it will be, the world is only 800×800 pixels in this image. The procedural generation will produce approximately the same set of caverns regardless of scale though – I’m pretty proud of it.
(I’m using my desktop rendering windows for debug windows in this entry ah well, maybe next LD will give me an opportunity to use them to their full potential)

I’m not sure.

Delicious Rocks

I haven’t decided yet if I’m in the mood to just make something genuinely insane, like a puppet show.  The theme used purely as a topic of conversation.

Hmm.

The trouble with the caverns that rex explores, is that they tend to be full of strange creatures, like this Zombird :/

He'll peck your brains out!

There be blobs!… proper polygonal blobs. With blob shadows, and physics (I’m using Tokamak again)

Actually, I’m only intending to have one blob, for the player. There’s still no controls/gameplay, I’m not expecting this entry to reach a particularly complete state – I’ve been rather too overambitious (and wasted loads of time tweaking graphical stuff) .  But I should have at least some gameplay by the end of tomorrow…

So I went for groceries around 17.30

made two 190g hamburgers for me to eat (and ate them) they were delicious

played 2 rounds of the kill-switch demo…

..and with the help of too many cookies and a few glasses of apple-juice..

…my monster can now puke green things that bounce around for a time and then disappear (explosions pending).

Next time, I’m going to focus on a game where it’s easy to take screenshots

Fire and forget!  Don’t go back and touch things up!

Which I really ought not to be doing…  But anyway finally got a look I’m kinda happy with, need to go in and add all the animation now.  Hoping to get walk and attack cycles done by bed, then tomorrow morning add in the enemy I have planned, and get it running.  It’s gonna use one of the many variants of the Soundless Mountain II engine… I need to figure out which as they all have slightly different sets of features…

So, I’m finished! Not totally happy with the game, but whatever, it’s finished anyway.

Windows only. Download from here

Now I finally feel like I’m getting somewhere! Which is good, as I need to sleep soon.

Also featured: My nifty little archaeologist guy, Ted Stuart.

Rocks now stop falling when there is a rock (or ground) in the way. This is a good thing. Took me a while of wondering why it didn’t work to realise that I was checking if there was solidness to the right rather than underneath. Oops. Just now added pseudo-physics: things accelerate as they fall, then snap nicely back to the grid when they land. And there’s a (n uncontrollable) player! Quite pleased with him. I had the sense (for once) to use layers, which should make animating him easier. The GIMP is wonderful!

I am at another coffee shop… and I am drinking cucumber soda. It is strange and delicious. Also, battery is almost gone. Heading back home to recharge and get some quiet.

I’ve made some progress, but not as much as I would like. Having a hard time getting gameplay down. I like where the current version is going, though it’s nothing to look at.

The more I code that game, the more it feels like freaking Boulder Dash…

If I can’t break from that mold, I will abandon it (and this Ludum at the same time). I really don’t like where that game is going… I shouldn’t have used the BD graphics as place holder, apparently they have influenced the concept more that I would like.

Here is a proverbial screen :

I never realized how much the XNA framework screwed with tansparency when rotating before I took this screenshot…

I just came back from a friend’s BBQ. It was very good and the company was excellent. On the other hand that plus a late start plus grocery shopping means I’ve made pathetically little progress on my entry. I’ll try to get a little more done tonight and work all day tomorrow.

Rex has found out that it’s kind of dark in these caverns. Luckily he’s prepared with a torch!

Who turned out the lights?

Thanks to some help from Gilvado I figured out this whole CamStudio business and uploaded my first ever gameplay vid to YouTube! 

It’s 20 seconds of the current state of Angry Caverns

I’m tuning some of the bat physics now.. which reminds me– ya know one thing I love about doing game development?  It’s getting to say things like “I’m tuning bat physics…”

Hopefully I’ll be back soon with more exciting developments.