Well, just submitted my entry but not really too happy with it.

I think I fell into the trap of not having anything playable until very late on. I spent so long developing the gameplay mechanics (that is, trying to get them to *work*) that I didn’t really have time to make the most of the concept. What there is is the shell of an idea that was almost good.

Still, I think there’s plenty to expand on and improve on, and lots I could develop further if I want to. But I think I’ll have a day off from game development tomorrow!

The funny thing is, it didn’t seem like a complicated idea to start with. I had a pretty good idea of how I was going to implement everything, but actually sitting down and doing it became a real slog.

I’m disappointed, but then it wouldn’t be an exciting competition if you knew you would make a decent game every time. Experimenting and trying something new is all part of the fun, and you can’t experiment without the possibility of failing. So at the very least I can say I learned something, although I’m probably too tired to explain what it is!

I had a lovely time at CB2 Indies. Good luck to everyone else who was there, it was great meeting you all! I’ll be sure to return

And good luck to everyone else who’s taken part!

Sixteen hours and twelve minutes.

Compressed into a timelapse video for your viewing pleasure. Because I wrote a physics engine, procedurally generated characters, and then ran out of time for graphics, it’s not edge-of-the-seat thrilling to watch. But it’s amazing how much time I spend typing code, I’m surprised my fingers haven’t fallen off.

Watch in your browser (firefox/opera). Or download the file.

Don’t forget to use Zombies as Weapons by downloading my game. It’s more fun than this timelapse, I promise.

My last update before submissions are due.

Working tile map

This is my tile map that I got working last night.  I can create new levels in TilED and easily import them into my game.

Collision boxes

About 20 minutes ago I got the collision box generation working.  You can sort of see how my tile graphics are designed in this shot.

I obviously won’t have a working game done in the next 35 minutes, but it was a valiant effort I believe.  What was missing before I would consider this a game:

• Collision detection and response.
• Enemies with some basic pathfinding / AI.
• The main gameplay element: mind controlling the enemy.

Let me do a re-cap on what went right and what didn’t go according to plan:

• The Spartan framework along with Slick2D was great for getting a jump start on the simple stuff.  In a few hours I had a game shell with splash screen, moving player, camera focus, and mouse rotation.
• TilED was great for designing levels.  I had a basic arena map done in a matter of minutes.
• GraphicsGale saved me when GIMP was repeatedly crashing.
• I hadn’t thoroughly used the Spartan framework, so I was unsure how to go about creating new modules for game Entities (Actors).  When it came time to add enemies and pathfinding, I was completely stumped.
• I hadn’t ever used Slick2d’s TilED loader before.  It took me some time to figure out how to use and manipulate the tile map once I had it in my game.
• I hadn’t ever drawn tileset graphics before.  I wasted a bunch of time drawing and redrawing tile graphics to get something usable.  Also GIMP crashed on me quite a few times, ruining my work.

The moral of the story seems to be: know your tools and libraries.  Much time could have been saved if I didn’t need to fumble around with the tool or dig through the API docs.

Maybe next time I will put together something playable!

An enlightened being of the advanced Koril race, you have ventured forth in the experimental Det Hulanir, a small science vessel equipped with a phenomenal new engine: the Singularity Drive.

By projecting a nano-blackhole into the space outside of the ship, you use the force of gravity to travel great distances; the computer-controlled navigation system is capable of precisely timed bursts to achieve near light-speed travel. You are safely shielded from the worst of the acceleration by your ship’s powerful gravitic shielding, another result of the best minds of the Koril Empire.

Commissioned by your people to chart and explore the observable galaxy for the betterment of all, you boldly strike out into the unknown.

…

Klaxons sound, lights flash, and you pick yourself up off the floor.

“Computer, what’s going on?”

“The outer hull has been struck by a dense object; our high-energy conduits are disrupted; we have lost the capacity for relativistic speed. Readings indicate a self propelled mass of an unknown alloy which-”

“Wait, self propelled? It’s another ship?”

“False. The object is unmanned and contains no sensors or transmitters. Its purpose is indeterminate. Perhaps it is an experimental craft?”

“Are there any others like it out there? This area might be dangerous if the locals are using it for space flight experiments.”

“Scanning … confirmed. Several other similar – no, nearly identical objects are moving towards us at zero-point-zero-ecks-five-three-seven-Cee. Captain, at a range of approximately sixteen Eptems I have detected larger objects, on a scale with myself. They appear to be manned vessels. More of the smaller objects are emerging from the vessels and moving towards us.”

“Towards us? Ship, don’t they see us here?”

“Unknown. Hold – the vessels are accelerating towards us. They will reach us shortly. It would seem, Captain, that they see us.”

…

“Captain, I have finished my compilation of the translator package. Are you ready to respond to the incoming audio transmission?”

“Yes ship, play the transmission.”

“Unknown ship! You are trespassing on Darkpants Space. Leave at once or be destroyed. This is your final warning!”

“Destroyed? For what, exploring? What insanity is this- wait. Did you say ‘Darkpants?’”

“A translator error, perhaps. However, my analysis of the ambient broadcasts has brought forth disturbing findings: this race spends a substantial portion of its time attempting to kill its own members as well as others.”

“WHAT?! They actively attempt to kill each other? That’s, that’s… that’s just insane!”

“I suspect you are correct on that point. To use the Darkpants word, we are their ‘enemy’ just because we are different from the individuals in the ship. The ships are surrounding us at a distance, but they are beginning to close in. I am concerned that this ship is not equipped to handle this scenario, and we may perish.”

You hadn’t realised you were slumping in your chair until your ship’s words triggered some long repressed emotion in you. Defeat? Some upstart civilization that chucks metal at their guests isn’t going to defeat a Koril, let alone THIS Koril, designer of the Singularity Drive! There is a solution here, all you need to do is find it.

“Ship?”

“Yes, Captain?”

“Give me manual control of the Singularity Drive.”

This game requires XNA3.1 redistributable and .Net 3.5 and, unfortunately, Windows. Sorry!

Instructions:

Left click to activate your singularity engine, but keep an eye on your hull integrity (left) and your drive reserves (right). Gain points for sending ships flying into each other, lose points for colliding with those ships yourself. See how many points you can gain before falling to the Darkpants horde.

If I had started with more than nine hours, I would’ve made some kind of leveled gameplay where you can actually win; it’s a little depressing that this is a game of inevitable failure (like my previous entry) after what I think is a stirring introduction.

My high score is 314,000. This is a challenge (though I expect to be beat).

Wow! I’m finished 30 minutes early!   This LD has been a lot of fun.   I learned a lot about Actionscript and Flixel.  There is nothing like a ridiculous deadline to motivate you to learn.  If you’re  interested, checkout my entry: HAckBotZ

Good luck to all those in the compo and also the Jam. I can’t wait to start playing some of the entries!

Finally !!
see the final version !!
http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-18/?action=preview&uid=825

My timelapse video embedded after the jump. It also includes a gameplay video at the end. I recommend watching it if you play the game, to see how it works.

(more…)

BOOM! 14 hours later and i’ve done. That was fun haha.
Screeny:

VIEW ENTRY

You can go and download the game at that link above.

Have fun!

(yes, I seriously prayed this would be finished)

Delicious entry here.

An absolute void in the way of motivation today has killed my game.

It’s not really in a state to release – and it’s not something that can be done timely for the jam..

Dudes and dudettes, I am out

First of all, here’s the timelapse: Making Metagun timelapse

This LD was timed extremely well for me, hitting one of the few free weekends I have these days.
During the voting rounds, I hoped for Skyscrapers, so I could do a life-in-the-city simulation that I’ve been wanting to do for quite some time. Of course, it didn’t win, but instead the somewhat hard to work with “Enemies as Weapons” won. Because the theme gets announced at like 4 am my time, I was asleep when it got announced, but I managed to wake myself up at about 5 am to see what it was. I stayed up for a couple of hours, thinking about what kind of game I could make, but couldn’t think of anything interesting.

So I got some more sleep. When I got up, I almost felt like giving up. There just wasn’t anything interesting I could do with the theme. But since I had promised people I’d livestream it, I eventually got online and started brainstorming. Not long thereafter, I got the idea of having a gun that shot other people who shot back at the player. I figured it’d make for an interesting platformer mechanic if you yourself were responsible for the dangers in the level.

And strangely, after that, I never ran into any real problems. I implemented some basic physics and rendering framework, then added some graphics, and got started on level design pretty early. I added new features to the game as the levels demanded it, which both meant that new features would get introduced gradually, but also that I didn’t waste any time implementing stuff that never got used.
I felt relatively finished with the game when there was about six hours left, so I spent a few hours just polishing it and adding some fluff features like an ingame credits list and such.

I think I got a bit lucky this time around by finding an idea that fit my style pretty well, but I also felt some experience from old Ludum Dares help me guess how long certain features would take to implement.

What went right:
Almost everything went surprisingly well! I had a great flow this time.

What could’ve been improved:
As usual there is no music. But worse, the jumping still feels a bit off. I should’ve spent more time early on to really nail it.

This is my first time finishing an entry for Ludum Dare and finishing a game in general (I usually end up with half-finished projects). The code is basically feature complete except for some ideas I didn’t initially plan for, if I had more time for level design and building this game could’ve been a lot nicer… as it is I’ve only got 4 levels done and they’re not much fun, but still: I’m quite happy with what I’ve accomplished in such a short time!

Good night all – it’s 03:00 in the morning here, so sleepy time now… looking forward to playing everybody’s awesome looking entries!

Here’s a link to my entry and a screenshot.

http://www.swfcabin.com/open/1282522261

i really wish i could have fleshed this out more, there isn’t even any music or anything, oh well

So, I spent yesterday, all of yesterday failing to get a basic platforming engine working. Once I fixed one problem, another would arise. So, don’t expect anything playable for the compo. I might have something for the Jam deadline.

This is my timelapse video from the making of my entry, “Rotate!”. It was made with an application of my own design (thats why it may look out of time at some points), and also removed 14+ hours of screensaver hehe
Have fun watching it, for the next LD i shall use Chronolapse

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGAaLyCw7z4

yay!

to those who are not … I wish you the best of luck!

I am going to go take a shower

Well, I finally went and did it: I entered Ludum Dare! Alpha Channel didn’t exist 48 hours ago; now it does!

I wisely kept it simple and actually felt I “finished” it. Could do with difficultly levels and an intro screen, but other than that, it is actually a game!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmTGW4jAd_M

High scores gladly collected! Who has the stamina to get past level 9999 and roll the clock?

Scoring and difficulty progression done. Almost there…

I finished my game with plenty of remaining time (about 5 hours ago), and I’m pretty proud of it! It was my first time, both on Ludum Dare and completing a game – I’ve started a lot of things that never became something.

Check out my entry!

I also did a timelapse I’ve just uploaded. It’s the whole thing, no cuts, except some missing time at the beggining and sleep time. Check it out here!

The game is pretty simple, just some Collection’s, some loops, and some checks. Collision detection is distance-based, everything follows some regular patterns: positions, speeds, rotations and speed rotations. Even being a really bad code (just check it out), it was simple enough to add things!

I think I actually can strip out some code of the game and, with some polishing, make a really simple game framework for the next LD!

As I said, this was my first LD, and it has been fun! I learnt some things, I’ve gained self-confidence, and I’ve just realized I can actually make a game, even without much time, which is great!

Let’s see if my game is good for you guys too!

Well I just uploaded my entry, but it was grossly unfinished as the ending will show. I’ll sort out my timelapse tomorrow and maybe write a post-mortem. I had fun, but I don’t think I’ll be finishing this game any time soon. The code is pretty clean and all, but the game itself just doesn’t do much for me. Probably because it doesn’t do much at all