Still not exactly where I wanted it to be, but I’m too sleepy to continue working on the game right now. I still have 12 hours to go, so I’ll sleep half of them and try to make the game more fun then. Meanwhile, you can play the current game here: http://www.r4m0n.net/ludum_dare/19/

For now, you can only travel on the solar systems, use the hyperdrive (go away from the stars to activate it) and name the new systems you find. The systems in red have already been explored, the grey ones are unexplored and the green ones have been explored by you (and you can name them warping there)

Doing some structural thinking, so I placed a (the only) 3D model in the room.

Blender monkey heads... Nothing beats 'em.

My camera is still spinning in a circle, so I’ll be locking that shortly.

Here’s a little progress video on what Ive been doing; tell me what ya think!

>>>>>>>>>>Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlVowcLcAOg<<<<<<<<<

Sorry for the quiet audio!

So I actually finished a little something called ‘Pass it!’

You can go and play it now.

Folis

Clock is ticking.. starting to cutback features. Hopefully I’ll have a game by the end.

Doing some quick records for the ambiance .

So, I think I’m doing great time-wise regardless of not having a gameplay. Time to eat, and then time for gameplay.

So it’s 11:44pm, nearly midnight, I’ve been working on this since 9:00 this morning…I am exhausted after getting only 4 hours sleep last night, and working 15 hours on it yesterday…I have tidied up a lot, and I have left 2 massive tasks: AI and combat.

Whether I can be bothered to finish them is another question…

Still some placeholder graphics...

IDK, I want to to finish but I want to sleep as well…Any encouraging words?

-Tv

Discover19

W/Up: Jump
S/Down: Slide
A/Left: Play random beeps

To Do:
- fix glitch: run off a platform and jump again in midair
- fix platform generation done
- Score
- Discoveries (new abilities – in the final version you won’t be able to slide from the start)
- an ending
- if enough time is left, boss

I slept a lot, that was repairing.

I just updated the way levels are coded, I’m aiming to be able to do all the level design directly on Gimp, and have all the logic handled automatically.

Try it at the usual place

Well it’s day 2, and I’m still pumped! That could be the espressos talking, I’ve had like 5 already – blazin!

I’ve decided to seriously refactor my initial idea, the art assets would have taken far too long. I’m now going for a more abstract, floaty around in space thing. Had some folks playtest the game last night and have refactored the controls to be more user friendly, the game is now playable with just a mouse. \o/

Here’s my third (Hour 36) playable web (unity) build: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/7899005/LD19/HR36/WebPlayer/WebPlayer.html

12 HOURS LEFT OHGOD-OHGOD-OHGOD!

Well, for my very first Ludum Dare, and not a lot of games already in my portfolio, and the time and my beginners status… bla bla bla… long story short, my game just happened to call me awesome.

Well if that’s not something to share with you.

Yeah it's space

Yeah I know exactly what you think. I went with space. Duh…. I for myself think it is okay at least.

Oh and it’s only compiled for Linux due to a lack of windows. Hope this is enough for the compo though.

I’ve changed the level flow a bit. Before you could keep getting gems after you unlocked the stairs, allowing a decent player to keep farming the same level for ages, which isn’t what I want to encourage because it’s dull. So now I’ve changes things up a bit. When you get enough gems to clear the level, all the remaining gems are turned into gold, which gives the player an instant cash boost when collected! However, unlike gems you cannot take them back to the portal to exocise the ghosts, so you have to balance the extra income with the need to flee before you are killed by the ghosts.

I’ve also updated the shop.

Which is to say: not graphics or content complete. So brace yourself for a painfully similar screenshot:

But the two tiny changes you do see represent pretty much everything else I needed to get done for the game to make sense: you can now scan enemies when they’re not looking to steal the details of their weapons, then use that info to rebuild their guns, shields and engines when they’re dead.

I’m happy I’ve got to this point, but there’s a lot more to do. I have a choice of a few fairly major areas to work on, and I’ll list them in my current priority order:

• Player guidance: Even in an ultra quick experimental game I don’t think this step is remotely skippable. If I don’t get a few basic tutorial messages in to explain how to play the game, no amount of readmes will ever make up for it.
• Balance: Bots of random strength spawn in random positions. So that kinda sucks. I just need a few lines of code to make weaker ones spawn near the player, tougher ones further away, and to make certain configurations excitingly rare. This’ll have a big effect on how much fun it is to play.
• Environment: I’d like to add water around the edges to make this an island, and possibly a fortress wall at the top.
• Objective: Right now there’s no long term objective. Ideally I’d like to have you scanning and stealing parts until you’re strong enough to assualt a fortified wall to the north and escape.
• Graphics: I must at least make some proper plasma blasts, and ideally add explosion effects and a better player bot. I also need to take one more go at making snow look less awful – I’d like to make it grainy and randomise the ‘dunes’ a bit.
• Extra feature: scale. I’d really like to have double- and half-size bots roaming around, with accordingly different toughness and speed.

The reason graphics is so low is that the time it takes is such a wildcard – sometimes I get something bad right away, other times it takes me hours to make something bad.

Let me know if you think my priority order is nuts.

Current title idea: Scanno Domini. Other scan puns welcome.

Due to work getting in the way I’ve had to finish and submit my entry early; read more on the submission page!

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-19/?action=preview&uid=1886

I finished off all the tweaking, fixed the bug with Safari and submitted my entry.

http://ur.ly/A3AY

Despite not being where I wanted to be at this point in time, I have some code down which is in some desperate need of some polish. Hopefully I’ll be able to add some proper gameplay before the deadline.

Ever so slightly dated screenshot

If anyone would like to play a little they can do so here:

Arrow Keys to move;

Hold keys 1 + 2 and tap enter to crumble weak walls nearby.

http://owl.im/ld19/

Game will no longer use a sprite to represent the player, it takes too long to implement.

Expect a puzzle game about finding patterns. It won’t be glorious, but it’s not bad for a first game programmed in old fashioned C using SDL.

I overslept, thats 3 hours less than i would have had. I need to summon some speed!
LETS DO THIS.

i was actually kinda discouraged yesterday evening, having only less than 20 % of the planned code and hardly anything else. so i decided to stay awake and started doodling…and here’s the ingame result! (without bgr of course). having this even made me continue coding, and that’s a nice feeling you get when you see stuff work