I just want to say… collision detection is really annoying. It’s finally working now, albiet a bit hack-y.

Anywho, here you can see the little robot in spring-swinging action. It’s actually a little fun to fly around using the grappling hook, although you can slide and hop around as in most platformers. My thought for gameplay is that you will have to pick up crates, while carrying a crate you can only move via grappling hook, you must deposite crate into… crate… depository…

…yes.

pics!

I was really hoping to get more done today. I really was.

That being said, I have something that resembles a “game”. You can run around and kill zombies, even though the zombies can’t kill you.

Save for a sudden burst of motivation, I’m calling it a day. Tomorrow, I hope to turn this into a real game.

Regardless of that, a post-compo version is certainly looking good. It’s a fun concept, and one that shouldn’t take that long after the end of Mini-LD to polish into a finished game.

Here’s hoping…

— Mr. Dude

Ok, here we go! My first post for miniLD#23! I choose the year 1871 and the game is about the great fire of chicago. You are (or let’s say will) control the Springman, the only guy who is able to jump over fire spots with springs under  your feet. Your task will be to save people somehow. Actually I didn’t think that far. When everything works I will create an android game out of this. At the moment you can just jump through a little level using box2d. Have a look

1871 – The Big Fire

I’ve got some progress tor report! After a day of goofing off in IRC, I’ve finally got actual baddies working!

Right now, they can’t hurt you, and they just march mindlessly toward you.

I’ve got the demo up on my Dropbox here.

Peace

— Mr. Dude

Things are going a bit slow here, but I’m making some progress. I’ve got a man running around pushing boxes, and you can check out the current version here.

Click Here for an MP3. Be warned though, you will (most likely) either love it or hate it. Hopefully the former, though the latter is more likely.

A bit of a late start, but I think I can get a bit of the gameplay done soon. The game will involve 2 greedy corporations fighting for control over mars.  So rather then spending to much time talking about it, I might as well continue working. So ill update everyone when I can talk a little more about the features Im going to try to add. Until then GL with LD mini comp 23 if your working on a game.

First round of a working demo of the game…

http://ebilgeek.com/mld23/thebouncything.html

It’s more fun then I’d have expected it to be.  It also nails the being instantly engaging goal I had.  It’s a LOT of fun already.  I need to add a few more bits to the engine to make it a…game… limit their springs and add the ability to get more.  The progress is good though, even if the minigame is very simple.

I did use some base code for physics.  Base code that I’m not going to be able to share (boo!) but code that I actually wrote for my company to do some basic trajectory pathing.  I’m sure I could have re-wrote it, but AS2 tends to handle angles a bit…backwards and I remember going crosseyed the first time I messed with Math.atan so would rather copy/paste then spend 4 hours frustrated again.

The art will be replaced, and I’m actually going to try for sound effects this time.

So, im not even sure what i was doing with this,

I implemented all my gameplay features FIRST this time, and then made a mockup (above). You can open in a new tab to see full size, i dont know how to link images without it failing on this blog

The concept

You control the world, not the ‘character’. The character will move automatically and you need to use the platforms, selected with the blue bar, to get him to his goals.

The video

Here is a progress video of the gameplay working but its really no fun, going to redo/rethink it entirely if need be.

Comments and ideas welcome!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cczFE2hY78s

I’ve decided that I want to enjoy the weekend more than I want to do a super-ambitious game. So with that being said I’m scaling back my idea.

I’ve settled on the following:

The soviet union has released a virus into the wilderness around Flint, Michigan that has turned hundreds of people into zombies. The player is a commando in the Michigan Militia, which has been contracted by the local authorities to deal with the monsters.

The player will fight through a series of “sectors” each of which has a given number of zombies. When the player has killed all of the zombies, they can move to the next area.

In each area, the player will have two weapons, one main weapon and their pistol. The main weapon will be chosen before the player enters each sector, and can be either:

• An assault rifle
• A shotgun
• A high-powered rifle

And you keep fighting and fighting, and eventually the zombies kill you and you presumably become one of them. There you go.

That’s the extent of my game for the Mini-LD. I can easily have this done by the deadline.

Peace

— Mr. Dude

I also posted this on my blog, with bonus picture! : http://kapokgames.tumblr.com/

Alright! So I have done the first graphical asset! An idle firefighter, aka you, once you’ll play the game.

The game revolves around the huge explosion that happened in Halifax in 1917. You not only need to put out fires with a limited amount of water, but also you need to save all the civilians that you can. Doing so will rise your Courage meter, that goes down over time. Once you don’t have anymore courage or water, you lose. It might be a game with no end, the goal being to get the highest score possible determined by time.

Next up : animating the firefighter, then some gameplay, then some more assets, then sound effects, then music, then title screen.

I’ve decided that I have a few goals for today. Hopefully, I can get all of these done by tonight.

Firstly, I want to have some kind of baddies that will stagger up to you and hit you. They should also die when shot.

Secondly, I want to have more than one weapon. Probably a machine gun, a shotgun, and a high-powered rifle in addition to the pistol.

Third, I want health powerups and player death. That’s pretty crucial, and may come before multiple weapons.

I can probably pull those few things off, I think. Given that, I’ve got a large portion of my game right there!

I’m very optimistic. (Call me Pollyanna if you will…)

— Mr. Dude

Going with a springy grappling-hook platformer style game.

Using chingu this time around, it’s pretty neat so far.

Picture time!

I’ve actually got a demo working now!

You can walk around and fire your gun! No sounds yet, though…

Controls:

• Move – Arrows or WASD
• Aim – Move Mouse
• Fire Gun – Left Click

If you like, you can play it on SwfCabin here. (I would have put it on DropBox, but DropBox seems to be having some kind of weird problems right now, so SwfCabin will have to do )

Here’s a screenie:

Not much to look at yet...

I’m stopping for tonight.

Things are going pretty well so far. I have a lot of the core engine working. The only big thing I haven’t done yet is object on object collisions, which shouldn’t be too bad. I’m really hoping I get some time to work on the graphics and make the game look nice, but I’ll be focusing on that last.


Despite not being able to work on this much tomorrow, I think I’m going to be in good shape.

My turn! This is the first LD I’ve ever participated in, but I’ll save my introduction for your reading pleasure at my real blog.

I’m working on this with two other people and we were so convinced we came up with a good idea. I was too, until I saw another steampunk platformer. =P

Regardless, I’m sure we’ll come up with something at least mildly interesting. =D

Interesting thoughts and junk after the break.

(more…)

Going with the year 1888 for a steampunk-ish gmae.  The west was won on the backs of spring-powered flying cowboys.  Yeup.

Anyways, have a game that’s been done loads of times in my mind, with a fun twist!  Been playing along with my companies’ players.  Me and my Fiance are streaming and chatting with them as we go and it’s been a much more relaxed, fun, and energetic experience then my last Ludum Dare that was a big ball of stress.  Ended up having to go with AS2, as a lot of my code samples and examples are on a computer I forgot to bring home with me, and my environment wasn’t as configured as I thought it was.  Oh well.  The game’s going to be simple enough that it should be fine in AS2.  It’s all about the polish and getting the physics to FEEL right, even if they’re completely smoke and mirrors.

Welp I’m turning in for the night. I’m fairly pleased with what I’ve got so far. I’ve spent most of the time so far experimenting with physics and tossing around some ideas. I’ve settled on an arcade-y platformer. You play an angry colonial pushing boxes of tea into the Boston harbor. A raft next to the boat springs the tea away for maximum awesomeness!

I’m planning on making it a bit more violent than history, because that will make it more fun! I hope to have some redcoats chasing you around the ship and making things difficult.

So far, I’ve laid out the ship and got some basic movement. In the morning, I’ll finish up the movement and start tossing boxes off the ship.

I think the biggest obstacle is going to be the physics. The box physics will be easy, but during preliminary experiments my springboard kept flying away.

I’ve actually gotten somewhere with my game. Which amazes me.

Currently, the player can walk around on the screen, and faces the mouse pointer. Also, the player’s feet are animated, so they take actual foot steps when they walk. Mind you, the feet “step” forward no matter which way you are going, but that player sprite is about 20×20 pixels (1x zoom, as well), so the sprite it pretty tiny regardless.

I’ve also got five different images for different parts of the player. That is, 5 pairs of feet, 5 pairs of arms, 5 heads for each gender and 5 torsos for each gender. The actor factory accepts the player’s gender and part variants, and builds a skeleton based on them.

Very happy with how this is going. I’ve already gotten some base code down, and hopefully the rest will go at least as smoothly.

Peace

— Mr. Dude

The logo should be in black and white.
It’s easier to print, and it is easier to adapt.

Please don’t go with one that is very detailed, either!