Oh yes, my screenshots are going somewhere, the html5 canvas is already painting the inventory for me. Next is the combiner and then we can open shop for all those heroes in need of a decent weapon.

Okay, got the basic framework for a level generator with an interactive editor implemented:

When you change the parameters the view updates immediately

Currently the generator just spawns a lot of colored boxes.  The next step is writing some more interesting generators, and setting up the physics so that you can jump from box to box.

Given the theme, a tile based platformer adapted to 3D might be an idea, I’ll see where I go from here (no, I don’t have any overall plan :p ).

Having much better luck this time around, wrote a simple citygenerator for my game, where the chosen character will walk around and try to befriend npc’s until night hits and he has to go home to his loneliness.

This was interesting since I’ve never done anything like this before, now I need to implement some text drawing routines and I’ll be able to move on to more gameplay stuff, and after that hopefully further the mapgeneration with objects and more specialized buildings.

Totally forgot about LD until today. Luckily there is still some time left, so I’ll take a shot too. My tools of choice:

• Python with the pyglet library
• Gimp and inkscape for graphics
• Sfxr for sound effects

Let’s go

Only have a black window coming up so far… but I’m liking this theme… and think my game idea might work. Getting my big drawing pad, pencils and pens next.  Uploading my game to the python package index as I go: http://pypi.python.org/pypi/virusdanger

Below is the intro text for my game…

The grit of sand in your teeth is the first thing you feel when you wake up. For a moment you lie, eyes closed, trying to figure out why your head hurts and why there is a terrible taste in your mouth. You spit. Out comes some sand, but also a little bit of blood. Eyes open. ‘What the?’ you mutter.

You are not in Melbourne anymore Dorathy.

Panic strikes. ‘Help!’ you scream as you try to stand up. You stumble. Looking around there is no one. Turning around, and around. Turning around.

Looking around, there is no one as far as you can see. You get dizzy from the turning. You hang your head to catch your breath a little. Looking down something catches your eye. There is a piece of paper held under a small rock. Picking up the paper, you also see a whistle. Like in the aeroplanes, how they tell you “and a whistle for attracting attention”. You brush off the sand and put it in your pocket.
The note reads “It’s Dangerous to Go Alone! Take this!”

“A Whistle? Someone left me here in the desert with just a whistle?”

Your head pounds. “I think I’m coming down”. The last thing you remember dancing in a trendy nightclub in Prahran at 7am. Handbag house, your favourite. Memories of dancing on couches, and your head inside a lamp shade hanging from the roof. Your hair was getting hot, and the light was bright in your eyes. You felt the love.

Sticking your head in a lamp shade was probably not the best idea you ever had.

Your head is pounding with a beasty inside your head bashing drums from the inside of your skull, and it feels like a budgey died in your mouth. Despite this you put the whistle to your dry lips. Your lips taste of strawberry lip gloss and sand.

You brace yourself for the loud whistle sound.

WHISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSTLE

A force pushes all around you outwards. It blows small shrubs and sand away from you. Yes, magic. A magic fucking whistle. Collosal.

You consider the note again: “It’s Dangerous to Go Alone! Take this!” This whistle might just come in handy after all. You wonder what is dangerous out there?

Determined to make it out of here, you set off into the desert to make your way home.

With two dead-line filled coding jobs keeping me busy 7 days a week and barely having done any coding besides this for 8 or 9 months, I’m ill prepared for this LD. Tired, no proper dev environment set up, blender  isn’t compatible with any of my old stuff. So have to compromise a lot – most likely won’t have anything finished by the deadline.

Also, I don’t like open themes like this. And this one is the worst I’ve ever seen – it’s basically as good as no theme at all – make any game and have an old man say “it’s dangerous to go along take blah” and it will perfectly fit the theme. So yeah. Having watched a play-through of the first 20 minutes or so of the original Zelda (shamefully have to admit I never saw the game before) I do have a vague idea though (“remake Zelda” ). Any finally knowing about this game is one good thing I can take from this LD

So anyway, the plan is to fix up my C+Allegro framework to latest versions of everything and use it. And right now I’m writing a custom Blender export script from scratch, for Blender 2.5. Took me some time to figure out where to place the addon… so hopefully I can speed up a bit now. Here’s a screenshot of my progress so far:

my great progress...

Not made much pogress code-wise, but have an idea of what I want to do.  Somehow, a sort of non-euclidean (or at least an impossible space) maze has slipped in there, even though I had no ideas for non-euclidean before the actual theme was announced.  Just sort of seemed to fit natually with what I was going for (a sort of L-Space feel).  Anyway, some scribblings and a sprite with the general feel I want.  Not sure if I can push out enough assets in time, will have to see how much I can get done tomorrow, for now it is bedtime.

It feels like most of the programing is complete, making the levels and graphics will probably take a lot more time. Here’s a screenshot with silly placeholder graphics:

I’m going to sleep.

Man, looking at all the other screenshots on here I feel kinda embarrassed with my progress. It took me a long time to have a really crappy animation of my character. And yet I still have to build the platformer.

Even the level generation is very bad. And let’s just not talk about my jump behaviour. First time for that, but this is really bad. Well, let’s see if I can get it to behave better from now.

Next step: Random level generation

First of all me and probably many others h8 the theme, and think that if voting was done again, it wouldn’t be reelected.

Also, I think themes like these alienate contest participants from outside world even further. It is hard enough to explain to the “normal” people how you are going to spend weekend as it is, and now with this theme its even harder to communicate the idea behind it, I mean it sounds more or less ok when you read it on the internet but if I try to explain to someone that I’m doing a 48h game compo with theme being “It’s dangerous to go alone! Take this” I’d get beat up by cool kids, or even worse, fall into dialog which looks like this:

“Take what?”

“… What?”

“You said its dangerous, and I should take… This something…?”

“Oh, hah, no, its a theme for compo…”

“Oh… Well, it doesn’t relate to me in any way and you will have none of my support, call me when you grow up”

Well, I can bitch about theme whole day long, but in the end I think I’ll just not participate. Too bad, I had high hopes for 20th ld, it got screwed over by theme comprehensible by  zelda fans only.

Of course, all may not be as black as it seems, and if an idea hits me I’ll get to work to finish it on time and eat my own words. But the only good idea I had so far is already being done by at least two guys (working as item seller).

no images yet sorry. i’ve started quite late.

Side scrolling platformer u walk through a forest attacking enemies and they drop “Gold” and u can go to the store and buy better weapons with that money.

I have been working for 4 hours now. My game is coming along pretty nicely.

Here is the first screenshot:

Look at that insane programmer’s art!

Race you to the top.. ;0)

Remember to slow down before you hit the peak!

Island racing…

I’m a bit worried that it looks like I’ll need to make a level editor again,

Here come the first screenshot, with start a bit late but the game design seems pretty clear in mind.

i think i m gonna stick with this simple cartoonish style in roder to be able to produce the amazingly huge number of assets i wanna inclued.

Can’t want to see those gfx inclued in the engine.

here is my task list :

1. build models :
1.1. mailman
1.2. zombie
1.3. kitten
1.4. building
1.5. sidewalk
1.6. street
1.7. shotgun
1.8. street light

2. prepare sound effects
2.1. define sound track
2.2. record zombie sound
2.3. record kitten sound
2.4. record shotgun reload sound from nerf
2.5. find shotgun shooting open sound
2.6. find steps sound
2.7. create sound track

3. create user interaction
3.1. arrange in the scene the first city with some streets (copy real neighbour ?)
3.2. add camera to the character
3.3. move the character
3.4. define positions to generate zombies
3.5. define kitten positions

4. prepare actions
4.1. get weapon from kitten
4.2. display and count lifes
4.3. game over scene
4.4. shoot and kill zombies
4.5. count zombies killed
4.6. deliver letter

5. add main screen menu
6. add final score screen

lets do it !!

Here’s a timelapse of my first ~10 hours of work. Sorry I didn’t add in any catchy music or anything. I’m thinking making a full-length timelapse of the whole compo once it’s done, so maybe I’ll throw music in on that.

Uh… not sure how to do this right. Have a youtube link: MY AWESOME TIMELAPSE

Animating 8 directions is quite hard, so glad to get this out of the way!

My idea’s to be a Take Away (‘take out’ for Americans) delivery service to deliver needed items to adventurers, so I based my player character on the Nissin Noodles delivery boy. Reference.

I’ve speed drawn a bunch of tiles. Also coded a tile loader + parallax for bush and clouds, but I have a lot to do. There is still no real gameplay.

Next I’ll write a level loader, then draw more tiles, create some objects and create the start area. There is the village + some interior houses. And finally DUNGEONS ! oh yeah

So I made the movement engine, most of the spriting and a bunch of levels. I am not fond of the player sprites now… I’m going to have diner in a couple of hours I think.