I read a study somewhere, sometime, that claimed really productive people slept more than others. Well I think I’m gonna give that a try here, I’ll need all the help I can get. I’ve got a lot left. Ugh.

At least I’ve got something that looks like… Something.

Ok – I finally got around a major art problem  I had. I wasn’t sure where I wanted to go with the style. It’s still not 100% fleshed out but there is certainly a direction.

Befor I go into all a little more here’s some of the things I wasted the afternoon on - none of the following will be used:

Most of it is being captured in timelapse anyway – so there should be a lot to laugh after finishing ^^.

Ok so now on to the game idea – sorta:
As I mentioned earlier I interpreted the theme more like “it’s less dangerous to be with others”. The theme revolves around not being dependent on others and how this could work. The character can’t go long without people, but on the other hand these people aren’t really interested in the character. So in order to be independent the player will have to find the right balance. I’m trying to be very vague here and not suggesting too much.
So the player’s indication of independence will be a garden that grows (according to your “level” of independence – don’t ask me why). Also there are lives, which are photographs.

I haven’t yet figured all the mechanisms out.
Movement works more or less, the “socializing” mechanic is in there somehow (boy do I suck at programming). Animation for the player char is done (unless there will be more animations than just walking).

Damnit … where was I?

So all in all progress isn’t as good as I hoped for and it will probably be a photo finish. We’ll see. I’ll keep working.

Yo, I’m EmptyFlash, working on the jam with Nineball. I didn’t check in, but I’m writing my game with Java, using only standard libraries, and he’s using Paint.NET for graphics. I was pretty upset about the theme, but what ever, we’re making it work. Here’s a screenshot of our progress:

Most of the graphics aren’t done yet, and there are a few things not implemented yet, but coming together quite nicely.

Still did not find the problem with Opera and IE. Added a tweet function.

http://keksdev.de/kitten.html?w=108,117,100,117,109,32,100,97,114,101

Never Go Alone is coming along nicely, I’ve got the player movement code more or less finalized and I’m starting to add enemy code. Below you can see my brave knight facing off against a vicious slime monster!

After a trip to a V2 test site from WW2, I am now officially 12.5hours behind schedule with only 4hours of work in… So far the kernel is done, engine is done, threads are mostly done and particle effects are done along with menu launcher… And to top it off, a nice screeny of the main menu with particle background:

So, my concept has been to have the item you’re given be an acid spewing thing! It’d be a puzzle-ish game where you try to kill some evil thing that is quite dangerous by using your acid to melt enemies and walls!

While developing this game, I’ve just been constantly running in to problems with movement; I didn’t think ahead far enough, and decided to use lines, which, considering that I neither had any base code for that, and have never written code to move stuff along lines affected by gravity, has proven to be a huge pain. Of course, being a person who really loves continuous systems, it’s not surprising that I missed the discrete alternative. I don’t think I’ll be able to write the code for enemies that move in the time, and I’ll definitely have to keep the bugs of the system I implemented in mind while I’m designing levels so that players won’t think to do something that will cause weird movement (hehe… good practice there. Of course, as previously mentioned, I have no idea what I’m doing, so those bugs aren’t gonna get fixed in 48 hours, so it’s better than nothing). These technical limitations are certainly gonna show in the final product, because it really limits the amount of stuff I can do with my concept.

Other than that, it’s going better than I expected for my first time, considering I’ve never really finished an original game before due to my ambitious goals (See: Above). I’ll probably get something out, if not for the compo, I’ll probably be able to get it ready for the Jam. Also, I screwed up my timelapse, somehow. I am the image of competence, aren’t I?

Difficult to gather my thoughts and list everything I’ve done since this morning so here’s a screenshot.  It’s all playable and I’ll post up a preview version soon BUT BACK TO WORK .

Just a quick progress report before I go grab some sleep (no screenshot because it’s just boxes and lines at the moment):

• I have a tank that moves realistically enough.
• The tank has a turret that can be controlled by AI or can follow the mouse for the player.

I still need:

1. Guns – lots of guns! (I lie, just 2 actually)
2. Enemies – lots of enemies! (Same lie)
3. Terrain
4. Intro, menus, etc…
5. Graphics
6. Sound

So as of now I’m very far behind, but I think I’ll be able to accomplish a lot more tomorrow – in theory there should be fewer distractions from working on the game… if not then I’ll switch to jam to polish it a bit more on Monday (a holiday here in ZA fortunately).

Good night all!

I’m pretty happy with my progress though

Got all the basic elements working, just a few little things still to do, then I can concentrate on art, level design, and stuff ^^

I wasn’t feeling spectacular last night, and the theme was a complete curveball so I let it simmer and went to bed.  Today I had a bunch of stuff to do during the day, but I’ve kept my eye on the site to watch everyone else’s activity.  This morning I saw dock’s post with his concept art and something clicked, so I wanted to both call out his stuff and lay out my own plans (which I hope aren’t too similar to his).

Here’s a quick concept sketch to talk to:

A basic layout and flow for the action

The general idea is that you play a god and its your job to watch our for your adventurer follower by providing her with the necessary tools to survive.  The level is a linear series of platforms that the adventurer runs and jumps through in order to reach the end.  There are a couple of obstacles that she may face: goblin soldiers that need killed, goblin archers that fire for the background that she’ll need protection from, and jumps that are too far for her to make.  You can grab an item from the top bar (sword, shield, or rope) and drop it somewhere on the map and she’ll grab and use whatever is in her path.  Items fall from the top of the screen, so you have to time where and when to drop things.  I think I’ll also provide a healing potion to drop on her for restoring health (which will be displayed in a health bar which isn’t drawn here).

Things I’m unsure about:

1. Is her pace constant and does she always move forward?  If she does, then the challenge comes from dropping the right items at the right places and times for her to survive.  If she doesn’t, and she can fight through goblins and retreat/slow down, it becomes more like a side-scrolling RTS with a single unit.  I’m not sure which I’ll end up trying out during the contest.
2. What’s the point of the level?  I’m considering the final stretch being a treasure chamber in which she always opens a chest that contains a new or upgraded item (which she offers to you, her god, as thanks for your protection).  You can then collect and replace the items on the top bar with these new ones for later runs.  I love the idea of finale being loot-based (because I love games that are randomly generated stat-heavy item grinds , but I don’t know how well this works here because the challenges in the level and the items’ functionality are very closely tied to each other.  If you replace the rope, how do you overcome long jumps?  Perhaps there are three general classes of  items (attack, defend, and jump) and you can replace those with items with different mechanics (maybe replace the rope with double-jump boots or teleport spells or something).
3. There was something else on the tip of my tongue that I was a little worried about, but now its gone.  I’m sure it’ll show back up when its least convenient.

So, here’s a nod to docks’ drawing that got me going, and its time to get to work.

Those are trees it's a pseudo-3D thing

I spent most of the day sleeping and helping at a yard sale. Then on my way home my car’s back right ball bearing started making a racket, and the sound doesn’t go away until the tires stop rolling or I turn really hard.

And I scrapped my ideas from last night and decided to make a game about a photographer that parachutes into unknown territory where there’s a lake with black water and unknown inhabitants. It’s dangerous to go alone, take this backpack! And he loses the backpack immediately; you can regain tools one at a time exploring later. The only thing done now is an aesthetic-gimmick to make things rotate and scale based on perspective.

I’m hoping to have a story and a dirtbike but some things may be cut for time.. Though I did sleep through 25% of the competition already. Maybe cut some sleep?

Everything I have done has failed now for no reason I can understand

I hate making things

I shouldn’t noodle with this anymore right now, better to get the rest of the game together and see if anyone can actually play it. It’s a pretty simple design, so hopefully I can have that done in a few hours tomorrow. I doubt it will be polished beyond these simplistic graphics, especially since I’m starting to like how they look already

http://www.mediafire.com/?fw5gdla68pv5mf4

PLEEEAAAASEEEEEEEE download, play, and give feedback!

A cute otter to draw attention to the post.

Okay fine. here’s a screenshot:

Now to spend some time playing other people’s games, if there are any available.

At first, I thought that the theme was not good. At all.

Then I got an idea.

You now have the right to be scared, but don’t wory, there are flashlights to be inserted next

Even though the last few hours haven’t been effective, it has been a good day all over. I am quite confident that I will finish in time. I’ve cut out half of the content I wanted in the game but there is still quite an amount of graphics to draw, but I think I can get away with recoloring sprites. No new screen shot as the game looks just like the did in the last shot.

Tomorrow’s check list:
- let heroes buy things at shop
- let salesmen sell raw materials at shop
- let enemy castle generate tougher and tougher enemies
- let castles have energy
- win and lose screens
- balance gameplay
- draw, draw and draw

Cheers for now!

Sloped terrain technology unleashed

When I laid my head down to rest last night, and shortly after my prayers for others to potentially choke on their baked goods — not die or anything, but maybe just a 48 hour coma with no long lasting debilitating effects — I pondered sloped or a tile based level. I have chosen sloped as I think it’ll be more visually appealing to see these little fleas attacking things trying to climb up a hill. So I spent some dev time creating a way to move along a sloped terrain. Works pretty good and I’m happy with it. I’m going to imagine I might have to do a little more work for a wider object to angle it right on the slope. Like a collapsed corpse for example.

You can check out the demo as it stands here :
flea_bitten_demo

sloped magic, and you are safe from the fleas for now...

You still can click to add fleas, and for the moment you are safe from the fleas as I have not taught them to traverse slopes just yet. So you are safe for now.

I’ve decided to take a slightly different approach in development to ensure i have SOMETHING by the end of the contest. Rather than design out 10 levels, I’m going to develop this as a single screen game for the moment. Focus on all the core gameplay elements/concepts within that range. Then if there is time at the end.. i can churn out more content and scrolling capabilities.

Next up is objects in flight — such as a bird maybe? What might happen if a bird flew low enough that a few fleas could jump on him ? what would happen if he took off and while in flight that bird was bitten and zombified as well ? How quickly could zombification spread under such circumstances? would a helicopter be safe ?

It still looks quite unassuming, but when you go see a magic show — does the magician just show you all the tricks right off the bat ?? hell no, that magic man has some shit up his sleeves. He gets you to look one way and next thing you know he’s sawing you in two and everyone is laughing.

Ok.. back to work. I think i need to go learn some magic tricks too!