Yeah, my intention to enter this was too ambitious. It’s a shame, but rather than consider what I’ve done so far as a waste, I will keep working on it, and I’ll post a link or something to the final product here anyway.

(Is there a Jam (72 hour) for this compo? Because if there isn’t I’m totally defining one and pretending it existed the whole time.)

Sadly, I can’t finish. I was clearly overambitious, even though I thought I wasn’t being. At least I’ve got some nice code from it

It’s almost done, but I wanted to share some progress during the evening lunch : I used Unity3D for 3h44 minutes now, MonoDevelop for 45minutes,  SeaShore (pixel graphism) for 1h 8 minutes, and GarageBand for 27 minutes so far. That’s a little more than 6 hours of work for the current progress of Dirty Things Tracy.

What did I do ?

Tracy has got a single level with a 4 screens size. The old-school scrolling works very well : reminds me of Rick Dangerous, so it’s a little bit more than expected: well done !

The dirty t-shirts monster are there, with a very limited sprite animation, 2 pictures : done !

The “compactor” works well, even if there’s a weird bug that cause the weapon to fire the wrong way just after you’ve change direction : done !

No sound FX nor background music are done for now, I didn’t find the right sound to make it during the little half an hour in GarageBand. Not done !

But, I did more than that : traps are present and you’ve got a full playable level with a second weapon : the mega block. The mega block is made from four compacted dirty t-shirts that you have compacted with the first weapon and then retrieved by walking through them. Then you can use this mega block on the level to be able to walk over a trap !

Before releasing it, I will/would like to :

- add sound effects and background music,

- fix the first weapon bug,

- add a graphical GUI for the compactor and mega blocks

Here are some pictures (remember I’m not a graphist !)

The core mechanics are kinda working for the two players and the split screen is also ok, so now I will add a win state, a title screen, and then to try to adjusts values and fix bugs before the deadline.

Btw, does anybody know at which hour its the deadline?

And screenshot:

I’m very happy to introduce you gLapse 0.2, the visual GNU/Linux tool to take screenshots at fixed intervals and make time lapse videos of your compo progress. If you didn’t knew gLapse you can check out more information about this tool in my first post. At this moment, gLapse is available in English, Spanish and German.

Changelog

• Configurable video quality (very bad, bad, normal, good, best).
• Synchronized screenshots output and video input folders.
• Changes default screenshots output folder.
• Adds German translation (thanks to Superyoshi).
• Improves GUI usability.

Download

• gLapse 0.2 Debian package
• gLapse 0.2 source package

Feedback and new translations are hugely welcome, if you find any problems I would be grateful if yould report them in the issues section. Hope you like it and find it useful for the next compo!

I’m officially forfeiting the Mini-LD. I don’t have any chance. I’m not even close to having enough of SpudTech implemented to make a real game.

I’ve put a bit of a spin on my idea, and I’m going to be working on that for the time being.

I’m probably going to sit out the next couple of Mini-LD’s. I need time to relax; doing an LD every month isn’t good for me, I think. I’ll still be on IRC, and I’ll probably post my progress here on the LD blog.

I will definitely enter in LD #21, but until then I’m laying off of LD.

Peace, love, and restfulness,

— Mr. Dude

I just realized one small but funny mistake:

The game takes place on the portuguese province of Tras-os-montes, but that province is not on the alentejo!

That will need a rectification very soon…Tomorrow I’ll also set up the game embedded on a webpage.

So long, and  thanks for all the D’s

I finally got a screen from the game. Next LD I need to be away from my family. Im glad if there is anything playable at all at the deadline.
I can’t wait to play all your games. I want to blow stuff up!

Due to my lack of proper time sense, I wasted too much time on useless stuff while coding this project.

But I’m glad to report that I managed to acomplish everything promissed. It flickers badly, has a few nasty bugs, but in the end, IT WORKS!

It was funny how I spent the last half-hour just balancing the game and the boss.

I had great ideas on how to tell the funny game story or on how to make a awesome boss, but I decided to get-things-done, ship it and leave those ideas for a future expansion ( for those who saw me @ IRC, probably know I’m very focused on Android and J2ME and I would love to port the game for these platforms).

In the end, the boss den was made into a forth level. Not bad!

Now, its time to figure out how to upload(?) the game.

Screenshot:

edit: now I realize I sent it 3 minutes to my deadline!

Of course. I know I can do a LOT better than this, but my focus wasn’t really on quality, but rather on finding how to improve my “Get Things Done ™” skills. The most important skill from this skill-set is to see your limitations (mine was more of time than of knowledge or anything like that), set yourself a reasonable goal and accomplish that. In that sense, I believe I was very successful. And most of all, I had lots of fun knowing you folks!

I hope to be here more often on more LDs and MiniLDs!

Thanks for all of you.

Magix: Elementus

Still two player but now you can absorb the magic from the elements around you…

[Done] Absorb Elements

Next

[] Launch Spells

I’m a little confused about the deadlines here, I’m operating on the assumption that I’ve got a whole day ahead of me (Sunday).  I’ve got the basic mechanics working, but no drilling (which is kinda a basic mechanic so maybe I lied earlier in this sentence).  Gonna keep plugging tomorrow.  Rendering speed is an issue — can only draw so many hexes before the framerate starts eating it, but there’s a bug somewhere that’s preventing me from caching rendered data.  Probably something simple I’m too tired to see right now.

Screenshot (in-game this time, not a mockup):

Very intimidated/impressed by the other posts people are making.  Nice work, y’all.

Well, here we are. I’m not nearly as far along as I would’ve liked, and I have probably the most daunting of my tasks ahead of me: Making the AI that guides the opponent ‘player’ in my game. I’ve never done anything like that and while I have a pretty good idea about what I need to do, there’s always all sorts of gotchas. In any case, right now:

• I’m not in love with the tileset, but it’s functional. The NES palette is pretty terrible, but I feel like I’m committed. That’s fine, really.
• Dungeon generation works fine, though the autotiler I made has trouble with some edge cases (corner cases, actually). I’m pretty happy with how the dungeons look. If nothing else, I learned some really useful stuff doing it.
• I think I’m changing the name to “The Legend of < >”

I’m spending way too much time on pixelling! But it’s fun to see things look good…

The funny thing is that none of this was specifically in my “Done List”, but how can you plant and harvest if you can’t thresh and hoe?

Not sure if I’m going to bother actually starting this game, but here’s the concept nonetheless

Title:
In case of emergency use stairs

Desc:
You are aware of the presence of cake on the main floor; get there ASAP via the closest elevator and let none get in your path.

Mockup:

As you head down in the elevator, others will try to hitch a ride. you will then need to use a combo of your abilities (open doors, close doors, emergency telephone, Lobby button) as well as changing the indication of which direction your capsule is moving in. every time someone is let in, they will select a floor they want to go to. The floor they wish to get to will be incremental (first duder wants the lobby, second duder wants the 1st floor, etc.). When you arrive at a floor someone wants to get off at you will be forced to stop, slowing you down and making it easy for others to get on. The game ends when either you get to the lobby or your elevator is forced to move upwards (because the last selected floor is higher than your current height). Yeah.

Done when:
The game is done when there are atleast 50 floors, randomly interspersed, and everything mentioned above is included. There will also be a menu and a menu theme and a song for the game itself, aswell as some encouraging vocal stuff when you pull off good combos. There will also be a score meter, giving you more scores the better your combos.

My favorite genre of casual game currently is demolition-type games (especially on the iPad/iPhone). Think Angry Birds, or iDemolition. I really enjoy the games which present you with a sturcture and a minimum amount of materials/equipment with which to bring that building down. While I love the puzzle aspect of these games, sometimes I wish there were a sandbox mode that I could just mess around and blow things up in. My game is my attempt to (sort of) realize this wish. I want to make a game where the goal is not to bring down a building with the minimum amount of force- it’s to completely, ridiculously destroy the building in ludicrous ways. My original inspiration for this game was a demolition game where you hurl huge meteors in the sides of buildings, sending parts everywhere.

I might not even submit this game, but I’m having a ton of fun creating and, most importantly, playing it so far. If anyone wants to follow, I will likely post updates only on my blog at http://codenameian.blogspot.com/ since I’m not sure how the blogs work here. Is there a way to view all posts on, say, MiniLD #26 at once? Or is the only way to view other people’s posts through the dashboard view? Very strange organization… anyway, the required post:

A: Name of the game

Overkill Demolition Company (I need a better name, I think.)

B: Description (140 chars)

Destroy buildings in the most extreme, overblown, and stylish methods possible.

C: One mockup image

See blog: http://codenameian.blogspot.com/2011/05/overkill-demolition-company-part-1.html

D: Definition of Done: (Example) 3 levels, 3 enemy types, 1 boss, music track, sfx

Necessary:

* Physics of buildings and explosions

* Scoring system

* A level- or money-based unlocking system

* Three distinctly different and fun weapons

* Randomized maps (since the game is not about puzzles, why have premade levels?)

* At least 3 different building templates

* At least 2 different building materials

Hopeful:

* At least three weapons, including passive (bombs, nukes, meteors) and active (godzilla, mechs) ones

* Random building construction (this seems hard) rather than templates

* Good, non-programmer, graphics (pipe dream)

* Sounds

Those last two hopeful goals might tell you my personal goal for this game. I don’t necessarily care about the vanity polish of this game. Since I wasn’t sure where/how to post this post, I am already about 40% complete with my game, and I already legitimately have fun with it. That’s ultimately my goal, is to create a game that I want to play. And crappy canned sounds repeated ad naseum, and ridiculously detailed graphics really don’t make a game any more fun to play. It’s not something I would show off to someone necessarily, it’s just meant to be a fun time distraction!

Anyway, I imagine few people will read this. If you are actually reading, leave me a comment with any thoughts? I’m going to keep working on this, but I’m not sure if I will submit it- I would probably be embarrassed to do so.

Long version: I actually don’t have much to report. I had to go out with my girlfriend and what I expected to last just a few hours, lasted the double ( hope you guys know how persuasive women can be ;-] ).

But don’t blame her (or me), since she wants me to finish this game and wants to see it ( she’s into gamedev too ).

What did I do earlier today?

- Game now is true turn-based.

- Spawn bug fixed (people were spawning inside walls, etc).

- Finished characterization (defense, attack, life, etc ) for both the Knights and the boss.

- Got a pretty cool idea for the title screen, game over screen and fininshed screen. And its going to be real easy to do.

- Also got a general idea on the final boss.

- Got some very funny ideas for a backstory.

In the end, its only missing the final boss and those screens. Oh, and there is also a bug on the “seeking” algorithm for the monsters. Gonna finish it before anything else.

Now, on the not so cool ideas: I did some math and its better for me to go to sleep now and wake up early tomorrow, refreshed and full of ideas than go to work now, tired, and wake up late tomorrow, almost on the deadline.

Short version: In my local time, the deadline is 11 AM. If I work now, I would go to bed some 2 AM and wake up at 10 AM. If I go to sleep now, I wake up 8 AM. Pretty obvious, isn’t it?

Pit dive is done in demo web mode:

http://www.devinmoore.com/pitdive/appletholder.html

It doesn’t have all the elements I initially wanted, but that’s mostly because the game took a turn in a more interesting direction once i started adding in stats.  I just thought it would be interesting to show the number of moves, digs, etc. and then I got inspired to make a score based on the total level of descent minus the amount of moves it took to get there.   This causes the game to move into way more strategy vs. just button mashing, which makes the game way more compelling.  If you blast to the end, you will have a crap score, probably a negative score.  I got as high as 150 or so trying pretty hard.  Bugs: don’t dig past the edges of the level… I didn’t finish handling this for the demo but I will fix it soon, as usual I am running low on time and I wanted to stop someplace sensible vs. having a bunch of buggy, half-implemented features.

Well, after inadvertently sleeping in until noon (Alarm went off but it failed to wake me up…) I had an extremely unproductive day.

I’m really pissed at myself. I promised myself that I’d succeed this time. I really wanted this to amount to something. I don’t know if I can do that now.

Maybe I’m just pissy right now because I’m disappointed in myself, but I can’t picture getting any of this done by the end.

I’m really sorry, folks. I did this myself. I did this to myself. I can’t believe it. I’ve likely failed yet again. Can I ever succeed at this?

This is really sad for me. I’m wondering whether I can actually succeed at making games. Again, I’m probably just pessimistic because of how today went. I can’t shake that feeling, though.

I’m not sure what will become of my Mini-LD entry. I’m really depressed right now, and finishing it at all, even after the Mini-LD looks hopeless. I’m not sure what I want to do, or whether I want to keep going.

This is pretty much how it’s gone for the past year or so. Loads of projects that don’t even make it to being prototypes. Abandoned within days. I’m doubting whether I can actually do game dev at all.

I’m really sorry about this, folks. I just… can’t seem to get anything done. I don’t know why I’m sharing this here. I probably shouldn’t be, but I need to vent. I’m really not sure what I should do.

Still, good luck to everyone. I wish I could find hope for myself…

— Mr. Dude

Finally got the concept/mockup/etc for my MiniLD #26 together here. Interesting requirements; they have really delayed me (planned to start early this morning) but I think it makes a pretty good point. Hammering out a game in a weekend is cool, but having a plan and an idea of what it should look like makes me feel a lot more directed now that I’m getting ready to begin.

Title: Detritus

Description: At an unspecified location in an unspecified time period, you live as a scavenger amidst the wreckage of a destroyed civilization. One day, while digging in the debris, you make an incredible discovery…

Detritus is a text-driven adventure game about exploration, mystery, and lost technology.

Mockup:

The mockup shows two related game screens. The center of the screen is dominated by a static illustration of the current location or situation. When the player has finished observing the illustration, it fades out and is overlaid by a text description and a number of options. The player selects one of the options to progress the game and the text will change to reflect that progress. New illustrations will be presented as warranted by the player’s progress. Note that the vaguely medieval theme of the mockup has nothing to do with the actual game.

Definition of Done:

• Playable from start to finish.
• At least one “win” and one “lose”; as an adventure game, these will probably be “good” and “bad” endings.
• At least ten illustrations of reasonable quality.
• Some sort of inventory system.
• MMO-style quest tracker keeps current goal and progress visible at all times.
• Accessible and understandable instructions.

Bonus Features If I Have Time:

• Some type of character customization/progression.
• Useful mapping system.
• Specialized mechanics beyond the multiple-choice adventure paradigm; puzzle mini-games, for example.
• Player journal for tracking previous events and quests.
• More/better artwork (Art could be an enormous time investment, so it is a low priority beyond the minimum.)

Themes in Use:

Mainly “Dig” and “Descend”, I think. To be honest, I’m not sure how much influence the themes will have, but I’ll do my best to work them in where I can.

A screenshot.