Good Morning Ludum Dare,

Well it’s day 3 for me, and I’m up very early 07:24 now where was I…. (48 hours can span 3 actual days honest, I think it’s early! ;o)

That’s it targeting definitely needed, then hubs!

09:35 Arrgh targeting/control mechanic is a pain, given the marine a jetpack, more chance to hit the targets! (Need to figure out an auto-targeting system or mouse look control!)

Right next up going to add the Hubs and Decoding system for island control!

Unfortunately, due to power outages at home, and dealing with bugs and headaches I wasn’t able to finish in time. I will be completing it anyway and posting it our site (http://fatcowgames.net) When it reaches the quality I think it deserves.  You can see the latest build using the following link.  Congrats to all those that made the time limit!

I learned a ton and was totally worth it, looking forward to more LD!

http://fatcowgames.net/ludumdare/miniLD28/WebPlayer.html

I have spent the last few hours tinkering trying to figure out a strategy that would let me have a more playable game without having to spend too much time. Could not think of anything. I then spent some time tweaking the existing game to see if I could find the fun. I couldn’t So I slapped a score on it, and made it restart the level when you die, and am going to “ship it”. I feel like there might be something there but I kind of hate it right now and don’t want to poke around anymore.

Can download here: http://code.google.com/p/mini-ld-28-unitformations/downloads/detail?name=salukminild28.zip&can=2&q=

You can toggle formations with 1 and 2, and press the arrow keys to change the direction. Formation 2 is kind of broken and useless, and the level is easy enough I think you can “win” without pressing a key, although you won’t get the best score. My best is 22, with only a few baddies missed. Not sure if it’s possible to hit every grunt but it might be.

What went wrong :

*idea too hard to pull off in 2 days, needed more upfront design

*Spent most of yesterday playing with formations and tweaking controls without level data. How do I even know if the controls are good or not without something to test against?

*Spent too much time tweaking at the end when a bit of extra polish could hide the bad gameplay

What went right:

*Got formation and base code up quickly first night

*Not much else

For next time:

*levels first controls second

*try to find easier idea

*limit tweak time for each feature so I have more time to see how well elements fit with each other

*dont make a scrolling shooter ever again, it never works out for me

I know it’s late notice, but I haven’t had any time to work on this or anything else. The past week I was swamped with getting a website together that I’ve been working on for the past three months and on Saturday I had to help at a yard sale and ended up with a pounding headache for the rest of the day that even Motrin couldn’t cure. I know there’s time, but I still have work to do on my other project. I want to finish what I started, because I did sneak a little time in to work on some really basic stuff during the week, but there’s no way I’ll be able finish anywhere near what it would need to be playable by the end of this contest. So I have to tap out, but after the website is done I’m going to take a day or so to rest and then get started on the idea I had for this contest. I was excited about it, but it wasn’t meant to be for me.

Guns to Roses is finally complete! You can check it out under all the entries for this Mini LD. Your feedback is really appreciated, as I will continue to update this game!

And here it is, my miniLD#28 entry.

I’ve got to say, I didn’t expect to get it done in the end, and I overshot by a few hours… But it’s finished.
I did have some ideas given on IRC that could be very fun to put in, but I just didn’t have the time.

You can find it here : here

Good night, and good luck to those still coding.

I’m going to be out of town for a week with no computer (scout camp), so here’s a little post mortem.

We are gathered here today to talk a bit about my first (Mini)LD game, To End The War, available for download here.

Timelapse: Timelapse

What went well:

1. I got a taste of Game creation

2. I learned how hard it is to focus

What went badly:

1. I was very distracted, most of the removed clips were of me playing games online

2. I didn’t get too much sleep, as I stayed up playing FFVII

3.  I aimed WAY to high!

Let me know if I missed something.

See you guys later!

UPDATE: Mini LD 28 is officially over! Congratulations to all the participants!

Here’s the Android .APK: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/11816173/shootout-android.apk

It will currently work on all 2.2 and up Android devices at 800×480.

Give me a bit and I can widen the support. Just wanted to post this as the deadline just hit!

Edit: Here’s the entry write-up.

I just learned that I could slap together something with at least minimal gameplay and a reasonable end-game condition in less than 8 hours of work.  While I got very little actual game out of the exercise, it instilled a strong reminder to structure one’s software properly from early one.  I still look forward to writing up the full post-mortem later.

Good luck, everyone!

Addendum: I just added the keyboard control scheme to the webpage.

I’m really tired, but finished.

The game is done, I’m really happy with it, although I was hoping for XP working too. There is a menu, some polish, sounds, and a fairly fun game, so I think this went well. The end result is much more playable than my entry for LD19. Starting on time and coming up with a solid idea beforehand made everything easier.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/16895250/miniLD28/dinner%2031%20july.swf

I feel sorry for those people that couldn’t finish, better luck next time!

Yay, damage works but still need auto targetting, very hard to aim in 3rd person with locked forward firing!

Tired going to miss the deadline but will continue with this tomorrow on my own 48 hour timeline (one day to go!).

Good Night!

7. Energy / Resources / Unlocks

6. Hubs / Decoding

5. Shooting / Damage / Explosions [22:32 - 27 hours in]

4.  Turning Turrets and Shooting [13:57 - 21 hours in ] and Moving Shooting Robots  [16:09 - 25 hours in]

Sleep – Day 2 11:23 UK  [Zzzz from 23:59 - 19 hours in]

3. Marine Moving  [Done 22:48] 7 hours in

2. Sub Movable [Done 19:45] 4 hours in

Tea Break

1. Landscape Sea and Islands [Done 16:40] 1 hour in

Phase 1 – Mechanics and Gameplay – First 24 hours

Started -  15:41 UK 30/07/2011.

Completed! Didn’t have the energy to do the achievements anymore. But I’m still pretty happy with my game.

Entry here.

See ya, I’m off to sleep!

I wasted a lot of time today, and bugs jumping out of nowhere all the time, it’s not my lucky day I guess. I feel depressed and I don’t think I can finish it on time. I like the idea though, so I guess I’ll finish the game another time soon anyway.

Hmm, having a bit of bother here, thought I could just add Stats as a GameObject and then hook it all together, well it’s not working so far but going modular is definitely the way to go with Unity IMHO.

So going for tea break… then giving Damage stats another go!

Also need to sort out some mechnic for aiming/locking on nearest target either mouse or automatic.

Is this a strict miniLD or more relaxed?

As I started late ;o) !

Meh. Still not passed the demo/simulation state. Without some input of the player (except clicking the “fight” button) I am not going to call my project a game. As it’s quite late now and I have to get to office early tomorrow, I have to give up at this point.

Nevertheless it was a great experience trying to make a game for this miniLD which has been my first LD. I am still convinced that my basic idea could make a working game so I will proceed programming during the next days and post some update.

I am done! Woop! I got the non retina graphics working, and sent it out to a few friends. I decided not to submit to apple tonight, so that my audio buddy can get his paws on it and fix the audio track to be more nice.

One thing that really bit me is that when I changed the sizes for the graphics, I also had them tightly coupled to the box2d objects, so all the weights of things got jacked up. I did a quick fix and platform specific’d everything, but now the game plays slightly different if you are on retina display or not. Luckily there is a pretty big fun area with the mechanics.

The offer is still open if you want a build, just fill out this form, and I will hook you up.

OK, I didn’t finish everything that I planned but at least it is good for a preview demo. Most time I was working on battle control and some simple AI. So there are no 3D tanks nor buildings, for now…

I will submit it as is tonight, just a few more bug fixes.

My idea is to make a 3D RTS game where users will be able to import there own custom units in the game (pixel art sprites with 4 directions and few animated frames). I will continue to work on this, definitely…

I’m pretty much done. The game even has a name now, “Pvt. Littledude vs Robot Armada”.

The game is fully playable and completable and suprisingly fun. In fact, it turned out so well that I’m still thinking of adding some kind of an achievement system into it at the last minute. We’ll see if I have the energy, I’m pretty dead for the day already though.

Here’s a new screenshot, not much visual changes since last time: