While we’re waiting for our first playable, the artists are doing some window shopping and the designers are making up problems for the programmers, like pathfinding.

And we got a name for our game!
Let me just take note of it…

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH

[My name is Carlos Leituga and I’m a Game Designer / Implementer in a Portuguese company, where I’m working on a _NEW_ Hidden Object Adventure. That one is going to take a bit to finish, so I'm back again helping the Make A Game team to create a game in 72 hours for Ludum Dare #23.]

«That’s a wrap!», we said when “alone I art” was submitted, «We’re not going to do another Ludum Dare before making full games out of this and Eggscape, okay?»

We all agreed, until seconds later someone reminded us that the next Ludum Dare was going to mark the 10th Anniversary of the competition.

«#&$*@!», I said, before blacking out and waking up four months later and right when the theme was announced.

«The theme is Tiny World?»

«#&$*@!», there, I did it again.

(more…)

Go on, get on it!

Pay attention!

These are some of the planets you Mengs will be colonizing later today.

Got that?

Good.

Now get moving!

Seems like there is an overwhelming amount of games with planets but we’ve quickly found a way to make it stand out. I mean, it’s not rocket science.

Meet Chii! He has been performing a support role in the team since last Ludum Dare. Here you can see him PURRFECTING our art!

We are currently working on our idea, but we don’t feel like lifting the veil, yet.

Tune in for more updates in a while!

A long night of brainstorming awaits us, and we’re dead tired already.

[My name is Carlos Leituga and I’m a junior Game Designer / Implementer in a Portuguese company, where I’m working on a Hidden Object Adventure for a year and a half now. So here I am again, creating a game in 72 hours with the Make A Game team for Ludum Dare #22. ]

As we were packing our stuff after making Eggscape, someone said something in the lines of “Let’s do this again in December!”, and since that day in August we’ve been talking about participating once more in Ludum Dare.

As the final week till LD #22 began, we followed the theme voting closely, coordinated our votes and shared the possibilities of each theme that interested us. Having learnt a lot with LD #21, we were confident that this time everything would work out better, even with two fewer members.

(more…)

“alone I art“ is a game about spending valuable time alone with art.

You’re a shady character in a museum. You love art. You love it so much that you need to steal it. But to steal the art, you need to be alone. You can’t have anyone spot you stealing or carrying the art in your trench coat, or you’ll never be allowed be alone with art ever again.

Here you can see how some of our gameplay mechanics work. The AI and pathfinding are on their way.

We’re confident this game is going to be at least as fun as the process of making it.

…so I guess the art is done!

Leave me alone!

But the game is still a day from finish. Gameplay, level design and sound are shaping up pretty well.

We still need to fix some problems between collision detection and 22×22 tiles, but everything’s going much better than last Ludum Dare.

We even had time to pixelate the whole team for the game.

To the detail of our clothes during
development, pajamas and all

And while we still have time to finish our Jam entry, we wish the best luck to the ones who are reaching the final stretch of the 48h Compo submission. You can do it!

While the programmers are writing away the game, art is nearly finished and we already have our mockup for the main menu.

Also, the game is called “alone I art”!

Nearly one day after, this theme turned out to be very fun to develop. Can’t wait to reveal more of it, like the really clever name we came up for it!

And we made pancakes! (the game comes later)

[My name is Carlos Leituga and I’m an intern Junior Game Designer / Implementer in a Portuguese company, where I’ve been working on a Hidden Object Adventure for a year now. I was invited by friends to help develop a game for the 21st Ludum Dare event. We are the Make A Game team.]

It was around 11pm when I left my house with a 1 hour trip ahead until I met the yet to be named Make A Game team. Having memorized half of the list of possible themes, I spent the little I could of brain waves keeping my car on the road, and tried to think of quick game mechanics suited for a 72 hour game development.

I was the last of the team to arrive; I met some new faces and joined in on the ready up ritual. There were still 3 hours until the official LD #21 theme to be revealed, so we started throwing ideas around, writing them down on our white boards and linking them to similar themes.

 Look busy guys…

The awaited hour finally came, and the Escape theme was victorious. We quickly (and sleepily) gathered around one whiteboard and started discussing our previous ideas, along with new ones. Among them, the Survival Tetris game was highly praised. For some dumb reason, I went to my computer and searched if someone already had done such a thing. It existed, and in two quite different forms. In one you only controlled a stick figure, and in the other you controlled both pieces and a round character. We were bummed out.

(more…)

No more art to do ; _ ;

With all the art done, we turned our attention to the team’s logo while the programmers keep churning out code.

We are near completion of what we can do with our 72 + 4 hour time limit.

Setbacks in the second day kept us from having the game done within the original schedule but we are really proud of our overall progress.

Some stuff won’t make it to our submission build, but we’re keen on finishing this amazing project.

You can check out our Day 2 recap at http://makeaga.me. We won’t be doing a Day 3 post or Post Mortem for a couple of days.

WATCH OUT, IT’S A CODERS’ BLOCK!

IT’S NOT STEALING! IT BELONGS IN A MUSEUM!

“Oh, I didn’t see you there, crushing my path for survival and my dreams of becoming a famous paleontologist.

Do you know how hard it was to find this egg? And how lucky I am that these debris are falling in such a coincidental position that I can climb some of them? It’s like someone is throwing them with exact precision. But I don’t have time to think about it, actually I can’t do much more than panic and run around, waiting for more debris to fall.”

We’re Make A Game and Eggscape is our entry for Ludum Dare 21′s Jam. You can read our Day One Update at http://makeaga.me!

Onward to Day 2! It starts right now!