It’s not really a post mortem, well it sort of is, but not for the game I made this Ludum Dare. That’ll come in  a while after I sort out my thoughts on it. I might do a technical post mortem first.

Anyway

It’s about my previous ld game(again, sort of), which has been my first proper contact with game-making after a long long time. As if I put it (making games) on a shelf and forgot about it for many years and let it collect dust and cobwebs. It’s something I can do that makes me happy regardless of the end result. It’s something I can do that takes nothing and time and makes something, and at the end of the day I can sit back and look at something which wasn’t there before.

And you guys are to blame for me finding it on that shelf.

People liked this game of mine for some reason(the ones that understood it) and some made a point to tell me in IRC they remembered and liked if from all the way back then which blew me out of the water. Days later I still can’t believe that happened. So now that said game is on the android market and the ubuntu software center and desura and such I feel that I should give something back to the people who inspired me to keep going.

So what I’ll do is post a bunch of desura keys for that game of mine every day till Chritmas.

Let’s start with 2 for now and see where that takes us:

R42VR-VIU5B-ZBR2T-EL8BD-RIZIK

PUOJQ-X0BD5-I2QG2-E26MQ-KZCQC

So I found this thing which makes custom Santa messages.. sort of. So I made one for all of you

I’ve added my entry to the chrome web store because having it in html5 makes that a hillariously simple task.

Grab it here:

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/lmkbojccjjlficidfnpkgehomippmfgi

Rate it here:

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-22/?action=rate&uid=5432

I didn’t http:// before adding the play link to my game, so the link didn’t show up at all! it’s fixed now. I would have spotted it earlier but ‘the pages are cached’

http://software.o-o.ro/ld22/index.html

and the rating page: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-22/?action=rate&uid=5432

Sorry about that to anybody who tried and failed to play

http://software.o-o.ro/ld22/index.html

Other than some rogue images, sounds and a win conditions (and some stuff on the host page) it’s msotly there.

Does the text display? Any GUI suggestions? Any other ideas/thoughts/suggestions/bug reports?

Can anyone try this and tell me if it loads/doesn’t? There are still placeholder graphics(mostly buttons that look like”?”), but the core is pretty much there. It’s the sandboxy thing the actual game content will be built on.

It should be noted that all species of beings look the same for now, so that’s why some might not breed with each other.

Assigning traits works thusly: click them on the menu on the left, click a being, and on the bottom you should see 3 icons, the middle one changes gender, the other 2 are slots. Click one to ‘equip’ the selected trait.

I’m also open to suggestions and ideas of goals/buildings/traits(jobs,hats etc)

http://software.o-o.ro/ld22/index.html

Processing.js Y U NO like 3 dimensional image arrays?

Right then, screenshots. After I wasted some time with that platformer I previously mentioned I’ve went around and started working on one of my original ideas.

What you see here are a bunch of squares. Boy squares and girl squares. They have numbers attached. What these can do is, walk around, kill eachother, breed (like rabbits), and interact with buildings. The buildings are naturally the gray rectangles and the ellipses shall be buttons.

The rectangles on the sides are also buttons.

Now I see a lot of fancy graphics being thrown around without much coding done yet so I figured I upset the balance

There will be alone-ness, and there will be more stuff. I just need to figure out the more stuff part. Maybe some lemmings-like thing. I don’t know.

8 hours in

12 hours in

Yes it doesn’t look like much of a difference, that’s behind the scenes.

Let me tell you a secret about it… (more…)

Until further notice that is.

Once more I’ll be using processing(.org) and its assorted libraries. I might go crazy and throw some php in there for kicks. I’ll prolly use the aviary music thing for sounds, and gimp for graphics. Unless I decide to snap photos/ record sounds. Oh the possibilities! They are endless.

Hopefully I’ll be able to finish this one as well and have a decent game which doesn’t looks like it’s drawn by a 5 yearold. (Famous last words)

So my graphic novel thing is done. I can’t brain right now but I will say that the method I chose to do my scripting in is horrible. I’ll probably redo it in the next few days.

In case of freezes please let me know.

There will be a more comprehensive post-mortem soon. Meanwhile:

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/minild-30/?action=preview&uid=5432

I became unhappy with my work for day one and scrapped it (it was boring). So with a day to spare I’m taking the quick, easy, and dirty way out and doing interactive fiction( isn’t meant as an insult to graphic novel makers).

I’ve had my mind on making a graphic novel engine for a while and so I took the chance to make one now. I doubt sounds will make it in since I still have to think of and make a game using said engine slash framework slash whatever.

Well no not ALL the things, but some of the things. Some of the things is better than no things at all.

It’s currently available on the android market and pending in a bunch of other places so I’m sitting on versions for windows, linux and osx. In all honesty I focused more on getting it ready for the igf (student edition) and less about scouting marketplaces.

“Is this the part where you tell us to buy it?” the crowd asks. Well yes actually: “Go buy it!” Or at least +1 it on the android market or tell your friends and family and that cousin George you haven’t spoken with since 3rd grade about it. Yes the one with the bigger thumb on his left hand.

Some of the features will roll out to the free (ad supported) version relatively soon (the updated graphics and music), while others will be kept a version behind(mostly new levels and such).

And here’s a trailer for you(can someone please tell me how to embed videos? the code just gets eaten up)

Thanks for reading

GAME PAGE

In spite of a lack of updates things were done. Great things, wondrous marvelous things! Such wondrous and marvelous things that the human mind can not comprehend! Unfortunately we’ll have to talk about those some other time, since this post is about Urth.

As you may or may not remember Urth scored less than desirably( in LD21) in graphics with an overall 2.65. Needless to say that was given priority. Next up was audio, as that wasn’t great either. After I’ve narrowed down the priorities I’ve naturally decided to start working on something entirely different: the level editor. And what a glorious level editor it is! is it? it may be, it’s like asking a chef how good the food he spent all day cooking is. And by chef I mean amateur cook. And by amateur cook I mean someone who poured himself a bowl of cereal. Now I feel like eating cereal, but I must finish this post first.

The music… well I’ve taken the liberty of outsourcing the music to this chap right here so go and listen to his stuff (and like it!). I’m not posting the music here, you’ll have to wait till I submit the game tomorrow, or the day after. If it’s not done in the last few hours it’s not a proper jam at all.

So what have I got to show other than talk of cereal and a link to a music man? Well what’s left? The graphics! Good answer, shows you were paying attention. And what better way to show off graphics than by showing them! No, not a video, but close enough… screenshots!

Let’s begin:

The updated main menu

The pretty-fied level selection menu

The awesome-ized escape mode settings menu

Gameplay screenshot with 100% more magnets

More gameplay

This may not seem it, but it's from escape mode

There are numerous fixes optimizations and tweaks, but nobody can see them so nobody really cares. Next I’ll finish up the win-linux-osx ports and off to markets they go.

That’s it for now, until next time!

…Is operational and online, and located here:

http://software.o-o.ro/urth-level-editor/

Lord Kitchener Wants You*

 To make levels!

But seriously, I’d appreciate feedback on the monster.

You can currently make and test levels and save them online. Loading other levels will become available in the next few days for testing purposes.

______________________

*Lord Kitchener doesn’t really want that, but I do

The level maker is now (mostly) usable, other than a few missing graphics buttons and the ability to add powerups to planets/stars. You can make a level, test it and save it. There are no screenshots because it doesn’t look that different yet.

I suspect I will have a working version to share this weekend. Meanwhile you can play the ld21 version here or get a more polished version from the android market.

My choices:

• unfinished visual novel engine (android) – I believe I misplaced the source
• unfinished bullet hell engine (android) – Needs everything except the actual bullet engine
• LD21 entry: Urth - Needs about 2 tons of polish
• MiniLD29 entry: Redeye - Needs about 20 tons of polish
• Something completely new – no

Urth had a little head start on the android market, so I’ve fixed it by strapping beta to the end. How does that fix it you ask? Well it doesn’t really fix it actually, but I’m October challenging with the non-beta (gamma? ), which I intend to have for non-mobile platforms as well.

Idea

My ld21 entry urth scored high in innovation (4th) but not so well in everything else, and worst of all in graphics (267th). The general goal was to improve on that, while still keeping to 48 hours only.

Theme

I’ve made this to fit 5 jams, namely:

- miniLD 29 – horror
- GPCv8 (Game Prototype Challenge) – armor & pollination
- Mysticism Pageant (Super Friendship Club) – mysticism
- Story Game (Experimental Gameplay Project)
- Music Interpretation Contest (GameJolt)

Most of the themes are reflected by story rather than gameplay, which can be rather confusing as the story isn’t obvious from the beginning, and takes quite a bit of playing to sort out.

What worked

I’ve never finished a platformer before, any my closest attempt was a worms clone 6 or 7 years ago which I lost due to a HDD failure. As a general rule I’m not very fond of platformers in general, but I wanted to walk a mile in the other man’s shoes before criticising him (after all, if it went badly I’d be a mile away and have his shoes). The good news is that I now have reusable code (sort of) which I can indeed reuse should I chose to make more platformers.

Similarly, I’ve only done 2d frame by frame animation once or at most twice before, so I was pleasantly surprised that I managed to pull that off in so little time.

I’ve tried to add a sense of anticipation to the presence of the red eyes. I’m not sure how obvious the effect is, but the light intensity fades and movement becomes blurred as redeyes approach. The intent was to provide a subtle hint which would be picked up subconsciously and trigger an undefined sense of discomfort.

I’ve also discovered workarounds to some problems I’ve had before. Behind the scenes stuff.

What didn’t work

3D failed me once more. I wanted a 2D platformer with 3D scenery, but I ended up with a 2D platformer with 2Dscenery rendered in 3D. Problems ranged from the mesh not fitting properly, to blender not saving texture information to obj files and to unnatural slowdowns in rendering. Maybe next time.

I intended to have a background consisting of sliding panels which were to give a sense of depth. Mountains, plants that sort of thing. I noticed that I wasted too much time on that with no respectable results and decided to abandon it. It’s probably better that I did.

Sounds were also supposed to change as red eyes approach, heavy breathing was supposed to take place in darkness, but the sounds would get cut out. I rarely work with sounds so I need to look into that. Good thing lmms saved the day with some handy effects.

The death screens have a slight screamer effect which I dislike, so I tried to fade them in to smooth transition. They are intended to look disturbing and not intended not to shock. I’m not sure if I succeded.

My laptop (brandishing the cursed gma 500) apparently runs the game at half the speed. Since playtesting was done on that, the end result might be a bit too fast. I need feedback on that. In addition I had to change renderers in the last minute as there seems to be an issue with processing and openGL applets.

Fun was had.

Feedback, positive and negative is equally welcome.

Game page | Play directly

I’ve submitted it but it doesn’t show up and the form is gone.. I’m assuming it’s a bug.

Anyway, while I sleep collect my thoughts for a better, fancier post with words in it that people will understand, you can play ‘Redeye’ here:

PLAY REDEYE

This would probably be my second animation.. ever. Finished one at least. I’ll hide these behind the more button as they’re rather big. (more…)