Happy Christmas everyone, may your hearts be filled with joy and happiness!

Many people liked my game but sadly I didn’t have time to balance stuff to a challenging gameplay ( too easy and no proper victory condition) and add some stuff to make everything easier to understand. If you played my game already, you can download Post-LD version now from the game’s page. If you haven’t tried it yet then I invite you to do so but please download original version for the sake of fairness.

Changes log:

• Dungeons can accept X amount of heroes at once 
• If there are any creatures in your dungeons the flag is placed as a notification
• Prices and gold drops are more balanced
• Creature and Hero stats are more balanced
• Stone Golem has lowered attack power and is locked for first 2/3 of the agme
• Dungeon window moved to the right
• Game ends when all heroes are dead including boss that spawns at the end
• Parties spawned are leveled up properly now

Play a role of the young Warden (Goatman) who must drive all the hope out of the kingdom by building dungeons with dangerous creatures. Make a dungeon complex that no hero can survive.

<————- Features ————>
- 5 different dungoes to build -
- populate dungeons with various creatures -
- watch heroes trying to reach your main dungeon and kill you -
- 3 tiers of wizard and knights (heroes) -
- pixelated graphics -
- 8 bit sound effects-
<————————————->

Ok, 10 hours and 30 minutes left. That’s not much…it’s near the end! I have plenty of stuff to do to make game more fun and interesting but we’ll see how far can I get.

For now, some updates:

• Final map where AI works more or less fine (still need one small fix on that)
• Some balancing
• You can see how damaged are your creatures in the dungeon (less HP –> more red color on the icon)
• Villain’s (Player’s) dungeon Added! When Villain’s dungeon gets attacked, main health bar starts to lower. Once it reaches zero healthpoints you loose.
• Started to work on tooltips
• Villain’s avatar drawn -> It’s a goat in armor (or is that a goatman?)

(click for full resolution)

What I have to do next:

• Add another creature
• Make heroes unique (mages less HP but more AP and vice versa for knights)
• Some morale system(percentages!). When you defeat enemy you get higher morale for x% which means you’ll hit enemy more easily and the same works for enemy.
• Maybe I’ll add some SFX this round

(Goat villain) 

I overslept for one hour, again…but I have more power now. Here it is, the last day of LD where everything has to be done. I already imagine crazy times I’ll have making music (I never did a single piece of music…). I have many things yet left to do so let’s get started.

Strong breakfast for a hard day

I’m sending this card again for those who haven’t seen it!

Good luck on your last day everyone

Here is the “end of the day”. I’m up for almost 23 hours now and in that time I only took pauses for coffee, cigarettes and food – yeah, I was very productive! That’s why I love Ludum Dare, it shows you what are you capable of. So let’s go to the report. First of all, I have this screenshot for you.

Let me explain a bit – items next to the dungeons are gold bags that are dropped by heroes when they die. Smoke comming out of the cave means that hero is fighting in there. Dungeon window tells you what creatures you have in there and how much HP dungeon have. Red dots are for AI (waypoints which will be hidden laters). That’s about it.

And finally, INFO CARD – it quickly explains about the game.

I’ll continue with my work after few hours of sleep. This will be my last push, I hope the game will be finished, playable and fun.

Ok, another update! I’ve done lots of things so far, really. I can’t believe how well this is going for me despite huge idea. Let’s hope progress pace will stay like that until the end.

What’s new:

• Fighting system implemented
• Heroes can die in dungeons and heroes can kill creatures and destroy dungeons (look at the bottom left part of picture)
• Dungeon is shaking and particles of smoke are flying around when fight is happening
• Added new enemy & dungeon ( spider / temple)

This is it for now. That fighting system was quite nasty but it’s working very well. Now I shall balance stuff a bit and fix the AI (they can start walking in a triangle). Oh and I should start working on economy part – using gold to buy stuff and gathering gold that enemy drops.

Party on top just destroyed dungeon / some heroes are fighting bottom left temple

And here is loot from the destroyed dungeon!

Don’t forget, I’m still streaming with cool music!

What I’ve done so far:

• Draw dungeons & wolf
• You can place dungeons
• Dungeon window (slots for creatures and health bar of dungeon)
• Creatures added to the GUI

Next step:

• Placing creatures to the dungeons
• Heroes entering the dungeons and fighting trough
• Fixing AI in general

You can see “Knight” type of heroes on the map (low level and higher level)

I’m still streaming and you are all most welcome! If not for watching at least for some cool chiptune music

I’m in this for more than 5 hours and here is the progress:

- AI heroes walking down the road between AI points (red dots)
- Some basic tiles drawn including GUI

That’s it so far. I’m going to place dungeons now where heroes will go trying to clean them up but as a villain, you shouldn’t let that happen! Don’t forget I’m streaming everything from the start at http://www.twitch.tv/blodyavenger.

(click for full resolution)

Also….

I overslept the start, how could i? I woke up 3 hours late but I’m already in, crafting the idea. Here is the first preview (in-game screenshot). I’m also happy that Goat won, I’m so putting goat into the game ^^

This is going to be dungeon-management game

Timer says 5 hours and 34 minutes! Everything is ready except my brains – I need some rest before the start so I can prepare my head for early brainstorming. So this is it! I’ve made some shopping today as you can see – milk, coffee, tea, pudding, pizza, spagheti, tuna, junk food and much more. Now, off to bed for when I wake up, it’s time for hardcore developing!

Ludum Dare 25 supplies
Throne of mine for the weekend

I’ll be also streaming all 48 hours (don’t count sleeping) on twitch.tv @  http://www.twitch.tv/blodyavenger.

Good luck everyone!

Last time my framework wasn’t really prepared for the competition and I had to mess around with things I should not. Good thing is, that I’ve joined TIGSource Advent Calendar  this year and I’ve used this chance to check the framework.

Quick preview to the TIGSource Advent Calendar game (click for full resolution)

Finally I have time for my second LD48. I’m preparing some extras for everyone and this time I’ll be even streaming the development at twitch.tv. Overall, I’m very excited about it! Now let’s see the tools I’ll be using:

Programming: C++ / my own framework
Graphics: Graphics Gale / Photoshop
Sound:  bfxr (sfx) / NotePad (music)
Other: Live streaming (XSplit -> twitch.tv)

With this new video preview I just wanted to point out that Courier of the Crypts goes on with the development despite failure at the October Challenge 2011. This preview is featuring new tiles for the Marble Halls thematic and ladder transitions.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJ82gxsyhLQ

If you like what you see then don’t forget to follow the rapid development at my blog.

I’m here with the fourth dev video preview from the Courier of the Crypts but that’s not all. I’m out of the October Challenge, time run out and I still have lots of things to do. But OC is not just about the October but about finishing a game and earning a single buck from the stuff we love to do – making games. It’s all about to see what is it like to have final polished product out in the world. It’s not the end for me here, I’ll finish Courier of the Crypts, October Challenge game all the motivation I need so it’s still WIN situation.

Now, enough malarkey and let me show you the preview that is featuring 2 types of monsters, GUI (wip), and Flame’o'metter (look at the gui). I hope you like it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCIraH7iEI4

Congratiulations to those who succeeded! Others that are like me, don’t give up folks

I didn’t report much since the last video preview but there was progress. Among other stuff, I implemented the first enemy that will lurk around the cripts. Horde of ‘em… For more updates on the Courier of the Crypts, read freshly written page 8 from my diary.

Next to that I’m afraid I won’t succeed in the October Challenge 2011 because I don’t want to rush with the development since there are still few features to add and I shouldn’t mention all the work around the main menu and maps that awaits for me.

This time I’m not here to showoff or to report what I’ve made in past few days but to seek your help!

As you might know, Courier of the Crypts will be a puzzle game with small amount of action mechanics. I want to ask you, what would you like to see in game like this one. Traps? What kind of traps? What about scarry moments that will throw you out of your chairs? Dancing coconuts? Everything! I want to hear everything that goes trough your mind.

I want to make this game as enjoyable as possible but I need your help here!

It’s time to introduce you with the new toy that courier will have fun with in the crypts. The one and the only….”Burning Urn”!  <tan-tan-tan-tan-stshhh>

On your quest trough the crypts, you’ll find urns filled with oil. You can light them up and throw them trough the hallways. You can use it to scare lurking danger away or even burn it to ashes. Should you be scared of the darkness in the next room, throw one of these inside and you’ll know what’s there waiting for you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cltpNN5zxGc

“Burning Urn” spam is a bit of exaggeration, I know but it won’t be possible to throw those so quickly one after another…it won’t be wise anyway.

Here, the second development video preview is out. You can see all the new additions that I’ve done since the last video preview. Why don’t you take a look? It will cost you less than a minute

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=py47WnazJYs

Follow the development at my blog

I post regular updates on my blog and I work hard on my game so you must understand that not much time is left for me to post regular news here so I’ve sent my courier to bring news from the front up here to the Ludum Dare.

“Last time you could see the very first quick video preview of me lurking around the crypts. My creator wants you to know that there have been nice progress since then. Here’s the list of the new additions

• Stone switches
• Doors
• Random mice waiting in the holes to cross your way
• Player art done for 4-way movement + torch animation
• Pickups implemented (yeah, treasure for you!)

That’s it for now but if everything goes well, there will be another video preview from the crypts tomorrow, so stay tuned!”