Hoping the theme will be inspiring and will kick me into creating a little game.

I fancy doing something in Silverlight has I’ve never used it.  If I do, I may use some of the code from this tutorial.  http://cgeers.com/category/programming/silverlight/

If not in silverlight, xna will be the framework of choice.  Will use a subversion repository and perhaps TeamCity for CI and Build.

As usual, Visual Studio 2010, Paint.Net and perhaps a microphone for sound effects or music.

Finger cross I get the time and inspiration.

All those months ago I created a litlle game called Alien Super Mega Blaster as part of LD18 – Enemies as Weapons.

Early today it passed the final peer review and is now available for purchase on the Xbox Live Indie Games channel here:

http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/Product/Alien-Super-Mega-Blaster/66acd000-77fe-1000-9115-d802585507aa

All the proceeds I receive from the game will be donated to Action Duchenne, a charity established to find a cure or more effective medicines to treat Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy.

In the months between the compo and yesterday I’ve added sound and music, new alien types and over 100 hand crafted levels of blasting fun.

If there anything the Ludum Dare community can do to increase awareness of the game and help find a cure it will be very much appreciated.

Some details on the game:

“Alien Super Mega Blaster is a classic space invaders game with a twist available for the Xbox 360.

Kill the aliens and avoid the fallout.  Maximize your score with mega cascading death to the alien scrum. 

Over 100 hand crafted levels of blasting fun… how far can you go?

All proceeds from this game will be donated to Action Duchenne.”

You can find out more about the game here: http://asmb.codheadz.com
You can purchase the game here: http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/Product/Alien-Super-Mega-Blaster/66acd000-77fe-1000-9115-d802585507aa
You can find out more about Action Duchenne here: http://www.actionduchenne.org
You can find out more about Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duchenne_muscular_dystrophy

Thanks for any support you can give.

Jon

…. depending on a good theme inspiring me.

Tools

Paint.net
Sfxr

Frameworks
Xna
Or
Silverlight

If I go silverlight I may borrow code from the following tutorial as have never played with it before.

http://www.brighthub.com/internet/web-development/articles/14494.aspx

“Alien Super Mega Blaster” in play test  and can be downloaded and installed on your XBOX for those of you with an XNA Creators Club account.

http://tinyurl.com/23h3cr6

Same gameplay as LD18 submission, just changed a couple classes to allow the game to  be controlled via a game pad and added a splash screen for selection of the active controller.  The last remaining change was to tweak the rendering to allow the 800 by 480 resolution to be displayed centrally on a TV screen.

The windows compo version is still here  and appreciate all the feedback: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-18/?action=preview&uid=1516

YouTube: AlienSuperMegaBlaster 2010-08-22 13-54

Writing code in 10 min chucks whilst rocking baby and keeping other kids alive. Context switching hell keeps your velocity low

Staring to see the theme coming through “Enemies as Weapons”. As the aliens get killed they in turn become bullets/shrapnel that kills others.

The player will have limited amo, so goal is not to fire madly but hit the big guys that create more shrapnel.

That’s the theory…..

Still have 12 hours to go, so hopeful to have something to submit by then.

Alien Super Mega Blaster - WIP 1

Only managed a couple hours of coding so far this weekend.  At present have all the game state up and working.  I’m using XNA and have a tried and tested pattern for it.  So even though I’m not using a library other than XNA, its quick initial step and I can get this up and running withing 30 mins.  All the coding from now will be components, so for example if I run out of time and have not implemented a “display screen in game play component” then it will not break anything else.

You can see from the attached link that I’ve made some progression on the game play aspects.

Ludum Dare 18 – AlienSuperMegaBlaster 2010-08-22 01-20

Fair bit today and lots of family stuff for tomorrow.  So touch and go for the compo, but should be able to submit for the Jam.

PS Watched Tron earlier today and if nothing else been mildly influenced by the colour scheme.

PS: Keep forgetting to add titles to posts.  Sorry if this pops back to the top of the list.

I’m probably in, but depends on the theme. 

If I get insperation cool, if not with the limited time available (family man)  then may skip and focus on projects in flight.

Will be using XNA, using C# VS2008.

This was my first Ludum Dare, but have been following the competition for the last couple years if not longer.  I did not manage to finish my entry in time, but did really enjoy the process.  Having family time at the weekend is very important to me, so my coding time was limited to around 5-6 hours over 2 days.

Time lapse:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KeIedoXsfIQ

Game play: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALXlAzhhi30

Download Game: http://blog.codheadz.com/file.axd?file=2009%2f12%2fJungleExplorer.zip

Download Source: http://blog.codheadz.com/file.axd?file=2009%2f12%2fLDExplo.zip

To run this you will need either the XNA studio 3.1 or the XNA redist from the link below:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=53867A2A-E249-4560-8011-98EB3E799EF2&displaylang=en 

What did not go so well

• Did not finish the game to a level ready to submit before the deadline
• No sound
• No prepared engine, other than XNA
• Lack of time
• Giving up with an hour to go, when so close

What went well

• Keeping the concept as simple as possible to give me a hope during the very short amount of time available
• Coding with high velocity freed from my usual constraints of IOC and unit testing
• Ignoring my ball of mud engine and coding from nothing
• Getting 90% of it done

Here’s looking forward to the next one.

Exploration based hangman

I’m going to miss the deadline, but have had a great time.

My game is almost complete, but has several bugs that just make it a pain in the neck to play, so going to call it a day.

Some how managed to produce a version of hangman, but will save the details for a post later in the week.

Off to bed.

This will be my first Ludum Dare 48, but I’ve been following them for several years. Totally behind on the schedule due to other commitments, but going to kick off something now. At least I’ve had time to think of an idea or two.

I will be using XNA and may use the following “ball of mud” of an engine.

http://blog.codheadz.com/page/Ludum-Dare-16.aspx

As well as starting late, I have very little time between now and the deadline….. basically doomed