Hi my name is Douglas Warouw, I’m the sole designer/programmer of a game called [tesseract]. Somewhere between raising a young family and working a day job my passion for this game was strong enough to get it to an Alpha Version. And hopefully in my spare time (usually about 2am once I have settled one of the kids) I’ll be able to get it to a paid Beta and maybe even Version 1…
And amongst all that I deceide to take the Ludum Dare October 2012 challenge and make a game in 1 month and get it to market!! YIKES!!
If you're interested you can check out my [tesseract] game: www.tesseractgame.com
or my Ludum Dare project at www.zombietales.net
Since my October Ludum Dare disappointment of not completing the challenge it’s been hard to even consider writing one line of code. However I really wanted to stay at it but my motivation for game creation was at it’s lowest point…
So over Christmas break I got a chance to play some AAA games, which I’d have to say were a bit disappointing. But also got to dig around the indie community and play their games which was inspiring!!
And that really motivated me get pick myself up and get back to the joy of creating games. Then I heard about OneGameAMonth and read McFunkypants blog about his 12 games in 12 months and I was sold… I’m back into it!
Fast forward to now and I’m happy to announce a playable wave mode of Zombie Tales called Zombie Days (I thought I’d really mix it with the title!) it not as in-depth as Zombie Tales is going to be but I used all the tech I developed Zombie Tales to build this random generated zombie shooter.
Anyways I feel like I have redeemed my past failings by at least getting something playable with the same feel.
Click the image to go to the Unity webplayer. It takes a little time to load the first time… ENJOY!!
Firstly I just want to say THANKS to the whole Ludum Dare community! This was my first challenge and it has been an amazing experience. Thanks for all your support and advice it has been invaluable. And congrats to everyone that completed the challenge its an amazing feat!!
Zombie Tales isn’t complete, but I’m still aiming for a $0.99 Alpha release before Christmas. And I’ll still be bloggind my progress (not necessairly daily) at www.zombietales.net but in the meantime here is a mini breakdown of my Ludum Dare. 1st October – This was after the first day of coding and I could shoot some white boxes.
7th October – BloodHUD. I had pretty much sorted my weapon control and got my Zombies hurting me during that week.
15th October – Spent the whole week porting across the level editor and getting the HUD working on an iPhone.
21st October – I got annoyed with fixing up the level editor so I spent some time on the main menu. It made a huge difference to the feel of the game.
29th October – After the realisation that I wasn’t going to complete Oct Ludum Dare. I worked on some fun stuff in the editor like adding vehicles.
I’m a little depressed because I didn’t complete the challenge, but I’m glad I got a chance to take a big chunk (about 50%) out of a project that I was going to start work on next year. And meet all the Ludum Dare participants – its been awesome!!!
As for future Ludum Dares?? At the moment my brain is pretty fried but I’ll definitely be throwing my hat in the ring again!! Just not straight away :)
And finally this is my favourite screenshot of the 50+ that I took during Ludum Dare
Firstly here is a video of the current state of my game – warts and all. (Sorry about the music it’s a lot louder and cheesier than I realised at 2am when I uploaded the vid)
After 3 weeks of hardcore developing I’ve come to the conclusion that a full release version is not possible to submit by the end of the month. I hate it when reality slaps you in the face.
But I have deceied to soldier on and still try to do a staggered release
Here is the plan:
$0.99 – Public Alpha for Oct challenge includes killZ wave mode – You start with 1 bullet. Kill a wave of Zombies then choose to either return to the safehouse and bank everything you have earned or continue to the next wave. If you die you loose everything you earned. Stories – 2 pre-made levels to play through and earn Zombie dollars from. Create – (testing mode) build 1 level that you can walk around and shoot. 9 Skyboxes Practice – A level with unlimited ammo but you don’t earn any Zombie dollars
$1.99 – Public Beta (TBA) includes killZ wave mode
stories - 4 pre-made levels share stories – download user vreated levels, upload and share your levels. Detailed search engine to focus on levels you’d like to play. Earn Zombie dollars for uploading and downloading. create – 4 spare level slots to save WIP levels. More game asset sets to choose from. practice your loot – manage what you take with you into a level you play through.
$2.99 – Full release (TBA)
All of the above without the bugs and more level packs.
$2.99 – future releases (TBA) I’ll be working on this game probably for the rest of my life because I’ve made it in such a way that when I feel like making specific style of FPS I can just make new game assets and release a new pack with some pre made levels. That could be a Dead Space style game, Western Zombies or even a Slender Man pack. And then the player can make those levels too.
I guess what I’d really like to know is are people willing to get in early, save a couple of bucks, play and contribute feedback to a paid public alpha?
I’m in the same boat as everyone here…
4 hours of sleep a night for 2 weeks straight…
I’m so tired I feel drunk…
My coding skills are starting to deteriorate…
My family and friends are all saying,
“you really don’t need to push yourself so hard. I’m worried about you”
But we all soldier on!! :)
I thought I’d share my app icon evolution – its close – not perfect, but it’ll have to do for the moment. I’ll probably go with one of the last 2. I’ve blogged/rant my 5 rules for icon design at ZombieTales.net for those interested?
and I’ve been STILL heavily working on the level editor here are some screen grabs of some fancy doors in game.
Thats all for now.
Good luck everyone, and be comforted in the knowledge that there are people all over the world feeling the same dev pain you’re feeling now!!
After about 12 hours I broke the back of the level editor but there is still a lot of work to do on it. I did get the skybox/environment selector working. So in your diary if you touch eaither side of the photo onthe right it will cycle through the Skyboxes available to you.
A couple of pics of the latest look of the Segment editor and the different skyboxes.
I’ve had a bit of a tough coding session getting the level editor working, I just feel like everything is broken and I don’t know where to start to fix it. I still have a long way to go and if I burn too many days on it I may just release a boring Zombie wave mode game in the interim :(
I’m happy with my button layout and how it handles the different screen resolutions between iPhone and iPad, here are some pics that might give you an idea of how the editor works.
iPad 1 and 2
Touch the blocks to create your basic environment
Select the texture of North, South, East, West walls and Floor and Ceiling surfaces.
Charles Ferrendelli really did dig below the surface of what looks like a generic Zombie shooter and understood my philosophy behind making this game. Now I’m starting work on porting across the [tesseract] level editor so there is a lot more to come.
Anyways back to blogging my progress:
I spent a few hours atlas mapping some of the stock models I have – so re uvmapping 14 War torn buildings with 14 2048×2048 textures down to 14 buildings into 2 1024×1024 textures. They are a bit soft when you get close to them, but it will have to do for the moment.
I’ve started work on the level editor, and the first step is building the GUI interface… and thats a bit boring working out all the logic for the menus. But I did have to make a few buttons, and one little tip.
I can never figure out what to use for a main menu button, a home button or something else. This time I used 3 “i”s lying on their side Arial Rounded font… and I thought “that’ll do nicely!”
Hopefully that makes sense to most people, I’d love to know what you think some of these icons mean below??
and checkout www.zombietales.net for a more detailed blog, I didn’t want to bombard the Ludum Dare site with too much of my ranting. :)
No coding today but I did knock up this trailer with iMovie(trailer template) on my iPad so you’ve probably seen it all before.
I thought everyone might be interested in how I captured the video because getting good quality iPhone footage is a pain! The video was captured from my iPhone 4S with a HDMI output at a friends place using his Blackmagic Intensity pro card.
Originally captured at 1080p 30fps as a motion jpg avi, I then converted the video also cropping out the black from the original to a 720p 30fps for iPad format.
I’ve spent many dollars and gone to many troubles trying to film iPad/iPhone footage for trailers and believe me the Blackmagic card is the only one I’ve had success with.
Because the iPhone only outputs 1080p 30fps – I’ve bought a couple of recorder boxes that claim they can record HD but they usually only max out at 1080i 25fps. Including the AvermediaHD box that alot of gamers use to record xbox360/ps3 games. But the consoles you can set the out put to match the recorder.
I thought I’d join in and post a photo of mydesk in the corner of my lounge room. My 2nd hand mac running Unity, notepad full of awesome game ideas!!! and a couple of children’s blocks – which they keep giving me in an attempt to get my attention…. my poor neglected bubs.
I’ve started a fun instagram feed @zombietales with screen grabs and little stories, and I’ve got way more updates and screen grabs on my twitter feed @dougalicious (I too am feeling a bit lonely on like MortalWombat)
I had a good couple of dev session, added more geometry and got my blood HUD working. And my Zombies can now actually attack and hurt you! It’s feeling pretty fun to play now.
I had a really productive coding session I got my reload animations and ammo count working. My Zombie Dollars are ticking over, and my most favourite of all the rag doll deaths actually works in the iPad 2 and iPhone 4s just fine. It’s too much fun check out the video
I thought I share my daily grind trying get Zombie Tales to market for this compo.
7am : get up do the whole morning thing… go to work.
8am-4.30pm : Work the day job because I’m not a professional game developer thats why I’m doin this comp. :)
5pm – 9pm : Do the whole family thing (Sort out my kids, say hi to the wife have dinner etc)
9pm – 2am : Work on the game…
2am – 7am : SLEEP!!!!!! (as long as one of the kids doesn’t wake up!)
Thats been the routine for a few days and its starting to hurt :( but I’m taking next week off work to smash this game out!!!!! YAY
Here is a vid of the latest progress I’ve been trying to get my scoring system in place and my headshots working with little messages that pop up when you take down a Zombie.
I spent a couple of hours adding some more geometry to check frame rate and I thought I’d add a lens flare to the sun for a bit of sizzle. It’s all still running smooth!
I’d love to know how many Australian Ludum Dares happening for this October challenge?? And especially anyone in Canberra? Being a sole developer gets a bit lonely, so it would be cool to crack a beer with a fellow bleary eyed Ludum Darium at some stage during the comp and share progress and maybe even have a play of your game…
After 10hrs of production time this is the first screen grab of some Zombie Testing – zombietales.net
Things are tracking well. I’m using stock models to save time and if I can get all the core game mechanics happening in the next week I’ll be stoked!!!
Ludum Dare is awesome and I’ve been wanting to have a go for a while now and the October challenge is great motivation to get a project I was going to start next year happening now!
I’ve got the market side of things covered when I released my free alpha on the apple app store but I still haven’t earned a cent from it.
And I’m going to take a break from polishing that game and take the challenge.
For those interested you can checkout my released game www.tesseractgame.com and my skeleton website www.zombietales.net project for the Ludum Dare challenge.
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