I came into this Ludum Dare with one clear objective; to develop a game using HTML5 to evaluate the Impact Game Engine (it passed with flying colors, tho I’m still hoping that someone ports Flixel to JavaScript). Besides that, I had no further plans, so when I saw the theme, I was a bit troubled, how can I make a game about being Alone?

So I decided to think about job occupations that lead you to loneliness, and while I went through the list the weirdest one was “Lighthouse Keeper”. So I scoured the web searching for a Lighthouse with a cool name, but I found none that I liked, so I decided to create a fictional one, that somehow made this idea pop into my mind:

Yes my notepad is rainbow colored

“You are the Lighthouse Keeper at Styx River, your job is to persecute souls trying to escape hell, it can get lonely, but jumping on ghosts sure is fun and it’s pretty comfy.”

For some reason, I saw the tarot card “The Tower” and I felt that it was fitting, so I dropped the idea of being the Keeper, and the player became the Lighthouse itself. For the mechanics I concieved Space Invaders meets Hop & Bop platformers. Sounded pretty easy at first, but the execution proved difficult and it does need a lot of playtesting to get right.

What went right:

a.- The Music: As usual I took a public domain music score (Danse macabre, Op. 40, by French composer Camille Saint-Saëns.), recorded some sound effects (cards shuffling and hitting the table), and a public domain fireplace sample that I looped. I was very pleased with the final product, I think it properly represents the core concepts: We are all alone and the same in death (Danse Macabre), We all share the same destiny(Tarot), and the fires of hell that served as setting. Once again I used Audacity, Aria Maestosa and GXSCC.

b.- The Framework: Impact Game Engine was pretty intuitive to use and extend, even for a first time user, I only missed per pixel collision.

c.- The Concept: The idea is great, I’ll keep working on it.

d.- The Art: I loved the Art. I drew on paper, then took a picture with my webcam and painted in Photoshop, it went smooth as silk but…

What went wrong:

a.- The Art: Spent too much time on Art creation. Last time I think that no one realized that my Art style was Atari-like on purpose (I even implemented a Pixel Bender shader to simulate screen ghosting after the screen flashes), so this time I decided to go for a painterly style, that also happened to be more labor intensive. In the end I could have used a couple more hours on coding.

b.- The IDE: I was too stressed out to properly install and configure Eclipse, I was stuck with Komodo Edit.

c.- Server Stuff: Spent too much time trying to configure PHP on my laptop to run some tools.

d.- Platform: HTML5 audio support is not there *yet*, had to implement a quick hack with SoundManager 2.

e.- Language: I had no prior game dev experience with JavaScript, I was left wondering how to implement a global variable registry. Also, I got to find an IDE with proper code completion, Komodo did not autocomplete variables I had declared on the same *.js file.

f.- Execution: The concept was hard to execute successfully, I should have playtested more, and also I should have investigated prior implementations. Now I have homework: Why does Mario bounce off enemies the way he does?

Phares, Jam Entry

I’ve got some behaviours going, I got almost all the art ready I just need to draw a few other hell dwellers, and I’ve already have a idea for the core mechanic (FINALLY, I was going nuts).

The Main Character is ready
(Now i’ll catch some sleep, good night everyone!)

I overcame most of my technical hurdles, and now I have a pretty tech demo

I’m using SoundManager 2 to check if you have flash. If you do, the game will not bother to try to use HTML5 Audio. If I had the time, I would just integrate it right into my game engine :-p

Previous WIP posts:
http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/2011/12/16/phares-wip-001/
http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/2011/12/16/phares-wip-002/

Now, Some music. The Lighthouse made me think of the tarot card “The Tower”, the whole hell thing, made me think of campfires and Danse Macabre:

Poker macabre by Felipe Budinich

previous progress:  Phares, WIP 001

Job Description: Lighthouse Keeper at Styx River, you got to persecute souls trying to escape hell, lonely but comfy.

I decided to work on art first, since the theme made me think about a lot of artistic references, I’ll work in the mechanics tomorrow.

Hello everyone, as usual I’ll be doing a web based game, but this time, instead of Flash I’ll make a HTML5 game.

I’ll be testing a proprietary framework, so I’m going to be doing the Jam instead of the main compo.

>>Language: Javascript
>>Libraries: Impact, soundmanager2
>>IDE: Open for suggestions.
>>Gfx: Photoshop, Web Camera, Pen & Paper.
>>Snd: Audacity, SFXR, Aria Maestosa, GXSCC

Hello fellow Ludum Darers,

I’ve been meaning to develop a game in HTML5, and my complete lack of understanding on the subject cripples me.

Are there any good opensource/free IDE’s out there?

Are there any good frameworks besides Impact?

How do you deal with sound? I’ve tried some games like Panda Poet, and the sound works perfectly, others not so much, what gives?

I’m aware of Construct 2, but am I gonna be able to go deeper in the code if I want to?

Are there any tutorials dealing with a HTML5 workflow?

Any tips, suggestions or advice?

I failed the challenge, I wasn’t able to get $ 1 USD out of Escaparazzi during october, the “get the app into the appstore process” is too damn long, and I feel that I have not finished the game yet, but…

I got a 100000% of that during november . 

I entered my game to WorldMakers (the first Chilean game development competition), achieving the second place, so I won:

• A Samsung Galaxy 5 I5500 phone. These are pretty inexpensive, but hey, free phone
• Any course I choose to take at Academia MacPC Crossmedia Training Center (I’ll take UDK programming, with a developer from Ace Team). These cost around $ 1000 USD
• An Internship at Behaviour. Priceless

I’m so happy I could explode.

I’ve been working hard to complete the october challenge using my LD21 game Escaparazzi, and one of the steps was to enter it to a game dev contest.

Now I need your help, one of the judging phases requires public voting, so I was wondering if you could spare a minute of your time to go to the contest webpage and click “like” (highlighted in red), in return, you’ll get my eternal gratitude

(also you can play the latest version of the game using the button highlighted in green)

Too much traveling around the country with shitty satelital internet conectivity due to Fiestas Patrias (and being to drunk around the clock due to them too), made me miss the mini LD deadline.

But I’ve made some great progress on the “typing of the dead” like input, so I’m gonna definately get the game into Experimental Gameplay Project. (I would love to give you a playable version, but if I do, it would comepletely spoil the surprise ending :-p)

Trace_Dump

MOAR PROGRESS YAY!

All the game logic is finished (as you can see from the beautiful trace dump screenshot), now it’s time to give feedback to the player, add graphics and finally sound

The only thing i’m lacking is an XML parser for the text, but I can put the current short story in there without much hassle, yet it would be neat to make the code reutilizable so I’ll leave that for later.

I began writing the novel a few days earlier, maybe I should start typing,
I'm about to finish...

The night is turning to day, but I can't place the words on the typewriter,
so I get up from the desk, then walk to the window to lit a cigarette...
and right there and then the break of dawn.

I know this sounds like some old, worn and tired Cat Stevens song, but maybe,
somehow, this is the right inspiration.

Did you ever wake up to find things changed, a day like every other day,
yet the dawn breaks at a slightly different angle, forever changing your
notion of time?

This is the intro to my game, I feel like I've got a terrific story going, yet I do not
have a clue how to make something like "Typing of the Dead" in Flixel.

I got to be able to turn the story strings into an array, then check if the player has typed
the proper key, but for that I need to check the array and asign to each string to a
FlashEvent.keyCode or something like that.

Does anyone have an idea on how to do this?

I guess it’s time for me to do a postmortem of sorts (Tho I’m still working on the game at this point, but I should be able to wrap it up this weekend, you can check the compo and WIP post compo version at my entry page)

First of all, I would like to say that this has been a great experience, and I want to thank everyone for making it possible. So thanks everyone that participated, to the organizers that somehow managed to keep this afloat during the server situation, Adam Atomic for his awesome awesome Flixel Framework, and special thanks to Dogbomb for his terrific “65 Indie Games in 10(ish) Minutes” review, and to Oujevipo for his series of Ludum Dare game reviews.

So without further delays, a screenshot and then The Bad, The Good and a Desition:

Intro Screen

 The Bad:

Actually nothing went bad at all, I wish I had more time during the compo, but I had to attend a meeting on saturday that ate half of the day (I coded through half of it anyway, while nodding hehe), and the compo theme is announced right around the time I’m falling asleep (I’ve learnt that it’s better if I read it, then scribble down some notes and go to bed, instead of working through the night like I attempted last time).

The Good:

There’s just too many good stuff so i’ll break it up.

The theme:
I loved the theme the moment I read it. I had been thinking about non-combat, non-pewpewpew games for a couple of weeks before the compo, and what better theme than Escape to approach indirect conflict? I felt it was perfect.

The tools:
Flash Develop and Flixel are rock solid, I can’t explain how comfortable I feel with this combination.

GXSCC, usually frowned upon by the chiptune community, allowed me to achieve the sound I wanted without needing to learn the many layers of complexity found in a Mod tracker, so I only needed to borrow a friend’s Oxygen midi keyboard and I was set for music.

SFXR and Audacity for sound effects did the trick (plus some coding that make my game sound like it had lots of different samples, yet it only has 5 samples per kind of sound, that are layered and played at different intervals when triggered).

ASESPRITE, for graphics. While not great, it certainly delivered (except the newspaper cover that got made in GIMP because I had no time to dither the gradient by hand).

Pixel Bender Toolkit, my only gamble as I had never used it before, was really simple to develop and implement, really happy with it, gonna look into number crunching with it for my next game.

The planning:
1- Brainstorm, watch references.
2- Write down the concept.
3- Scope.
4- Write a Schedule.
5- Map input.
6- Create a Screenflow Chart.

This took about 4 hours. Screw Excel, Project, Qubity, Wikis, etc… Notebooks, Post Its, napkins and my cellphone alarm clock work just as good, or way better. For this part I took the keynote as some sort of divine commandment and followed the pro style advice to the letter.

After that, I jumped into developing the screen flow, slide presentation style, then jumped into the game logic, and the rest is history.

A Desition:

I really love making games, I really do. Ludum Dare helped me confirm my gut feeling. I love every aspect of it: The designing, the planning, the coding, the art and sound creation, the polishing, EVERYTHING.

I’m already on the path to make this my livelihood, I’m on the process of getting a game design diploma since earlier this year, and because of that I was thinking about throwing my CV around different companies once I got my portfolio finished (I’m a pretty competent 3d modeler). But the thing is that I don’t want to be another over specialized cog in the machine, pushing vertices or voxels around from 9 to 7, realizing other people’s vision.

I’ve attempted to collaborate with other people on game projects, and I’ve failed every single time, vision and consensus do not mix. I got tired of people telling me “no we can’t do that because it’s too hard”, I got tired of people telling me “that’s not the current market trend”, I got tired of ideas dilluting into homeopathic levels to please everyone, and maybe the problem IS ME, but who cares, if I can’t work in groups, what’s wrong with that?

 
I just got to try and do it on my own. So starting tomorrow I’m gonna go fulltime Indie, and I’m flying Solo!

What can I say, I *LOVED* the theme, as soon as I read it I got a burst of inspiration, and managed to finish my game  :-D

But i’m getting ahead of myself, this time I used:

Flash Develop: http://www.flashdevelop.org/
Flixel: http://flixel.org/ (older version, 2.3)
Pixel Bender: http://www.adobe.com/devnet/pixelbender.html
Asesprite: http://www.aseprite.org/
Audacity: http://audacity.sourceforge.net
Aria Maestosa: http://ariamaestosa.sourceforge.net/
GXSCC: http://www.geocities.co.jp/SiliconValley-SanJose/8700/P/GsorigE.htm

I’ll be posting my submission once I wake up (it’s 6 AM down here in Chile), Good Luck Everyone!

Gameflow overview: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/2011/04/30/branding-iron-game-flow/

It’s almost 5 am, and somehow we finished the GDD without getting into a fist fight, I don’t have time to translate it to english at the moment (I still have to give each person their tasks, and create a art asset checklist, so if you can read spanish, here you go:

Titulo del juego: Branding Iron
Display:

Top Down, 1024 x 768
Input:

Flechas direccionales: Movimiento del personaje

Barra espaciadora: Atacar con el branding iron

C: Lanzar Chancho

V: Lanzar Vaca

B: Lanzar Perro

N: Lanzar Oveja

M: Lanza Pollo
Game Flow:
1.- Logo
2.- “Press Space Bar to Play”
3.- Cinematica Intro;

- Esta la niña jugando con los animales

- Llega UFO y rapta a los animales con su haz de luz

- UFO acelera y se pierde en el horizonte

- Niña comienza a correr hacia el horizonte

- Abuelo toma a niña del brazo y le dice “It’s too dangerous to go alone, Take this!”

- Abuelo le entrega el branding iron a la niña

- Niña corre hacia el horizonte y se ve la silueta oscura del pollo contra el sol

- Fade to black
4.- Tutorial Pollo

- Fade in

- Se mueve lento, en dirección aleatoria

- Cada cierto tiempo lanza huevos hacia el personaje

- Capturamos al pollo
5.- Mapa Selección Sub-Jefe

-Vemos un mapa de las cercanias de la granja, con los iconos de los subjefes sobre él

-Cuando se elimina a un enemigo, este desaparece del mapa
A.- Pelea Vaca:

- Se mantiene quieta, “cargando”, como si estuviera conteniendo la rabía

- Luego gira como el demonio de tazmania, dirigiendose en la dirección general del personaje por unos segundos,

- Luego vuelve a detenerse para cargar

- En caso de lanzar un pollo: La vaca se dirige en la dirección general de este, hasta aplastarlo, luego vuelve a detenerse para cargar

- En caso de lanzar una oveja: En caso de que la vaca choque con la oveja, la vaca se detiene nuevamente para cargar (la oveja aguanta dos golpes)

- En caso de lanzar un chancho: Si la vaca pasa por sobre la plasta mientras gira, se comienza a desplazar más lento y por menos tiempo.
B.- Pelea Chancho

- Lanza barro al personaje, si te acierta quedas pegado, te embiste directamente

- Luego de embestir, lanza barro a su alrededor, dejando el suelo manchado, por el que el movimiento se ve reducido

- En caso de lanzar pollo: El chancho le lanza el barro a el pollo, si le acierta, destruye al pollo

- En caso de lanzar vaca: Mientras gira, destruye el barro del piso.

- En caso de lanzar Oveja: Si la oveja recibe barro o embestida, se daña, aguanta dos golpes

C.- Pelea Oveja

- La arena consiste en un laberinto, con cuatro starting points para la oveja, y trampas dentro de este

- La oveja avanza por el laberinto hacia el personaje, pero solo lo empuja, no hace daño

- El objetivo de la oveja es empujarte hasta hacerte caer en una trampa o aplastarte contra las espinas -

Solo se puede golpear a la oveja por atras, luego de lo cual saltara hasta uno de los cuatro starting points, para luego volver a perseguir al personaje

- En caso de lanzar pollo: El chancho lo destruye y cambia de dirección

- En caso de lanzar vaca: Destruye las paredes del laberinto (una vez que la oveja salta a un starting point, el laberinto se regenera

- En caso de lanzar chancho: Si pisa la plasta, la oveja se queda pegada un par de segundos D.- Pelea Perr

o - El perro se mueve de una esquina a otra de la pantalla, deteniendose a intervalos irregulares a desenterrar esqueletos

- Los esqueletos siguen al personaje por la pantalla intentando atacarlo

- El personaje puede atacar a los esqueletos (3 golpes para destruirlos)

- En caso de lanzar Oveja: Los esqueletos topan con ella, la atacan una ves y rebotan en una direccion al azar por un par de segundos,  luego vuelven a perseguir al personaje (la oveja aguanta dos golpes)

- En caso de lanzar Vaca: La vaca gira hasta chocar con dos esqueletos y los destruye

- En caso de lanzar pollo: Los esqueletos persiguen al pollo  y lo atacan (lo destruyen de un golpe)

6.- Platillo Volador captura al personaje del mapa
7.- Pelea Alien

- Dispara con pistola laser al personaje

- Deja ovejas robot que actuan como muro

- Chancho robot que lanza barro (reduce la velocidad del personaje a la mitad por unos segundos)

- Pollos robot que se mueven al azar y explotan después de un par de segundos, o al chocar con el personaje.

- Al lanzar vaca: destruye animales robot.

- Al lanzar chancho: Deja al alien pegado en las plastas.

- Al lanzar pollo: El alien le dispara al pollo.
8.- Platillo Volador se estrella en la granja

9.- Creditos:

- Alien prepara la tierra

- Alien Ordeñando la vaca

- Alien Sembrando

- Alien Regando

- Alien limpiando mierda del establo

I’m in, but I also decided to invite the  complete game design class to my place, so this will either end up as one or several groups participating in the jam, or it will degenerate into a fist fight during the first 30 minutes of brainstorming.

We kind of agreed on using the following tools:

• SFXR: Sound effects
• Audacity: Audio
• Photoshop: 2d GFX
• 3Ds Max: 3d Modeling
• Pixexix: Texture Painting

And we decided that we will use this engines ( we may go 2d or 3d):

• UDK
• Construct

This will be nuts.