i got gameplay working, and a loss condition (no win condition because infinite spawning, so i might allow for high-”score” or something)… however, the problem is that i have no idea how to animate. i also still need sound and music and a front menu.

devil’s in the details, and there’s only 4 hours left

i have basic restorative items. yey!

also, i figured out vector maths a little, so now you shoot in the proper x, y, and z direction

still need to make bullets self-destruct after hitting a target, and i need to make enemies actually fight. i was lazy yesterday

also, needs music, sound, and bone animations still.

yay!

now time to build gameplay (basic FPS mechanics, not that hard to make) and then i’ll work on bones and animations

i have quite a few things i need to learn still, so i’m going to declare resources (since i must if i’m going to work in the compo with pre-built code, and since i don’t know how to do half the things i need to so some code *will* be pre-built)

going to use the cel-shading example listed in this: http://yal.cc/gamemaker-3rd-person-camera-in-3d/

going to use my march 1gam “game” for the engine (base 3D movement/look code), so here’s the source for it: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/40870733/gamemaker/march.gmz

and going to use this bones example since i’m going to need it for motion: http://yal.cc/gamemaker-basic-3d-bone-animations/

thanks yal

using GameMaker:Studio, BFXR (for both SFX and sampling), Schism Tracker (my personal favorite music program), probably WinLAME (for Schism), and possibly Paint Tool SAI (if i need to draw anything complex)

i’m trying to decide: do i recycle some code from last month and just make a jam game, or do i rebuild from scratch?

i have a working FPS engine, but it wasn’t built during this LD, so i can’t use it unless i go for the jam game instead of the compo game. of course, it’s not too hard to rebuild it anyway; i built the engine in 3 hours initially, so i think i’ll just rebuild it.

i’m in

and minimalist… this means…

STICK FIGURES! :V

going to do a minimally-styled stick figure FPS… not going to bother with online play or controller support or multiplay right now (unless i have time), just a simple FPS with some AI for the bots. 2 teams, white and black, but that’s mostly because of the styling. not going to use any colors except white, black, and red (blood animations/decals)

learning how to use bones and cel-shading right now so i can do this right

I believe I have finally completed this challenge.

I first saw this challenge in 2010. At that time, I was not only too young to complete it by law; but I also did not have the resources to complete it. I now have the resources and accounts necessary to earn money, as well as the legal status necessary to earn money by my own labor.

1) I have set up developer accounts on various sites (Desura, Google, and GameJolt for now, with plans to add a bunch of other sites once I have HTML5 capability), have set up a PayPal account so I may collect money, and have set up a bank account so that I may use the money that is collected.

2) I have ported and polished a few of my older games so that I may be able to publish them outside of the context of a Jam game.

3) I have earned and collected $1.12 from GameJolt (though most certainly not in a single month, so it might not count?) It is in my PayPal and will be transferred to my bank account by 23 October.

Yay leveling up!

It turns out that I’m not going to have time to do anything for LD this weekend, so count me out…

The Ludum Dare 24 falls on the 25-26, correct? If so, I am in it! It falls *right* ahead of when I move in to college (23rd) and *right* before my first class (27th). This should allow me time.

Anyway, this will be my fifth Ludum Dare, so I should try to bring something special to the table… but I don’t exactly know what I would bring… -_- I know! I’ll make an RPG, no matter the theme! That will be my restriction! Also, I will refuse to touch AutoTracker scripts, unless I have no music with less than an hour remaining. This way, I must actually make my music!

Anyway… obligatory equipment post…
Language: GML (IDE: GameMaker 8.1 Standard)
Graphics editing: Paint.NET, Paint Tool SAI, Anim8or
Sound editing: Schism Tracker, SFXR, Audacity, winLAME
OS: Windows 7

Next time, I’ll try to use PyGame and make the game cross-platform. However, Windows will remain my development OS for a while even if I do use a cross-platform language because SAI refuses to work outside of Windows, even when I have Linux Bamboo drivers (I do not own a Mac).

First of all, the post-compo post… I now give a gigantic THANK YOU! to all of those who played and enjoyed my game! I loved seeing the feedback, both positive and negative! And yes, a very heavy update is in the works!

Anyway, onto the post-mortem post… It seems that I wasted quite a bit of time playing the game instead of working on it… This seems to be a common problem of mine… I didn’t work on graphics that much, other than the bullet which is shot by the enemies… Sound was simple, but complete… I should have had more layered sound effects (like my LD21 entry), but I didn’t… All of this links back to my initial problem. I just turn out too lazy at the wrong times… My choice to use GameMaker 8.1 was not a bad one, despite the LITE logo appearing in-game, I was able to use something that I knew the ins-and-outs of, so it was easy to translate ideas to code.

Now, the post-judging post… My overall score was 3.04 (#392 of 1402). This seems to be an average score, but it’s actually my best overall yet! As always, I have one score that is much higher than the others, and this time, it was fun, with a score of 3.46 (#113 of 1402). This is the highest score I’ve gotten for anything except Community in LD19 (which really doesn’t count too much). As far as the bad goes, the scores I got under 2.5 (average) in were Humor, Innovation, and Coolness. I wasn’t trying to be funny, and I got lazy with judging… The low Innovation score is something that I seriously need to work on for the next LD. I did a shoot-’em-up because they’re easy and quick to program and have some relevance… However, I wasn’t very innovative at all; the only slightly unique thing I did was allow the player to switch directions, which pretty much carried the entire game… Had it not been for that, I would not have scored as highly in Fun, judging by the comments. I should have done more as far as thinking outside of the box.

Anyway, thank you all for the playing, the competition, and the fun! I hope to see every single one of you in the next Ludum Dare!

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-23/?action=preview&uid=2976

Here’s my game!

This makes my 4th competition entry!

That’s a timelapse up there!

Here’s my lunch.

Here’s my game

I added several things, and spiffied up the graphics a bit.

Well, I have a boss, a new enemy, slightly better graphics, a title screen, a bomb, and particles everywhere. Also, I still have sounds for everything like a baws. Also, high scores are now saved.
New executable is available here.

Sleepers for me, and for you, you get a new screeny

and an executable file
I put some placeholder sound and music in and slightly improved the background and the sprites.

Doesn’t really look like much, but I have my concept and my engine down.

See, instead of a tiny world, you are a tiny girl. That’s the plan here. You get down into the tiny places, and this level I’m planning on having a flower as a boss. It’s a side-view shmup engine with the direction switching of DeathSmiles, the camera moves around the room and the objects stay in view and treat it as a different room entirely.

Let’s see… this will be my 4th LD…

As always, because I know nothing, I’m going to be using GameMaker 8.1 for programming. I will be using SFXR and Schism Tracker for sound and music. I will be using Paint Tool SAI and Paint.NET for graphics, and the game will likely be 2D because that’s just easier to program, especially with GameMaker.

I hope that this time my game is actually fun…

Well, here goes…

Building:
Okay… This went rather smoothly. I chose to use GameMaker, which I am highly familiar with, rather than PyGame or XNA (as I am still learning these), or a lower-level environment (o_o). I went in stages. I first built a mockup, then basic movement, then enemies and victory/defeat conditions, then a frontend, then sound, music, effects, and art, then I tweaked it and eliminated as many bugs as possible (thankfully few). I was able to run a lightweight timelapse program as well. Actually, now that I think about it, all 6 programs I used are built to be easy and quick to use: GameMaker, Paint Tool SAI (Paint for tablets), SFXR (you can use multiple sounds from this at the same time for better sounds; I did this in both my LD20 entry and this entry), Chronolapse, the Autotracker-C script (for music), and Schism Tracker (a .it compatible music synth program, perfect for replacing the beeps with instruments) Everything was smooth, I even got sufficient sleep and submitted my game to several sites and into the compo an hour before the 48-hour deadline.

Then, votes and comments meandered in… Universally, the game was fun and intense and the music and graphics were considered good. However, there was one very common complaint (EVERY comment, including my own, mentions it). This complaint is the very high and often sudden difficulty of the game (odd for LD especially). What makes this especially ironic is that during playtesting, the difficulty was even higher…

Contrary to public belief, the game is possible to beat, just extremely difficult.

All in all, the Ludum Dare (my 3rd, along with 19 and 29) went pretty well. Once my computer is fixed (which is why my Coolness is 0), I can address the complaints and create a gameplay video to entice more players (not that this will affect the competition)

Thank you for your time, for your votes, and your patience!

–Fenyx

Well, I have my shmup done! It’s about a ghost who wants to be alone so he can rest in peace.

It’s over here if you want to play it: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-22/?action=preview&uid=2976

Here’s a timelapse video of me making it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4Z0gd7cpig

Well, my game has victory and game over screens now

All I need now are a couple hastily drawn pictures, music, and sound!

Well, I feel that I have been decently productive over the last two days…

Since my last post, I fixed the runtime error, got all menus fixed, added boss fights to the game, cleaned up the HUD so it looks decent, and recreated a Touhou bullet pattern, making it more intense at the same time .

Take a good guess which pattern:

Anyway, off to sleeps. Good night, all.