…but I will not despair. This challenge has showed me what it takes to make a game, both the fun and the frustrating parts, and I finally have something that I can turn into a real game. I am motivated to make this game the best I possibly can, and I will release, but the October deadline is simply too close. I’ve created a story, characters, a general theme, and have decided on a title, “A Fey Mood”. I-I’m going to post my progress so far here, and I’m going to set a new deadline for myself (as without one, I will never release).

This is an automatically updating link to my progress (at least that which I wish to make public).

My new deadline will be Christmas. I hope to see you all then!

Well, I have a temporary menu up and running… and it is smooooooooth…

Random menu link

Well, I decided that this would be a good way for me to actually finish a finished game… so…

So far, I gots a random shoot’em up IN SPACE!! It’s functional, has 3 enemy types so far (not actually shown :O), and the art’s pretty decent…

I still need to build a frontend, an actual HUD, fix some bugs, add more enemy types, balance its difficulty, add the bosses, add music and sounds, and add variety and possibly some story?

Anyway, progress is progress… and I need to make sure I have enough time to actually finish this…

My personal goal: To get enough to buy a Game Maker Standard and possibly Game Maker HTML5 (uses GMLite for everything)

#93 Audio 3.08
#207 Community 2.67
#276 Graphics 2.62
#280 Theme 2.85
#375 Overall 2.46
#379 Innovation 2.23
#399 Fun 2.08
#418 Coolness 0%
#466 Humor 1.00

Well… Let’s start with the bad stuff… Humor. I… didn’t have much, as you can see… Coolness. I am not very good at rating games, or playing them, when I have other things to occupy myself. I probably easily could have gotten a better score if I was actually interested. Fun. In this case, it was the large amount of fake difficulty in the hidden enemies, as well as the rather unorthodox control scheme. Innovation. Not much here, either. I completely agree with my low points.

Overall hits a little low, and it was even worse than my last entry in LD19 (2.46 vs. 2.82) -_-; It wasn’t a particularly good game, and I probably will only touch it to steal different things from it, just like I did from my last LD game.

Now let’s hit with the higher points. Theme. It fit the theme, but you weren’t really given backstory, and it didn’t really try to go anywhere special, so maybe a little higher than expected? Graphics. Honestly, there was little I did to do good graphics. It was a particle snow effect, some filtering, and some nice little tidbits like bullet cartridges, impact points, and the such. I didn’t even do any character sprites, let alone finish them. Community. Like the Coolness score above, this one didn’t really strike me as important. I simply posted my intent, midway point, and game. Audio. Well, actually, this one was pretty good. The soundtrack, though quickly made in Autotracker-C and edited to fit, worked rather well with the mood. I made sound effects to go with pretty much every action (except enemy movement for some reason, though I did for bullet cartridges), sometimes having to combine different sounds to get the effect I wanted (for example the gun-fire and the reload). It was easily my best attribute, and though it didn’t score top 25, I’m proud of the score I did get.

All in all, this was a rather mediocre game, and the players agreed. Though it had good points, it also had some low points. I’m not necessarily happy with my overall score, though I am happy with my Audio score, and content with my game as a whole.

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-21/?action=preview&uid=2976

This actually turned out pretty well… Though it wasn’t exactly what I was going for, and the sprites are rather unfinished, the game works well, and I’ll probably end up using this engine, or a modified form of it, for a variety of random games.

Okay… I got some work done here. It doesn’t look like much, but it has an AI, depth ordering, really smooth movement, resource management… so I just need to build variety and assets.

Going to go eat breakfast and shower, then get back to coding.

Progress?

Yep, I’m going to participate in this Ludum Dare! It will be my 2nd dare, so I hope I can do a better job this time around.

I’m going to be using a laptop on my bed.

Materials:
Game Maker 8.1 Lite
sfxr
Paint Tool SAI, possibly Paint.NET
Some music generation python script that someone posted for LD20
Schism Tracker
A loptop with Windows 7
Chronolapse

I’ll probably end up making a shooter no matter what the theme is; the key will be to make it interesting with unique gameplay and to make it fit the theme.

Sorry… My ability, time, and maximum stress level fell far short of where I expected… so no little school girls killing zombies with dialogue… I simply have far too much to do tomorrow and during today, I was unable to work due to unexpectedly changing bedrooms and having to get my stuff out of my old room and into my new one… That took a good… ah… 15 hours considering all of my junk, my brothers’ junk, and my sister’s junk. Also, RISK is extremely distracting, but that’s my own fault.

However, I do have a decent framework for an engine, a timelapse, and a picture of one of the characters… The important thing is that I got a basic framework piece done that I really needed, the dialogue system. Along with the smoooooooth 8-directional movement from another side project of mine, I could prolly pull it off, just not this weekend. I’ll post what I have, but it’s not going to be entered as a MiniLD game. I’ll probably end up using pieces of this, like I do with everything, in a single major project.

I will make sure to do better on the actual LD48-21 in August.

Timelapse: http://adf.ly/1v8dB
What I have so far: http://adf.ly/1v8el
Character picture: http://adf.ly/1v8gF

Well, for this MiniLD, my intention is to create a working dialogue engine and a working pseudo-3D overworld engine… in GM Lite! The story will probably involve schoolgirls killing zombies and monsters. From what I have done building base code while waiting for the LD to actually start, I have gotten a Ren’Py engine somewhat working, though it’s a bit disorganized and I have not yet gotten questions finished. I want there to be multiple endings that depend on the path you choose, and yes, shipping will be involved because I ship everything. (Linkxfloor FTW), and so for the engine I built a choose-your-own-adventure type story redirection system. It actually was really easy to do that, especially with how computers work rather than books. Anyway, I’ll will prolly post screens, but don’t be surprised if I don’t (I’m not good at doing stuff like that). At the end, however, I *will* post a time lapse, along with the finished blank dialogue engine and the game.

Fenyx

My game is done being made!

Yayzles!

Yep… and here’s the linky!

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-19/?action=preview&uid=2976

*sleeps*

Also, timelapse video is here

Okay… I’m almost done with a working build, just need to implement the rest of the items!~

Once I’m done with that, time for arts, ne?~

That it is… I think that I’ll call it quits for right now, and wait till tomorrow to finish, tho I’ll prolly only have a couple of hours left after I get done with everything that I was doing IRL that day…

Things that I have done:
Movement
Game victory/plot (not much of one, but hey, it’s there)
Dungeons
Inventory system that works
Combat
Leveling system (prolly a rather broken one, but hey)
Treasure to discover
Health/Stamina regeneration instead of health/stamina potions
A HUD

Things I have yet to do:
Graphics (least priority)
Enemies/Bosses (need at least one enemy, other than that, it’s a low priority)
Actually making the items in the inventory usable (highest priority)

All I’m using is my mind, and Game Maker 8 Lite.

Good nights, all.

Okay… I’m back and working on my game, okies?

Well, we are now halfway through the competition, and…. it seems that I still have a great deal of the engine left to build, as well as tile sets, but oh well…

Aaaaanyway, I’m going to take a break for a bit, and run with it….

I decided on a mix between Dig-Dug and Zelda… which means that I might want some decent puzzles…

Yep… I have eaten, and now it’s time to get crunching

Obligitory food and desk post
Yes, that is tea, gum, and toast with Peanut butter

Now, for a shower, and back to work on teh game

Well, when I got home, I decided the heck with it, drew up some plans, told everyone to stay off the computer, and I’m entering….

Well, I might be entering the Ludum Dare 19 (first one w00t), though, there is a small problem… namely having to do with my main computer being busted for the time being. If I am still able to participate, then I’ll prolly end up doing the Jam, not the Dare, but oh well….

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaanyways, luckily I will still have a different computer to use, but I don’t have my time-lapse software, and it’s also a shared machine, but oh well… I still have teh power of awesomeness!~ ne?

Obligitory equipment post:

Game Maker 8 (Lite), MS-Paint (or default sprite editor in GM8), SFXR… random computer…