48/72 hour RPG why not
(its a terrible idea thats why not)

Heres what I got tonight

My starting idea was kind of a tamagotchi RPG. Single creature on creature battles, so it looks a lot like pokemon when a fight starts. You dont have any actions in-battle right now, they’re automated. Not sure where this is going to go, im basically improvising as I go. Tomorrow I add actual choices to the combat, but its always going to be somewhat automated, I want the battles to be very quick. Other than that, idea is still vague. You go around eating food. Any excess food you eat turns into Evolution points, which arnt used yet. Got to think about all that. Sleep now!

Im going to enter the jam! Gonna be jammin.
Last time I tried the compo, but after 48 hours I didnt have enough to show, so I went for the jam instead, and asked Chef Boyardee to help out on the final day. We ended up 2nd overall! I think this means its time to aim for the jam from the getgo this time around!

Going to be using Game Maker, Graphicsgale for the art, and I dont know what Chef uses for music. Ill update that post with that sometime.

Things are advancing steadily! Im feelin it. More buildings now, and slightly better interface. Adding sounds soon.

New build!

The game is JUUST starting to feel fun, I cant release this for the compo! This is going to be a jam game folks. Heres the state of the game at competition time:

New build

It is fun, but just a little bit lacking in buildings and enemies, going to spend the extra day on just that!

less than 3 hours left…. adding graphix!!
NEW BUILD

Time to make graphics!
LATEST BUILD

It now generates a proper random city, but its pretty bare and all visuals are still placeholder. Ill make visuals next and then try to populate the city with enemy monsters and tanks, which already work but dont have any spawning mechanic yet.
Same controls as before, but M toggles a map of the generated city. Square colors refer to map types.

Slowly advancing…

Heres a build:
BUILD DOWNLOAD!
Arrow keys move, C picks up things and throws em, V attacks with the object or eats it if its comestible. Sometimes you will spawn inside of a building, just move around until it collapses. Im setting up a proper city generation now, then ill get into creating real content for it all. it doesnt look much, but I think the results’ gonna be pretty cool!

it aint pretty yet, but its a start! I got a vague idea going, a game I had in mind for a little while. I didnt expect I would be starting it so soon so I still have a lot to figure out about the concept. Basically, a simple roguelike game where you play as a giant monster rampaging through a town instead of an adventurer exploring a dungeon maze. Still thinking about the overall idea and how the two concepts will mix, as I work on getting the simpler elements of the game working. Going for a walk now as I think about it further!

Im in. Gonna use Game Maker and graphicsgale and SFXR.

Still working on my game! Heres a preview of the art now that I got some extra time to work on it:
BEFORE:
AFTER:

Added some more lush colors and removed some of the noise. The tiles are somewhat less tile-ey too, but still keeping that noisy artifact charm. Somewhat prettier, no? More readable too. I guess it does reduce the noisy style a little, but its a trade-off I am pretty okay with for now.

Im really pumped about my game guys. Pretty goddamn pumped! Its gonna be sweet! And it already is kinda, except its riddled with bugs!
If you havent yet, check out the Ludum Dare compo version of my game HERE.

My games done! Well, yesterday it was. I was too goddam tired to make a post about it right then! Now after having a little rest, heres some kind of postmortem.

Heres the game itself: ASSAULT THE DARK FORTRESS

The game is a somewhat long zelda-like game where you explore a big maze, find upgrades, keys, treasure and food. Food goes down slowly as you play, and you can starve to death. You soon get a sword and other equipment to help in combat and exploration.
The game takes maybe 30 minutes to one hour to complete.

My biggest mistake about the game was probably how large the map was. I spent more than a day working on the games world layout, before even having visuals other than placeholders. I was finally done with the map when I had only 5 hours left on the deadline… at which point I spent one hour making a proper tileset:

Then I spent 3 hours placing these tiles in the game, and one last hour putting in sounds and correcting bugs. The 3 hours of tile laying wasnt enough for the size of the game however, I only had time to place tiles on the left half of the world map, so the entire right hand side of the game ended up with just a background color and dark gray blocks for walls! eep!

Another problem was that I had very little sleep on the first day. I went to sleep for 6 hours and only slept one of them, as a result, the second day was very sluggish, and I did very little compared to the first night.

All in all I’m rather happy with the result though. It has some bugs, like the dialogues of the intro sequence reappear randomly as you play (its a really stupid bug causing that, too!) And also a couple room exits don’t link up properly. But other than that it seems to work fine, I was able to explore the whole maze. Also the rush at the end forced me to somewhat do the tiling quickly, so many rooms look a little similar, which is a problem with exploration. Still, killing stuff is quite satisfying, and upgrading your weapon is nice.
I will surely spend quite a bit of hours polishing and finishing it up in the coming weeks, so expect to see a much better version eventually, with more varied art, less placeholders, better sound, more varied enemies. The current lack of music is disappointing, too, ill have to look into that.

Just spent one hour making tiles (and eating)! It was pretty intense! They look neat but theyre a bit messy. now I got 3 hours to lay them out in the game, do the other art (main character is still just a circle with an angry face) and make some sound effects…eep!

www.frankiesmileshow.com/LudumDare/Build4.zip

The maze is complete, though there is no proper ending, just a character telling you its the end. Its pretty huge to explore, but with no tiles all the rooms look sort of the same!

I can now finally make some art! 4 hours for art is very short, especially for placing tiles all over. Theres gonna be some ugly tilework in there at the end. Lets go!!

Heres the build at 8.5 hours left, its starting to look like a game, but its still all placeholder and no fun. Im in the middle of laying out the maze, placing enemies. Still havent started on the final art or sound, which is worrying!

www.frankiesmileshow.com/LudumDare/Build3.zip

Second build.

www.frankiesmileshow.com/LudumDare/Build2.zip

Still placeholder sprites. Now theres some enemies, and you can cast spells. Im really tired right now, enough for the first night!

Controls: arrows move, X blocks, C attacks, D places bombs, hold S and release to cast a spell. hold it longer to cast different spells. Interrupt the casting with an action (attacking, placing a bomb, using the shield) to combine a spell with that action.

Tomorrow I make more enemies, make some more game mechanics, and start making the actual level. Then I start on the actual art!

Well, four hours and a half in, and I got a test level running with most of the basic gameplay elements working.

www.frankiesmileshow.com/LudumDare/LudumDareFrankie.zip

Controls: arrows move, X stops you to block, C attacks, D places a bomb. Attack a lock with C to use your key (if you got one)

The context and theme arn’t in the game at all right now, its all ugly placeholder stuff. The games mood is going to be quite dark, in fact, something you couldn’t really guess from looking at the placeholders.

My plan is to spend the first 24 hours on the gameplay exclusively, and then the next 24 hours on making polished visuals. I will stop adding new features to the game at the 22 hour mark to finish whatever im doing at the time, to spend all of the remaining time on art and sound exclusively, and ill try my best not to waste any time on art assets before that. I need to force myself to do this or Ill waste way too much time on art.

Gonna do this ludum dare thing. First timer!
Game with Game Maker
Art with GraphicsGale
Sound effects with SFXR or that other one thats similar to it but a bit better, whatsit called already??? that one.
Music with possibly a mic or maybe Anvil Studio.