It’s unfortunate that I didn’t get to compete this time around. I was really looking forward to LD20, considering it’s a milestone number for the event. Oh well.

I had AP exams to study for, a couple projects to finish and some plans with friends that prevented me from competing. I’m sad I didn’t get to exploit the newfound power of my Ubuntu installation.

Best of luck to those who competed, and may the best game win!

I’ve bumped up the version on the play page to force everyone to re-download the game. If you played one of the beta versions and tried to play the final version, you might have had the issue of it not downloading the updated jars. This should fix that.

Go play it now if you were trying to before!

I was freaking out, because I had a really big bug to squish right at the 3 hours left mark. It took me over an hour to fix it, then I rushed really quickly to finish the game world and license the source code.

But here at last, it is finished! Have a take at it! And here’s a timelapse video.

I’ve programmed a quick world map generator which will allow me to see what I’ve created at a glance! I must say, it’s pretty spiffy, considering it builds an image out of numbers from a text file, and I’m a noob programmer. I haven’t done much actual design yet, that’s the next step!

I forgot to make my starting post for today. Oh well. I got up a bit later than I wanted to but I should be able to get the game finished within the next 5 hours, given I don’t run in to any major bugs, then I can crack down on minor bugs in the last 3 hours.

I came up with a clever little secret that I’m going to implement once the final version goes live later today. It’ll involve something outside of the game, after you’ve completed all of the objectives in-game. I’m only hoping it won’t be easily visible from the timelapse once I finish that…

Anyway, the end is drawing near and I have a big game world to finish. Seey’all in a bit.

And that’s it for the second day of LD #19. TIL Ludum Dare isn’t pronounced “loo-dumb deh-urr.” Anyway, I have a rudimentary map editor and a bunch of obstacles complete, and the last things to do are:

• Set up the story progression (discovery)
• Finish the game world!
• Make some music

Tomorrow is a day for content generation, which will most likely be very easy to do provided my tools don’t bug out on me like they did an hour ago, forcing me to restart my computer and interrupt my timelapse! Ehm. Anyway, I’ve uploaded a new build of the game, which can be played at the usual URL. I’m gonna come up with a name and a story tomorrow. Night everyone.

Seriously, this is the most baffling mystery I’ve come across using AWT…

Here’s Editor and here’s LevelCanvas. The problem is that when I click on the LevelCanvas component, it’s supposed to repaint, but it only does the first time – then you have to iconify and bring up the window again to be able to click it again. The paint() and update() methods for the LevelCanvas are, in fact, being called every single time, but nothing is actually updated on the window itself.

Help?

Now with stars and "LatchMobs"!

Alright! Now that I am confident that my framework will be usable to create a full-fledged game, I’m down to content creation. There’s one last step to the game that I need to implement and that’s changing between screens. That means, it’s almost time to start making mobs, obstacles, pickups and The Artifacts™!

Because I was having trouble reading image data from graphics contexts in Slick, I decided to go with an even more hacky map format: a text file of sequential numbers representing entities. A separate entity that lives for the duration of a single frame builds the level up from a text file with exactly 300 integers (placed however desired). The darker dots in the background are actually a scenic space thing that scrolls as you change between screens… or, will eventually do that but doesn’t quite do so yet. I’m not going to worry about entity priorities unless it seriously needs to be done, and it could be easily set up anyway.

I was too lazy to program the collision between bullet and player, and I forgot to set up the HUD object that displays how much life your character has… whatever that thing is supposed to be. Now it’s lunch time, and on to these tasks:

• Screen switching
• Pickups
• A nice-looking HUD
• More mobs
• More gimmicky obstacles
• Possibly a better sprite for the player.

You can play this demo at the usual URL.

but I’m going to use it to describe the current build I just put up. Click here to play it. Now that I’ve wasted an hour trying to get that applet to work…

Good mornin’ Ludum Dare. I see many of you made a lot more progress over the course of the night; looks like I’d better get crackin’.

I was planning on scrambling some eggs, but there aren’t enough eggs in the house, so I’m just sipping a cup of OJ until I decide on something else to eat. The OJ is almost empty, too. I repeat, the OJ is almost empty.

A list of things I would like to get done today:

• Thruster particles (meaning, entity destruction and creation calls from other entities too)
• Sound effects
• Screen switching at the edges
• A scrolling background for the world (perhaps stars?)
• Some enemies
• Some pickups

I’ll probably end up doing them in a completely random order, too.

4 hours of work. Most of which not visible in a still.

That’s that for the first four hours of the compo for me. Now it’s time to go to bed.

Tasks completed today:

• State-based game framework (using Slick’s base)
• Entity handling
• Rudimentary collision handling (using Slick geometry intersect())
• A way to lose! Slamming into walls with too much velocity causes you to take damage. Hitting 0 gives you a game over.

My current idea for the game is about solving puzzles and exploring by using strings of text found on discovered artifacts, collecting various power-ups along the way. You view your character from a bird’s-eye view, applying force with the WASD keys to fly about the screens of the game world. Simple enemies will pose a threat to you, as you (maybe?) don’t have any weapons to defend yourself.

In any case, good night Ludum Dare! I shall be awake within 8 hours, ready to eat some scrambled eggs and drink some OJ!

We are now 2 hours in to LD #19, and I am heavily tapping away at the framework for my game. The theme has presented some ambiguity which I am thankful for, because it means I can incorporate a lot of different ideas and still fit the theme.

I’ve isolated myself from all my normal connections with people on the Internet, which means I am quite a rather lonely fellow right now! Guess I’ll be making good friends with y’all on IRC over the next few days.

I should have a screenshot of something working within the next few working hours (likely tomorrow).

The mouse pad is temporary, I don't care about football.

Since everyone appears to be doing so, I’m gonna take a photo of my workspace too!

I made a post a few days ago saying that some friends and I would be participating in the Jam. We’ve come to the consensus that we’re not quite prepared to delve in to a group endeavor yet and would like to have some practice outside of a competition before doing something like this. As a result, I will be competing in LD48 instead! Here’s a list of the tools I may or may not use:

• Sun Java SE 6
• Slick 2D Game Library
• sfxr (who doesn’t use this?)
• Paint.NET
• Famitracker
• foobar2000 to keep the creative juices flowing

I have to say thanks to Notch for making Metagun, because I learned about Ludum Dare through it and a bit about Applets and AWT. I hope I can finish my game for my first try at this, and I’ll see y’all in a bit!

Hey Ludum Dare! A couple of friends and I are preparing to make a game for #19 after being inspired by Notch’s Metagun from the last compo. We’ll be using Java and probably either plain AWT or SWT to code it. We’ve been friends for several years, and have always done programming stuff as a hobby.

I just want to ask, does anyone have any tips as far as project management goes? This is our first attempt at a Ludum Dare compo, and we only have one head particularly familiar with game design.