MinMo is my entry into the LD11 - Minimalist Theme compo:

Update:

Two win32 versions are now available, a fullscreen and a windowed.  No other changes were made to gameplay or bugs.  The resolution is 1024×768.  I recommend the fullscreen version for a more immersive experience. 

Fullscreen win32 available here (2.3MB)

Windowed 1024×768 win32 available here (2.3MB) 

full zip with win32 exe and source here (3.5MB)

I’m hoping to post a linux version / instructions soon too. 

The goal is to get from the left of the screen to the right of the screen. Each time you do the world will advance one level. Each level brings more flowers and enemies to overcome.

You play as a character with two forms. “Min” - who is thin, vulnerable and snakelike. “Mo” - who is an invulnerable and immovable gelatinous mass.

You can only move around when you are Min but if you are falling off of a block you can transform into Mo to crush enemies below you. If you happen to be cornered by an ememy as Min, you can transform into Mo to let them pass by safely. You can only get hit by the enemies once or the game ends. You can continue though so never fear!

The game world consists of rising and falling blocks that also play the music of the game in time to their movements. There are little flowers that grow from time to time that you can collect for points.

This was created with ruby and the incredible gosu game library.

I used the awesome sfxr for all game sounds too!

Bitmaps created in Tile Studio after some initial concept art inspiration in Corel Draw.

I finished this with 3 minutes left in the deadline. That means that I didn’t have a chance to play it that much to tune for fun. It is functional and seems stable. The player crushing enemies collision detection could be a little better for sure and the levels could advance in a more interesting way. All in all I am very happy with having completed this project in such a short time. I didn’t think I was going to be able to make it under the deadline the past 4 hours or so leading up to the end so I am glad that I actually managed to pull something off. I’ll post a post mortem later perhaps. I can’t wait to check out all the other entries! Good luck and congrats to everyone who participated!

So, after some sleep last night I have finally finished a good working pass on all the character vs moving blocks collision tests.  Had a few bugs / kinks to work out that I introduced due to tiredness last night.  Now everything seems stable and falling seems to work good enough for now.  Plus, the characters position correctly updates as the blocks move up and down and the character can now fall down and meet a moving block without problems.  Plus, thanks to the new algorithms I should be able to implement similar ones for any other objects / obstacles / enemies I manage to implement in next 8 hrs or so! 

win32 available here for anyone curious as to its workings / progress.

Well, at least breakfast doesn’t need working collision code to be yummy. I’m thankful for the small things ya know?

I ate this while detailing out new collision code algorithms for MinMo on a notepad. Then, I went for a brief bike ride around the neighborhood while thinking about them. Time to implement!

Well, I’m back up and starting to wake up.. (mmm coffee)  I was too tired last night to tag the evening with a journal update as to progress of MinMo so I think I’ll do that now as I recollect my thoughts and tasks for the day.

I managed to get about 3-4 hrs of code in last night during which I got the block classes correctly picking new heights, updating to the new heights etc.  It looks really neat in motion and there is something about it’s minimalism that I do like.

I got the player char position to be updated as the blocks rise and fall and started working on more advanced collision detection.  I need the char to correctly get stuck in the block valleys and be able to move left and right only when their block is above neighboring blocks.  Sounds simple enough right? 

I managed to piece something together that was crudely working after fighting through some annoying bugs but basically hit a wall of tiredness where I was causing more harm than good.  :)  So, I went to bed hoping to refactor a bit better / clearer algorithm in the morning and then hopefully add a few more elements to make this thing a ‘game’ and maybe even slightly ‘fun’.  I still have hope even though there is less than 10 hrs left in the compo.

Well, I’m back a couple hours later than I thought I might be (go figure..) ;)  But, I did snag one great picture of copious amounts of dead thing grilling over a backyard fire at a friend’s house.

Anyway, I’m back and checking out all the posts and happenings I missed while most of you were still coding away today!  Gotta get back on the coding horse if I’m gonna pull this thing off tomorrow, still a lot to do!

Here is another screenshot of MinMo. I have got a basic ‘block’ class defined and working for the land now. Basically, keeping to the concepts of the theme with min and max (or mo?) the blocks will be moving up and down possibly signaling their moves with color changes ahead of time. Another minimalist thing I’m trying to incorporate is that your little MinMo player guy can’t jump. You will have to use the moving of the ground blocks to get around the world. You WILL be able to fall though and I’m still thinking up what kinda of implications this may have. I am still brainstorming other aspects of the game (enemies, goodies etc) but nothing too concrete yet.

So, now I’m off to a birthday party I’m throwing for my girlfriend so I won’t be back for about 6 hours or so. Then it is a late night sprint on the game, some minimal sleep and the final crunch on Sunday to pull this thing off. Good luck all!

Finally got a screen shot here along with a link if anyone on win32 wants to try my character test and let me know if my exe doesn’t work. Basically got my character tiles from last night all coded in and initially timed between states.

The current player character MinMo has two states. A ‘Min’ state where he is a little thin snake and a gelatinous block ‘Mo’ state where he can’t move but will probably be invincible. You are frozen as ‘Mo’ currently until the time is up where you then transform back to ‘Min’.

You use arrows to move left and right, space to transform, and ESC quits. Now for more game elements!

win32 exe available here

mmmm.. breakfast sandwich and OJ.  Good morning ludum dare 11.

My girlfriend said she’d make me a breakfast sandwich as long as I post it to the LD blog, so how could I refuse?  It was gooooood too. 

In other news, I got about 6 hours of sleep and am working on getting my basic character functional in a code test so I can post something game related soon. 

That’s my working title currently…

Well, it’s about 3am here EST and I think I’ve gotta shuffle off to bed. I’ve spent the past 4 or so hours working in art programs on concept art and haven’t written a lick of code. I’ve basically been listening to Deep Mix / Moscow Radio which I’ve found very inspirational for this theme whilst I’ve drawn animated bitmaps to the beat.

I started out in Corel Draw and then ended up in Tile Studio. I got inspired while I was in Corel Draw and then took some of the concepts over to Tile Studio to flesh out further in tile / bitmap format. I came up with my main character animation sprite sets and got a nice test animation that I actually don’t know how to dump out to an animated gif to share. Too tired to figure that out right now, so nothing visual to share yet. Now I just need to keep fleshing out the scope of the game / gameplay and see if I can code something usable in time! Phew..!

I’ve enjoyed seeing everyone’s posts and chats in the IRC channel. I hope you are all having a good time! What an adventure.

a minimal cereal..?

Well, while I try and step back from the IRC channel for a bit to collect my thoughts on the theme announced ‘Minimalist’ I feel nothing would hit the spot better then some minimalist toasted -o’s.  No fluff here, just the bare essentials.

Just my workspace photo to get into the spirit of things here..

Just a close-up of my ‘chariot’ for the competition… code in style.

Don’t have any food photos to contribute as I was out to dinner in town and sorta forgot about that aspect. Well, I’ve gotta go get xchat installed now so I can be distracted by IRC too.

Hey all-  I’m also going to be attempting my first LD and thought I’d make a quick post to test out this here blog system and say ‘Howdy’ to everyone here while I was at it.  I’ve been looking forward to this for quite a few weeks since I found out about it a month or two ago.  I plan on using Ruby/Gosu and perhaps Chipmunk if the theme warrants some hardcore physics fun.