http://twitch.tv/ifred_qc

This is becoming something! First LD48 where the game idea comes as soon as the theme is announced, so I was able to crunch a lot of the game’s mechanics in!

The idea so far: You’re a guy who has telekinetic powers and some organisation imprisoned you in their facility. Use your powers to escape.

So far, basic telekinesis is done, so is healing and levitate. Now only pyrokinesis and cryokinesis are missing.

Come see my progress!

Wellphfohasieh I figured I’d do what they call a “post-mortem” this time. I had great fun this time and last LD too so I’ll share a bit with the community.

What went right:
Coding: I had extreme ease when creating the game because I used (Don’t spit on me!) GameMaker! I am extremely familiar with it and it is super fast for going from idea to prototype, or even full game depending on the scope of the game. I first coded the game as if it were a side scroller with everything moing along the x axis. When everything was working without bugs, I then remapped the drawing to a sphere. So the computer analyses everything like a standard platformer but draws everything around a sphere! Pretty cool. It was the first time I did that.

Maths: Well I had a ballistic trajectory problem I had to fix, but I’m really bad at maths. In fact I’m good at maths, but I just don’t have enough knowledge. The people on the IRC were really helpful. Thx!

Stick with one idea: Yeap, that one was important. I managed to finish the game and get everything I wanted in it (Even if it wasn’t a lot) because I sticked with the first idea I started coding.

Drawing: I used GameMaker’s sprite editor for pixel art and FilterForge for larger art, namely the first (unused) background and the planet back(fore)ground and star background. FilterForge really let me have amazing detail on the planet in just a few minutes. I then tweaked and had this wonderful, randomly generated planet and stars. 30 minutes at most.

Timelapse: I did one for my 2nd LD and it went pretty good. Chronolapse is super easy to use and it lets me add the music so I didn’t have to go get Windows Movie Maker to edit stuff. All is packed into one convenient tool.

What went wrong:

Sound: I used SFXR again. I thought I lowered the volume of the sounds enough but it seems not, again. The sounds in my game were utterly annoying but I was too tired (Brain tired) to notice it, so forget about fixing.

I forgot things! Many obvious things! I forgot to make a menu screen (Or at least a help screen). I forgot to make music! Having a to do list would’ve been helpful here! (Though I would probably have forgotten to put music and menu there anyway)

Porting the game to HTML5 using GameMaker Studio: That was one of the biggest problems I had. In the end, it worked but it made me waste quite a lot of time, making me forget the above. It introduced many bugs that I didn’t know how to (Or even if I could) fix them. It also broke the tooltip function I had and I didn’t quite know how to fix it either. But it was too late to go back to Win EXE. I had made key modifications to the code that couldn’t be rewritten fast enough. I had to stick with Studio’s HTML5.

What I learned (Read: TL;DR;):

Not to use a tool in BETA for serious projects. To stick with the first idea I start coding. The people on the IRC are friendly. Stick with tools I’m familiar with. FilterForge is awesome. Chronolapse is cool and easy to use. Use headphones instead of laptop sound to gauge SFXR’s sound volumes. To use a to do list. Not to port a game to another platform before I’m absolutely done coding it.

Yup! So… No sounds unfortunately. Custom graphics and all. Or maybe ASCII? Depends on how I feel. Will be written in ASM.

I think this is going to be a huge take. Maybe I should use something I’m more familiar with for the 10th year of LD48? What do you think?

“Alone doesn’t necessarily mean helpless.” is my interpretation.

My game is loosely titled “Hyper Alone” but I will remove alone from it once I find something more satisfying.

This is a game where you are a super soldier so strong that people think you are actually a group of people. Hyper speed, insane accuracy and flawless melee skills. These are all hard to control for a player in real time so the game will boast a plannification system where the whole world pauses just so the player can decide of its next actions.

There currently are no enemies but just running around really fast is satisfying. Add shooting and melee hits. This is really fun!

Exe (Win): http://dl.dropbox.com/u/52854878/Hyper%20Alone.exe

Source (GM8.1): http://dl.dropbox.com/u/52854878/Hyper%20Alone.gm81

I’ll just leave that here, sleep, and read the comment tomorrow! Leave feedback and enjoy the core mechanics of the game!

So the question is this: If I created a texture using it and my trial isn’t over yet, may I use this or is it protected by some FilterForge agreement?

The texture has already been uploaded to their website some time ago -> http://filterforge.com/filters/10168.html

There, 2 posts in one.

Notch participating gave me an urge to try this. Next week-end, I’m in. Will need foods. Lots.

I’ll be using Game Maker 8.1. I know, it’s bad. But it’s the easiest from idea to game. Perfect for LD48.