My game, Left Behind, is done! I’m very happy with it, though it’s buggy as hell:

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-22/?action=preview&uid=3643

It’s been an amazing time, and though I was suffering from a lack of sleep on day 1, the end result is pretty close to what I had planned.

One thing I can recommend massively is doing Ludum Dare with others, as we did in the Cape Town jam. It was fantastic, and great to have a bunch of like-minded chaps around.

Sleep now, postmortem later.

Well it was an exhausting and late start for me, but here’s an update! After a long day, all of us at the LD Cape Town meet have been afflicted by a strange tiredness, along with all manner of delirium, and strange obsessions with seagulls and rocket ships. We need a break.

I had quite a hard time coming up with an idea for this theme, but am currently  here:

The idea I have is that the player has to catch up with his flock, but also has to maintain and gather energy (food) along the way (still to come). It has some promise, and may be more do-able than my previous attempts, as even in it’s current form, it’s almost complete as a simple game. Tomorrow I will work on the energy/food/diving mechanics, and do some graphical changes.

I’m in for Ludum Dare 22! Furthermore, I’ll be devving it up with a bunch of other South Africans at the Cape Town LD event, which should make for a fantastic weekend.

I’ll be using my usual tools and language:

- AS3 w/the FlashDevelop IDE

- The ever-faithful tweenlite library, and perhaps box2d or Ape physics

- Blender/Gimp

- Sound… who knows? I think I’m cursed when it comes to getting sound in a game.

I thought about being brave and getting aquainted with another language/framework for this LD, but decided to stick with AS3. While it would fun to have a go with something like Unity for a 3D game, AS3 remains the safest choice for me, with respect to the 48-hour period. It would be nuts to try and wrangle something one isn’t totally familiar with, so maybe between now and the next one I’ll broaden my horizons.

What a fantastic weekend! I’m beginning to realize why people always stress the importance of forcing yourself to take breaks. This is an incredibly self-involving craft, and I got so caught up I probably only took about 6 hours worth of breaks throughout (excluding sleep, of course). So, I’m broken but incredibly satisfied, and I had a great time.

View my entry, “Cells”, here:
http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-21/?action=preview&uid=3643

Post-mortem time:

My biggest gripe – adding sound and music has eluded me AGAIN! I also let it slip last time. I’m fairly new to a couple of Actionscript 3 concepts and embedding and playing sounds seems to be pretty simple, but I must be missing something very obvious because I always have problems. I did manage to get sound working in a previous project I worked on, but for whatever reason I couldn’t get it going this time. So, I opted to carry on with what I knew rather than spending hours messing around with sound.

The other problem is that I have more experience with 3D and digital art than programming, so even if when I don’t have trouble coming up with a gameplay idea I still tend to focus largely on graphics. I loved the theme this time, but had a hard time coming up with an idea, which meant by the end of the first day I still didn’t have an iota of gameplay/interaction code. The player could run and jump and all the technical aspects were in, but no game. I only came up with the hacking idea on day 2, so I didn’t leave myself enough time to create more challenging puzzles.

That being said, I was very happy with the hacking concept and I think the final game could be tons of fun as a puzzler if those puzzles were more taxing. With things like watching for enemy paths, following electrical connections and being able to hack more floors above, the game would be somewhere between an escape the room game and an arcade puzzler.

The graphics was the other aspect I was very happy with. I managed to get an animated character in too and even though his animations were a little rough, I can see that a little animation makes a huge difference. I wanted to do more with lighting – as you got higher the floor you were on would be brighter – but that, and many other tweaks, will come if and when I update the game. I also love the dark and slightly spooky atmostphere and I’d love to tie a creepy or mind-bending story into Cells.

Overall, I’m really happy with my entry. Good luck all!

I wanted to post last night, but here we go:

:

It’s coming along nicely in terms of graphics, but I still need to get core gameplay code in, which is beginning to worry me. I know it’s unusual to focus on visuals first, but I only managed to come up with what I think is a fun concept while trying to get to sleep last night. Hopefully I can implement it in a simple way to get it in in time.

Back to work!

Phew, things are off to a more or less good start after some delicious croissants and brainstorming this morning. I love the theme, but I’ve found myself really stumped with coming up with a great idea. I find myself getting clammed up with trying to create something *different* instead of focusing on fun or feasibility. At the moment, I’m sort of winging it and hoping the final product will be fun!

Ah, an update on tools – I’m gonna be using Tweenlite, and have obviously gone for pre-rendered 3D, but have avoided flixel and co again! This means a greater (and fulfilling) programming challenge, and of course will result in some very dodgy collision detection. Quicksand walls are a thing now.

First screenshot:

More to come later!

Well the themes are looking like fun! I’m taking part in this Ludum Dare with more or less the same tools/languages as before:

-AS3

-Depending on the kind of game – Tweenlite and/or Flixel, but I’ll announce as I go.

-Gimp/Blender for graphics

-SFXR for sound, even though my last entry didn’t have any :/

Well, there are many things missing but I’m submitting what is basically a playable and (very) short game!

Pathfinder

Unfortunately many things had to go as I ran out of time, notably character animations and sound. I would of course have also added more levels, and 1 or 2 additions to gameplay, like levers and such. My biggest regret though is the lack of animation: The player is supposed to be controlling the sword itself, and the lump of a hero is being dragged behind. But with no animation, secondary motion and whatnot, one isn’t really given that impression.

On the other hand, I’m very happy with the pre-rendered graphics and the concept itself. The whole “swatting” enemies mechanic is on it’s way to being something fantastic.

It’s been an absolutely amazing time, and I’ve learned a massive amount. Even though my little game that could is far from what I hoped it would be I’m really happy, seeing as this was my first Ludum Dare and I’m relatively new to AS3 programming.

Looking forward to seeing some amazing stuff from you guys!

Hi all,

12 hours in and my head is starting to rattle around a bit, so I’m taking a break and leaving everyone with this marvellous screenshot.

I have the movement dynamics in more or less to my liking, but have yet to tackle collision detection. This is worrying, but I’m still considering using flixel for this, or something appropriate. I’ll see how I go.

Otherwise, I’ve started using TweenLite for various effects, and the textures are my own. There’s still a long way to go, but I’m really happy with how the silly movement system works, and I’m hoping it will translate into some frustratingly fun gameplay.

Well, after a brief bit of alarm at not knowing what to do with the theme, I’ve decided on something I think is pretty cool. I’m going for the traditional top-down RPG hack n slash with a twist – the player controls the “this”, a magical sword, leading around the oafish hero and trying not to get him killed.

I’ll probably just stay with FlashDevelop and TweenLite for this, but perhaps use flixel for some of the utility functions, but I will keep the list updated as I progress.

Right now though, It’s about 8.30 AM South African time and I woke up about an hour ago, so I’m going to put in a bout of preemptive procrastination by doing things like showering and eating. Then on to more planning and getting levels and sword control going.

Good luck all!

Hi all! I’m taking the plunge and joining for my first Ludum Dare.

Tools:

- FlashDevelop
- Photoshop
- Maybe Blender if I decide to do pre-rendered graphics
- SFXR
- Steady deployment of smooth jazz for in game music

I’m looking forward to it!