For like half of the LDs I’ve participated in I’ve said or thought that I would do a postmortem. But I never got around to it. Thought I’d do a postmortem this time to make up for it. And this time is one of those times that are perfect for postmortems, for several reasons. Like, I almost failed but didn’t. That’s great postmortem material, you know. But still, I’m lazy, so I’ll do the standard postmortem procedure of The Good, The Bad and The Other.

It’s long though, so be warned! Slightly updated 15th, new text at end.

(more…)

I’m finally finished with a version that both runs and could be classified as a game. So here it is. All important information is available in the game, really, if you just pay a bit of attention. I might include play information here later when I don’t need to sleep so much.

If you want another screenshot, here’s after having won.

The Tower of You, Windows binary download + D source.

Update after deadline: I’ve updated the above link to include zlib1.dll which was missing. The original package is still available.

I’ve managed to get some game stuff into the game. So it’s possible to play it, and it’s possible to win or lose (only there’s not check for it yet). It’s not overly exciting. Or intriguing. There’s an AI that plays decently if it’s lucky, but almost never wins except if you’re stupid. But it’s something.

What’s left is to fix a few known bugs, add some kinds of instructions, and end of game check, and pack it up. Exciting, huh? I’m quite tired, so I don’t really jump around in joy, but maybe I would have been. Probably would have been more had this game turned out better.

I’ll write about how you actually play in the submission post.

And I forgot to post my lunch photo from earlier. It was lasagna.

And then I just had supper. It was toast.

And no, I did not take a lot of photos of the same toast and use them to post multiple times during the course of this compo. It really was different instances all of them!

I’ve thrown out a lot of code and streamlined (simplified) gameplay. It’s still fairly pointless, but it’s pointless in a much more easygoing and fun way. Which is important.

I just need to figure out some restriction/bonus given by the tower height. And introduce an AI player. And fix some way to solve conflicts. And come up with a goal. I mean a single actual coded goal. I can think of lots of different other ones, like reach certain height in as low number of turns possible, or be the one with highest tower when resources are all out etc.

Anyway, here’s a screenshot. It looks kind of like before.

The game doesn’t work as it is. Needs to figure out a design that does. At first I thought (as I wrote) I just needed an slight control change (or a bigger one, but I went for the small). The actual game rules were the same, only this showed that the game was fairly pointless (when didn’t have to set workers every round). One just had to set them up and let the turns pass. Might have been better with an opponent, as then you’d have to figure out most optimal route, but that still wasn’t much work. And the bothersome thing left was to manually build the tower. Tested to remove that too. Made it less bothersome, but even more pointless. So I need to figure something out.

Oh, right, at least I had some candy.

I’m trying to figure out whether I’m to change the control scheme. The current one is a bit of a bother at lower levels and will be a lot of a bother at higher, or so I suspect. Just feels there’s a lot to rewrite, and I’m not sure how I should adjust the tower building. Most this probably doesn’t mean anything yet to you guys as you haven’t even played it. But just so you know I’m pondering.

I’ve added small icons so one can see directly where things have been ordered and where things can be done. Also improved the roads. It looks more promising than it plays though, so not sure I’ll get this stuff to be fun or not. It really needs an opponent to make any sense as it is.

I’m having breakfast.

It’s toast AND A DONUT.  It’s like the most awesome breakfast in weeks! For me.

I’m up and and working again. Have continued on the roads stuff so that now you can assign workers beyond influence level if it has road connection. Things missing at the moment are building fundament and expanding level of influence. And, like, and AI, decent graphics, multi-player mode etc etc.

I’ve noted that the way worker assignment is currently done is quite bothersome. Not sure how it should be instead. Thinking either that workers stay assigned and can be unassigned, or that one can just select what resources to buy for the remaining workers after having built etc. Currently it works that you select action for each hex during a road, including assigning workers. Then on next round those things are reset.

And now I need to go out in the rain on a quest to buy breakfast stuff.

Just thought I’d give some word on my progress before I go and get some sleep.

It’s now possible to expand the tower. It’s also possible to build roads. Those are perhaps the only different game changes. I’m not posting a screenshot because the roads are just lines at the moment.

Night all.

I don’t really now where all the time went, but at least there has been some progress. Added drawing of the tower with variable number of levels. And initial building of it. And getting and assigning workers to resources. And getting resources. And a bit of ending turn. And simple UI. … Well, so I guess I’ve done more than I remembered at first, but it’s still not a game, far from it. Here’s a screenshot.

And I’ve just had supper. What do you think it was?

That’s right. The toast subclass of bread. With a little butter. It’s really supposed to be a lot of butter, but I ran out of it, and wasn’t clever enough to buy more earlier when I was shopping. So now I have something fun to do before breakfast tomorrow! Yay!

I have written hex picking code, so now I could add some kind of interaction. Might be fun. Also been to the store and bought some microwave food for tomorrow. I really should have prepared yesterday, but you know what they say: “If you work all day and play all night you don’t have much time to prepare for LD48″.

Also bought some cheap low quality donuts.

I have spent way too much to create a rather crude world generator. Well, maybe not so bad really, but the output does not always seem to make any sense. Guess I can improve Mr Parameters when I got a game.

I’ve finished with the laundry, and also had a bit of lunch. The famous Salmon and Stuff dish.

Except for doing such unproductive stuff as showering and doing laundry, I’ve drafted out the intial idea. Thought I’d share it with you.

Base tile types:
Clay - together with water and a worker gives bricks
Moutains - together with two workers gives stone
Forest - together with a worker gives wood
Field - together with a worker and water gives food
Water - nothing, but provides water to nearby hexes
Sea - together with a worker gives food

Created tile types:
Fundament - created from stone, allows for building tower, on rock it doesn’t require stone, on water it requires two rocks, and on sea three.

The tower:
Building new levels costs a bricks or stone and half that in wood per level already built, plus food for each worker, and as many workers as levels are also needed.

Workers:
You gain workers by area of influance. Area of influence is decided per tower level. 1-5: radius 1 (up to 6 workers), 6-10: radius 2: up to 6+13 workers. And so on.

Workers actions:
Workers can either build, produce or do nothing. Building costs food. Produce costs nothing.

Roads and channels:
Channels gives water to distant hexes. Roads makes it possible to transport goods. Costs nothing but a build action per hex. Can be built beyond influence point.

Ships: Allows fishing further away.

Alt. 2: Must build quarry, lumbermill, farm, brickmaker etc before getting resources from them. Or else have them as optional bonus givers? Could also build/work beyond influence, but at half speed?

Perhaps a bit too much stuff, but it’s just so I have where to aim.

First I had breakfast.

It was toast with butter and water.  Yum yum! Taste like ghostmas.

Then I tried out basic hex rendering.

I’m up an about, and while the theme wasn’t something as good as say ‘pacifist’, it’s still very decent. Compared to the theme of the last LD it has super mega combo greatness. Only drawback I see is that there could be about 50 tower defense games, and 10 x-jumpy games. So I have no interest in making that, at least.

No, instead, the first idea I had was kind of like Civ., but instead of cities there are towers, and all players have only one tower. Then they need to expand the towers influence to gain more land, and then by exploiting the land keep adding levels to the tower. First I thought like these could by 20th century skyscrapers. Then I thought that perhaps it’d be better to set it in older times and make it like the Tower of Babel. First to reach the sky wins. So that’s the idea so far, yes.

For now, I’ll start by writing some hex playing field code, I believe, and do some test art. I think I will use the D programming language this time.

I’ve made a few improvements to Col-4, so that now at least I think it’s fun.

Relevant changes are:
- Smaller playing area, but higher.. kind of
- Different speed scale
- Special block
- Now middle area swappable instead of the upper one
- Preview of next block

Download source and Windows binary. Extra clarification note and reminder: this is post-48h, and shouldn’t be used for the voting.

Here’s my 10 hours entry: Col-4. It’s based on Columns, with the biggest difference being that you can swap the upper part of the playing field. This isn’t really so useful, but it can serves as a few extra lives, or half-lives, rather.

I didn’t much like the theme in the end, and that was why I didn’t start on an entry until today (well, partly — I couldn’t come up with a fun idea). And even then, I did a minimal effort. For matching the theme, there’s lots of minimalism. Columns to begin with is a very minimal game. Then I added minimal innovation that had minimal usefulness. Improvement in fun over the original is extremely minimal (probably negative). Readme is pretty minimal too. Features in game are minimal. Graphics are minimal.

Line up three or more blocks in same color to get points and remove blocks. Left/Right/Down keys to move moving block. Space to drop it. Up to rotate colors. A/D to swap upper part. Esc to quit.

Windows binary and source. Compiling for GNU/Linux shouldn’t require more than a small effort, but I’m not sure it would be worth even that.

I had supper.

It was sandwiches.

OK. I’ve written a columns-like game. Columns to begin with is very minimal. I had this idea of a little improvement (or weirdification) that one could rotate it around. Which I tested.

See? It’s not so useful though. Thinking maybe it’s better to just reduce it to actual columns, then at least innovation is minimal! But would feel a bit cheaty.

Got to fix score viewer and game over thingy, so I’ll have some time to ponder it.

I’ve finally started working on an entry. Is a column game with a weird addition. I’ve worked on it lightly for maybe four hours now, or so. We’ll see how fun it turns out.

I’ve also just had dinner. Chicken, rice, chicken gravy. Stuff. Nom nom.

It’s toast. Oh, and here’s some candy:

But it’s really from last night.

Mmm… pizza.

Well, it’s basically just a sandwich.

I still haven’t come up with any good (and fun) game ideas that fits the theme. I have come up with a few other ideas, but most of those I felt required too much from the graphics drawing side. So I still haven’t done anything, really. Motivation has been dwindling. But still much time left, and we’ll see.

I have had lunch, though.

The mashed potatoes taste much better than they look.