I’ve wasted lots of time, but at least here’s something. I’ll try to stick to actual game code from now on and try better graphics later if there’s time.

Having spent the morning thinking of ideas, eating breakfast, thinking of ideas, playing UT3, thinking of ideas, I think I’ve finally come up with something.

The idea
There’s a city (”enemy” city). It’s full of people (and buildings). Things are drawn in abstract glowy lines style, or something, as if you’re watching it through some sort of special vision (which you are). Most of the buildings have no real function, other than that there’s some people in them. Some are more special, like police station, hospital, psych hospital, gun store, liquor store. Something like that.

Now, you have some sort of mind control weapon which you can use on citizens to convert them into your weapons. When they are converted, they will simply fight for you automatically, including trying to fetch guns etc. Of course, other people will probably defend themselves, and it will also attract police and, later, army. Police is more difficult to convert, and army are even more difficult.

Goal is to take over or destroy the city (haven’t decided yet). You only have a limited energy for your mind control device, so you must use it strategically, but luckily it will recharge faster when fighting is going on. I think it could be fun.

Work wise, it needs to generate cities (should be easy enough), then write the rendering code (probably easy), then there’s the actor stuff which will probably be the hard part, followed by balancing. Graphic wise, I will need representation of people. Currently I’m thinking just a vertical line + and icon if they are of a special type (police etc).

Not yet sure if army/police/normal people will have vehicles. Also not sure if I’ll make several custom designed levels, or I’ll just let people specify the variables for the generation. We’ll see (hopefully).

The ideas
Here’s the more general ideas I had before I came up with this idea:

1. Scroller/overhead walk around, catch and throw enemies at other enemies, allow for chain reactions, preferably more abstract representation of things. There should also be coins to collect, of course!
2. Sort of psychological propaganda game, you convince the enemies to destroy the other enemies.
3. Some sort of commerce/trading game where you must make deals that are better for you than for the enemies (probably doesn’t fit).
4. Some more lighthearted idea would be nice… INSERT IDEA HERE.
5. Variant on 1, more of a puzzle game, you can capture certain kind of enemies, and then throw/fire them like a weapon of something on other enemies, over distance or over barriers etc. Stunned ones can then be used as weapons.
6. Ultra Fleet.. oh wait, already did that.
7. Maybe also a variant of 1/5, but instead of capture throw/fire, we mind control the enemies directly, and then control them while they go on rampage, or just hit switches, or whatever.
8. Or there could be a shooter where the weapons are named of LD participants.
9. Or taking 8 further, the game can be a series of boss battles, where each boss is an LD guy, and they attack with something from one of their game, then when you win over them, you get them as a weapon. Sort of fun, but might create some legal issues since I’d want to use some iconic object from some of their previous games.

   Disregarding the enemies as weapons, this could be a fun idea to try make as an slightly bigger project, outside a compo. Then there could be complete levels, with enemies of their previous games, building up to fighting them as a boss.

10. SUPER PEAR ATTACK.

I’m not sure how this started, or why exactly it is going on, but making montages of previous entries does seem fun. If it is because you get to show off or some other more noble reason I cannot say. But here goes.

I’m not yet sure I’ll participate, but in the event that I do so, I will probably use some helper code I’ve written earlier, the most exciting being freetype OpenGL font rendering. Here’s a zip of it all. It’s written in D.

In addition, I’ll probably use the init/main loop code from one of my earlier entries. For example, here’s my source from MiniLD #19.

Mini LD #19 voting is now over.

Here are the results. For a description of the categories, see the Mini LD #19 Voting post

Congratulations to the winners!

I hope you all had a good time (I know I did).

Mini LD #19 is now over and submissions are closed (if someone was left out, please make yourself heard). Does that mean it’s now entirely over? Of course not.

Voting is now open. It’ll run for a week and differs a bit from regular LDs in that there’s just two categories: Gameplay and Presentation. I believe it should be straightforward, but here’s some help if it’s unclear what they mean:

Gameplay focuses on the actual game and game idea, its innovation, how well it plays etc. Fun belongs too a large part to it.

Presentation is more to do with the package the game comes in: graphics and sounds, user interfaces, polish and humor, and things like that. Fun can of course be affected by this.

As usual, only people who submitted an entry can vote, but anyone can of course check the games out. I think it’s been a great mini so far, and I hope you’ve enjoyed it and like the entries. See you with the results in a week.

Update, June 21: Voting is over and the results are in.

I actually managed to finish, though I doubted it quite a few times in the last seven hours. There’s almost no end to the list on how many things were cut and it’s unpolished to no end. But still, you can sort of play it and enjoy it.

You can view the submitted entry here.

Also, here’s a new screenshot (included with the entry), showing truck editing.

Looking forward to test all the other games.

Added resource production in industries, and listing of how much resources are in demand or for sale. Also added money, including loans and cost to run trucks.

What’s left for there to be a game at all is truck management, like giving orders to a truck, buying/changing trailers for a truck, and buying and selling trucks.

I now have industries and trucks, and the trucks have pathfinding. In the screenshot below, red dots are industries (can be anything from a grain farm to a food store) and the blue dot is a truck.

I’m currently trying to figure out how the user interface should work exactly. My original idea will be quite a pain to implement I believe, so I’m trying to figure out if there’s any simpler approach. In the mean time, I will probably add lists at each industry that shows available/desired resources.

I now have cities and roads, albeit the roads are not very natural. They feel sort of alien. Also, the cities doesn’t have names or populations yet.

Too be honest, I could probably spend the rest of the weekend on making the roads good, so I will probably try to get on with the rest of the game stuff instead, since the game doesn’t actually need perfect roads. Just roads.

Next I should get some factories and stuff out there.

I’ve finally done something that’s visible, the land type map generation, though it doesn’t look much like a map yet, it will need cities and roads and stuff as well.

Other than that, I’ve just written down kinds of resources, factories, trucks etc, and their costs.

I’ve settled for an idea, it’s a trading game à la Port Royale, but where you have a trucker company. You can own one or more trucks (of different power) and you buy and sell goods at factories and stores etc. Trick will of course be buy low sell high.

I intend to set the game over a square of 300 km, though I don’t know if it will be to scale much and there’s the intention of having a large amount of different resource. Regarding how it will look, there will just be a map view really, so nothing very fancy. Not sure if it will be random or hand made yet.

I intend to participate in this mini, and even though I’m hosting it it seems pretty fair, because I don’t actually know what I’m going to do yet. But I have several ideas…

• A transportation game, sort of like Transport Tycoon. Little innovation value, but probably fun to program and play.
• Sort of a reverse version of the above, where you instead of handling transportation and trying to make a profit from that, you are the customer of transportation. Either as a government kind of thing, or just a company with stores and factories. A little more innovative perhaps, but I’m not sure how it should play yet.
• A factory/conveyor puzzle game, where you build or process some kind of product. Inspired by Manufactoria, among other things. Also not very innovative, but a good thing with puzzle games is you can make lots of levels for them, if the elements are good enough, and they tend to be fun.
• Some sort of industrialization sim, where at a start there’s just a bunch of low tech farms, and then innovations makes things more effective, there becomes a surplus population, cities are formed, new industries are formed, and so on. Think it would be really interesting, but probably too large for an LD.

So just have to figure out which to do… so far I’ve just got my base code up and running.

The theme for Mini LD #19 is Industry.

You can pick your 48h slot starting anytime from now to 12h from now (or something like that — 48h anytime this weekend is the idea).

After the weekend is over, there will be one week of voting, where there will just be two categories, Gameplay (meaning innovation, fun etc of the game idea/mechanic) and Presentation (meaning quality graphics, sounds, UI polish etc).

When you are done, and if you want to be in the voting (and you feel it would be fair), submit your entry using this form. If you still have done something but are not up for the voting, please post a regular post with what you’ve done.

The rules are available in an earlier post, but in short it’s very much like a regular LD 48h.

Good luck and have fun!

Update, June 14: Submissions will probably be closed and voting begin sometime during Monday evening, European time.

Update 2, June 14: Voting is now open.

As mentioned in Announcing MiniLD #19, MiniLD #19 will take place the second weekend in June, more specifically June 12 to 13. It will be fairly traditional.

The theme will be posted at 00:00 UTC on June 12. For reference, this is 09:00 JST, 02:00 CEST (Saturday), or 20:00 EDT, 17:00 PDT (Friday). This time should be at the latest, I might possibly post it before I go to sleep on Friday, in which case it will be a couple of hours earlier. There’s no specific end time, but you are expected to pick a 48h slot during the weekend.

The rules will be like an ordinary LD 48h, only a little bit more relaxed. You don’t need to post base code, or submit the source (though it’s encouraged). You should still make all the assets (excluding fonts) and write the game code during the compo. If you are unfamiliar with the usual LD 48h rules, I suggest you take a look at the LD wiki and read under the Ludum Dare #16 heading.

I’ll see if we can get some simplified voting, with just one or two categories, running for a week or so.

Of course, if you don’t like the rules or the theme, you are still very much welcome to hang around here and in #ludumdare and do your own thing. But if we end up having voting, you might not be eligible for it, not that that should stop you.

Update, June 12: The theme has been posted and it’s on!