Yo peeps

It’s not dead, so I can’t really perform a postmortem examination, but let’s take a critical look at my second Ludum Dare entry.

The main thing I wanted to achieve this LD was to make a multiplayer game that was fun to play with my family and mates. After my first LD, I was proud of what I had made but was aware that it wasn’t a whole lot of fun to play, and lacked polish. It’s cool, but I wanted to do better this time. My main focus was to make it fun. I think I have done that.

What went right

Focus on fun – I wanted to make something that I would actually play after the competition was over, and that other people would have fun with. I kept it as simple as I could, and focused on making it fun. I think I succeeded here.

Getting feedback early – I made sure that I got other people to play it before it was done. I think this ended up making a huge difference to the multi player. When my brother played it with me, he wanted a way to kill me himself, and the trailing asteroid turned out to be the most fun way to do this. Getting people to play test it during the competition definitely helps.

What went wrong

I must be looking at this with rose-coloured glasses, because I’m having trouble coming up with something. I guess this means that keeping it simple means a lot less goes wrong. That being said, I’m sure you all will have plenty of constructive criticism to share. Check it out, and let me know what you think I did right and wrong with this game.

Play Take This Convoy

Yes! I totally just submitted my finished game. I was really happy with how it turned out. It is fun and looks and sounds slick. It is a whole lot better than my last Ludum Dare entry, which wasn’t really all that fun. Can’t wait to see what people have to say about it. Hopefully, someone likes it enough to play every now and again just for fun.

The only thing I am not happy about is that I used Game Maker 8.1 and it added a watermark to the finished game. That sucks! I used Game Maker 8.0 last Ludum Dare and it didn’t add a watermark. I don’t think it is too bad but after all the effort I put into it, it kind of sucks to have a watermark which gives a slightly amateurish feel. Maybe I’ll give Flixel a try next time. I’ve heard good things about it and I would like to make a flash game.

All up, I spent around 14 hours on this. 6 hours last night and 8 hours today. I had a lot of fun making it. I’ll probably have a lot of fun playing everyone elses games too.

Check it out everyone: Take This Convoy

Goodnight!

The gameplay for Take This Convoy is now complete.

The single player game is to collect as many stars as possible in 60 seconds. The multiplayer game is to collect 10 stars before the other person without dying. I playtested this with my brother and it was fun, but missing something. That something was definitely the ability to kill each other. I added an asteroid trailing at the end of the convoy to drag through the other persons convoy. This makes the game something else entirely. I think I will actually enjoy playing this after the competition is over.

Now I just need to add sound and music and I can call it a day.

It’s 1:30AM in Australia and definitely time to hit the sack.

I’ve got the game mechanics working nicely and it is fun to play with. Now just need to add some AI, some goals, some polish and it’ll be done. An excellent place to leave it for the night.

The game will include single player and multiplayer. I’m more interested in the multiplayer because I love playing cool little games my my brother and sister. I’m making a game I want to play. The single player is being added so people can judge it easily for Ludum Dare. I’ll make a good effort to make that fun too though.

Here is what it looks like as I leave it for the night:

Goodnight all.

I’m in.

I’ve finally found an idea for this theme that I am inspired to make a fun game with: Convoys!

My original idea was to race with a convoy of crazy cars and trucks and try and get as many of your convoy as possible across the line. I quickly changed to UFOs becuase it doesn’t matter what way they are facing. This means I don’t have to muck around with a bunch of sprites and try and get changing directions to look natural. Also, UFO races sound fun.

Here is my first screenshot:

This is my second Ludum Dare and I am using Game Maker. Good luck everyone!

I just completed my first Ludum Dare entry. It took around 10 hours of work and I am happy that I managed to make something entertaining in such a short time. I’m not sure exactly how entertaining other people will find it, but I enjoyed making it and actually enjoy playing it.

Here is a screenshot:

The basic plot is a rescue mission – find a colleague who hasn’t returned from their last mission – but there is a lot of ocean to explore and cool things to discover. I threw in some rare creatures to find and a secret area to uncover. I hope people play it so I can get some feedback.

Now I’m looking forward to playing everyone elses games. Good luck everyone still going.

This is my first Ludum Dare and I only decided to participate a few hours ago, so this is a 24 hour challenge for me. I am working in Game Maker 8 and am making a submarine exploration game. So far I have got my submarine moving around in an empty ocean. Let’s see what I can do with this over the next 16 hours.