3,5 days until the deadline, and I just played 100 games.

Here are my favourite games amongst ones I`ve played:

Best by mood:

The world is in your hand,

a compo entry by jacklehamster.

A game with fantastic mood and story. I was almost crying by the end. A simple and minimalistic yet fun and detailed game. And it has quests! The right game for fans of visual novels.

Best by humor:

Steve Can`t Zen,

a compo entry by DaanVanYperen.

A very witty game about fighting and meditation. Has much graphic contend, interesting and polished gameplay, and a very laughable story. Simple and easy to understand for everybody!

Best by audio:

Drug Hunt,

a jam entry by kill0u.

An atmosphere-based game about drugs. Consists of many minigames and only one button to complete them. Has a crazy yet appropriate soundtrack, which will make you feel the mood easily. It will keep you glued to the screen!

Best by graphics:

Gods Will Be Watching,

a jam entry by GreyShock.

A management game, where you try to survive on a planet, waiting for help to come. Has much details in graphics, sounds and storytelling. It makes you live through lives of characters.

Best by theme:

This is not a minimalist game,

a compo entry by Volute.

An RPG-like game, where you complete various quests in order to restore the world. It takes you to a trip though the game history!

Best by fun:

Mind the Gap,

a jam entry by shiprib.

A game about trains. The most minimalistic yet deep game, containing pure meaning, and nothing unnecessary. It`s packed with hours of fun!

Best by innovation:

Square Heart Flower,

a jam entry by JonathanG.

Unique graphics? Check! Original gameplay? Check! A game about communication, set in a minimalistic world. Experimentators will surely like it!

It was difficult to select a best game by overall. I have a lot of games worth be the best, but I need to choose one. Ok, let it be…

*DRUMROLL*

Best by overall:

Of Guards And Thieves,

a jam entry by cominu.

A multiplayer game, which is rare. Very polished. Balanced, interesting and original. Has great graphics and audio. That`s the winner in my list! I see a lot of potential here. I hope it will be extended and become a great game, but even now it`s great. It`s difficult to assemble a team though, so if you need a player, you can call me.

I’m only halfway at the moment. I have 2 weeks though. I found out that if I play games all the day and play them till the end, give detailed feedback, etc. I rate 25 games per day. However, on the second day some people had over 100 ratings………

I was playing games randomly: sometimes by the default rating, sometimes just random games from the front page, sometimes games by request… Here are some games I liked those have rather little votes:

The Lamp

A minimalistic horror game, where you have to run away from different-colored eyes.

The world is in your hand

A one-button adventure game with an amazing story and outstanding mood.

.cp

A very innovative yet minimalistic strategy game about pixels.

I’m going to post a more detailed list, but only when I’ll rate another 50.

I submitted a new version of my game. I didn’t add anything, I just fixed several bugs and problems.

Here is the complete change list:

• Added WASD controls
• Less waiting at the end of the level
• Fixed boss doublehit (a rare bug)
• Added “R” key hint
• Added potatoes

Now go and find those 3 very secret potatoes, hidden in places you’ve never thought of!

I’m going to play LD games today! Yes, I’ll play games made by YOU! You can suggest a game for me to play, even yours, and I’ll give instant feedback (Sorry, English is not my native language, I doubt I’ll be able to speak so you understand).

My stream

I made a game “Minimal Force” this weekend, and here is the post-mortem:

What went good:

• Idea. A puzzle platformer! A reverse metroidvania! At first the idea didn’t seem trustworthy, but it appeared to be a good one.
• Level design. Hmm… I managed to make a level for every item lost, without any not-fitment.
• Graphics. I totally made some good graphics myself! I’m going to make an individual post about it.

What went bad:

• Time. I submitted the game at 0:33 AM. That’s too late!
• Planning. I had to recode several things because I didn’t plan them well!
• Bugs. I had a lot of bugs, and I still have some. I didn’t plan to release a post-compo, but I think I’ll have to release a bug-free version.
• Punctuation. Sorry about that, I just don’t know English punctuation!

What went average:

• Sounds. I included just one sound, and generating music seems a bit unfair. But who cares if the music is awesome, right? (Now I think the music wasn’t quite made in the given time. I just had a folder of music generated beforehand, and I picked one from it. But I could just enter the seed into the generator and generate it once more, so I think it’s OK.)
• Theme. My favourite was ‘Every death is meaningful’, and I was a little disappointed when I saw it’s ‘Minimalism’. I couldn’t make any idea for some time, and the one I came with didn’t seem trustworthy.
• Maths. I still haven’t found a way of calculating velocity of an arrow so it perfectly goes through a given point. But the boss wouldn’t be possible otherwise.
• Community. I was streaming the process of game making, making a timelapse and posting frequently, but it’s not more than usual. I didn’t even have a journal, unlike the previous time.

What did I learn:

• Drawing a bit better.
• Using Tile Studio a bit.

And here is a timelapse (I missed a part at the beginning, when I was drawing levels with Tile Studio, and a part at the end, when I was submitting the game):

Since I have a lot of holidays this and next week, I’ll make sure I get a gold coolness medal. I’m also planning to stream playing LD games.

Even though it’s the toughest deadline I met, I managed to submit my entry.

Time to sleep, it’s 0:33 AM.

Indeed, it’s 2 hours to midnight! I don’t have enough time!

Finished the main character. Now I think I’ll make music, then do other enemies, then do SFXs.

Demo

My stream

I’ve reached the playability point, and now I’ve submitted the first demo of my game: Linky. Time to eat something.

And yes, it still doesn’t have a name.

My stream

Who do you think that cute yellow square is? IT’S A BOSS! An almighty last boss! And you have to fight him! But, as I told, you lose a thing every level. At the boss, you only have… a right button. Do you dare to defeat the last boss with only one button? YOU DO, of course!

I finished the boss, and it’s beatable by only going right, and now I have to do (in priority order):

1. A tutorial
2. A throwout notification
3. A demo for you to play!
4. A menu
5. Cutscenes
6. Music
7. Graphics

(I might accidentally mix up 6 and 7. It’s not a big deal.)

Oh, I still need to come up with a name.

My stream

I’ve finished all the levels but the last one. And I still have a long way to go! I need to add graphics, music, menu/dialogue scenes, a tutorial, animation, etc, etc, etc…

By this time you shouldn’t be able to jump

My stream

Now I can take a rest from coding and make the game already. I finished everything I needed (excepting cutscenes and the boss).

Now you are the one being shot! Luckily, you have a shield that makes you invincible at the price of your movement!

My stream

That’s all for today.

I have a character that can shoot arrows. The initial speed is set, the gravity force is set. The arrow goes out from the character’s coordinates and through a set point on screen. I need to find the X and Y velocity of the arrow!

I thought that the formula I found works, and I tested it many times and didn’t find any flaws. But, as you can see on the screenshot, it isn’t working! (I just updated the formula and it seems to be more accurate, but it’s still not perfect)

My stream

My platformer now has doors and traps! You have a button on the level, when you press it some door appears or disappears. There are also arrow traps, hidden in the ceiling. If you walk under them, they’ll shoot you.

Can you see traps?

My stream

It feels like it’s been a day…

I made quiet much progress in programming. At least, I made simple enemies. They run around and attack you. You can attack them as well with your sword or by stomping them from above.

My stream

Since my idea suggests levels to be depending on each other (like, if you lose your sword one level, you won’t be able to use it in any other level), I started with planning levels. I sketched all levels with Tile Studio, and now I have the programming part left.

The game will be much of a puzzle game than of a skill game. Each level is supposed to be easily passed with full equipment,  but when you lose pieces of it you should look for a way around.

As for programming, I made the player run around and jump, and that’s all for now.

Don’t forget to watch my stream.

The theme didn’t seem to make my produce a lot of ideas. After some thinking, I finally decided on the game: it will be an adventure game, where your goal is to kill some evil creature (cyclops?). You are a professional knight, equipped with tons of brand new stuff. But, for more fame and glory, you decide to throw out one thing each level. By the boss you should only have ability to move right left (‘move right left’? lol? That’s actually ‘You have left an ability to move right’).

I’m also streaming the process at http://www.twitch.tv/rodzos.

I noticed that “+1″, “0″ and “-1″ button images are named “thumbsup”, “undecided” and “thumbsdown”. That gave me a thought: what if we are not supposed to give “0″s? What if we are supposed to give “+1″ to themes with attraction>0, “-1″ to themes with attraction<0 and use “0″ only in those rare cases when we can’t decide? Indeed, let’s look at this scheme:

As we can see, people who give 0 actually have their own opinion of the theme, but it’s too close to the average. If a theme received many “+1″s and fewer “-1″s, if people who rated it 0 give a +1 or -1 vote, the result won’t change. However, a theme can receive a little “+1″s and “-1″s, and relatively many “0″s; if people who gave 0 will give +1 or -1, the outcome would be more clear.

I used to give an approximately equal amount of “-1″s, “0″s and “+1″s, but now I want to hear your opinion before I vote for the last round.

That the title of the game I made for warmup and Hack-a-Jam. In fact, it’s a demo, but I might submit the current version as it is. Linky

When I saw the title, “8-bit”, I thought that I’m not going to base the game on 8-bit graphics or music. 8 bits is a byte, right? So I made a game about binary calculations, where you have to operate with bytes.

Since it’s Hack-a-Jam time, I’m going to make a game and stream, so I warm up streaming as well (it’s my first stream!). I’m also going to submit it for LD warmup and 1GAM [edit]No, I’ll better submit my LD entry for 1GAM[/edit]. My channel: http://www.twitch.tv/Rodzos.