I’m afraid I have to skip this mini-LD48.

I already lost a day to my dayjob, have no idea for a game, and need the time to complete this:

-Matthew

Horror, that is. Creating a feeling of suspense, dread and perhaps unpleasantness.

In my game you have to find 3 artefacts to open the door to the outside. You move in darkness, carrying a small lamp. Lanterns light up when you reach them and are save havens, where you cannot be attacked by the monsters, which chase you once you come to close to them.

I like the idea of the light-element, which not only helps you see, but also repells the monsters. Unfortunately, this game needs way to much polishing to be in an acceptable state.

I still learned some interesting things though , and will put this in the “prototype”-folder.

I’m looking forward to playing the other games, and seeing their takes on the genre.

-Matthew

Now that the euphoria of not sleeping and game-developing has settled down, let’s take a look at what went right and what went wrong during the development of Metal Sphere Solid.

Well actually, everything went pretty alright. There isn’t much that went “completely wrong”. Ah well, I’ll talk about it anyway.

What went (somewhat) wrong

The theme – Because “escape” is such a non-theme. You can put virtually everything in it. In that regard it is even worse than “it’s dangerous to go alone.”

The color-scheme – The main charater needs to contrast with the environment he’s in too create tension. If the main character just blends in, he’s not in jeopardy, he’s at home. So I was a little miffed when I figured out with 12 hours to go that the environment was mostly blue, and I didn’t want to create a red ball again.

I went for a glowy green (which I nailed this time), which nicely contrast with the level. The color-combination is still a bit weird.

What went right

Tile-based level – Having everything in clean tiles made putting this together much easier. This further creates a nice little gag when you leave the tile-set at the end.

Timelapse – I love timelapses. Everything seems ultra-efficient.

The Story – This is the largest amount of story I ever put in a game. Until now I’ve worked under the premise that good games-design has to be the basis, while story is optional. That still holds true, but now I see how an engaging story can pull you into the game.

The end – I love it. Too bad I couldn’t extend it a bit. First you see your friends, an assortment of balls similar to you, but with different colors, core-structures and sizes. You free them, they say a random, possibly funny line, and roll to freedom. You join them, and while joining them leave the rigid, tile-based confines of the main level and enter a free terrain.

I need to expand upon the “friendly ball”-theme more. It’s fun.

The ball-design – Compared to one of my previous games, Unstoppaball, the ball-design is much better. The glowing core is warmer, the outging light shows the strength of the character, and the brightness contrasts nicely witht he relatively dark surrounding.

The Soundtrack – I experimented with my guitar until I found something that was both interesting and fitting to the gameplay. So far it is only good, but nothing special. Also, the loop is off by half-a-second. Need to remember that next time.

What I would have liked to add/improve

Better character-fragments – So far the “remains” of the hero or the enemies are just four to five relatively uniform fragments. With more time I could have created something more complex and organic.

Better score – The score that is now measured is the time you spend being seen. The highscore-list is reversed, which means that people with the least amounts go on top places. This is far from optimal, as there is a “finite” highscore, and after attaining it doesn’t create an incentive to keep playing.

More complex enemies – The original plan of having patrolling enemies fell through due to time-contraints, but I still managed to make something interesting with only stationary guards.

Conclusion

Well, pretty much every aspect came out positive – The game is emotionally engaging, throwing enemies in spikes is fun, the sneaking mechanic is relatively rare, so far I’ve gotten a pretty good amount of votes, critiques are positive, and a good number of people have played it.

Also, I got a review. Which is always nice.

I call this a success. Now let’s see how you will judge this .

Play here | Entry-page

-Matthew

When I started with my first LD, I was at first confused by the somewhat complex voting-system. So I thought I could explain it for anybody who’s interested.

This is what the voting-screen looks like. Here are the details:

1. The list of Developers. The entire list is randomized, to ensure equal visibility. At the beginning only 20 names are visible, but once a certain number of those has been voted on, the list extends, showing the next random batch.

2. Pressing this button will load the entire list. It will still be randomized, though.

3. The amount of votes this developer has gotten.

4. Coolness-rating. Hovering over this spot reveals the coolness-rating of this developer. Coolness is awarded for the percentage of rated games. Should this person rate ALL games, she would get a coolness-rating of 100%. The developer will get a medal displayed on the left, next to the name. Bronze at 25%, Silver at 50%, and gold at 75%.

5. Competition-rating. Games can be rated in the categories Overall, Innovation, Fun, Adherence to Theme, Graphics, Audio, Humor and Community. The Community-rating describes the actions of the developer towards the community, for example by providing blog-posts, timelapse-videos, and other additional pieces of information. Ratings can be 1 to 5 stars, or “n/a”, should you feel you cannot give a proper rating in a certain category.

6. Jam-Rating. The same system as in the competition, only with games that have been entered in the Jam.

7. Text-Comment. An X appears should you have given a comment

I hope this helps

-Matthew

So this is me sitting in front of my PC, working (mostly).

I love it. In Timelapse everything seems ultra-efficient.

Go Play | LD Entry

-Matthew

Well, this was once again fun.

Agenda right now: SLEEP

Agenda later: A timelapse-video, I’ll upload the soundtrack, and see wheter that source-upload crashed again.

In the meantime, why don’t play a bit of Metal Sphere Solid? (it’s fun, I tell you )

LD-Entry

Web-Playable

-Matthew

So as I have been saying for the last 4 months, I’m in

I’ll be using

• Unity3D to put the thing together, written in Javascript (also iTween I guess)
• 3DS Max for modelling
• Photoshop for everything graphical
• My trusty guitar and Guitar Pro for music
• Coffee. This time I’ll make sure I have enough of a stockpile.

This will be fun. I already heard from some interesting people to join, and I hope we will get a theme worthy of interesting designs (go Nihilism!)

-Matthew

Heya

So I had to make this game for game-design-school instead.

You control a virtual-reality-submarine in several missions. Also, torpedoes.

While it is fun, it needs a few weeks of polish I couldn’t add due to time-contraints. Anyway, have fun.

Now this is over I can once again concentrate on the next challenge.

-Matthew

So I’ll have to sit this one out, I guess.

Unfortunately I’m straddled with extra-work at my day-job this weekend, and I also should be working on this other game I’m supposed to be making for game-design-school.

So instead, here’s a gif I found on twitter.

-Matthew

Well, that was fun. And hard/tiring.

Anyhoo. Dirt Driller is complete! Go play.

Once I have slept enough I’ll check my screencaps to see it this makes an interesting timelapse.

-Matthew

In the next 72 hours I shall create “The Digger” (Working title).

Dig a hole to the center of the earth, while gathering valuables and avoiding HOT MOLTEN LAVA. Behold, the fake screenshot.

Yeah. I’m not really a fan of producing “how it’s supposed to look”-stuff. I’d rather spend the time more productively, like actually working on my game.

“Finished” game shall include
- automated level-generation
- several valuabales and hazards
- highscore-system

-Matthew

So I made this a few days before LD20, to figure out if I can actually accomplish making a game in a short time, and also to finally get this idea out of my head.

There are Hitler-Clones. Go get them.

Go play here.

Also, mini-LD sounds fun. I shall be participating.

-Matthew

So it’s time to look back at my 48 hours of game-making, like many are doing. Let’s see what happened during the development of A Steampunk Axebot Supply Run.

What went wrong

The Theme - “It’s dangerous to go alone” was the one on the bottom of my list. Why would anyone vote for it, I thought, when there are so many interesting alternatives, like nihilism, or climbing? Why, indeed. I had nothing prepared whatsoever for this theme, and spent the first 2 hours panicking over what to do.

The Level – It occured to me only later that I could have made this in 2D, or using tile-based movement, either of which would have made creating this stuff considerably easier. Oh well.

Textures – As in “I don’t have any”. Adapting UVs is a grueling and time-consuming task,which I would rather avoid, and spend the time otherwise. Using the toon-shader for all 3d-objects was a great choice, but it would have been prettier with added textures. The terrain clashed with this. I couldn’t use the toon-shader on it (so far I know), and creating extra textures for it alone was not efficient.

Preparation – Slept too little the first day. Woke up at start-time (4am), but forgot to check the theme. Felt unmotivated and guilty for first 36 hours, bevofre I finally kicked into non-stop game-making mode.

What went right/not-so-wrong

Timelapse – It felt weird, at first, knowing that my every move was being recorded. But the video makes everything seem ultra-efficient

Music – this one actually surprised me. I never really composed anything bigger, and I just aimed for something unobstrusive. I ended up with a sweet theme which fits the game awseomely, complements it, and people actually like.

The Title – No matter how good or bad this was going to turn out, “Steampunk Axebots” sounds awesome.

The Scoring system – Your profit is determined by several systems, which are based on enemies killed, health of the robots, extra fuel left, and over-healing. Each robot has an own pattern and unity set of enemies at different times, so it is quite challenging to figure out the best combination. I still haven’t.

The fuel gauge – The rockets can travel only for a limited time, before they crash. I intented this to stop players from hovering over the playing  field or leaving it, but the time-constraint added another tactical layer. The rocket takes some time to reach its target, but once it passed a certain point, reaching the other targets would be impossible. It was however possible, that the robot you tried to heal died while you were on your way, meaning you had to carefully decide where to shoot. But since all robots converge on a central point later in the game, it became at that point possible to switch targets should something happen.

3D-models – My first though was a little knight, which I would have need to animate. Unfortunately, there was no time to either animate one or learn how to include animations in Unity (note to self: learn how to include animations in unity).

Biff-Particles  – They are quite a good substitute for fighting-animations.

Healing-Particles – They look much better than I planned.

What I would have liked to add

More stages – which become increasingly complex and tell a story

A menu – Which I already had  around, but no time, and no good reason (with only one level) to implement

No introduction screen – I’ve always hated these. Dammit, I want to play the game, not read a novel! There are ways to start the game at once, and teach the player on the fly.

Destroyed robots and rockets – Which I would have added were it not for a game-stopping bug I encountered with only 40 minutes to spare

Having the title of the game appear somewhere in the first level – Like I did in Unstoppaball. I love that gag.

-Matthew

So I finally figured out how to put videos in these posts. Enjoy.

Go play.

Here it is, in all its shining glory.

2 days of me not working, frowning, and faffing around in front of my PC, while I allegedly create this game.

View it here.

Also: HOW CAN I EMBED VIDEOS. Nothing seems to work. This is driving me nuts.

-Matthew

RL-friends pointed out that my soundtrack is kinda neat. If the embed doesn’t work, click here, Or just go play here to experience the entire thing. Or see the Ludum-Dare-Entry. Either way, go play

-Matthew

Well, that was fun

And stressful. But mostly fun.

So here’s my game: A Steampunk Axebot Supply Run

Three robots are marching to fight the evil Prof. Malevolent in his castle, but they forogt their repair-packs. Your job is to keep them alive with repair-packs you send them via-rocket. In the end you will be judged on your effienciency.

Go see the entry here, or go play here.

Once I can think straight I’ll consider putting up a compressed timestream of two days of me sitting awkwardly in front of my pc, frowning and not working.

-Matthew

…and the unthinkable happens.

I’ve run out of coffee.

noooooooooo

-Matthew

Seriously.

It starts at like 4 o’clock in the cold, oh so cold morning.

-Matthew

So I’m in then (what else was I going to say)

Stuff I will be using:

-ME (because it’s not the weapon that wins the battle, but the soldier who wields it <pretentious> ) ^^

I also plan to liveblog/journal my progress through the 48 hours. I’ll guess I’ll put them on my blog later.

-Matthew