If you haven’t yet here is my JAM game for you now consideration
{DUNGEON DAN}

Mandatory Screenshot

What went well:  

• Making the “engine”. Most of it was just remaking my old LD16 but better, so there weren’t very many problems there. But my Makeshift FoV/LoS did cause some problems. I originally was checking if there was a wall to the right of the character, then tiles to the right of the character would be black. The problem here is that if there’s a hallway to the right of you but it ends, you’d still see past that wall at the end of the hallway. So I eventually ended up having to learn how GameMaker’s Collision_Line function works without internet access. Which was actually a ton of fun, and got the job done.
• Art and Music went swimmingly. As usual I managed to produce adequate graphics in a low amount of time, basically going along with my “draw shit and then decide what it does in the game later” strategy. And I spent the last hour of the Jam making the audio for the game. Which turned out really nice too IMHO. I used DrPetter’s {Musagi} for the main theme and {Bfxr} for the three(3) sound effects. I also put the main theme on soundcloud if anyone is interested: http://soundcloud.com/mortar-1/dungeon-dan-main-theme
  

  Making a theme song

• Overall I just had a ton of fun and I’m super happy with the end result

What went not so well:

• TIME TIME TIME, TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE. I was off skiing  friday/saturday/sunday so that forced me into the jam with little time to work on it. Thus I only have one level in the game. But I’m fine with that. It might have been cool to explore the puzzle possibilities better but I’m content with what I got. I also didn’t have time for menus, win screens, help, etc. though the controls are simple enough to not really need instructions.

Alas WHAT IS THIS DUNGEON DAN YOU SPEAK OF?

well I was off skiing all weekend with no internet so I didn’t get to post about this at all, but HERE IS MY JAM GAME
(naming this post has me already missing all the bad puns and alliterations I usually title my posts all along LD)

DUNGEON DAN

There’s only one level (as explained on the entry page) but I still find it to be a lot of fun personally.

PLAY DUNGEON DAN: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-22/?action=preview&uid=1548

And if the game seems really familiar that’s because you might have played my LD16 game, TOWER QUEST (http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/2009/12/13/tower-quest-almost-done/) which this is basically a revamp of but with less levels.

So yeah! Happy LD everyone!

I’ll write up a Post-mortem later tonight

I’m going skiing for most of the weekend, but that doesn’t mean I can’t do the jam and finish for monday! Anyways, here’s one of these because they’re fun.

Okay so about a month ago now there was ORCAJAM2 and it was awesome. Some of us took turns making 5-minute games (highly recommend you try that, it’s also awesome). Anyways for the October Challenge I’m currently working on a full version of that 5 minute game. Because I had to make a game in 5 minutes I used Game-Maker, and I’ll be continuing with it since I’d much rather have a good time and actually have a finished product than learn something new…. again. Anyways, you’re a little submarine, going around caves, and you can’t see nothing. So you have to fire little depth sound torpedo things to see with. Yeah. It looks more fun than is sounds and it definitely plays more fun than it looks.  Anyways, I’ll just cut to the chase and link to the gameplay video. (you should make sure you watch in 720p fullscreen if you want to actually see anything).

Submarine game test

I’d post a screenshot but it’s not really a game that lends well to still images. So yeah! Basically I just need to refine the controls right now. Then from there I decide if I want this to be some slow-paced strategically  benighted maze, or if I’ll just ditch the lighting and go for something faster paced. And then I make levels. And then Menus. And then I try and figure out how one sells a GameMaker game!

early on it was decided that levels would be read off of TXTs, I now realise that this is incredibly tedious to use. either way, here are  a few levels I just finished!

X0WMWMMMMMMWMW0X
X0.@........@.0X
X0...000000...0X
X0.#.0Y00Y0.#.0X
X0.#.0~00~0.#.0X
X0.#I0~00~0I#.0X
X0.#.0~MM~0.#.0X
X0.#I0~~~~0I#.0X
X0.#.00~~00.#.0X
X0.#.00WW00.#.0X
X0...MW.!WM...0X
X0............0X
XMMMMMMMMMMMMMMX

X0MMMY00MM0Y00XX
X0P..~00.^0~000X
X0...~MM..0~000X
X0...~~~~.0~0000
X0TT.T00~00~0000
XM0^.000~MM~0MM0
X"0..000~~~~0P^0
X0M.^MM000~MM..0
X0P....000~^...0
X0...o.000~..^.0
X0^....000~..0.0
XMMMMMMM00~000H0
X"""""""M000000M

been posting these on my blog while Compo was down, so here are a few updates crammed into one post.

This LD I’m making my game with C++/SDL etc. for the first time forever, so the going’s slow. Been too busy learning stuff to write the 10 posts I’d have usually made by now! Huge bro-thanks to NGuillemot who basically sacrificed his hole first day of LD to help me out a lot. Anyways, here’s what’s going on so far:

The movement is entirely tile-based, “collisions” work fine and the code reads the levels off of .txts! been having tons of fun and it’s looking like this game might actually be fun despite being a complete beginner’s attempt thingy bobber. anyways off to bed and whatnot

Let’s do this!

My body is ready Ludum Dare, my body is SO READY.

My weapons of CHOICE:

• Codeblocks (C++) –>  FOR ALL PROGRAMMING NEEDS
• The GIMP –> FOR THOSE FANCY ART THINGS
• Food –> FOR MY BODY
• My music stuff –> for music stuff 
• SFXR –> for the short music stuff

Not sure if I’m going to bother actually starting this game, but here’s the concept nonetheless

Title:
In case of emergency use stairs

Desc:
You are aware of the presence of cake on the main floor; get there ASAP via the closest elevator and let none get in your path.

Mockup:

As you head down in the elevator, others will try to hitch a ride. you will then need to use a combo of your abilities (open doors, close doors, emergency telephone, Lobby button) as well as changing the indication of which direction your capsule is moving in. every time someone is let in, they will select a floor they want to go to. The floor they wish to get to will be incremental (first duder wants the lobby, second duder wants the 1st floor, etc.). When you arrive at a floor someone wants to get off at you will be forced to stop, slowing you down and making it easy for others to get on. The game ends when either you get to the lobby or your elevator is forced to move upwards (because the last selected floor is higher than your current height). Yeah.

Done when:
The game is done when there are atleast 50 floors, randomly interspersed, and everything mentioned above is included. There will also be a menu and a menu theme and a song for the game itself, aswell as some encouraging vocal stuff when you pull off good combos. There will also be a score meter, giving you more scores the better your combos.

You’re awesome.

I was going to post the usual frustrated-about-voting-results post. But I let it sit there for a while and realized it was useless. I just wanted to say thanks for the great LD as usual, and thanks to everyone who commented on my game! And a really big thanks for those of you who gave me a rating for community even though the game didn’t even work for you. The comments are always my favorite part of post-compo fun and I’m thankful for those that I got.

I tried to put all the over-thinking of it and strategics away this round; I Named the game what I wanted to, not something that would show up on top just for the sake of it showing up on top. I didn’t like the theme; I threw it in the gutter and made a game I actually enjoyed. Hell, I wasted an hour making “box art”. I just had fun and I hope y’all did too. I’ll see you at the Mini-LD!

Done my Game! it’s been a while since I actually uploaded it, but I figured I’d blog about it.

One final Screenshot

go play it now!

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-20/?action=rate&uid=1548

warning: pretty darn unpolished. But I like to think it adds a certain charm (no game-over screen is VERY charming)

it works REALLY well

There may not be Jonah Hex, or Whales, but there certainly is

• THE KRAKEN Jr.
• SEA-REX
• and the LOST RHINOCEROS of ATLANTIS

they’re not actually spawned yet (I had to generate terrain for 5 minutes before they were all fully visible since I placed them manually). that’s the next step. and then I need to give you a way to confront them and put that health bar to good use. And then it’s land enemies.

(title brought to you by Hamumu)

Concept for the enemies I’m about to add to WHALE OF A TALE. In other news, I added treasure chests

Well that was fast. Bridges look and work pretty good. you probably wouldn’t get that many of them in an actual game unless you idled a long time. or that many mills. I’m probably going to bump up the wood prices, it all depends on how much coin you get from enemies. Anyways, time to make docks work and we’re all set for the rogue-like part!

The Mill is up and running! I might need to tweak it more to make wood more difficult to obtain. but it works, and that’s all I need right now. There are also little tooltips when you mouse over the buttons (probably should have shown that in the screenshot). You can only place mills on stone, and I made trees not spawn too close to stone. otherwise you could place the mill on the tree and get 200 wood every 5 seconds.

Next is bridges and docks. Bridges should be easy, but docks will involve a bit of reworking how they work

working on the HUD. it’s basically done now. I just need to make it work instead of just sitting there looking pretty. you have your two resources, and 3 buildables. I’m going to make this a ROGUE-LIKE RTS. WOAH. coin will be earned by killing duders I guess (duders not pictured as they do not yet exist). Coin acts as both score and resource. using coin you can build a wood mill, which will spawn a duder that goes and gets wood for you, with which you can build bridges and more docks. once the variables are set up and whatnot I’ll work on the rogue-like part.

I finally got landing on shore to work. I uploaded a brief video

Whale of a Tale footage

and while waiting for the video to upload I added trees and grass;

I’m STILL trying to get landing working. I’m almost there. but until then, have this picture I drew because I was frustrated with the problem at hand: