I give up theme, you win. I just couldn’t keep up my motivation. The theme made it impossible for me to come up with something fun to play. I also think the RPG ideas was flawed because I couldn’t figure out how to earn xp without it becoming too gruesome.

Lesson learned: some themes just aren’t meant to be fun.

This was a though theme for me. I had lots of ideas, but I keep worrying that it would be too emotional or gruesome to be fun. My worst fear was belittling of those who are victims of domestic abuse. But, I’m moving forward with the idea that play is sometimes about experimenting with real world problems. So, I’ve decided to make an RPG. You must steer the battered woman to a successful resolution of her situation.

I’m using SilverLight, Visual Studio 2008 and Expression Blend 2.

I’ve done some prototypes:
Configuration and Setup Test
Talent Level-up Screen Prototype
Room Navigation Prototype

Feedback is encouraged.

I just wanted to thank all the people that graded my unfinished game.  I’m very apperciative of all the encourging comments.  Many of you will be happy to know that I’ve continued to work on the game and will keep you posted!  Finally, thanks to the mysterious super secret ludum dare organizers.

FAIL! But better than nothing.

Iron Roads Final

It has been a long hard row to hoe so far, but I got a lot of the track functionality done. You can now even see your survey options for a city! Just need to build the track, and put the money logic in and I’ll have the most basic railroad game possible. Looks like time is getting short thought so I’m not confident I’ll have a playable game, but I’m going to try.

I found the theme to be difficult because all of my ideas seemed to big for the timeframe available.  So after a lot of thinking and brainstorming I decided to just to shoot for the idea that interested me most: railroads!  I’m calling my game Iron Roads and hope it’ll be a playable but simple railroad business sim.  Honestly, I think that it is too big of a a project, but we’ll see.

I’ve decided to enter again.  This will be Ludum Dare number 4 for me.  This time I’m planning to use BlitzMax and Jake Birkett’s Grey Alien BlitzMax Game Framework.  Here is the basic setup code I’ll be using (if you follow the “Start Here” document this should be your result, except I added a try-catch around everything for unhandled exceptions): (more…)

I actually enjoy playing my game! I finally beat level 14!

Has anyone else done better?

I made it harder at higher levels.  Have fun!

Stacker Final—(See note below)
It is written in C# for Silverlight 2.0 Beta 2.  It should run in Firefox and IE on Mac and Windows.

I used the Farseer Physics Engine and the rest was written from scratch.

NOTE: I found a bug that can lock up the browser: Here is the repair Stacker Final (Repaired) I now limit how many blocks you can use and make you restart the level if you go over. The Farseer engine starts to suck up all the CPU cycles after about 90 blocks.

Getting close to the deadline so I wanted to submit a backup final.

I’m calling my game Stacker. Goal is to get the little blocks to stack up to the line. If you are successful the next level raises the bar a little. I have not made it too the very top yet. It should reward you, but I haven’t been able to tested it yet.

Here is the link: Stacker

Pretty much spent every hour since the start trying to get the Farseer engine to work.   My biggest and lengthiest hurdle was discovering and then fixing the fact that Silverlight uses a TopLeft coordinate system and Farseer use a center of object system. I probably would have figured it out faster, but I just happen to pick coordinates that interacted in a way that my small test box would hit the corner of the ground and bounce off spinning. Visibly the ground took up the bottom of the screen so it sent me on a wild goose chase looking for buggy forces.

PS.  I’ve been Twittering as I work in a sort of experiment.  If anyone else is, let me know and I’ll follow: http://twitter.com/MrPhilGames

I used the PTK library and wrote all my code from scratch.  I used Visual Studio as my IDE.  Paint was my trusty graphics app, but none of my graphics work made it into the final game!  (There was a little Photoshop Elements, but don’t tell Paint.)

Here is a look at my code.  You’ll be surprised how much GUI work I did.  Download Battle Magic’s source code

Its done! And it turned out pretty hard to win.

Windows only, sorry.

Download

If someone thinks they can help me port a PTK codebase then leave me a comment.

Here is my early dinner of a calzone with sausage, onions, green peppers, black olives and mushrooms. All with my favorite soda Dr. Pepper! Oh, and red gravy naturally.

4.5 hours left! Can I do it?!?!?!

I am resisting the strong urge to throw in the towel. I’ve yanked a bunch of complicated graphics and GUI stuff out. I’ve gone completely text based which helps with the deadline and actually goes with the theme! I now call my game BATTLE MAGIC!

I had a little less sausage and biscuits this time for breakfast this morning. The glass of grapefruit juice looks brown because I added some brown sugar to cut through the acid.

The scope of my project is too big for the time remaining. I keep getting bogged down in the internals of the user interface and little time has gone into the game play. So even though it feels like I’m wasting time, I’m brainstorming solutions.

Here is new screen shot. Not a lot has changed, but believe me a lot has changed in the code.

I hit a wall this afternoon. After lunch the sun started to warm-up my side of the building, my brain slowed down. I tried to pound out the new GUI system but eventually relented and took a nap. So I’m back in action now with a little help from my Dr. Pepper.

Lunch: Corn chowder with a steak sandwich washed down with a Fosters.

I’ve got the basic idea worked out now and starting to put the pieces together. I’ve reached the point where I need to refactor some of my code because it is starting to get repetitive. This is a dangerous area of me because in LD 7 I never got past this stage!

Breakfast: Biscuits and sausages. What no fruit!?! No veggies?!?! Well, actually there are blueberries inside those sausages. No really, they are there…. truly.

The magically ingredient to this dish is in the jar. That is genuine Vermont Maple Syrup, carried in buckets from about 35 trees to a boiling pan and then canned by ME! That is what I did last weekend at my Uncle’s homestead. It tastes AMAZING!

WOW am I full! Tomorrow I’ll have to only have two biscuits and three sausage links.

Hopefully this will help me last for another hour.

I’ve had to abandon my idea of using IndieLib. I had some strange problem with running in debug mode. Oh well, I am excited to be using PTK instead. It was also on my list of engines to try. So far I like it. Actually, Wow, it is an appropriate engine for this theme because it takes a very minimalist approach to everything.

I’ve decided to do a minimalist turn-based strategy game. I’ve been contemplating what the bare necessities are required. The idea is still fluid, but I have put together my framework and implemented the ‘Next Turn’ button. That seems a necessary element for a turn-based game don’t you think.

Here’s a screen shot:

The logo is actually a test of my codes ability to put a sprite up, it won’t be a part of the game

And you can even download my executable here to try clicking the ‘Next Turn’ button! (Windows build, sorry I don’t have a Mac or Linix to create builds with) Let me know if you have problems. It’d be useful to address them now.

Theme winner is Minimalist.

I’ll have to think about this one.

Creamed Spinach, Herb Potatoes (somewhat smashed,) fish sticks with Tarter sauce and a Fosters.

• 5:30 PM EST Nap
• 7:54 PM EST Take picture of desk area
• 8:09 PM EST Post desk photo

Interesting things to note:

• Apple remote for tunes
• Nail clippers and brush for lap cats
• Tums for code burn
• Deluxe Mixed Nuts for emergency brain food
• Shredder for embarrassing ideas