Hi everyone!

First of all, I’d like to say that I’m really happy with finishing my game. Unfortunately, due to the site’s issues, I couldn’t log my progress. I guess this isn’t just a postmortem but rather also an “I’m in” post.

So far, this is the third game I made for LD. I made a game for some miniLD or another (I don’t remember which), and another for LD20. However, I wouldn’t count either game as a “full” game (for some definition of full corresponding to the 48 hour time limit). The miniLD entry was a game where you shot enemies that came at you (sort of like asteroids but with people) but had no video feed; instead you had the audio of creepy footsteps, gunfire, and screams. While it didn’t turn out bad, it wasn’t quite complete because it had no graphics. As for the LD20 entry, I made an (almost) exact clone of part of the original Legend of Zelda game. So finished or not, it wasn’t really my game. That’s why I’m extra-proud of finishing this time.

Before I analyze what happened, go play my game
Here is the entry page:
http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-21/?action=preview&uid=3743
and if you won’t vote anyway, here is the game:
http://mr.galacticgaming.net/Real%20Live%20Avatars%20Inc/Game.html

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Unfortunately, stuff came up, and I didn’t find the time to do anything for this miniLD. I am not happy about that. I know I won’t be able to make my idea in only 1 day as even doing it in 2 was a stretch. I hope I will go back and make my idea at some point. I really don’t have anything more to say.

:’(

I have a concept for the miniLD. I’m not sure how much of it I will manage, but I am aiming for my end result to be a working prototype.

There’s a bit of background to this one that I’m not sure how I’ll introduce in-game. Here goes:

We know of the Greeks and Romans and their pantheon of gods. And of the Egyptians with theirs. We know of many ancient civilizations and we know of the gods they worshiped. But there is one civilization we know nothing about. And it is their pantheon’s fault. The king of their gods had but one name: The Warmonger. And it was due to him that his people were wiped out.

So that’s the background info. By the way, if anyone has suggestions for how to put story (like that ^) into a game, please comment.

Read on for the actual game play.

(more…)

I’m going to enter this miniLD! (most likely)

I’ll be using Flash, making graphics with something, and probably simply ignoring sound effects

I already have a game in mind, and I hope I’ll be able to finish it. It’s called Warmonger. More on that later…

I might start early or go for more than 2 days, because I’m afraid I might not be able to finish quickly enough. And I plan to actually post about it this time around so expect posts soon and at some minimum frequency.

By the way, the theme is great.

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Mikhail Rudoy

I never finish my games. There are exceptions of course, but even now, I have urges to let Minions or Champions or whatever I’m calling my LD0 catchup game fall into the past. I managed to finish two games when I was in middle school. Ugly, ugly things. My code for those two games was the most unprofessional thing I have seen to date, and the result wasn’t pretty. I got them sponsored, but I think games were easier to get sponsored back then. After a long break from game making, in 2009, I finished another game. It was pure mediocrity. But it was an improvement.  It’s still sitting on FGL waiting for a sponsor.  But my code was cleaner. And this year (school year; sorry but I go to school and that’s how my perception of time is ordered), I finished my miniLD25 entry, Blind, and my LD20 entry, The Legend of Zelda on Budget Cuts. I consider them to both be successes at least in terms of good coding practices. And in between this all, numerous, various projects have fallen into neglect and died. But this year, it’s not as bad as before.

So the question is: why? What changed? And I think I have the answer: both LDs, I was motivated to sit down and finish the job. In all cases — whether it was working through the night and till the deadline, or … scratch that “or”, I did that both times — I had a specific goal and a specific time period to finish. My other projects almost all got too ambitious. Each of these times, the project was exactly what I expected. Each time, I counted on spending part of the weekend working on the game, and got that exact amount done in practically the whole weekend. But I did get it done.

So I need to motivate myself. I need to set clearer goals and duedates. So I am resolving to take on a medium sized project (I’m not quite ready for major yet), and finish it before the summer is out. I haven’t decided what it is yet, but there are plenty of options. Note that I said project, but not game. I’ll get back to this in a minute.

This school year, I got a lot more serious about programming than I was before. I plan to double up on two CS classes next year. I will be taking the two semester AP compsci course, and the two single semester systems level programming and computer graphics classes. This means that on entering systems and graphics, all my classmates will have taken the AP class and I will have not. In order to be allowed to take the class, I have to learn Java and familiarize myself with all the standard data structures common to most languages. And this must be done by the start of class, so I have the summer to finish. This might be my project.

I also want to learn two (and a half) other languages/programs. I want to learn python, and also Unity in one form or another (most likely using javascript or Boo). The half is that I think mathematica might be worth knowing. Learning one of these properly might be my project.

Of course, I might simply make a rather complex game.

So why am I telling you this? Not because you have to care (though that would be nice) and not because I want to vent about how I never finish anything (though let me tell you, it really sucks), but because there’s no taking it back once someone reads this (assuming the amount I have typed does not scare every prospective reader away). This is it. I’m committing to doing something, and no more needs be said.

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Mikhail Rudoy

P.S. Someone please remind me how to add the more tag so that I can edit it in and edit this postscript out.

Managed to finish, and then spent an hour trying to get everything onto the internet. Ugh. But I finally got everything done, and here is the result. Saddly no music, but whatever. Here it is:

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-20/?action=preview&uid=3743

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Mikhail Rudoy

I’m getting a bunch done. A lot of the things I had to do are finished. Right Now I’m up to making Ganon. This is gonna be the hard part.

Oh, and I came up with a name for my game:

The Legend of Zelda
–on Budget Cuts–

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Mikhail Rudoy

Making a Zelda clone. Quite a bit got done.

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Mikhail Rudoy

Does anyone know whether making a(n almost exact) Zelda clone would be a copyright infringement? Also how about the rules of LD and using the same graphics as Zelda?

PS despite the fact that I am planning an almost exact copy, the difference should be worth it, so yes, I know that just copying Zelda defeats the purpose, but I do have a reason for wanting to make it as reminiscent of Zelda as possible.

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Mikhail Rudoy

Apparently this is obligatory (see tinyurl.com/LDobligatory) So here I am lining up for LD20. I will be using flash and as3 for the game. Flash IDE for the very crappy graphics that will inevitably wind up in my game, and Musagi and sfxr for sounds (which considering my complete lack of proficience with those tools means that there will probably be no sound – and if there is, you should probably mute your computer).

Also I pronounce Ludum Dare as luh dum dayre where dum is exactly like the sound of the word dumb. It’s probably wrong. So sue me (please don’t)

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Mikhail Rudoy

As I recently figured out, making good puzzles is hard. So now I will be trekking through a long period of puzzle level design, and when I’m done with that, I’ll finally wrap the whole game up with all the menus, tutorial screens, and other things that its missing right now. Unfortunately, that means you’re probably not seeing the game until some time after LD-proper. Fortunately, that also means the levels won’t completely suck.

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Mikhail Rudoy

I am VERY happy with how the scrolling and zooming came out. Now various screens, fixing 1 bug (how do I get the thing to work without me having to click on it beforehand), and then the actual puzzle design. (And yes, that means I’m not going to make sounds). And since this isn’t the real thing, it can wait. I am almost certainly not finishing this by tomorrow, but you will probably see it before next Monday.

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Mikhail Rudoy

I have the game engine finished. Now I just have to make zooming and scrolling around the map, make all the title/instruction screens, name the damn thing, and design and implement all the puzzles (levels). And there’s no sound at all. Oh boy.

Anyway, here’s what the game sort of looks like right now:

As you can see, my drawing skills are not that good.

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Mikhail Rudoy

P.S. I might make a level editor. Very tentative here, but I might.

OK, here goes nothing. I’m starting to make my game (which I will call Minion or Champion or something like that) right NOW.

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Mikhail Rudoy

Anyone who has read some of my previous posts on here would know that I was going to make games for all the old LD themes. Well I’m still doing that! I have a vacation this next week-and-a-half-ish and I plan to get at least my LD0 catchup done. Now I agree that that’s not so much for 11 days but I’m not sure whether I’ll finish even that as there is practically a literal ton of work for me to do. Here are some of the things I plan to do this vacation (and I might be forgetting some):
- LD0 catchup
- study for my SATII English test (this will involve at least two practice tests and therefore at least 2 hours)
- study for the USAMO math exam (this will involve taking at least two old tests and therefore at least 18 hours)
- go to the Queens Hall of Science (at least 2 hours commuting + at least 1 hour there)
- write a small math paper
- do all my Homework
- visit some colleges
- clean my C drive and install all the stuff I want to have but don’t
- start learning to use Unity 3d, Python, and LaTeX (not necessarily in that order and with Mathematica as a much lower priority)
- there’s a very small chance that I will go back and make my miniLD24 game idea
- figure out a way to make music for the games
- read a large variety of books which I’ve had lined up for a while (i.e. Lord of the Rings, Elementary Geometry from an Advanced Standpoint, some physics book about non-Newtonian fluids, The World is Flat a Brief History of the Twenty-first Century, etc…)

As you see, I’ll be extra busy. And this extra-business will carry over well past the vacation. The two days after vacation is USAMO and the second is also college night at my school. This is not to mention that I have tests in a lot of my classes. And after working through USAMO, will I get some rest? Not until after LD 20! I have every intention of participating in that as well (but of course shit happens sometimes so I won’t be too disappointed if I don’t finish).

Anyway, that’s what’s going on in my world. So thanks for listening to (or rather reading) my rant, and if you have any suggestions for how to do some of the programming or sound stuff from the list above, please comment.

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Mikhail Rudoy

Well, I finally know what I’m going to be making. The problem, if you can call it that, is that it actually has potential to become a fully formed game. So we’ll see about how much time I take (probably more than 48 hours), and we’ll see about whether I make everything myself (probably no, and I’m referring particularly to music).

I have a lot of stuff going on, so it might be some time before I finish, but I hope it works out to be what I think it could be.

Edit: In fact, it might be quite a while  until I do any of it. Chances are that I won’t even start within the next two weeks.

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Mikhail Rudoy

I’m finding it especially hard to come up with actual game play or game mechanics for Indirect Interactions. So to give you an inside view on what I am thinking (and this isn’t just from the last couple of hours; I have thought about this for a couple of days before my last post), here are some of the ideas or directions I might be coming from:

1) Rube Goldberg machines

I like this idea but I think it might be too much for a supposedly 48 hour contest. (And wasn’t LD0 a 24 hour thing anyway?). Also, I think it has been done enough. Thirdly, there is an implementation issue. Unless I think of some really good system, I would have to either make all the objects have defined input and output (making everything systematic but hindering player creativity) or hard code every possible interaction (either this is a huge amount of work or I don’t have many objects). Finally, I would have to make realistic artwork (uh oh).

2) Hit men

If this needs explaining, instead of killing someone, you interact with them indirectly by hiring someone to kill them. Disclaimer: this is my math teacher’s idea; I was bouncing ideas off of people and this is something he thought of. Now I don’t have much of an analysis for this, but I do have a problem: I’m not sure what kind of game this would be. After all, if you control the hit man, this becomes direct interaction. So what is the actual game play mechanic? Choosing who to hire for which job? Doesn’t sound very fun.

3) The butterfly effect

I just don’t know yet. But here is a big thought: butterfly effect implies time travel. Maybe (and I haven’t thought about this scenario much yet), you were sent back in time by a government to step on a specific butterfly to cause a natural disaster in a country you are at war with. You arrive about 100 years late, and now in order to complete the mission you would need to step on all of that butterfly’s descendants. But you can’t step on other butterflies because they might cause anything. Then again, this is just an old game mechanic with a new story put to it. Maybe this game isn’t what I want, but I’m not discarding the butterfly effect yet.

So there you go. I’ll keep thinking and what happens, happens.

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Mikhail Rudoy

It seems that Uhfgood has started something. In his post here, he stated that he would be catching up with everyone who has been here from the beginning of LD. He will spend 3 weeks, 2 hours a weekday making games for each of the LDs that he has not participated in.

I will be joining him.

I intend to work through all the themes just as he does, but I will do it slightly differently. First off, I won’t limit myself to any specific period of time per game. If it takes 2 months, then OK. If it takes one weekend I’m happy with that too. I will try not to turn the games into full blown projects; they should still be on the level of something completable in 48 hours + idea development time. But if they do get blown out of proportion, oh well. Similarly, if I fail at making some specific theme, then that’s too bad (but I’m moving on).

I will be using Flash, and if I turn out anything presentable, I will try to sell it or get it sponsored. Therefore, I will not publish my source code. In addition, since I’m hopeless at art and music, I will not strictly follow the whole “everything made by you during production” rule that we have for LD.

Now about themes; because I draw a complete blank on some themes, I might deviate a little in a direction that my brainstorming brings me to. For instance, I am not sure whether I will be able to find a game idea for LD0 so if I come up with something in the process of figuring this (the fact that I can’t come up with an idea) out, I will make that something despite being off theme. I will keep you updated on every game I am in process of making for this LD catchup, whether on theme or not.

I will be putting the games up on… well actually I’m not sure where I will put the games, but when it gets to that, I’ll let you know.

And another thing. I intend to start completely from scratch at the start of each LD, but this decision might change.

In fact, any of this might change. We’ll see how everything works out, and I’ll post my thoughts on LD0 Indirect Interaction soon.

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Mikhail Rudoy

I made a couple of small corrections. One spelling error in the instructions page, and one small mistake in the code. I didn’t even have to code a word, as the mistake was simply in the order of a few lines of code.

Once again, here is a link:

http://www.kongregate.com/games/mrudoy/blind

After one and a half full days of work, I’m finally finished.

The game is a shooter without video. You must rely entirely on the direction sounds come from to shoot. It isn’t actually a bad game, so I will justify the theme.

1) it is violent and will hurt your ears if you don’t turn your volume down.

2) it is a shooter so by definition I consider it a bad game.

3) it has no graphics (bad graphics… nah. How about NO graphics?)

here it is in all its glory:

http://www.kongregate.com/games/mrudoy/blind

PS: please comment. I would love to know what you think.