Here is some longoverdue documentation for the Windows version. I only realized yesterday that the README file was not included in the Windows release (and even it was, it would have been unreadable due to different end-of-line conventions between Linux and Windows).

To save everybody from having to download the 6MB package again, I am just posting a separate README.TXT.

Just to highlight it, you can create new globs on the right hand side of the screen by pressing NUMPAD 1 - NUMPAD 4 the elemental type of the summoned glob corresponds to the order of the runes on the control panel, so NUMPAD 1 summons a Water glob, NUMPAD 3 summons a Fire glob. If the game was finished globs would rush at you in pre-configured waves, but I didn’t get that far.

In addition, here is a screenshot showing the relationships between the 4 elements:

Red lines indicate how runes (and once implemented, globs) are activated by different elements. If an Air glob walks onto a Fire rune, a fire reaction will ensue. If an Air rune is triggered by a Water glob and there is a Fire rune in the area of effect of the resulting Air reaction, the Fire rune will be triggered by the Air reaction.

The green arrows shows against which elements globs are resistant. Air cannot harm Earth and vice versa. Water cannot be harmed by Fire, but Fire can be harmed by Water.

After a long struggle to get it working, I finally have py2exe version of my game. This release also includes a bugfix to my library, which lets the game run on ATI hardware (the texture loader wasn’t enforcing power of two texture sizes).

Sorry it took so long, but I didn’t have much time to devote to LudumDare in the 2 days after the deadline and I had a really hard time getting PyOpenGL to work with py2exe (for details on how to make it work see my journal).

Here are links to the new release files:

GlobCombat 0.1.1 for Windows (6MB)

GlobCombat 0.1.1 for Linux (1.5MB)

Here’s my final entry for LudumDare 10:

GlobCombat-0.1.0 for Linux

This was my first LudumDare and I’m disappointed that I did not finish, but on the other hand I guess I’m also kinda surprised I got as far as I did. Most of the game logic and art is finished, but I didn’t have enough time left to add gameplay and polish stuff like a menu and highscore list. It is possible to run the game to see the artwork and play with the logic a bit (see doc/README for details).

My biggest mistake was spending 9 hours on trying to get A* graph search working (especially with about 2 years gone since the last time I touched that kind of stuff). Should have given up on that path and re-designed after 3 hours instead of 9 - then I might have had a playable entry.

I did learn a lot (and I am going to learn a lot in the coming weeks as I work to finish this game and to improve my library to make things easier for next time). It was fun in spite of the setback.

Here’s a screenshot from just before I started packaging it up for release:

I have been keeping a fairly detailed journal of my progress at my LD10 Progress Page, just haven’t gotten around to posting the link yet until now. To summarise for everybody that’s too busy to check the link (probably everybody) I’m fairly pleased with my progress and though I am slightly behind schedule, it’s not a train-smash (yet).

Here’s a current screenshot of my game which I have decided to call Glob Combat, it will be a RTS / puzzle game:

I was going for cute globs, but I’m not sure if they look cute or diabolical:

CEngine is a Python library I started writing mid-2007 for doing a remake of Chaos: Battle of Wizards by Julian Gollop. The library uses PyGame and OpenGL and is still far from complete - I haven’t even started on the remake yet, but there is some functionality in the library that may be useful for this competition.

Feature list and download.