I’m almost done with my project, so here’s a bit of a timelapse of over 13 hours of work.

I’m Nate Wiesel, and this is my second attempt at a Ludum Dare game. During Ludum Dare 16 however, I couldn’t finish soon enough due to lack of programming knowledge at the time. However this time, I have a bundle of fresh new ideas! (Freshness of ideas may vary.)

With the theme as ‘Islands’, I wasn’t quite sure what to do at first, but eventually after a lot of experimentation, I came up with making a platformer. My game, now called ‘Island Escape’, has 5 hand-drawn levels (and a final “boss” level) about a nameless guy who washes up ashore on a deserted island, and wants to build a boat to escape. It’s not the most original idea ever but I’m trying to pull some unique concepts out of it and make it at least somewhat enjoyable. I’m usually used to taking my time with projects so it’s a bit tough to do this kind of thing under time constraints, but hopefully I’ll pull through.

Here’s a little bit of what I’m working on:

Gameplay Footage 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOG-HH_Et9A

Original Character Sprite http://i.imgur.com/kZKZs.png
Animating Character Sprite http://yfrog.com/9e3hpp
Level Concept http://yfrog.com/1n33vp
Map Screen http://yfrog.com/0kzfup
Bouncy Good Fun!!1 http://yfrog.com/0p257fp
It’s Just You And Me, Palm Tree http://yfrog.com/5jfklp

I hope you all like it when it is done!

Lots of progress so far. Engine is nearly 100% done, and I’m currently painting the cutscenes and working on the story just a tad more.

Gameplay

One of many paintings for the cutscenes. I took a sheet of paper, dunked it in coffee, dried it, crumpled it, scanned it, and painted on it in Corel. I think it looks very nice.

Another painting

So far the plot goes as follows:
There’s an explorer (nameless right now, but I’m thinking Jacques) who goes into a cave trying to find treasure. However he falls down a pit and is knocked unconscious. Later he’s awoken by a mysterious cave spirit who can help him out of the cave. It ties a rope to Jacques(or whatever his name is). You control the spirit (and the rope it’s pulling) with your mouse. By clicking the left mouse button, you can tug on the very stretchy rope to pull Jacques closer if needed. Using gravity and quick wit, you can help Jacques out of the dark caves and back to safety. There will be at least 10 to 15 hand-drawn levels and tons of stuff to see and do. I hope to get it done in time!

If anyone read all of that, may I ask if someone wouldn’t mind coming up with a better title for this? I don’t really like “Gravity Sphere” all too much. Thanks!