I thought I’d jump on the band wagon and do one.

I was at a friends house for the first night – we stayed up ’til 3AM to see what the theme’d be, then got about 4 hours sleep, so I was kinda tired.

The first day went pretty well – I had the idea when I first saw the theme, so I dived straight in.

This was my first major project using AS3 & Flashpunk, I learnt them last week (although I’d done quite a bit of AS2 coding previously).

It took me longer than I would have liked to get all the platforming elements done, especially since my game stopped working randomly for about an hour then randomly started again – but hey! I then started implementing all the features – such as the “tool”, and the mechanisms, like the switches and buttons and doors.

On the second day, I added the remaining features – the enemies, spikes, and then got started on making the actual levels. This was harder than I thought – making challenging platformer levels is quite a challenge!

I then decided I needed another feature with about 5 hours left – specifically the half block, which was surprisingly easy to add.

After 6 levels though, I was way too tired – it was about 1 am, and I couldn’t think of any more levels, so I called it a night.

WHAT I’VE LEARNT:

I need to test less. Seriously, half my time was wasted on waiting for the code to compile, testing silly minor features.

I much prefer AS3 to AS2.

One thing that I don’t think I could have done without is OGMO editor. I had some trouble parsing the XML at the start, but once I got past that it was amazing. The project file for it is a complete mess, but it works, and works well.

OOP is amazing.

Quick “hacks” are ok for things that will never be uncovered again, rather than huge workarounds…. especially if you only have 48 hours :L

I CAN FINISH GAMES!

My pixel art isn’t half as bad as I think.

I’m really pleased with how this has turned out. Like really really pleased. First LD for me too I’d have liked to add more levels, but ah well.

My entry is a puzzle platformer. Behold:

Anyway, you can play it here: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-20/?action=preview&uid=3501

Timelapse coming soon!

Ok. I have 4 levels…

And 5 and a half hours left.

The last level took me an hour… Hmm, let’s try for 10 levels

Although I still do need to do a title screen and a bit of bug fixing

I think music is out of the question by now too. D:

Got the first 2 tutorial levels working Now onto more levels! You can play what I’ve got so far here. (the thing it loads to is a level select screen)

Or a screen that pretty much sums up the game:

Stegosauruses are evil!

There are a few more “features” I want to add, like a monster spawning thing and a minimap, but I think I’ll get done the more important things, LIKE ACTUAL LEVELS O_o

Now to start on level design, and polishing up those graphics.

I’m really pleased at how this has turned out so far.

Yeah, I cropped it this time!

I’m pretty happy with my progress though

Got all the basic elements working, just a few little things still to do, then I can concentrate on art, level design, and stuff ^^

The penguin’s jetpack is working, and the tortoise can fire his gun.

Now to add in the puzzle mechanics. I’m hoping I can do that by today, and then have tomorrow for level design and fixing up graphics

Finally, some progress from me I’ve finally added the platforming physics, now it’s onto the main gameplay mechanics. (and yes. That is a penguin and a tortoise )

So I’m happily coding along, and then BAM. It stops playing. I have no idea what I changed, but I can’t find it. Why didn’t I set up git? :’(

It’s going to be platformer based…. and… you might get a jetpack in late levels too.

…I like the idea of flying tortoises ok.

And I would show you my workspace but it won’t let me upload a picture

I’m in. Again. Although… I did say that last time. AND THEN FORGOT. -_-

I’m torn between using C++/SDL, and FlashPunk. Either way, it’ll be GIMP for images, sfxr for sound effects and I HAVE NO IDEA for music.

I had this nagging feeling I’d forgotten something all weekend. And here it is. -_-

Oh well, it looks like a JAM entry for me… Let’s see if I can make a game in 27 hours eh?

For the discovery theme, I’m thinking discovering new species, maybe just micro-organisms. With very pixel-y graphics, of course.

And done in Flash. Flash 8. (Hey, I’m running Ubuntu here) and AS 2.0.

This should be fun