I’ve fixed some bugs with my entry.  So far it seems people only noticed the clicking bug (caused by the code I use to start the game in fullscreen at your native resolution, with black bars if your monitor’s not 16:10 – it was working before the compo, then I stupidly broke it during).  Other bugs fixed include the text rendering as black boxes on OSX, and it crashing straight away on my intel graphics netbook.

I consider these game breaking, and have updated my entry’s links accordingly.  If you want to see the original versions, here they are:

Windows – OSX – Linux/source code

Also, thanks for the comments guys   I pretty much agree – visually it’s my strongest LD entry to date, but gameplay-wise it’s just too random, with no real opportunity for the player to turn it to their advantage.

Doing this now, because the longer I leave it, the less chance I’ll ever write it up.

I’ve uploaded OSX and Linux/source code versions.  These ones have the stupid bug where you could click on buoys before you’d found them fixed (thanks TFernando ), but I left the Windows version as it is, since that’s how I submitted it, and it’s not a huge bug.

Timelapse is here.  I’m afraid it’s missing the music making though, since I did that on a different computer and forgot to record a corresponding timelapse.  Post mortem after the jump:

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I did some last minute tinkering with the difficulty, and added some basic tutorial hints (displayed on your first play).  Getting the difficulty right was hard, and I suspect I may have gone too far towards the hard end of the scale.  But then these kind of games tend to rely on frequent deaths as part of their replayability.  I’m interested in what kind of comments I’ll get.

There are 5 endings by the way; 3 bad, 1 good, and 1 very good but rare.

LD entry link.

After the jump, a final food photo:

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Changed my mind, decided the cut-scenes needed colour:

Still not entirely happy with them, but it’s too late to do anything now.  Just the tutorial hints and the decision on whether to randomise the islanders’ colours left to go.

The first cut scene of the game.  It’s not amazing, but I think it’ll do.

The music’s done.  It’s not quite what I was aiming for (I was going for a slightly eerie feel, but it’s more cheery than eerie), but it works fairly well.  I’ve also done a quick watercolour wash for the background to the cut-scenes (waiting for it to dry before I can scan it).  Lunch was pretty much the same as yesterday; Irn Bru, beans on toast, and ice cream:

Now I’ve got some cut-scenes to draw…

So I’ve added the extra UI elements I talked about in the previous post.  Islanders who *you know* know the way to the enchanted isles have a yellow glow, and there’s a ‘divine’ button to point you to such islanders (at the cost of some of your time).  I think it’s a more interesting game now, though I suspect there’s still not a huge amount of replay value.  Barring the tutorial hints, I actually got all the coding done which I had planned to get done, so I’m going to start on the music now.

I’m awake.  I’m pretty happy with yesterday’s progress, but there’s still a lot to be done.  Here’s my todo list:

• Clicking an islander shows you how long it will take to get there, gives you an embark button.
• Music.
• Rough paper background for cut-scenes (maybe a watercolour wash?).
• Cut-scene pictures.
• Randomised pickups.
• Days should tick by faster (the game’s too easy as it is).
• Tutorial hints.
• Button to tell you which islanders know the way to the enchanted isles, at the cost of some of your time.

I just realised I haven’t really explained the game yet.  The aim is to find your way to the enchanted isles (i.e. the lost Hebrides of the title) in the West within 7 days.  To do that you have to find 3 islanders who know the way, but travelling to the islanders takes up time, so you have to try and judge your journey.

I’m going to start with the coding tasks today, as they should go fastest, and the game kind of needs them since it isn’t much fun at the moment.  I plan on getting them done by 11am, then taking about 1 1/2 hours to make the music, followed by lunch.  That’ll leave me the rest of the day to get the cut-scene pictures done, which are the part I’m least confident about.

I think I’m probably going to call it a night.  Here’s what I have so far:

Note the authentic hebridean clothing of brightly coloured pointy hats

The basic gameplay is there, and you can win (or lose) the game, but the cut-scenes don’t have any pictures, and the gameplay feels a bit lacking.  I think I need to add randomised pickups that help you out (a faster boat, hints about which islanders know the way the enchanted isles).  I’ve still got to do the music too, though that hopefully won’t be too hard.  The whole game’s inspired by rockettothesky’s Medea (e.g.), so I’m going to try for a similar feel.

Ooh, Dr. Who was good.  I was worried since the previous episode was terrible, and I really couldn’t see the point in bringing back the angels, but that was up there with the first two episodes of the season.

Anyway, here’s how the pizza turned out:

The dough didn’t turn out as airy as I was hoping, but it was still pretty good.  Another picture and some more details after the cut (I realise no-one’s interested in the intricacies of my pizza recipe but, well, I’m proud of it).

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So, here’s the dough having risen (and then fallen a bit when I removed the bowl’s cover:

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I don’t have a whole lot to show game-wise, so the next few posts are going to be about my dinner!

After years of making pizzas and never being entirely happy with the results, I finally perfected my recipe a couple of months ago.  It starts with dough:

That’s ~100g plain flour*, half a sachet of yeast, and some lukewarm water.  This is after I’ve kneaded it for ~20mins, and it’s currently sitting on top of my radiator, hopefully rising.  I’ll come back to it in an hour or so, once I’ve done yesterday’s dishes and started the sauce going.

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Fiddled with my particle generator to get some clouds that more or less work the way I want them to.  I should probably start making the actual game part of the game now.  I seem to have spent most of the time so far getting the title screen right…

I’ve got a title screen now.  I’m not entirely happy with how the watercolour turned out, but it’ll have to do.  There’s going to be clouds obscuring part of it, which will hopefully make things look a bit more interesting.

Lunch below the cut:

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So I’ve inked the map and scanned it in:

…and I think I’m going to try and use watercolours to colour it.  I’ve not used watercolours in ages, so this may turn out to be a bad idea (test colours after the cut).

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I’ve pencilled in the map.  If there’s anyone from the Hebrides reading this, you have my deepest apologies…

This is what it’s meant to look like.

Next step: ink!

So I’m awake, and the theme’s islands, which wasn’t what I’d been expecting.  After some thought though, I’ve come up with an idea which I think will work.  It’s going to be a take on the Weird Worlds/Adventures in Infinite Space formula, set in the Hebrides.  There’s going to be quite a lot of art to do, but if I can get that out of the way today I should be in good shape.

Here’s a picture of my extremely cluttered desk:

A big bowl of porridge for breakfast, which seemed appropriate given my game’s setting.

Last time my game came 11th overall, so this time I’m going to see if I can top that (unlikely ).  I’m also going to try and be more sociable and join in on IRC, though that may fall by the wayside if I give myself a lot of work to do.

I’ll be using the same C++ template code I’ve used in every LD I’ve entered, though it seems every time I’ve expanded it further.  Since the last compo, I’ve added truetype font support, a rudimentary GUI framework, and some sound synthesis classes (I really want to make use of these, but time will tell whether I can work them into the theme).  You can download it from here.

The libraries I’ll be using are: SDL, SDL_image, SDL_ttf, PortAudio, Vorbisfile.

First, I’ve now posted OSX and linux/source code versions on my entry’s page.  I noticed some serious slowdown when testing on my macmini – this is because it uses very large textures (1024 x 768), and there isn’t really anything I could have done (not within the 48hr time limit anyway, it would have been too fiddly and time-consuming).  Fairly recent (/non bargain-basement) graphics cards shouldn’t have a problem, but I apologise if you find the game getting slower and slower the more moves you make.

Second, here’s my timelapses:

Coding etc.

Audio

There’s two because I did the audio on a different computer, and I’m too lazy to edit them together properly.  Read on for my post mortem.

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Stopping for lunch and, incredibly, the core game’s finished.  All I’ve got to do now is the sound and the AI player.

So there you can see the 3 buttons and the amount of food the player has (top left).  Each movement/garrison costs 1 food.  On the map there’s a garrison to the right of the blue player, which means nobody can move onto that space until its turn limit is up.  You can also see various spaces with food in them.  These appear after someone forages in that space, so you can see how much food can be got from which spaces.

I keep forgetting to post my pictures of my food, but here’s my lunch:

Beans on toast, and a goblet of Irn Bru. You can just about see the original map in the pile of paper to the right.

Got up about 8, and have now got the game to colour in the spaces the current player has already explored.  I also recoloured the background paper a bit – it’s still not perfect but it’s better than it was:

Next step is to add the victory/game over screen, then the Forage, Garrison and Wait buttons.

I’m off to bed now, so here’s where I am at the end of the 1st day:

Players can move to adjacent spaces, and can’t move onto spaces that are already occupied.  The next step is to draw up graphics so you can see how many spaces the player’s already explored.  It’s fairly time-consuming filling in those thin squiggly lines, so I’m only 2/3 of the way through that.

Just got back from work and scanned in the tea-stained paper.  It’s not as dark as I was hoping for – maybe I didn’t leave it long enough?  Or maybe I should have used coffee?  Anyway, I reckon it still looks pretty good:

If I have time I might try and stain the edges using computery magic.

I’ve got to head off to work now.  I’ve not got as much done as I had hoped, but I’ve got the hand-inked graphics done, and the title screen’s up and running barring the buttons.

(still waiting on the tea-stained paper to dry so I can use it as the background)