Anyone notice this yet ? jSfxr: a Java applet by eigenbom, inspired by Dr Petter’s sfxr.

This could turn out to be a handy tool for those last minute sound effects (although for me, sfxr does just nicely) .. except it seems to lack a save-to-WAV function …

This isn’t an official entry, since it’s way too late. You can see what I was trying to achieve and why I missed the deadline here and here. I thought I’d post what I’d made, just for fun. This is the product of about two laptop battery charges (~2.5 hours), and one hour to polish, fix the odd bug and package .. so in total it’s about a ~6 hour game made using Processing.org. The game takes 1 min to play, and I’d say most people will be able to beat it on their first or second try.

Chances are, everyone is far too busy judging the record number of on-time entries this year .. but if you are curious, you can see the details and play the game here.

So I thought I was in with a chance of submitting something, while travelling in trains and planes … but it’s not gonna happen. Here’s the rundown:

In about 5 mins I decided to write a simple game based on the garbage compactor scene from one of the Starwars movies.

2 hours on the train from Florence to Rome, I wrote most of the engine in Processing on my little Eee PC.

Then I went and saw the Colesseum, Pathenon, Trivi Fountain etc. Walked lots, slept well.

Then, on the plane from Rome to Hong Kong I intended to finish the game … problem – the power sockets on the plane were malfunctioning, so I only had 2 hours of laptop battery.

Result: I’m here in Hong Kong, without a compatible power adapter, and an almost ready game stuck on my flat laptop. Ah well … it will be late.

Pic of eaten airline food (too hungry to wait):

http://twitpic.com/3mkn9

So this Ludum Dare, I happen to be travelling … on a train to Rome today, touristing in the evening, then flying out to Melbourne via Hong Kong. Wifi access will be sporadic. I won’t always have power for my laptop … but I might as well give it a shot. Chances are, all I’ll submit are a few photos of airline food, but I may even make a game if the power on the aircraft works.

Ciao for now !

Badass Frog postmortem – the ‘meh’ factor

After my LD #11 ‘Minimalist’ entry was voted “most innovative” game, I’ve been trying to pride myself as “that guy that makes innovative games”. So I thought long and hard about the theme for LD #13, “Roads”, trying to come up with something innovative. But the creative juices just weren’t flowing, and it didn’t happen (I’d also just bought Shaun White Snowboarding: Road Trip for Wii, which was taking time away from ‘designing time’). After 12 hours, with no good ideas for a game I was actually enthused about making, I decided to make a simple Frogger clone – at least this way I could hone my Processing skills, and learn the ins-and-outs of Mobile Processing.

Some thoughts about developing for mobile devices

Turns out there is a whole “other world” of mobile development that I just hadn’t really thought all that hard about. (more…)

LD48 #13 : pansapiens timelapse

+ cheezy music ….

Meh. Here it is, my final LD48 #13 entry: “Bad Ass Frog Escapes from LA“.

Get it here, for five different platforms. If you have a Java-enabled phone that can do a resolution close to 240×291 (aka, not an iPhone) you can try the mobile version at http://is.gd/aDRQ .

Tools used:

• The GIMP.
• Sfxr.
• Processing and Mobile Processing, Java Wireless Toolkit.
• Nokia 6320 phone.

Postmortem later.

Food

Lunch on the last day: Wholegrain bread, garden salad, beetroot dip, Danish fetta and pickled onions. No swine fleisch this time.

Journal

Worked on getting sound going this morning … settled on using MIDI drum hits as sound on the mobile MIDP version (that’s all I could get to work), and some sfxr-generated samples on the desktop versions.

What my game lacks in graphics, scope and fun, it will make up for in supported platforms. I’m preparing to post my final entry, which should support Linux, Windows, Mac OSX, any Java-capable web browser and any decent J2ME enabled mobile phone.

So, I feel like I’m approaching “finished” for this silly little game.

Journal

Here it is running on the Java Mobile Edition phone emulator (”Default Color” at 240×291 resolution). I’ve heard people complain about how making MIDP phone games is tricky because you have to deal with lots of different screen sizes/resolutions. It truly can be a pain in the butt, and I haven’t dealt with it properly in this game … on my 128×128 Nokia 6230 the sprite positioning is out of whack, and I don’t really feel I have the time or energy to go back to square one and fix it to work at any resolution. So at the moment it will only be reasonable to play on largish screen phones. I may try to make a special 128×128 version tomorrow, if I get time (basically, I’ll start by shrinking the sprites). I’ll probably also release a non-phone Java applet version so people have more chance of playing it.

Still need to do sound.

Food

The “significant other” reminded me to eat a few hours ago. Looks like I got sidetracked … haven’t eaten yet. (Update: I just ate a banana. No photo, since it looks just like the banana in my last food photo).

Food

Didn’t really have a breakfast. Guess I should have photographed the cup of coffee and the Gingernut biscuits.

Pictured above – Lunch, ~23 hours in: Salad roll with beetroot tzatziki (otherwise know as Pancar dip), with Danish fetta and the flesh of a pig. Banana, and instant coffee with one sugar.

Progress

Not much. Out of desparation, I started making a Frogger clone in Processing, the idea being that once it is functional, I can change some things to make it a little more than regular Frogger. We will see.

(more…)

Zero tangible progress on the game. Thought about making a driving game (duh, obvious), drew a picture of a road for no apparent reason, did some research into SNES Mode 7, played with some Processing libraries for pathfinding and loading .obj format meshes. I’m thinking I’ll probably end up with some variation on Frogger at this rate.

Here’s my entry for mini-LD#5.

It’s a cover of GBGames LD#11 entry, ‘minimalist’; turned evil. I like to think of it as a minimalist survival horror.

You can download maximalist and read more details here.

There is a gameplay video here … but it leaves off the surprise ending, so you still have to play the game .

The goal is to complete 25 levels an achieve the highest score possible.
(more…)

I really enjoyed the simple, satisfying feel of GBGames LD#11 “minimalist” entry. The anxiety-inducing two-tone audio was also great touch. Not wanting to work too hard this weekend, it’s also simple enough that I was sure I could make a cover version without to much stress ….

Here’s a quick screenshot of where I’m up to.

These might turn out to be placeholder graphics (or they might just remain ). So far I have the basic feaures of GBgames original implemented, including the anxiety-inducing audio. I’m also adding a new spin on the idea … the enemies move a little, and can be ‘baited’ to coax them away from the exit.

Not sure if I’ll participate in Mini-LD5 yet or not, but just in case, here’s an alpha release of my ’simplemenu’ library. It could well be the simplest GUI framework you can imagine. It barely deserves the title of GUI, actually. It’s intended to make it easy to add clickable “Start”, “Options”, “Quit” buttons to the title screen of a game. It works for me, but it’s far from finished.

(Also, sorry to release code so close to the start time … won’t do it for a ‘real’ LD … but for a mini-LD … well … better lateish than neverish).

Here’s my timelapse … it wasn’t all that exciting so I added a little running commentary.

LD#12: pansapiens timelapse

Congratulations to everyone who participated. I can wait to see what y’all have created ….

Some post mortem thoughts
(more…)

Here’s my final LD#12 entry: The Siege of von Danken Tower !*

It’s a game for the Atari 2600 VCS, but you can play it here in a browser based emulator. There is also a zip for Windows, packaged up with a standalone copy of the excellent Stella emulator, including the ROM. Hint for Debian/Ubuntu users: sudo apt-get install stella. For a laugh, take a look at the ugly source code.

Back in the day, every great Atari 2600 game had a back-story (to help you enhance the incredible graphics using your incredible imagination). Be sure to read the all-important cheezy back-story.
(more…)

Meh, too tried for details.

Two mintue noodles with mini dim sims.

I’ve been having lots of minor disasters here that have really impacted on my productivity. Around lunch time, the electricity went off again. This doesn’t happen where I live in Australia very often … geez, you’d think we were a Third World country or California with all these “brown outs”. Anyhow, I went into my workplace to use their electricity and internet connection (and the microwave for my delicious quick meal above), but didn’t manage to get much actual work done. I tried to make a quick video blog post about the saga using Cheese on Ubuntu 8.04 … but it was just buggy enough on my system that I failed to even finish that.

Driving home, I think I mentally debugged a problem I was having with collisions … back to it ….

I just woke up to find my computer off … there had been a rare power failure in the early hours of Sunday morning.

Then I went to have a shower, and the bathroom clock had stopped. The problem is, the bathroom clock runs on batteries .. it wouldn’t be effected by a mains power failure.

(more…)

Here’s rough and unexciting rundown of the story so far:

• 1 PM: initially toyed with Batari BASIC, with the idea of making an Atari 2600 game. Got the compiler working, but couldn’t get the multi-sprite kernel working … which basically meant I was stuck with only two decent sprites on screen at a time. Decided to fall back on Pygame+Rabbyt, since I was lacking a coherent game design at this stage too.
• 3 PM: drew a quick picture of a possible design. A falling block/build a tower game for two people, or one person and an AI. Flip blocks between your opponents tower and your own to annihilate same coloured ones and make their tower shorter. First tower to reach the sky wins. Good potential for crazy sound and graphics, if I ever get that far. Seemed solid and simple enough that it should work, with the potential for some featuritis later on. Started coding.

(more…)

Baby peas, baby potatoes, baby carrots, baby mammal sausages.

Hidden, then revealed.

So, I’ve been lurking on IRC but remaining mute … deep in thought (plus a little bit of Olympic mens beach volleyball … Go Australia !! .. just beat the Brazi… er… I mean Georgian team).

I saw Jach mention his whiteboard, and thought, what the hell, that may help. So fired up the Wacom and let the Gimp off it’s chain:

I’ll leave everyone else to have fun speculating the what these diagrams mean (like I even know myself yet ). It’s a likely to be a two player game, unless I can make some AI for a CPU player.

BBQ Chicken, Greek Salad and Egg salad. Thinking tall thoughts. Thinking Atari 2600 … time for some research.

Oh, and while grocery shopping, I got all twitchy with excitement and managed to knock over a box of Okra at $12.99 per kg. Luckily they didn’t make me pay for it, or I’d be eating Okra-based food all weekend

So, with all the hubris and overconfidence of a LD second-timer, I’ve made no firm plans for my participation in this compo. But I will produce something. I’m waiting for the theme to direct me.

I do have three (or four) very general ideas of what I might use:

1. Pygame + Rabbyt (the old fallback, if I decide to avoid … option 2 or 3)
2. Processing.js … but it could run too slowly if I do anything too complicated
3. Some type of browser based scene/image based puzzle/adventure game (think Myst), where the images are served up online, via Google App Engine or Turbogears. Click points encoded using a CSS hotspot grid. Maybe multiple players could interact somehow too.

Everything will be coded on Ubuntu Linux, with Gimp, Inkscape for graphics, sfxr and whatever audio tracker/softsynth takes my fancy (maybe LMMS, since I had a fairly good experience with that last time).

Also plan to use the Python debugger Winpdb for the first time on a project. I feel like it will really help, but we will see …..