Now … to the keynote !

(Too creepy ?)

While this isn’t quite finished (no music, no scoring, no title/menu, no levels, needs more game logic & eye candy), I’m impressed with the progress I made with Flixel. This is also the first time I’ve really taken the ‘graphics first’ approach, and I’m happy with the way it panned out. The mockup screenshot I made about 24 hours ago looks (almost) exactly like the game.

You can play it in it’s current incomplete state here (requires Flash).

Not sure if I will go ahead and make this yet … but here’s a mockup on one idea:

I’ll take the opportunity to give myself a crash course in Flixel to make this, methinks. Now for sleep.

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
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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.
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