So, here’s what I’ve got this morning. I’ve changed all of the textures because I was using some stock textures that ship with Unity. I was expecting my new textures to look really bad, but I think they’re actually ok. The grass is kinda weird though, so maybe I’ll work on that more later. I’ve also adjusted the lighting so it’s much brighter now. I also almost have gameplay now, as you can build houses. You can build them on any island instantly without a limit, so there’s still a lot of work left even on just that basic feature. I think I really need to start thinking about what the necessary core features are and focus on those.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtRYRdmdWg0

So here’s a video I made today. It’s actually a bit outdated by now, but there’s still no real gameplay. Enjoy the video. Hopefully tomorrow I’ll get you guys a better video with actual gameplay. Now, I need some sleep.

This is what I’ve got so far. It’s the beginnings of some sort of an RTS. I’ve got a bunch of little capsule people on an island and I can move them around by pointing and clicking. I suppose next I should add boats for the little capsules to sail around in. And collision detection, I suppose.

Here’s my little desk. It’s still dark outside.

Best get to work then!

Only a bit over eight hours to go until Ludum Dare 17 fires up. I’ve been getting ready by getting food supplies, cleaning up my workspace, making sure all my software is in working order; the usual stuff. The game plan is to now get to sleep early and wake up a bit before the compo starts at 05:00. I wish I had a bit more time, because I really wanted to do a little warmup game, especially since I’m planning on using a new language. Familiar tools though; the idea is to try the Boo programming language with the Unity 3D engine. Boo is very similar to Python which I am familiar with though, but there is a high chance that I could get bit by whatever little things are different.

I’ll see you tomorrow. Let’s hope the theme is awesome. \o/

I thought I’d post a new screenshot here since I changed the main character, and was hoping to get some feedback. A lot of the work I’ve done since my last post was trying to make collision detection and response work right. I think it’s ok now, but I have a new idea that’s simpler and probably works for the benefit of playability.

So, any comments on the little moles? Or the old worm characters, as seen in an earlier post.

I’ve added shooting and aiming to Mato. I’ve also added gamepad controls, tailored for an Xbox 360 controller. The game currently has just one weapon, similar to the chaingun in Liero, but I’ll be adding more as I go on. The aiming is done with the second analog stick, while you can use the first analog stick to move left and right as well as control the direction of digging, so you can dig straight down, for example. The gun has analog control over the firing rate, with a maximum firing rate of 8 bullets a second. The clip is infinite right now, but that will change for the final version.

One thing I’ve noticed when writing Lua code is that it’s pretty easy to write horribly bad code. I don’t have to define classes, I’ll just use create an ad hoc table with the necessary fields. My code is a horrible mess right now, but I am going to refactor it eventually. It’s kinda nice to just make a mess of it all and write quick hacks.

Hey, this actually is kinda like a game now. I can move around with the red worm and dig holes. Well, I guess I’ve got the destructible terrain covered already, even though I thought that would be a really difficult thing to nail. Frankly, I expected the simple approach of modifying the image on the fly not to work fast enough, especially because Löve is using OpenGL behind the scenes, so I basically need to upload the fullscreen texture to the GPU every time I modify the terrain. I guess the real hard part will be making the different weapons.

It didn’t take me very long to come up with a game I wanted to clone, because I had thought about it before. I might skip destructible terrain, and the weapon selection will likely be very limited. I’ll also be trying out a gamepad control scheme instead of the classic keyboard controls. I’m calling it “Mato” for now. The screenshot should be pretty recognisable for anyone who’s played the original.

I’m starting out with the Löve game engine, but I haven’t actually used it before so I might scrap it if I feel hindered by it. I kinda do want to use scripts for defining the various weapons and stuff though, so Lua will most likely be a part of the project.

So, we’re having a quick unofficial warmup compo before the real thing starts.

The theme is: Clouds

Just comment on this post or make a new post or whatever when you’re done. Deadline is when the real compo starts.

This fall the indie scene was given the gift of Unreal Development Kit for free. I haven’t been using it, but I am of course interested, and it seems to hold a lot of promise. The question is, do we have any LD participants utilising the latest tech from Epic?

Please share any thoughts on UDK and the viability for LD games.

Lately, I’ve been mostly using Unity for my game development needs, but I’m kinda bugged about the various limitations the free version has, so I’m now looking at using the Ogre 3D rendering engine for my graphics. OIS for input, OpenAL for audio, Bullet for physics if I need any. Ogitor for a scene/level editor possibly. Does anybody have experiences with any of these? I suppose I am still missing some sort of unifying “game engine” part here, but I have to do some work, don’t I?
In other news, I just went through some surgery on wednesday, so I’m not quite sure yet whether I’ll be fit to participate in LD16, but so far I’m feeling really good so I think I’ll be able to make something.

http://pekuja.com/ludumdare/143/globehopper-post-compo-release/

Now with 70% less disorientation!

http://pekuja.com/ludumdare/119/globetrotter/

I’ll make my final submission soon. Not much time left, and at least I’ve got a goal in the game now.

http://pekuja.com/news/106/wikipedia-galaxy-forever/

Now with a playable demo!

http://pekuja.com/ludumdare/100/intergalactic-planetary/

So yeah, I guess I’m still posting in my own blog. Sorry about that.

http://pekuja.com/ludumdare/97/wiki-space/

Still posting in my own blog. I think I’ll post here directly in the future though, unless I can get the syndication hooked up.

I’ve posted about my progress on my blog. Until I get PoV to hook me up with some syndication, here’s a link:

http://pekuja.com/ludumdare/92/wikipedia-mapping/

So, I just woke up a couple of hours ago, and I’m pondering about what to do with the theme. I have a couple of ideas that I’m thinking about now. Here’s a concept image of one of them:

General laziness prevented me from making an actual game, but here are a couple of levels I made, inspired by some games I’ve been playing lately. See if you can guess which ones: