Quantity over quality? Yow! I’m down for that!

Here’s what that looks like for me:

• Python and Pygame
• Microgames
• Sounds made by me into my microphone in Audacity and reused
• Microgames
• Dance music (for me, not for the game)
• Microgames

Look out for epic tales such as…

• Click the red square!
• Leave the room!
• Solve the math!
• Click the moving circle!
• Jump the gap!

These tales of bravery, courage, and heroism plus many more will be my contributions to Mini-LD #32.

Peace, love, and a sweet hot beat,

- Henry

So here we are. Ludum Dare 22 is over.

I didn’t finish.

I’m going to try to stay positive.

What Went Well

I was reasonably familiar with the processes behind making the art; I have made pixel art before, even though it’s not usually my style.

I had a pretty solid idea, as well.

What Didn’t Go Well

I was too ambitious for the time. I didn’t have basecode. I chose something that required too much art. I changed platforms halfway through. I did a lot of things wrong, okay?

Seriously, though, most of what could have gone wrong went wrong. I don’t want to talk about it in detail.

What I’ve Learned

So… here’s the part that isn’t so negative.

I’ve learned that my ideas are often too ambitious for my time and resources. I try to do two weeks’ work in a weekend and I suffer for it.

I’ve learned that I need to choose whether I want to make lots of art or write my own basecode. I can’t do both, which is what I tried to do. I’m going to make that choice from now on, at least in Ludum Dare.

I’ve learned to prepare. I had the warmup weekend, but I didn’t do it the way I should have. I could’ve avoided these mistakes.

I’ve learned that I should be ready to surrender an idea if it isn’t working out. The main reason that I didn’t finish was that I wouldn’t give up my original idea (even when I said that I would) and wound up losing hope at around 8h before the jam deadline, getting distracted, and not finishing.

I’ve learned that I need to stick to a d*mn platform. I failed partly because I derped and decided to switch to a completely different platform. I switched to C++ and SDL, which was a big part of why I failed.

I’ve learned that I don’t enjoy these big projects that much. When the deadline came, I looked at what I had, flopped back into my bed and thought “Thank Sekhmet that’s over with, now I can let that thing go!” I didn’t want to continue with the game that I was working on, and I still don’t.

Where to Go From here

I’m going to move away from these huge projects. It’s really killing me to work on these things and not get anywhere.

I’m considering moving to app development. I can develop a simple game in less than a month, be finished with it, and move on. With publishers like the Chrome App Store and eventually Android and iOS, I stand to make a little bit of money from my work instead of laboring for years on one big thing and not getting anywhere.

Hopefully, developing smaller games will be more fun for me.

People in IRC can expect me to ask them to playtest some of these games, certainly. It’ll be great fun, I think.

Peace, love, and nowhere to go but up,

- Henry

Well, I’ve done it again. I’ve wasted a bunch of time, and now I’m likely not going to finish.

Well, failure was always an option.

I’m not going to give up!

I’m in until the end.

I have some new goals for my game. I’m going to try my hardest to get these done.

• Player movement: Walk, run, and jump
• Level terrain: Simple tileset and three rooms
• Ending: Maybe an ending scene, maybe just “You win!”

That’s about it, really.

I’m really wishing that I hadn’t wasted all the time that I did.

I won’t give up, though.

More after the break!

(more…)

So here’s how my day went:

Alarm clock did not wake me. Apparently, it did go off, but I slept through it. Woke up at 11AM, 4h later than I wanted to.

I’ve been working for 4h now, since I lost 4h this morning due to oversleeping.

I have a dark gray rectangle that sits there and does nothing. I have a tiny amount of work done on a tilemap for terrain. I have no art or sound. I don’t even know how to do sound in HTML5; I’ve never done it before. Art will take me several hours at least. Some of the traps are things I’ve never implemented before, such as crushing traps.

I’ve got low hopes that I’ll finish. I’m determined to get something submitted. It might now be a presentable game, and it probably won’t score well.

I’m really angry with myself right now. I lost too much time this morning and now I’m paying for it.

I don’t know whether to sleep tonight. I know that if I do, I’ll oversleep horribly on Monday morning, just like I overslept this morning. This really sucks.

I’m sorry to be so negative, but I’m really angry with myself about oversleeping and getting so little done.

I’m unlikely to succeed. I want to clarify that. I’ll fight on, but I’m starting to lose hope. I’ll be happy to have something playable at this point.

No peace or love this time, too bummed out,

- Henry

I’ve got my idea all set, and now I’m coding.

The title of the game is “Desolate” and it is what would be called a “platform hell” or “masocore platformer” sort of game.

The idea is that it is incredibly difficulty to beat, even more so than most hard games. Think of I Wanna be the Guy or Super Meat Boy. That kind of difficulty.

I don’t have much of anything yet. I have a rectangle container that can do collision checks and some simple collision response, a game state container and a game world that can update and draw themselves, and a running update loop.

I’m using HTML5 and JavaScript, so it will be a web game. It won’t require a plugin, but it will require an up-to-date browser. If you’ve got FireFox or Chrome, you’re probably fine. If you’ve got Internet Explorer (why the #$@% would you, by  the way?) you’ll need version 9 for this game to work.

I don’t have much of anything to show for my work yet, though. Stay tuned for more!

Peace, love, and web scripting,

- Henry

PS: I’ve taken McFunkypants’ kitten challenge, but because of the way this game will work it’ll be very hard to get to the kitten. Expect it to be heart-warming. That is all.)

LD IS ON!

It’s that time we’ve waited for…

Let’s get started!

Nobody Blink…

Can you survive this deadly fight?

Come on! Man up!

Forget danger! You won’t be safe anway!

Go for broke!

TRIUMPH!!!

OR!!

DIE!!!

I was going to post a picture of my regular old desk. But then I decided, “no, I can do better. I can do much better.”

Pictures after the break!

(more…)

I’ve decided several things about my LD entry, and these are final.

• I will use JavaScript and HTML5 for my game
• I will try to spend the jam day on a nice page for the game
• I will not decide on my game concept until the theme is announced
• I will not change ideas half-way through (not this time)
• I will not give up, I will never surrender

I have some promises for everyone here, especially those who know me.

This time, things are different. This time, this time, this time I will give it my all.

However…

Failure is always an option!

Peace, love, and courage in the face of the inevitable,

- Henry

Well, I’ve decided on some parameters to guide the design of the “microgames” that I want to make for LD.

Hey there, folks.

So, I have nothing visible on Paper Glide. But… I do have much of my base code done and I have my libraries sorted out. The canvas is working, and there is a main loop. This is going well so far.

More tonight if anything happens. Otherwise, tomorrow.

Peace, love, and web scripting,

- Henry

I have my warmup game concept. In it, you throw a paper airplane, trying to get it past obstacles and land it in a basket at the end of the course.

There will be three types of planes and many types of obstacle.

This Monday at 12:00AM GMT (well, around then), I plan to have the base gameplay as well as a few demo courses.

I will expand it beyond that after the weekend. I’m giving myself until the 23rd to have this complete, but I’m  going to have at least the base gameplay done by Monday at 12:00AM GMT.

ARGH. I’m starting to really… dislike… Processing. I really am.

So back to JavaScript and HTML5!

I’m glad I sorted this before LD proper.

I’ll make a thing…

Peace, love, and web scripting,

- Henry

I’m up for a warmup jam. Count me in!

I’ll make some kind of dirt-simple game, probably using Processing so that I can get familiar with it.

Expect something along the lines of “go get the item” or “avoid the thing” rather than an epic thing.

Peace, love, and minimalism,

- Henry

There are too many posts with this title! Be creative, huh?

Yes, creative. Be original. Look at that URL. infinity-plus-one indeed.

You guys can do better, I know you can.

Peace, love, and heaps of scorn

- Henry

I’ve recently been playing with Processing and will probably use it for LD22.

I have an ambitious plan, you see…

I’m going to try to make microgames. My initial goal is 4-5, but if that doesn’t take too long, I’ll keep making them.

I’m going to enter the jam to give myself more time, as I’m not sure how long it will take me to make these.

The microgames themselves will be similar to those in the WarioWare series or the Five Second Frenzy/Fury/Firestorm trilogy. Each will have a short duration and a single, stated objective. I’m hoping it goes well.

Peace, love, and a single, stated objective,

- Henry

I’m in for LD22. Absolutely.

I’ve been experimenting with JavaScript, which will likely be my tool of choice. I will need to find a place for hosting JavaScript apps, though… :/

That being said, I’m in. Absolutely.

I’ve been playing with Stencyl in the past few days, and I’ve decided that I will make a practice game.

I decided to check out Stencyl because I’ve thought for a long time that I don’t like point ‘n click game development tools. After trying Stencyl, I’ve decided that I was wrong; Stencyl is loads of fun!

So, the practice game.

The premise is this: Two adventurers are delving into a dungeon to defeat a dragon. You switch between the two and try to get both to the exit of each level. The character you aren’t using at the moment is guided by AI and you can give commands to the other character, as well.

There are two characters: A guy who can throw things and a girl who can wall-jump. They are used together to solve puzzles and navigate the levels. Their abilities will factor into the final boss battle, as well. They also each have a sword and a shield.

I’m hoping to have this done by Sunday night.

Peace, love, and inspiration,

— Henry

(Edit: Quick spelling fix)

Well, as it turns out, my netbook’s graphics card’s lack of Linux support has doomed my entry from the start.

I’m really upset about it.

So here’s what I’m going to do: I’ll think of something for tomorrow and do it as a jam entry. It won’t be pretty, but it’ll be a game.

Until then, I’m out. Not forfeiting, not quitting, but letting this game go for now.

I’ll post again in the morning.

Peace, love, and another day’s fight,

— Henry

So… Toward the end of the first day. I have a player model with no texture that is only partly skinned. It is displayed on the screen, but it’s not attached to an entity yet.

I have an entity class that holds a model and a hitbox and an actor class that extends it with movement. I have a world that holds entities and a scene that holds a world. I have several utility functions, as well. I also have a data manager that can load models (animated or static) with specific textures.

I have a base application class that can resize its window and update the current scene.

Here’s my promise: I will make this into a game, no matter what. I’m in the jam, so I have a little over two more days.

Here’s what I promise:

• Complete player model with crappy hand-painted texture and basic animations
• A player character who can run and jump
• Terrain that the player can move around in
• At least three rooms to move through

I am dedicated to producing those things at this point. Everything beyond that is speculation. I will make this into a game, even if it’s a very simple one.

Peace, love, and Sekhmet’s blessings,

— Henry

I made a model of the protagonist for my game. It doesn’t have a texture yet (hand-drawing in blender!) but it is shaped the way I want it.

Here’s a render:

238 polygons of untextured, partially rigged glory