My LD#18 game, HackBotz, was the first game I did using Flash.  I felt like it was a pretty good concept, and so when the October challenge came along I was motivated to polish it up a bit, add some levels, and release it into the wild.   A couple of months on Flashgamelicense.com and a few sponsorship offers later, I managed to get a non-exclusive with addictinggames.com which was pretty cool.  It was a good learning experience, and I owe it all to the Ludum Dare compo.  You can play the game here.

My timelapse video for Q-Bers is up. In it you’ll see my kids working on computers too (actually they are playing games).

I’ve just released a post-compo version of Q-Bers which includes the following:

-Puzzles after level 16 are not quite as difficult

-Cubes are a bit larger

-I’ve fiddled with one of the puzzle pictures and made it a bit easier, although not quite as pretty, to solve if you get it in full rotation mode.

Try it here, or checkout my original competition version here.

I have finished writing up the entry for my game and getting the binaries and sources on my public site. If you’re interested, have a look at Q-Bers. It is a puzzle game in which you must manipulate the grid of cubes to reveal a specific picture given a single clue about what is in the picture.

It took longer than I thought, but after a couple of hours I’ve finally sorted out all the cube mesh uv, vertex, and triangle mappings. I can can now map a 2D texture to an array of cubes.  The images you see are just placeholders until I can generate the real ones.  I had to have something to test with.  Now onto getting the clue text up and checking for victory but first… lunch!

Well after a few hours of work tonight, I’m going to bed. The picture doesn’t look like much, but I have figured out how to make a multi-material cube in unity and spin it every which way.  While I can easily make a multi-textured cube in Blender and just import it, that would not be optimal for what I have in mind.  Now I just need to generate the textures to put on the cubes….

I have a few scripts (some gathered and some created) that I plan on using that will help me with basic game functions in Unity. If you are interested, grab it here.

Time for another dose of fun and learning.

My tools

Audio: Audacity, sfxr, sound recorder, musagi?

Framework: Unity3d

Graphics: Paint .NET and the GIMP and perhaps FilterForge

Plugins for Paint .NET: Sprite Sheet Animation Helper

If I use Unity then I’ll probably make use of  the SpriteManager script from the Unify Wiki as well as some of my own framework code. There may also be some iTween usage as well.

I am ever so close to finishing up HAckBotZ. I plan on putting it up for bidding on flashgamelicense.com within the next couple of days.  While technically I will miss the the deadline, I am still quite happy with my progress. Good or bad this will be my first ‘finished’ game, and I credit the October Challenge for motivating me to do it.  There is  something about the LudumDare compos/challenges getting a group of people working towards the same goal and posting about their progress that is quite motivating and fun.

Wow! I’m finished 30 minutes early!   This LD has been a lot of fun.   I learned a lot about Actionscript and Flixel.  There is nothing like a ridiculous deadline to motivate you to learn.  If you’re  interested, checkout my entry: HAckBotZ

Good luck to all those in the compo and also the Jam. I can’t wait to start playing some of the entries!

A comfortable little nook downstairs and away from the noise of the kids.  My main Windows tower sits below the desk (currently running Windows7). The MAC mini I use for iPhone/iPad development

While fiddling with Flixel and Actionscript in preparation for the compo, I have come up with some skeleton code for setting up a standard Flixel game.  It is nothing special really, but in keeping with the rules I have posted the source here.

I plan on participating in the compo.  I’m planning on using the following:

Audio: Audacity and sfxr

Graphics: Paint .NET and The GIMP

I’ll either use Unity3D or I’ll try something different and go with Actionscript/Flixel (if I have the time to look at it).

Ah to be finished with yet another LD. It feels good. My entry is called Eyelands . Basically you are a guy stranded on a large island in the middle of the ocean with a bunch of angry natives.  The idea at the beginning was for it to be a very open-ended game that would be fun to explore and discover stuff. It still has some of that but not nearly to the level that I had envisioned.  Anyway, should you decide to play it, try to hang on for at least 2 minutes (the day to night cycle time in the game).

My Entry for LD17

Okay folks.  Here are a couple of pictures of my work area:

Now it’s off to ponder what to do with islands…..

I have some conflicting commitments this weekend, but I’m gonna still try and crank out something anyway.  My tools of choice:

Unity or Novashell or maybe even LÖVE (http://love2d.org/)

Paint.NET and the GIMP

Audacity and sfxr

Let’s roll!

Get to it from the ratings page or take the direct link to the download.

Well this is my 2nd LD and I must say I thoroughly enjoyed it once again.

Tools I used

Novashell

Paint .NET

Notepad++

Audacity

sfxr

Here are some random thoughts both good and bad about my experience making Bees n Flowers:

• This time instead of spending time trying to do pixel drawings, I drew my graphics freehand, scanned them in, and touched them up using in Paint .NET. I got this process down pretty good and felt pretty good about the results.
• Aside from a few annoying bugs I fought with, the Novashell engine worked out well for me and it also has the advantage of being able to generate both Windows and Mac packages (which I still need to do). I know, Unity can too.

• I had originally intended to learn Unity beforehand and do the game with it, but alas I just … dropped the ball and didn’t get to looking at it until it was too late.
• I really wanted to get random generation of the sequences, and at least one enemy (a wasp)  into the game but was unable to do so before the deadline
• I think the game could have used actual levels that change after you get a certain number of sequences. Then the locations of the flowers could be changed and maybe keep things a little more fresh.
• I had more flower types but they didn’t make it into the game
• I wanted to do more with the flowers as far as player interaction goes but again with the time…
• I had a list of features I wanted in my head, but I still found myself thinking “now what?” every so often

In the end it all comes down to how prepared you are beforehand and how well you manage your 48.  A few things I want to do do better next time:

• Get all my tools installed beforehand and familiarize myself with any new tools I plan to use.
• Figure out my process for generating art and sound and practice executing it.
• A written and prioritized list of the features I want to shoot for broken up further into ‘must haves for a complete game’ and then ‘icing on the cake’ features.

Bees n Flowers is finished.  I didn’t take the time to write any posts during development because I spent all of it … developing.  I had some prior commitments this weekend which cut a large chunk out of my available time, but I finished.  Check it out HERE.  I’ll upload the Mac version tomorrow.  For now … it is off to bed.  Wohoo!

Well. I have company Christmas parties on Friday night and Saturday night, but hopefully I will have enough time to cobble something up.

Game Engine: Either Unity (gotta learn it first), Novashell or maybe even Love

Graphics: Gimp, Paint .NET

Audio: Audacity, sfxr