I've worked as a games programmer over the past 12 years on a variety of platforms, with the last five projects as lead programmer. It seems in my early years I was very fortunate, as I had few canned (canceled) projects. I like to think through hard work and diligence I'm catching up with the average.
About Robert Swan
Entries
Ludum Dare 23 | Ludum Dare 17 |
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Robert Swan's Archive
Finished…
…but not without some missing stuff. Had to drop 2 tiny worlds, although the gameplay isn’t affected the physical distribution of the worlds is a bit odd. And there is no audio or skybox.
BUT I’m genuinely pleased with the result. Some of the puzzles are actually pretty darned decent so I’m quite chuffed. Should be enough to get people happy to play! Same screenshot link – but more pictures uploaded. Hope there aren’t spoilers in there! http://www.aahgames.com/downloads/ludumdare23/screens/
Link to my entry: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-23/?action=preview&uid=1845
Have fun!
More screenshots – it’s getting there!
Still doubt I’ll get audio in, but I’ve added some more screenshots. Once I put in a skybox or something I know the “feel” will change lots. looking forward to it!
http://www.aahgames.com/downloads/ludumdare23/screens/
Here’s one of the latest now…

Some work in progress screenshots…
I take screens semi regularly and upload them here…
http://www.aahgames.com/downloads/ludumdare23/screens/
although here’s one of the latest as of posting

Track my progress from this google doc…
Decided to track my work, and then realised with google docs I can let people see it – like a text only version of a webcam. So pretty dull then
Here’s the link:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cPx6tPQtEwR–WubBR0XSHKSfjrwgj80hRa54wosOBI/edit
Here’s my base game code…
…if I decide to use it!
Last time I wrote everything from scratch but it was hard and I might only get 24 hours this year – so I decided to take apart my indie game Diorama to create a bare bones environment. This was a far bigger deal than expected as removing the licensed network component hurt! The base code contains land generation and saving, player collision, raycasting, boolean modification of the scenery (left + right mouse buttons) and particles.
While this seems quite a bit for base code, I know its the equivalent of a few clicks in GameMaker or Unity so philosophically I feel happy
http://www.aahgames.com/downloads/ludumdare23/ the windows Visual Studio 2008 projects and files and also a working Windows executable for you to test (output/latest/exe_client.exe)

LD 17 entry “Aah Little Atlantis” now converted to Flash for everyone!
Having converted my PC XNA LD17 game to the Xbox 360 via XBLIG, I next used it as a learning experience for Flash. With flixel I’ve now got a browser version (with some improvements to the game, such as medals) so everyone who wanted to judge it during LD17 but couldn’t can now see how little they missed out!
LD 17 entry “Aah Little Atlantis” out now on Xbox 360
My entry into LD17 got tarted up, fixed a bit, had sounds added, was lengthened a tad, is more girthy, and has just come out on the Xbox 360. It’s in the Indie Games section now so thought I’d pass on the information. There’s an 8 minute free demo, so all those who couldn’t play my entry because it was XNA can now not play my entry because it’s on Xbox!
Instructions on how to find the demo on a 360 here.
It costs less than a dollar to buy.
Timelapse of Aah Little Atlantis development
Not great quality, and as you can see I spend very little time with art assets and level editor. The video is only 1:09 long
I can’t live, if living is without desk shot…

Dark picture of a messy desk
XNA for coding, PaintDotNet for gfx, sfxr for audio (I expect), mappy for level editing (if I go 2d route) and using an already existing simple 2d game as a base. I’ll spend the next hour stripping out everything to get a clean base. I’ll hopefully be doing a timelapse desktop recording (no webcam though), and code snapshots every hour or thereabouts when its running. I may check it works on xbox every so often, although if I do put it out (and sell it on XBLIG!) that will come later…
This is my first LD, so no idea what to expect. The photo also shows that Monster Hunter will be played in the background by the girlfriend to sort of keep me company, and also that my desk looks far smaller and messier than I expected.



