Things have been pretty hectic for me recently and I’m hoping to have a slight lull I can use to fit this coming LD48 into!

Won’t know for sure until the day it start so fingers crossed.

If I do manage to get the ball rolling I’ll still only have limited time due to unavoidable work restrictions… so I’ll have to focus on something really simple I think.

I’ll be using:

• Unity3D + some plugins .. chosen based on the game I decide to make
• Photoshop
• Audacity + sfxr
• 3dsmax if I need 3d
• And maybe TimelineFX if I need any sprite effects

I’ll also try to stream/timelapse the whole thing.

I’m hoping to focus on some interesting gameplay this time. Visuals will probably minimal … who knows!

Got a game that runs in browser or on mac? Send me the link!

Been about only about 1 in every 5 with mac/web builds so far..

Time to blurt a bit about my experiences during the recent LD48 event!

So overall I’m pretty happy with how everything went considering I had a chunk of time taken out of the event at the start. I didn’t get to polish the game as much as I’d like. Adding animations and more level variations and secondary phases would have been really nice.

For this LD I really wanted to make sure I didn’t over-extend myself on concept and gameplay mechanics. I found this theme a lot harder than I should have! Having too many ideas is worse than having too few! I eventually decided on a simple infinite runner style game. I’ve never been that great with story and such so I just ignored it.. >_>

The main problem I came across was the failure of my sound recording equipment! I didnt want to get bogged down in trying to sort it out so I just ditched it all and switched to the sfxr generation styles. As a result the audio is a bit crappy!

So the result works… it’s definitely a game!

Next time I might try making something a bit more left-field. Something weird and arty maybe……meanwhile here’s the obligatory time lapse:

So here we are! I’ve completed another LD48. (only my second)

I survived this one a lot better than the first! Knowing what to expect is pretty crucial… but saying that I still had issues

Check me out!

I’ll write a bit of a post-mortem later…. and I’ve got a time lapse lying around here somewhere…..

but for now I need some coffee

SO it seems to be going along OK so far.

I think I should manage to finish.. not sure how fun it will be tho!

here’s a recent SS

Pausing for a breath before I jump into a big bunch of coding …..

latest ss from my time lapse capture..

So I was setting up my dev environment for this weekend… and I decided to make a little test ‘game’ … check it out here… made this in a couple of hours:

http://blunt-instrument.com/imin.html
Tools I will be using:

•  Unity 3D  (with plugins like RageSpline, Playmaker, Vectrosity, EZGui, iTween)
• Visual studio
• Photoshop
• Audacity
• TimelineFX
• sfxr
• 3dsmax(maybe)

And here are some images of my desk and myself getting pumped…

I’m going to stick to 2D this time I think. See how the theme inspires me.

Unfortunately I’ll be a bit late starting due to work commitments but other than that I’ve cleared my schedule and hopefully I can make something worth playing this time! I learnt a lot last time and hopefully I don’t get bogged down in some minor detail again.

It’s so late I should go to sleep to prepare!

/out

Wow! Already another LD48 on the door step! I almost forgot.

Excited and sad because my commitment levels are maxxed out at the moment. I think i’ll miss the first 5-10 hours of the comp! noooooo!

I may also be slightly hung-over with my little brother having his 21st bday party the night before the comp starts.

Either way it’s time to prep the tools and find my game face. More to come

So I had a lot of issues with the recording… first time I’ve done this sort of thing and all :S

Ended up losing a bunch of the data. Very annoying but ah well.

Check it out anyway! The best bits were the ones that I lost …of course

video link

my entry

until next time!

Well I’ve had some time to think whilst getting the time lapse finished… here’s a short post mortem on my first ever LD48 event!

my entry

What went well:

- The tools I chose all performed well and provided no barriers to getting the game done. I hadn’t done a lot of work with a couple of the tools I used so it was good to get more familiar with them from this process.

- I got the game to a playable state (that said… it doesnt have the gameplay features I originally desired). Touching all the major bases (sound, visuals, code, animation,  fx, music).  I can always work on it again at a later stage and see where it ends up.

- I had fun!

What didnt go so well:

- I really had trouble with the theme. My mind keep going to zombie and ‘last man standing’ games but I didnt really want to make one of those. I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to make … I had a game idea in my mind and on paper but it ended up being too complicated to get enough of the core mechanics working well enough to make it fun. I ended up chopping out almost all of the unique little obstacles and traps that I didn’t have time to get right.

- My time management was poor. I got lost in time experimenting on a couple of FX / textures … meh at least it was fun! And I also lost a lot of time to pre-commitments and my little bubba Claire!  I had a work Christmas party on the Saturday night…. doesn’t mix too well with game dev.

- Sleep + eating habits: Next time I’ll be making more time to sleep and follow my usual eating habits rather than disregarding sleep and eating junk at the computer.

- I probably needed to make a game that wasn’t so content driven. An even more abstract and simplified idea would have been better.

Summary:

Looking forward to the next one!!! Bring it!

Well…. that was interesting.

Very little sleep and came out with something nowhere near what the original idea was.

The end was just trying to make things work and cutting out feature after feature after feature!

ah well I guess thats the name of the game. At least I got something finished.

Now ive gotta try sort out the time lapse … think it broke down a bit :’(

Ludum dare status: idea evolving. Not much progress yet. Aiming to have a simple level working by the end of tonight…. Will iterate from there.

finally moving towards something!

aaaaaaaarrghghghgh

now wtf do i do?

…..

http://livestre.am/1b44J

cmon!

Ready to go

Off to bed and then it’s time to rock out!

I’ll be using:

VS 2010

Unity3D with SpriteManager2, iTween

Photoshop

3dsmax 2010

TimelineFX

Audacity

sfxr

not sure how I’m gonna make music… maybe on the ipad app Rhythm Studio

dont know if it will be 3d or 2d but those tools should cover both

Why?

Why not?

I think I’ll live stream this event….. I’m sure noone will watch it but I don’t really care.

meanwhile… locked in my time off…

LD48 here I come

http://livestre.am/1b44J

First time and all…..

The days tick down and I’m starting to get nervous about this whole thing.

Work seems to be hectic and my time off is in doubt.

…..Who knows if I’ll be able to spend enough of the limited time actually doing dev stuff!

i think ill go into this without and pre-planned idea, blank canvas ftw

bring it!

Planning to use Unity3d, Photoshop, sfxr, another tool i cant remember the name of……. and maybe 3dsmax too