Ok, gonna hit the sack but here’s what’s happened thus far:

• Built a flexible CityMap class AI/utility toolkit that can “evolve” itself by adding socketed pieces, can rotate them if needed
• Yellow “turrets” shoot bullets if clicked, and they can damage and destroy city pieces. No anims or anything fancy though
• Realtime scaling support, so I can fit big maps on the screen if I want
• Flash target is working, but speed is questionable and huge maps really kill it, have a big update to proton coming though which will speed it up
• Title screen with my trusty old trick, have the game animating stuff in the BG for decoration
• It’s nothing but a screensaver at this point, but you can Click here to try it if ya want

3.5 hours in and still in the concept phase.

I can’t see the gameplay clearly yet, but I have a foggy sort of idea.  It involves me writing some dynamic level generation/growing which sounds fun though.

Making this mockup in photoshop was good though, I mentally ran through the coding stuff I’ll use as I laid it out.

I’ve learned my lesson though, not even going to attempt “real art” this time around due to previous mishaps… ahem.

Play my game here!

Finished my game.. sort of phoned it home though, just wasn’t that excited with what I had.

What went wrong:

• Bad art is bad. Should have chosen a more .. abstract look, more compatible with my (lack of) skillz
• Main mechanic didn’t work well with FP’s built in tile scrolling stuff, and I didn’t feel like writing my own, so instead of re-designing, I sort of just limped along with a simplified version of my idea and just kept the game very short
• I’m still not comfortable with AS3. Have a ways to go there.. but hopefully I won’t have to…

What went right

• My first flash game! Learned a lot this weekend. I like Flashpunk + TweenMax, scheduling functions to be called is something I’ve grown used to in Proton so nice to be able to do that easily here too.
• Made a game that has a story and is winnable. But somewhere along the line it turned into a weird psychological nightmare.
• Using Novashell as the tile editor worked fine, no fuss

That’s right, eat it, namco

I’ve decided to try Flashpunk/AS3 this weekend! By piecing together bits from ChevyRay examples I have a basic platformer system going.

I wanted the “Planet” (player) to be able to eat stuff and scale up sort of katamari style, but this is turning out to be very fiddly, and too easy to get the player stuck if he grows into a wall. Using Box2D or such would probably be a better idea.. hmm.

Anyway, the base puzzle mechanics sort of work but aren’t fun at all.

Name Change

First, I’ve switched my LD handle from mrfun to SethR to match my IRC name and generally avoid confusion. Hopefully nothing explodes by doing that.

LD World Map improvements

I’ve improved my LD World Map plugin a bit, it’s now larger and has a filter to only show people that have posted in the last year. What’s that you say, you’re not on the map? Well go add yourself now!

Ok, got off my bum and did a OSX compile. So try Looney Ladders today!

Windows – OSX

Zoomed out! Click for more detail

Can now actually win and lose levels!  Added a cheap-ass main menu with level select.

I’ll have a few hours tomorrow morning to somehow magically tweak gameplay to be more fun, do music, add more baddies.  (Design calls for three, only  have one, and I’m just using a tinted hero sprite at that!)

Want went right today:

• Whipped out really cool random level generation algo, it guarantees that each part of the building is accessible.  Really, I guess I made sort of a side-view maze generator.
• Added zoom settings per level – The screenshot above is zoomed way out.. I might leave a level like that just for fun, even though it’s hard to play that way.  An unexpected consequence of zooming out is it sort of minimizes the bad artwork.
• Main menu works, took a detour to make it all keyboard controllable so you don’t have to keep switching back to the mouse.  It’s the little things. Plus, this is going to be a Proton SDK sample eventually so I want its code to be usefully copyable

What went wrong:

• Bad art is bad
• Original design wasn’t much fun, dumped half of it.. better, but it still not there
• Behind schedule..  feeling bad that I skipped weekend ultimate frisbee with Cosmo (my kid) for like the first time in a year.. you’re a cruel master, LD.
• Still have no real cosmetic theme or name to tie everything together.  it’s just so generic and I HATE generic.  Dream self, please figure this out during tonight’s repose
• Connection to the “Discovery” theme feels weak

Well, I’ve got elevators up the yang.  I did some character “art” for walking and climbing ladders.  Yeah, that’s a walk frame above, what the heck ??

Maybe I can somehow explain the weird visuals by adding a story element about the main character having to deal with a deformity and back problems.  See, that’s how real gamedev works, kids.

The apartment building is randomly generated and I’m looking forward to trying some big ones with dead ends, enemies, and treasures.

Still have too much to do at this point to feel anything but iffy, but after adding some sfx it at least “feels” pretty good to run around the level.  When the character walks there is this donkey-kong like sound effect.

Thanks, sfxr!

Quitting for the night, will be back in irc bright and early to try to turn this into something.  (I’m SethR in #ludumdare)

Well, I sort of have this elevator action type spy game where you need to unlock doors and find the “data”.  But after doing this uninspired artwork and I’m just totally unmotivated.   Will try to keep going though…

Going to use that awesome cross platform framework p+

I decided to upgrade the Irrlicht component at the last minute and it’s half broken.. oops, one hour to fix! Not sure if I want to use it though…

2d or 3d?  Optimize for touch so I can release for mobiles too or not?  QUESTIONS!!!?!?!  Nice to have choices I guess.

Tools:  MSVC++, sfxr, mic (or is still broken?), midi keyboard

I cleaned up my entry a bit, added some sound, changes the rules and added 100% less crashing.

Oh, and I changed the name to “The Hardest Text Game In The World”.  If you’ve played it, you know why.

Can you score 100 points?

Grab it here (for Win).  I did a sort of post-mortem here.

I really like this theme so I’m throwing something together here between family duties… not sure if I’ll make the official deadline or not.

Here is my screenshot, you can sort of see what I’m going for here… it’s a word association game made from wikipedia data that is loading in the background as you play.

In the pic, underlined words are “correct”, but that is temporary… going to show hits/misses on the left side of the screen later.

Unless I limit to certain categories or something, it’s going to be .. weird… I sort of like the complete insanity of it so I might leave it “very” random.

So.. pretty simple concept, but would like to bring it up to a level of polish where it really “works”.

I’m using my iPhone framework, but targeting windows for now.

Fan (?) made youtube video showing why you must play (or avoid?) my LD entry Mind Wall before time runs out!

Twist your brain into unlikely shapes as you dare to engage the Mind Wall in battle.  Will you be the first to work your way through its labyrinth of pain, and at what price, your SANITY?!

** HINTS **

No matter how impossible a level looks, I guarantee you there is ALWAYS a solution.

You can use Alt-Enter to toggle windowed/fullscreen mode.

Edit the command_line.txt file to change the screen resolution if you want.  (1920 by 1200 is niiice)

Check the readme.txt for more info, and the /source dir for sources.

For music I used Sonar with the “Dimension” soft synth, using an Evolution MK-461C for control.

For sfx, I used sfxr, of course.

Downloads:

Update April 20th: If you are not an LD judge, you should download these slightly improved versions instead

Update June 27th: Get Mind Wall for iPhone!

Original Compo versions:

Windows

OS X (universal binaries)

NOTE:  Meh, there is a minor cosmetic bug that makes the “congrats, you won” text hard to read… there is a work around though, after you’ve unlocked the last level, quit and restart, your progress will be saved and when (or should I say, IF?!!)  you win the text will look right.    (Thanks to 5arrowhawk)

Coming along and surprisingly mostly on schedule despite some extra curricular activities.. (did I really need to imbibe three beers at a kids birthday party at 3 PM?  This is Japan, that’s all I can say…)

95% done, so I’m just going to sleep and hope I wake up in time to polish and submit like usual.

1 AM, time to hit the sack.

Lot of behind the scenes mathy stuff was taken care of, including the wall/level generator but still oh so much to do if I want this to look anything like the thing I’m seeing in my head…

General reminder: Why not impress your mom and put yourself on the Ludum Dare World Map?!

A delicious (?!) meal of pig entrails and seaweed.  This was NOT part of my gameplan but I guess the wife has her own plan to sabatage me with inedible food… !!