I missed LD 19. I bombed LD 18. I did well in LD 17. My debut was LD 16.

I’m going to turn this around and make LD20 my biznatch.

Something is different this time. I can… feel it. But I can’t quite put my finger on it. It feels like we’re going where the going is gonna be gone before we even get there. Maybe we’re blazing blindly towards a blank horizon on the backs of beasts of burden… oh so brazenly. Maybe this time… Maybe this time… things are gonna be different.

Or perhaps I’m wrong. Perhaps we’re all just milling about in an incandescent pool of transendental insubstantiation.

Either way, I’M IN IT TO WIN IT.

I have a full suite of tools and I’m not sure what I’ll be doing.
XNA, Unity, Game Maker, Python, Flash…
Maya, 3DSMax, Mudbox, Zbrush, Motion Builder, Photoshop, Gimp…
Pro Tools, FL Studio, SFXR…

See ya on the battlefield, suckaz.

Well, thanks to some stormage, I haven’t had an internet connection since yesterday afternoon. I just now saw the theme. Internet is still out, so don’t expect any updates from me during the compo. I may not even be submitting a game if I can’t find a way to upload in time.

The theme is great, and I’m looking forward to playing the games, regardless of whether or not I can submit something.

Have fun!

SAVORY SEA HOSS ended up being a complete success for me. I say this for 3 very important reasons.

1) I set out to make a game with an objective that could actually be reached (unlike my LD16 entry), and I wanted to include SFX and MUSIC (unlike my LD16 entry)

2) I wanted to make something visually and mechanically unique

3) I wanted to make something FUN / FUNNY

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teh savory

Chicken Tenders + Garlic Toast + French Fries + Ranch Dipping Sauce + Cole Slaw + Boylan’s Birch Beer + Totoro Mouse Pad + LUDUM DARE 17 = A GREAT SUNDAY AFTERNOON

It’s the FINAL stretch, and I’m getting a late start today. I had to grab some grub and take my dog for a walk, where she proceeded to take her sweet time as I envisioned features and polish going down the drain along with the possibility of a good song. SO HERE WE ARE. STRAPPED UP ON THE INTERNET. TRYIN NOT TO FEEL IT TOO HARD.

LET’S GO!

ALRIGHT! After a full day of work, I have the core mechanics down. They work, and they work well. I need to add a few little extras (pickups / powerups) along with some type of HUD, a few more island designs, a couple more castaway sprites, a title screen, an ending screen, and a song. I already have most of the SFX in place, but I want to record a few more tomorrow. I SHOULD be able to wrap this up, unlike last time, where I ended up with 10 percent of the ideas I was trying to implement.

Savory Sea Hoss

After hours upon hours of struggling to come up with an idea that satisfied me, I decided to go with SAVORY SEA HOSS, a high seas adventure about a radical guy with radical intentions.  You deliver delicious goodness to castaways hungering for tastiness. The only catch is… Sea Hoss has terrible aim, and he’s been known to accidentally murder the very people he’s trying to save. KEEP YOUR MURDER PERCENTAGE DOWN AND YOUR SAVORY SAVIOR PERCENTAGE UP IN THIS GOOFY ISLAND-THEMED ROMP STARRING A PURPLE THING WITH AN ORANGE VEST.

All stupidity aside, the game looks kinda neat with the ‘squigglevision’ / Crayola art style I’ve chosen.

It’s also funny seeing starving castaways getting pegged in the head with hotdogs and falling into the ocean.

I MAY ACTUALLY FINISH ON TIME!

WITH MUSIC AND SOUND EFFECTS!

MAYBE!!!

I want my game to look like THIS. Will it happen?

So… here’s what my art style will be. HA! Looks like I won’t be finishing my game.

AGAIN.

OK, so I submitted the game with 3 minutes to spare, and I’m no longer a Ludum Dare newbie. But why do i feel so… BLAH? I need to get away from the computer for a while, I think…

My game didn’t end up where I wanted it to, but that’s OK. I still managed to create a great foundation that I can continue to build upon. The game has serious potential, I think. It needs more refinement, content, and story, of course… but isn’t that the case with all games? I wanted to make at least ONE song for the game, but I just didn’t have enough time. I don’t even have any sound effects yet. I had music constantly playing during the development of Soulspark, so I never really noticed until I played my ‘final’ version. It’s terribly quiet, so please… if you play my game… put some music on.

Since the theme is all about EXPLORING, Soulspark is a laid-back, no-action kind of experience. No enemies and no weapons. Just you and the world. OH, and your constantly depleting battery power that you have to recharge. Think Wall-E meets Fallout… then throw it head first into Metroid… and suck out all of the action. Does it make a fun game? Maybe not at this point… but like I said… the potential is there.

Soulspark game page

So crunch time is OVER, which means it’s time to EAT!

The greatest food photos of Ludum Dare 16 AFTER THE BREAK:

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I’m a Ludum Dare newbie, and I’ve fallen victim to that total bastard, Father Time. I had too many ideas and I tried to implement them all, and it has put me in a terrible situation. I won’t be able to complete this game in the way that I previously wanted. Instead, I will have to cut the story short and leave the player with a cliff hanger. Hopefully the story will prove to be interesting enough to justify this decision. I plan to keep working on this game after LD16 is complete, but I intend to get it to a solid, presentable state by the deadline.

The HUD system took the most of my time, as I planned to implement a deep collection of menus and inventory screens. The foundation is there, I just don’t have time to put it all to use, unfortunately.

While planning for LD16, I tossed around a few ideas that involved my suggested theme, UNWANTED POWERS, and the EXPLORATION theme. There were also a few themes in the list that revolved around a post-apocalyptic scenario, so those have been floating around in my brain for a while. It seems as though I ended up going with a Wall-E meets Fallout type of experience where your goal is to scour the land and figure out what happened. It’s kind of rad, but isn’t very exciting at the moment. You just kind of… explore. There are no enemies at this point, and I’m not sure if I need them. The theme IS exploration, after all.

Also… I was hoping to record at least ONE song for this game, but I don’t see that happening.

Here’s a quick screenshot to prove that I actually have something.

ZAXBY’S + BLUE MOON + LUDUM DARE

Lunch is over. On to phase TWO.

Time to get serious.

I spent my first 3 hours designing the main character and coming up with an art style. I then coded the basic character movement and added a particle effect during the following 4 hours. Add in some playtesting, IRC, and blog reading and you’re looking at my entire Friday night.

I’m super tired, so I think it’s time to hit the sack. I can only hope that I remain this productive tomorrow.

Ludum Dare 16 is: GO.

My stomach is: OMG.

Muy bueno roll is: DELICIOUS

See you on the battlefield, suckaz.

High quality close-up:

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b246/SonnyBone/Ludum%20Dare%2016/closeup1.jpg

So yeah, I suggested 3 themes for LD16.  I ‘accidentally’ suggested POWER OUTAGE CALAMITY in a comment on the main news page. I don’t count that one, because I never actually added it to the Wiki myself. It just kind of ended up there somehow.  I suggested UNWANTED POWERS which came out on top in the first round, which is pretty rad.

However… my favorite suggestion didn’t make the cut, and I can only weep for what could’ve been.

RIP, best theme ever.

(doubles as my workspace photo post. so ha!)

What’s up, all you game design suckaz and suckazettes out there?

I come from a land where the word ‘SUCKA’ is term of endearment, and things that are ‘RAD’ are of the utmost importance. Radical dudes with attitudes are constantly abound, swinging from the hip with the tip of their fingers on the pulse of this cutting-edge badassery known as LUDUM DARE. Prepare for the pinnacle of our programming ponderosa!

My name is SonnyBone and this will be my very first Ludum Dare competition. I’ll be hanging out in the IRC and posting some bloggage along the way, so I’m sure we’ll see a lot of one another. I want to find enough time to fit in at least one custom song for my game, but I feel as though I’m already becoming too ambitious. Rookie mistake on the horizon? Perhaps.

Either way, we’re gonna see some awesome games next week, and that makes me very happy.

LONG LIVE LUDUM DARE!