Each stage consists of a set of hand drawn twisty passages and rooms sprinkled with player and weapon spawn points. Lines of sight are fairly choppy. Pacing is fairly pensive, as opposed to fast paced and chaotic. There is no jumping; vertical travel is accomplished via a set of gravity lifts.

I’m not sure what tools we’ll be using. There’s a good possibility we’ll be making this with Flash, however.

I really enjoyed making Autoflotilla for Ludum Dare 19. It’s quite different from anything I’ve ever made before, but the project appeals to me very strongly. I’ve decided to release a post-competition version. What I would like to do is give it a bit more polish and develop the game’s atmosphere. I want to avoid making it more complicated or making it feel cluttered, however, so I’ll try to use a light touch when making additions.

A friend of mine will be contributing some ambient sound to the game.

Other additions will include:

• a curved, rather than flat seascape
• some light regional variations- for instance islands in one area might be shaped differently
• a few visual extras, such as flying creatures
• a few unique landmarks
• looping edges (Asteroids-style toroidal)

All sailors navigating the ocean without a barrel full of apples are in grave danger of developing scurvy

As an aside, there are now visible blocks on ships which are carrying cargo.

The next thing to do is set up some UI for building and creating routes. I’m going to try setting up all the build commands without complicating the controls. I’m currently leaning toward doing it all using only picking up and placing items. For instance, a new route can be created by going to a hub island, picking up a flag, and dropping it off on the destination island.

These might at first glance look suspiciously like blocks, but they are, I assure you, boats.

The core of the game is courageously sailing our little blocky boat about the oceans, discovering new lands and setting up trade routes. As we explore, we set up fleet of automatically controlled cargo ships which sail between continents and islands ferrying supplies and trade goods. Cargo vessels can only travel so far before they need to restock, but only certain islands can resupply them. A large part of the game will be discovering new resupply points and using these to chain together islands into long trade routes.

At this point the game consists of a small archipelago and a few boats which wander aimlessly (and, with no respect for decency or proper collision detection, occasionally sail straight through solid rock).

I was originally going to use one terrain grid for the whole world, but I decided to have each island be a separate chunk of terrain. This gives me a bit more control over placement, and it speeds up rendering. I sank more time than I intended into terrain generation (and I imagine I’ll be sucked into that again before the game is done).

The most fun part so far was setting up the player’s boat and attaching a squishy chase camera to it. I’m trying for a sense of speed without making the distances between islands too small. Vrooom!

Quite possibly with sci-fi hovercrafts as well as boats.

Because of the nature of the game, I’ll be using Processing. Here’s my first screen shot:

http://vacuumflowers.com/temp/Template.zip

I’ve been making electronic computer games for the last several events, and I think it’s high time for a switch to a new platform: the difference engine.

Hello folks. I’ve been tinkering with my entry for a while now, and I’m ready to release a second post-competition version. This is a much more substantial release than the previous, and contains a number of changes which greatly alter the way it plays. The flow between offense and defense still isn’t quite the way I want it to be, so I’ll continue development for at least a few more days. Feedback would be very much appreciated.

Current version: http://vacuumflowers.com/temp/bubble_tag_current

Changes include:

• Defensive walls
• Boulders which supply resources (for repairing walls)
• Bubbles now act as shields
• Bubble size reflects current health- this acts as a HUD-less indicator of health. It also means that the more health we have, the easier we are to hit.
• Part count is now capped- destroy the core of a larger enemy base to upgrade
• Lots of tuning

I would also like to thank HybridMind, who helped test and had some good suggestions.

• lots of tuning
• wider field of view
• circular view
• indicators which display the direction to castles
• improved notification when our castle is attacked
• improved animation for the tiny creatures (the ones that come out of the creature pumps)
• pulsating bubbles
• green enemy bubbles
• carried castle pieces now form a train behind our character
• transition animations for castle building

http://vacuumflowers.com/temp/bubble_tag_current

The next step is a major one- I’m going to alter the flow of the game so castle upgrades are rarer and more significant, and also focus on making sure there’s more of a swing between offense and defense. To accomplish this, I’m currently thinking I’ll add destructible protective walls around castles. These walls would bear the brunt of most attacks, protecting vulnerable turrets and other components. Walls could be repaired by expending resources, which would be collected during exploration. More builds soon!

I’m finally making some sprites for my game. I’m making everything a bit soft and organic. I think I’ll use three frames for everything, and make creatures wobble a bit. Here’s a picture of me drawing the first few objects..

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There are several levels of stationary turrets to discover. There are also replacement cores (which increase the fortress’s component cap), as well as stationary creature pumps which create little swarms of friendly critters. I’m also thinking about a few other ideas, such as minefields and fortifications of various sorts. Moats? Hmm…

Here’s where things stand right now. It doesn’t look like much yet!

I’ll be hanging out in the IRC channel. It will be fun to see everyone’s entries progress over the course of the weekend, and I look forward to all the ensuing craziness.

I’ll be using Flash, and coding in FlashDevelop, with GIMP for any sprites I end up needing. I may do synthesized sound, and if not then I’ll end up using sfxr and Audacity. I’m not using much in the way of pre-existing code, just a simple input class and some really basic UI managers:

vacuumflowers.com/temp/LD18.zip

Deep Under an Island

It’s a simple puzzle game in which we navigate a growing worm through a set of narrow passages. The controls are explained in the game. Do let me know if you have any suggestions feedback, or find any bugs. Now I can go play other people’s games!

As an interesting twist, this Ludum Dare I won’t have internet access for the first few hours of my effort. I’ll be working blind, and hopefully I’ll be able to apply whatever I come up with to the theme once I find out what that is .