I have written my postmortem for loot run. The link is http://blazinggames.blogspot.ca/2013/05/loot-run-postmortem.html

Quick summary for those who don’t want to read the article:
What went right – Keeping to the minimalism theme
What went right and wrong – Text and the garbage issue
What went wrong – 150ms keystrokes.

Unfortunately I only had a day to work on it. I was hoping to have a few more hours today to create more levels for the game but that was not meant to be so as I may not be back I am submitting this early. The game focuses on the theme by not having graphics or sounds but instead focusing on simple game mechanics. The title/instructions are actually incorporated into the gameplay. Submission link is http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-26/?action=preview&uid=15656.

Screenshot, as if one is really needed for a text game, is below. Will be writing a postmortem on Thursday.

I am not entirely sure I will have an entire weekend to work on this but am still going to try and get something done. With that said, the theme will determine which set of tools I use. Various CS6 tools will be used (flash pro/flash builder if go with flash, dreamweaver for HTML and additional ones if needed). Tiled, Audacity, and cfxr are other tools in my box. My gamejam library that I am developing is still very primitive but as I may be using it, the link is http://blazinggames.com/other/openLibrary/html5Libs.php  and it is built on top of the starling library. If I go with HTML5, I will be using the createjs library.

Good luck everyone.

Just finished posting my Whale of a Tale postmortem. The link is http://blazinggames.blogspot.com/2013/04/whale-of-tale-postmortem.html

For those who don’t follow links or want to read my blog entry, the summary:
What went right is going with a non-player violent game.
What went right and wrong was the game balance.
What went wrong was hospital delay.
Conclusion added to my ever growing revisit if have time list.

My Mini-LD#41 entry has been posted. The page it is on is http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/minild-41/?action=preview&uid=15656 I used the more lenient jam rules when creating this (had someone do the art for me, but due to family issues she was only partially able to get stuff done) but as this is a mini I am sure that doesn’t matter. The game has you trying to keep a whale alive for as long as possible. Eating keeps your energy up, which lets you move faster. Will post a postmortem next week.

I have finished my entry for Mini-LD#40. The entry page is http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/minild-40/?action=preview&uid=15656 but for some reason it doesn’t appear to show up on the list of entries. I am assuming it is simply some type of delay issue and will check later. The game is called DNA and you have to assemble matching DNA sequences to the ones that are shown. For the real-world component of the game I am using real human DNA data for both the sequences that have to be matched and for the title music.

Just starting on my Mini-LD#40 game. I have chosen Human DNA to be the real-world aspect to my game. I am taking a chunk of real DNA data which will be used in the game. The game is simple enough that I should have no problems finishing. I hope to have an alpha to post later this afternoon and the beta this evening.  Sunday will be fine-tuning. Progress reports will be done on Twitter if anybody cares.

Tools: Flash Professional, Audacity (+ Dreamweaver for web page).

May port to HTML5 in which case I will be using the CreateJS library.

Good luck to everyone else entering this mini. Lets hope there are more than a dozen this time.

Finished writing my postmortem for the CRA Agent game that I created for the CRAJam. The full text of the postmortem is located at http://blazinggames.blogspot.com/2013/02/cra-agent-postmortem.html . For those who don’t want to read the full text, here is a quick summary:

What went right:

- Having a clear and realistic vision of the game I wanted to develop.

- Multiple endings.

What went wrong:

- Politics. Though CRA kind of requires that.

- Having unique art for 10 characters.

Had fun with the jam despite how few people participated. Still haven’t decided if this will be my 1GAM entry for this month.

My entry for the CRAJam has been released. the entry page is http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/cra-jam/?action=preview&uid=15656 . The game has you playing an auditor who has to decide the fate of the people you audit. There are three different endings to the game based on your performance. I still have sound to add to the game so might slip in an update on monday or tuesday.

Not sure how many people are going to be entering this Jam, but I fear it will be even fewer than Mini-LD#39, so I am going to have to make sure I finish an entry for this. The subject matter is political in nature which is the kind of subject that I don’t like to touch so this may be very interesting. I am going with my first thought which is a tax auditor adventure game. While I would like to go with my GameJam libraries adventure game library, it is simply not far enough along so this will be created in Flash Professional the old-fashioned way. As no real rules have been given, I am going with the combo rules but with a looser deadline. As I have created a twitter account, I figure I might as well post updates to it ( https://twitter.com/BillySpelchan )

For those of you who are skipping this Jam to watch some type of big game, I will only point out that the Stanley Cup playoffs aren’t for a while yet!

My postmortem for my Mini-Ludum Dare #39 entry Zombie Forever has been posted. The link is http://blazinggames.blogspot.ca/2013/01/mini-ludum-dare-39-postmortem.html . Quick summary for those too lazy to read it:

What went right:

- Going with a Jam challenge instead of going solo

- Zombie feel

What went wrong

-over-ambitious tendencies strike back

-AI resulting in humans killing each other and turning into zombies.

My entry for MiniLD 39 has been posted http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/minild-39/?action=preview&uid=15656 The hindsight for this entry was what would I have done had a school shooting right before LD#25 had not happened and I went with my original idea for that theme instead of a non-violent game.

Zombie Forever level 1 game play

Finally got around to finishing and posting a postmortem for my Evil Gnome’s Revenge game. The link is http://blazinggames.blogspot.com/2012/12/ld25-postmortem.html . Here is a quick summary of the article:

What went right:

- going with a simple game

- Knowing my limits and getting enough rest to stay more productive

What went wrong:

- School shooting caused me to go different direction with game

- Too much time spent writing code that should be in the library I am developing.

Now back to rating games.

My entry for this challenge has been submitted. The entry page is http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-25/?action=preview&uid=15656. While it was a fairly simple game it still took me longer  than I thought it would so I didn’t have as much time for polishing as I would have liked. The goal is to chase as many reindeer out of Santa’s corral before the time runs out.

Evil Gnome’s Revenge

A build of my game for Ludum Dare #25 has been posted for anybody who is interested. Most of the code is done, but the graphics have not. That (and sound) will be what I will be focusing on tomorrow. Now I am going to have a  couple hours of rest so I can actually be productive. Ironically, had I been further along, I’d be staying up and listening to the remainder of the GNC 24 hour podcast. A few hours of sleep can dramatically boost productivity.

As an evil gnome, it is your duty to disrupt the annoyingly happy holiday known as Christmas. After failing to break into the toy shop (see Santa’s Snowball) you decide stealing Santa’s reindeer will prevent Santa from delivering presents so you enter into his corral. Unfortunately the reindeer are hard to deal with so you figure just chasing them out of the corral will do.

Link: http://blazinggames.com/gamejams/ld25/ludumDare25.php

I really don’t like sharing early screen shots but figure I should so people can see how much the game has changed when it is done tomorrow. I haven’t put that much time in (as I am in the PST time zone so was sleeping then doing a bunch of saturday morning chores). The game is functional at this point and I have a primitive tile set for the map. Red cubes are reindeer while the magenta cube is the player.  I am not quite ready to post a link to the game, but will post a beta build of the game this evening.

Early Alpha Build

While I will eventually be switching to HTML5, for the next few game jams I will be using ActionScript with my own library which is located at http://blazinggames.com/other/openLibrary/html5Libs.php . Right now the libraries are in a primitive state though are slowly becoming something useful. This library is built on top of the Starling library which is a public library.

Tools will be the Creative Suite 6 suite (predominantly Flash pro and Flash Builder) as well as Audacity, cfxr, and Tiled. As it is currently snowing here, I don’t foresee anything coming up but unexpected things do happen. I am planning on listening to Geek News Central’s 24 hour podcast while I work on my game. In fact, even though it goes against my better judgement, I may try to do a 24 hour work session. That judgement call will be made based on the state of my game tomorrow evening (the challenge starts friday night for me).

Plans are to find out what the theme is. Come up with a totally amazing idea. Realize that the idea is not practical in the timeline. Go with a more realistic but still too ambitious plan but fall in love with that plan so go for it anyway. Get the game functioning but run out of time to fine-tune the game.

Good luck everyone.

Creating a RPG mostly from scratch is a rather crazy thing to do, but I did mostly manage to succeed. There is a lot of things I would like to add to the game, so it is going on my rather large revisit in the future list. My recommendation is to gain a couple of levels before entering the caves and before going into the castle. Mind you, death restores your health while leaving you where you died so this problem isn’t overly disastrous.

On a side note, the template page doesn’t seem to hold my game properly (even though it is the correct size) but adds scroll bars roughly the size of the scroll bars. The game is located at http://blazinggames.com/gamejams/ldmini38/index.html . Enjoy.

I’m 50 minutes late but am about to start on my Charity Game Jam game. As there are no categories for the charity game jam, I am assuming this is also the MiniLD #38 challenge so will post my progress reports in this category until told otherwise. I am probably going to be biting off way more than I can chew this time, as I am aiming to create a NES-Style RPG. The scope of the game will be fairly small and it will be built using the gamejam library I am creating for use in future game jams. This library is in a rather pitiful state as the time that was suppose to go towards working on it ended up going towards Torchlight II and Defender Quest but the scrolling map code is there so I shouldn’t have to worry too much about the dungeon/world maps.

Tools are Flash Builder, Flash, Fireworks, cfxr, audacity, starling framework, and tiled. I am in the PST timezone so my roadmap is to get the game skeleton finished tonight, get combat system finished tomorrow morning, rough world and dungeon maps tomorrow evening, artwork and fine-tuning on sunday. Now I better start coding.

Well, I finished with about half-an-hour to spare but there is a lot more I want to add to this game. I think the game has a lot of potential and hope to spend more time with it in the future, but then I have a lot of other projects that also interest me. I do plan on working on a postmortem of this game which I will post on my development blog in a few weeks. I enjoyed myself and think that working with music (my biggest weakness when it comes to game development) and dance (another weakness) was worthwhile.