http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-24/?action=preview&uid=2490

This was my fourth LD that I’ve been on (counting the MiniLD I had a few months ago) and while it was hard for me to come up with an idea for the theme I managed to do it. Also learnt some nice tricks while doing the game. However after creating the game I decided to do a balance of what went right and what didn’t:

What went right:

-Graphics. I’m glad I’ve chosen a small palette like the NES one, otherwise I probably couldn’t do graphics as well. It also helped that a few months ago I got useful feedback on TigSource about the NES palette. One day I’d like to do the same for a Game Boy or a Game Boy Color one. :p

-The mechanic. I liked how the upgrade mechanic turned out. I think there’s a lot of untapped potential on it that I need to expand, but it was nice to experiment with it.

-Going for a Jam. Originally the game was in the main LD compo, but I chose a Jam instead. The game was very incomplete before and thanks to the extra day I gave the game better controls, a new final, new level design, a timer and even some music.

What went not so great:

-Controls. The biggest hassle about the game from the feedback I’ve gotten are the controls. I’ve improved them in the Jam version, but they aren’t perfect at all. Next LD I’ll post mid feedback builds to fine tune the controls, as well the difficulty.

-Music. I composed the music on the Jam day and I can’t do chip-tunes very well. I had a music for the stage but it was poor so I removed it. Maybe next LD I’ll team up with a musician or brush up my chip-tune skills.

-Lost time because of the theme. Evolution isn’t an easy theme to get ideas from, in my opinion. Not the worse theme and there was some pretty fine entries from it. But getting a good idea for it took me some time.

Overall it was fun to participate on this and I hope to join next LD with a better game and have fun again. Now off to try some more entries.

You can play it here.

These two days were tiring, but it was worth it. While I think that design-wise the game could have used further upgrade variations and while I think it’s too short it was nice to toy around with this type of mechanics. Picking up an one use upgrade and use it on demand lead me to make some interesting level design.

Another thing I’ve enjoyed was spriting. I haven’t sprited for ages! But it was nice to do it again, specially with the NES palette. It’s far from great (specially the player’s animation *shrugs*), but it was fun.

Something that I would have liked to do is music. But the time ran out, so I couldn’t do it unfortunately. I’m not good at doing chiptunes anyway. :p

And that’s all.  So to sum up: There were some things I wished to have done better, but these things will have to go into an another game in the future. But it was still worth it.

Greetings. Early today I almost was calling it quits, but then I got a cool idea. I thought of a platformer with upgrades, but instead of  touching the upgrade to activate it the player picks these upgrade circles (like the one in the screenshot) and then actives them with the press of a key. Hence the name “Selective Evolution”. The catch is that the player can only use an ability at a time, so there’s going to be some strategy involved, or so I hope. :p

That’s all.

Tools:

Drawing – Paint.net

Music/SFX – Audacity, pxTone

Game Toolset – Stencyl (with its pre-bundled behaviors to save time)

ps : vote for kitties, thanks.

Here’s the entry:

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/minild-35/?action=preview&uid=2490

It was the silliest game I’ve ever done, but it was a lot of fun. I think this reminded me why I enjoy making games, and I can thank miniLD for that.

(it’s going well, i still need to do a good chuck of stuff but basic movement is done)

I’m in for miniLD #35. I’ve got a neat idea that I want to see if I can pull it off, but if I’m unable to do it at least I learnt something in the process.

My tools:

Game Making Tool : Stencyl

Music (if any?) : PxTone

Drawing : Corel Painter or Paint.net, depending on the art style

Since I can’t think of a decent idea for this theme, I’ll not participate on this Ludum Dare. I tried to do some prototyping but all seemed meh to me, so instead of doing a game that I know that it’ll will not be good at all (like my previous entry, Portrait Exploration) I prefer to wait for a theme that suits better to me.

Can’t wait to see what everybody else did in the end though!

I’m going for a Jam this time, though.

Tools:

Game Engine: Stencyl

Sound Effects: SFXR

Graphics: Paint.net

Either you do not, I did a Flash version! It’s now called Arkanaut (to avoid confusion with other stuff called Spacenoid) and it’s avaiable on Kongregate: http://www.kongregate.com/games/Supermini_man/arkanaut

If you’ve an account there you can also submit scores. Thank you LD to have begin what is today Arkanaut.

My LD entry is done. It’s a very small art game (2 minutes to get to the end) and it’s about a zoomed exploration of a black and white portrait that gains color once you pass your cursor on it. I’m kinda skeptical if it’s enjoyable or not, so please give me criticism about what you like or not, I might fix it on the spare hours.

With no futher undo, here’s the game: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-19/?action=preview&uid=2490

You’ll notice there is no sound, that’s because I didn’t to ruin the game with the awful music that I make, so either play the game silently or put a calm music on background.

Progress is going rather well! Also, since I have the habit to check personal stuff while I’m working on the game I’m not going to release a time-lapse. Sorry.

The notebook is now my main PC, the big one is now just giving Wlan access/backup. I will not use a piano after all, since I can’t find it. Oh well, I found a cool music program called LMMS, so I will use that or not make any music at all. Also on the last post I forgot to say that I may use Audicity to tweak sound.

6 hours left!

• Programming: Game Maker 8 Pro
• Graphics: Paint.net 3.6
• Sound: SFRX, a small piano (?)
• Other: Chronolapse (for the timelapse)

And it’s all.

This LD was very fun and I hope to participate on more of them soon. The Spacenoid source is already cleaned, but I don’t know if it’s permited to update the source on voting time so I’l upload it at the end of the voting phase.

Some things went well it the game, others not so much. What I failed with:

-The game was too buggy.

-Although an interesting concept it didn’t offer much.

-The music was awful.

-The “Fail Ship”, as I like to call, can be a little too distracting and inacurative.

-A mouse control would be better for it.

Oh well, it was fun anyway and I’m making a remake called Spacenoid DX, and it will fix Spacenoid’s issues and add a couple more stuff. No screenshots at the moment but I will show some soon.

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-18/?action=preview&uid=2490

This was my first LD and it was pretty fun!  Thanks for everyone that makes this event as awesome as it is.

The game is a bit buggy at times but (hopefully) there aren’t any groundbreaking problems. The source is not clean at all, as I may clean it after the LD. Now I need to rest…

Just need to clean the GMK and is good to go. Although I need to know something, I’m using a dll that makes the online highscores possible, and to make that dll work I need to use some scripts that come with it. Is this permitted with or without an explanatory post or ins’t permitted at all?

The site where the high-scores are hosted is this. On the paper icon there’s the zip with the scripts that I’m using.

By the way, it’s permitted to use .dlls?

UPDATE: Ok, I’m using a dll for the online highscores. The problem is that I need to use some special scripts that come with it to make it work. Can it stay on the game, or it isn’t allowed?

Spacenoid = Space Invaders + Arkanoid