Did anyone happen to download the SWF of my game, Sky Traders of Jupiter? I’ve accidentally overwritten the LD version and don’t have a backup. I downloaded the torrent which includes “most” of the games, but apparently “most” doesn’t include mine.

If I can’t find someone with the LD version, I’ll probably have to take my game down out of fairness, and either just go with whatever votes I’ve received so far, or drop out of the running entirely.

I didn’t have time to put a tutorial into the game, so I’ll explain a few things here for those having trouble.

1) On the map, we have a number of islands with one or more bases on each. The size of the base plays a bit of a role in its economy.

2) At any base, you can buy and sell any of the four commodities. When an island has commodity icons on it, those resources are cheaper at all bases on the island. Buying commodities drives up their price at that base, while selling them drives it down. The effect is bigger at smaller bases – big bases have more inertia.

3) The prices of commodities fluctuate randomly around a certain midpoint. When a base blinks green, the prices there have been updated.

4) You can mouse over a base to compare its (sell) prices to those at your current location. Clicking a base makes it your destination.

5) Having selected a destination, you can choose a mode of transport to get you there. More expensive modes of transit are more reliable (fewer breakdowns), more secure (fewer pirates) and/or faster. Only aerial modes of transport can get you between islands.

6) Pirates become more common later in the game, so you don’t get too screwed early on. If hauling a load of minerals in the late game, though, you’ll want to take a tank or rocket.

7) When time runs out, you’re allowed to reach your destination (if in transit) and will automatically sell any commodities you’re carrying.

8) At the beginning of the game, you can only carry 4 units, but you can upgrade your carrying capacity. It gets more expensive the bigger you make it.

Better instructions will follow! Just rushing this out in time for the voting. Post any questions as comments and I’ll try to answer them.

Sun’s gone down… switching from beer to whiskey. Think I have an economy system worked out, but since I don’t have a GUI in place, I can’t actually see the prices to know whether they make sense. Guess I know what my next task is!

Pretty pleased with the tricks I came up with to place the islands semi-randomly, without overlap, relatively centred in the play area, and not too bunched up.

Still no gameplay, though. Next up, procedural map generation.

First few hours of work… did some brainstorming. Have a title and a concept… in a nutshell:

Sky Traders of Jupiter – going the “sky islands” route… retro sci-fi themed trading game with procedural generation and a dynamic economic model.

Progress so far, one pretty, animated background. Here’s a still, but it looks better in motion (with multiple layers of parallax):

I’ve fixed some bugs in my game, and posted a strategy guide/spoiler sheet for it on my blog. The link provided in my final post still goes to the Ludum Dare version, bugs and all, but if anyone likes the game, has already voted on the official version, and wants to play an ever-improving, less buggy version of it, it’s at:

http://www.benefactum.ca/flex/dark_tunnel/

The blog post with better explanations of how everything works is at http://www.benefactum.ca/wordpress/

TD@tEotT… How’s that for an ugly acronym, incidentally?

You, the lone hero, have arrived just too late to stop the evil wizard from opening a gate to the shadow realm. Plan B involves running like hell.

Download here

Or play online here

No level generation yet… just displaying the tiles that will be used.

The theme is not what I was hoping for – I was one of the people pulling for Rain, myself. However, knowing that AWoD had a high probability of being picked, I spent the hour leading up to the announcement brainstorming for an idea. What I ended up coming up with is a sort of tactical maze game with Roguelike-like aspects (yes, it’s like games that are like Rogue… so not really that much like Rogue itself).

The premise is that you, the hero, have arrived too late to stop the evil wizard/demon/whatever from opening a gate to the Plane of Shadows. You’re now trying to escape the dungeon, with a billowing wall of shadows hot on your heels. If you can get out before being caught by it, you can seal the doors of the dungeon behind you, and thereby – one hopes – save the world from being doomed to eternal night.

Unlike most Roguelikes, you don’t have any equipment, except potions, and no hit points, just energy. You can walk around at normal speed without using energy, or you can run at double speed, but using up energy as you go. Moving through water and jumping over pits also uses energy, as does battling monsters. You regenerate energy very slowly as you walk around, or much more quickly by standing still. You can also pick up potions that restore your energy completely.

The dungeon gets harder to navigate as you go along, as there are more and more dead ends, and less paths to lead you closer to the exit. Fortunately, you can also find torches in sconces on the wall. Moving through one will light it, which will delay the wall of shadows a little bit when it reaches the torch.

And that’s all I have planned now. I think that’s enough to keep me busy for 48 hours. If I finish all that with time to spare, I’ll think of some small embellishments, but I think it should be at least a bit of fun just like that.

Today’s post for my Art & Games blog is about Ludum Dare, and the more general phenomenon of what I refer to as “tachygenesis,” events that encourage people to create something in a ridiculously short span of time. As well as plugging Ludum Dare and a few other tachygenesis events, I explain why I think it’s important for creative people to participate in these competitions.