Some answers for Finding Her’s comments

C418 says …I like how the story gets explained through those little boxes

Thanks

I wanted to try how that worked on a game.

SonnyBone says …I just wish I knew what the heck happened at the end.

Check the “memory” icons on the bottom to figure it out

Wiering says …The first time I played I had no idea that you could press Space, since it only saidarrows move.

Yes, I should make every character have a “SPACE” when you move over them.

I thought that doing that just on the grandpa at the start would be enough.

matrin says …Hard to understand the story.

Even though the icons are not that descriptive (have to work on those), I think that the best way to understand it is through imagination.

philomory says …it might be interesting to add some platforming elements, to give the player a challenge as they uncover the story. Just a thought.

I think platforming, with gravity, would be annoying. Flying around hides the fact that the map is quite big 300×300 tiles (9600×9600 pixels!!)

But it could definetly profit from some sort of puzzle elements/mechanics

Cosr says …This was great. I like how the story is really left to the player to figure out, though I admit I’m a little lost on it. I guess I rushed through it to fast without thinking. I’ll definitely sit down with it again sometime and try to find all it has to offer. The protagonist manages to be quite expressive.

Thanks!

Jordan Magnuson says …Nice work. I really like the idea here, though it was a bit hard to figure out exactly what was going on story-wise (even though your little icons are great)… It would be nice to maybe have some indication if someone has new information to offer. I think spicing up the environment a bit wouldn’t hurt, though that’s not a criticism, as I’m well aware of the constraints that 48 hours create . I liked the visuals, and your soundtrack was nice too. Oh, and so far I’ve played through to one ending. Definitely interested to see where this goes!

Thanks! I need to work on the information thing, I never actually did this indication-with-icons thing so it’s good to have so much feedback

About debris and stuff, it was planned but, as you say, didn’t quite make it in the 2-day limit.

Sos says …I am a nice person You have to pay attention to follow the story, but the story is great

Thanks man!

increpare says …I don’t think I really understood the story at all, if there was a story to be understood. As an experience, I think once I got over resenting you for the amount of backtracking that seemed to be required, I enjoyed it. There were several good moments of tension in it, for me.

There was a story to be understood, but it highly depends on imagination. There’s a premise (“Finding her”, lol), but the story is just whatever you make out of it. If you managed to feel tension then, at least subconciously, you felt the story.

The fun thing is that the story is actually not about the character as in most games, but about his society. It kind of mimics several aspects of the human being (later on, it get’s really harsh). If someone doesn’t feel anything at all after going through the game, he/she’s not living in the real world or not paying attention.

Yeah and sorry about the backtracking, I need to figure out a way to give hints.

Hempuli says …This was really interesting! The distances could be a bit shorter, because there isn’t anyway anything interesting in moving around in a mostly-empty world

It could, but I like it the way it is. It ended up being like a methaphor: We only care about what surrounds us, even with the big world we live in.

Risko says …Great game (as expected ) — i like the most music, graphics and story (in this order). Have found just one ending, but i didn’t really notice it. Maybe some music, small animation, or some other remarkable thing would make it a bit stronger. But it was still highly valuable time, i think i will play it again, mainly for listening to the main theme music. And the small creatures are very cute (also easy to expect after your last LD game )

I agree there should be an ending animation (and a different one when you get the “happy” ending). I’m really glad you liked it. Even though I’m not a devoted musician and the notes are not in tempo, I felt great while recording that

2 things that could have been better: Maybe i didn’t understand the story well enought, but i had problem to find out whom to ask to get some clue to go further, doing this a bit cleaner would let me think that i’m the one playing, not just following the order you wanted me to follow.

Yes, as I answered to some questions before, I completly agree this has to be worked out.

Second thing is that you have maybe forgotten to include something like FlxG.followBounds…i didn’t like to see beyond the tiles on the borders of the map.

This was on purpose. You’re on a cave, but the cave is not the universe

TenjouUtena says …Fun, atmospheric. I couldn’t bring myself to finish. I was slightly annoyed at finding out you had to repeatedly ask people about new tokens. Other then that, very fun.

The asking system isn’t it’s strength, I agree… but that’s sort of what the game’s about. I guess not everybody will like it.

Now I have a question for you!

How do you think controlling the player with a mouse would feel like?

Clicking somewhere would move the character in that direction and clicking on a character would start the conversation.

Thanks for your interest and best regards to you all.

I had some connectivity issues at first, but my router is cooperating now. I invite you to check out CollabRL: the multiplayer dungeon! The concept is simple — you can move around, and you can drop letters for others to see. Updates to the map happen in real time.

The map started out as a complete void, but slowly the explorers left goodies and now it is pretty interesting

You can grab the bugfix version (and the freshly compiled Linux version!) at the entry page.

A screenshot of the initial area:

More screenshots after the break.

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I posted a little while back about a fixing some bugs in 5 Colors. Codexus was (appropriately) worried that I was fixing non-critical bugs, so I clarified that the bugs I fixed were indeed critical: I haven’t made any additions to my game, or fixed any bugs that were not game-stopping.

However, I do have some questions regarding the rules as they apply to bug fixes, because the LD rules wiki is not entirely clear.

On the one hand it says: “After the deadline, we do allow bugfixes. You’re allowed to fix any bugs that stop a player from playing or finishing your game,” which suggests that non-critical bug fixes are not allowed.

But it then goes on to state: “New content however is outside the scope of what’s considered a bugfix,” which would suggest that bug fixes are allowed, as long as you are not adding new content to the game.

So my question is, what is the LD policy/consensus when it comes to non-critical bug fixes? This seems to be a fairly laid-back community, which I really appreciate, but at the same time, it’s clear from peoples’ posts that everyone wants to “play fair,” so a clarification of rules seems like it would be good.

Personally I don’t see why people should not be encouraged to fix bugs, as bugs really aren’t part of the design of a game, which seems to be what LD is about (and even if bugs are fixed quickly, they will still effect some people, and hurt the game)–but others may feel differently. If bug fixes other than critical are not allowed, I think that a “technical” category should be added for judging the games.

Something to consider is that it may be a bit tricky to distinguish between “critical” and “noncritical” bugs at times: what if you have a bug that doesn’t make the game completely unplayable, but which makes it really frustrating all the way through?

Perhaps this is something to vote on?

Ok, more than a week after the compo finally ended, here my short summary what went fine and what was a fail (again?)

Good:

- After about one year experience with jMonkeyEngine and blender the comparison between ld13 and ld16 is really a progress.

- clear gameplay (platformer game – 3 buttons to use)

- added music. actually I’m quite happy about that smooth music. Wasn’t that difficult to create

- added soundfx (thx drpetter )

- webstartable java game. (most of the people was able to start it)

- timelapse

- created quite extendable platformer-framework for jME and blender

Cons:

- created quite extendable platformer-framework for jME and blender (although this might be good for the future it was not good for the compo! I hadn’t enough time to really show its capabilities)

- christmas-party the day before + 2h earlier starttime

- webstartable-game: not everyone was able to start it

- too less gameplay  (4h more time and……. )

Ok, even I’m not happy about the low-level gameplay I’m quite satisfied with the overall-experience. Next time I will for sure not start with jME from scratch again. It’s time to concentrate on gameplay!

Ok,…here my timelapse (3:30min)

http://thomas.trocha.com/misc/timelapse_ld16/ld16.htm

LD-Preview

One last think: To the people that are not able to start my game: Plz post me your configuration (OS, Browser and if possible installed Java-Version) THX…

From a comment on bashplore’s page:
“dertom says … Hehe,…a game in bash. That is really hardcore ”.
YYYYYYYEEEEEEESSSSSSSSS It is, but it adds a lot more fun!

What went right:

- bash it’s good, i like its feeling
- bash can do stuff for you
- save/load it’s super-easy
- bash teach you tricks, a lot of tricks! :p
- bash is great for roguelike
- bash give you sound for free!!! [got no time to add some, sorry]

What went wrong:

- bash rendering it’s slow
- bash doesn’t have data structure
- bash syntax it’s a pain
- bash it’s a iper-pain for non-roguelike game
- I was not so good at bash to write a game

Final thought:

- if you want to use bash for a roguelike game, that’s fine but you have to prepare some good utility function BEFORE the 48H.
- if you want to make games other than roguelike, then DON’T USE BASH, NEVER THOUGHT ABOUT BASH!!!!
- if you want to have a great fun makeing a game, just use the strangest programming/scripting language, that’s worth the effort.
- never forget to add graphics using color in the terminal
What next time?

I’ve already some very very sick yet fun idea in mind and i’m already coding something. Keep an eye on samel’s perversion 8)
c-ya next time!

Taking advantage of the “bug fixes are allowed after submission” clause, I’ve fixed a few more bugs in 5 Colors, having to do with collision detection. I don’t think you can get stuck in walls anymore. If anyone still has any bug trouble with the game, I’d really appreciate knowing. Thanks!

Clarification:  the collision bugs I fixed were critical, because people were getting stuck in the walls and not being able to continue the game. I did not tweak the collision detection at all in so far as it effects normal movement or anything: the game plays just as it did before, it is not “smoother” or anything like that–you just don’t get stuck in walls now.

You can download the new build from the game’s entry page.

Better late than never!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScV5QMFUB6U

Topsy Turvy post-mortem

What went right:

* The concept. I’ve had the idea in my head for a while, and I’m very glad that I used the competition as an excuse to make it rather than forcing myself to think of a game idea inspired by the theme. And the game ended up pretty much how I imagined, so that’s good too.
* Inkscape as level editor. AS3 has some rather lovely XML-parsing abilities, so reading the SVG file was surprisingly simple. It’s very much hard-coded to the specific output that (my copy of?) Inkscape generates, but it should be fairly easy to fix if it ever stops working.
* Abstract graphics. I am not an artist, so I decided to save time and just draw everything out of lines. I think the results fit the game fairly well, even if they’re not actually good.

What went wrong:

* The goal. I added the collectables to provide an incentive to get to the more difficult areas and also as extra landmarks for getting your bearings. Unfortunately, with time running out and no win conditions implemented, I made the decision that you would win if you could collect all of them. In hindsight, I should probably have added a level exit instead.
* Difficulty. The game is ridiculously hard. I knew I wanted to have some areas which would be tricky to get to, as a challenge, but when the goal became “collect everything”, those areas suddenly became non-optional.
* First day motivation. I wanted to have all the basic game mechanics done by the halfway point, but I was just procrastinating like crazy. I’d come to the conclusion that it just wasn’t technically interesting enough to hold my attention, but then on Sunday morning I added death and respawning. Suddenly my game idea was in front of me and I could start constructing devious routes through the level, and I spent the rest of the day excited by it.
* The name. It actually changed name twice between starting and submitting, and I’m still not really happy. Currently thinking about maybe renaming it “Jump-Zap-Flip”.

Lessons learnt:

* Get death/respawn implemented earlier in future
* Think of a win condition as part of the design process
* Don’t make ridiculously hard challenges required to complete the game

Ok, I’m not going to spend any more time on this project, but a few things were really bugging about the game and it only took about 15 minutes to fix it.

What this new version fixes is:

* Win screen will not be skipped when you win the game

* You can hold the space down to fire – makes it much easier!

* Each time you kill a misfit, now your rate of fire will increase slightly

* The bullets rotate as they are fired

* And I shrunk Santa a little bit making it easier to maneuver him around the screen

In all, I think these fixes make it a more enjoyable, easier game. Now it is much more solvable and I think more fun too. You now have a fighting chance against those misfits!

I’ve tested the game on Windows 7 and Windows Vista and it works fine. I think it requires either DirectX7 or DirectX9, not sure which. If you are having problems, it may be your graphic card. I am using some huge bitmaps that may be causing some problems with some graphic cards when they are loaded as textures. Maybe try a beefier machine.

Anyway, here is the Windows version:

http://www.bitjets.com/MassacreV2.zip

I won’t post a fixed version for the Mac, unless there is some sort of demand.

Take care!

What went well:

• Obviously I got good game idea
• Physics turned out well
• Game mechanic was fun
• Interface turned out to be simple, not buggy, etc. For 12h spent it is weird

What well wrong:

• Failed to make more complex graphics because most I tried made it lag fast
• Made mistake of making game time constrained. Should have been some ind of resource constrained. Thing is that most fun is aiming probe well and exploring planet or even few in one show. Time constraint rather made you shot a lot of average shots instead of aiming really carefully which is bad.
• Probably 1/3 of time spend was spent on things that did not work… Would have been good to spend it more on polishing core mechanics and game aims.
• I added only a mouse-wheel based zoom. That was a mistake as Mac users have problems in Flash with that (tough I head Flash player release on 9 December 2009 should have fixed that, can’t confirm)  Also users playing on notebook without mouse had problems too…

What now:

• Well firstly I think I will make one more version of it removing time limit and adding some “probes per planet” limit. Should make it more fun. May be I will try adding a little bit more graphical things.
• As for large game based on idea I think I will but it on hold. Needs a lot of content and thinkering on technical sides of it(there are some). Exploring idea for enemies and war, AI, etc. I have some other game ideas that have less of such complications so for time being I will not make it in to a full game. In time being I welcome anyone to try and make their versions of the idea Just bother to send me a note/mail. Would like to see it  and play it
• Need to add alternative to mouse zooming.

Longer version of how it went

Day 1.  Well woke up and read the theme. Started brainstorming for ideas and (more…)

Here’s the source for This is Infinity:

http://cactusquid.com/games/expfps.gmk

It’s been updated since I posted my entry, I didn’t know sources were a requirement for the competition. And I can’t figure out how to update the entry info or how to post a comment on the game… Pff.

So yeah… the only thing I added after the compo was this whacky easter egg.

If you’re not into artsy games you’ll probably enjoy it, try it here:

http://www.2bam.com/magic/FindingHerV051.swf

When it finally loads, type “duke”

Cheers!

Some people notified me of a pretty bad bug in Cat Planet where you can fall through the floor and get stuck and have to restart the game. I didn’t completely fix it because I couldn’t replicate the glitch no matter how hard I tried and I don’t know what causes it, but I added a cheap workaround that makes it possible to continue playing if this happens. More details on the entry page.

sfernald sank his teeth into the game engine for my LD#16 entry – the light in the end of the tunnel and the results came out swinging!

He’s used the game engine better then then me, making some winding, fun, hard to beat, acid-filled caves.

Check it out:

Source:  http://www.bitjets.com/thelight2.zip
Win32 exe:  http://ippa.se/games/the_light_2.exe

Maybe I’ll make a sequel too since the original game was so tiny. Actually I already started hacking on it. Some ideas/goals:

• The collision detection wasn’t perfect (for example you couldn’t jump while running into an obstacle)
• I’m thinking level-building from One big image instead of several small, but there’s quite some things to work out before that’s possible.
• More interaction with the world, could be levels to pull, buttons to push, doors, modification of terrain or living enemies, not just acid pools/drops.  Preferable additions that don’t complicate the level building to much, now it’s basically drawing a new image and creating one class — liberating easy.

since people might be wondering

the “music” should be best appreciated as textural rather than melodic

falling off is the end

the fact that there’s no gameplay is intentional

the only part I didn’t finish is windows on downtown skyscrapers

the game does have meanings but none of them are related to each other

I get a kick out of the love/hate reviews

everything was drawn with a mouse

A bit late perhaps, but here’s my timelapse video, on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eYLpt8P0Jk. Enjoy the polka

I used a bad codec, and some of the files randomly disappeared, so the video represents about 24 hours of the 48.

Hey, and if you haven’t played 5 Colors: Pandora yet, now’s your chance! (Or, you know, later.)

Get to it from the ratings page or take the direct link to the download.

After the Jump follows the reason of why a seventh Star Wars would be very realistic in 2010.

Includes a trailer.

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(Edit:  maybe I have written this post-mortem too soon, i.e. without having enough feedback about the game. Post-mortem of the post-mortem.)

This is my first LD entry. I intended to work on another game (not related to the competition) in order to benefit from the worldwide good vibes emitted during these 48 hours. But things turned out differently…

What went right

• Initial research. After reading the theme, I thought about it peacefully for about 3 hours, with ideas coming in naturally. The result was an extensive list of the elements of an exploration game.
• Keeping it simple. I selected the absolutely core elements to implement first. Finally, I even had to remove one of these elements after performance troubles of the implementation, without much loss (the knowledge of a location is either 0% or 100%). Maybe the result was too simple, but the aim was to complete something, even if too simple. Despite this simplicity, I managed to get somewhat addicted to the game.
• Iterating. I have probably spent as much time playing the game as programming it. Playing the game showed the need of additional controls or warnings to remove some tedious tasks. Adding these features sometimes completely changed the game feel. For example, a very late addition: right click to go back to the NEAREST source, instead of the previous source. This allowed a faster gameplay because going back or to a recently found source doesn’t require precise pointing anymore.
• Sounds. Creating sounds with sfxr and Audacity didn’t take too much time, and the result is at least consistent.
• pygame. Starting from scratch using  almost exclusively the online reference documentation was much simpler and faster than I thought. Note: this is not my first game made with pygame.

What went wrong

• Using a never-used library. This was not the time to discover a library I was not familiar with (numpy). Lots of time spent stumbling upon gotchas. Reading the documentation in a rushed way is not so fun either.
• Programming some of the audio events. Making sure that some sounds (especially the alerts and the reload sound) were played at the right moment and not repeatedly was trickier than I expected (this problem didn’t appear in the visual part, more forgiving). I even added a (minor) display bug who made it to the initial release (sound was added at a late stage of the development, so there were less tests to detect bugs).
• pygame and py2exe. Too many time lost at the worst moment figuring out why it wouldn’t work. For some reason, switching to Python 2.4 did the trick.
• Graphics. I didn’t even try. Not enough time,  energy, and knowledge. I plan to play with Gimp more often.
• Music. Same here. Maybe a very discrete ambient loop would have helped. PureData?
• Full screen. I didn’t make sure that the game would be the same for a different resolution (mine was 1280×1024). So monday I had to send a new version to make sure that the difficulty is as intended. The game would have been too easy with 640×480.
• A random game level. Maybe handmade levels with an increasing difficulty would have been better, with more time. A bitmap would have been a way to store these levels and benefit from an image editor used as a level editor (a colored pixel = an energy source).

Surprises

• While it was not intended, and while as few mechanisms as possible were implemented, the result seemed original, even somewhat addictive (discovering an energy source, even an easy one, is always a pleasure, even without a sound effect).
• While there is no hint, no way to know where the energy sources are, the end game is not totally random. Moreover, it might be how exploration or research works: there is a safe, mechanical, yet somewhat pleasant activity of moving around the known sources; then, when the safe routes have been explored, there is a risky, “no way back” activity, with calculated risks, and yet depending on the ultimate factor: luck.

What’s next?

This game could evolve in several distinct ways.

• A single player version, very similar to this game, with a quick gameplay and few additions  (graphics, background music, maybe gray out known zones).
• A single player version with more mechanisms: hints (legends gathered from visited settlements) , enemy AI, etc.
• A multiplayer online version with a slower persistent gameplay, using waypoints (add color warnings when tracing routes); the discoveries would be published or not, etc.

Using a 3D engine with nice light effects (still with a “from above” 2D gameplay) might be fun too. Maybe the energy sources could be also light sources, and give hints about their location (some kinds of satellites with big orbits might be interesting too).

Folks who are getting a white frame — would you mind posting your browser version/platform in the comments?  You may also try running it in Safari (where it was developed) or Chrome (which uses the same rendering engine).