(-o^_^)-o HUGMONSTER is now available on Google Play for Android o-(^_^o-)

Just in time for Valentine’s Day, the HUGMONSTER has snuggled his way into your tablets and phones!

DOWNLOAD HUGMONSTER!

DOWNLOAD HUGMONSTER!

In another lifetime, four Ludum Dares ago, I entered my very first game jam with a little platformer called “HUGMONSTER”

HUGMONSTER was a Unity web player game (yes, there was a time when I wasn’t making only Android titles!) It had a title screen, and ending, and six or seven levels. It also had art completely composed of typefaces.

Very soon, HUGMONSTER will have its official, world debut as a mobile game, specifically designed for tablets! It features:

• 20 Levels of puzzle platforming pandemonium!
• 5 Animated movie intermissions!
• An awesome soundtrack!
• A touchscreen-friendly UI!
• Art still mostly composed of typefaces!

Screenshot from device

And here’s a quick trailer

More details to come!

I just compiled all of the songs from my various Ludum Dare entries into a single soundtrack. You can download it for free HERE !

About a year ago (LD22) Gijs and I decided to enter the Jam. We coded (me) and drew (him) furiously for a few days and built Together Alone, a story-based puzzler where you could switch between controlling two characters to solve tile-breaking puzzles. We came in 2nd in the Jam, and we decided to start building a sequel.

That sequel became Together Alone: Love in Limbo. A new and improved story, gorgeous hand-drawn graphics, many new game elements and even a level editor. We just released our second beta version and are looking for feedback. Please give it a try and let us know what you think!

Play the beta (Flash)

Big thanks to the Ludum Dare organisers; we thought about building a game for a long time, but this kind of competition is just the kick in the butt we needed to actually get going. We’re already busy designing our the next game, even. But first we need to finish this one. Your comments are appreciated!

I was supposed to write a post-mortem post for LD22, but never really got around to do it. I failed miserably, or at least failed happily. It was a lot of fun to be a part of the competition, but my end result wasn’t even a technical prototype, just a box I could move around in a 3D space, with a couple of lights thrown in, in heavy fog.

My idea was to make a “avoid the guards”-game, where you would try to sneak through a courtyard in thick fog, with some sort of 18th-century feel, avoiding guards with lanterns. I was thinking of some sort of British feeling, like a thieving Sherlock Holmes sneaking into a castle to steal the crown jewels.

Oh well, I didn’t get that far anyway! I spent 16 hours trying to make the floor look nice. But I definitely learnt that I should move on, and do the touching up later! 

This is a screenshot of the result:

The finished result last time. Theme “Alone”.

The reason I’m writing this post now is that I’m participating in #LD24, so it’s time to move on! I will be using the same “framework” I used last time, but now slightly more prepared. Bust only slightly.

About:

Hi there!

A few months ago, I proposed a quite vague idea about a new “cartography” module for the upcoming LD23. Web Cartography is more and more used because of its curiously innovative and interesting aspect.

EuropeanPoliticalWeb (Linkfluence)

The picture above was made by a French startup and is representing the European Political seen through the web. (Based on semantic web crawlers) .

Now you may ask: “What’s the damn connection with Ludum Dare” ?

Just a few games…

With the increasing popularity of the event, we see more and more game proposed for each LD session. Also, the initial idea was to realize a cartography of the submitted games.

Why? 

To have a better visualization of the whole game submissions. Take a look to statistics in an original and interactive way.

•  Which games are  available for a specific platform? Multi-platform?
•  Which games have more votes, coolness? (main nodes) => Imagine a visual helping tool for voting.

…and numerous other possibilities.  (Why not something more realtime-oriented based on database snapshots?)

Proof of concept:

Using available public data and python scripts, I extracted and classified data concerning each game entries of a given Ludum Dare composition (platforms, ratings, creators,votes…). I’ve written a small web application displaying  large directed graphs, generated from these data sets.

You can find my work over here: http://cboissiere.com/projects/ldviz/

Don’t be afraid by the messy aspect of those graphs, it’s mainly because of the huge size of the data sets. And don’t forget it’s still experimental =)

And of course, the source code is over here: https://github.com/cboissie/LD_Viz

Tell me more:

It’s basically two kind of graphs:

• WordCloud: We extract each words from all game titles. The words used together in a same title are linked to each other. For instance, if you click on the “TINY” node, you will see all the words that were used conjointly (like “WORLD”, or “PLANET”). The size of the node is proportional to the word occurrence.

• MultiPlatform: In this graph, games and their respective platforms are linked (Windows, OSX etc…). The size of a platform node is proportional to the number of game ported on this platform.

“Quiet, Please!”, the game that grew out of my LD22 entry is now available on Android devices. I released it last Thursday, and so far it is doing well.

If you want to check it out, here are the marketplace links:

Google Play: Free Trial – Full Game

Amazon Appstore: Free Trial – Full Game

It is also available on Xbox and Windows Phone.

Hey Ludum Dare folks, just wanted to keep you updated, so here’s a few… well… updates:

Update #1 – Earlier on the week, a local art show held a video presentation that had short movies and videos from sent in by people from the area. One of them was my Isolated Assault 2 Trailer. I was excited, as over 100 people filled a theater to watch it. Yay for video editing magic!

Here’s the vid, in case you haven’t already seen it:

Update #2 – I’ve been working a lot on music… and on Star Trek Online… and I’ve made a new playlist that you may want to check out! It includes songs from my previous games at Ludum Dare and in general. I’ve also released a cool dance song that I think sounds pretty good. I’m going to add it to the battle arena playlist.

Coming out with another demo real soon, but until then you can check out the first one if you haven’t already!

Happy gaming, Ludum Dare! <3

Surprise!

Since the post about my greatest weakness, I’ve started a new project I thought I would never finish. I just called it “Parkour Project” because the main thing I was trying to implement was climbing and free-running. However, all my story ideas would’ve taken 5 years to implement. (Some stuff about un-corrupting a futuristic city with hovercraft)

So half-way through, I thought I should do the folks down at Ludum Dare some justice, and decided to do Isolated Assault 2. However, that meant I had to make everything from scratch again, because my current “Parkour Project” was using a completely different character set up. It took a long time, but I finished the character controls and improved the enemy AI and sounds.

The demo is now complete (the first 2 levels… I’m working on the others right now)

I’ll explain the rest in the FAQ, but why don’t you read it while the demo is downloading? :3

Mac Demo

PC Demo

FAQ

Will there be music like what we heard in Isolated Assault?

Yes! The traditional looping music track over the entire level is back, but I’ll also be including a new music system that plays certain tracks based on character situation and position. The original Isolated Assault track has been remastered and put into the first level. I will be mixing in orchestra sounding tracks with dubstep tracks (what I’m used to). This has been a fun new experience writing music in a new style, and also it’s interesting mixing in dubstep and orchestra to make one awesome music-packed game!

What’s this whole battle arena about?

The battle arena has changed since the build of the demo (sorry) and is currently under heavy development. I’m adding music, new spawn codes, and enhanced weapons, so be ready for the next demo!

When will the full game be complete?

Well considering I’m only on level 3 right now, and considering there’s going to be more than one chapter and a cool new story to implement… NOT SOON… However, new demo versions will be constantly built and I will constantly keep you guys updated on Ludum Dare and Unity Forums. I’m not actually sure if I should let you see more than the first chapter before it’s done… give me a comment and I’ll see what I can do. Certainly an idea I have is that as I make the levels, I release the demo versions, so you can play it as its being made. (The continue button should work with multiple versions of the game)

Will the final game cost money?

Probably not. Most likely not. If this game gets on Steam (see below) they might recommend I make it cost money. But I don’t really want to do that because I owe you guys something, and making money is not important.

What’s your favorite changes from the original Isolated Assault?

EVERYTHING! Mostly the cinematic scenes though. It’s cool to match music up to voice and animations, so hopefully the taste of cinematics you get in the demo will be extended!

What are the controls and stuff?

Information like that can be found in the README file. (And also the credits)

Thank you all for supporting the original, and thanks for helping make a great LD that got this series started. Yep, I said “series”! I was sort of hoping to get the final version on Steam, but I have no clue what they’re looking for and the submission page looks very… professional. Any ideas? Do you think I should just submit and see what happens?

Anyways, any other questions can be asked in the comments, and be sure to stay tuned for updates!

Thanks Ludum Dare! <3

Hey- its me again- the guy who makes completely uninspired ugly game maker games. What’s that you say- No, please, no more? Sorry but this time I’m inspired and the theme announcement will show me what to for this torney.

Obviously I’m still using game maker so don’t expect anything particularly good but I do have a couple of ideas which could be entertaining- one thing I’m sure about though- I’m making a multi-player game.

Right, third time participating – but first time actually creating a game and submitting it. Hopefully I can finish it in time, good luck everyone!

Ludum Dare 22 was the first time I actually finished a game, I made a simple zombie-survival, platformer.

What went right?

• Finished a game: I finished my first game ever.
• Familiarity with language and framework: I knew how to use Java and Libgdx, so I didn’t have to look up a lot of things on the internet.
• Audio: I recorded zombie sounds and edited them in Audacity.

What went wrong?

• Menus: I spent too much time adding menus that didn’t really add anything to the game, I should have spend that time on the story and features instead.
• Art: I should have made pixel art instead, it looks a lot better.
• Unfamiliarity with IDE: Eclipse didn’t want to package my game into a jar file, lost quite some time trying to fix it.
• Sidescrolling: I made a sidescroller without scrolling . I agree with the comments about my game, it was confusing.

Next time I’ll spend more time figuring out a story and adding features to the game. I’ll make pixel art and have written a tutorial for myself, so that I won’t get stuck trying to make a runnable jar. I’ll also make a timelapse video.

But the most important of all: I had fun. Even if I didn’t get very good ratings, I had a fun time making the game and I will participate in Ludum Dare 23 this weekend.

You can play my game here: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-22/?action=preview&uid=8385

Yup! So… No sounds unfortunately. Custom graphics and all. Or maybe ASCII? Depends on how I feel. Will be written in ASM.

I think this is going to be a huge take. Maybe I should use something I’m more familiar with for the 10th year of LD48? What do you think?

Just realized that I never actually posted this post publicly. -_-;  well here it is…

I know I already did one, wait no two postmortems for One of a Kind, but I thought I’d give it one more look now that ratings are out.

So, how did I do?  Really freaking well!  Let’s go with the categories from bottom to top:

Humor: 2.07, #258
Well, no real surprise here, as my game has a distinct…lack of humor.  To be honest, I don’t know why people voted anything more than 1 here, other than just not wanting to vote 1 star just because.

Graphics: 2.92, #248
Yeah, 3 stars is about right for this.  I actually felt really good about the game’s look, because everything looks very clean and nothing like all of these chicken-scratch entries that you normally get in an LD.  Despite that, it’s still really simple, and a far cry from the entries that actually have really great pixel art and all.  So 3 stars is just about right.

Theme: 3.13, #187
This is…probably about right too.   I had a neat theme going with my game’s narrative, but the tie-in to “alone” was at least -slightly- tenuous.  So I deserved some points for -having- a good theme, but I didn’t deserve quite that many points since it didn’t tie in as well.

Mood: 3.30, #87
Did pretty good here–I might even have expected to do a little better, but I guess my game isn’t really quite so atmospheric or immersive as some of the other ones, so maybe it’s not worth 4 stars.  Still, the music I made really fits the kind of feel that I was going for, and even the character graphics were fine for that.  The ending was also at least slightly cool ;P

Fun: 3.21, #64
I did good here too!  Unfortunately I probably got docked here because of my level design which seemed to be a little hit-or-miss with people.  Some people seemed to really enjoy the puzzles, and other people just thought they were either too hard or too repetitive and boring.  And that’s sort of a gamble I took by making a 2D platformer with an untested mechanic.  Given that I didn’t know how the mechanic was going to pan out at all, I’d say I actually did pretty well!  However, I probably would have been able to get more points here if I created something like a shmup or something.  But that wasn’t the game I wanted to make this time, and it wouldn’t have been innovative or fit the mood.

Audio: 3.39, #45
I actually wish I could have done better here, since I’m quite fond of my music production skills.  But I wasn’t really able to showcase my traditional kickin chiptune electronic style because of the mood I was going for.  Ah well; I still did well anyways, which is honestly probably not that hard given that half of the LD entries you see have no music and most of the others have really shoddy music (understandable since I know most of you guys aren’t music people).   Top 50 is cool though!

Innovation: 3.63, #37
Getting good here!  I don’t think my mechanic was totally mind-blowing, but I think it was pretty new and definitely a new type of puzzle that people probably haven’t seen before.  So this seems about right too!

Community: 3.64, #32
Actually a little surprised I did so well here…I guess people appreciated my lengthy post-mortems and writeups.  I didn’t have any timelapses or livestreams and to be honest I didn’t feel very in touch with the LD community and wasn’t in the IRC channel much at all or anything.  The thing about the LD community is that it’s just so BIG–we’re talking 1000 people or something like that, so it feels like a huge crowd.  If I knew other people (whether IRL or online) doing it, I might interact with them and bounce ideas off of them/etc, but I didn’t, so…yeah.  It’s nothing like One Hour Compos at ThaSauce.net where we have like 20 people there and most of us are regulars.  I actually hope to have a little bit more community interaction next time around…it’s also a good way to get votes if you go into IRC and do “I’ll rate your game if you rate mine!”, which is how I got some of my last-minute rates

Overall: 3.70, #24
24th place!!!  I actually expected to do pretty decent here simply because I think my game works really well as a cohesive package when you combine music, sound, art, puzzles, and narrative.  But I certainly didn’t expect to be in the top 25!  Granted I really don’t have a good feel for the “distribution” of quality in LD games, but still, 24th out of 891, holy cow!  It’s really flattering, and really awesome.  Course, now this means I need to shoot even higher for next time…;)

Coolness: 59%
Could have done a little better here, but eh, I got my bronze badge and was happy with that. ;P  Rating other games can be kind of hit or miss…you have this huge pile of games that are half-baked and not really there, and then there are the really popular ones that everyone likes, and then every once in a while there’s a decent/good one out there that you randomly stumble upon.

So, what do I want to change for next time around?

First off, I hope to use something other than SDL.net.  I know OSX/Linux users are in the minority, but it’s still just a little too much trouble to run the game on those systems, especially for people who have 25 other entries to rate.  I might look into Flixel since that seems to be a really popular choice, and having  a web-playable game is great for getting votes (or at least, I felt that way when I was slogging through my 25 ratings for bronze).  Other options include Lua with Love2D or PyGame, but I want to try Flixel at least once.

I also really hope that I’m not super-busy and caught unprepared for next time, because that was just unfortunate.  I want to have my full 48 hours, please

For a little pre-warmup warmup, I decided to work on my LD #22 game a little.

Changes:

• A new, devious enemy!
• Scrolling background!
• Improved instruction screen!
• Fixed muting!
• Enemies start appearing faster and things don’t get quite so crazy after awhile (balancing)!
• Other fixes/improvements!

I would appreciate any bug sightings and feedback.

You can play it here: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/27464471/EpiCat/EpiCat-1.2.0.swf

Last Ludum Dare, (22) I entered the compo with Isolated Assault, a 48 hour game.

Since then, I’ve struggled to make a post-compo version, because it’s too boring, the game’s basically already complete, and I don’t think that many people will play it anyways.

So what have I been doing these past months?

• First, I’ve been working on improving my music. I realized, much after the fact, that the song I wrote for Isolated Assault was actually kind of catchy and pretty impressive considering what other songs I’ve written at the time. (Here’s a tutorial for writing music I made so that hopefully there will be more amazing music in Ludum Dare entries)

• Also, I’ve been working on a YouTube series called Conner’s Kingdom using a game called Minecraft. (Made by Notch, who joins Ludum Dare every competition)

• Finally, I’ve finally been able to sit down work on a game project, after being inspired by Mirror’s Edge. Remember “Parkour Project” from this image?

• I’ve been developing the project into something better and worked on, using scripts and elements I’ve already created from past games, and I’ve got a pretty good free-run system. Using some pre-made buildings, I’ve got an open world level started, though it still needs a lot of work, and I have no clue how I’m going to make the story line.
• I’ve also been working with light-maps and working on improving my level lighting, and I’m impressed with Unity’s shadow system. Though I won’t be able to make moving objects have shadows, because that requires Unity Pro.
• I realized I’ve been using techniques to get around Pro features, such as overlaying a plane over a camera with darkened edges to get around the fact that you can’t have vignettes in Unity Free. And I’ve also realized that particles can add a lot of detail to levels, and Unity’s new particle system works pretty good.

So what will I do for Ludum Dare 23?

I’m hoping the theme will be new and creative this year, for the 10th anniversary, but yet specific enough that I can make a game out of it. I think I want to make a 2D side-scrolling action game, but I’m not sure until I see the theme. I might stick with first person, though, because it’s much easier.

I hope to once again record a time lapse, though with less frames per minute, because the last one took forever to render and watch. Also, I will probably lower the resolution to an easy 720p and use YouTube instead of dropbox, to make it easier to watch.

I’ll make another post detailing the tools I’ll be using later on in the week. Thanks for reading, and please remember Rob Productions when voting for Ludum Dare 23!

Oh, and one more thing: Last Ludum Dare, I said my goal was to beat Notch in at least one category. I ended up beating him in seven.

Apparently, I’ll have to raise my goals. This competition, my goal is to get top 10 in at least one category. (Btw, last Ludum Dare my closest place to top 10 was #40, in the community category)

The Love Letter has been settling into its long tail and finally broke 500,000 views recently, so I thought it was about time to make good on my promise to release the source code.

So I did. Get it on GitHub!

We finally declared The Love Letter to be as finished as it will ever be, and I just lifted the site-lock from it this evening. Anyone can host the game on their site now.

You can download the game pack here:

http://cdn.mochiads.com/c/g/the-love-letter.zip

Not only was the game featured on the front page of Newgrounds, but Kongregate just gave it a badge and The Love Letter is now featured on the front page of Kongregate too! None of my other games have ever gotten this much attention, so I’m pretty excited.

It’s also been reviewed on Jay is Games, and recommended by Egoraptor (and I’ll pretend that I knew who that was before this…).

Also, kittens…

The Love Letter is now on Newgrounds! Not only that, but it has been featured on the Newgrounds front page!

We added ten achievements (Newgrounds medals) for you to earn, each with its own little icon and vaguely amusing name. First time I’ve ever added achievements to a game! I’m pretty proud of them.

No new plugin this time, but that might not be a bad idea – something to make tracking achievements easier?

Maybe next time…

Anyway, check it out!

I know most people are now focused on the MiniLD, but i just managed to find some time to finish and upload a ModKit for my LD #22 game, She Loves You.

You can do great things like this one

This is one of the two things that i promised but so far never managed to make. The other is a new set of levels, but this needs more time .

To install it simply download She Loves You and the ModKit from the “official” site and Runtime World alpha 3 from its own site. Then follow the instructions the sly-devkit-readme.txt file (which basically boils down to extracting the Runtime World and ModKit files over the She Loves You files). Launch Runtime World and you’ll have the She Loves You textures and entities available to play with. The readme file includes extra information about making maps for She Loves You.

Now, i don’t expect people to actually swarm making maps for the game, but if you do, drop a comment here or in the forum. :-)