What a neat experience! This was my first crack at a Ludum Dare and I’m very happy that I decided to take some time to whip something together. Ever since I had the pleasure of tech editing Christer Kaitila’s ”The Game Jam Survival Guide“, I’ve been wanting to give this a shot

My motivation for this round was to force familiarity with a specific ActionScript gaming engine. I wasn’t sure what I would use until the theme was announced and settled on the popular Flixel engine. I’m happy that I did – as this engine really makes everything quite simple when throwing a game together.

Tools used:

• Adobe Flash Builder 4.6
• Adobe Flash Professional CS6
• Flixel
• DAME
• FL Studio
• Native Instruments Komplete 7
• Adobe Photoshop Extended CS6
• Adobe Media Encoder CS6
• Adobe Audition CS6

What was missing:

Well… I know there are some spelling errors. Some of the game logic could be fixed and there is certainly room for cleaning up the code. here could also be a bit of challenge added to the game as right now it is COMPLETELY story-driven in a minimalistic fashion. The soundtrack could also be cleaned up as well as the sprites.

What was accomplished:

I’m really happy with the way it all came together. Initially I was put off by the theme but that all worked out as I put time into developing the concept. I learned a ton about Flixel – which was my main goal. Picked up a lot of new stuff and had fun doing it! Working game!

What went wrong:

Not too much. I could have done a ton more research into Flixel and how things work ahead of time. I’m a learn-as-I-go type of fellow though.

What went right:

A lot. Almost everything

Closing thoughts:

Had a great time doing this even with limitations imposed by family, clients, publishers, and the rest. I’d encourage anyone to give it a go – even if they don’t thing 48 hours is enough time. I didn’t expect to finish, so…

Just a quick shout to declare my entry is now competed! What fun!

D’evilution – Joseph Labrecque – 48 Hour Compo Entry => http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-24/?action=preview&uid=14703 

In the home stretch! I’ve spent most of the morning working on completing the sounds and character logic. The NPCs are just a base placeholder for now. Not sure if I’ll have time to individualize them by the end or not. 7 hours left and most of those hours are not mine!

The theme is actually working pretty well, surprisingly. I was at a total loss for ideas when it was announced but things have a way of working out. Have leaned a TON about about Flixel during the past few days – that is the greatest benefit to all of this for me, personally.

So what is left to do?

• If time – clean up audio looping. It is rough on some tracks. May just leave this as-is.
• Re-skin the NPC objects so they loo more human
• Finish wiring interactions between the player and NPCs.

Should be able to finish. Real close.

Have gotten a bit done since my last update. It has a name: D’EVILUTION! (get it?)

No audio yet – which I was hoping to get to today… but I have the majority of my assets and tile maps created along with intro and end splash screens, player sprites and tiles (for all 3 eras), and have the internals all wired up to switch between each state of the game. The only things left to do are…

• Music and sound!
• Progressive interactions amoung the player and objects/characters.
• Tweakin’

Will be able to get some more taken care of later. I may just get this done. Maybe.

Okay! A few hours in and I have a number of things working pretty well. NOT totally sold on the Evolution theme yet but things are coming together. The idea is to play as an innocent who (over the course of 3 levels of interaction) loses himself to madness and violence. I have a nice splace screen / intro and the beginnings of level one (figure above) in which the player can explore the environment and interact with objects and people within. Next step is to create these interactive elements.

So what is present?

• Have TileMaps working nicely with collision. Used the DAME editor to construct them and it is awesome. Player cannot travel over water or through trees.
• Player animation and movement is functional. Stubbed out scrollbar for interactivity.
• Story text is all mostly written but will surely change as I begin implementing it.
• Need to work on some simple background music today as well.

I’m really thinking once I get interactions down and have some music set up that it will be fairly easy to just plug away at the remaining pieces. The game is very story and interaction driven and isn’t a platformer or shooter or anything like that.

Still need a name.

Hey! Just a quick introduction. This is my first Ludum Dare (although I have contemplated joining previous ones) and am looking forward to the experience. I’ve found it a bit difficult to plan things out, not knowing the theme, of course – so have been warming up using a couple of different frameworks and reading up on various techniques and workflows people have used in the past.

Here are some general thoughts on how I’d be tackling this before we begin:

• I’ll be using Flash Player for my game – both because of reach and familiarity with the ActionScript language.
• I’m unsure whether I’ll be going the Flixel route or doing something with Starling or some other framework. This will depend upon the theme.
• Graphical assets – I have no idea what I’ll be doing… pulling this out of thin air.
• I’m very interested in story elements and sound… though I realize the need to get the core gameplay down first.

I’m not worried about the competition or having enough time to complete everything. In fact, I have a bunch of other stuff going on this weekend – but don’t want to wait until LD #25 to get my hands dirty  Looking forward to a learning experience.

My best to you all!