RedditAbout sfernald
Entries
Ludum Dare 26 | Ludum Dare 24 | Ludum Dare 21 | Ludum Dare 20 |
Ludum Dare 19 | Ludum Dare 17 | MiniLD #17 | Ludum Dare 16 |
Ludum Dare 15 |
sfernald's Trophies
 The A+ Post Founding Award for Excellence in Explaining Code Monkeys ("Well, of course, the problem is there are virtuosos out there that can accomplish a ridiculous amount with code.") Awarded by GreaseMonkey on January 10, 2011 |  The "I got your cookies. I got your cookies right here." Award Awarded by GBGames on August 26, 2010 |  A jagged trophy as tall as your waist blocks your path Awarded by HybridMind on May 2, 2008 |
Ratings
| Ove | Fun | Inn | The | Pol | Gra | Aud | Hum | Tec | Foo | Jou | Tim | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | |||||
| 2 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 4 | |||||
| 4 | 4 | 3 | 5 | 4 | 2 | 3 | 3 | |||||
| 2 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 3 | ||||||
| 3 | 3 | 2 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 3 | |||||
| 4 | 4 | 2 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 3 | |||||
| 3 | 3 | 2 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 2 | ||||
| 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 3 | ||||||
| 5 | 4 | 3 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 5 | ||||
| 2 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 2 | ||||||
| 3 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 2 | ||||||||
| 4 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 3 | ||||
| 3 | 3 | 2 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2 | |||||
| 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | ||||||
| 3 | ||||||||||||
| 2 | 2 | 1 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 | |||||
| 4 | 3 | 3 | 5 | 5 | 2 | 4 | 4 | |||||
| 2 | 2 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | ||||
| 3 | 3 | 2 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 4 | |||||
| 3.11 | 2.94 | 2.22 | 4.11 | 2.82 | 2.14 | - | 2.57 | 2.31 | - | 3.07 | - |
phren says ...
Really like the fact that actions are contextual, you only have to know the arrow keys. Really nice descriptions on the tiles, too (I could almost imagine the paths I was walking on!). Thought the monsters had a bit too much HP, making the battles a bit tedious. Gave a low score in graphics not because the graphics were simple (duh, minimalist) but because they didn't necessarily do their job. Had trouble finding the way through the wall for instance because w is surprisingly similar to W.
HybridMind says ...
I was fighting the queen with almost 10k defense points, and 6500 offense points (thanks to a certain goodie I found) and I only got a few hits in and the game went to desktop!? I was a bit bummed at that as I had just spent all those keystrokes healing throughout this game. Sorta like playing one of those track and field games.. heh. Anyway, one of the most complete games this competition. I had a good time fighting my way along and just when you've struggled for a long while healing on those little questions, you find a magical goodie that really makes you a lot more badass so that was well timed! I did think the the letters were spread out a bit too much for my own preference on these types of games. Also, the wack crash at the final battle was a big let down.. I was watching my Defensive points because I know you said that when you die, it goes to desktop but I was WAY above 0 :) Oh well- nice game for 12 hrs or so..!
LoneStranger says ...
Though it grabbed my screen and wouldn't let go after about twenty minutes, I did have a fun time exploring and killing monsters in Simple Dungeon. It reminds me of Hack and it's derivitave games. Like any RPG, once you get the routine down, it's not too difficult. Then again, I didn't make it to the end to judge that final enemy's strength. As far as minimalism goes, it's got it. Controls are very easy to understand and has the two basic RPG stats; attack and health. Completing the competition with a game that truly is done is definitely a huge win in itself, no matter what the final ratings are. Like phren, I noticed the difficulty in distinguishing between W and w, though I thought it was actually a plus to the game. A lot of RPGs are about exploration, and discovering 'hidden' passages is part of that exploration. Battle was a bit tedious, but there was a strategic element to fighting without getting overwhelmed by other enemies at the same time.
thedaian says ...
Not a bad game, just tedious. The battles really took too long, and wandering around trying to find a passage through the wall wasn't any help. I tried to 'cheat' by going back and forth to heal, but I barely got past the mummies. There is a lot of content here, and it's a good game.
sol_hsa says ...
Yay, roguelike. Crashed when the blobs were about to kill me.
SethR says ...
Hrm, crashes on startup for me. (vista)
pekuja says ...
Nice game. The first time I played it I got stuck though, and the second time it crashed. I haven't played all the way through actually, but I think I will. I was a bit disappointed to find out the map wasn't random generated. Fighting is also too slow.
dgriff says ...
After the tenth engulfer I was like 'screw it, I'm attacking moving through them.' I didn't make it, and neither did my computer (bad crash). Balancing and different healing method (rather than requiring me to write a short sendkeys script) would have made the game more fun.
keeyai says ...
Cool game, but I quit midway through because of how tedious the healing is. I did get a nice rhythm down with my arrow keys, but still, enough is enough. I think with a boost to the healing speed (or take healing out and rebalance) it would be really awesome.
mjau says ...
I really enjoyed this for a little while. Exploring the world was fun, and the descriptions of things added to the atmosphere (the descriptions *could* have used some variation though, but eh, minimalism). Then I met the mummies.
I'd already explored everything prior and taken what I discovered (a sword, and some potions I should probably have saved for later since they didn't seem to do much..), and a bunch of mummies ended up blocking the path forward, the only place I hadn't been. So, since I got really low on health and power or whatever it was by fighting those mummies (at first I thought the 'o' was health btw, then I saw that the 'd' only decreased when mummies hit), there was nothing to do but going back and forth to try to gain some health, which was just tedious. Then it crashed when I'd managed to fight off all but one last mummy =/
The "graphics" was a bit too sparse for my taste. The letters could have been closer together, I mean.
drZool says ...
Crashed when I died
sgstair says ...
Crashes on startup for me (XP x64)
... But I'm running it on a laptop (XP 32bit) and it seems to be fine.
I would really appreciate a "rest" button, some way to wait until all your points return or you get hit by a monster; as it is, I got sick of mashing the arrow keys to recover points and gave up on getting to the princess (stupid gargoyles..)
Overall, nice entry - I would have had a lot more fun if recovering points wasn't so tedious.
jolle says ...
Was fairly fun up till it crashed, which happened in first battle after getting a sword.
Hamumu says ...
I think everybody reporting a crash just died... I think I died fighting the Undead Queen (final boss?). I was just rushing because I saw how little my O dropped, and she was probably dropping my D a lot more than I expected. I put up with it a lot longer than I should have... the healing was absolutely murder. I figured out that the ? were good for that, and I'd rumble on them for hours recovering full O and D before each fight, but dealing with Engulfers (and to a lesser extent those incredibly vicious gargoyles) was just a massive strain on my fingers and my boredom.
Two things would've saved this and made it really fun for me: autorepeat keys, and (if that was in) holding down spacebar to stay on the space you're on (healing up rapidly without finger twiddling). There wasn't really any danger once you knew how doors and ?s worked, but the threat to your fingers could not be ignored. Definitely, monsters with a lot less life would've been nice.
jlnr says ...
Hmm, might be because it ran inside a virtualized Windows, but it crashed when I was somewhere at the very bottom of the map :( I wished I could read messages from two moves ago or so. I often hit a button once too often to actually read what I just picked up. Nevertheless, making a Roguelike was a good choice for the theme.
DrPetter says ...
Kind of exciting, and surprisingly immersive. There was a clear sense of accomplishment and development as you went from being all "what the hell are those characters" to becoming relatively familiar with the initial surroundings. I eventually managed to get "inside" and fight some goblins, but once I attempted a sneaky move to get past one and grab a potion, two flanked me and held me up against a wall while beating down on me. For some reason the game crashed just as I was about to be completely drained, so I'll just take that as divine intervention and get on with the other games :)
philhassey says ...
The application failed to initialize properly ... XP Pro here.
negativegeforce says ...
feels like a text game + some graphics. wish i had time to go through the game completely.
Archive for the ‘LD #11 – Minimalist – 2008’ Category
Kill Ben – A New Game Based on the TV Show LOST using the Simple Dungeon Engine
I decided to have a little fun today.
I took the game engine I created for Simple Dungeon and created a new adventure out of it. This one is based on the TV series LOST. I don’t know if any of you are fans of the show, but I’m a big fan.
Anyway, the adventure is set on Lost island. You are Locke and the objective is to kill Ben. You’ll run into many of your favorite Losties here. Maybe even the smoke monster. You’ll finally get to see how that Locke vs. Jack battle turns out.
Code is 99.7% the same. Mostly what I changed were the two data files. Fixed a couple bugs though while I was at it. It took a couple hours to design the new world and objects and monsters.
Have fun and let me know if you enjoy your adventures on Lost island.
Game is here:
http://rapidshare.com/files/109829863/KillBen.rar.html
–Note, updated rar. Forgot one of the files needed to run the game.
Tips for Simple Dungeon
I was surprised I was able to finish this game. The level is actually pretty darn big with 10+ rooms to explore and an entire forest as well. In terms of size, the dungeon is nearly a 100 screens large. There are about 8 or so different monsters. Each one you encounter is a little more difficult than the last.
You have two kinds of points. Offensive points and defensive points. Every time you hit a monster you lose some offensive points. Battles can take a long time if you don’t maximize your offensive points because your hit damange is a percentage of your total offensive points. So heal before battles (every step will heal one point) and search around for special items that may increase your offense points. This is the key to quick effective battles.
Every time a monster hits you, you lose the corresponding amount of defensive points. If your defensive points drops to 0 then you die. You heal one point for each move. Potions will heal your defensive points and look for other ways to heal your points as well. Always go into battle well rested with lots of points.
The game also is completely data driven and you could build your own dungeon with your own set of monsters simply by editing the two files, objects.xml and map.txt. Have fun with it and let me know if you come up with a great dungeon of your own.
Have fun! If you make it to the princess I will be really impressed!
Final – Simple Dungeon
Been fun and got it done! My final version of Simple Dungeon.
Source is here: http://rapidshare.com/files/109092549/SimpleDungeon_Source.rar.html
Game is here: http://rapidshare.com/files/109092285/SimpleDungeon.rar.html
I spent probably 12 hours or so on this game. It was a ton of fun. Hope to do it again. Love this contest. Can’t wait to check out other entries.
Use arrows keys to move, attack, pick up items, etc. It is really easy to figure out. Objective is to save the princess in the dungeon. If you die, game will exit, haha. Hope you enjoy!
You need at least .NET Framework 2.0 to run. If you have problems, try the latest framework 3.5. I haven’t tested this on other machines but should work on all windows machines.
Now got to watch my lakers! bye.
Note – one last revision -2:19 pst.
simple dungeon is coming along (sort of)
Well, I’m definitely going to have trouble finishing this thing in time. I have already thrown out the idea of any graphics or sounds. The fact is though I think the game now fits the theme really well. It looks like that old game hack or rogue you may have played years ago. I’m using characters for graphics. My game is much much simpler and smaller though.
Getting a rpg done in this amount of time is all about finding shortcuts and simplying things as much as possible. So far I like the direction it’s going. I think it might be a fun game. Whether I have time to finish it or even balance it at all is a another matter.
In any case, I’ll have something for people to try at least.
Simple Dungeon
I forgot to mention I have a name for my RPG too. It’s called Simple Dungeon. It should be extremely minimalist (compared to Final Fantasy anyway).
And I can’t figure out how to upload my code. It doesn’t seem to like zips or rars. So I’m just going to upload a screenshot of my code since I don’t have any game to show yet.
Night 1 Complete – So Far So Good (I hope)
Ok, so I’ve gotten as far as I’m going to get tonight, and I’m pretty happy with my progress so far.
I’ve got a design and a plan done. I think I’ve actually come up with an rpg idea that is small and simple enough to complete in the time allotted.
I’ve completed the map and I’ve got all the metadata including monsters, items and terrain stored in an xml file.
And I’ve coded the top level of the app including the loading of the map and metadata into objects. I’ve done an outline in comments showing the code I need to write, at least at the highest level.
My goal was to complete the design, metadata, and outline of the game tonight (CHECK).
Tomorrow, I hope to code all the logic of the game. It should work completely by the end of day tomorrow.
On sunday, I hope to create the graphics, sounds, music and voice-overs I need and put in any finishing touchs I have time for (probably not many – lakers are playing on Sunday).
Let’s see how it goes. I’m excited so far, but getting a little tired right now.
Getting Started
Hmm, haven’t done one of these in quite a while. I’m going to give it a go.
I’m going to try to do an rpg I think, a minimal kind of rpg maybe. Still thinking about it.
I’m going to use Visual Studio 2008, .Net Framework 3.5 and the Blitz3d sdk. I’ve never used the sdk before so this might be tricky. Will spend probably 10 hours or so on it only.
Well wish me luck!
