I recorded a timelapse of my game which Fiona uploaded to youtube for me – hurray!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkbvkhGOR-0

The analog clock in the corner looks awesome

Hmm I didn’t know how to get the video to be embedded in the page – is there some trick to it?

Well it looks like the only advancing wall of doom in my case was the deadline which, unfortunately, has caught up with me. I’ve not managed to finish anything even resembling a complete game this time

Final screenshot:

My idea this time round was definately too ambitious for the timescale. I was trying to make a simulator game, which because of the nature of the thing, just isn’t playable until all the components of the game are in place.

What I was trying to do was create a rolling-wall-of-death-fortress simulator with an ecosystem of employees to keep happy in order to drive the fortress forward and crush larger and larger settlements under its treads as the game goes on. What I’ve actually ended up with is a system where you can place rooms and people and watch the people die very quickly due to the lack of food. You must place tracks to support additional rooms.

Here’s the zip with source, screenshot and windows executable:

ld14awod_frimkron.zip

Note: python 2.6 and pygame are required to compile the source.

I’d really like to go back to the game and finish it some time – I felt that I managed to keep on top of the code quite well, in terms of keeping it managable and not like a big ball of mud. I guess clean code doesn’t get the job done on time Hopefully I’ll be able to find the time to work on this some more at a later date.

That is, after I’ve finished playing all the awesome-looking entries that have caught my eye over the last 2 days

A sidebar, A scroll window, some trees and a collection of houses.

Its progress, I suppose, but I’m a long way off the game I had in mind: a rolling-fortress-of-evil simulator,  where you must manage your staff, purchase rooms, etc in order to keep the “wall of doom” crushing everything in its path.

Hopefully I’ll get the actual fortress part in there soon…

Well, its a start.

I’ve actually been drawing lots of graphics so far and am only just starting to write the code. My idea’s a bit ambitious and I needed a fair amount of graphics down before I could start to make them into something.

Good morning! Well I guess this is a pretty late start even for us GMT’ers…

“Advancing Wall of Doom”?!

Last night when “Yo Dawg” was in the top 5, I started planning for the worst case scenario and actually came up with a pretty good idea for it – some kind of Warioware mini-game affair where our protagonist must race against the clock to make a game with a “Yo Dawg” theme and halfway through realises that he can make a game about making a game about making a game about…

But anyway, I sort of have an idea for the Advancing Wall theme. I’m about to start scribbling on paper and flesh out the design.

So, here are my weapons of choice this time around:

• Python 2.6 – such an awesome language
• PyGame – really does take the “C++” out of game development
• pythonutils – a library I have lying around with some basic utility classes
• Eclipse IDE with PyDev plugin – people tell me to learn Emacs but having written Java for so long I just can’t part with my IDE
• Graphics Gale – best thing I know of for creating animated sprites
• GIMP – for any CG artwork I might need
• GoldWave – for editing sound effects
• Cakewalk Sonar – if I actually get time to rustle up some music for this one
• SFXR – Dr Petter’s incredible sound generator tool – like MsPaint for sound effects
• Pen, paper, food, maybe even sleep!