It’s only been eight hours into the compo (aaaagh) but I finally have my ideas selected and filled reams of paper with the planning I’ll need to carry it out. One of the things I quickly learned in LD20 was the value of planning when I ran out of plan and had to waste precious hours coming up with new plans.

I’d scan in my planning documents to show everyone, but I feel like that’d ruin the surprise, so here’s a vague and cryptic micro-pitch of the game idea. You’re some weird alien thing (a reoccuring theme in my works, I realise) on a space station trying to escape, and the only other thing I’ll mention is that this would have probably worked for the theme of Enemies as Weapons just as well.

Time to start frantically coding!

Hello folks, I will be participating in this MiniLD! But since making dialogue in Game Maker is kind of tough, I’ll probably just have a story in my game, The Struggle for Humanity. In this game that I’m working on with qwezc, you are of an ancient alien race that has to introduce new technology and ideas to the early humans. I’ve never really done something like this before, so I’m excited to see how this turns out!

Here’s an early screenshot:

Ok, I’ve gotten things done! Feels good.

The character now moves correctly and can shoot laser beams. (Thanks to HyrdroKirby in #pygame and cafesofie in #ludumdare)
I’ve also given the clouds a thicker border to make them look *nicer*
Here’s what it looks like:

Laser beams!

Too bad it only gets a terrible 16-26FPS.
I’ll have to optimize it somehow. The code is extremely rubbish at the moment.
Next up: citizens and tanks.

A long time ago in a not so far away land called MiniLD#20 I attempted to make a game. It was called Conquer The Planet and it completely failed. This time, hopefully, it won’t. The theme was greed, which I’m still going for, but I’m screwing the “only one of an object rule” because that’ll add a whole ‘nother level of complexity I don’t want to deal with.

Here’s the original concept idea if you’re interested: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/2010/07/16/my-brilliant-idea/
As for the game code, I’m too embarrassed to show anything from that.

Wish me luck! (and follow my progress and give me inspiration and motivation and stuff!)

You can play this game in your browser (warning: sounds will play)

Concept:
It’s time for your final exam to graduate from your UFO school. Only problem is you were a complete slacker. You have no idea how to fly your ship. You have 3 minutes to impress your commander by destroying as many humans, cars, helicopters, tanks and jets as you can–or suffer the consequences!

All you can remember is to use the keys 1,2,3,4 and 7,8,9,0

Tools used:
* Coded in ActionScript 3.0 using the Flash CS4 IDE and using my mouth and microphone and Audacity to process the sound effects. I composed the music loop in Reason.

Progress and stuff. Aliens are all red for some reason.

So.. finally got an idea I feel like running with on this theme:

First, the mockup!

(Click image to view larger)

Anyway.. the simple concept is you are controlling a fleet of the last ships of your race.  You are fleeing your planet as an alien armada of doom approaches.  You will be able to move your fleet up/down/left/right and there will also be a key that lets you toggle the density/pattern of your fleet.  Think of it as able to expand or contract.

You will move through the armada avoiding colliding with capital ships and what will surely be horrendous energy weapons fire as they attempt to anihilate your race.

You must get a least ONE of your ships through the armada to win.  The more ships you get through the larger your bonus at the end for saving a larger gene pool of your race…

Simple idea, hopefully the scope will be one of which I can get a fun, playable game out of before the deadline is up…