Now before everyone’s going into hibernation again here’s a small Post Mortem for Chain Reaction.

First i was not sure i was actually going to enter. I’ve partitiated in a few Ludum Dare’s before, but usually only when i could really use the full time. This year round that was not the case. I didn’t even reserve some extra timeout from the family.

Still, once the theme was up i couldn’t help it. I strived for a rather simple game (simple as in simple to make) since any greater planning would go down the drain anyway. I’m rather glad how it worked out. My entry is not particularely innovative but things fell into place pretty nicely.

What went right:

• Having the general gameplay up and running as the first step

This is actually the most important part for these kind of competitions. If you have a flaw in your gameplay design you still have time to refine it. It’s no use having nice technical gimmicks all around when the gameplay is crap.

• A working editor

If a game is level based it’s one of the rather convenient things to have. Sure, with the given time nothing stops you to hardcode level data or even store it in some text file. Once you have an editor you can churn out levels at an alarming rate. And it’s a nice polish plus for the final version.

•  Sound effect (thanks to DrPetters awesome tool)

Usually one of my bad points. It’s easy to use a microphone and grunt/hiss/snarl some stuff but it also sounds exactly that way. DrPetters tool is a most awesome help as you can experiment and modify in just a few clicks.

What went wrong:

• Innovation? We don’t need to stinkin’ innovation!

Not thinking too much about what to do i was glancing over the first shots of the other competitors. Lerc’s shot looked very nice and i thought about these circles being bombs. I’m glad that the gameplay came out very different though.

Here is an exe and some dlls for my game if you use windows. You still need the data (graphics and levels) from the other archive though. Just put the contents of the two zip-files into the same directory.

Here’s the zip:

http://d.skalle.googlepages.com/ld10_final_exe.zip

If nobody gets any problems with this zip then I will probably make a new zip with the EXE, the datafiles and the source code together.

Shrapnel!

Downloads (both have windows exe + source code and Linux makefile):

• Compo version
• Post-compo: Smaller zip, sound latency fix (no code or data changes) (new)

Uses SDL, SDL_mixer and SDL_image. I used kate for code/text, gimp for graphics, sfxr for sound effects (thanks DrPetter!), and pxtone to make music.

If the Linux version crashes when you run it on 32-bit x86, use this SDL library (contains a fix for a bug in SDL_SoftStretch)

Edit: Figured out the Windows sound latency issue! Seems the SDL.dll I used was buggy. Replacing it with one from libsdl.org fixes things.

My game is done now. You can download it here, enjoy

http://d.skalle.googlepages.com/ld10_final.zip

This zip countains source code and linux executable. Windows executable should come whenever I have the time.

As usual after a bit of playtesting i happened upon one crash bug. Yelp.

Fixed the bug and added yet another level. So it’s 15 now.

The new version is uploaded; i’ll remove the final tag from the older entry.

Click here to get it.

 Tools used:

• DrPetters über-awesome sfxr tool
• my own crappy paint app
• Visual Studio 2003

Well, I’ve doodled, and I’ve tinkered, and I’d say I’m as done as I’ll get. So here’s the final version.

 http://www.sendspace.com/file/8plytj

It’s written in C++, using Allegro. Go nuts.

So this looks like my final game. My wife’s got that look so i doubt i’ll work on it anymore

Link removed. The final can be found in my latest blog entry.

It’s not the most innovative but it has been fun. It sports 14 levels, sounds due to DrPetters awesome sound effect tool and ugly pixel art by myself truly.

Position bombs and use the chain reaction of exploding bombs to fulfill your goals:

Either bomb open all diamond devices or push all target balls (with an X) onto any goal area (or both).

Do not forget, that you can go back and reposition bombs for another attempt. And another. And another.

An editor is included, which lets you build your own nasty contraptions.

There source comes with a Visual Studio 2003 solution file. It’s not the cleanest code, esp. the resource loading is an ugly hack.

The game itself requires any Windows since Windows 95, DirectX 8.1 and shouldn’t need any other DLLs beside the one i included.

You want a screenshot? Ok:

If I had known that ludumdare would actually end, I’d have started earlier!!!
Here’s another picture of my game. I have updated the graphics a lot (and I think that these would do for my final submission unless I need more), what I still have to do is gameplay, sound and levels.

Things look nicer now, but I plan to make them look even nicer in the final version

Okay my entry is here:

http://cs.uku.fi/~ralaatik/boostcraft11.zip  (~500 kb, win32).

I can’t work on the game today so I have to submit what I have. Did all nighter on it (Yawn..) My timelog is in the zip. If you want to check it..

Visually it looks quite a lot like my last game ld9 game, bumpcraft. Had to pick this simplistic graphics style again because I really had only 24 hours to spend on it. Hope you like it.

Camera and sidescrolling implemented (not wrapping yet though)

Oh and I made a tripod, a bit small. Fixed the controls a bit by cheating. turning left n right adds forces in those directions not only changes the upforce. Up n down still needs tweeking.

The physics seems a bit unstable, (stuff act strange) I’m not sure my idea with chaingrapplings will work, perhaps I should revise the idea a bit.

I finally got a working claw on my heli! Yay!

The controls are really hard though. Its like… controlling a 1ton heli with a keyboard from remote that has a 1-2 sec response time. I guess I’ll have to fake it a bit.

Perhaps not much of a reaction though. Here is my first sketch, I haven’t decided if I’ll do this yet.

Im thinking of using a physics lib on this one.

Looks like i can actually get something done. I won’t be able to use anything near to 48h so i aim for something simple.

Some of the game tech is already working so i can think up some nasty contraptions to stop the player. The basic goal looks like you need to get all diamonds. But before you can pick them you need to bomb their cover off. You can place non-timed bombs which need to be activated by the editor placed time bombs.

The story: What story? It’s bombs, it’s chain reactions, and it has shiny things. There is no story.