Hey!

I submitted my warm-up game “Bouncy Bouncy“. And it looks like I’m ready to go.

Also mi updated setup is that:

Compiler: GCC and mingw (for cross-compiling)

Library: SDL and my framework (GameLib)

Graphics: GIMP

Sound: Audacity and Sfxr/Bfxr

Timelapse: Glapse

Hardware: Gigabyte M912

And well; the required ”desk” shot:

I supose that makes me a couch-gamedev

This is an elite table too, grade A, it was designed by Herman Miller and I found it in the garbage.

So, I’m in the UK, only just heard about it, why not. Let’s see how it goes.

I’m planning Python, probably with pysfml or pygame, probably pygame as the new bindings for pysfml are not particularly stable at the moment. Not much in the way of plans as I only decided to do this a very short time ago!

My workspace.

Not sure how much I’ll post during – or even if I’ll finish something, but we’ll see.

So yeah… now I wait.

Edit: I’ll also be using PyCharm as my IDE. Great bit of kit. Running atop my Arch Linux/KDE setup.

Oh man I am at a loss… So far my ideas are:

Tumiki Arena – Tumiki fighters except in an arena. It would fulfill the theme because every time an enemy died, they would give you a gun or whatever for you to handle further enemies. This could either work in robotron style, or in astroids style. With the second one it would be a bit like captain forever. I don’t think that is a bad thing though.

TowerTron – Similar to above, but you can pick up and drop turrets. Maybe this is more like herzog zwei crossed with tower defense. I don’t know if I can figure out A* this time though, or really any pathfinding.

Castle Defense - Missile Defense, except you can occasionally add stuff to you towns and cities, and they all shoot automatically at the missiles. “this is a dangerous place to have a town, here take this”.

Ok gonna just roll with one of them. I clearly need to light a fire under myself, I just spent 20 minutes messing around with my timelapse script. HOLY CRAPPU, GOTTA ROLL.

Also, here is my desk, and my lunch and dinner (I just cooked 2 meals at once):

Here is a photo of my current development workshop.

HO HO HO.  Merry Ludum.

Because you made me.

Deskshot

Yup! I am so ready to roll. I couldn’t sleep this morning so I got up early and started reading game design blogs.

Also this morning, I purchased 40 pounds of satsumas. So I will probably eat some of those this weekend.

Also, I kinda buried my link to my base code, so here it is again.

I’m a bit late with the intent declaration, but meh, I’m late with the start, too.

I have to run a zillion errands tomorrow, so at least some of the work will be done on this:

As for the theme, I was hoping for double rainbow zombies, but I do have some ideas for using enemies as weapons. I’m planning to work until 4:30 (GMT-8), we’ll see how that goes…

Okay its 3:31am the competition started 31mins ago. I had originally intended to wake up at 5-6am then start coding but I couldnt sleep so I thought I would get cracking early then catch a nap later on when im tired.

The theme “Enemies as Weapons” is actually a better theme than what I was expecting “Technology in the wrong time period”. I havent got an idea yet but im sure something will come to me

Anyways, here is where all the magic will be happeneing over the next 48 hours:

I have ChronoLapse setup to capture a screenshot every 60 seconds so hopefully we will get a nice video at the end showing my progress (or lack of ).

I will be updating at regular intervals throughout, mainly to break up the dev process a little as 48hours is a long time!

Wish me luck!

Time to throw in a post before everything starts, with the obligatory environment-I’ll-be -sitting-while-coding photo.  Note the drink at the ready to the left of the lappy and the notebooks to the right.  All I’m missing now is snacks, which shall be amended with a trip to the 100 yen store around the corner in a moment.

As for tools:

• I plan to use Javascript and canvas for code, so the result will be playable online.
• Most code writing will go down in Notepad++.
• GraphicsGale for graphics, possibly with a bit of dash Gimp.
• DrPetter for anything sound, if I get around to it.  Err, sfxr and musagi that is.
• If appropriate, though I have no ideas for it, I might go grab some audio from the festival going on this weekend at the nearby park.

Finally, I might take advantage of the fact I’m working on a tiny laptop and take it out and about to code for a bit.  Change of scenery and all that.

Here is my current very minimal workspace. I am working on (i.e. sometime in the future), going to get new outlets put in as well as get a new desktop pc built. And yes, that is a sword…

now start thinking about islands before going to sleep

Framework:  This Stego AS3 framework thing that I’ve accumulated over the last several months:  http://bitbucket.org/excitemike/stego/

IDE: FlashDevelop. compiling with mxmlc.

Music: I’m thinking WarioWare DIY, then recorded and edited in GoldWave.

Graphics: A copy of Photoshop CS 1 which as far as you know was obtained completely legitimately.

Sound Effects: I bet you can guess this one.

Will be listening to: Switching Pandora between a DragonForce station and a station based on music from movie montages (on which the Transformers: The Movie (animated) soundtrack comes up often! ).

For timelapse: I will be using Keeyai’s Chronolapse on account of it’s awesomeness.

Desk:

The Brachiosaurus will be relocated before the compo begins.

Refridgerator:

In case you wondered whether I like bottled water.

Additional foodstuffs:

crunchy munchies

Inspiration:

I should be playing the GameCube version with bongos.

Projector + FC Twin + Super Game Boy + Game Boy Donkey Kong = Heaven!

Sauce Control: Mercurial, which I love.

Twitter: ExciteMike

Favorite Dinosaur: Microraptor gui

And actually I may use Unity, depending on what kind of ideas I get once the theme is announced, but the above is most likely.

I need to get a decent camera.  The webcam built into the cheap laptop is kind of a pain to use.

Dark picture of a messy desk

XNA for coding, PaintDotNet for gfx, sfxr for audio (I expect), mappy for level editing (if I go 2d route) and using an already existing simple 2d game as a base. I’ll spend the next hour stripping out everything to get a clean base. I’ll hopefully be doing a timelapse desktop recording (no webcam though), and code snapshots every hour or thereabouts when its running. I may check it works on xbox every so often, although if I do put it out (and sell it on XBLIG!) that will come later…

This is my first LD, so no idea what to expect. The photo also shows that Monster Hunter will be played in the background by the girlfriend to sort of keep me company, and also that my desk looks far smaller and messier than I expected.

My lovely workplace!

Rocket, which moves, and shoots. It’s amazing.
Stars scroll at different speeds. Pretty neat effect.

Now I’m out of ideas.

Also, here’s a low quality shot of my desk.

So, just because I took the pic (And I _was_ doing the clouds warmup)   (Pics and such continue below)

(more…)

So, got lots of scribbles out, and lots of ideas on how to first progress – the only problem being, actually progressing!  I’ve not used XNA properly before, so this is a bit of an interesting learning experience.  Thankfully there’s shed-loads of documentation, and if I get really really stuck I know a couple of people I can ask for advice.  Heck, the last time I did any kind of serious programming, it was in DarkBASIC!

Anyway – I’ve got a project up, got a font in, and making a ‘punters’ class for all those Cavern Club patrons to be.

Bovril toast and orange juice breakfast

So!  Woke up at half 7 this morning, took a peek at the theme, and then went back to bed for a while to think about it.  Caverns, eh?

Eventually got up properly and made bovril toast and 200ml of orange juice for breakfast!  Yum!  Liquified cow.

Been doing some brainstorming on the pad you can see to the left there – I’ve got an idea I rather like:

Alternative Club Tycoon: The Cavern Club

You own and run “The Cavern Club” – a struggling nightclub for the goth/metal/rock community of your town/city.  It’s up to you to choose the tracks, price the drinks, and get everyone happy (well, keep the goths poetic, at least).

Plus Points:

• The graphics will be gravy.  It’s going to be  a number crunching game, or at least a number balancing game.
• Any graphics I do make for it will be heavily stylised and hopefully ‘cute’.  Look forward to cubic metal heads moshing!

Worries:

• Music.  Huh.  I’m going to see if I can get away with being sneaky here, because there’s no way I can create ‘generic goth track number 17′ and ‘generic metal anthem 8′.

Oh, and I discovered that I can’t use the ‘play and charge’ cable to make an XBOX 360 pad work on the PC.  Doh!  I’ll be getting a wired controller some time today – but if it’s a sim game, mouse control seems best anyway!