MinGW forces me to quit. Can’t bugfix the compiler in a weekend (or even in a year). Will try newest version and hope it works. Otherwise I’ll be out.

EDIT: I’m out. Allready had the newest MinGW installed (and downloaded the installer for the 3rd time). Might submit hello world to be able to rate. Will ask before. Timelapse video will follow.

EDIT2: Timelapse

The game premise I came out with was nice: you are Morgana le Fay, and must kill everyone in Camelot.

I had a reasonable design idea in the first 2-3 hours of the post; Morgana was going to have only two powers: Blinking and possessing her enemies.

Unfortunately t I failed to get something playable and finished on time. I made lots of mistakes that have contributed to this but the most important one (IMHO) was that I left the main gameplay element (possession) to the last. The second one was that when I realised that the game structure I had didn’t allow possessing the way I wanted, I thought “I will fix it in 1 or 2 hours…”. I should have adapted the design to the new constraint instead – “if Morgana can’t possess, maybe she can throw fireballs or something”. I obsessed over possession, and hours went by. I still have not finished it.

I don’t have pretty graphics to show, since I didn’t even start with the graphics (or sound); here is how it looks:

The source code is on github: https://github.com/kikito/fay

I’m not going to post a .love file, because I consider it too raw for being playable.

My experience has been painful, and not very pleasant, to be honest. I’m not sure I will be back on future compos. But I’ve learned a lot, and even could find some places to improve in my own libs.

Good night!

I’m officially giving up on the October Challenge.  There’s no way this game will be done by the end of the month.  However, I’m still going to try to release my game (that I still haven’t named) and make a dollar off of it.  The October Challenge is now the Eventually Challenge.  While I have your attention, I should pimp my game dev blog.

Well, I posted an entry, but still think I failed. Ok, maybe not to the LD standards (I made a game), but it feels like a failure.

But why did I fail?

I  like to blame the tools. Like everyone does. But I’m right, partly. Why? Because I didn’t practice all tools enough. LMMS crashed, Blender was annoying, why can’t I rotate this CharacterController and what the hell is a *.3ga file? All because of the same reason: I didn’t practice them, or try them out at all.

But I also feel happy, because it was nice to push myself to make a game in such a short time. Usually when I make something, not a necessarily a game, I usually get a “better” idea I want to make and start focusing on that. Then a week later… well, you know, we all have this problem sometimes, right?

This time I made something that I can expand to something and enjoy doing so. And while doing that I hopefully make something other people might like to play. I was also able to spend some time in making a Shader, and make something that actually works. I improved my skills in a few tools; mostly Blender and LMMS, but also some Unity functions.  I also wrote most code myself, without using default assets like platform character controllers.

So why do I dislike my entry and what do I like?

Dislike

• The game only has one boring short hard-to-understand game element
• The drawing style is inconsistent
• No music
• Only two sound effects
• Some things are obviously rushed (even within a game jame)

Like

• I like the atmosphere
• I have awesome game elements (I will add later)
• I have an awesome story line (I will add later)

In my next post I will add some comments about why I like/dislike my entry

Oh, and if you are still wondering what I’m talking about:

Or play it

Ludum Dare 22:

While Isolated Assault was huge success in my eyes considering it was my first Ludum Dare game, and by the scores it received, I’m struggling to come up with a Post-Compo version. You see, I’m just not feeling the motivation to work on it. Every time I sit down, I just feel, “Wow, this is old.” It’s like one of those projects I just gave up because I had no motivation for it.

That’s how it went with Dunnet (My most worked on game), and with my First Person Shooter (My first professional game), and with all those projects I started but never got around to.

Currently my Unity Project Folder looks like this:

Where “Abandoned” have been worked on for a while. I could always go back to the “Abandoned,” but I haven’t, and why should I?

My Problem:

I need a due date on projects.

Some people can never get work done knowing there’s time management involved. For me, it’s the other way. Knowing that there’s no time to procrastinate, and that there’s a reward for finished, I can get a lot of good things done.

I also have problems focusing on one idea and getting it implemented quickly. All of focused ideas I have are too complicated even for top-notch game companies.

Therefore, Ludum Dare was perfect for me–it gave a theme for the game and a deadline. I now know my best work will probably come from future LDs.

Will there ever be an Isolated Assault 2?

Not now. And probably not from me. Anyone familiar with Unity (That means you, reader!) can take my Isolated Assault Source files, and add some new levels, as long as I receive credit.

I have no motivation whatsoever to make an Isolated Assault 2. All my ideas were expressed in the first one. You are a guy. That fights cubes. That wears glasses. The only thing added to this game would be gloss.

Will you participate in LD 23?

Of course! Ludum Dare is the best way to manage time and get good games squeezed out!

Will you stop asking yourself random questions?

Never!!!!

Now I ask you, do I stick with deadlines for making games, or do I learn to get around them?

Do I use Ludum Dare to create all my of my work?

For some reason, I need some sort of reward/time limit for everything I make, because that’s just how I work.

Either way, I’ll obviously still be doing LDs, and I can’t wait for LD23!

I failed to finish anything at all worthwhile for Ludum Dare this time, but I did finish a game. I wanted to avoid making a game about the act of exploration because there’s already a million billion games about that, so instead I tried to focus on the fear of being discovered – the act of hiding, of obfuscating the truth from an investigating agent. The game I planned to make was like a cross between Pong and Battleships where both players tried to keep track of the ball’s location while hiding it from their opponent, but the short deadline, procrastination, and my poor technical abilities meant that I only ended up with a barely modified remake of Pong. It seems kinda ridiculous compared to some of the stuff you guys have been posting, but I’m pretty happy to have finished something more ambitious than a Wario Ware game.

Presenting: Turn-Based Pong. May or may not be more ambitious than a Wario Ware game.

or, A Million Ways to Ruin a Good Idea

nice pants, shorty

Last Things First – The Conclusion

This game (“Lost Races’ Abandoned Artifact Recovery“) failed. It is not fun (actually rather boring). It fits the theme, but not in the way I wanted. It does not transmit the information intended. It is not very funny, either.

In short, the game does not live up to any of the goals set. Let’s go over why.

The Concept

This is the only part of the game I am proud of, even if it is not reflected in the finished product in almost any way. You take the role of an exploring astronaut, scavenging old, abandoned machines and technologies left behind eons ago by advanced races (now extinct). This mechanic alone may have been interesting, but there is another twist: whilst you are busy discovering and cataloging these machines, another technologically-advanced race is monitoring YOUR progress.

I was struck by this model of double-discovery as a good take on the theme, and something that would probably be rather original. The game wouldn’t explicitly tell you that you are being watched, rather it would become clear as you played. (Also, if your actions arouse too much attention, you are destroyed.)

I decided to go with a mechanic that requires the player to upset a random distribution of “glowing stones”. As the player organizes stones around focal points (the artifacts), they are unwittingly making their presence known. I show this by using a minimap in the lower right-hand corner, which actually represents what the aliens see on the planet.

Daniel recommended using negative entropy as a measure of organization (defined here), which worked very well. I built a quick proof-of-concept in MATLAB. It’s like a poor-man’s pattern recognition algorithm, and Flash was able to do it reasonably quickly.

For the same number of points, entropy is reduced as they are clumped up

Another thing that spurred me forward: I don’t know of any other game in which the minimap plays a key part of the mechanic.

The Riddle

This is my fourth Ludum Dare competition. This compo marks one year since I made my first game, for LD16. If so, why, oh why, do my tilemaps look like this:

I know retro is in, but Windows 3.11???

Why? WHY WHY

The Failure

Ultimately, despite the good concept driving it, the game failed to communicate what was necessary.

The scary voices I added were ambiguous to the players. Along with the “alien” writing (Wingdings), they were meant to correspond to the interest level of the aliens, ie. how organized the playing field is. Similarly, the minimap was not recognized for what it was, and I was asked “why doesn’t the player appear on the map?”.

The graphics were very, very ugly (except maybe for the astronaut’s helmet, which I liked).

Evidently, the algorithm failed as well. Depending on the random starting layout, entropy would drop at different rates as clumpiness was achieved. Also, I couldn’t account for different player styles, so maybe clumping differently had an impact on the measurement. In any case, people could play through the game without losing and without knowing about the Overwatch aliens. To these players, it was a boring, repetitive game with no point and no reward.

Random distribution - no alien threat

After player "organizes" the stones near artifacts - high risk

To players who lost, I doubt they understood that if they redistributed stones after discovering an artifact, they could avoid the aliens’ attention.

Ironically, I thought of a great way to improve it, after the competition was over. Instead of piling stones on top of artifacts, the player should uncover them from beneath mounds of stones. This is more intuitive, and might be coupled with a physics element to provide a less “grindy” feel. Unfortunately, I don’t have time to test it out.

Dear Eli: For Next Time

• Try to make a SIMPLE game that does ONE THING and does it WELL.
• Don’t bother with forced artsy concepts that hold up an entire game. Maybe these concepts need to be built, but maybe they don’t need to be in game-format. Maybe it’s the wrong medium. Maybe.
• GOOD GRAPHICS
• If completing the game does not provide satisfaction, there needs to be something more than a title screen that says YOU WON!!! on it.

Hope I do better next time. Thank you for reading and I apologize for making another non-fun game.

By the way: if you have read this far, then YOU WON!!!

So, yeah, I haven’t done anything at all today. Mainly because I completely lost motivation on day-one where I just didn’t get any bursts of inspiration.

It was my plan to use Unity3D and create awesomely sweet looking 3d graphics with lots of cool gameplay, but lacking that one *good* idea, it just never happened. Also, I really suck at modelling AND drawing graphics/textures!

Late day-one, however, I did decide to just whip up a heli-flyer game using the iso tech I had sort-of implemented earlier that day, but after fiddling around for a while creating some temporary art I decided it wasn’t worth the trouble. So here’s a shot of the few (crappy) things I made:

Isometric graphics textures projected onto 3D cubes

Should you not have realized it yet, this is an “I give up”-post

With twenty minutes to go before I have to depart for work, I sigh and admit that this competition turned out like the last one I entered. I researched lots of interesting things, thought my idea through, and managed to start on the first few lines of code before I ran out of time.

It’s been fun, and I’ll still probably try to make the game anyway. I just won’t have it up until after the contest is over.

Construct doesn’t come with proper fade transition, so I thought about writing my own. Construct uses HLSL for effects, so I thought it’s a good chance to learn a bit about shader programming.

It was a failure (given the deadline pressure). I just gave up and decided not to use any transitions.

If by any chance anyone here is familiar with HLSL and knows or has an HLSL snippet which performs fade-away fade-in transition that would be great.

Well this is going badly at this point. No sound, and no AI. I just finished the abilities to build buildings that spawn units, working on the AI as quicky as I can, but I somehow think it won’t neccesarily work out too well. But here’s a screenshot anyway…

I’ll have something remotely playable soon, hopefully a little entertaining. I didn’t plan it out nearly well enough so the whole Roads genre kind of got lost when I realized I wasn’t getting enough done nearly quickly enough…

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