Dinner last night was Chinese.

Clockwise from upper left: cold dish platter (chicken, roast pork, char siew and jellyfish), diced duck in lettuce wrap, roast chicken, tofu mock-meat with veggies, dessert (hard to explain unless you live in Asia), fried shrimp in wasabi sauce, steamed fish, and noodles in the centre. Not pictured: Peking duck and one other dish which I forget - probably veggies of some description, if memory serves.

Hooray for crappy photography skills and almost-as-crappy cellphone camera.

Actually, this was my grandmother’s birthday. Dinner took 4 hours, which kind of put a ding in my development time. Food was good if somewhat “innovative” (roast chicken on top of fruit salad?).

Well, on to the post-mortem.

What I did right:

- I was using very familiar tools.

- Tools were mostly in place before development began.

- I deliberately left out 3D skeletal animation from my toolset. Integrating it would have tempted me to make animated 3D characters, which would have killed the project due to the time required.

- Character sketches at the start gave me a very clear direction.

- Chose to hard-code my level rather than making a more open framework.

- Froze development half an hour before the end of the compo, to avoid running out of time.

What I did wrong:

- Not enough practice with composing music. The first song took 2 and a half hours. The second was half-done in about half an hour. In the end I scrapped music because I couldn’t finish the boss fight theme in time.

- Didn’t build my toolset with quick development in mind. Some features which would have been useful were left out, like sprite animation and object state-management.

- Included toolset features, like lighting, which pushed the game’s specs to a point where some people couldn’t run it.

- Edit: Made the game too hard. I forgot that most people are not shmupfans.

- Attended the birthday dinner. I kid, I kid - making Grandma happy is usually a good thing, and I got a nice meal out of it too.

I did this before the deadline, honest! Just had to wait for ffmpeg to encode the giant AVI to MPG, then upload to YouTube and waiting for it to process. Anyway, feel free to laugh at me now. 15 peeps in about 2 and a half minutes.

I just realized this might be toward the top of the listing for a while. Better make this a link.

PEEPS

I’ve been hard at work, and I’ve been making some decent progress. I can load the level and render it, so that’s good. I have a basic economy that updates based on income, but I don’t have a way to spend it yet or a way to let you know how much you’ve hoarded.

Unfortunately, I ran into the problem of handling the GUI. I want to know when the player has clicked a button, and even though I read up on IMGUI techniques beforehand, I forgot to use them! Suddenly I found myself with code that I needed to gut because it doesn’t work. IMGUI is simple, but there’s only so much time left in the compo.

So let’s eat. I baked one of my favorite LD staples: vegan pizza!

Eating it in sandwich form is much more efficient:

I also made some oatmeal and cranberry cookies:

Just finished:

“What an incredible smell you’ve discovered!”

Back to GUI code. Hopefully I’ll get something resembling game play soon. Why does it always happen at the end of the compo? Sheesh.

Gameplay’s all there, now I have 2 and a half hours to add sound and music and fix any bugs that might creep up during that time. For now though I eat my dinner, then shower. And if I get time, you might see an epic food VIDEO from me later on…

Mm, I think I had this same thing during one of the previous LDs.

So I thought I was in with a chance of submitting something, while travelling in trains and planes … but it’s not gonna happen. Here’s the rundown:

In about 5 mins I decided to write a simple game based on the garbage compactor scene from one of the Starwars movies.

2 hours on the train from Florence to Rome, I wrote most of the engine in Processing on my little Eee PC.

Then I went and saw the Colesseum, Pathenon, Trivi Fountain etc. Walked lots, slept well.

Then, on the plane from Rome to Hong Kong I intended to finish the game … problem - the power sockets on the plane were malfunctioning, so I only had 2 hours of laptop battery.

Result: I’m here in Hong Kong, without a compatible power adapter, and an almost ready game stuck on my flat laptop. Ah well … it will be late.

Pic of eaten airline food (too hungry to wait):

http://twitpic.com/3mkn9

So I took a break from level design to sneak into my kitchen and see what I could find to eat. Turns out my flatmates beat me to it; I sat down and had dinner with the three of them. Costa Rican stew, rice, fresh carrot cake, and red wine. Yum. Thusly inspired, I completed Level 10:

And, of course, blurry iPhone pictures of dinner (remind me to dig out the real camera next time):

I promise it was better than it looks.

I had a good night’s sleep, got some coding in, and have decided on a plan of attack that should result in a completed game. But I have less than 7 hours left. It’s going to be tight.

First, I moved the laptop from the living room to my office. I had to clear a place for it on my desk, which meant moving papers and books to the coffee table in the living room, but what’s the point of having a dedicated work space if I don’t use it? It will be a lot easier to focus just by knowing I’m in a place to do just that.

Second, I showered. It’s almost subconscious, but knowing in the back of my mind that I hadn’t done so today is distracting.

Third, I had lunch:

That’s an awesome-tastic peanut butter and Nutella sandwich that I washed down with apple juice. Note the shout out to all LDers, everywhere, especially those who are essentially making an entire game in the last 7 hours of the competition. This sandwich was for you.

So, I’m clean, I’m full, and I’m in an environment conducive to hardcore concentration and hacking.

Now imagine I put on shades when I say, “Let’s do this” in as bad-ass a way as possible.

Let’s do this.

17:46
Ice drawing is almost complete. The ear-clipping algo had mega bugs. Now optimisation (dropped to 5 fps…)

18:11
Ice drawing is *really* done. Or at least I hope, because it’s starting to piss me off.

19:56
Bullets have sprite and particules. So cool.

22:11
Eating. Have starting producing sprites and arranging the interface of the game. It is taking too long. TOO. LONG.

Mmm, pizza ham-pineapple, an apple, and some of the best chocolate in the world. I am now ready for the last 7 hours. With Queen as musical background I can win this compo. Definitely.

First night I had a chicken pot pie.

Second night I had a bunch of ham. (Not pictured.)

This morning (at noon) I refreshed myself with some ham&eggs!

Anyway, here’s a quick screenie of what’s done. (I’ve been kind of lazy this time around.) As you may guess it’s a standard flee-the-wall-of-lava-as-you-run-through-a-cave type thing. Still, even though it’s LD code, I think there’s some good code in here for me to use in the future. (And some very, very bad code.)

A friend of mine has come in from out of town for the night, so a few of us went to one of our favorite college spots: Allende Restaurant, or what I like to affectionately call Club Allende. They have the best burritos in Chicago!

I ordered a vegetarian burrito and horchata (rice water).

That burrito is going DOWN!

It seems that most of my pictures this competition are of the food I’ve been eating, so here’s picture of my “work environment”:

What you don’t see on the blanket to the left in the picture is my cat Diego. Gizmo was on the chair on the right. They wait until I write a line of code, and then they pounce. I should move this effort into my office for some privacy.

Speaking of code, I have about 13 hours left in the compo and almost no code. This is going to be either a lot of fun or a lot of pain. And I know I’m having lunch with my parents today, so that’s even less time. Wish me luck!

Last night I spent way too long on making the ground for my game. I’m using a Perlin noise function and wanted to modify it so it the edges would fit together, but couldn’t get that to work that way. Anyway, this is my first screen shot:

This morning there was the yearly fair here (just like during LD12) and I went to take pictures for a local newsletter. Now I really need to work hard and get something finished!

And here is some more food I ate:

Well, better than nothing!

Now all I need to do is to compose some music and add extras!

Very liquid based but that is all I can manage at this time on a Sunday Morning. Being up this early and not being at a carboot sale, it’s just not natural.  I predict a more substantial bacon based brunch later to address this unholy liquid / food imbalance. MORE NING ALL!

One of my favorite things to eat is a crispy, crunchy Granny Smith apple.

Ok, so if you saw my previous post, you know that I have absolutely no code, and the first 24 hours are almost up! So as soon as I decided to start filling my project directory with brilliance, I’m attacked for my ambition:

She always does this. I could be idling away online for hours, but as soon as I want to do something productive, guess who is crawling on my lap and over my shoulder, preventing me from computering? Gizmo, you’re lucky that you’re cute.

I tried asking specific questions about what I would like the player to actually DO in the game. What’s the goal? How does he/she achieve success? What challenges does the player face, and what tools do I provide him/her to deal with them?

I had some baby carrots to tide me over until I’m ready to eat a meal again.

In this image, you can see that I’ve started sketching some GUI components.

When I start working on the game in earnest, I’m going to try to have the graphics ready before I write the code for them. And I need to remember not to worry about making them look fantastic. I waste too much time fiddling with each pixel.

Here’s a mockup:

In this image, you can see that Red and Blue just can’t seem to be peaceful in any game, and they are building walls to surround resources, claiming them. There will be a variety of resources, and those resources let you purchase more walls to build each turn and hire more soldiers.

Using 16×16 tiles means that there isn’t a lot of room for detail. Abstract is easier and faster for me, but it also provides the challenge of accurately conveying to the player what is happening. I’d like to get a game working as fast as possible. If the maps are too large, then I can try 32×32 tiles, which are much nicer for detail. But again, I’m not an artist, so I should focus on code and abstract art for now.

And I should get coding as soon as I can. The first day is almost over!

I made some delicious shrimp fried rice.

Frying the veggies and shrimp.

Rice ahoy!

Om nom nom.

Also, this.

Breakfast, hurrah, including all the essential nutrients that every Ludum Dare participant needs. Orange juice, pancakes with berries, and of course, an ample supply of syrup on those bad boys.

And of course, we can’t forget this masterpiece:

Back to work, I suppose. LET’S GO LUDUM DARE!

I was originally planning on sketching out some basic designs for each of my main ideas, but I had a lot of fun making the one I started with that I decided that it was the game I was going to make.

As you can see, I had some snacks while working on this one: blue corn chips with garlic lover’s hummus.

And here’s a close-up of the initial design:

A healthy breakfast: a banana, a bowl of Trader Joe’s Twigs, Flakes, and Clusters (which sounds horrible, but tastes great actually!) covered with blackberries, and washed down with good ol’ orange juice.

Another idea came to me while eating: Remember the game Rampart? How about building walls to surround resources that you use to defeat your enemies instead? BRILLIANT! Maybe.

Ravioli and PB&J.  It’s basic, but I have serious programming to do.

13:01
Lunch break is over. Back to coding.

(mmm, noodles and an apple, and chocolate out of the photo)
14:23
Isometric view is complete!

No 3D engine here, just a bit of geometry and vector graphics, oh yeah! Imagine it going slowly downwards, and it’s really scary. Woooh.

OK, I’m started. Advancing Wall of Doom, you say? I think I can work with that. I already have the necessities going (pretty boring so far, so no screenshot yet, sorry) and things are coming along smoothly. I even have a food photo already!

Exciting! Yes, that is rainbow jello, as well as turkey and mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes. OK, back to work.

Journal:

05:40

Waking up after about 5 hours of sleep. I’m feeling peachy. Can’t wait to go o__O at the theme and lose a few hours wondering why the hell I did even bother going up at such an ungodly hour. LD, you gotta love it. Also, breakfast.

Go go go LDers!

Notice how I skillfully include both a desk photo and a food photo at the same time! And notice the tinyness of my EeePC 901 under Ubuntu. And the mouse. The touch-thingy just drives me mad.

‘nough said.

Hey there boys and girls.

I’ve been busily finishing up my taxes the past couple hours. I still have a couple more to go, but I’m certainly past the half way mark. So before I get caught up in more taxes and announcing the theme, I thought now would be a good time to take a break.

Snack time!

The last cookie+marshmallow thing, and a bag of chips from my lunch at Quiznos I hadn’t eaten yet. Yum yum!