sfernald sank his teeth into the game engine for my LD#16 entry – the light in the end of the tunnel and the results came out swinging!

He’s used the game engine better then then me, making some winding, fun, hard to beat, acid-filled caves.

Check it out:

Source:  http://www.bitjets.com/thelight2.zip
Win32 exe:  http://ippa.se/games/the_light_2.exe

Maybe I’ll make a sequel too since the original game was so tiny. Actually I already started hacking on it. Some ideas/goals:

• The collision detection wasn’t perfect (for example you couldn’t jump while running into an obstacle)
• I’m thinking level-building from One big image instead of several small, but there’s quite some things to work out before that’s possible.
• More interaction with the world, could be levels to pull, buttons to push, doors, modification of terrain or living enemies, not just acid pools/drops.  Preferable additions that don’t complicate the level building to much, now it’s basically drawing a new image and creating one class — liberating easy.

All right, so, I’ve managed to work out how to participate without a) unboxing and setting up my computer just for the compo, in the middle of a move, or b) leaving little software dev turds all over someone else’s computer, the solution being, use entirely portable (as in USB-stick portable) software for development. In this case, allinoneruby.exe, notepad++, mercurial (the command-line part only), pidgin (for irc), and whatever graphics software is already on this computer (such as MS paint, probably). This is made even more delightfully awkward by the fact that I normally do my work on a Mac desktop, and now I’m on a PC laptop. Should be awesome.

I should also add, in addition to my previously announced use of Ruby and Gosu, I may make use of chipmunk for physics, and I may steal some code out of an earlier project of mine, Operation Lambda. I anticipate using application-level code like menus, user preferences and resource management, not any gameplay code.

All that being said, this is still a busy weekend; nothing like 48 hours will be spent on this project.

Finished my entry for the LD#15. It’s a pity I didn’t have enough time to include all the features (enemies, power-up’s, lots of blood, stalactites…) I thought at the design stage, but at least it is playable. I think I might continue the development, though.

I’ve had lots of fun! This was my first LD and I’m really satisfied. See you in the next one!

Title screen

The Evil Dark Cavern Which Leads Straight To Hell

In my game I had some problems with gosu’s rendering of tiled graphics. jlnr was so kind as to quickly fix some bugs, so here is my updated LD14 entry:

Download: Evacuation v1.01 (Windows binary + Ruby source code)

Bugfixes include:

• background and road tiling
• bunkers no longer getting placed under houses so villagers can’t enter
• sound glitch when game is won

Bummer, too late for the binaries torrent

Hiiii,

Here it iiis:

Windows version: http://www.raschke.de/julian/temp/ld14_final_win_jlnr.zip

Mac version: http://www.raschke.de/julian/temp/ld14_final.zip

Source code: http://www.raschke.de/julian/temp/ld14_src.zip

Not much content—sorry—I lacked direction and worked much more iteratively than before. Only really worked productively during the last hours. But I managed to do some nice little tricks using just a 2D lib

Enjoy!
(Reuploaded the next day because the original wording was unintentionally offensive in one instance. Didn’t touch the rest.)

Finished my game now. There could be some more polishing but I think it’s fun to play and turned out much better than I expected yesterday.

Download: jsb_LD14_evacuation.zip

(It seems the gaps between some tiles are an issue with my GPU, please report back!)

I hope all of you had a great time, I definitely had. Now, finally some sleep!

Here it goes, Mac-only and without source so far:

http://www.raschke.de/julian/temp/ld14_demo.zip

This is my moment of triumph. I fear the level design will show that my concept is not THAT well thought out

UPDATE: Windows binary added.

Well I was counting on working down to the last minute, but I have to quit for the day so this is going to be the final version, 5 hours before the deadline. The game is “done” in the sense that you can win and lose, but I wouldn’t really call it complete, there’s a list as long of my arm of things that need to be fixed up and added. All the art is placeholder, which especially hurts. Spent waaaaay too much time on the tech.

So overall, success! I made a game in 48 hours. This was my first LD and I had a blast, I’m definitely doing this again. And I’m definitely going with a simpler game next time. I think Solar Lift has some good ideas, but 48 hours wasn’t near enough time for me to experiment and pull those ideas out into a polished, enjoyable game experience.

The game is written in Gosu with Ruby. Intro is lacking, so here’s instructions: the goal is to rescue stranded people off the plummeting planets before they are consumed by the Advancing Wall of Doom. WSAD moves, left mouse shoots, spacebar fires your super laser blast. Rescuing people charges your laser, bullets are unlimited.

>> OS X Download <<

>> Windows Download <<

Source Code

Last night I wasn’t too happy with my mockup:

But I even switched to C++ because it allowed me to add some features that I wanted to do for a while. Also, I ate delicious tempeh burgers:

And suddenly, my game looked a lot better! I also had some ideas for more interesting gameplay last night, so today I’ll hopefully be more productive:

Say hi to my desk, which I hope to see only when I do Photoshop work:

Other than that, coffee shops and the university will probably be where I am most of the time, meeting up with pythong and mathias. Wee!

Tools

• Ruby (1.8, sadly)
• the Gosu library—<plug>just released version 0.7.13!</plug>
• TextMate
• Photoshop + Wacom
• cFXR
• MacBook
• actually
• I’ll make this list
• a bit longer to make it look
• like I am well-prepared

So be very afraid! … *runs to the mall to buy some pizza*

After having participated in LD5 some years ago I’ve finally found the time and motivation to enter again. Once again, I’ll be using jlnr’s Gosu gamedev library for Ruby. As my coding skills are a bit rusty at the moment, I hope to regain some programming and time management practice (apart from enjoying a fun contest!)

Here’s my pretty basic workspace:

The compo will start at 5am German time so i think I’ll go to bed early and sleep til 8am. Also hope to resist any persuasions by my friends to go out Saturday night

Will be posting updates here, maybe some on my twitter. Good luck to everyone!

Hey folks- finished my game:

• Windows build
• Mac build
• Source (linux build instructions in readme, requires Gosu available from RubyGems)

CONCEPT:

You’ve received 4 scrambled images of possible cryptids:

Use your Crypto-Computer ™ to unscramble them!

You have 1 minute to complete your task before the
evidence is lost forever.  You will receive a
30 second bonus for each cryptid you discover.

Each cryptid image is made up of 4 individual pieces.
Unscramble each cryptid by clicking on the numbered boxes
to rotate a distinct piece of the puzzle image.

* Left mouse button for clockwise rotation.
* Right mouse button for counter-clockwise rotation.

Enjoy!

Here is a current screenshot from my simple cryptozoology puzzle game.  It is coming along fairly well schedule wise.  I have 3 of 4 crpytid puzzles completed and just need to draw one more so that is good.  I still need sounds and maybe score a little game soundtrack for it too later.  Need a menu, perhaps highscores just for practice coding that and still searching for a title I like.

I’m glad that I finally picked a game scope that allowed me to have something playable early on and really gave me time for polish, tuning, and asset creation.  As this is my 4th LD (2 full, 2 mini) maybe I’m FINALLY learning something about scope.    If anything, I probably went too far on the side of simple but we shall see.

I decided to participate after all.  I think I began around 8pm EST.

A mysterious screenshot of my cryptozoology game..   Time to go to bed.

Here is the final mini-ld #6 version of Monorail for windows.

STORY:

You are the Hero trying to reach the head of a runaway train to get to the locomotive.  You start at the caboose and work your way along fighting off the bad guys who have taken the train over. You have to be careful not to fall off the train cars or get swept off the left side of the screen with a disconnecting train car.  Also, don’t get shot!  You can get hit 3 times before you die.

CONTROLS:

Use left/right/up arrow keys to move and jump, spacebar to shoot

Use Gamepad stick and button 1 to jump, button 2 to shoot.

BUGS / FEEDBACK:

I’d love to hear any bug reports or feedback as I’ll be developing this game for a while longer still.  I listen to all suggestions and do work on these projects long after the compo deadline.  I will likely post an updated version before too long that is post-compo.

THOUGHTS:

This was my 3rd attempt at the 48hr competition format.  I think I am fairly pleased with the results.  I love how these competitions really let you bootstrap a concept in a really short amount of time.  I spent 35hrs of the past 48hrs working on this game!  While some people might not ever get why anyone would want to ‘work’ so hard on their weekend– it is SO worth it! 

Well.. my working title is evolving a little from “Monochrome Train”.   Anyway, here is the update:

I have been working like mad during this miniLD#6.  I worked 12 hours on Friday, 17 hours yesterday, and now I have a little over 5hours left to at least wrap up the gameplay.  At this point I’m going into triage mode again like many LD format competitions force us.  In a last minute rabid attempt to cram and adjust all the critical features that will turn a project from a demo into a  game.  This being my third LD type event I have yet to feel that I’ve suceeded within the timeframe.  Not sure this time will be any different yet but at least a big difference is that this time I have been able to play my game a LOT more during creation.  Probably to the detriment of the timeline a little.  I guess that is a good sign though.  Anyway, 8am EST is almost here and that is when my crunch time begins.  I have made a critical todo list to accomplish during this time and we’ll see how it goes!

CRUNCH LIST:

• score file handling to support matrins compo requirements
• detecting most primitive form of ‘you win’ condition when reaching locomotive at head of train
• enemies – spawning, moving, fighting, dieing, dodging (of some type)
• simple player / enemy animations for the logic I have coded so far (right now there is no animation)
• simple event sounds
• tiny train like soundtrack loop (update: DONE @ 9am)
• how to page?  I am confused on this because due to the matrin framework requirement– I was planning on using his idea of the 400×400 image in his framework to provide how tos… but I also want people to be able to know how to play if they just download this level from the blog without the loading framework.. so there is the connundrum of sorts.
• animations for train wheels and locomotive parts and steam cloud

Current screen shot above and current windows build here.  Use arrow keys (left/right/up) to move or gamepad stick with button 1 to jump.

Seeya all on the other side!

If you look closely.. you see the hero of the monochrome train!

I have now added three train car types of various heights.  You can now fall off or in between cars and die.  The train cars detach from the train when they hit the left side of the screen.  The velocity of the car is transfered to the hero so he drifts with them correctly.  He can now jump between all the cars with the jump from lowest car to highest being possible but tricky.  The game is over if you fall off and die or if you get swept off to the left of the screen.   You are supposed to advance to the head of the train but there are no enemies yet or win condition.  Only death…. and that is not handled gracefully.. if you ‘die’ the game ends abruptly.

For the brave, here is the current windows build exe.

Use arrow keys to move left, right, and jump! ESC to quit.

I just finished implementing parallax scrolling background objects for my game.  There is currently a nice cloud layer, a far plateau layer, and a near plateau layer all that move by in different speeds based on their distance.  I’m really quite happy with it so far.

I find I am not making much gameplay progress because it has been so relaxing for me to watch the train and dessert go by.  I have to start implementing some game play now!

Here is the latest test exe if any windows users wanna check it out! Left and Right arrow keys move viewport.  ESC to quit.

Well, things are getting off to a slow start this morning as I have been dealing / fighting with 20%+ packet loss on my cable modem…. *sigh*   Anyway– after a few hours it has cleared up for now.

On the monochrome train front, I have been sorta zoning out watching my current tech test demo.  There is no gameplay yet, but I like how it sets the stage for the coding yet to come.

I currently have a wide world of train landscape with cactuses, rocks and tracks.  Populated with a boxcar only ghost train right now.  The train chugs along to the right and will run for approximately 2-3 minutes (not locked down yet) before crashing.

The player (yet to be drawn / coded) has that amount of time to race from the caboose to the train engine to hit the brakes!  There will be obstacles of various types along the way (yet to be drawn / coded).

In this demo, you can press the left and right arrow keys to move the viewport back and forth.  When you stop, it keeps its slow advance.  My current idea is that the viewport moves just *slightly* faster than the train so that if you don’t creep along with it you will also get swept off the back of the screen and fail that way too.

Here is a win exe if anyone wants to see my monochrome train test.

I’ve been laying down the code since my last post and I already have a screenshot to post.  Basically the traincars currently come flying out of the left and head to the right past the various cactus, rocks and other western detritus that I will hopefully add for ambience.  I’m really liking the look of it so far.

Now, I have to code a player cam to track the train cars through the world coords.. fun fun!

First of all, thanks so much to everyone who left feedback to me in the ratings area.  I have taken a bunch of the suggestions that people made and have worked more on improving CoMuTor in the past 2 weeks.  Here is the latest work in progress of a post compo version of CoMuTor.  The readme file contains all the changes that I made so far based on my own and others feedback.  I welcome further feedback in the comments on this post for anyone that liked CoMuTor enough to try and play it again.  I’m just having fun working on aspects of polishing and modifying this silly little game.  I look forward to more Ludum Dares!!

CoMuTor v1.1 – Post Compo win32

Changes from compo version:

- added visual score feedback and level indicators
- added 3 minute time limit
- made it harder to eat people
- points scale with faster/smaller vehicles
- rebalanced point system
- rebalanced timing / car release system
- vehicles have different speeds now
- added people to vehicle sprites
- broke out car and suv sprite body for better coloring system
- crushing gas trucks no longer counts towards crush count
- vehicles running into you no longer spawn people
- adjusted menu instructions to reflect new changes

Mac version!

Windows version (FIXED—let me know if not)!

Linux: Well, both versions include the source code. Just ‘gem install gosu’ and run ‘ruby Main.rb’. You should know how to do these things

It’s all mouse-based because I tried to use controls simple enough to run on the iPhone (theoretically …). Hope it’s self explanatory, I moved the readme inside the game!

Known bugs:

• The pretty Unicode star (see screenshot) doesn’t work on Windows
• On WIndows, it opens a useless console window when you run the game
• (Gameplay usually suffers a bit because there is no incentive to actually use curved streets, like more points for driving on them :/ Still, I got >36k on my third game and it involved lots of curves at least in the first two thirds!)

Here is a link to the updated post compo version that will stay current. ** NEW **

Here is link to win32 binaries only final compo version

Here is link to Mac build of compo version (thanks to jlnr!) ** NEW **

Here is link to full source and media archive of compo version

Gameplay:

You are a monster who has decided you will take out your aggression on the morning commuters.  You can  crush cars and SUVs with abandon as long as you land squarely on them with your jump move.  You must be mindful of the dangerous GAS trucks!   Keep away from those at all costs and let them safely leave the screen.  Every car or SUV that escapes your wrath and flees the left of the screen costs you the same amount of negative points as if you had crushed them with a fatal jump move.  After each vehicle is destroyed it’s inhabitants flee in panic.  You can chase them down and eat them.  Don’t let vehicles run into you though as this will also cost you score as well.  The game speed will continue to increase with every 10 vehicles destroyed.  Since you are an invincible monster you are merely playing for a positive score until you retire from your activities.

Managed to cram some form of “game” into it but it definitely didn’t turn out how I meant it given all the triage and feature cuts I had to make both in programming and art.  I had an awesome time though just the same.  Can’t wait to play everyone’s entries!

 What worked well:

• Building a good infrastructure: Clean object system & usable level editor = worth a lot. I only really started building levels around the 40 hour mark, and that worked like a charm.
• Cutting stuff in the end: Music wouldn’t have helped me a lot. Not having an ending was smart too: Everyone who noticed that must have liked the game anyway
• Ruby, together with an ad-hoc autoloading mechanism, made for one of the smoothest coding experiences ever.
• TIME MACHINE! I knew I’d need a backup system sooner or later (turned out to be true), but I really didn’t feel like bothering with Subversion because I always forget to add files etc. and it wastes time, so I just watched Time Machine do its background work every hour. Boy was that a relief.
• Periscope: While my timelapse wasn’t highly interesting, it only took two clicks to create, so no time wasted here for a low score

What didn’t really work:

• People had various problems with the gameplay (controls, motion sickness, …), and even if I knew that earlier, I probably could not have done much about it except getting into a panic.
• Needed to do more optimizing than I usually do, and some levels are still slow. Will revisit this and try to improve on this from the Gosu library’s side.
• I had a cold that made thinking pretty hard. Anything that involved maths was buggy, which caused a minor panic just before the deadline. It also made IRC very hard to follow

Next time’s plan: Keep the solid workflow, hope that the game concept works out better with regards to the Fun, and consequently Overall category, try to be more experimental technically. Can’t wait

Also, did anyone play the game with a gamepad? Would be cool to know for the next time, because it was hard to decide between a small ending screen and gamepad support in the last few minutes Thanks!