20:37
Back from dinner. No photo, batteries dead.

22:22
Colorized three levels. I hope I can make it…

23:02
One level to go. IRC log:

<Tenoch> Codexus> only 6 hours left ._. PANIC! PANIC!!!!!! –> me too buddy, me too…
<Dragowlene> what say you
<Deepflame> It’s 40mb and xvid encoded
<Dragowlene> with 7 levels
<Dragowlene> can I call my game final?
<Tenoch> !D
<Dragowlene> somebody who’s tried it
<Tenoch> my levels are empty…
<Tenoch> like… empty
<lexaloffle> Edwardowlka - I had trouble getting anything to work too. That’s not haXe’s fault though — I really don’t understand Flash. Or OOP for that matter @_@
<Tenoch> Are there logs of the chat during the compo time?
<Tenoch> that’s something I’d want to show my children.
<Tenoch> when I have some.

23:43
All levels colorized. Made a clouds background, with multi parallax. Oh yeah.

05:41
Yeah right. Finished. Now a bit of sleep before completing blog, journal and postmortem.

In the 23:43 -> 05:41 hole, I made a loooot of things. That is, all the gimmicks inside the game, the trooper, the winning conditions, texts, interlevels barriers, some gameplay, difficulty ajustments (too much adjusted, apparently), etc.

Then in the last hour or so, sounds and three musics. Oh my gawd.

I don’t have photos for this last part, since I had other things to do, and also, because the batteries are dead and I don’t have a charger.

See you soon for the postmortem :°)

Entar has kindly made a windows port.
link

Thank you.

Edit: added SDL.dll to the win package, that should fix the problem.

Finally, I finished… It took me about 18 hours or so of work to get this up and running… and I had to do a plane travel from Lisbon to Dublin in the meantime and all…

This was by far the smoothest compo I was ever in, probably because the game isn’t as ambitious as my previous attempts… I don’t know whatever I should be happy for finishing a product (complete in terms of menus, music, sfx, even a pause key!) or unhappy because it’s so unambitious… I’m getting old, methinks…

Anyway:

You can download it here (Game)

Source (C++/DX9) can be downloaded here (Source)

You can also download a more complete journal here (Log)

Timelapse can be downloaded here (*.wmv)

And I think that’s it, looking forward to judging you all (eheheh, sounds funny said like that)…

Covenant, signing out…

Well i put a lot into the graphics, but i guess it wasn’t really worth it. Should have added some music, but i just wasn’t prepared for it. Too bad, i would realy set a mood, if it were right.

A tower has colapsed due to an eartquake, and this poor little guy was standing a little too close. He can try to escape but eventualy he going to be crushed. Might as well have some fun with him. The idea was, that it would look funny as the game pauses when he trips, so the player could realy enjoy the expression on his face.

Here is the linux (Fedora 9) executable. Not sure what are the dependencies, probably just SDL.

BIN: http://ferisrv5.uni-mb.si/~ms5391/Tau.tar.gz

Here is the Eclipse project, source code, gimp files and everything i created in the process.

http://ferisrv5.uni-mb.si/~ms5391/LD12.tar.gz

The picture( a bit late ):

EDIT: Windows Port

LDT +3005

Local time: 23:05

I think I’ll turn my entry in without adding a third level, I don’t have any good ideas for it nor do I feel like staying up till 5. So hopefully my next post should have the final game.

I don’t have a windows box so if somebody could make an .exe with py2exe I’d be grateful. I’ll py2app it so the setup.py file should be pretty straightforward to convert, and I only used pygame so there shouldn’t be any weird dependancy issues. 

Probably the last foodphoto: (unless I have dessert )

Teaser screenbit:

After quite a bit of coding I got collisions working for the “bullets” (eggs). So, now all of the enemies die when they’re hit woot. I’ve also made around 5 new maps (Total now: 10) and I’m thinking there’s going to be 15 or less maps in the finished product. Oh, and no the player can’t go to any maps after 7 currently… it’s because I’ve only drawn the maps, not added them into the game. Anyway; I’m trying to code a miniboss right now; and it’s not working in my favor. Very very annoying. I’m trying to make him randomly use one of his two attacks; but the animation gets all screwed up. *Sigh*… it’s sure to be some stupidly obvious bug that I’ll kick myself over when I find it. Until next time!

Here’s my noodles and soda for lunch for today (oh, so healthy!):

As for my project, I’ve decided to throw in a few sound effects to make it more complete. Back to work (and simultaneous lunch)!

LDT +2753

Local time: 20:53

Today has not been very productive, I had almost finished yesterday so there wasn’t much pressure. It’s rather short though, so I’m thinking about making a third level. Not sure yet…

My awesome girlfriend brought back some chicken wings on the way back from her walk. Overexposed photo:

Teaser screenshot bit:

13:31
Drawn three levels. But they are not in the game yet!

20:02
OK, long afternoon. Friends were there. I made 4 more levels for the game. Hand drawn, scanned, vectorised, re-bitmapised, made floor detection aware. They don’t have colors yet, though. They don’t have content either. Had to code all the level transition stuff. Not that easy.

Next step: draw some gimmicks to throw in. Or go to eat…

9 Hours and 45 Minutes left. I just finished the music and got it working in game, making this my first LD entry with sound of any kind. The song is crap, but hey, I’m still proud of it. I did it all on my guitar (even the ‘drum’ parts) using audacity. The three phases are in, although there is no AI and the cannons don’t actually fire. The turns are still set on very short for debugging, but it does cycle all the way through. There are still some bugs to fix, and the AI to create. If I finish all that, I’ll put in sound effects.

The last day is here. I’ve woken up with just under 12 hours to go. Can I make it? We shall see… Still to do: all the AI, firing cannons, sound, music, and the major panning effect I had planned for the fight phase.

To power up, I made pancakes for breakfast. Breakfast is so much more malleable than the other meals…

Here is the obligatory phallic pancake for the roommate:

And a spiral pancake! Culinary skills++

Finally, here is last night’s more standard fare - burritos with rice, beans, and cranberry juice.

LDT +2145

Local time: 14:44

We had a late brunch. First we had french toast:

Then since we were still hungry we had eggs and bacon and squeezed some fresh orange juice:

And finally here’s a deskphoto:

Anyways, my entry is pretty much finished, just polishing it now.

13:05
Back to work with new ideas from my lunch break. Paper and pencil rule.

13:32
I now have bluish gimmicks that change state if you press space while touching them… What will they reveal to be? Ah ah, mystery!

14:21
Argh, almost done nothing since the last line… This is *bad*! Quick, let’s start the organisation of data into levels.

14:42
Operationnal level loader. Based on Lua tables in separate files, it creates level “objects” ready to use.

15:43
Mmm, not sure what I’ve done since last line… Variable floor size, maybe. It could be shower time, for instance.

16:09
Back from the shower. I know what to do.

16:57
Succesful implementation of game modes, and a basic menu with nothing in it but white noise.

17:43
Back from little snack. Ate a chocolate bar. Cheap imitation of the well known “Lion”. Tiger, they call it. Mwahaha the joke.

18:22
Conversion of coordinates from Inkscape to the ingame system during loading. Will simplify much the level making. Well, apart from the graphics, of course…

20:51
Back from dinner. Ate a good ol’ pizza in front of the Simpsons. I kinda feel like I lost a lot of time doing nothing this afternoon. I should go to sleep.

12:20
IRC log:

* Le sujet de #ludumdare est : Ludum Dare - http://www.ludumdare.com - Towering over the Olympics - Ludum Dare 12 - Theme: THE TOWER !!!
* Sujet de #ludumdare défini par PoV!Mike@14.28.86.64.velcomdsl.ca le Sat Aug  9 17:52:46 2008
<Tenoch> AAAAAAAAAAAAAAH, by all the mighty god of DOOM!!!!
<Tenoch> I slept 15 hours
* edwardoka aborts
<edwardoka> Cheers guys, good luck with your projects
* edwardoka (Edward@host217-42-161-242.range217-42.btcentralplus.com) a quitté #ludumdare
<Tenoch> gods*
<Tenoch> and still no graphics
<Tenoch> go go go go go
<mjau> i haven’t even started yet =/
<Amaroq> Ah. Here’s the tut I was reading about how to write a particle engine. http://lazyfoo.net/SDL_tutorials/lesson28/index.php
<Tenoch> 16 hours 42 minutes left –> AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH
<Amaroq> Don’t worry Tenoch. I haven’t started STILL. xD
<Tenoch> anyway: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

And yeah, breakfast at noon. Bad, I know.

LDT +1652

Local time: 09:52

Just got up for day two. My there seem to be a lot of entries this time.

I noticed something odd about my development process, I’m doing all (-most all) the coding on my mac and almost all the graphics on my ubuntu box. I think one would expect the opposite.

Dinner was good, including (but not limited to) burros, beans, rice, peaches, and cherries… a picture says a thousand words, so:

My project for Ludum Dare 12 is coming right along! I’ve got the scoring system in place, as well as HUD, particles… etc. Again, pictures are worth approximately one thousand words, so here’s a screenshot for you:

Onward and upward!

Holy crap! Ogre particles are freaking awesome.. Here’s two of my three planned weapons, the Fiddy Tower and the Flame tower (the third is the “missile tower”).

Looks like those bugs don’t stand a chance. Except there’s still no gameplay at all yet…

Well I’ve made a few more maps and another song for the game. My MOB class got an overhaul; it’s designed for pretty much everything so far. Animated, non animated, moving, non moving, setting a certain amount of pixels to wonder, moving in a direction and never stopping (missile type). SOo yeah. I think I’m only going to have time to put one mini boss in this game unfortunately. Oh well, I’ve been working really hard (not a super great artist, but decent enough to make games like this IMO). I also made the player able to shoot eggs; but so far they don’t actually kill any of the enemies. I hate collision detection in java so I’ve been slacking off on that section ;).

Local time: 02:58 AM

We woke up to see the theme voting results, and “The Tower” was not what we had expected. But in a hurry we turned an old idea, to fit the theme. Some kind of a smashup game, a clone of the SNES game “Super Smash TV”. You are in control of a random muscular character, and you’re goal is to kill all the enemies on the current floor of the tower, without dying, and then proceed to the next floor, with more and heavier enemies. We are planning an arcade mode, so you will be alive untill you are extremely outnumbered.

We began making a fast title screen to match the theme of our game, which looks a lot like the old gaming consoles Gameboy and SNES.

To give it some kind of relevance to the theme, The Tower, we made a cut-scene of our character moving on to the next floor in an elevator. This sequence, will be played every time you conquer a floor and move on to the next.

After the cut-scene you arrive to the actual game. A floor, that actual looks more like an arena, where you have to kill all enemies around you. The gates will open randomly, and spawn more zombies. If there’s enough time, we will add other enemies than just those zombies on the screenshot below.

We also managed to create sounds for the title screen, the cut-scene, floor doors open/close, weapon shooting and bullets hitting the wall. Besides that we created the animation of a zombie dying.

There’s still a lot of work to do.

• Zombie AI
• Zombie spawn system
• Balancing the game, adjust hitboxes
• Music

We are now going to bed, and looking forward to continue tomorrow morning. An upcoming journal of day 2, and probably a few comments and pictures of our workspaces and lunches will be posted later. Goodnight!

I wasted a lot of time rearranging the Ogre tutorial app… but I’ve got towers and enemies.

Too bad they don’t do anything yet.. just sit there.

LDT +2040

Local time: 01:39

Well, I’m off to bed for the night. I got a lot more accomplished today than I’d expected. Level 2 is almost done already. Plan for tomorrow: more sound effects, cutscene, maybe difficulty settings, more chrome, maybe even music. Plus anything I think of at night.

Almost time to turn in…

Most of the game is done, including sound and music… Just composed some stupid tunes on the acoustic guitar, recorded it, cleaned it a bit in Goldwave, and it’s done… Got a game music and a title music… even considered adding some lyrics to the title music, but I don’t have the gear to mix up the voice and the guitar and I can’t do both at the same time, because I suck! J

Going to wrap this up for tonight, get everything ready for my trip tomorrow, and hopefully I’ll be coding again in about 15 hours or so (which leaves me with about 7 to 8 usable hours left)… Thankfully, only things I miss are the Main Menu, the Instructions, some levels (which can be done pretty fast) and some gameplay tests)…

I’m almost finished with my game engine (rather, I believe I am); I’ve done numerous improvements to the game since my last journal (one would hope so) so right now I’ve just got to finish off the game. I also composed another short song for the game. No real great new screenshots though.

LDT +1755

Local time: 22:55

I fixed the collision code, and did a bunch of small improvements. I also slacked of the last hour or so to rest my eyes. I should start planning level 2.

A snack:

Supper my wonderful girlfriend cooked:

Tou is comming along slowly. The sprites are way harder than i thought at first. But I think i am a good half through the whole thing, which should give me just enough time to finnish. But sadly no sound.

Here a pic: