Ludum Dare 23 Compo Entry is up!

Play the game HERE.

Blast the Mega-Spheres into nonexistence to save the miniature Trivials from extinction!

There is some happy up-beat music for the menu and the gameplay! Try it out!

Timelapse coming soon!

I am tired.

I’ve wasted lots of time, but at least here’s something. I’ll try to stick to actual game code from now on and try better graphics later if there’s time.

Having spent the morning thinking of ideas, eating breakfast, thinking of ideas, playing UT3, thinking of ideas, I think I’ve finally come up with something.

The idea
There’s a city (“enemy” city). It’s full of people (and buildings). Things are drawn in abstract glowy lines style, or something, as if you’re watching it through some sort of special vision (which you are). Most of the buildings have no real function, other than that there’s some people in them. Some are more special, like police station, hospital, psych hospital, gun store, liquor store. Something like that.

Now, you have some sort of mind control weapon which you can use on citizens to convert them into your weapons. When they are converted, they will simply fight for you automatically, including trying to fetch guns etc. Of course, other people will probably defend themselves, and it will also attract police and, later, army. Police is more difficult to convert, and army are even more difficult.

Goal is to take over or destroy the city (haven’t decided yet). You only have a limited energy for your mind control device, so you must use it strategically, but luckily it will recharge faster when fighting is going on. I think it could be fun.

Work wise, it needs to generate cities (should be easy enough), then write the rendering code (probably easy), then there’s the actor stuff which will probably be the hard part, followed by balancing. Graphic wise, I will need representation of people. Currently I’m thinking just a vertical line + and icon if they are of a special type (police etc).

Not yet sure if army/police/normal people will have vehicles. Also not sure if I’ll make several custom designed levels, or I’ll just let people specify the variables for the generation. We’ll see (hopefully).

The ideas
Here’s the more general ideas I had before I came up with this idea:

1. Scroller/overhead walk around, catch and throw enemies at other enemies, allow for chain reactions, preferably more abstract representation of things. There should also be coins to collect, of course!
2. Sort of psychological propaganda game, you convince the enemies to destroy the other enemies.
3. Some sort of commerce/trading game where you must make deals that are better for you than for the enemies (probably doesn’t fit).
4. Some more lighthearted idea would be nice… INSERT IDEA HERE.
5. Variant on 1, more of a puzzle game, you can capture certain kind of enemies, and then throw/fire them like a weapon of something on other enemies, over distance or over barriers etc. Stunned ones can then be used as weapons.
6. Ultra Fleet.. oh wait, already did that.
7. Maybe also a variant of 1/5, but instead of capture throw/fire, we mind control the enemies directly, and then control them while they go on rampage, or just hit switches, or whatever.
8. Or there could be a shooter where the weapons are named of LD participants.
9. Or taking 8 further, the game can be a series of boss battles, where each boss is an LD guy, and they attack with something from one of their game, then when you win over them, you get them as a weapon. Sort of fun, but might create some legal issues since I’d want to use some iconic object from some of their previous games.

   Disregarding the enemies as weapons, this could be a fun idea to try make as an slightly bigger project, outside a compo. Then there could be complete levels, with enemies of their previous games, building up to fighting them as a boss.

10. SUPER PEAR ATTACK.

I intend to participate in this mini, and even though I’m hosting it it seems pretty fair, because I don’t actually know what I’m going to do yet. But I have several ideas…

• A transportation game, sort of like Transport Tycoon. Little innovation value, but probably fun to program and play.
• Sort of a reverse version of the above, where you instead of handling transportation and trying to make a profit from that, you are the customer of transportation. Either as a government kind of thing, or just a company with stores and factories. A little more innovative perhaps, but I’m not sure how it should play yet.
• A factory/conveyor puzzle game, where you build or process some kind of product. Inspired by Manufactoria, among other things. Also not very innovative, but a good thing with puzzle games is you can make lots of levels for them, if the elements are good enough, and they tend to be fun.
• Some sort of industrialization sim, where at a start there’s just a bunch of low tech farms, and then innovations makes things more effective, there becomes a surplus population, cities are formed, new industries are formed, and so on. Think it would be really interesting, but probably too large for an LD.

So just have to figure out which to do… so far I’ve just got my base code up and running.

I was hit by the flu yesterday. So instead of setting up my coding environment and libraries and stuff (as I have a new computer), I was instead busy not doing anything but being in pain.

Then today, it turns out my favorite theme won. Great timing. Fever inspired game design and programming is sure to be a real winner. Might actually work. A bit of a problem that it feels like my brain is some distance away from me, though.

I’m bitching too much? Well, you would too.

At least I won’t have to spend time on food photos.

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…

I’ve managed to get some game stuff into the game. So it’s possible to play it, and it’s possible to win or lose (only there’s not check for it yet). It’s not overly exciting. Or intriguing. There’s an AI that plays decently if it’s lucky, but almost never wins except if you’re stupid. But it’s something.

What’s left is to fix a few known bugs, add some kinds of instructions, and end of game check, and pack it up. Exciting, huh? I’m quite tired, so I don’t really jump around in joy, but maybe I would have been. Probably would have been more had this game turned out better.

I’ll write about how you actually play in the submission post.

And I forgot to post my lunch photo from earlier. It was lasagna.

And then I just had supper. It was toast.

And no, I did not take a lot of photos of the same toast and use them to post multiple times during the course of this compo. It really was different instances all of them!

I’ve thrown out a lot of code and streamlined (simplified) gameplay. It’s still fairly pointless, but it’s pointless in a much more easygoing and fun way. Which is important.

I just need to figure out some restriction/bonus given by the tower height. And introduce an AI player. And fix some way to solve conflicts. And come up with a goal. I mean a single actual coded goal. I can think of lots of different other ones, like reach certain height in as low number of turns possible, or be the one with highest tower when resources are all out etc.

Anyway, here’s a screenshot. It looks kind of like before.

The game doesn’t work as it is. Needs to figure out a design that does. At first I thought (as I wrote) I just needed an slight control change (or a bigger one, but I went for the small). The actual game rules were the same, only this showed that the game was fairly pointless (when didn’t have to set workers every round). One just had to set them up and let the turns pass. Might have been better with an opponent, as then you’d have to figure out most optimal route, but that still wasn’t much work. And the bothersome thing left was to manually build the tower. Tested to remove that too. Made it less bothersome, but even more pointless. So I need to figure something out.

Oh, right, at least I had some candy.

Not much of a gameplay yet, but at least it’s possible to move around in the tower.

YouTube Version (I couldn’t find how to embed it in the blog entry :/)

Better quality (2.7MB)

So much left to do, so little time.

I’m trying to figure out whether I’m to change the control scheme. The current one is a bit of a bother at lower levels and will be a lot of a bother at higher, or so I suspect. Just feels there’s a lot to rewrite, and I’m not sure how I should adjust the tower building. Most this probably doesn’t mean anything yet to you guys as you haven’t even played it. But just so you know I’m pondering.

I’ve added small icons so one can see directly where things have been ordered and where things can be done. Also improved the roads. It looks more promising than it plays though, so not sure I’ll get this stuff to be fun or not. It really needs an opponent to make any sense as it is.

I’m having breakfast.

It’s toast AND A DONUT.  It’s like the most awesome breakfast in weeks! For me.

I’m up and and working again. Have continued on the roads stuff so that now you can assign workers beyond influence level if it has road connection. Things missing at the moment are building fundament and expanding level of influence. And, like, and AI, decent graphics, multi-player mode etc etc.

I’ve noted that the way worker assignment is currently done is quite bothersome. Not sure how it should be instead. Thinking either that workers stay assigned and can be unassigned, or that one can just select what resources to buy for the remaining workers after having built etc. Currently it works that you select action for each hex during a road, including assigning workers. Then on next round those things are reset.

And now I need to go out in the rain on a quest to buy breakfast stuff.

The middle point has passed and I still have nothing playable. Doing 3D from scratch, combined with bad preparation are making my progress really slow. Will I be able to finish a game?

Tomorrow I’ll have to focus on gameplay at all cost.

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)…

Just thought I’d give some word on my progress before I go and get some sleep.

It’s now possible to expand the tower. It’s also possible to build roads. Those are perhaps the only different game changes. I’m not posting a screenshot because the roads are just lines at the moment.

Night all.

Solved the stalemate on the game design by adding another color… that breaks the pattern and makes the game more fun…

Now I already have win and lose situations, with all the flow in it…

As usual, took me longer than I wanted, the glue structure of the game (get to the next level and such things…)

Anyway, this part is done… game starts, goes to the first level, if you’re successful (that is, if you can build the tower with bricks to spare), you go to the next level, otherwise, you get to repeat it…

Now to add the lives indicator, and add the game over and well done screens…

I’m a bit worried about sound… I doubt I can make it work today and tomorrow I won’t have the gear for it… K

I don’t really now where all the time went, but at least there has been some progress. Added drawing of the tower with variable number of levels. And initial building of it. And getting and assigning workers to resources. And getting resources. And a bit of ending turn. And simple UI. … Well, so I guess I’ve done more than I remembered at first, but it’s still not a game, far from it. Here’s a screenshot.

And I’ve just had supper. What do you think it was?

That’s right. The toast subclass of bread. With a little butter. It’s really supposed to be a lot of butter, but I ran out of it, and wasn’t clever enough to buy more earlier when I was shopping. So now I have something fun to do before breakfast tomorrow! Yay!

Ok, basic gameplay is inplace (no win conditions yet…)…

I’m trying to play it, but the game reveals itself impossible in lot’s of conditions: for instance, in the screenshot below, you can see that there’s no way I can transform that block into something that doesn’t screw everything up…

I wonder why most my games in LD48 end up like this: impossible… I should think things through better before coding…

Anyway, I’m gonna try and find a solution…