Continuing from http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/2013/04/26/had-to-meditate-but-got-an-awesome-idea/

The game is called “You, are a Shadow” and will use this post for updates

All time in IST zone:

April 29th, 2013

0753 hrs – LOL I just noticed that there was an hour of submission time too.. didn’t know that. Submitted before that.
I dont feel like booting up my machine again and adding that missing credits line… too tired, eyes shutting down and I know once I start editing something..  meticulous me is going to find more stuff to fix.. and the finally compression and host again on my server… dah No can do; sorry

0714 hrs – Trying to pull myself up from all the exhaustion.. and randomly look at some entries from other Indie devs posting on IRC.
I also remember that my over stressed brain forgot to add one last source of sound credits… Jamendo.com .. my bad.
Don’t think its a good idea to now edit the compo entry.. it’d probably make it invalid.. so I’m just mentioning here for good karma.

Also pic of my desk now, trying to clean up

The 5 energy drinks and food (not visible in pic.. burp) that kept me going

0707 hrs –  Damn  23 minutes left and I just made it in time.. Submitted the entry.  Yippie Yahoooooo!!!
Here it is folks - http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-26/?action=rate&uid=21211

Meanwhile, updating log since last timestamp…  I banged my head on a spiky wall to get the music right .. and its still not there to my taste.. a lot of sounds I couldn’t get them right.. so had to use “Coin” sound effect ..   But hey! atleast it is complete.
I took a ton of time to find the right music that can set the mood and go well with the graphics.

Also decided to add a credits page at the last moment (not for self appreciation, but to credit the sound sources) .. oh well.. added my name too.

Hoping you guys have fun playing my game

Btw, facebook page is here for the Likes  - https://www.facebook.com/YouAreAShadow

Hugs to everyone who participated.
0306 hrs – About 3+ hrs left.. I made a list of all sounds I need… it looks like I need about 16 tracks YIKES!
Streaming Live again - http://www.twitch.tv/toonheartgames .. watch me pull my hair creating game sounds. Will I be able to do it?

0204 hrs – Sorry guys, long pending update.
In the last couple of hours I fixed fonts issues,
a ton of math on ‘probabilities’,
reworking some backend calculation and level difficulties,
designed more graphic sprites,
added a tutorial ,
added the final score screens and that’s about it on the game.
I also took a little rest in between.

So, what’s pending?  Sounds and music .. YIKES! .. I’m so noob at that… and just ~5hrs left for the compo to end… I gotta hurry.
Also, I am not sure if I will find time to do some animations
Let’s race for it.

Meanwhile, yet another teaser for you .. I hope I am keeping you guys interested

Life of a shadow?

April 28th, 2013

1418 hrs – Title screen is done. Back to graphics. A game logo is done

Having trouble with CSS stylings using custom fonts.. Trying to fix it.  Meanwhile, here’s another teaser to keep you interested

half cut logo to keep it suspense

1218 hrs – Finished coding 13 levels… some seriously difficult decisions for the gamers to make in the game. I’d advise not playing the game in front of your girlfriend or boyfriend. Disclaimer: I am not responsible for any break-ups that might happen

0513 hrs – Taking a small nap. Unable to hold my head up. Will resume coding level generation after the nap.

0453 hrs – Decision algo has been moved from paper to Code. Here’s another sneak peek of how ‘You, are a shadow’ will play with your brain.

You, are a shadow.. with a ton of troubles

0319 hrs – Finished scribbling level brainfuck mapping for 13 Levels… that’s right.. 13 levels
Now to put them in code
Damn in last 41 hrs, I slept for 3.25 hrs. Too tired to work on #LD48 … AND then someone reminds me of my superenergy music playlist .Hell Yeah!
Listening 2 music tracks of Naruto, DragonBallZ, TheSocialNetwork, Rocky, TopGun, @battlefield3_ & supercharging myself.
My #LD48 is still ON

0230 hrs – Put in graphics in the game. Wrote some nice effects. Took care of player movements and collisions.
Currently scribbling level challenges on paper.
Meanwhile, 3 energy drinks, 2 dark chocolates and 1 paya gulped down.

April 27th, 2013

2237 hrs – Almost all the graphics is done.. except tiny bits I guess.. which I will do later. Honestly, tired of drawing now.. since last 12hrs.
Let’s start off on the code now. Will fill in missing stuff later.

More teaser

Some sprites of the game

1858 hrs – Major part of the art is done.. except a couple of characters and items.  Taking a small break as of now.. wrists paining.
Here’s another teaser for you guys

Ooo la la
What was the theme again?
Minimalism

1140 hrs –  Planned rough layout of game graphics on paper. Now live again at http://www.twitch.tv/toonheartgames doing game art on inkscape.

1020 hrs  - Rough gameplay mechanics done on paper. Now to start art. Ok looks like I need my first energy drink of the day.

0910 hrs - I name the game “You’re a Shadow”

0900 hrs - Huaaaaaaaaa….. Just hit a super cool kick ass idea for the theme

0840 hrs - ok now, time to get serious. Lights off.. shirt off.. Seiza posture meditation.

0830 hrs - 1 hr gone. No solid ideas yet … arghh.

0800 hrs - Right of the bat @ludumdare 26 theme is making me cry Who Dafaq voted for that theme

0708 hrs - Just woke up, brush in mouth.. thought I woke up 40mins late for #LD48 Sigh W00T, @ludumdare website says 20 mins to start! Yippie!

My friend and I are going to be doing this with Multimedia Fusion 2. This is his first ham and my second. No pygame for me this time but hopefully a better game than MiniCity

Click here to Download Roof Jumper!

Thanks again Olav for the awesome dare minild!

As every Jam i’ve done, and often heard said: I didn’t get to finish it as much as I had wanted, but I learned alot.

Spent 6-8 hours over the course of two days, puttin things here and there, had a blast with designing something as simple as possible, with self imposed dares.

I DARED to :

-Compose a simple platformer where you only run and jump

-Use a very minmal pallete of 4-5 colors.

-used only 2 different platform objects.

-implement a secret cheat code. (“SREBMUN”)

-disregard deadlines, and make the game a day late, and
release it two days late.

-Collaborate with good friend @KhyleDean

-Use Music I didn’t make myself for a change.

Had a Blast with it, and learned lots of new stuff, and more importantly, got an idea of what I need to learn, and what I want to learn.
Thanks again for runnin the comp,and thanks for all the people participating,
always lookin to the next one.
-ZakChaos

I’ve made a lot of progress and have a lot of stuff working. The towers can now shoot and damage the player. Once I got that working, I switched gears to map generation. I went ahead and spent about 2 hours making a rough little editor so I can make rooms easily (pictured below). Theoretically the game will stich together a bunch of these rooms together and the player will have to navigate though them using whatever items he can find. I probably could have made these rooms in a text editor just as easy, but I always find that tedious and I like the visualization doing it this way.

I’ve now been working for about three hours and have a little bit to show for it. I’ve got a completely generic screen of tiles and small little character that can run around and collide with the solid tiles. So far I’m still thinking of an idea, but I obviously have the general direction that I want to go in set. It’s going to be a reverse tower defense game. Instead of building towers to kill mobs, you are the mob and you are trying to escape. The idea might change if the mechanics don’t work very well, but hopefully that general idea will stay the same.

Here is a video if it in action: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plRtQoZRzi4

Also, these posts are being mirrored at http://joedev.net 

This is the final version of my game. It’s probably, hard, cruel, unbalanced and difficult. It’s wierd and not just because it makes no sense to make a text based defense game like this.

The final file