…. it’s just that the GF dropped on me two days ago that she wanted to go up to f’ing Sacramento on Saturday for a birthday (I live in San Francisco). Besides this last minute annoyance, I’m excited about LD #21, but still haven’t quite figured out my plan. =)

I’m developing for iOS in Xcode 4. I’ll be using the terminal screenshot script that was posted today. I actually used it in the last Mini LD; and it works reasonably well, especially considering you don’t need to install any extra software, which is nice.

I have my own small library for iOS games, which is the accumulation of what I’ve learned until now. There are still some glaring holes, like that fact that I have no idea how to build/import any kind of map haha! But I’m sure I’ll figure something out. Last Mini LD, I figured out collision detection on my own.

Hmmm, since a lot of entries include photos and stuff, maybe I should do the same. I’m at work, so I won’t be taking pictures of my messy house, however, I started dicking around on some music last night, warming up for this weekend’s challenge (don’t worry! I won’t actually use it. And my “song” really sucks anyway, haha). So I included a few screenshots of that.

Wee!

Hi LD’ers yay why am I so hyped at this rate I will be tired before the event begins!

Just a quick line to say that already 385 people have played Energy Island Conquest (the enhanced beta of my LD mini 28 entry) on Kongregate.

I was just thinking of what Music I should line up for my Ludum Dare Weekend?

I recall a scientific article that said classical music is supposed to be good for your brain.  I know I’m a BG (before Google) nerd, my introduction to my first computer was the ZX81 and they did not have a internet search bar, or browser or internet!

So are you a BG (before Google) or an AG (after Google)?

LD Tip: Play Ludum Dare like a fighter pilot!

Fighter pilots train themselves so they instantly forget any mistakes they make, as even a split second worrying about something that went wrong could take you down in flames.

So for Ludum Dare expect failures, mistakes, errors, dead ends but prepare to forget them fast and fix/drop/work around them faster.

Here’s a playlist I’ve put together of some of my favorite Dubstep songs (which in my opinion are great for coding). Please enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL229744C56A9E0F7A

I doubt I was the only one to break out in a small private karaoke concert when the MiniLD theme was announced. War followed by Cannon Fodder (in all fairness in this version by Press Play On tape). Closely behind followed Fortunate Son. Had this been a true LD these songs would be playing in non-stop repeat. Seeing as how I’ve got more than just the 48 hours, I fear for my sanity should I keep the music running.

Regardless, the music gripped me instantly and tossed me back to what I consider the epitome of W*A*R – Vietnam. The satire of Cannon Fodder and the udder foolishness expressed by both Edwin Starr and Credence Clearwater Revival (henseforth CCR) easily sets the stage for war gone wrong. Beyond this, I’ve had a notion of fiddling with games that work heavily with music. Trying to merge the two has given me three options:

1. Guitar Hero Vietnam (meh)
2. ReZ vietnam (still meh)
3. Compose-a-war (yeh!)

I’m going with the final one. In principle, I’m aiming for an RTS-puzzle hybrid that relies heavily on the rhythm of the music as queues to the player on how to react to enemy movements. This requires some intriguing features not innately accessible in the engine of choice, most notably a run-time dynamic music tracker. Fun fun!

Anyway, to summarize my tools du jour:

Language: AS3

Engine: Flashpunk (custom version integrating RichardMarks’ sound mixer and a few custom fixes)

Sound: sfxr

Music: Pure code (rhythms tested in Musagi and MODPlug Tracker, samples created with sfxr or my vocal cords)

Graphics: Paint.NET

Others: tellusLibsAS, a modest helper library publicly available on Github.

Break a leg, everyone!

So it’s time to look back at my 48 hours of game-making, like many are doing. Let’s see what happened during the development of A Steampunk Axebot Supply Run.

What went wrong

The Theme - “It’s dangerous to go alone” was the one on the bottom of my list. Why would anyone vote for it, I thought, when there are so many interesting alternatives, like nihilism, or climbing? Why, indeed. I had nothing prepared whatsoever for this theme, and spent the first 2 hours panicking over what to do.

The Level – It occured to me only later that I could have made this in 2D, or using tile-based movement, either of which would have made creating this stuff considerably easier. Oh well.

Textures – As in “I don’t have any”. Adapting UVs is a grueling and time-consuming task,which I would rather avoid, and spend the time otherwise. Using the toon-shader for all 3d-objects was a great choice, but it would have been prettier with added textures. The terrain clashed with this. I couldn’t use the toon-shader on it (so far I know), and creating extra textures for it alone was not efficient.

Preparation – Slept too little the first day. Woke up at start-time (4am), but forgot to check the theme. Felt unmotivated and guilty for first 36 hours, bevofre I finally kicked into non-stop game-making mode.

What went right/not-so-wrong

Timelapse – It felt weird, at first, knowing that my every move was being recorded. But the video makes everything seem ultra-efficient

Music – this one actually surprised me. I never really composed anything bigger, and I just aimed for something unobstrusive. I ended up with a sweet theme which fits the game awseomely, complements it, and people actually like.

The Title – No matter how good or bad this was going to turn out, “Steampunk Axebots” sounds awesome.

The Scoring system – Your profit is determined by several systems, which are based on enemies killed, health of the robots, extra fuel left, and over-healing. Each robot has an own pattern and unity set of enemies at different times, so it is quite challenging to figure out the best combination. I still haven’t.

The fuel gauge – The rockets can travel only for a limited time, before they crash. I intented this to stop players from hovering over the playing  field or leaving it, but the time-constraint added another tactical layer. The rocket takes some time to reach its target, but once it passed a certain point, reaching the other targets would be impossible. It was however possible, that the robot you tried to heal died while you were on your way, meaning you had to carefully decide where to shoot. But since all robots converge on a central point later in the game, it became at that point possible to switch targets should something happen.

3D-models – My first though was a little knight, which I would have need to animate. Unfortunately, there was no time to either animate one or learn how to include animations in Unity (note to self: learn how to include animations in unity).

Biff-Particles  – They are quite a good substitute for fighting-animations.

Healing-Particles – They look much better than I planned.

What I would have liked to add

More stages – which become increasingly complex and tell a story

A menu – Which I already had  around, but no time, and no good reason (with only one level) to implement

No introduction screen – I’ve always hated these. Dammit, I want to play the game, not read a novel! There are ways to start the game at once, and teach the player on the fly.

Destroyed robots and rockets – Which I would have added were it not for a game-stopping bug I encountered with only 40 minutes to spare

Having the title of the game appear somewhere in the first level – Like I did in Unstoppaball. I love that gag.

-Matthew

RL-friends pointed out that my soundtrack is kinda neat. If the embed doesn’t work, click here, Or just go play here to experience the entire thing. Or see the Ludum-Dare-Entry. Either way, go play

-Matthew

Finished the Dare, just in time I’m really quite proud of myself for this one, not only did I really push my technical skillset (first time integrating a full-on level editor in a game!) but I also kinda pissed away the first 12~ hours Anyway, in the end it turned out pretty well, check it out if you want, hope you enjoy it!

Eunaborb

Got up and read the theme, over breakfast this song popped up in my head originally it had more of a ballad character but for sake of simplicity it  kind of went down the electronic vocoder synth road, enjoy!

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/26937089/LD20-TakeThis.mp3

Ah and usually I dont sing, so this kind of the first song I recorded, well it’ Ludumdare, anything is possible.

Ii uploaded some audio , i really only spent about 10 minutes making this (FL).

Wanted a break from code, so here we go!

Will get around to more  later. Only about 11 hours down for me.

Listen on sound cloud :

http://soundcloud.com/fuzzyspoon/menuambience
Edit, this goes with the menu :

Untitled Discovery Menu

I decided to write three pieces of music that anyone entering the current Ludum Dare jam can use in their game. They can be downloaded free from Bandcamp and have been released under a Creative Commons license. This means that you can share and remix the work for non-commercial projects as long as you provide attribution.

So I just randomly noticed that many people around here were going for Musagi, if the time is right to compose some music. So I looked it up, and hey – it’s from Dr. Petter, which has also made sfxr! I thought it may be something interesting – downloaded. It was a win application, which is, however, no problem – Wine solves it easily.

But then… It is kinda simple. Not a lot of generators, assets, samples or whatever.

That is why, if I have time to compose music, I will use LS…

The hit soundtrack for You are me now has been released, courtesy of Indie Funk Electronic Newbie Records.

• Intro/Extro
• Island Theme

If you haven’t played the game yet, it lives on the Megastructure development blog.

Questions, comments, and criticism are all welcome (Ludum Dare entry page). Thank you to all those who have commented! I have learned much, and next time will be even better.

Full menu: beacons, boats, teleport towers and shelters

Yay for digits made of OpenGL primitives!

Also, I needed a break from the coding frenzy, and wrote some music for the game. Since the game might very well never end up being a game, you can listen to the track here.

EDIT: perfectionism. Music is better like this.

Workspace #1: Starbucks.

I’m all done for today and I still have enough caffeine in my system to keep my dreams strange. I goofed off a lot during these first few hours and didn’t get any real work done. I did come to the conclusion that my favorite audio sequencer available for Linux is now Renoise. It’s not open source, but damn if it’s not a cool piece of software. It’s not Ableton Live, but then, Live doesn’t run on Linux, and it costs three times as much. I feel a little silly sticking myself with a new tool to learn in the middle of the contest, but I’m determined to get some music in my entry, and also work completely in Linux while I do it. Good night!

Ok. While I’m thinking for ideas I’ve made the music.

Here it is! http://www.goear.com/listen/fef2fa6/Island-Music-Rolpege

Play in Browser

Download(Windows)

Download(OSX)

Download Unity Source files

its a little late but I dont care, laying down those notes was a nightmare and I wanted sleep =p

So its the end of the first day and my game is pretty much working. its just a pain theres no way to put notes where I want them yet, I guess I’ll make the editor tommorow… anyway, night all

Hobnox Audiotool

The audio tool is a fantastic way to make cool sounding music all from within your browser. Make 10 short loops and randomly loop through them for a simple background track. The tone matrix tool is particularly awesome.

ColorLovers Palettes

Sticking to a palette will improve the appearance of programmer art tenfold. The palettes are only of 5 colours so try finding two matching palettes to get a good range.

If you know any other handy sites like these, post them so we can all use them

For a change, I started to play around with music. I was in a need of some club music for one of the levels in the game, so I thought about making some club tune. Since most of the sounds I made so far are chip, I thought about making chip-club tune.

The result wasn’t that great.

Chip-version

Trance version

So my friend Ian and I made a Christmas album. I know it’s after Christmas, but I was out of town, so Happy New Year Everyone!

I finished the songs that I posted for the LD Christmas Album weekend (‘All I Want for Christmas is Presents’ is now all Phil Spectoredy, yay!) and recorded a few more. Then Ian did the lion’s share of everything else (He even made an incredible 8-bit song, The Ice Storm, that makes me wish I could us him for Ludum Dare’s). Anywho, here it is:

http://www.devonscott-tunkin.com/nonweb/xmas_album.zip