(Play it here )

Hello everyone! I’ve received a few questions about my process when making this game, so here goes my postato-mortem:

The Theme

Yeah, so the theme was alright. I didn’t vote for it, but whatever.  Actually, I probably wouldn’t have reached the level of completeness in the game that I did without the theme forcing me to keep things minimal.

I assumed that most people were going to go minimal in graphics and game play, so I set out to interpret the theme a little differently. I decided on making a game that was minimal in goal, time, and information. I wanted it to be deceptive in its apparent simplicity and, more importantly, make people laugh. Oh and it also needed a potato. So almost immediately after deciding on these constraints, Get The Potato was born in my head.

Audio

So a lot of people have commented positively about the audio in the game. I was surprised at how well it came together, as I am not a sound designer by any stretch. I’ve been asked about my recording setup, as well as how I synced the audio to the lighting, so I will address those quickly.

For recording the announcer voice, I screamed into a CAD U37 USB Microphone and a pop filter. Nothing too fancy.

Then, using Audacity (one of the best pieces of software ever made), I’d drop the pitch by 2 or 3 half-notes and apply a robotty effect I learned from this tutorial a few LD’s back. I didn’t want the sound to be too robotty, so I adjusted the delay settings slightly, which can be seen here:

You should definitely try this effect out. It’s fun!

As for syncing the audio with the light, I found some fancy code by a gentleman named aldonaletto that allows you to get at all of the sample data of an AudioSource in Unity while the sound is playing. All I needed was the RMS value, which is a float value between 0.0 and 1.0 (making it perfect for scaling and whatnot), so my implementation ended up looking like this:

(Just stick that on a GameObject with an AudioSource attached and you’re good to go!)

I then applied the RMS value to the range of my main point light, and also to its red and green values to give it that transition from yellow to red.

Game Play (**SPOILERS**)

I wanted players to have the feeling of being thrust into a strange situation on no information other than that for some reason they needed to get a potato, and I think I achieved that, for the most part. I found that people who regularly play FPSes on PC were at a distinct advantage. For everyone else, WASD controls are really awkward, and they soon found themselves stuck on just the third level in the game.

With this level I was trying to recreate that moment in Super Meat Boy when Bandage Girl is *just* out of reach and the only way to reach her is to know about the sprint button. I, admittedly, was stuck on that level for quite a while until my triumphant and face-palmy discovery of said button. In the case of Get The Potato, the potato is only reachable if the player uses the sprint [SPOILER](Left shift)[/SPOILER] key. This was an easy discovery for seasoned FPSers, but many people did get stuck on this level and promptly gave up, which is sad and entirely my fault

This brings us to the next major roadblock in the game. Level 5:

I would say that a vast majority of people gave up at this level. It was intended to be confusing, but it didn’t help that I failed to implement this level properly at release time. It was supposed to be a simple introduction to these mysterious purple cuboids [SPOILER]that you can walk through when they’re off screen[/SPOILER], but many people were able to air control around this one (which was NOT supposed to be possible), causing that discovery to be completely lost to them and adversely affecting their ability to complete the later levels. The best (worst) part is that the cuboids make shrinking and expanding noises when they go off and on screen, but the music drowns them out, rendering them useless!

Ok, this is getting long.

What Went Right

I’d say my decision to use Unity this time around really helped out the most. It just took a lot of the stress out of the weekend, allowing me to focus on my priorities which were implementing humor and game play.

As I said earlier, the audio worked out better than expected. This was my first time using this microphone for an LD. Oh and I have to give a big shout out to LazerBlade on YouTube for his Music Hacker series. Taught me everything I know about working with LMMS.

Overall, the greatest achievement of this Ludum Dare for me was the plot twist (or “potato twist” as someone coined in twitch.tv chat) I was able to implement at the end of the game. I don’t want to brag, but it really puts Mr. Shyamalan to shame. You really should beat the game now. Beat it for humanity.

What Went Wrong

The only thing that really went wrong was that I waited until the last couple of hours to start making levels. This forced me into making last-second changes to the ground/air control code to adjust to the new levels, which in turn exposed holes in other levels. The control code in the final version is kind of a duct-taped mess.

Thanks

Firstly, thanks to everyone that played and rated my game. You didn’t have to get the potato, but you did. You did get the potato :’)

Thanks to everyone that made games for LD 26. YOU F******ING ROCK.

And finally, thanks to Mike and Phil for their efforts in running this thing. You also F************ING ROCK.

That’s it! See you all at LD 27!

This was my 4th Ludum Dare, and for it I made a game called Complexity, a first person shooter/platformer in Unity3d! Timelapse:

From the start I knew it would be some sort of first person game. In LD24 I had made a puzzle game, which surprised me. After LD24 I tried working on some more action-based mechanics: I had begun work on a 3rd person shooter adventure game and spaceship simulation game.

So with my newfound curiosity of the action genre I wanted to make a game that would prove my profound knowledge of fun mechanics. Like most of my games, it started looking like this:

After the basic movement was achieved I started thinking of a plot. From the beginning I knew there had to be a bad guy, because without a bad guy there would be no purpose to shooting things up! And with the theme Minimalism, I decided early on that you were trying to stop some sort of bad guy from making things too simple. From there I came up with a weapon to counter his efforts — the complexity gun.

Alright, so now I had a weapon. After working on putting some basic shapes together I started a simple AI script. From this I had my enemy. If there was one thing I learned from LD23 it was that the more the character interacts with the level the better — basically keeping the immersion. So I came up with a second purpose for the complexity gun – what if it could shoot objects and make them more complex too? Then I tied this into a gameplay perspective — doors that could only be opened by making them more complex. With these new mechanics I pieced together a level.

Audio and music are pretty self-explanatory, if you want to see exactly how I spent my time on them check the timelapse above!

After working on more important game mechanics such as health and enemy lasers, it was time to work on the final boss! Obviously you all know what it had to be:

Sorry to whoever worked long and hard on that animation

Anyways to add story to the game I quickly came up with a splash screen and tutorial section and after that it was done!

What went right:

1. Gameplay
2. Mechanics
3. Boss Battle
4. Story
5. Animations
6. Sound

What went wrong:

1. Graphics
2. Textures
3. User Interface
4. Incomplete side-objectives
5. Goal of game

Why don’t you PLAY THE GAME?

Happy Gaming, Ludum Dare! <3

Here’s a quick gameplay video of where I hid all the potatoes in The Sentient Cube.

What went right:

• Making a non-violent, exploration-based game.
• Creating textures, sounds and the map in time (72 hours).
• Keeping the games mechanics understandable.
• Providing stunning graphics, but still having a relatively small size (16,6 megs .zip with all executables) and good performance.
• Recording (few) suiting sounds.
• Approaching the theme in an non-obvious way.
• Making a few cents trough GameJolts ad-share.

What went wrong:

• Implementing a cutscene reflecting on the players discoveries.
• Creating the terrain in less time,  using the heightmap function right from the beginning.
• Making the journal appealing for most players.
• Providing executables for Linux 64bit and Windows initially – ports are avaible now.

I really enjoyed working on the game and I’m planning to sell an extended version in Summer.
If you haven’t explored the iceberg yet, start your discovery here.

It’s been a rough, sleepless three days, but my first ever Ludum Dare jam submission is finally up.  You can find it here.

In retrospect, I probably could’ve managed my sleep schedule a bit more efficiently.  This was my first game jam, and easily the most complex game I have ever created, so I learned quite a lot of things just from working on this.

If I could do it all again, I’d probably go back in time and slap all the people that voted for Minimalism.  It’s a very uninspiring, uncreative theme.  We’re cranking out games in 3 days.  I’m pretty sure the games would’ve been minimal with or without the theme.  At worst, all it did was inspire a lot of un-games without any gameplay or graphics. :/

Still, I had an overall good experience.  Special thanks to my other teammates, Tyler and Nathan for making this game awesome.

Unfortunately, with all the rush to complete the game, the poor, unloved potato easter egg fell to the wayside.  I feel I have failed the Potato Challenge and failed as a french fry eater.

I forgot to mention The Sentient Cube is Potato-Proved!

It even keeps track of all the potatoes you’ve found:

Gotta Catch’em All!

Earth Defender is also Potato-proved!

Try to find the potato in the game (It’s the Easter Egg ^.^) and enjoy it [+1 ]!
Click here to play the game!

What the world looks like after too much Vectrex gaming.

Minimalism. Quite a tough theme in my opinion. I tried to come up with an idea that utilised it in gameplay as much as possible, instead of just applying a minimalistic graphical style.  After several scrapped ideas I decided to create a game in which two worlds are visualized at the same time,one being in 3d and one being simple and minimalistic 2d, and in which objects in both worlds could travel between these worlds. I thought about making some kind of puzzle game in which the player could “construct” the 3d world from the 2d representation. But as puzzles are not my strong suit, and feeling the amount of work grow too fast, I decided to condense it down to having an enemy which could travel between the worlds and which had to be destroyed using an object which could be “sent” to the 2d world.

The way I solved it was to have the world in which the player exists to behave a little like the later Animal Crossing games, ie. the world curves abruptly near the screen and in the horizon. While the 2d world(the astral plane) behaves a little like Tetris, and when a 2d representation hits the 3d world it materializes. The player can not move to the 2d world but instead has its position in it represented by a sun-like circle. The player can then use the circle as a marker to interact with the 2d world.

I’m still fond of these ideas and concepts, but I’m not sure how wise they were for me to try to realize in 48 hours. Lots of experimenting were done and a lot of stuff were scrapped, my priorities on what to spend more time on might have been a little skewed as well. And I feel that there are still a lot of stuff missing from the final product, especially in terms of tutorials and visual feedback from actions in order to ease the player into the gameplay. I do feel however that it’s a lot more interesting than my previous entries.

If the game and the concepts seems interesting, give the game a go and tell me what you think!

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-26/?action=preview&uid=11939

(Timelapse and more ports coming soon)

Also, there are evil potatoes in the game.

Here is my entry: Beyond Minimalism

P.S. This post just for participate in potato challenge and lolz =)

Here’s my entry:

The Sentient Cube

It’s like Katamari Damacy and Crazy Taxi put together. Although I call it an Action game, it’s more puzzle-y than it looks. To spice up things a little bit, I did add a few power-ups and physics changes.

Also, obligatory potato screenshot:

That’s right, Pixle ninja is ready.
You are a ninja (Made of pixels).

That minimal enough for you?

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-26/?action=preview&uid=14050

Finally done! Woah, such an awesome feeling I must say!

The game can be found here, Click Me

Tools I’ve used,

• IntelliJ IDEA
• Slick2D
• bfxr
• Audacity
• Photoshop CS6
• Pickle Editor

Plus, my game includes Potatoes (If not many!), so here is a seal of potato approval.
You’re totally free to use the Seal yourself!

Here’s what I’ve got so far: Tic Toc Tac Toe (Formerly known as Infinite Tic Tac Toe, I like the new name more).  I really like making web games for these type of events so I can send the link out immediately and get people playing it as soon as possible. (This is up at github)

My biggest hurdle was just starting and coming up with something to fit the theme.  I did have an Arduino and I planned to make Potato Says (Like the electronic toy/game Simon, but with a potato) but I didn’t have all the required parts.  I’m getting them though and Potato Says is definitely happening when I’m stocked up

I’m not entirely sure what just happened. I woke up in a strange place with a computer in front of me. A post-it note on the computer said, “You have 48 hours to make a game or we let you go.” Well, crap. We certainly wouldn’t want THAT, would we?

So I booted the computer and found myself in a Google Hangout with Mariah Almeida and Will Brierly. They were in a similar situation, though Will luckily had an unlimited supply of soda to sustain him. We therefore agreed that he’d be the one programming the game. I’d be on sound, since I love me some SFXR, and Mariah would do animations.

BUT WHAT WOULD WE MAKE?!

Well, we knew the theme was “Minimalism.” How did we know that? Don’t ask, it wasn’t established! We had also previously heard that the theme for this months One-Game-A-Month was “Spring.” Therefore, by combining these two themes together, and throwing in some POTATOES for good measure, we created… this.

The game has you controlling a little spaceship that shoots bees to pollinate potatoes, meanwhile trying to avoid the dogs with bees in their mouths and when they bark they shoot bees at you. And… that’s pretty much all there is to it.

Interestingly this game was created as kind of a stream of consciousness from all three of us. After the Google Hangout, Mariah went and drew 4 random things. I went and made 4 random sound effects. Will created 4 random game mechanics. We them smashed them together and called it a game.

This game has no title but you can play it here: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/6759226/LD/index.html

We are still currently trapped in our respective locations. Please send supplies.

- Dan

This is my first LD entry,  hope you all enjoy!
Fill bugs but I put all my love in this game! xD

You must to find a toilet to take a shit, don’t fart until that!
Can you find all the missing potatoes? (You can have the second end if you found then all)
Good Luck!

PLAY

A and D to move, Space to jump.

LD 26 Entry - Dont Fart

Combining both the familiar appearance of the common potato with the radical contrast of sheer empty space my work explores the rift that exists in our post agrarian society.

The gestalt appearance of this tuberous crop, familiar to many as a common food can serve as a metaphor for the existential struggle of existing in a post industrial society.

The apparent contradiction of audio poetry references the numinous ‘eyes’ that cover the surface of the food, transposing eyes and ears to provoke introspection.

Please play and rate.

There it is:

Gardener in Minimalism Spring

If anyone could give me a hint why the flash file scales up to browser window size, I would be very grateful. Found out a way around this with hosting it on my blog. The “music” are hand-recorded spring birds in our garden (and some strange auto-processing through file converting makes it sound pretty jungle like).

Well, we are quite far into our game! Always a nice surprise.

Anyway, potato. These are the most vicious enemies in the game, ruthless, high spawn rate, and there’s a whole secret room dedicated to them.

Have your game got Potato?!

If that’s the case, why not give it a Potato Seal of Approval badge!
It includes lots of.. Uhm.. Fiber, potassium and vitamin C… And Approval?

Anyway, use as wished!

Seal of approval!

(Made in Photoshop CS6, it's not vector based so I can't give any bigger version though Hope you like it anyway!)

I’m getting to this point where I just don’t quite know what I at least should get done.

It’s very simple game but I want to get as much more details to it from now on.
As this is my first Jam and I want to get as much done as possible!

Programming have been decent – As I expected. Stuff works mostly as intended, but I would love to get more out of it.
It’s just that, I want to fix a lot of stuff but I haven’t got the time or knowledge to it. As I know I’ll take me long before I get more added.

So today I’ve mostly been working on media such as art and sound. Art is going nice, not just as much as I wanted. And sound is.. Yeh, I’ve no idea! Lots of bugs and can’t get proper consistent sound.

But yeah, here is two pictures for your pleasure!