The family team’s project is done. Almost all of the arts is by my little daughter (almost 3). She also had some impact on the strange name of the game .

Try and rate!

So this is the current progress of my game. All the arts is by my daughter, who will become 3 next week, except the player circle. She refused to try drawing a circle even if she’d done before with the yellow one. *sigh*

Looks like a fish tank.

Some of the stuff swirling around should be collected by the player, some should be avoided. What you collect in a given time will decide your next stage, which resembles evolution into the next generation.

Here’s my first screen shot:

Just kidding, that’s my entry Unmutate from Pyweek 13.

I haven’t made anything for this LD yet, but I might possibly make a sequel or remake of that game.

It just seems sorta silly that the theme for Pyweek 13 was Mutate and now the theme for LD is Evolution, but whatever.

Actually I’m really considering using this Raspberry Pi as my new target platform for game jams like Ludum Dare. The technical specifications are rather limited which gives an extra challenge. As I’ve already been using mostly python and pygame for game development this should work without much extra effort. Next I’m going to test if my previous entries run on it. (This should not prevent me from having additional Windows builds of my games )

Raspberry Pi – Runs Linux

On other platform-related news, some French guy that goes with the webname “Loopingstar” has experimented with the basic idea of my LD23 game Bottlecolonies and made a port to Flash with some extras added. I especially like the variations in buildings and clearer visual feedbak of points earned/lost while placing buildings. You can give it a try here: http://loopingstar.fr/colonies/colonies_v2.swf

As promised, here comes the first post-compo version of my LD 23 game Bottlecolonies. I evaluated a lot of the feedback you gave me on my LD entry and tried to improve the game with different additions and changes. If you click the link below, you can see that this is just the first beta version for the finalized game. At the moment there is only the windows executable. I’m working on a Linux port but have to try out if the subfolder works first. The changes from the LD version so far:

Link to post compo webpage

• Add: +1 bonus point if a building is placed next to any park
• Change: -6 point for discarding a tile
• Add: second music track
• Add: new map, selectable as level 3. The old level 3 is hidden behind level 2. If you beat level 2 you automatically will play the old level 3 next.
• Change: goal scores for prosperous colonies changed for new bonus points
• Change: subfolder for assets
• Add: elliptic marker where next tile will be placed

Further updates will include:

• More maps
• At least one more music track
• Additional buildings for the end game to make the game more interesting
• Saved highscore per level

Even if you have played it before, you should try it out again. The changes in the score system have a big impact on available strategies. In case you haven’t rated the original version yet, you can find it here.

And last a screenshot of the new map:

So finally I’ve found some time to wrtite up my impressions of the past Ludum Dare event. As ever it was a big pleasure to participate and I’m really impressed with the sheer amount of games being made and the overall quality which feels a little higher than the last times.

Now about my game “Bottlecolonies” which you can play here.

The good

• I finished everything I planned to minimally have in the game in time.
• The creation of a windows executable with py2exe worked immediately this time, thanks to experience from past Ludum Dares.
• I’m pretty happy that I really took my accoustic guitar to make ingame sound and music.
• I managed to make a game with quiet a consistent style and feel due to the handdrawn graphics.
• I’m totally happy with the game I’ve made. With my third LD this time I noticed how much my self-organisation and the outcome progressed from event to event.

The bad

• I totally underestimated the effort even to record only a small music track with a real instrument.
• There are still some small issues that could have been solved within time (especially some sort of marker where one builds).
• To solve the challenges stated in the levels requires more training and strategic thinking than I expected. It’s the standard issue that usually the developer himself is the most experienced player of his game and tends to make it too difficult.

To sum it up

You can see I’m really glad with my LD entry this time. I’m very confident now with my tools (especially python/pygame) and know roughly how much time different steps in development needs and what I’m able to achieve in 48 hours. I think that is the most valuable experience you get from an event like this.

Already put a marker for positioning in the post compo version.

Additionally the reception of my game has been quite positive. Hence I’ll put some more effort in a post compo version which shall at least include:

• A marker for the building position (done)
• Additional music (one new track already recorded)
• More levels
• Highscores of past plays

As I’ve already written two teasers for this post mortem I’ll stop here and just give you a visual impression of the development details:

From first prototype to post compo - with handdrawn graphics and self made guitar music.

Want to try and rate ?

Here is a quick teaser for my post mortem to come when I have more time to write things up (probably middle/end of this week).

These two screenshot nicely illustrate the progress made from first prototype (about 4 hrs) to finished game (about 18 hrs).

You can give the game a try HERE.

And I’m done. I’m really happy with my game. It has handmade graphics and guitar music, the mechanics work well and I think it has a consistent style. You can give it a try at the following link. It is sort of a puzzle/strategy game.

Bottlecolonies

It wasn’t as complicated as I thought to add some visual numbers as an instant feedback for the player. Next step code-wise is to add interchangeable levels. After that and after some sleep I will replace all the placeholder art with handdrawn art.

Well… spent about the last 13 hours in bed.  Haven’t gotten any work done at all.  Feel horrible.  Trying to get started now, so… yeah.  This is not a good weekend for me.

With about 3 hours of work my game is shaping up quite well. The game logic is working and now I have to improve the gui feedback for the player and the graphics obviously.

The basic idea is that your spaceship of tiny people have found some colonizable bottle worlds and need to construct buildings and recreation areas. Unfortunately there are four factions aboard the colony ship which don’t like each other that much. So you have to keep them seperated as possible.

Just got started on my entry in he last hour or so. I’m jamming in meatspace this time, at the Manchester Game Jam, UK.

Nice theme! Thank the gods it wasn’t exploration again. I came up with an idea on the way here which involves, predictably, a small planet. It also involves aliens and guns.

I was thinking of playing around with HTML5 this time – something I’ve been wanting to try for a while now – but I was too lazy to do any research beforehand. So instead I’m sticking to what I know: Pygame. I just about managed to squeeze GIMP onto my tiny netbook, so there may even be graphics.

Good luck everyone. Bye for now!

So the theme is Tiny World?  Yay!  That was my top choice!  So, as I mentioned in my previous post, I’m working with Python and Pygame again, and this time throwing in a little curses emulation library called Pygcurse.  I’m not feeling very well today, so I’ve decided to try to keep this LD pretty low on the ambitiousness scale – wanna be able to finish and still be able to go to work on Monday feeling fairly rested.  To that end, I’m making a text game!  Well… there may be some graphics, perhaps… if so, it’ll be late in development that they get added in.  The game will be something of a spiritual successor to one of the very first games I ever played – and one that was very influential in my decision to become a programmer:  Hamurabi!

So yes like Hamurabi, but in SPAAAAAAAACE!~ You are the new ruler of a tiny space colony (TINY WORLD!~) orbiting the Earth in L2.  Your primary task is prioritizing the colony’s resources between construction (making the colony bigger), infrastructure (increasing livability), and saving for the future/emergencies – much like in Hamurabi.  There are new ideas mixed in too, though – interactions with the Earth and other colonies (trade, politics, war,…?) (I could make it an MMO, lawl), and probably a bit of city-building mechanics added in.  I’ll have to kinda judge as I go how much complexity I’ll be able to add.

Good luck all!  See you in the Tinyverse!

Hey guys, this is my first time at making a game for a competition.

For anyone who cares, I will most likely be using Python with the module PyGame for the code, as well as Garageband and GIMP for my audio and graphics.

Also, I’m going to be using my 15-inch Sony Vaio laptop with a 27-inch LG monitor to give me more space to work on

Good luck everyone!

–Topaz

Oh yeah, I’m in!  This is my 4th consecutive LD!  Woohoo!  I am not prepared in the least!  That’s the 4th consecutive time too!  Anyways, I’m in!  I expect I’ll be using Python/PyGame again… possibly also trying out PygCurses, depending on the theme.  I’ll try to write a better post tomorrow when I’m less alseep, but until then:  Good luck everyone!

Um… hey, guys.

So… I’m using Python+Pygame for the Mini-LD, and I’m on Linux. py2exe apparently doesn’t work correctly in Wine.

So… I’d like to ask for help from a friend who has Windows, Pygame, and py2exe. I’m only going to have one game for you to port since I’m doing a microgame compilation.

Any help would be appreciated,

Peace, love, and something something something,

- Henry

We did not manage to finish our vampire platform game in time for the Jam, but we like the idea and have some nice art assets, so we’ll continue working on it over the holidays.

What went well

• We created a lot of art assets that we really like
• We came up with a cute game idea (vampire boy searching for teddybears in scary vampire castle), despite the challenging theme
• We even created some sound effects, although they are not in the game yet

What did not go so well

• Map creation and tile engine – we initially used Tiled for map editing, but had problems with implementing game physics on the loaded map data  (some of our tiles are large (256*256), while others are smaller, which caused headaches).  Eventually we wrote a tile engine and game physics from scratch, with some map generation code, but by then there was not enough time to finish the game.
• Not enough time to actually get to implementing the game logic..

What we will do differently next time

• Use an existing tile engine, or write basecode for one before the competition starts.  There is enough work in game-specific code, no point in re-writing tile engines for each competition.
• Map creation in Tiled was straightforward, but time-consuming.  We are trying out programmatic map generation from python now.
• Get a simple playable game asap, afterwards add more features and graphics.

Finally, a part of a room in the big scary vampire castle:

My game is done and submitted!  The last hours were hectic, both in terms of trying to finish the game and because I had some stuff going on in “real life” of great urgency… so unfortunately I wasn’t able to do a lot of updating.  Ah well… I’m here now!  Here’s the entry link!

Brief summary and screen shots are included with the entry, of course, so I’ll use this space to mention some other things:

First, what went right:  Most everything!  I made a lot of lovely art, got most-all of my intended game mechanics implemented within the time limit, and got a playable game out of an already otherwise very busy weekend!  I learned some new useful programming tricks and now have a MUCH better understanding of how to effectively use SpriteGroups in pygame, which helps greatly with streamlining code.  Hooray for me!  Also it’s my damn birthday, so double-hooray!

What didn’t go as planned?  Well… I didn’t have any time for sfx/music, which would have been nice.  I also wasn’t able to add all the text screens I wanted for a narrative, but that’s actually less than 10 minutes additional work there, so I’ll have it for a post-judging version.  A few other little details: Cars on the road, maybe some time/score mechanism, possibly even predators?  Hadn’t put any thought into that last one really… just an idea that existed.  There’s also still some awkwardness with people’s movements that wasn’t fully polished and makes the games slower and more frustrated than it’s meant to be… I really want to redo some of their pathing logic when I get more time.  I also didn’t have time to add a few little in-game decorations I was considering adding… wouldn’t have really made much of a difference except visually… and without the improved navigation it would have made things slower, so maybe it’s for the better.

OH YEAH!  I also need to mention!  Did you notice?!  All the maps in the game are procedurally generated!  Isn’t that awesome?  Yeah.  I’m bad-ass like that.  Random roads, trees, buildings, ponds… people navigating between them… it’s pretty dang awesome.  Sometimes you start out right next to Mommy… sometimes insanely far away; I would like to make that less random and perhaps make it something like a difficulty setting?  Changing the map size and the number of each thing in it is trivially easy, so I could easy adjust for desired complexity.

Anyways,  yeah.  Please play my game if you haven’t yet!  And vote on it!  And more importantly, give me some feedback!  I want to make the best games possible, so comments and constructive criticism are incredibly helpful for me.  Thanks

Where’s the time going?!  I haven’t even slept!  I need to do that soon… but my birthday starts in 17 minutes and I don’t want to miss it!

Game’s making reasonable progress – Player can move, and be moved… now I need to get map generation working, and various obstacle mechanics… and then the ‘plot’ narration and I should be about done?  Oh…maybe sound at some point too?

So tired…

Here’s a couple screenshots:

Yay for videos!

http://youtu.be/yiDR6b7_N0k

Tell me what you think!