It’s the current state of my game .

It generate a dungeon, then put blues kittens in it (and the player).

What this has to do with evolution, you might say ? Well, It generate exactly 133 blues kittens …

Do you like space?

Because I decided to work on what I’m calling a space-roguelike. The easiest way to describe it is Star Control 2′s real-time combat/flight meets Desktop Dungeons’s simplicity/brevity.

Here are some early/non-final progress shots from recently to give you an idea:

Here are some older screenshots.

Well. I knew this was too ambitious for the 48 Hour compo, so I’m hoping to have something playable for the Jam. Wish me luck (I haven’t slept much the last few days…)!

Those pink circles look mighty hungry!

Okay, the game is really close to finished. I still have a couple sound effects to make and finish the in-game README reader. I never made a title screen, so there’s that too.

I love this game! I’m so busy playing through the levels, enjoying the randomness.

The point is, it’s almost done. I decided to name the game ‘Everlasting,’ because tiny worlds are so tiny, they could never fill the universe. Also, because the game doesn’t have an end event, it just cycles for as long as you feel like playing. The little guy you control is just reborn over and over in different places. Hmm, that’s an interesting concept really…

To everybody finished already, congratulations! This is going to be one of the most memorable Ludum Dares in history.

Well the single player portion is going quite well,

When items are in, you will be able to use them to effect other player’s worlds. This might be something like: summoning a buffed enemy, siphoning their life, instantly spawning a few enemies, increasing their world level, etc.

This all depends on if I can get the network online before the deadline, I guess I won’t be sleeping tonight!

Try the early build here: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13605298/index.html

Biome Testing. The left is volcanic, the right is an island.

A couple hours later, and some palette testing, and I have created my 8 biomes. For debugging purposes, they are selectable using the arrow keys (I test everything constantly when developing!)

Here’s a link to the current build, because I am hungry for feedback: http://feyleaf.com/downloads/ld23-test3.zip

There's a pink thing chasing my blue thing!

So, I woke up about 10 hours ago, and have gotten to work most of the day on the random map generator in my game.

Boy was that a struggle! It’s something I have never coded before, but have wanted to try out. Honestly, the Ludum Dare is good for taking those kinds of leaps, but it’s unforgiving if I spend too much time learning something new and testing, testing, testing.

Anyway, I don’t think I have lost too much by doing random maps. It will add the depth I want to this tiny world concept.

Just added a simple monster chase AI, of course he’ll be running into walls a lot in the game, but that’s okay.

Current task list before the night is over:

• Map themes, there will be 8 “biomes” on this little planet.
• Textual help and fanfare. As it stands, there are no words in the game yet.
• Main Menu and game states.

If anyone would like to leave comments about the current testing demo, you can download it here: http://feyleaf.com/downloads/ld23-test2.zip.

This is my first Ludum Dare, so I’m keeping the design relatively unambitious, in the vain hope I might be able to finish it to an acceptable standard.

Description:
Real-time, rogue-like, top-down shooter. The player will move around procedurally generated levels, trying to find ‘artefacts’, killing enemies and – ultimately – descending to the next level. All to earn a hi-score.

Along the way, there *may* be some ‘elite loot’, different weapons and/or terrain deformation (grid based, I’m afraid) via dynamite or drills. Depending on how productive I am.

To consider it finished, it should have:

1. Player can shoot enemies
2. Vaguely intelligent AI
3. Procedurally generated levels
4. Multiple levels
5. Pick-ups and Hi-score

I’ll be using Python and Pygame.

Hey Game Jammers, for those of you who love to JAM, here is a new one that is extremely cool and is going on all this week.  It is called the 7 day roguelike challenge and is a great game jam held once a year.  Roguelikes are the very pinnacle of gameplay vs. graphics, and have a lot of soul.  If you’ve ever heard of nethack, moria, angband, dwarf fortress and the like, then you know what a roguelike is.  If not, be sure to drop by the following pages and learn about one of the coolest game genres around.  Enjoy!  http://7drl.org/ http://roguebasin.roguelikedevelopment.org http://roguebasin.roguelikedevelopment.org/index.php?title=7DRL http://twitter.com/#!/search/%237DRL Good luck.

The 2009 7DRL is happening in a few weeks. The goal is to make a roguelike in 7 days (which is like years for hardened LD48ers like us ). The event takes place March 7th to March 15th.

Info here

I finished my entry. Random and unedited thoughts follow.

Quick instructions: You are the “@”, use the nethack keys to move (hjkl and yubn for diagonal movement), t to toggle your light. Run into a wall to dig a tunnel with your pickaxe, make your way to the surface (“<” are the up stairs) collecting valuable gems on the way.

I didn’t get enough balancing in so chances are it’s too easy / hard. I wish I’d added an in game help thing (as it is pressing F1 will just tell go to go rtmf). I feel I did capture some of the original game’s essence (run away from the guards and don’t let your flashlight’s battery run out) so I’m pretty happy as far as that is concerned. Hopefully the learning curve won’t be too hard, which is a risk with roguelikes I think.

Codewise, feel free to look but it’s probably worthless except as an example of how not to make good software. One part I feel could have used more time was the cavern generator, it runs quite slowly (but not enough for me to take time to fix it) and I don’t fix the results for connectedness which is why I included the digging feature. I’m not too happy with that. :S

Anathema RL Python + Pygame