Hey, Ludum Community, Rob Productions here. For a while I’ve been working on a third person action game, just to test out if I could do anything different then my usual first person stuff, and I started to see potential in this. The “test game” was actually coming along very well, introducing many new challenges and concepts that really pushed my programming skills to advance. I started looking at my previous works and at my current project, and at other games around the web, and I realized… this project is professional enough to be released! Like, for actual money!

I’ve been doing a lot of research and planning on getting this game released, and I think I know how to start. Details on the release and the game itself are still super-secret, but here’s a hint on the name and concept of the game:

Let’s see if you can figure this one out!

Also, if there’s anyone out there with any experience releasing a game, I’d really appreciate some tips on getting my game publicity and hype during the preorder and pre-release stages! What’s the best way to promote a game and make people want to buy it?

Thanks and Happy Gaming, Ludum Dare! P.S. I’ll be sure to release some free stuff for those of you low on funds

My entry is complete! Minimally.

Match Set Game

Check it out!

Hey guys, here is my halfway-ish video update on my progress so far. Now the crunch shall begin!

This time I’m spending more time in polishing than to actual gameplay. I don’t know why, I guess I just felt like it. That’s why I already have an intro and music, but only 2 puzzles! Still, I really like how it turned out.

Every other game for Ludum Dare I was making 2D flash games, and now that the theme is Minimalism, I make a 3D game… Ironic, huh?

I finally have a semi-stable playable version.

You can download it: https://www.dropbox.com/s/g6f0smybzo9s0vq/JEB_001.zip

Wanna see the source? https://github.com/Bevilacqua/LD26

The collision detection is horrendous and i’m not sure how i am going to fix it but besides that all i have left is:

• More SoundFX
• Music
• More Levels
• JEB_001′s diary entries that will appear in between levels
• EndGame
• A few bugs

I am definitely NOT on schedule. The way that I am implementing the theme is really crucial here… and if I can’t make it work, then I will miss the theme entirely. Jam? Compo? We’ll see what kind of time I have left…

I’m nearly done. I think. All the art is in the game, the win/lose code works, mechanics feel fine, and I even have a title screen!

What’s left? I’ll record sound effects tomorrow, and add polish and simple transitions. I’ll leave you with a screenshot, in case you missed it earlier:

Look at that amazing yet minimalistic title screen! Now, sleep!

Time for me to get some sleep, woke up at 06:15 today (theme was announced 05:00 local time) and been working on the game on and off since them.
Took me a good while to come up with a design, but I’m fairly happy with my current one as it is very doable in given time and easily expandable if the time permits.

The game’s design is very minimalistic in terms of game-play. The whole game is played with 1 button, which I at first doubted, but it turned out quite fun after all.
I’ve got main game-play and music (which I had way too much fun composing) done, but my “art” is still terribad and I haven’t even started on any menus / death screens etc…

Löve and Lua have turned out quite nice combo (had no real prior experience with either) for quick prototyping, but still wouldn’t use them for anything larger scale as tracking errors can be quite a pain (dynamic typing ftl).

(Sorry no screenshot yet, the game looks that bad atm)

Good night ya’ll!

I think I’ll take a break now, but first a screenshot of the title screen:

This also reveals the name of the game, so you’re getting two for the price (screenshot) of one! The mechanics are all coded and working, art is done, it’s possible to lose, and I’m happy with it so far!

After a break, I’ll finish the ending screen and win condition, and tweak the gameplay a little.

After screwing around with color palettes for WAAAAAY too long, I finally have something visible.

I have a wonderful idea, but I have no clue if I can make it work.

I may end up submitting to the jam because I really don’t have much time this weekend.

OH WELL…

FIRST SCREENSHOT!

Starting April 19, the 5th Hack-a-Jam Game Development Competition will begin!

This competition is held every 2-4 months, and this is the approximate 1-year birthday. Because of this, I am offering a prize to the winning entry. This prize is free advertising (one month), on both of my main websites, which have decent traffic.

What is the Hack-a-Jam?

The Hack-a-Jam is a game development event/competition where you must create a game within a set amount of time. The time given in each competition varies, as it could take two days, four days, or even just 30 minutes. Different from other game jam events, the Hack-a-Jam uses a multiple-award system, meaning there is no “Overall Best Game”. This allows for us to give awards to the best games, and not make a decision between two games which are equally amazing. The theme will be a suggestion voted on from the community through many different voting sessions. Another thing you could do to win certain categories is make things such as dev logs, timelapses, etc. You can them post them or links to them in the Posting section of the Forums.

What are some possible winning categories?

Most Psychedelic Visuals
Most Deaf People After Hearing The Game
Most extra items (dev logs, etc.)
Most Rage-free
Most rage-induced
Most Suggestive Content Without Crossing The Line
Shortest Game
Best themed
Most Things On Screen Without Lag or Crash

What are the rules?

Since we are a laid back community, you could probably get away with most of these rules (except major ones, like turning in your entry a whole 24 hours late…). Here are what I would like the community to follow, however:

1. All game content must be created within the set time. Note: You can use other music, placeholder graphics, etc. as long as you are allowed to!
2. Your game is not required to follow the theme, but would greatly improve your chances of winning. Unless almost every other game is not following the theme, it is almost guaranteed that your game won’t win anything.
3. You must work alone, and you must create everything included in the game.
4. All game creation tools are permitted, such as Unity, GameMaker, Photoshop, Flash, Paint, etc.
5. All external game extensions/DLLs are permitted. If you want to make it multiplayer (if you are using GameMaker), go ahead and use 39dll.

You can visit our website at http://www.hack-a-jam.com/. From there, you will want to head over to the Posting section, and sign up for an account (you can use Google, Facebook, etc.). Good luck to everyone!

Play Despair

Remember my little MiniLD#40 game? No? It was that strange game about fighting the news. I read your feedback and comments, and figured I could remake the game into something else. I’ve never made this before, I just tend to archive my projects and move on to the next one, so this was a good opportunity to try something else. In the process, I trained my willingness and discipline, because working on something you thought it was finished, it’s pretty hard. I hope you enjoy the new game and continue to give me feedback!

[You can read a full post-mortem at my blog]

So we’ve been working hard today, got a lot done so I’m feeling better about the deadline. Some enemies have been updates, as well as new ones being created. The title screen is 70% done and work on the Hero character has begun. We hope to have a beta version up soon for playtesting before the final release tomorrow.

Obligatory Screenshot

The time is rapidly running out and my todo list is only slightly shorter.

Mainlining coffee and bustling through the remainder.

Sorry, Douglas Adams – just this once I shall not agree..

I’ve managed to create all of the important parts of the world now, so I have the time to sit down and create menus as well as an agency system.

Right now each country is just that, a country. When I get the agency system done they will all be part of one of the agencies in the game, and when you anger one country you anger the entire agency owning that country.

So to keep a steady flow of money and minions going you’ll have to keep your nefarious activities spread out across the world.

Finally this morning I came up with a 3rd mini-game for the criminal “simulator” I’ve been working on.
The new activitiy was very simple to implement which leaves me good chunk of time to polish and tweak the game.

The biggest thing left to do is to port the game for Windows, but in theory it “should” compile pretty much out of the box (result may vary ™).

Started today with a healthy breakfast… a large cheeseburger:

I’m not entirely satisfied with my games concept as it doesen’t really give you a motivation for the crimes you’re committing other than a bad story .
On the bright side it haz g0at(s)

At the moment seems very likely I will end my bad streak of 2 failed LD’s in a row, which is nice… time to get to the horrors of porting to windows…

We seem to be mostly set up now and the only remaining art pieces are the title screen, credits, and a few more misc. stuff. We’ll turn most of our focus now over to finishing up any code, some music, and designing levels. I’m about to clock in so here’s the final screenshot of the night plus a preview of the title screen.

~AlucardX60

We’re hoping it’ll breath fire.

This is quit time consuming.

After seeing a post by DigitalDuck with a screen shot which looked like exactly what I was aiming for (though he had a better art style!) I decided to go for what was my favourite idea in the first place:  No, Mister Bond…

NMB was originally the most instantly fertile idea for me, but I ditched it out of concern that approximately 40% of the entries would be the same or similar.

So: thank-you, DigitalDuck for giving me the incentive to revisit my concept list!

Status

I’ve built almost all of the system, but outwardly it resembles something one could whip up in Flash in about 20 minutes.

Here’s how it currently looks:

Where the project stands at about halfway through.
Those are rooms which you build, they have hazards. It’ll make sense why this is fun soon.

Looks can be deceiving though, and here’s a rough mockup of how it should look quite soon:

A quick mockup while I drink coffee. I think the final version will actually look better than this, but I wanted to get back to code..

Obviously this is without UI and other game-like visual cues – but since I’ve not been very good about updates this time around I figured I’d put in a modicum of effort.

In Other News

• I am really really glad that I put the effort into setting up an ergonomic work space, this was a fine idea and will save my spine.
• I am really really disappointed in myself for spending no more than 45 minutes at the aforementioned ergonomic workspace, instead doing most of my code cross-legged at this tiny desk for little people:

In case the scale isn’t clear, this is the perfect setup to end up looking like Gollum

Occasionally my spine and knees rebel, and forcibly drag me away from the computer to collapse in a vaguely full-length manner.

I’m a foot shorter than I was yesterday.  Hey.  I should cut this image out and make it look like I’m high-fiving someone in mid-air..

This is a dangerous activity and can rapidly lead to such horrible things as physical comfort and the realisation that I could be sleeping/eating/not-slowly-curling-back-into-a-foetus.

This is approximately the same position I spent the last Ludum Dare though, so perhaps it’s nostalgia, not just pure stupidity?

Delirium is knocking at the door, must be time for my second 3hr nap.

Since the last post we have made great headway both graphically and in the gameplay. The player is now animated and bombs work. Breakable blocks and blocks that disappear and reappear based upon a button have been added as well as a enemy. But we still aren’t were we want to be at this point. I hope we have the time we need to finish this.

Those robots never hurt anyone! >:O

Here’s a bonus gif.

So the first day is over and I think I’ve made enough progress to be able to finish tomorrow.

This time I wanted to aim really low, because in the past I felt overwhelmed with the complexity of my game ideas and I wasn’t able to completely implement them in time. I’m also trying to improve my graphics skills, so it was better to have a game with the least amount of code possible.

I didn’t want to make a game with a stereotypical villain (aiming for world domination, commanding an army of minions, kidnapping people, etc.), instead I made the player have a villainous occupation – as a contract killer.

At the beginning of each level you get a picture of your target(s) – early in the game you only have one per stage, later you will have more. You have to memorize the targets’ appearance, find them in a crowd of people, then kill them with your rifle.

Once you fire your first shot the police will make their way to the scene as indicated by the progress bar at the top of the screen. You have to finish the job before they get there, otherwise it’s game over. The game is endless, each stage will have a bigger crowd, and you’ll have more targets to hunt down.

Here is the target.

And he’s down.

Murder in the park.

The code is almost complete, but I will still have to make sound effects, music, backgrounds, title and game over screens, etc.

Anyway, I wish you luck with your games, as I can’t wait to play them. There have already been some really cool looking games presented here.