It’s changed its mechanics a bit, though the core gameplay is still there.   The original LD22 entry can be found here and a post-mortem can be read here.

While Isolated Assault was huge success in my eyes considering it was my first Ludum Dare game, and by the scores it received, I’m struggling to come up with a Post-Compo version. You see, I’m just not feeling the motivation to work on it. Every time I sit down, I just feel, “Wow, this is old.” It’s like one of those projects I just gave up because I had no motivation for it.

That’s how it went with Dunnet (My most worked on game), and with my First Person Shooter (My first professional game), and with all those projects I started but never got around to.

Currently my Unity Project Folder looks like this:

Where “Abandoned” have been worked on for a while. I could always go back to the “Abandoned,” but I haven’t, and why should I?

My Problem:

I need a due date on projects.

Some people can never get work done knowing there’s time management involved. For me, it’s the other way. Knowing that there’s no time to procrastinate, and that there’s a reward for finished, I can get a lot of good things done.

I also have problems focusing on one idea and getting it implemented quickly. All of focused ideas I have are too complicated even for top-notch game companies.

Therefore, Ludum Dare was perfect for me–it gave a theme for the game and a deadline. I now know my best work will probably come from future LDs.

Will there ever be an Isolated Assault 2?

Not now. And probably not from me. Anyone familiar with Unity (That means you, reader!) can take my Isolated Assault Source files, and add some new levels, as long as I receive credit.

I have no motivation whatsoever to make an Isolated Assault 2. All my ideas were expressed in the first one. You are a guy. That fights cubes. That wears glasses. The only thing added to this game would be gloss.

Will you participate in LD 23?

Of course! Ludum Dare is the best way to manage time and get good games squeezed out!

Will you stop asking yourself random questions?

Never!!!!

Now I ask you, do I stick with deadlines for making games, or do I learn to get around them?

Do I use Ludum Dare to create all my of my work?

For some reason, I need some sort of reward/time limit for everything I make, because that’s just how I work.

Either way, I’ll obviously still be doing LDs, and I can’t wait for LD23!

Play it here: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/27464471/EpiCat/EpiCat-1.1.0.swf

It’s mostly art improvements, with some bug fixes, a new enemy, and gameplay balancing. Please let me know what you think!

Things still to do:

• Add music
• Add more enemies
• (Maybe) Add a better intro to tell the story

• Player graphics and sounds
• Fix Floor borders.
• Arrow graphics and sounds.
• Arrow shooter graphics and sounds.
• Barrel sounds.
• Save point sounds and graphics.
• Exit point sounds and graphics.
• Burning Effect.
• Title screen.
• Ending screen.

• Player –  Gameplay done – Graphics pending - Sounds pending.
• Columns - done!
• Floor - pending. (fix border tiles)
• Barrel – done! - Sounds pending.
• Spikes Hole – done!
• Spikes Hole filling with Barrels – done! – Effect pending. 
• Lava Hole – done!
• Arrow Shooters – Gameplay done! - Graphics pending. Sounds pending.
• Arrows – Gameplay done! - Graphics pending. 
• Boulder Dropper – Canceled.
• Boulder – Canceled.
• Save Points – done! - Graphics pending. Sounds pending.
• Exit Point – done! – Graphics pending. Sounds pending.
• Menu - pending.
• Intro screen – pending.
• Game Over screen – pending.
• Ending Screen – pending.

I have put the Alpha1 for testing purposes here:

I managed to add collisions with the enemy ships themselves, and tweaked a few things since my last update post. No screenshot now, but many more more will come later.

Timelapse for day 1. Time for sleep now. A day of music and polish tomorrow. It’s nearly done!

I am doing a kinda sorta clone of LSDJ / LGPT for iOS. Due to the limitations of multitouch, I am going to have to make some changes. Like chording isn’t possible in the same way, and things need to have more on screen stuff. I have a few ideas of how to deal with that though.

I currently have a synth that can trigger samples at different pitches, and the phrase / chain / song structure together. I need to get the looping working, but the structure is there. By the end of the weekend, I would like to have the PTCH, VOL, and FILT commands in. I suspect that I will be hard coding the samples in for the time being, just because I don’t think I can implement physicsFS this weekend. I might give it a try though.

Here is where the graphics are currently:

Look forward to demo audio links.

I submitted my warm-up game “Bouncy Bouncy“. And it looks like I’m ready to go.

Also mi updated setup is that:

Compiler: GCC and mingw (for cross-compiling)

Library: SDL and my framework (GameLib)

Graphics: GIMP

Sound: Audacity and Sfxr/Bfxr

Timelapse: Glapse

Hardware: Gigabyte M912

And well; the required ”desk” shot:

I supose that makes me a couch-gamedev

As you may or may not remember Urth scored less than desirably( in LD21) in graphics with an overall 2.65. Needless to say that was given priority. Next up was audio, as that wasn’t great either. After I’ve narrowed down the priorities I’ve naturally decided to start working on something entirely different: the level editor. And what a glorious level editor it is! is it? it may be, it’s like asking a chef how good the food he spent all day cooking is. And by chef I mean amateur cook. And by amateur cook I mean someone who poured himself a bowl of cereal. Now I feel like eating cereal, but I must finish this post first.

The music… well I’ve taken the liberty of outsourcing the music to this chap right here so go and listen to his stuff (and like it!). I’m not posting the music here, you’ll have to wait till I submit the game tomorrow, or the day after. If it’s not done in the last few hours it’s not a proper jam at all.

So what have I got to show other than talk of cereal and a link to a music man? Well what’s left? The graphics! Good answer, shows you were paying attention. And what better way to show off graphics than by showing them! No, not a video, but close enough… screenshots!

Let’s begin:

The updated main menu

The pretty-fied level selection menu

The awesome-ized escape mode settings menu

Gameplay screenshot with 100% more magnets

More gameplay

This may not seem it, but it's from escape mode

There are numerous fixes optimizations and tweaks, but nobody can see them so nobody really cares. Next I’ll finish up the win-linux-osx ports and off to markets they go.

That’s it for now, until next time!

I have added backgrounds to the title and other screens:

The Title

No, that’s not a face in the center, although it does look like one. (It’s graffiti, so I can pretend I can draw well

Here is a picture of the gameplay:

Giving Liberty a 'stache

I’ve also added (basic, not quite finished) scoring, added help and credits text, and fixed a few things that I wasn’t happy with before.

Next up:

- Music

- Kongregate API

- Final tweaks/polish

As for the game itself, I have a few pieces of an idea, and that’s it. I’ll post more when I’ve done more.

• unfinished visual novel engine (android) – I believe I misplaced the source
• unfinished bullet hell engine (android) – Needs everything except the actual bullet engine
• LD21 entry: Urth - Needs about 2 tons of polish
• MiniLD29 entry: Redeye - Needs about 20 tons of polish
• Something completely new – no

Urth had a little head start on the android market, so I’ve fixed it by strapping beta to the end. How does that fix it you ask? Well it doesn’t really fix it actually, but I’m October challenging with the non-beta (gamma? ), which I intend to have for non-mobile platforms as well.

These are some of the changes:

• Added minimap
• Grid on the floor
• Rotate avatar towards enemy on collision
• Change movement speed
• No more horizontal scrolling in sequence list
• Added an easier introduction level
• Added loading bar

Play the updated game here:
http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-21/?action=preview&uid=3796

No more art to do ; _ ;

With all the art done, we turned our attention to the team’s logo while the programmers keep churning out code.

We are near completion of what we can do with our 72 + 4 hour time limit.

Setbacks in the second day kept us from having the game done within the original schedule but we are really proud of our overall progress.

Some stuff won’t make it to our submission build, but we’re keen on finishing this amazing project.

You can check out our Day 2 recap at http://makeaga.me. We won’t be doing a Day 3 post or Post Mortem for a couple of days.

WATCH OUT, IT’S A CODERS’ BLOCK!

]]> http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/2011/08/22/eggscape-update/feed/ 0 http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/2011/08/22/the-vault-is-no-longer-impermeable/ http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/2011/08/22/the-vault-is-no-longer-impermeable/#comments Tue, 23 Aug 2011 03:11:08 +0000 hamburger http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/?p=69985 I found out today that the last level was impossible in the game I submitted last night. This was due to some last minute changes that I thought were too small to merit testing.

Oh well! It is at least good to know that players made it that far in!

I fixed that level; CLICK HERE FOR THE UPDATED VERSION.
Or CLICK HERE FOR THE SUBMISSION PAGE – the update is linked on there as well.

The leaderboards are growing, and I am both sad and happy to say I’ve been dethroned on all levels – except of course that last level on which hamburger holds the first and only score.

Enemy AI. CHECK. Multiple levels. CHECK. Sound / music. CHECK.
I want more gameplay elements in there, and is therefore adding pushable crates. Will hopefully be able to finish that before the deadline.

I’ve submitted my game to Ludum Dare. If you want to check it out, here’s the link. Screenshots:

Anyway, my game is submitted, but not done. I’m sure there will be code that needs fixing, which I’ll do during the last few hours. I’ll post my post-mortem after the 48 hours is done.

This is the first Ludum Dare I’ve actually completed with a game that resembles finished. Ah, that first time feeling Technically, I did attempt LD 20, but that failed miserably.

After the 48 hours is up, I’ll call my game finished. Until then, I’ve got everything covered so can spend the last 8 hours with the code. And maybe some caffeinated drinks.

I was planning to do the Jam this time round, but my team are all over the country right now on holiday

See you on the other side of the 48 hours.

IT’S NOT STEALING! IT BELONGS IN A MUSEUM!

“Oh, I didn’t see you there, crushing my path for survival and my dreams of becoming a famous paleontologist.

Do you know how hard it was to find this egg? And how lucky I am that these debris are falling in such a coincidental position that I can climb some of them? It’s like someone is throwing them with exact precision. But I don’t have time to think about it, actually I can’t do much more than panic and run around, waiting for more debris to fall.”

We’re Make A Game and Eggscape is our entry for Ludum Dare 21′s Jam. You can read our Day One Update at http://makeaga.me!

Onward to Day 2! It starts right now!