{"author_name":"chrisp","cat":"LD #17 - Islands - 2010","comments":[{"author_name":"chrisp","time":"April 25, 2010 5:52 am","epoch":1272192720,"text":"&#8220;Solved&#8221; my physics problem using ghost copies of the circles, but that creates a nasty performance problem. Release mode and reducing the FPS helps, but now my physics is all out of whack. I thought I was being framerate-independent, but I guess not.","spam":"N"},{"author_name":"chrisp","time":"April 25, 2010 6:03 am","epoch":1272193380,"text":"Set back up to 60 FPS and performance is magically okay now. Not sure how I managed that. Oh well. Gift horse, mouth. Maybe I can pull this off tomorrow after all. It may not be pretty, but there&#8217;s a game in there somewhere. Maybe even a good one!","spam":"N"}],"epoch":1272191100,"likes":0,"metadata":{"p_key":"70897","p_author":"chrisp","p_authorkey":"283","p_urlkey":"106718","p_title":"I am a lazy lazy laggard","p_cat":"LD #17 - Islands - 2010","p_event":"LD17","p_time":"1272191100","p_likes":"0","p_comments":"2","p_status":"UPD5","us_key":"283","us_name":"chrisp","us_username":"chrisp","event_start":"1271980800","event_key":"3","event_name":"LD17"},"text":"<p>It&#8217;s now time for bed, again, and all I&#8217;ve achieved since last night&#8217;s bedtime is adding a player object with the ability to jump from &#8220;island&#8221; to &#8220;island&#8221; (just pretend the white circles are islands, &#8216;kay?), and thus create rigid connections between the islands.<\/p>\n <p>Which isn&#8217;t nothing. But it&#8217;s a lot less than I needed to get done if I wanted this to turn out like a proper game. The cause? I simply haven&#8217;t put enough time in today.<\/p>\n <p><img class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-18597\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/islandrepairman2-300x232.jpg\" alt=\"islandrepairman2\" width=\"300\" height=\"232\" srcset=\"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/islandrepairman2-300x232.jpg 300w, http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/islandrepairman2-550x426.jpg 550w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n <p>Here is a screenshot of me (the bluish streaky comety thing) jumping towards the final unconnected island, having knitted four of the islands into a nice solid triangle + one that&#8217;s just kind of hanging there. Reaching the unconnected island without hitting any of the red circles is the win condition. Or at least it will be, once I&#8217;ve added code to check for that.<\/p>\n <p>It looks a little better in motion&#8230; but not a <em>lot<\/em> better.<\/p>\n <p>Things I don&#8217;t have, and should:<\/p>\n <ul>\n <li>Game-y elements: Win condition, lose condition, lives counter, level progression<\/li>\n <li>Proper physics balancing. Notice how many of the circles are pressed up against the edge? That can make gameplay really annoying sometimes. I need to increase the force that pulls them back into the centre (or solve the issue in another way). But make the centre-pulling force too strong and everything bunches up, making the game impossible to play. And it needs to be able to cope with arbitrary numbers of circles, as that&#8217;s the level progression mechanic that I have in mind. Hmm, maybe I should remove the collision between circles, then it wouldn&#8217;t matter so much. Would make it look uglier though, especially if I make the graphics less abstract.<\/li>\n <li>Graphics that don&#8217;t suck rotten eggs.<\/li>\n <li>Sound. ANY sound.<\/li>\n <li>A public build. Need to remember to statically link the VC++ runtime so more people can run it.<\/li>\n <\/ul>\n <p>None of this is terribly complicated, but I need sleep now and when I wake up I&#8217;ll probably only have about 3 hours to the deadline. 4 at a pinch. Sigh.<\/p>\n <p>The worst part is that I don&#8217;t even care that much. So unmotivated. LD was supposed to solve that problem. <img src=\"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-includes\/images\/smilies\/frownie.png\" alt=\":-(\" class=\"wp-smiley\" style=\"height: 1em; max-height: 1em;\" \/><\/p>","time":"April 25th, 2010 5:25 am","title":"I am a lazy lazy laggard"}