I was super excited about LD49, so much so that I set my alarm to wake me up an hour before so I could have even more time for the event but that wasn't a good thing, I've been coding since this morning and it's already leaving me kinda dizzy haha

Think it's better continue tomorrow

Tip: don't rush into Ludum Dare, join the challenge in your own time, it's never good to get your brain melted! :smile:

Took a long break to WANDER THE EARTH but you can win and lose now

The artwork is basically done for the game now so I thought I'd show off some images of it. These are basically all the game assets being used but in different layouts and combinations. I think this gives an idea of what we're going for on this theme.

Still learning Godot and game programming in general but I'm pretty pleased with how stable.exit() is coming along. Tomorrow, music and a main menu!

https://youtu.be/46QwDc-N7P0

The interesting bit about these little guys is figuring out their mechanics. I have zero idea if the parts I see are the parts mords intended them to be. So we all get to be surprised!

I'm not jamming today but I'm hosting the RPI Jam (I am really sad all my entries have been deleted ... too old, I'll be back soon). Here is an interview of the two teams still awake on the campus of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. (Sorry for the quality, the camera will be better next time)

The interview : https://youtu.be/V4Zcv6dLGhE

The live twitch : https://www.twitch.tv/rpijam_profpayen

Team 1 : https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/49/$268282

Team 2 : https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/49/unstable-particle

We have a surprising number of our core objects and mechanics in place already! Though I'm sure there will still be lots more to do.

Here's a picture of how things look

Ended up pivoting to a slightly different concept than I planned.

Now you just defend treasure chests from invading pirates on a stationary ship.

I created the ship graphic mostly on my own, after tracing a rough outline.

The other sprites I have shamelessly stolen from itch.io free 2D art assets. But I plan to re-sprite them later in my own image as much as I can though!

Quick Demo: https://youtu.be/RWCYWKBzo1A

Sunday Goals: - Enemy escape logic - Enemy spawning - Player can drunk-dash enemies - Game timer - Win/lose states/screens/messaging - ?/3 star rank - Title screen - Instruction screen - Water wave sprites/animation - Drinking animation - Drunk-dash animation - Enemy gun animation

Monday Goals: - Resprite player - Resprite enemy - Resprite treasure - Finish ship spriting - Barrel sprite - Steering wheel sprite - Canon sprite - particle effects - sound effects - music

Listen... Jam ends in less than 48 hours and I've been in a loop of "Brainstorming ideas and not being satisfied with them which leads to overscoping" and "Trying to learn Godot as an absolute beginner in coding during the actual jam" with a little hint of "I should,,, just,,, give up,,," BUT I'm just gonna make a simple shooter because that sounds like something someone like me can do because,,, I want to finish this,,,,,

Just ended animating the last animation for today... my hand's hurting so much that I can barely write this post and I think that after this Jam I won't be able to move it for a couple days hahaha

Hope this game will be worth it!

I am really really happy so far tho!!

I've kind of strayed a way from the theme a little as the day progressed, but sure I can get back on track again tomorrow. Its an unstable nuclear powered sub in a bullet hell:

What's more unstable than a bunch of rusty pipes and a paraplegic wizard with a robotic arm?

The minds of those who imagined it

I'm off to bed after a long day working on the core mechanics of my compo submission. Everything except the victory screen!

For the first time I'm uploading an unfinished version of the game early on to ask for feedback for QA purposes. If you got some spare time please try it out and leave a feedback in this post.

It should be easy to realize the gameplay and goals yourself, if not, that's exactly what I'm trying to figure out with this test. I'm mostly looking for feedback on things you didn't understand about the game, things you thought were too challenging or difficult, flows that are cumbersome and critical blocking bugs.

Art and juiciness is coming tomorrow :)

Link for the unfinished game: https://lextatic.itch.io/wibbly-wobbly-tower

This gif should be enough to demonstrate the gameplay.

As the day started, I forgot Ludum Dare started. I wasn't going to participate if I couldn't think of something small, fun and interesting. Luckily, I found a concept that might work.

It started off as this idea:

"You have an unstable laser. You can shoot it to kill enemies, but with more use comes more unstable-ness."

I was planning on making a platformer with a character walking around with a laser rifle. But that idea passed, since it would require me to create a lot of animations ... something I simply cannot do. It would take the full 72 hours for me to just make a character animation.

Luckily spaceships can have laser guns and those need little animations, like rotating and stretching. As you can see below, I have already made the laser, since this is the most important part of a game about a laser. Just adding a line renderer, particle effects and bloom and the result looks nice. Of course I will tweak some values tomorrow, but the result is pretty cool already.

The unstable part can be found in the actual laser. See, a laser is made with multiple different parts. It starts with an energy source which starts a beam. Magnetic coils make sure the beam is as straight as it can be. The first lens makes sure most of the energy is passed through the entire crystal, which will give it it's red color. The second lens then focusses the energy to a narrower spot, making it sure it deals as much damage as possible.

Unfortunately, things can go wrong and any component can shift which messes with the alignment. Luckily you have control over the rotation of the components, so you might be able to fix it. Or you can use the mistakes to your advantage ;)

During brainstorm we had quite a large amount of possible game ideas, but when we stumbled upon a "Unstable" game to be fixed by the players, three of our team members realized they had tried to do that concept at a previous jam. They had to give up on it then, but we were all enamored by the concept, and decided to do it for this jam. There are (or will be) various bugs in the game that the player will need to figure out and report for fixing. The idea is to create a puzzle type game where perception is rewarded. Here is the progress for day 1 (including beautiful programmer art and models):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lx98VgNWs

I do hope we haven't been too ambitious, but when has that ever stopped anyone :wink:

Oh, I'm sure you'll want to try this masterpiece for yourself! Be warned, the video shows literally everything :joy: https://github.com/HDJKleissen/LD49_JAM/releases/tag/v0.2

Our 3D team's been hard at work and most of the needed assests are done. A quick overview of some of them!

Adjusted the colors to bring in more of the autumnal feel. Next will be trying to make sure multiplayer works, then it just be balancing thing, adding proper scoring, menus, and any extra polish I can add. Very happy with things so far!

Well I got only today to finish my Jam game as I got exams TMRW and I got only 3 hours today. Guess I'll just make it a demo and then finish it next wknd