It’s awesome seeing user creating clever level for your game. After I loaded the post-compo version of my game on Newgrounds with the level editor included, some people created very cool levels, examples here:
Less is More? – LD26 page

Tags: LD #26

After rating 100 games, I decided to share 10 best ones / most noticeable with you (order is not important):

1. Tower of Pixel by AlanZucconi – super addictive!

2. The epicly short adventure by JaJ – beautiful graphics and great mood

3. Minimalist Horror Story by MinionStudios – truly scary horror game

4.  Requiem by Nik Sudan – amazing mood and story

5. Cottonhead by  Patacorow – simple, cute and extremely polished platformer

6. Mustache Armies by TurboDindon – my favorite in terms of gameplay

7. Barren Universe by TomboFry – my favorite interpretation of theme

8. Mind the Gap by shiprib – simplified public transport simulator, addictive like hell!

9. Hunter hungry by Jonathan Whiting – excellent atmosphere and mechanics

and the last one is…

10. Potato Lotion Dilemma! by shotiris – probably the creepiest game I’ve ever played, not sure what I can say about it… you should check it yourself.

So, minimalism turned out to be a great theme for me. I’d already been thinking about the idea of just doing a simple, fun game to relax after all of the hard work I’d been doing on my other game, so everything worked out. But not before a sidetrip through the insanity of development that was just a little bit more insane than usual.

I decided to take a well-known genre and pare it down to the core experience. Hence, a bullet-hell shooter with no shooting. The player doesn’t even have to click on anything–the click at the start is just to make sure your web browser is focused. While the art style references De Stijl, I felt that for a game the essence was in the mechanics, not the visuals, so I avoided the visual minimalism of horizontal and vertical lines in favor of an interactive minimalism of a handful of actors and the tightly defined but emergent relationship between them.

Despite everything in the game being a square, you can pretty much instantly tell how they relate to each other just but how they move and interact. I like how that turned out.

You can play the game here: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-26/?action=preview&uid=12047

What Went Wrong

Time

Technically this didn’t go wrong so much as I knew going in that this was going to be an issue. I had a major paper due the week of Ludum Dare, so there was no way I would be able to devote the full time to the game, or even very much of it. I actually wasn’t sure if I was going to participate at all until a late evening conversation on Saturday made me realize that I had to get this idea out of my head. I always make a point of sleeping properly and not disrupting my usual routines, so even though I had deadlines about to steamroll me I ended up putting in about three hours on the game Saturday night and picking development back up at about ten or so on Sunday. In total, I probably spent about twelve to fifteen hours on the game.

Audio

I knew I wanted to get audio into the game, but a bug earlier in the day had put me behind, so I ended up with three hours to go, no audio–and no idea how to add it, because Processing.js doesn’t natively do audio. I had to learn HTML5 audio and make the sounds in three hours or less. Preferably less, because I like to leave some extra time at the end of Ludum Dare for breathing room. It worked in the end, but I’d have liked to have a bit more attention to the audio–but not to add much, because the minimalistic effects that are currently a part of the game do fit the theme. Just be glad my screeching temp sounds got replaced.

Testing

The procedural generator I wrote is fairly clever, given the time constraints. It divides the different possible features a wave can have into buckets and then uses Perlin noise to select a subset of those features to use. But it needs a bit more tuning than it has. I was the only one testing it, so I knew the ins and outs of the generator, but other people take a bit of time to figure it out and mostly die when the difficulty curve ramps up really sharply at the fifth level.

If I had been able to watch other people play the game I probably would have been able to avoid the other big problem, which is that there’s no “Game Over” screen. I didn’t need it while I was testing, and I didn’t care what my score was, so I didn’t notice that it was missing. But having one turns out to be really important for the game. Adding it in was a simple 26-line change, and the post-comp version has it, but I feel that if I had other people test it during primary development the game would have ended up even better than it is now.

What Went Right

Processing

Processing was a great platform to work with. I had to implement my own collisions, but that wasn’t a problem since I already knew how. I was able to use a lot of programming tricks that are technically feasible anywhere, like adding easing to most of the movement, but Processing’s immediate feedback let me fine-tune to get the exact feel that I wanted. And feel is a huge part of a game like this. Processing.js was easy to get working once I figured out which PVector functions weren’t implemented yet–in fact, it was so easy that I switched to make the web version of the game the primary one for the competition release.

Scope

I gave myself permission to not do everything. That is, the game wasn’t going to be the best graphics, the best sound, the most innovative concept–I was going to focus on making a game, not starting a revolution. Minimalism turned out to help with that, since it let me make a game that is deliberately about the most basic expression of a core idea.

No Feature Creep

Speaking of which, minimalism gave me an excuse for avoiding feature creep. Every time I had an awesome idea for something that would be an awesome addition to the game, I could just say, “Nope. Minimalism,” and go on my way.

Source Code Control

I took a few minutes on Sunday to set up a git repository for the game. I never ended up needing it, but it let me experiment, knowing that there was always going to be a mostly-working version of the game that I could go back to. I can, right now, jump back to the compo-version or forward to the post-comp changes with no trouble at all. If you aren’t using source code control, take a few minutes to learn how. You won’t regret it.

Conclusions

Keeping yourself healthy is important, even during a crazy crunch situation like this. I made a point to sleep and eat–and that really helped when I needed the energy and concentration to learn a completely new thing three hours before the deadline.

Finally, the community is a big part of why I participate. I make a point of rating a bunch of games–nowhere near all of them, but as many as I can find the time to do. I’ve already incorporated some of the suggestions I’ve received into the post-comp version I’m working on. I try to leave feedback that will help make the games better and I encourage you to do the same.

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-26/?action=preview&uid=12047

Tags: 2D, minimalism, nothing left, post-mortem, postmortem, processing, processing.js

It is time to help the less reckless players. Here is the first part of the Erase walkthrough, with the solution of the famous Level 4 which stop a large number of players.

Good game !

Tags: Plateformer, walkthrough

I’ve finally rated 100 of the entries, so I wanted to take a moment to highlight a few of the games I feel are underplayed (have under 50 ratings). Here they are, in no particular order (click the titles or images to go to the entry page) …

Slime Factory – Evil Cult – Jam Entry

Guide the slimes past turrets, spike traps, and lasers with a limited array of tools.

Unfurl – TeamEagle – Jam Entry

A brilliant concept for a puzzle game with a complete and awe-inspiring aesthetic.

Hubu Handler – derdragon – 48 Hour Compo Entry

Take care of an adorable critter with a mind of its own.

Line Quest – RandomSpark – Jam Entry

Confounding at first, but after just a short while, you’ll start to see the world that exists behind the characters.

Reach the Moon – Nanolotl – 48 Hour Compo Entry

Starting with just a few plants, find your way eventually to your destination … the moon.

Street of Rave – TinyDrakkarStudio – Jam Entry

Run around like the crazy, dancing fool you are, avoiding cops and infecting others with your groove.

MinZ – unpronounceable – 48 Hour Compo Entry

A deceptively challenging game centered around a very clever and simple puzzle mechanic.

RUNNERIST – BumbleBirds – Jam Entry

Simple take on the endless runner genre with great polish and its own twist.

That’s all for now; I hope you enjoy playing these games as much as I did, and if you’re feeling generous, you can always give my entry, HELPME_, a try.

Reminder I’m live-streaming on 10:00 pm, Eastern Time!

Edit: Aaaaaaaaand we’re live!

Like last time, I’ve setup a public Google Docs spreadsheet to list the games I’ll be playing. Feel free to post your game’s URL in the spreadsheet!

Tags: livestream, Twitch.tv

Down The Line is my game developed for the 26th Ludum Dare on minimalism. It was my second entry in the competition.I took advantage of my own JavaScript engine, {FM.js(engine);}. It proved very useful and trustworthy, I did have to make a few tweaks on the pathfinding component but overall it worked pretty well out of the box. I also used Netbeans, Tiled Map Editor, Inkscape, Audacity, bfxr and Circuli.

Last time I participated I was alone, this time I decided to enter the Ludum Dare with other friends such that we could spend the week end together, help each other out, playtest the game of one another, etc. It was extremely motivating, we were in an infinite motivational loop. If anyone of us was tired just the fact of seeing the others making progress was enough to keep working.

We live in France and the theme was then announced at 4 am, In my opinion it’s the worst time to get started, do we stay up until the theme is announced ? Do we wake up at 4 am ? Or even 6 am ? There’s no perfect solution so we went with the last one, we woke up at 6 am after a good night sleep, ready to get started… but 6 am is still not the best time of the day, especially if you count on working ’till 2 am.

The theme did not really appeal to me since I consider minimalist game design as good game design. I just felt like the theme was not a theme but rather a constraint that I already try to apply to my games. So it took me roughly 4 hours of eating, sleeping, thinking to get started but I finally got excited with my newborn concept. I wanted to let the player experience minimalism by letting her carefully creates paths with few waypoints but maximum efficiency. During judging I saw a few games with a similar approach so I guess it’s not completely irrelevant. It could have been brought further though, especially in terms of level design and scoring by allowing the player to find better paths for a same level.

Anyway, even though it was very fuzzy at the beginning I sensed that there was something that could be done. During development the game kind of evolved on its own and became its own thing. It was a bit as if I had no plans but I knew what kind of feeling and level design I wanted. The gameplay had to fit that.

In the end several iterations altered the way the player handled the entities, that’s how were created the blue and red entities, depending on the directions they took when hit by a waypoint. I could not decide whether they should follow the path forward or backward so I created two types of entities.

Overall it went pretty smoothly and after my last Ludum Dare one year ago I could not have dreamed of a better second time. Now that I’m done with my whining and ranting let’s talk about the development itself. What did I do wrong ? What went right ?

What went right

Early prototype: I was able to get a minimal working prototype very early, this helped me a lot and made me confident that I would be able to deliver. In 48 hours of hard work confidence is key, you sleep better, you work better and it helps you stay motivated.

Concept: the early playable prototype proved me that my concept was leading somewhere interesting, somewhere with potential. I still had some doubts of course but manageable ones

Design: one of my main tools was Tiled Map Editor. Even when you’re not building a tiled game it is still relevant to place your objects, giving properties to them and to the levels themselves. Building levels could not have been easier.

What went wrong

Programming: the system I built at first worked perfectly, each entity was assigned a path as soon as they touched a waypoint. But when I added a new entity (the blue one) I discovered that my system did not handle AT ALL the reversed behaviour. It can seem pretty basic, and it is, but the system I built did not consider all waypoints in the path, only the following ones. At the end it was a mess and I discovered a bug that prevented me from adding more levels. This is the main regret I have for this Ludum Dare, I should have thought of that or designed the last level first such that I would have discovered the bug earlier and have time to fix it.

Design: although I had built a prototype early I didn’t use it to quickly create my levels. I kind of waited for the game to build itself and let it inspire me. While it might be cool to work like this it can also lead to undesired situations, like the one described above.

Sounds: I think that my lack of knowledge in sound design has prevented me to make a perfectly consistent game. Specifically, the sound effects appear less clean and clear than the music since I used bfxr to generate sounds and Circuli to make music. The former is made for 8 bits style game and it does not mix perfectly with the crystalline music produced by Circuli.

Conclusion

Time to wrap it up. As I said above I could hardly hope for a best second Ludum Dare. Of course I could have made a better game, the theme could have been better suited for my taste, I could have been more cautious to avoid major bugs, etc. But it was the best 48 hours I had spent in a long time, my tools are working great, the game seems to be well appreciated and I think we (my friends and I) are considering participating in every Ludum Dare ’till we’re bored… or dead.

Thanks for reading! And don’t forget to play my game and rate it!

Simon

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 14th, 2013 at 2:58 am and is filed under LD #26. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Hi! Welcome to the post-mortem for Cottonhead.

Here’s the trailer.

Day 0

Remember Bottled Worlds? Once again, I came over to Itamar and Mati’s house with a laptop. We spent the night playing Rhythm Heaven and watching some weird and loud videos.

Day 1

We woke up early, saw the theme, and instead of breaking our heads over it like in all previous Ludum Dares, we went out and got ourselves some… Burekas!

We sat down in some nearby garden and started coming up with ideas. We had plenty of ideas, one including a story where the world is being kept minimal by an evil machine. Another idea is that you’re something who wants to fly. How is that minimal? That’s it. That’s the story. You’re something that wants to fly. We weren’t sure where to take it from here but it seemed like a good idea at the time.

We sat there with a pile of papers and Burekas and began drawing some ideas.

Unfortunately, our brain storming session was interrupted by a birthday party, but we still had plenty of ideas we wanted to put to test.

We already had the basic concept art for the main character finished. We wanted a blob with a big nose.

We headed back home and started working! After a short dilemma, we decided that, yet again, we’re making a platformer, woo! (we love platformers)

We decided to not think about the gameplay and keep that for the end, so we polish the game properly and make it pretty. This is the first time we were doing this ‘experiment’ and I think we’re very pleased with how it came out, I’ll touch on that later in the pros-cons.

So after a few hours we created a basic engine with concept art for the main character.

We also had a basic idea of how we wanted NPCs to work in the game; we didn’t want anything violent or action-oriented, we wanted some minimal banter between them and the player that will only add to the mood of the game.

Mati started working on the tileset: 

Itamar drew some NPCs:

And after many hours of work we had a basic level created!

(also notice the feathers on the bottom left!)

I went home, but we weren’t finished yet! I put up a post on lonebot.net for a recap of our first day, then headed to bed.

Day 2

OH MY GOD, I came to their house again (with a laptop).

We dedicated the second day to completely finishing everything except for the level design. We decided to leave that for the final day. The reason we did this is because we wanted the map to be balanced in terms of content – to have everything ready to be placed within the final map while making it, without having to change things around.

So first of all we finished the NPCs! Here’s a collection of all of some them for reference:

We started adding the main quest: collecting feathers. We didn’t hide feathers around the world yet (we were saving that for tomorrow).

We also added some pretty eye candy such as birds, and leaves falling from trees! 

Also dancing flower   

This day was tons of fun because it mainly consisted of making pretty particles, finding music and adding awesome effects.

We also made Magina the Wizard!

Itamar drew a new tileset:

And they both drew some houses:

We added more sounds and an ending, and that was the end of day 2!

Sadly, for some reason, lonebot.net  got hacked!!!!!! So we couldn’t post a day 2 recap!!!

Day 3

Final day! I came over to Mati and Itamar’s house…. again!! Without a laptop this time. This day was pretty short-lived because all we did was build a level and playtest our game.

Making the level was extremely fun! Unfortunately, I don’t have much to write about this day because it mainly revolved around the map and fixing small bugs, here’s this picture instead 😀

also an intro:

And thus, Cottonhead was finished.

And unlike any other Ludum Dare, we finished it BEFORE the deadline without any stress!!!

And now:

What went right?

• Extremely polished. We decided we want this game to serve more as ‘eye candy’ and we think it worked out well!
• Workplace. Unlike any Ludum Dare before, we all worked in the same physical workspace which made things MUCH more interesting and easier for us. It made the workflow much easier and smoother and everything was fun.
• Nice world. I think the world map in this game came out very nicely. We gave it a lush colorful feeling which helped us shape up the world.
• Minimal story. There is barely any story behind the game, we let the player shape it in their head to what they think makes sense!
• Awesome music. Thanks to Suezo from Newgrounds.
• Almost no bugs!! Woo

What went wrong?

• Too hard. Some feathers (2) were a little too hard for our playtesters, and we should’ve fixed that when we could. One feather requires an extremely accurate jump and the other is just barely visible. In one of the playthroughs we saw for our game a player thought that he had to something before getting the accurate-jump feather.
  
• Too short. This is criticism we got plenty of times… We’re not sure if it’s also a compliment but we’ll work on it next time 😀
• Lonebot hacked. 
• No mac/linux client. 

All in all, making this game was very, very fun for all of us. This was probably our best Ludum Dare, because everything just went in our way so easily. 😀

Also, our biggest achievement: this is the first game we’re releasing under the name ‘Lonebot’!!!! Please check out our new website at lonebot.net 😀

We are hoping to make a really big game soon, and this is all thanks to Ludum Dare! <3

So, that’s it. That’s how Cottonhead was made. Now go play Dota or Rhythm Heaven.

Thanks for the read <3

Hello. I just made a Java applet version for my game Mono. Check it out here.

I still haven’t fixed the collision bug though. My apologies for that.

Also, here’s a GIF of a zombie chasing Mr. Mime. 😀

Rate my game here if you liked it. Thanks!

10 days ago, I posted a little highlight of my favourites entries to celebrate my 50 first games played – you can find it HERE.

Now, I reached 100 games, which means it’s time for another highlight for the 50 latest ones. Once again, this is based on my own jugement, and doesn’t mean the games I’m not mentioning “suck” : they just didn’t hook me up as much as those ones. Also, no particular order. Let’s do this !

Aduno – Jam

Minimalize junk forever ! Aduno is a clever puzzle game reminding me some childhood educational games about logic, except more challenging and fun, like some sort of “extra light Space chem”. What struck me is the very polished animations, looking IMO sort of “professionnal” without ruining the game nice style.

Unfurl – Jam

Zen atmosphere, scroll theme, simple rules yet great complexity : Unfurl faced the theme “full power” without betting on minimal graphism. Unfurl scrolls to create lines of shapes, but do it right, as unfurled scrolls will hide bottom ones. This underrated game twisted my mind quite hard despite apparent simplicity – the zen atmosphere almost mocked me !

The team even created a fake traditional game to give presence to the tutoria, which was fun and unexpected.

Drug hunt – Jam

I’m usually not fond of “wtf-game throwing random images and you and call it a day” as it’s often a lack of actual effort to come up with something well thought. One could argue about my point of view and go one step further on the meaning of art, but for now I’ll just praise Drug Hunt’s successful blend of “what the hell ?” factor and actual, well thought features.

This game is basically a suit of thematic mini-games depending on which drug you take. It’s very fast paced yet clear enough for most of games (not EVERY game tho) to bring an actual perceptive challenge. And of course, the atmosphere is nuts, yet “well thought nuts”, rendering the experience IMO even more enjoyable.

Tessitron – Jam

Which seemed to be your average rythm game turned into a creative blend of Guitar hero (well, Frets on fire here) and a rail shooter. I almost felt like playing Rez in some parts. The whold experience, mix of an electro trip and a frantic rail shooting quest for the Evil Boss, is remarkably well put together, despite the somewhat awkward connection between letters, colors and enemies. Minimal 3D trip at its finest, but including satisfying pacing and challenge : deal !

Root Route ! – Jam

This may be my favourite entry of 100. Everything in this game feels “right. The gameplay is simple, effective, includes ressource management, yet it’s a NON-RUNNER-one-button-game (okey, well, it’s some sort of vertical, super twisted runner-like). This kind of minimalism allows some liberty on graphic design, which happens to be very well crafted, feeling both nostalgic and polished, yet very coherent with the music & sfx, which happen to be very enjoyable and setting a soothing mood.

But the most impressive feature, which perfectly makes up for the few imperfections (high difficulty curve, no previous zoom which would be handy to plan the level ahead, hitbox somewhat difficult to guess), is the amount of appealing details : clear interface, the flower blooming more or less depending of the scoring, the zoom back on top when the level is finished and the general feeling of constructing something different each time.

Some extra games I liked very much as well (-> look at them, really, they are great) :

Street of rave – It’s not only the name : this game is great fun, to play, to watch and to complete ! Make people dance, avoid angry cops : what’s not to like ?

Mind the gap – Minimal, symbolic subway simulation. Downright excellent, great atmosphere (very soothing), playable for hours : totally worth playing !

Escape the minimalism – May seem like a basic platformer, but really has an interesting mood with variating epileptic rainbows, very powerful.

Metahotel – An interesting puzzle game blending AI management, logic and reflexes with elegant graphism.

Less is more? – Everybody is talking about that one and I can see why. Mesmerizing puzzle game twisting Mondrian with style.

QbQbQb – “Orbital match 3”, great in every field with very impressive polish and mood.

Rainbow rocket – The most interesting way to pilot a rocket ! So very hard to handle but great potential and excellent experience.

Bezier challenge – Will ring a bell to every “maths nerd” for a reason : very peculiar concept and design, which makes the game fun to play.

Aranmi – The sole idea of making a game based on a rake and sand is amazing enough, but succeding it is even better. Relaxing yet challenging RAKE game !

A simple circle – Smart puzzle game with smart scoring system : this game proves that simple doesn’t mean stupid or meaningless.

That’s it. Also, feel to take a look at my own entry (which includes a cute circle and a creepy voice) : YAHG.

Tags: compilation, review, roundup

I wonder if my game is the best looking one of this contest ^^ In fact I have good-looking water, nice ice, moving clouds and more 😀 For it’s graphics the game is pretty small, too – the Windows&Linux version together is 16,6 megs big! And the derivate of Sauerbraten I use grants relatively good performance.

Shifting away from the technically aspect.. Gameplay-wise, it focuses on exploration. You’re an explorer on an iceberg, who wants to get famous by discovering things. Theoretically, the chances to find something on a small iceberg are minimal, but practically.. who knows..?

Jump in your boat and move to the iceberg.

Don’t forget to vote after your journey has ended.

I reposted this, since the link to the game was previously wrong.

It is sad to inform all of you this late in the contest that I have removed all the links to The Sentient Cube for legal reasons. I was recently informed that the main mechanics of Katamari Damacy are patented (edit: and also, it seems, Crazy Taxi). To stay on the safe side, I’ve deleted the source, webplayers, and executeables from my servers.

I want to be clear that I did not know about this prior to this contest. I fully support the beloved game series, and wish for its continued success.

I want to thank all of you who supported and rated my game, and I truly apologize for the inconveniences.

Edit: Now that the dust have settled a bit, let me address a few things.

• I did not receive a Cease & Desist order from Namco Bandai or Sega.
• The take-down was entirely my decision, originally for legal safety.
• Upon researching into multiple patents, the take-down will be permanent.
• As mentioned above, every binaries and source codes were taken down. All links to them will simply 404.

I’ve had a few people suggest that my little 20 pixel wide LD26 entry, Tiny Runner, could fit on a watch. Whether this was meant in jest or not, it got me thinking about what kind of tiny target platforms are out there.

One of my original reviews actually suggested that I port this game to the Pebble wristwatch… though I think that’s not realistic since Pebble is an e-ink based display and won’t have the refresh rate needed for Tiny Runner to be playable. It would be cool to get this game on some kind of tiny display though. Anyone know of any other devices with a tiny display that might be well-suited for a game like this?

Tags: lo-res, platforms, tiny, watch

I’m currently creating a new game, JavaScript and HTML5.

Theme: Raid

http://www.twitch.tv/ashmorefur

Inspired by the 10 second clips from Codexus‘ awesome compilation videos, I created a sort of teaser trailer for my entry. It’s short, one might say… minimalist, perhaps?

I enjoyed this process actually. In keeping with the theme, why not create a short trailer for your entry with the bare essentials without giving too much away? If you haven’t already and are on the fence about it I encourage you to do so!

(At this point I’m just procrastinating the postmortem and event review…)

So far, I’ve played 50 games. On my first Ludum Dare, I only played about 15. So I’ve improved. Anyways, I’ve decided to give some of favorite games (in no particular order) to help you find some cool games to try out before judging ends.

Bipolar

A really cool puzzle game where you use magnets to solve puzzles.

I really enjoyed the gameplay of this game. It was very unique, and I think it is full-game material. I think this may be my favorite game.

Merkaba

A game where you have to find enough crystals to power your spaceship. But you can only turn left!

This was a simple but fun game. There were not really any enemies, but it was still challenging. I think NostraDamon could take this somewhere.

Cylinder

A game where you must get to the end of a cylinder/tunnel, and you get to turn the entire cylinder.

This one had unique gameplay. I would also like to see a full game from this one.

Mustache Armies

The game’s creators explain it best: “Each unit of your previous rounds adds up, replicating all the movements you made when you controlled it. Thusly, a massive army”.

I loved the graphics of this one as well as the unique, innovative gameplay. The sounds were also hilarious. Definitely worth making into a full game.

Of Guards And Thieves

A multiplayer shooter/stealth game.

Unfortunately there were not many servers or players, but it sounds like it is still being worked on, which makes me happy.

ProductionVille

A city builder.

Has room for expansion…

SDFJKL

Words can’t describe this one.

Too innovative to skip.

Potato Dungeon

A fighting game?

I don’t know what to say. I guess you will have to see for yourself

Well I’m too lazy to add anymore images, but some games you should definitely check out are:
Bridge Crosser
Screaming Cubes
TOOM
My Mini Castle
S.A.M
Tessitron
BASHLAND
Reversnake
And not to mention, my game 😀 XD.

Please join today on my stream now.

LD games…I have to lot of random ones to play. I can do request.

Hey y’all!

There’s been a lot of hate going on in the game making community for some reason against somebody. And honestly I think a lot of that energy is misdirected and should be focused on making games instead. So! Without furthur ado, let me introduce the Whine Jam:

Get Twine From Here: http://www.auntiepixelante.com/twine/

Rules: Twine ONLY.

Due NEXT MONDAY.

Test player’s honesty.

No use of Special Commands to check if a player has something or not.

Example: Click here if you have a candle. Click here if you do not.

Theme: None.

Other then that, have fun and make a game! I’ve chosen twine because it’s super easy to make a game in there. You can work on it whenever, don’t have to worry about sound or grahics, and worry only about making a good story. Hopefully this’ll take care of some of that pent up energy and hate and we’ll have a little fun in the mean time. Good luck!

Howdy, I just thought I’d share the Android version of the game that I just finished.

“The World is in your hand”:
 http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-26/?action=preview&uid=20841

Note that the Android version is post-compo, and included physics improvement. So to be fair, you might want to rate the 48h Web version. Also, the Android version has something extra:

• So I was able to port the game to Android and iPhone using Adobe AIR (iPhone version still pending app store review), but I actually had to go through performance and physics improvement. Before that, the game was slow, and bumping into walls was getting annoying so I had to reduce its effect.
• Basically, the game is about a paralyzed man who can only move his right hand, that’s why the game is played only by pressing one button. Along the development, I remember imagining, although unlikely to happen, that perhaps a paralyzed person in real life would play the game (basically, by having to constantly press space on the keyboard… not really user friendly).  I thought it could be inspiring for that person. As I finished porting the game, I suddenly had a thought. If that case ever happened, it would be much friendlier for the paralyzed person to play the game by pressing on a small device, rather than using a keyboard.
• With that in mind, I decided to implement the whole system that lets you play the Flash game using the phone as a remote control. (You can still play the game on the phone by itself, but if you link it to the Web version, your phone turns into a remote for the browser game ;-P). It’s kinda far fetched, but somehow I felt like it had to be done.

• The link between the phone and the browser is done by peer-to-peer. To test that, view a post-compo version of the game @ http://www.dobuki.com/the-world-is-in-your-hand.html  (Note that the Web link in the entry is the 48h version). Scan the QR Code, which will prompt you to install the app. After installation, scan the QR code again, and you now control the game with your phone, which brings you closer to the experience of the paralyzed man inside the game.
• Since this is using P2P, it works better if your phone is on the same wi-fi network as your computer. Also, the p2p technology I’m using doesn’t bypass firewall unfortunately.
• There’s also an iPhone version of the game, but the app is still in review. When it comes out it’ll have the same concept.
• My thoughts on LD: Definitely a nice experience and one I will repeat. Although, I worked really hard in the first 6 hours so I ended up being too tired and sleeping most of the time afterwards. For me, the project really got interesting when I added the intro. At that point, I started viewing my game more like an artwork than a game for fun. I went to the minimalistic process of removing all text from the gameplay, and developing the intro with just enough to tell the story, and express why it’s important that you can only use one button. Anyway, for the next LD, I’ll probably do a jam instead, and I’ll try to prepare an open-source library for controlling the game with the phone, so others can try that too.
• Last but not least, my favorite game: Four Scepters by Benjamin

It seems Twitch.tv can export to Youtube, so I’ve been cutting out parts where I play the game into separate videos, and aggregating them into a playlist. Check it out!