Here’s a post-mortem about my game, Little Peeps:

http://www.smudgedcat.com/blog/?p=97

This was not my original game plan, I made this game in~20 minutes. I made it with Unity and Ufps(Ultimate fps for unity)

I ported it to Windows,Mac and Linux + Web player, I might try to release it onto Kongregate.

All things respawn every 10 seconds. (I know it’s boring)

Switch weapons by pressing 1-4.

Kongregate link: (Requires Unity 3d WebPlayer plugin)

http://www.kongregate.com/games/nissen441/ludum-27-entry-gamehubdev (Best alternative)

(Sorry my internett is really slow so i used the quickest alternative!)

MediafireLink:  (All versions, MacOsx,Linux,Windows.)(Ohh and they are all rar/zip files so you need Winrar or 7zip) (Coming soon)

Mac link:

Linux Link:

Windows Link:

Extra Info: I programmed hunreds of hundres of lines of code and I decided to now use them….

Created a game for Ludum Dare using Scratch?

Submit it to the Ludum Dare gallery!

My first ever  Ludum Dare (and game jam in general) experience is coming to a close. What can I say about it?

Well, first, the theme. The theme is actually pretty okay. In fact, if it were any other theme then I would’ve most likely had a harder time in thinking of a game.

Next, the game. It was originally called “Shoot The Clock”, but then for some strange reason I thought “hey, it might be a lot cooler if it was named shoot o’ clock, with no capitalization whatsoever!”.

The concept came to be in a minute or so, since I already had past experiences in playing games with an “increase the timer” kind of mechanic. My idea wasn’t really that innovative.

What (miraculously) went right:

• Theme – I managed to follow it pretty nicely, squeezing in every last bit of the “10 seconds” mechanic I could in the game.
• Music – I learned how to use PixiTracker, and make various mediocre tracks with it! Only two were included in the game, though, with at least one of them being incredibly annoying.
• Save System – I managed to squeeze in a basic save system. I just reused the code I used way back then for a school project (which is why I entered the Jam
• Finishing – Hey, I finished it on time! That’s pretty damn good already

What went kind of wrong:

• Overthinking – Once again, I was able to think of too much possible mechanics to the game. This really slowed me down, as my dozen or so ideas conflicted with each other.
• Graphical Existential Crisis – “Should I change my sprites? Ugh…”, and other similar gripes. Also, the graphics are extremely simple bordering on mediocre.
• Horrible code – I recall some parts being poorly put together. An optimization nightmare.
• Lack of timelapse – I wasn’t able to prepare a timelapse video.

I’m pretty sure there are a lot more (especially on the wrong side), but that’s all I can think of for now. Anyway, it has been fun making my first LD game. It taught me a lot of things, and I did more in the first day than I did in a week or so (during my early days in making a game). I also learned how to balance the mechanics, and to consider that what might’ve been easy or hard for me might not be the same for the player.

Also, my BGM creation skills suck.

Tags: jam, postmortem

So I have been looking around and have seen a lot of really fun games which I have been voting for!

Come and check out the game in made “10 Second Run”

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-27/?action=preview&uid=13844

I didn’t think I’d be able to participate at all this Ludum Dare, as a result of being out of the country for business-related activities. However, I really didn’t want to break my 6-LD streak, so I decided to take my own advice: Just participate in any way you can, even if it’s just with an extremely simple game.

So when I found myself on a trans-Atlantic flight with no mouse, no Internet access, but with a small amount of free time, I decided to do the best that I could.  What resulted is a infinite-frogger-style game with a very weak hacking theme. What I really wanted to do a riff on the Hollywood-style hacking visuals that you see in movies and tv shows.  To do it right, I would have really needed some nice custom shaders, and that’s not something I can produce without more time AND access to copious documentation.

Still, in the end I produced an actual game. It has loss conditions (get “traced” by running out of time, smash into a firewall) and a goal (accumulate as many points as possible before you inevitably collide into the ever-speedier firewalls, or run out of time of course).  My interpretation of the “10 seconds” theme is very obvious, but enabled me to focus on a very simple arcady game that would be doable in just a few hours.

I started the game when I was still in Germany, finished it up somewhere over the Atlantic, and uploaded it using the Toronto Pearson International Airport’s free wifi.

[Click to play Time Hack!]

Play here

This was my third LD and I can say that has been the best.
Why? because I think I had create a good game in less than 48 hours, but even so, I’m not happy with the fact that I made it using Game Maker. Ok, the use of Game Maker isn’t anything bad, don’t get me wrong, but I was learning java and libgdx since three-four month ago and I wanted to check my knowledge in this LD.

Why I didn’t use libgdx then?, I had not time, this was a weekend very evenful and the priority was create a good game.

Well, here is my Post Mortem:

What went good?:

• Graphics and gameplay since the first day

The gameplay was very easy to program, only a basic platformer with an stealth system, basically if the enemy is looking right and the player is near of his right, he kill the player instantly.
And the graphics palette is of 6-7 colours in total, what made more easy the process of design.

• I’m learning a lot about GML functions

This was my second time using Game Maker and I was a bit lost. Even so I kept forward and I learned a lot about it

What went bad?:

• Bugs, a lots of bugs

I thought that my game had less quantity of bugs, but no, it had a lot, so I spent all the day of today fixing it.
I think now the game works properly, however, it surely has some bugs waiting to be fixed, so if you find one, please let me know.

• Few levels

As I say before, I had not enough time for dedicate to the ludum (only the nights) so the levels was reduced in number, only three of six planned in the start.

• In my opinion, bad theme

Seriously, what kind of theme is 10 seconds? I hate be a hater (excuse the repetition), but was one of the worst themes in the votation, “Death is useful” or “You must leave it behind” would have been a lot better.
10 seconds is nearly to obligate to create a game that hurries you and I hate that type of games :/.
At least have been better than “minimalism” ¬¬

• My english level is ridiculous

Yes, and because it I commit some typos on the game. I would apologize to all the people who is leaving their eyes on this text. Seriously, sorry.

Thanks for read!

Tags: 2D, funny, game, Game Maker, hard, infiltration, LD27, maker, Mortem, platform, platformer, Post, post-mortem, postmortem, screenshot, stealth

We have enemies e some explosions!

Now is time for some level design, lots of adjustments and that’s it! =D

Eiradirian Timejumpers

So this is where I talk about how things went this time and how great I am, right?
As always, Ludum Dare was so much fun. This was my fourth time and I’m still loving it. I feel like you can really see how much you improved by comparing your entries with each other, and this one was surely my best entry so far – at least I think (hope?) so.

What went right:

• Theme: 10 Seconds was one of the themes I voted, and looking back I’m glad it was chosen
• Idea: I’ve wanted to do a game like this for a bit now already and the theme finally made it possible. Yay!
• Code: I have to say my code turned out pretty beautiful, if you disregard the last-minute hardcoded ugly things. It should be clean, efficient – and most importantly, it works!
• Sound: I’m not a fan of sound generators, so I usually record them myself. It was hard to get going because I tried to take myself seriously, but once I gave up and decided for silly sounds again it ended up beautifully.
• Livestream: This was my first livestream and even though I only had one monitor it worked out well. I even had a viewer come and chat with me! If you are reading this, hello and thanks for coming ;P

What went wrong:

• Timelapse: ..uhm..oops? I totally forgot about it.
• Graphics: Well, the character faces turned out nice. But the rest? Eww.
• Music: I actually wanted to do cool ambient music using my voice and the PaulStretch effect, but I had no time left.

That’s all. Play my game here. Do it. Now!

I’ve played about 40 games so far, so I felt like I should share the ones I found were really good or had an incredibly clever use of the theme.
Here we go, in no particular order other then the order I played them:

Day of the Vampire by drilltail
Keep Flying by bushmango
10 Seconds Before the World Ends by lustdante
Ochre by ben
Exposure by zillix

And a little self promo, you should checkout my game before the other 5 XD

10 Second Planet Destroyer by Latency

Enjoy and happy gaming!

As an aside they are all web games or playable through the internet

I had a great time with LD#27.  This was my first, but not certainly my last.

Unfortunately, I ran out of time and forfeited about 3 hours before the compo was over.  :-/

Here’s some helpful tips that I learned – some of them are real no-brainers:

Know your language. (DUH!)
I chose my language based on the project idea.  Unfortunately, I chose a language that I wasn’t familiar enough with to be proficient in the given amount of time.

Have a couple of languages and frameworks under your belt. (DUH!)
See previous tip.

Practice before the compo. (DUH!)
Take the week (or two weeks) before the compo to practice coding in your best languages.  I got marred up in things like XML parsing in the language I was using.

Know your tools. (DUH!)
See previous tip.  If you haven’t used (insert tool here) in a while, spend some time to re-familiarize yourself with it.

Be prepared. (DUH!)
Don’t spend the first few hours having to install software or setup repositories.  Set that up before hand.  This is something else that was a big time suck.

Do all your errands before the compo starts.
Again, this goes back to being prepared.  Run your errands, stock your pantry, do your laundry, etc.  I had to run buy groceries and household supplies during the compo.  It ended up being more of a time suck than I thought.

Don’t plan anything else during the compo. (DUH!)
I ended up having something pre-planned before entering the compo.  Again, it was a big time suck.  Also, I was unmotivated to code afterward.  So much time lost with this one.

Go outside.
Go outside for a bit to clear your head – or at the very least, step away for a while.

For those that have a day job, take time off.
If you can, take off the day before the compo starts and the day after the compo ends.  Take the day before to prepare, run errands, etc.  The compo also got my body out of sync with my normal schedule – late nights and 4 hour sleep schedules.  Getting up this morning was a real bitch.  Take the day after to get back into sync with your normal schedule.

Hope everyone had a great time!  See you on #28!

I’M PANICKING!

Here’s a gif of the current stage of the game.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4243608/wip01.gif

Now you may be asking yourself.. Where’s the gameplay?

It’ll come eventually.. I just hope I can get it done in time.

I added the music and effects

A little gameplay trailer for my entry.

Link for game web page -> TIME SHIFTER

Well, all the mechanics are done, so now comes the levels and the polish! I slightly changed the goal, now you have to bring loot from one star to another.

GREETINGS, COMRADES! IT IS DEAR LEADER! THE KITCHEN IS READY! IF TIME WERE NOT ILLEGAL BY MY ORDER, IT WOULD NOW BE TIME TO COOK. NO FURTHER QUESTIONS!

GET COOKING!

signed, the best team of all time

i completely forgot about this .. i see i have only 10 hours until close..

need to get working on something ..

hmmm…

10 Second Zombies Post-mortem

It’s out there, 10 second zombies: a zombie survival game.

Whilst creating this game I have learnt some quite interesting things that I did not know about the HTML5 canvas and JavaScript before I started.  This is also the first game that I have managed to create a display effect for and if I do say so myself, the CRT effect is pretty good.

 Things that went well

Since I had created games in HTML5 and JavaScript before I knew that if I was going to be able to create something that I could actually call a game I had to make sure that what I was making was not too complicated to make sure that I would be able to have something playable by the end of the compo, I think I managed that quite well.

Moving onto the gameplay.  This is the first game that I have created that the mob, the zombies, walk towards you along an angle and come directly towards you, this looks much nicer than the other way that I used to do it (move the zombie along till x and y matches that of the players).

This is also the first game that I have made that uses objects that the user has placed down, the turrets, to shoot the enemy mob.  Each turret, Mk1-3, has a certain amount of bullets that it can shoot before it will disappear, another difference between the turrets is that each one increasingly has a bigger range that it will fire at zombies.

Things that did not go so well

One item that I added into the game, the mines, did not turn out as well as they will not work unless a zombie steps on top of it.

Another really annoying bug in the gameplay is that when you try to shoot at round about 90 degrees above or below the player it will shoot the opposite direction although besides that the schooting is still pretty good, and the game is playable.

Overall

I believe that overall I created a pretty good game in the 48 hours that I had and I am not disappointed with it, when you make a game in such a short period of times you have to expect to get bugs and things are bound to not always go to plan.

So, what are you waiting for?  Click here to play my game and don’t forget to rate!