I have decided to remake one of my favorite iPhone games. The plan is to keep the base game mechanics and add powerups, leaderboards, better graphics and so on. I’m also thinking about making levels more diverse, taking advantage of 3D world and not making cubes lie on a single plane.
Here’s 2 screens from the first day of development:
So I’m remaking my Ludum Dare 26 game currently due to me liking the idea enough to pick it back up again, and my determination to participate in the October challenge. My LD26 submission was Pix, a 2D puzzle game that tied 100th overall. I am overhauling the graphical style and changing some gameplay elements, but the core features will stay the same.
I am not to sure whether Pix+ (the name of said remake) will succeed, but I can try my best. The common complaints to the original were the annoying beep sounds played when your pix was moved, the constant button pressing to move, the level order fluctuating in difficulty, and some problems with certain pix being too similar to players with limited color vision (aka colorblindness). To address these problems, I aim to:
This is an essay of a post, but I wanna get my point across to the few of you that actually played and liked the original. To the right is the graphical style I hope to use applied onto the tiles.
Anyway, my fingers hurt and I need some sleep. G’night all, and good luck 😀
I made a stupid maze game. Does anyone want to buy it for a dollar and help me be an October Challenge king? http://sbx.sk/Akar
Tags: challenge, october, SuperMazeX3
Lets do it!
So October Challenge has come and I’m really excited. Nothing like Ludum dare to boost my determination and productivity.
This month I am going to be working on a Top down multi-player Batman Arkham game that I’ve been building for 2 weeks. I am going to rebuild it as it’s become a bit cluttered and I’m going to stream most of it HERE.
Why did I put “Prepare to die edition in the Title”? Well I am a fairly inexperienced game designer and I just like a challenge even if I don’t end up succeeding.
October Challenge: Prepare to die edition! :
I hope your guys’ bodies are ready! Because mine sure is!
A long time ago I programmed a little on a Commodore 64.
I found programming in assembly hard and being a lazy teenager soon gave up.
Many many years later (just after an unsuccesful Ludum Dare) the Mini Ludum Dare ‘Low Level’ was declared. This REALLY inspired me. I immediately knew I wanted to do something for the Commodore 64.
The next day (after a mind storming sleep) I had a complete idea in my head.
Because I had no idea about design tools for the C64 and not much experience in making sprites I decided to keep it very simple. Here’s a first sketch I made:
I found out, that the cross assembler I previously used, didn’t work on Windows 7. I had to look for a new cross-assembler. C64PrgGen looked nice so I used that. Looking back, maybe not the best choice, it had some bugs that really cost me a a lot of time. But after one day I had become reasonably comfortable with it and I got up to speed. For the graphics I settled with making them in Excel. Probably not the best choice, but easy to alter to my own wishes. Here the design for the title. It’s made up of 96 altered characters.
Programming in assembly gave me some challenges, but fewer than expected. Because I kept it simple I didn’t run into memory problems or problems in using too many cycles.
These two books (yes young people, physical books!) helped me a lot with the workings of the C64 and where to map my graphics :
The end result looked like this:
I was very pleased with the result. It took me a week to do, but if you had asked me a year ago if I thought I could make a game in assembly for the C64 in a week, I would have laughed.
So Mr. Sosowski, thank you for this inspiring theme and giving me a chance to redeem myself for my lazy childhood!
Tags: assembly, C64, Commodore 64
Hi,
I don’t think you will remember us, but we had this idea to release an Android game for the October Challenge 2012. The game was TreeVolve a Jam Entry for Ludum Dare #24.
We failed badly, the game was not ready and we had to give up.
Months passed and we continued to develop the game (Daniel and me), added new features, new graphic, new audio and now and after one year we are very close to release it on Google Play. We added new abilities, new tutorial, a Multiplayer mode, Google Cloud saving, Achievements and a leaderboard.
Can we do it, one year later, for the October Challenge 2013? I hope yes!
We are looking for android beta testers. Do you want to help us? (we really need more feedback and bug hunting)
We really would love to hear your feedback.
And we just uploaded on YouTube a small video teaser. Hope you will enjoy!
After Ludum Dare 27, I had made up my mind that I would port my entry to Android. Thus I set out to do just that.
This past couple weeks I’ve been giving my all to get it ported (and improved) from the LD version.
My great friend who joined me in Ludum Dare 26, joined the team, greatly improving on the visual aspect of the game.
It just so happened that the October challenge lined right up with my release.
So, after the last sleepless 24 hours, I can proudly present to you…
This Google Play badge!
I’m so happy with how Phase came out, and I hope you will be too!
It feels so good to finally have released something!
For the October challenge I’m going to be working on my most recent project entitled Nephollow.
The project itself is done using the PSM (Playstation Mobile) SDK, in C# which I’m hoping to have completed by the 23rd of October, maybe even before that.
If all goes well with the PSM version of it I’m thinking of porting it to put on the Windows 8 Store and maybe have it ported to android…
If you want updates on the project itself through out the month, follow my twitter @moongateuk.
Also good luck to everyone doing this. 
Tags: game development, Nephollow, Playstation, PSM
This is my first Ludum Dare. I contemplated creating a game for Android for some time and this LD just pushed me enough to get started. I’ll report my progress daily here and on my blog at http://bigosaur.com/blog
Lately I have been playing Subway Surfers and got really passionate about it. I usually don’t like the “endless” games, that you basically cannot finish, so I always set an arbitrary goal to reach. This time it was reaching 30x score multiplier. While I did that, I got some skill and really got addicted to the game. It also made me realize that Android games don’t have to be a AAA title with huge story and complex gameplay. Something simple and casual is OK.
Anyway, I thought it would be nice to have a game where you could simply point your finger at something and shoot it. With a system of Missions, Daily and Weekly Challenges and weapon upgrades it could be fun. My first idea was to create a game where some cute monsters would run around a beautyful scenery, hide behind the trees, old houses, or even in the clouds and you would need to shoot as many as you can. By cute monsters, I mean something like Gremlins. They would also bring in some huge machines and do other stupid things that would make you laugh. Of course, being an indie game developer with zero budget, I decided this would require too much art and too much of my time because of complex animation I envisioned. So I decided to use a different setup, something I can produce myself in a reasonable timeframe.
My goal now is to make an interesting, playable game for Android in one month. You can follow my progress on Ludum Dare, my blog or my Twitter feed at @mbabuskov.
I hereby welcome back my entry to the 37th mini-Ludum Dare jam of about a year ago: Stargazing!
This was one of my little Flash game ideas that actually felt like I’d hit something interesting and different. It’s a very simple concept at heart but that’s ideal for my first marketable game. And I see it as a great fit to touch-screen devices, which will be my market of choice. I intend to attempt submitting to both Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play store by the end of the month (*gulp*), with the actual release following thereafter.
Stargazing 2012 in Flash (above) and Stargazing 2013 in Unity
I’ve moved the old Flash game into Unity, which wasn’t actually that painful a process at all. Everything from the Flash version is in place here (except audio for now). I think a big challenge now is making the game a worthwhile enough experience for someone to throw a bit of loose change at. For certain there needs to be more content (the Flash version can be finished in no time at all). I will be adding more areas of sky, and in fact there is already a second “stage” implemented with a bunch more constellations. I’m happy to say I have moved to data-driven definitions of stars and constellations as opposed to the many hard-coded lines in the original Flash game…
I’ll update my progress here as well as on my blog. Good luck to everyone else attempting this, should be good!
Got a few games under my belt, see http://amos.me/games/ — but I’ve never sold anything 
Let’s hope this month changes that.
I’ve decided to participate in the october (fest) challenge! I’ll be working on a hack n slash type of game of mine that i’ve had in the works for a few months, altough it’s only been a few hours here and there. For the challange i’ll be trying to put more time into development and hopefully have something ready for the november deadline. It’s really a win / win situation even if i don’t manage to complete the challange, as i’ll have something much more complete moving forward and thats a great motivator for me.
The content creation chain still needs some work, but here is a screenshot from the client:
The working name of the game is Cager and as you can see it’s set in a isometric-ish perspective, also present is a very, very small character sprite.
Target platforms are any devices with a browser that can handle some of the “new” features in html5 (websockets, canvas, audio). I haven’t thought to much about how I will make money off of it other than through microtransactions, but that’s more of a long term goal and is probably not feasable for this challange. I’m not sure that anyone, except maybe forced friends and family (does that even count for the challenge?), would pay for an account, so thats something i’ll have to figure out as soon as possible. I also need to look into setting up paypal to accept payments as i have no idea how that works right now.
I’ll also be streaming when possible at this location.
So LD27 helped me finish and publish my only game from the summer. A little discouraging considering some of the other stuff I had been working on and what have you, but hey, it’s something. Any substantial progress of that sort is good.
So time to use LD again as a form of motivation. That’s right: October Challenge time!
I already have an idea. I’m thinking a simplistic run-and-gun platformer similar in nature to MegaMan, but with a twist. To gain extra powers, it comes down to also destroying regular enemies. As you destroy them, you absorb residual energies from them, and over time you inherit special abilities. This wouldn’t be solely weapon-based; the player might inherit different defensive or mobility abilities. As some examples, some potential abilities might be “Comeback” (short duration power boost after getting hit) or “Urgency” (charge attack speed increases as health decreases), and the player will get to choose which ones he wants to equip before entering a level. Some might even “level up” if the player manages to destroy enough of the same enemy throughout the course of the game.
So that’s my idea. Not going to say too much more until I have some actual work to show. I’ll probably be using Stencyl again, and I’m thinking for the monetary part I’m going to go with Kongregate. My last game (last time I checked) scored me somewhere in the 15-30 cents range. I think it’s a reasonable goal to shoot for $1+ this time. My primary concern at this point would be how big the project might end up being, specifically since I do have other obligations to attend to, but I guess I’ll see it how pans out. Feel free to leave any comments about my game idea; I appreciate feedback!
Looking at some websites with animation stuff, I found some nice, freeware, zombie animations. They have even animations for zombie being shot, crawling, etc. So, maybe this game could be a zombie shooter.
Your character would sit on his/her porch and shoot the zombies coming out of the cornfield. The game would be called Backyard Panic. You could switch different characters from the old granny, redneck with a shotgun, to a member of the Marines with some long-range rifle. Here’s a really, really rough sketch:
Update: I just played Zombie in USA. Interesting game, but gets a little bit boring to tap the device like crazy. I want a single touch equals kill type of interaction, at least for non-boss enemies. As I think about it more, the whole zombie topic seems too gloomy for me, and having yet another zombie game is hardly called fresh. So, I’m not sure about this. Also, it seems it would involve 3D graphics, and I’d like to stick with 2D, at least for my first Android game.
Stay tuned. I plan to post my progress at end of each day.
I love this idea and it might just be the push I need – which is kind of the point I guess! Recently I’ve been trying to decide what to do with my Molyjam 2013 entry Metritron. If you’re interested in a breakdown of its mechanics I have written them up (although this is the Molyjam version).
It was a C# + XNA game so I thought the best course of action would be to turn it into a full XBLIG title since it would be easy enough to port. However after I’d finished up working on MetritronST (with a whole bundle of improvements), and dropped $130 on the subscription and cheesy trace music, I found out it is actually impossible for me to release. Not because I’ve done anything wrong, but because random Microsoft accounts just have an error where they cannot access the developer website or do anything. You can read about it here if you want but the short version is I got annoyed and, well, gave up.
However, I recently decided maybe it’s time to have another go at it (becoming unemployed again maybe helped). I created MetritronHF with a big list of improvements: several times the enemy variation, specific levels, specific bosses, mouse support, better screen use, screen configuration, hi-scores, etc. It’s also distinctly lacking in metrics data now but, while that was the shtick for the Molyjam I do think it looks much better without that gimmick in the background. I still have work to do but this might be the second wind I need and I thank you.
Currently my plan, once I’ve done the whole finishing a game part, is to register at itch.io which sounds like a decent solution for people who just want to get something on the Internets without any fuss.
Edit: I have also created an absurdly large gif that I could not in all good conscience embed directly onto the blog. http://i.minus.com/iD5tw6dwCDuNI.gif
I will be a first time participant in October Challenge 13′ as well as the www.onegameamonth.com ‘s month long game jam. This being my first game jam, I would like to mark the occasion by writting several blogs about my development cycle as the month progresses. If you are interested in hearing my development adventures, consider following me on my twitter account @teslacraft .
I will be posting these blogs on my facebook page, if there are any areas in particular that you would like me to cover in my blogs, please feel free to contact me via twitter or facebook.
https://www.facebook.com/teslacraft
Good luck to the rest of you; Ill see y’all at the finish line
Jeremy Kleve
Hi guys, I recently found out about great set of Jams going every month, check it out here: http://www.onegameamonth.com
I didn’t work nearly the whole month but it was a ton of fun and I made something new. Check my game out here: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/87884956/Exagons’%20Frontier.exe
I’m working on expanding and polishing my entry from LD27 (Richard Was Afraid of the Dark) as part of the October Challenge. LD27 pushed me farther in development than I’ve ever gone before (first time finishing anything), and I’m going to take advantage of the October Challenge to get it all the way to a releasable form. My plan is to get it up on Kongregate by the end of the month. Here’s a rough outline of my to-do list for the coming weeks:
Revamped controls – Instead of using Unity’s built-in character controller and collision detection, I’ve been working on developing a controller with more precise movement and much more stable raycast collision detection (no more falling through floors). I’ve added variable jump height and speed modifiers so that you feel much more in control and I’m taking time to tune the player’s movement to the environment. It’s already feeling significantly better than the compo entry, and I’m sure that it will improve even more as the month wears on.
Better gameplay – If you’ve played my entry (or read my Postmortem) you probably recognized the significant shortcomings in my level design. For the compo, I designed most of the levels in the final hour before submission, which left absolutely no time for testing. As a result, the levels felt purposeless and never gave the player any sense of payoff for their time with the game. One level required a lot of tedious jumping, but there was no other challenge to be found. I’m developing some puzzle mechanics that make use of manipulating the environment as well as some platforming that requires precise movements from the player.
Varied aesthetics – This goes for the visuals as well as for the audio. There was one texture set for the entire game and one piece of music (although the music expanded as you beat each level). Music is going to be a much more relevant component to the game and I’m working on redeveloping the level art and the animation and design for the character. Art is not my strong point, so this will be one of the hardest areas for me, but I’m determined to have a strong showing.
Stronger story – Mood was my highest rating in the compo (getting #72), and I think that a lot of this is due to the way in which the story played out. It wasn’t particularly compelling or revolutionary, but it seemed to connect with the players. I’m trying out a few story concepts, but I can guarantee that this element will make a return in some form.
As I’ve said before, I’m completely new to game development (and particularly this stage of it), so any words of advice from the community would be greatly appreciated. Feel free to give my game a play and leave the harshest reviews possible. 😉
Looking forward to working through October alongside the rest of the community. Good luck, all!
So after a weekend of working on my Top Down Batman Arkham game and I figure it’s a bit to big of a project for only 3 weeks time.
I made an unfinished prototype of a Top Down JRPG with Randomly generated elements with a rts spin when you get into a battle. I’m going to play around with that for a few hours to see where I’m at and I may as well stream it… HERE!
My body is ready!
album