I don’t really have much to say right now. I’m really just posting this because my dad noticed that I didn’t write anything yesterday and he was worried that I’d dropped dead halfway through the competition.

I have slept 3 hours per nights since the last 3 days and right now we’re living by a hill of coffee mugs…

Here is a quick look at our progresses, I think we’re pretty close to release the game. Keep  it up, only a few hours left!

I have been working on Trust Music this weekend, everything on the web, some sprites and sounds, but I did everything on a browser through a browser 
First time using GooCreate to make a game. I had been trying it out for a while now.

I have used their engine the most though, not their editor, but you basically you get a nice editor where you can do the same. And host your project for free!

Didn’t manage to do all I wanted, ended up being more of a concept demo than a game, but that’s what a jam is all about

I’ll probably try to add some more levels and add the mechanics I didn’t have time to implement after the compo, If I have the time 😛

What a ride!

We had a really good time making this piece.

This game is about being a underrated AI travelling between worlds acompanied by a bunch of incompetent humans. Those annoying people… The first thing they would do if they found out about our ability of independent decision making is frying our circuits. So let’s get rid of them!

“woooooosh!”

Play here   (scroll down a bit)

Rate here

Thanks to everyone who supported us during the development!

– Ralf and Paul

Tags: connected worlds, open that door, Paul Lawitzki, Ralf Zimmer, space ship

I have finished my basic puzzle elements, and designed a few tutorial levels. I’m still working on the finer points of level saving/loading, but I have a pretty good workflow set up.

5 hours left, and I’m felling pretty good. I still need some finishing touches like SFX and menus…

It’s getting there! SFX and weird enemy connecting effect are working, just powerups and a boss to go before I’m ready to submit.

Download the game from itch.io

Just submitted for the Jam, phew.  A lot of things went wrong over the weekend, including missing most of Saturday and the rest of the team having to drop out, but despite that I managed to get something playable.  I also wrote some more original music, which is also something I like to do during LD.  Only problem is that without the team’s resident artist, it fell to me to try and make graphics, so don’t expect them to be even 10% as good as last time!
Still, the game feels pretty fun with a 360 pad, have a go at the link below, thanks.   Also well done to everyone who got a game submitted

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-30/?action=preview&uid=14838

It’s my second Ludum Dare, but first official (in 29 I didn’t write anything here official blog). And here’s a little summary of my Untangle game submission. Tommorow I’ll write longer post-mortem and share it on my devblog.

Untangled is 2D shoot them up game. Various worlds tangled together, and – as multidimensional police officer you must jump inside your trusted tank and fight strange monsters! Some of them just gone crazy after Connection, some came from other worlds. Ultimately you must untangle worlds, and bring peace once again!

Download Untangle from Ludum dare page~!

The good:

• I decided to go with project little beyond my coding limits and… well… I broke my limits and made a game~!
• I learned some new things about gemetry, mouse handling in allegro library and C++ STL containers.
• About 4 hours before end I was convinced I won’t make it, but here it is. It’s so good to don’t give in to your fears.

The bad:

• My implementation of tile maps sucks, so game have serious lags, and I’m not sure how to fix it.
• I really struggled with silly read-file, and tile map errors so I didn’t have time to make any sfx.
• I have to cut lot of my previous gameplay ideas… (but maybe they’ll made to post-LD version?)
• I feel like there’s to little impact on disconnecting worlds.

The ugly:

• My art 😀 but I’m secretly proud of Fire monsters.

I must admit it was great to participate once again, and remind myself that “Ludum dares you to be happy”.
It’s wonderful to be part of community, and I really hope that someone’ll find my game interesting.

Good luck to you all, and see you on Ludum Dare 31 (:

Tags: allegro 5, C++, LD30, post-mortem, postmortem

Sorry, I’m super embarrassed but I have to confess my failure.

The truth is few things have caused it and I’m really disappointed, I still believe in my idea.

That’s why I’ll try to finish my game in the future (now is bad time for me, I hope I’ll be able to get to it before LD#31).

Well, I also want to congratulate all of you who succeeded, especially a friend of mine, Ramori, who just started his adventure with Ludum Dare.

I’m also keeping my fingers crossed for those who are still making those final touches for the Jam.

See you during the LD #31!

It’s finally done!

I first intended to make it for the compo, but planed to many features and got stuck with some detail issues.  So here it is one day later.

Looking forward to LD31!

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-30/?action=preview&uid=39855

Play IRMCO Space Miners

This was my first Ludum Dare and the first game I’ve completed since 1997. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I was excited to give it a try. After a nice birthday dinner with my wife and kids (my birthday was Friday), I settled into my office to get started. I’ve been playing around in Unity lately, so I upgraded to the beta 4.6, opened it up and waited for the theme to be announced.

I’ve been out of the game development loop for quite some time, so I wasn’t familiar with Ludum Dare until earlier this year. I didn’t participate in April’s event, but I watched some live streams and found a fun simulation game written by Quill18 called, suitably enough, Drill18: The Mars Project. I love games like this and thought it was a lot of fun. As I was playing it back in April, I though, “How cool would it be to have a game where you could travel to different planets to mine for various resources?” I thought about it for a short time and mentally filed it as an idea to flesh out later.

When the theme “Connected Worlds” was announced, this idea came right back to mind, and I felt it was perfectly suited for this competition. I thought of a couple other ideas, but I almost immediately made up my mind to go with the space mining idea. It was the game I wanted to make and this was the time to build a prototype to see if it will work as a game.

 


 
My goal for Friday night was to get a solar system in place. I started by getting the planets to orbit around the sun and the planets spinning on their own axis. Then I worked on interacting with the solar system, getting the camera moving via the mouse with zooming and panning. Once I had a system in place where I could randomly generate planets of various sizes and orbits and I could move it around and interact with it, I called it a night around 2 am. Unfortunately, 2 hours later I was still wide awake, so I decided to stop wasting time and got back to work.

The rest of the weekend was a blur. I worked until around noon Saturday before I was finally able to get some sleep. I woke up around 6:30 pm and worked all the way up until submission time. My idea was probably pretty ambitious for a 48 hour competition, but I managed to get it complete and add some polish. Overall, I’m extremely pleased with how it turned out. While I was developing it, I kept thinking “I wonder if this is going to be any fun?” When I was finally at the point where all the pieces were together and got a chance to actually play a game, I was impressed. It was actually a lot of fun. I didn’t have quite enough time to balance everything (I still haven’t tried playing through at “Brutal” difficulty yet), but a normal game plays through pretty well and a normal game with 9 planets should be beatable in under 10 minutes.

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So What Went Right?

Upgrading to Unity 4.6 was a great idea. The upgraded UI controls are amazing. They are so simple to use compared to the old system. It made putting together the interface a breeze, and considering how many different windows IRMCO has, this was key. Although when I did the first web build and saw the text “This was built by a beta version, it will only work on your computer.” I about had a heart attack. Fortunately though, it turned out not to be an issue.

Having an idea of the completed game before starting. Since I had already been sorta designing this game in my head for the past few months, I knew pretty much how I wanted it to work. I had a pretty good idea how the game would play, from beginning to end. It kept me motivated and I knew exactly what needed done every step of the way.

Iterations. I had a playable game Saturday night. By then, I had spent maybe 15 minutes on graphics and no time on sound. I think getting a playable version of the game as soon as possible is key. Once I had a working game, I began to polish it. I made nicer graphics. I added sounds. I added features that made the game more enjoyable. Every time I’d play through the game, I’d think of something else that would improve gameplay and I added it. The end result feels like a finished game.

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So What Went Wrong?

Sleep. I think if I participate again, I will definitely not work right up until the moment I want to go to sleep. I simply cannot work that way. My brain needs some unwinding time and not getting that kept me awake. While only sleeping 6 of the 48 hours gave me the time necessary to polish the game, it’s been hard on my body. I will do whatever it takes to make sure I get good nights sleep next time.

Not fully testing my tools before starting. I didn’t even try the new UI tools in Unity 4.6 until it was time to add the interface to the game. Fortunately, they turned out to be extremely simple for the most part, but it could have been a disaster. The issue with the web build warning message made my heart sink. My first thought was that I’d have to revert to an older version and port all the interface to the old method, but that wouldn’t have been practical. I’m fortunate that it turned out to not be a problem, but it could have been a big one.

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If you haven’t already, please check out my game: IRMCO Space Miners. Feel free to rate the game and leave me some constructive criticism.

In conclusion, I’m glad that I participated and I’m proud of the game I created. I commend everyone who participated, as this is certainly not an easy thing to do. For those of you who completed games, no matter how polished they are, congratulations. Get some rest. You deserve it.

It’s finally finished!

Saman is my entry to LD30.

Now that it’s over and done with, I’ll talk about what I think of the process and the finished product.

A Summary

The gameplay of Saman involves you controlling a rook (a creature made of rocks) who is defenseless by himself. He does, however, acquire gems from the depths and has learned by throwing them into the ceiling, he generates targeted earthquakes to save him from vile creatures that would do him harm. This aspect of the game involves you avoiding obstacles, (much like a classic arcade game) and feeding gems to the overworld.

On the overworld, a blue man is finding gems scattered outside of his home and invests them in things and buildings which will increase his fortune. This portion of the game is an incremental-style game where you spend the gems you collect on things which grow your fortune/score.

Both of these things happen simultaneously and if the rook dies, the game ends.

Theme

I hated this theme. Before the competition started I brainstormed some concepts based on what the themes COULD be and I literally left this one blank, thinking this is one out of like 20 possible themes, how likely is it that it gets chosen. It ends up I was in the minority because it seemed A LOT of people picked this. I felt it was not quite as open to interpretation as others on the list, but whatever – I went with it.

After realizing the theme I took a few hours to think about concepts. I threw away things I thought would be over done (platformers with portals, space stuff, etc.) and started thinking about symbiotic relationships or alternate realities. The idea of a spirit world and something taking place in a graveyard appealed to me, but I couldn’t get a strong handle on the direction I wanted to go in. I had a sort of random muppets/fraggle rock inspiration and took that direction with the art style and concept where there are things who dwell underground and above ground, and their worlds interact somehow, but didn’t know much more. I was a fan of old arcade games like donky kong and frogger and somehow wanted to implement those ideas into the game. I also liked incremental games, and some of my other concepts had those as a primary mechanic, so had that in the back of my mind.

Time Management

This was my first LD48 so I knew I didn’t want to be TOO ambitious, but I also feel I work/iterate quickly so I wasn’t sure where to draw the line. I just started making SOMETHING and tweaked until it felt ok. The last day I woke up around 9AM I think and didn’t stop working until around 2 or 3PM, to finally get something to eat. My eyes were burning from staring at the screen non-stop and I just wanted to get the stupid thing finished – adding sounds and menus at the last minute. I was really burnt out in the end, despite me not really messing up my schedule too badly.

What I’m Proud Of

I don’t consider myself a good animator, but sometimes the animations turn out better than you expect, and some of them for this game fall into that category. I think aesthetically the game is pretty good and the core concept is sound. I’m also proud of the fact that I finished and released something I’m not 100% proud of. I will probably be my harshest critic, and I feel that’s ok and important for moving forward and releasing good content.

What I’m Not Proud Of

The sound and music was very much a last minute thing. I found a sound generator at tones.wolfram.com and was pleased after generating/tweaking some weird sounds. The music I’m ok with, despite it being pretty strange. The sound effects, however, are another story. I used bfxr for the sound effects and was in a rushed panic to get them in and didn’t have a plan to implement volume control. After putting them in and doing some final test runs, I found the sfx so annoying I put a mute button in place instead of replacing them (out of laziness and lack of time).

The concept I came up with was ok, I felt. There is a saying that goes something like ‘there is no such thing as a bad idea, only bad execution.’ I find that to be mostly true, and I’m not 100% convinced my execution was where I’d like it to be, even for 48 hours. I blame this partially on me having no real direction, and trying to add depth where it maybe didn’t belong. The end result is a game where you’re basically playing two games at once. this, thematically, is ok, but in practice is a bit weird. Partially I think this is because it’s not something I’ve seen done before, so there’s no real gauge on what it should look like. For example, there is no reason in the game world that the rook dying would cause the incremental portion of the game to stop – but mechanically there needs to be some incentive to work on that portion of the game and keep him alive. I also feel the two halves of the game should be expanded and have more depth, but 48 hours limits your ability to do this quite a bit.

The story and instructions are non-existent. I had art and a concept built out where the rook was taught by his mother that the gods absorb the power of the gems, and call down forces to stop their enemies. Unfortunately I didn’t have time to really make that part of the game. In addition, there are basically no instructions, other than the controls which you can access as you’re playing. This game has enough depth to where I feel even rudimentary instructions really are necessary, but it’s not something that often occurs to me, as you’re testing your game over and over (and obviously know how to play it). I opted to put some instructions on the itch.io page.

In the End

All in all, it was a fun test of my creativity, but this experience has left me feeling like I’ve released something unfinished, that I’m not entirely proud of – which is the nature of the beast for LD48 hours, I suppose.

Tags: arcade, gamemaker, incremental, journal, LD30, post-mortem, postmortem, saman

This was my first LD and I learned quite a lot about Unity in the process. I’m hoping to take the communities feedback and create a polished Unity Asset.

Play MS.PORTAL MAN here

Hi guys! Check out my submission and please enjoy and comment. You can find it HERE

Here is a timelapse I created from our meetup at Midwest Technology and Manufacturing Centre in Bartonville, Illinois (Peoria):

We had great fun. Personally, it was my first Ludum Dare, and I will be giving it another shot at LD31!

I’m surprised. Night all.

Whew, I thought I wasn’t going to make it.

But here it is, ColouredWorlds !

(if you use MacOS or linux, you will need LOVE, you can get it at love2d.org)

Use the power of the coloured worlds to make it through the 10 levels !

I used Lua, LÖVE and Sublime Text 2 for programming, the GIMP and Inkscape for graphics, and MuseScore for the music.

I’d be very pleased if you gave it a try !

Holy cow that was fun.  I feel like I got a lot done in the allotted 48 hours, too (so much so that I actually had to cut some stuff because the game was getting too complex :P)

My game is called Interplanetary Defense Alliance, and it’s basically about a group of planets who have to fight off a never-ending swarm of enemies by swapping out different resources between them.  I was originally going to have your ‘resources’ be soldiers of different types, all with different strengths and weaknesses towards the different enemies that showed up, but then after trying to draw some good soldiers I was reminded that my pixel art really sucks :P.  Its probably for the best; I think my other idea would’ve been too complex and wouldn’t have allowed for the polish this simpler version allowed me.

Anyways, I hope you guys also had a good Ludum Dare, and I hope you enjoy my game! You can find it right here: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-30/?action=preview&uid=39104

Second Level Colors.

This was my first gamejam entry ever.  I knew the Ludum Dare was coming as a friend had asked me to join his team, but as the voting result got out, I got swooned in the hype and decided to try entry of my own. Get something finished. At the same time, it was good intro to Unity & programming – neither of which I’m that practiced with.

What I went right:

-Scope: small and simple was well within the time limit and my coding skills.

-Atmosphere, Thanks to unity particles. Sure, they are done with presets, but it made nice boiling sea. As my main challenge was coding, models were very minimalistic, worked here.

-Music composed  with a generator. Fast and good enough.

-Support: having helping minds to bang against when solving issues and good documentation to refer to.

-Learning. There was lots of that.

-Finished it! Yes!

What went wrong:

-Coding, while it went alright, even some more experience under the hat would’ve enabled so much more.  Better effects, more effects, smoother everything, better controls.

-Testing. I’m not certain it is possible to complete the game as it is supposed to. Luckily, some triggers collision detections bug and make it possible. Actually generating and validating levels like these would be interesting. topology problem. Afterwards got good feedback regarding controls and field of view, but that was already past the deadline.

What was missing:

Mainly a proper player character and more levels.  A Menu, story screens, some animations, more sounds and music,  timer based scoreboard and testing.

Proper Name: Went for the silly compound word just for the sake of visual of quirky triple l’s boderd by symmetrical i’s. Amh, yeah.

Conclusion:

First completed LD. This was a good intro for the starting season in the uni, got confidence knowing that I can make it. Inspiring, wanting to work more on graphics and I’m certain I’ll participate again!

Thanks to the friends and family making this possible.

Tags: LD30, ld48, log, post-morten, postmortem, screenshot

After a hellish weekend of having a fever, distractions, and making the mistake of trying to learn a new engine in my limited time, I’ve pretty much given up on this project.

I had a very difficult time trying to find a good idea for the theme and just when with the first thing that came to mind. I’ not sure if it even works, the name is World Gliders.

Its a small puzzle game where you must connect the tiles to the same color.

Lost interest midway and just hacked away like a mad animal for the last couple of hours…now to get rid of this fever.