My game is called “When Worlds Collide”, and you can play it here. I had a lot of fun during the competition, and I learned a lot too!

What went right:

I had an idea before I started. Usually I try to think of ideas for each of the themes in the final round so that I am prepared. This time, I simply had two ideas that I liked, and fortunately could think of ways to fit them into the themes. So this is something that could have went wrong, but didn’t.

I succeeded in making my game’s code modular and clean early on. Sure, by the end of the weekend it was a mess, but because it began well-structured and easy to modify, I was able to make changes to the game and fix parts that weren’t fun or didn’t work well enough without using up a lot of time.

The game is juicy. Very juicy. The biggest issue my games have (whether they were made for a jam or not) is a lack of visual polish and feedback. I specifically wanted to improve in that area with this game, and I think I succeeded. Images just don’t do it justice.

The game is fun. That’s what is most important, in my opinion.

What went wrong:

I should have spent more time working. Honestly, I didn’t take a lot of breaks, but I submitted early and didn’t work until the deadline. I was tired. There are a few things I can think of that should have been better, but aren’t.

There are bugs. Well, all code has bugs, so of course this game has bugs. What I mean is that there are known bugs. The are known bugs that have taken so much of my time, and still aren’t completely fixed. In the past I’ve almost always succeeded in fixing every known bug before submission, so this is a huge disappointment to me.

Final thoughts:

In the end, I’m extremely happy with how the game turned out. Many things went right, only a few things went wrong, and the game is fun. I’m considering adding multiplayer cooperative and versus modes, but for now, you could always play cooperatively on the same keyboard. 😉

Tags: LD30, postmortem, when worlds collide

Just uploaded a video play-through of my entry, Blue Screen. If it looks interesting, you can play the game here!

So, for my game “Bounty of Corruption”, I made what was basically a randomly generated shooter game with different themed levels. I’ve always wanted to make a networked multiplayer game, and you can see that I tried local splitscreen in one of my LD games (see: Dungeon Darkness) before.

The following video might take a bit of explanation as to what’s going on, and it’s seriously basic (ie. only movement, with the exception of a couple extra variables):

I am player “TomboFry” playing and hosting a server using the same executable file. “Liddles03” is a friend of mine who joined the server from about 10 miles away from where I live. This test is basically to see how well it performs over a different network (rather than two instances running on the same PC). I’d say it was greatly successful!

When a player connects, they download the random seed and generate the same level as the host.

The circle in the middle of the player indicates whether the person has their left mouse button pressed down. There is a line extruding the circle indicating the direction their mouse is pointing relative to the player. When you press ‘E’, an “ammo” instance is created on both clients, and its speed/direction is determined by random values, which turn out to be the same on both sides due to the same random seed.

PS. Don’t forget to rate my full game, “Bounty of Corruption”

“Press space to start“ is my first entry in Ludum Dare. I thought at first that it would impossible to finish it, as I had less than 15 hours of real coding time to steal from real life. I gave myself two hours to find an idea that met the theme. As an starting point I defined these objectives to the game to follow:

– Easy to understand mechanic. Easy to code. Easy to play but difficult to master.

– Maximum attachement to the theme (my interpretation of the theme).

– Finish.

My tools were: GameMaker, Inkscape and swfmill.

After the muses’ time, I spent about three hours in character design and coding. Other three hours were spent in a “dead end alley”, and involved trying to do things that were unneeded and let me to have more problems than solutions. End of day one. Second day I tried to be more productive. I centered on level design and story. The most difficult moment came two hours before deadline. I had no idea of how to submit a game. Luckily, people in irc channel helped me enough to learn that I had to store the game somewhere, then link it. And 30 minutes passed until I found the submitting button.

What went ok

– Game mechanics are simple enough to understand them in 5 seconds, and controls can’t be easier to understand. Gameplay is interesting enough to keep players  attention turned on during the 10 minutes that lasts. Levels are difficult but not impossible.

– I looked for an strong interaction between text and gameplay. Rooms are divided into story and game spaces, like a very simple book with playable illustrations. The gameplay of a room reflects the story being told, and the story explains what is happening in the game.

The game is short and linear. That allows the player live the story without getting lost in an obscure branch. I don’t expect anyone to give a second chance to my game. Aren’t there more than 2500 entries to try and rate?

Finishing and having lot of fun in the process.

What went meh or wrong

Lack of more detailed graphics, as I centered in the game mechanics.

Lack of sountrack and audio effects. People like them and is something to be rated too.

Lot of ideas that I had no time to develop.

Controls: decision to add momentum to the character speed has raised most of the critics, joined with a very restrictive wall crash system that perhaps raises the difficulty unnecessarily.

Losing a fourth of my time trying to try to do things that worked in a different manner, to return to a solution that worked in the first place.

In conclusion

Even without all the gameplay elements I wanted to implement, I got a finished story, a flexible mechanic that fit well the story and few but (in my opinion) well designed rooms. So within the limitations of the game, I’m very happy with the result.

I only spend 7 hours on monday and my game is unfinished.  So, I’m making a post-jam version.

These are  the new backgrounds and the game has better gap generation now:

PLAY CMYK

What went right:

I felt like the scope was perfect for the limited amount of time I had this weekend. This was mostly luck, but I also knew when to quit tweaking and didn’t regret it.

The match-3 and block-dropping algorithms fell into place like magic. To be fair, I’d given it some forethought–I did a quick Unity refresher on Wednesday where I attempted to build the line-clearing mechanic of Tetris with help from this tutorial. However, that’s a much simpler algorithm and I didn’t have an exact plan. It was a leap of faith that paid off early, leaving all of Sunday for polish. (I’d probably remiss if I didn’t mention that the match-3 concept was inspired by the time I spent in SeishunCon‘s digital gaming room this year.)

I’m happy with the art. I didn’t stretch myself stylistically, and it’s not as crisp and detailed as what I’d hoped, but overall it feels pretty slick if you don’t look too closely. I love posting those screenshots because it feels like a “real” game (well, at least to me).

As in the past, adding a GVerb track covers over a multitude of recording sins. I’m going to say this a lot in this post, but this feels like cheating.

Driving 40 minutes back from the Knoxville Game Design meetup is always a good way to start thinking about design and algorithms.

What could have gone better:

I basically shoehorned a puzzle game into the theme. This was premeditated, mainly because I was itching to dip my toe into the genre. It restrained the scope by removing the need for level design, which helped. However, it also felt like cheating the system to start thinking about a game genre so early (especially since I feel like my LD29 entry was a much stronger “Connected Worlds” concept).

Overall gameplay was good, but not great. I’m happy with this in one sense–I didn’t make a ton of explicit design decisions, so I won the “go with whatever’s easiest” lottery. Still, I feel like the “flip or drop” choice is missing something. I enjoy the game, but I restart as soon as I clear out all of the obvious flip combos. Once I have to drop blocks, it’s like I’ve failed. I feel like a “flip or shift” mechanic would have been better.

What went wrong:

Because I wasn’t livestreaming, I tried to do a status update video on Friday night. OpenBroadcaster doesn’t work smoothly on my laptop. I wasted about an hour or so tinkering with OBS on a night I ended up staying up until 4am.

I don’t understand music. Originally, I picked the current chord progression as a base, then played some random notes over it on a second track. Seemed clever on Saturday, but on Sunday I realized it was too chaotic. After talking to Mike at the post-LD meetup, I think I need to study up on some music theory basics rather than hoping a clever experiment will pay off. (I feel like I’m reusing the same chord progressions and I always use a similar rhythm/picking pattern.)

Overall, I don’t feel like I stretched myself like I should have. I stick to the same style musically and artistically because I don’t have a lot of range. I stick to Unity because it’s all I know. To be honest, I’ve had a few good ratings in past LDs, so I avoid the unfamiliar because I want to keep that up. Next LD where I have the time, I need to set a few goals–for example, use Inkscape instead of GIMP, or use a digital tool like PxTone or Bfxr.

Tags: post-mortem, postmortem

Good news, everyone! Interstellar, Inc. has been updated with a (small) bug fix that unsticks the AI and opens up the possibility of horrible, horrible defeat!

Now you can play and enjoy the game that reviewers are calling:

• “interesting”,
• “neat”,
• and “game”

Get trading!

Some gameplay from Stellarlink Corp.

LD to do list:

[x] Complete game in time

[x] Shameless self promotion

[ ] Write a post mortem

[ ] Post compo version

I’ve uploaded Matters of Perspective to itch.io! Matters of Perspective is my Ludum Dare 30 game about changing perspective from sidescroller to third person to explore eerie rooms.

If you haven’t seen Matters of Perspective, please check it out and let me know what you think!

There has been a lot of positive feedback about Matters of Perspective. I also think the game mechanic can make for some very interesting puzzle-platforming. So, I’ve decided to keep developing Matters of Perspective post-compo! You can follow developments on my Twitter account, @llnesisll.

Well, you could since I post almost everyday about our 2 players RTS, but in case you didn’t, look at that colorful gif and if you feel like it, go try and rate it

Booom, waaah, oh no an Imp! Flooosh… No sound on a gif? No problem!

I’ve added one of the most requested features – checkpoints – to the post-jam version of my game.

The process was described here. The full script source is, as always, included with the game, so you can see how it works.

I’ve made a list to myself where I add the best entries in my opinion.
The list has three categories:

Awesome Games
Very Innovative
Awesome Graphics/Sound

I’m streaming while I play so if you think there is a game that I should try out, don’t hesitate to post a link into the chat.

WATCH THE STREAM

Try my entry here!

Okay well, I have this stuff which is buggy, almost has no gameplay and was not even made within 48 hours but only in ~10 but somehow I stll can be proud of.

What was bad?

I’d start with it, cause it’s the more. Practically everything went wrong.

– I didn’t even have Internet conection at home, so I couldn’t join the flow of the community with WIP shots and random tweets. It’s pretty important for me, as it’s a major “feature” of Ludum Dare for me.
– My first idea was good, but went bad: it was too far from what I imagined, an beyond a point, it overwhelmed several bugs as well. Finally, I couldn’t even do “basic operations” like return the value of the tile Player is standing on. At this point, I gave up.
– On the second day, I had other things do to (girlfriend visit – so yeah, kinda important!) so  had very little time. Maybe I simplified too much on the contribution itself.

The what was good?

Suprisingly, the most important thing went well.

–  I LEARNT. Both the abandoned and the fina game learnt me somethig bot facts and programming things.

So I learnt:
– that procedural generation is extremely hard sometimes, and even though you wouldn’t think, writin a proper random map generator might take much more time than creating maps by hand.
– that proedural generation is STILL helluva funny!
– that addig features in hurry is like using bubble gum instead of duct tapes. The result is the same.
– that even if ugly, hanging trains are god damn awesome.
– that you can create decently looking people even from 4 pixels.
– that fun can cover the mistakes in gameplay.
– how to create randomly wandering people.
– how to use sound functions in LÖVE properly. It’s the mos important since I was completely lost before.
– how to use color changing functions in LÖVE properly.
– how to create realistic trains (in behavioural aspects)
– etc.

So yeah, finally I learnt in LD#30 that the most important thing in Ludum Dare is LEARNING.

Try my entry here!

Tags: LD30, postmortem

Play it mofos!

game page

Ludum dare is always a great time, although I reach a certain point where I feel some frustration about submitting an unfinished product. But the main responsible for this, is obviously me.

Fuga: a game about space, chemical elements, and music.

For this edition, it was like someone had asked me to make a selection of the biggest mistakes a jammer can do.

 ↓ READ THE REST ↓

Never validate an idea before breakfast

I woke up at 05:30(GMT+2) and I started to think about the theme. I quickly came with an idea of exchanges between planets (a lot of us had the same kind of idea). It sounded cool, I drew some sketches for the GUI, I already had some melody in mind, and I had some ideas about some cool GFX I could have experimented.

I went back to sleep, and I started to work immediately after a short breakfast, without rethinking the project at a high scale for the whole day.
At the end of this first day, I had my “engine” and some graphics, here I asked myself a question: “what exactly is my game ?”

I just realized that my game was barely one. I completely forgot to check if actions made by the players were fun, if the goal proposed was motivating. I freaked out a bit, and found some safety solutions, which implied to cut some of the mechanics I had already worked on and to reform the code structure. And here comes the second point.

Time == code == bugs == loss of Time

Those changes, which should have brought some more life into the game, they also brought some errors (modifying a weak code can be dangerous). In addition, due to distraction and exhaustion, I also create some stupid bugs. I had the feeling I spent my whole day correcting stupid things.

This was not really cheering me up, furthermore I was loosing a lot of valuable time. As a direct consequence, I had to make some cuts – you usually make cuts during a LD – but here I sacrificed important things, such as clarity, coherence and fun.

(Re)Doing everything from scratch

To start from nothing is interesting in term of creativity. I don’t feel limited by the already existing code,  I think I’m more creative in those circumstances. So it’s quite positive.

But redoing everything each time, this is really absurd, boring and time consuming, especially when talking about GUI elements. The problem is I don’t know If I will ever find the courage to make those damn Buttons and DialoguesBoxes in a nice reusable way. In conclusion redoing everything is a serious loss of time when you have only 48 hours.

A nice LD afterall

Even with all this dark forces playing against me, I still managed to have a fun and nice week end. My game, even if not what I had in mind, is unique and playable. I’ve spent some nice moments staring at my code and solving some problems I never encountered before. And now, I’m playing some fantastic games and meeting kind people.

For all of these reasons, it’s ok for me to not make a great Ludum Dare game.

tl;dr

Thought of a game idea, but not of a complete gameplay.
Had to make late changes which creates bugs and errors.
Run out of time because I use it poorly.
I had fun making this game and I spent a nice week end 😀

Tags: LD30, post-mortem

Ahhhh!.. my brain!

Ok, it’s not that bad haha!

I’ve played a few games now, and so far I think I’ve found my favorite

Here’s why..

it has gorgeous visuals, the sound is perfect, setting is amazing and everything works so well together! Oh… you can poop too!

The way the game starts is a perfect cinematic experience!

I highly suggest you all try out On the edge of Earth: 5000

And so the journey began

What a wonderful experience, I can’t wait to see a full game like this. Congrats to Hypnohustla

You made my day!

Dan

My game HERE if you are interested in boring platformers with virtually no story!

Gameplay / Walkthrough video for Chroma !

I’m here to play your games! Head on over to http://twitch.tv/TomboFry

Please don’t forget to play my game too, thanks!

Check out the game here: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-30/?action=preview&uid=32989

I almost didn’t make it this time, but in the end everything went well. My first participation in Ludum Dare was in the previous edition. I remember that time I was scared because it was a new experience. I had little time developing. My skills as a fast developer hadn’t yet been tested. My last game had taken six months to get ready, so thinking about creating something moderately decent at 48 hours was a real challenge. However, I survived that experience and I was very happy with the result.

This time, things were a little different. The date of Ludum Dare 30 coincided with my vacation, so there was some family activities planned that I shouldn’t or wanted to avoid. That made it nearly imposible to enter the Compo and had me settle with the Jam, even following all the rules of the frenetic 48 hours edition. But my first Ludum Dare had been so rewarding in terms of fun and learning, that I was determined to enter again. When the complex and interesting theme Connected World was announced, it was clear that I would not let it escape.

In my time zone, the theme is announced at 8 pm on Friday, so from that moment I began to think of an idea. Nothing occurred to me, the theme seems terribly difficult so I went to my sisters for aid. We were brain storming for a while until the idea of a frantic RPG where worlds were constantly changing and you have to switch weapon even faster to stay alive came and we found it great. It had that mixture of madness with an air of “it might work”.

Final designs for the Character

When it comes to themes for Ludum Dare I like to stay with the first complete idea that comes to mind. I know that if I think too much I begin to look for detail and I’ll end up finding enough cons to not choose it. So I prefer to begin work immediately on the idea, with a competition like this there is no time to be too insecure with your ideas. Take one and go forward. It is the only way to do it in time.

“I think I broke something” with graphics

What went right?

Though it seemed crazy at first, the idea began to take shape as it went. Unlike last time, I decided to start with the mechanics and leave the graphics for last. That way I could feel that I had a game ready before making it pretty. The goal was to have the main mechanic ready at the end of day one (Saturday). I was going to the beach on Sunday so I could not participate. I will be back on Monday to tacke tha art and hopefully finish before delivering time at 8 pm. This was fulfilled so well it’s scary. At 6 pm on Monday, I had the game ready and it was time to play test. Watching my sisters getting angry and hitting the retry button again and again with a smile was gratifying. It was proof that the game was just what I wanted: hard and addictive. Happy with the result, but without being able to believe it was done so fast I used the last few hours to create assets, prepare gamejolt page and take some screenshots. I managed to finish everything on time and by 7:50 I was sumitting the game.

Game Over screen and feed back

What went wrong?

Although I was happy with the result, as the comments started to appear it was clear that the game was too difficult. I’ve always had a soft spot for hard games, I am a fan of Super Meat Boy (and Edmund McMillen, actually, as you can tell by the similarities of “I Think I Broke Something” with The Binding of Isaac) I also enjoyed the simple difficulty of the infamous Dong Nguyen bird, before all the cloning chaos ruined the experience. I wanted “I Think I Broke Something” to have that: Play, die, be upset and play again thing. I think in a way I did it, but also think I overdid it, many players have said that the difficulty doesn’t let them appreciate other aspects of the game like art and sounds. And that’s something I’d like to correct

Aftermath

Because of this, I thought of creating a post compo version with some adjustments, but when I started thinking about it I realized I had enough material for something else. Something more elaborate, more complex and more fun. So, I decided to take the next step and make “I think I broke something” a fully fleshed out game. You have no idea all the thing I want to add to it and that wasn’t possible with the limited time. So you can be sure that the final version will have enough material to keep you glued for a while. I want to keep the simplicity of design while adding additional content, along with all the feed back I have received from the community, I’m sure I have enough to enhance the experience. First I will finish my current project Taita: Rise of the Half-breed, and them, thanks to Ludum Dare, and have a worthy successor.

Ludum Dare 30 was as frantic as before, but even more satisfying. The community response has been overwhelming, beside the weak points, “I think I broke something” has received many positive comments and that’s rewarding. I’m glad I participated, for sure this new edition was as rewarding as the first. I feel that with every Ludum Dare I become a better developer and although I’m still a long way from the top, there is no doubt that the Jam is the right place to having fun and to learn.

Stay tuned for more progress and expect great things from “I think I broke something” in the near future. Meanwhile enjoy the current version, and remember Play, die, be upset and play again!

Particles Madness!!

Tags: gamedev, I Think I Broke Something, indie, LD30, ld48, Otrora, Portal Madenes, venezuela

In Trappy tomb you can leave dying messages for other players… All great fun until some trolls moved in and ruined the party! Not to be deterred I’ve rolled back the data – Ludum dare shall not be defeated!!!

Working on moderation but for now it’s here, though slightly hobbled sine no new replays are shown (though they are recorded). Want to join the fun?!

Play Trappy Tomb