LD36 August 26–29, 2016

Jam entry: PUCKETEERS OF ATLANTIS

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Click here to play now!

Ava, Marte and Morten have once again magically managed to finish an entry last minute! No LD game ever ends up quite as was initially expected, but nonetheless we seem to be able to tie things up in at least some sort of way by working into the submission hour every time!

Pucketeers of Atlantis ended up being a kind of game that I don’t think any one of us would really play regularly—a sports game—but we figured it might be fun to play with some ridiculous elements. Like a Mario Kart version of sports! And indeed, that does exists in the form of Mario Strikers, and watching some gameplay we realised that that series had already incorporated a lot of the ideas we had individually thought up. Yikes!

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Passing a puck! Oh, and collect those boxes to get power-ups to activate!

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Ouch! Exploding pucks! Dangerous. Very dangerous.

If you feel like playing a neverending game of explosive hockey with Atlantean robots as well as non-Atlantean human beings on your team while wearing ancient Atlantean hover boots, then this might be for you! Oh, and a friend. Or something like that.

It’s a two player game—no more, no less.

You also need at least one gamepad, but two would be recommended, since that’s a lot more fun. We realise this might lead fewer to play, but perhaps we chose the right LD for such a daring decision.

Tags: ancient, atlantis, ava, hockey, jam, mario kart, mario strikers, marte, morten, Of, pucketeers, rink, sci-fi, sport, sports, technology

Ancient technology, from the future!

This was my first jam and it was by far the most I’ve learned in a while.

The idea for the “Mothership” came about simply through the need to experiment with mixing simulation with exploration and, of course, SPACE. Using obvious inspirations from Dwarf Fortress, EVE Online and the like, I wanted to try something with all the stuff I like most from each one.

The scope of this project is larger than what can fit in a jam, and yes I may have spent 50% of the time on the building system alone (but only because it was fun), but hopefully I can consider this a prototype to a future project!

Any feedback is appreciated, and please notify me if the mac or linux builds are unplayable because I didn’t have the opportunity to test them. Thanks!

 

THE LINK

3rd Day – Final Report

Well I finished it!. Yay :)

I had a lot of game art to do so I managed to finish the animations for 3 enemies and reskin the upgrades menu and play state menus.

And also I found that I know how to make icons quickly!. That helped me making the UIs fast enough so I could do some other stuff like implementing music and sound (Thank you! Unity Assets Store), and implementing a save game (I’m not really sure if it works well, I hope it doesn’t crash XD).

Overall today I did a little bit of programming and a lot of art and post-production stuff (Publishing, Taking Screens, Making Icons).

Here are some previews and the link

View post on imgur.com

View post on imgur.com

Now its time to give feedback!. Happy voting!

#4 Update: I FINISHED the game! !

Hey everyone! So my first Ludum Dare wasn’t a complete bust! Even though I missed the Compo, I managed to complete my game for the Jam. Loooong hours of programming and debugging are behind me and many more are ahead. I’m so tired that I’m not able to sleep… 😀
Anyway I would like to share my final game with you. My game description on the submit page still needs some work though so I’ll probably make a video later.It was my first Ludum Dare and overall great experience!
The game I created is actually quite simple – I just spent too much time playing around with nonessential stuff. Main goal of the game is to collect “Scrap” from various planets. You are limited by the time spend in each Solar system. You have to spend there exactly half the time and if you spend too much time, you are going to blow up. Main mechanic is TIME controll. Everything moves only when the time moves. So sending slow scouting ship to outer planet will probably cost you one person, because the ship will either jump on time or blow up. You can pause the game at will. To make it a challenge there are enemy ships – you can target only one at a time. (After submitting I realised that the enemy ships are waaay underpowerd. So there is not much challenge, sadly :( ).

Game features fully randomly generated solar system each time. Each planet has 6 types of biomes and two major ones are considered for resource calculations. In addition each planet has individual orbit and rotation speed. There are 6  classes of Stars and planet distribution in system is done according to the class of the Sun.
Sadly there was not enough time to balance whole game and use this cool looking star system fully. Also fighting does not have visuals (only audio) and game is missing tutorial which will probably make it unplayable for anyone who hates reading.

Anyway, quite a long post. Thank you very much for this competition. Now I’m stoked to play all the wonderful games you all created!
Also I’ll be happy for any feedback positive or negative, doesn’t matter, I just want you to try and play my game! (LINK!)

Phew, that was close.

So, this is basically me first time taking part in a game jam and releasing a game to the public. Its full of bugs and there are not finished features but i tried my best. Gonna head for something smaller next time. Anyways, enjoy! http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-36/?action=preview&uid=112518

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Finished!

Second Ludum Dare! 😀

This time I made a weird game about farming.

Go check it out here!

(and if you want, you can see my previous game, Level Dog, here.)

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LightBringer is done.

Obligatory link

It may be a bit confused ’cause I’ve just had a 30 minutes powernap in the last 39 hours.

It was hard, it was painfull but most of all : It was worth it.
That was my first Ludum Dare and I enjoyed every moment of it.

I was totally out of my comfort zone, If someone had said a year ago when I couldn’t differentiate a int from a float “you’ll see, soon you’ll be able to do a ludum dare alone” I would have answered “Nope. Nopenopenope. I can’t code, don’t want to learn how, I have other things to do”. They say to enjoy the small victories, but for me it is a pretty freaking big milestone.

Before this day, I had never released a game. I’ve been working on some stuff for the near and short term. But now, I have pushed a baby out of my fingers (that’s a strange metaphor, yes). I know that’s a weird looking kiddo, but i’m proud of it.

That was an experience. No fiddling around “mmmh, I don’t like this shade of red. And let’s move this one pixel to the left. Yeah that’s great”, no feature creep (maybe a bit a the end), everything straight to the point. It was savage. I probably produced some awfull code (I’ll look at it tomorrow after a good day of sleep), I made some terrible decision design-wise but in the end, the game is here and that all that matters.

10/10 would suffer during three day again.

Rhythm Game Recommendations?

One of the things I always look forward to every LD are the cool new rhythm games that come out of it. Unfortunately with ratings disabled for this LD, I imagine it’ll be pretty difficult for me to find those games. Has anyone played (or made) any rhythm games this Dare, or games with great music?

Comments

30. Aug 2016 · 03:27 UTC
I saw one posted during/after submission hour,, scroll down. :) I think it had guitar in the name.

The Star Sector: Postmortem

Hi everyone,

My team tried to Jam this weekend, and… failed miserably. We are late for a submission hour, struggling to make working production build of our game, and time had finally run out, at last. So I have no choice but to submit it here and finally show you why we’re late for submission.
This game is quite big and is worth of three-days of ~14h team work each, and features 10 000 procedurally generated star sectors with procedurally generated enemies. Have fun exploring it, I shall say :)
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Play The Star Sector in Itch.io

Feedback friends question

I’ve commented on four things, and it says I have 2 points per comment.

But I only have two points.

but somehow a balance of 103

with no comments received.

 

Am I completely misunderstanding this or is it not working right?

Comments

TerraCottaFrog
30. Aug 2016 · 03:32 UTC
nevermind

Confused about Feeback Friends?

This is less of a problem and more a thirst for understanding.

I’ve been playing games and commenting on them, and my balance is 97.

What I want to know is: Is a higher balance the thing to shoot for? Obviously you shouldn’t let balance control how quickly you rate games or anything anyway, but I’d like to know if a higher, lower, or 100 balance is the thing to aim for.

Comments

genluck
30. Aug 2016 · 04:55 UTC
I just did a basic test of this, my entry had 100 balance, I commented on a game, and now my balance is 104, and if you sort by balance(default option) on feedback friends, higher balance comes first. So you want a high balance so that more people see your stuff, but if you have a high balance that means that not many people have actually given feedback relative to how many comments you’ve given.

God’s Gift the story

My entry is a little strategy game featured a tech tree (like in civ) with ultimate technology to save the universe.

When I was submitting, I realized that the game is too complicated to understand… (One drawback for solos) .

So I decided to write a story to explain the background.

Please note that currently the game is only roughly completed, there is too much to  improve. And I hadn’t the time to actually put the big tech tree (designed for two days) into the game.

There will be a updated version.

LINK TO MY ENTRY.

 

God’s Gift

4000 BC

The player stands in the desert, waiting.

Before him, the giant structure casts a shadow that covers a thousand men. There were the people that lived along the river. Now for the first time, they gathered around this giant structure.

Their king ordered the men to open this structure that had been there for thousands of years.

The men, thousands of them, pulled the ropes that ties up to a heavy stone. Then, someone shouted a commend, and they all let go. The heavy stone crashed on a larger brick of the pyramid. The latter hold still, but they repeated, until the wall of the pyramid gave in. The first slave run inside and returned, carrying a piece of flat and transparent stone.

“Optics.” The player mustered to himself.

As a player, he can see all and know all, in a trade, no one else can see or know him.

Another slave carried a jar. He stutted and fell, and everybody around was frightened by the black viscous liquid that spurred out.

The last findings was just a handful of seeds. The kings hold the seeds in both his hands, with the rest of people on their knees, claimed that these were God’s Gift.

The player left before the ritual ended.

 

AC 1134

The spacesuit was designed  in a different fashion to the memory of the player.

The first rocket had failed and killed its first female astronaut. But human never gave up.

The radio was not very stable, so the latter part  of the landing mission was under the command of the captain.

The space craft looked very tiny against the pyramid on the moon.

But the reversal thrusting was calculated without the account of such a structure…

The player worry a bit when the craft crashed.

But after a while, the captain, in his space suit, get off and found himself standing before the entrance of a ancient pyramid structure.

The man start talking on the radio, forgetting the fact that no one but only the Player could hear him.

Yet, the player cannot understand Arabic.

 

AC 1798

Cain-788901 vonlunteered on this sun-landing mission.

The plan was to shoot their capusule into the sun and then the capusule will operate like a submarine and dock into the pyramid.

Unmanned missions had yield success several times and located the pyramid floating about 300k miles from the core.

 

The artifacts found on the moon has speed up the technology development for hundreds of years.

And also the pyramid is the ultimate mystery for human.

So the signal from within the sun is distinguished, they immidiantly started the sun project.

 

The player float above the ocean of eternal flames. Waiting for the capsule to shoot from a giant spaceship.

The capasule is built with vacum materail to keep off the heat conduction and coated with invisible shield against radiation.

Even the player can not see the invisible capasule. Instead, he was facing the sun and then, he saw the disturbance pattern the capasule left on the surface when it passed.

It is beautiful.

 

 

 

 

AC 2016

6000 years were not very long for the player, yet still, he felt very tired, from  frustration.

Before him, the last science committee conference was being hold, as the ending time is soon.

The player sit in a chair that belongs to the god. In this universe, there had been a ritual to spare one more chair for the ultimate observer in any scientific meeting.

“The condensing speed is faster than we had expected.” The chairman spoke directly to mind of everyone seated.

He then “talked” some complex data models though this brainwave communication.

“Among the seven planets, earth will be the second to be destroyed. The last planet will have extra 0.13 seconds of time.”

Another mind talked, “The research on the pyramid draws one conclusion that could be helpful. ”

“The foamton field could protect the pyramid and things within.”

“We had talked about it before. What good will some objects do when all observer has diminished?”

“There is one possibility that they could be opened by another human civilization in another but same universe.”

“Go on.”

“If we put some items that could be helpful to them on the technology….”

“Then maybe they have a chance to accumulate enough technology to find the Ultimate theory?”

“Now, suggestions for the items? PhotonStick? A book?”

“We must plan this on a technology tree or sth.”

 

The player watched as they shield the gate again. There wasn’t any time left before the condensing.

The human and earth, the stars, everything swallowed by the instant whiteness.

Only the pyramid and the player stands, in the middle of nothing.

One singularity exploded, then another, then all of them.

The time came into being. The foam gradually formed.

The sun was born and then earth.

And finally, the sand filled under the feet of the player until there were desert again.

Not far way from him, a stream is growing to a river.

Patiently, he waits.

 

 

 

 

 

Chronos Gear! Now with 30% more animated gifs!

Finally finished all the narcissistic screenshot-taking! So here is my LD36 entry: Chronos Gear

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As Chronos, the god of time and the first of the machines, you must incorporate more and more matter into yourself until it all comes crashing down.

aaaabbbbbgood

…time to start playing games!

POST: TBFTWOR_Ludum_Dare36

Well, I got something done at least, and uploaded.

Originally, I intended to take it easy, start from scratch and go for the Compo- try to use Visionaire Studio’s new WebGL biz, then the theme hit and I couldn’t resist.  I hit this LD’s theme better in 35, but Ee-yore.

What I got has some bugs, absolutely no point, and you can do some things- not many, but some.  The Mac version is RIGHT HERE.

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Post Jam will bring an update and a Windows version.

Thanks all- have played some cool games already!  Grand LD- I was on the fence, but was in the moment I watched the Keynote.  That will stay with me…

Thanks for playing!

JMID.

Tags: 2D, day night cycle, dinosaurs, LD35, LD36, Mac OS X, post-mortem, spriter, visionaire studio

Arena of Death – A Post Mortem 25 years in the making!

Alright I lied in the title. I have not been working on this game for 25 years but it does mark something special. 25 years ago I started connecting to BBS’s and playing DOOR games like Legend of the Red Dragon (LORD for short), Barren Realms Elite (BRE for short), Operation Overkill II (A post apocalyptic rpg that predates fallout!) and many others. If you are curious about these or other DOOR games I suggest you google them. While your at it google “Telnet BBS” and try one out for yourself! Anyways on with the Post Mortem.

What Went Right

1. Game Idea – I knew right off the bat what I was going to do. Since there were no ratings this time around I was free to explore other styles of games. I really wanted to do a Text Based adventure game and this seems like the proper time to do one and since Ancient Technoloy won doing a text based games seems really appropriate.

2. Stress – Normally things get a little stressful at 2 points in the LD. Right before the theme is announce and right before I have to submit. This time around there was none of that, although I was hurrying a little in the end to submit but I’ll talk about that in the what went wrong section.

3. Confidence in using Unity – Having worked with Unity and C# for a while now really helped when it came time to create the game. I only had a couple look ups this time around and I’m sure as I keep using Unity and C# I’ll only get better at them.

4. Learned something new – Normally its not wise to try and learn something while taking part in a Game Jam, but I let this one slide because it was really easy. It was the PlayerPrefs. I’d never used them before and I needed them for my game. I really like them and I think I will continue to use them in future games.

5. I successfully completed another Ludum Dare – I think I will include this in all of my Post Mortems I do for my games. This was my 14th game created for Ludum Dare and I look forward to my 15th and beyond ones!

What Went Wrong

1. Not learning from my previous Post Mortems – So to start this off I will talk about something that I should be doing before every Ludum Dare. Not only me but everyone who has entered and written a Post Mortem. Re-reading them to make sure you don’t repeat some of the things you put in the “What Went Wrong Section” again. I failed to do this, in fact I have never done it and I really need to start doing it. Perhaps some of the things that are listed here would be listed this time has I learned from my previous mistakes. Like they say “If you don’t learn from your mistakes you are doomed to repeat them again”.

2. Loss of Focus – this one is new to my Post Mortem. Normally I have good focus when I’m creating a game in 48 hours, I can only chalk this up to the fact that there were no ratings and I didn’t feel the urgency that I normally feel when I participate in Ludum Dare.

3. Time Management – Ah yes Time Management my old nemesis you are back once again to wreck havoc on my life. This one goes very good with the next point so I will talk about this below.

4. Poor Planning – I’ve not looked at my previous Post Mortems, see point 1 :), but I don’t believe this one has been listed before. Anyways I didn’t plan out my game well enough. I jotted down some notes, had a basic concept of what I wanted the game to be about but it took me longer than I expect to get the end result. What I should have done was plan out each screen. There weren’t that many of them and by doing this I would have seen the scope of what I was doing. I would have seen that the Shop was the largest part to program and would have saved that for last.So since I didn’t plan out how I was going to create my game this lead to poor time management which in turn lead to some features not getting implemented in the game.

5. Inadequate Game Design knowledge – This one has never been listed before in one of my Post Mortems and I have to say it was really hard admitting this. I can say my Game Design skill has gotten better from when I first started but its not at the level I would like it to be. I need to find a good resource to read so that I can enhance the Game Design knowledge I already have.

Well that wraps up LD36 for me. If you would like to try out my game you can play it here

Yayyyy!

My first jam complete and my first unity game completed(ish) . It’s multiplayer and guess what I had no one to play with! Check it out HERE and let me know what you think.

 

 

Tags: RGBjam local multiplayer colour game