http://nutink.webs.com/islandofthemind.zip

What my game currently looks like. Here the adventurer stands in front of a table. The game is nowhere near finished quite yet, but I would like to know some things. The player can currently swim in the ocean, hunt fish, collect stones and twigs, build spears, and cook a meal. I plan for him to also forage in the forest and build a home. Is there anything else one can do on a deserted isle? Do we have any firsthand cast-aways that could provide us with some good information?

No screenshot, but I’ve got the basic movement and predator/prey dynamic set up now in Version 0.3 of Invasive. (Available here)

Decided to stick with the name Glompers for the invasive species, and Kiwis for the endangered species. Starting with 5 Glompers, the Kiwis all get eaten in about a minute.

So far I’m not doing any real pathfinding at all… The kiwis are choosing a direction randomly each frame (and getting stuck in the SE corners of each island for some reason I haven’t figured out yet), and the Glompers move in one direction until they hit an edge, at which point they change direction. I may change the Kiwis to have the same movement schema as the Glompers…

I think I’m going to need something which the Kiwis can run into that makes them spawn. That can be a player placeable object in addition to the not-yet-implemented traps and walls. Otherwise I think the game will be over before the player has a chance to do anything.

On the plus side, my engine seems to be handling a couple thousand kiwis pretty well! Rather than using Gilbert’s collision detection, I added a map-sized blank bitmap to my Fauna class (which holds all the animals). Since I don’t actually add that bitmap to the stage at any time, it doesn’t seem to be dragging down my rendering performance very much. When the kiwis move, they plot their location on that map as a single pixel, and when the glompers move, they check to see if they’re on a pixel that has the kiwi color. The glompers thus only have to check the entire kiwi list if they’re definately in collision with at least one kiwi. This can probably be optimized further, but it seems good enough for now.

-TF

After 3.14 days of work (2 learning how to use the game maker and 1.14 days of work on the game itself) it’s finally almost over! Just some few sprites and dialogue, and a little testing and it’ll be ready.

I can hardly believe it. It was my first game ever! My first real program other than a hello world. I’ll save the “thanks to everyone” for tomorrow, after I actually finish it, but it’s really been very fun!

After a bit of Bug-fixing on the engine, i have now made the first four levels for my game, all of which are tutorials.

Screenie:

Bouncy!

As I head off to bed, I decided to finally revel what my project looks like.  I’m further along than I ever got with my last strategy game attempt, so this one might be playable before the deadline.

Island Airline Title Screen

Isand Ariline map screen

Tags: screenshot

Getting there

I’m awake.  I’m pretty happy with yesterday’s progress, but there’s still a lot to be done.  Here’s my todo list:

• Clicking an islander shows you how long it will take to get there, gives you an embark button.
• Music.
• Rough paper background for cut-scenes (maybe a watercolour wash?).
• Cut-scene pictures.
• Randomised pickups.
• Days should tick by faster (the game’s too easy as it is).
• Tutorial hints.
• Button to tell you which islanders know the way to the enchanted isles, at the cost of some of your time.

I just realised I haven’t really explained the game yet.  The aim is to find your way to the enchanted isles (i.e. the lost Hebrides of the title) in the West within 7 days.  To do that you have to find 3 islanders who know the way, but travelling to the islanders takes up time, so you have to try and judge your journey.

I’m going to start with the coding tasks today, as they should go fastest, and the game kind of needs them since it isn’t much fun at the moment.  I plan on getting them done by 11am, then taking about 1 1/2 hours to make the music, followed by lunch.  That’ll leave me the rest of the day to get the cut-scene pictures done, which are the part I’m least confident about.

It’s over, flixel!

I feel like all I’m using from you now is the collision detection and handling (specifically, having objects bounce back when they collide). Considering everything else I have to go through–non-existent rotation handling for groups, piss-poor scaling handling when combined with collision boxes, and all the crap I need to do to so I can test with colored boxes instead of having to draw sprites–I’m putting in more than I’m getting out.

So now I’m writing my own framework for simple physics, with 18 hours to go. We’ll see how far I get.

Well, it’s been a little while since I last posted. I’ve mostly been working on level design. I slept for a little, but was feeling very restless (I even got up again having turned my computer off for another hour or so). So i’m running on less than 5 hours of sleep which is less than ideal.

Level design is being fairly interesting and enjoyable, but boy is it taking a looooong time. I’d figured on spending around 3 hours on it total, and I’ve put in at least that amount just to get to the halfway mark. I kind of knew from the start that doing something so level-centric was going to be a tough call though, so there’s no-one to blame but myself. I *think* that’s a good thing.

There’s a build with the half-finished level design in at http://jwhiting.nfshost.com/ld/17/build05.swf .. If you get stuck you can usi vi-keys (hjkl) to move between the screens (badly).

Part of me wants to keep plugging away at the levels, but I think I’m probably best fixing up the many quirks and rubbish things, thinking about sound etc. now. I pretty firmly established last night that I can do the level design bits whilst v.tired, so I should do the harder things whilst I’m fresh.

Time to go and find some breakfast.

I’m awake. I’m pretty happy with yesterday’s progress, but there’s still a lot to be done. Here’s my todo list:

• GOOD tutorial system. DONE
• PJ’s health (oh, if he’s too near from a pirate, the pirate will attack him). DONE
• Treasure’s health. DONE
• Building menu system.
• Turrets.
• Life showed above the turrets.
• Upgrade menu system & upgrades.
• Enemies (yes. This has A* and all those things we all hate them =D).
• Changing the graphics. They have to be mine.
• And… if I can finish those, some beautiful effects and tweaking the game for a good playability.

Let’s see if I can finish my game!

Tags: 2D, and, as3, collect, flex, Flixel, journal, protect

Goodnight all… I have a player now (the monk is actually an NPC but still…)

I had to make a little mudpuddle for the spherepig, too.

Will see how far gameplay gets tommorow.

This is my first time doing this competition; I’m so impressed with the work everyone is producing, it truly is inspiring and I just wish I’d gotten involved sooner. I’m planning on trying out some of the games when I get up then getting back to work! I’m off to sleep for a few hours

ian.paradum.com/SkyVikingAlpha.html (This is the same version I posted earlier)

I’m getting ready to go to sleep for the night so I thought I’d update with where I’m at.

Wandering around the map.

I have spend a lot of time this evening working on the collision detection between the Player, the Tiles and the Mobiles. I have also been adding interaction between the different objects so that they can do things like create and remove themselves. I still haven’t scanned in any sketches to make them look better, but that will come.

I’m just so tired and that energy drink didn’t do crap. I’m just going to go to sleep now and wake up a little earlier than I was going to. Tomorrow morning I will figure out of my concurrency problem is synchronized away and then create new mob types. Goodnight!

Tags: ld48_17, screenshot

Oh yeah, ingame menu with 3D meshes!

Look at that, night has fallen on the little island world (yeah, there is a night/day cycle, just for fun).

I have a nice OBJ loader, so I can make 3d “icons” and other meshes in Wings3D. The selected icon in the menu rotates and it’s cool.

Also, the smallish thing in the center is a boat. It doesn’t work yet, but it’s going to!

Tags: screenshot

So many ideas… Yet I have been crazy busy with life this weekend. Work, Dating, Prepping for finals. I’m still in the compo but my game play mechanics are terrible this time. However my music is doing really good. Can’t wait to see everyone’s finished games. By the way my game’s name is SkyLands, Islands in the Sky.

Anyways enough talking. Time to get to work.

Nantucket == Ovechkin.

Good progress today. Tomorrow will be mostly sound.

Still searching for a good name for this. A marriage of ‘islands’ and ‘hockey’. Stop me before I call it Hockey Island.

zzzzz

Hi guys,

This is my first time, so please wish me luck

I have been working since today in this game… I’m using PlayBasic.. first time as well coding in PlayBasic, so a side goal is to learn this language.

I have a tech demo of my game here: download v0.1

I’m trying to make a 2D game that can be played using the mouse as the only input.

Any feedback is welcome.

I have 17 hours to include:

• Enemies
• Goals/coins
• More levels
• Music!!!
• Sounds
• Improve graphic style (I hope)

It’s 4:30 AM here.. so I’m not sure I will have enough time

Best regards
JF

Saturday is over! I spent far less time this Saturday than I did during LD #16 which is probably for the best. I’m fairly pleased with where I’m at. I’ve spent 16hrs of development time so far and I expect to log about 7 more tomorrow.

Flixel is a life saver. I find I’m not worrying about tech at all. I don’t feel like I have any tech risk on this project and anything I want to do is coming fairly easily. I’m also really really enjoying Flash Builder as a development environment.

I realize that my game has drifted from the theme a bit, but I’m having fun and that’s all that matters. Right?

Latest build available here: http://www.refrag.com/2010/04/23/ld48-go/#more-668

Good night!

OHmnom midnight pizza!

So, at around this time last night, I ordered a pizza. It was awesome, got me through the night and most of today. It had artichoke hearts and olives andddd feta and some linguica XD. Im pretty stoaked there is late night pizza out here, when I was in oregon if I wanted food past 8 and I didnt have anything in the fridge I was screwed. Pizza rocks.
Today, when I ran out of pizza, I decided to check the fridge. I live with 12 people (some sort of collective, we have a couple houses with a shared yard, its pretty chill, other then being in ghosttown,) and we have a communal fridge. Its kinda a mixed blessing. Sometimes theres kitfo grade beef (meaning, you can eat it raw, and its amazing meat) other times… I make this.

It was better then it looked... but still

I made this with 1. Rice. Rice is good. 2. Eggs. Fried rice is better. 3.Broccoli. Its important to eat your veggies. 4. Humus… I dunno what I was thinking. 5. Red Wine. Seemed like a good idea. 6. Tapatio. The red wine was vinegar. I should have tasted first.
It was… food. Not the best of food. But food.

On the game side of stuff, it is now playabe, and coded, and has sound, and graphics and stuff. It takes a second to start up, because I really didnt optimize the bit that generates the world, but its fun, and playable. Mostly. Every now and again my fps will drop down to like 1. Normally, that doesnt happen till Im basicly dead anyhow, so its not a huge deal, but there’s clearly some code optimizations this needs. My source probably wont be to helpful. Sorry. Im also using a different (newer) build of flixel then Im used to on this, so I had to get creative with some things (wtf theres no overlap arrays?) and ofsuch, some stuff is kinda poorly conceived, cuz I was just sorta plowing through it.
Im super proud of the soundtrack tho, I think I managed to capture the feel of the game pretty well, and I even wrote it so all the sound fx kinda bleed into and make for an extra surreal experience.
I still need to tweak the music a tiny bit, theres a bass drop in there that is a bit abrupt, so Ill probably add a fade or something, but its good.
thats V the current build. It wont be for to long.
http://graveetea.site11.com/LudumDare17.swf

Whats left to be done, before Im happy with this, are either giving it a game over screen, or making the player respawn when she dies (probably the latter, honestly) implementing a combo system of some sort (if you kill 20 buggers in a row, you are awesome, and should get something for it) adding in a way to actually WIN, the experience screen, and hopefully a story and a short cut scene type thing. I actually have an idea for the story, but it needs some fleshing out. It also might explain the island a bit better (or not, its kinda surreal anyhow,)

OH! On that note, the island in that is actually retardedly important! It doesnt really seem like it at first glance, but I actually am doing this based on the theme, really. If you read the little blurb on the splash screen, it might give you some clue as to what to do with the island, but yeah. It matters.

Tags: foodphoto

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