I have no idea what you guys use for this, e.g. to have an overlay of the webcam input on the same video.

Any help is appreciated. Thanks!

(I did use the search feature but of course it only listed timelapses and a way to do it in linux)

So, with the weekend over and some of my voting out of the way, I figured I should write a bit about how thing went. I had really been rooting for Flood, as I had this neat idea for a puzzle-platformer in which you must raise and lower the water level in order to reach new places and manipulate objects of varying buoyancy. Such an idea probably wouldn’t have panned out in 48 hours, but it didn’t end up mattering, since the theme was islands.

I didn’t actually have any idea for the theme, and was considering skipping this LD until my girlfriend suggested I parody the recent comments of Representative Hank Johnson (D-GA) concerning the island of Guam, specifically the danger that it would “tip over and capsize”. I thought this was a brilliant idea and set to work.

Things that went well:

• I got to use my buoyancy ideas that I had been thinking about for the Flood theme.
• I was able to write a primitive importer to transform an SVG shape into a Chipmunk shape.
• I produced much better programmer art than I ever had for previous games.
• I had sound for the first time.
• I learned a lot.
• I figured out how to successfully package some very awkward dependencies into a distributable ruby application (specifically, getting FFI packaged up correctly was gratifying).

Things that didn’t go so well:

• I had very few ideas for actual gameplay until it was way too late.
• I wasn’t as familiar with my libraries as I thought I was, and introduced lots of subtle bugs that were hard for me to track down.
• I didn’t manage as much programmer art as I would have liked.
• I wasted a lot of time trying to wrangle garageband, which I had never used before, and ultimately had to give up on it.
• There are some very basic bugs that, had I spent time testing at the end, I could easily have fixed.
• Packaging was difficult.

Some more on that last one; I had some problems getting everything packed up, for both windows and mac, but my biggest problem came from a weird issue with bitbucket. They use Amazon S3 as their storage for downloads, and apparently there was some issue there, because when I uploaded new versions with fixes, they didn’t end up distributed correctly (or so I surmise), because some people clicking the download link got the new version, and other people the old one. That’s all fixed now, so if anyone tried earlier and was unable to get the game to run, you might have more success now.

Now to respond to Hempuli’s comment:

F-Secure blocked it as a “suspicious program”. Probably a false positive, but could you ensure this?

This is almost certainly because the windows version is run using allinoneruby.exe, which is a complete ruby distribution packaged into a self-extracting archive. When you run allinoneruby.exe <scriptfile.rb> (which is what Capsize!.bat does), allinoneruby.exe extracts an entire ruby distribution into a temporary folder, uses that to execute the script, and then cleans itself up. It’s almost certainly this behavior that’s triggering warnings. Harmless though this particular program is, a lot of malware makes use of similar mechanisms. It’s not the most elegant distribution method, but it’s simple to set up, reliable, and fast.

You don’t have to take my word for the binary’s safety, though. If you’re concerned, you can download your own copy of the program and replace mine with it. Or, if you have ruby installed on your system (and know how to use it), you can just use that. The code itself (the stuff that I wrote, for the game) is all there is plain text, if you want it.

Anyway, I hope people who try Capsize are at least amused by it, even if it didn’t turn out a terribly good game. I’m looking forward to LD18 already.

Tags: postmortem

Just like to thank / apologise to anybody who rates / plays my first Ludum Dare game Coconut Island. I had such grand ideas when the theme was announced but as time wore on I realised I was basically making Chukkie Egg with crabs (instead of chickens).

There are many things wrong with the engine that I didn’t have time to put right, namely the fiasco that is the ladder movement and the fact that it’s possible if timed right to jump off both the crabs and coconuts as if they were a platform.

The whole game and resources took me around 6hrs to put together and I’m still fairly new at this so I’m pretty happy with the way it turned out.

Once again Thanx for playing my game and I promise to play and rate as many others as I can inside the two weeks.

Hempuli says …
The gameplay elements are a bit thin, but this is sure a good start! The music is also very good.

Most gameplay elements were created about one hour before the deadline and there was not much time left for playtesting. Keep an eye out for the post-compo version which I am planning to release in a few days.

psnake says …
The graphics and music are good and do their jobs. It’s noticeable that there’s polish to the graphics whichs gives a great and consistent look to the game

I wish the gameplay was on the same level, it has the basic elements, but the random maps, in this case, gets in the way of the player since any strategy he could plan by restarting the level is lost because a new map is generated. In the end, it feels like it’s mere luck to be able to go from island to island.

Thanks for your detailed comment. At first, I thought the randomness was not such a negative factor. But then I played the game again and could see the point you are making. My thought when placing the random islands: Usually with these kind of survivor games once you have build everything or “seen” everything you are not going to play the game ever again, so I wanted some replay value. I realize now that placing the islands this randomly was not a good idea, you still need a lot of luck to beat the game.
I am planning to release a post-compo version in the next few days (or so), where especially this issue will be adressed.

eli says …
wonderful graphics and music. The feeling is extremely lonely and wonderful.

Thanks. I actually was kind of inspired by the music you did for your LD warmup.

philomory says …
I was looking forward to playing this game, but when I run it (on Windows), the text is all missing, as are most of the graphics. All I see are the robot and the items to pick up, no background, and no text, including on the menu. I’ll be coming back to this one to try it again, because it looks interesting.

Hmm, that seems like an odd issue. You need at least OpenGL 1.1 to play the game, but since almost every computer does meet this requirement, I did not mention this explicitely. So, installing the latest graphics driver might help.
But first, check if the file has been downloaded correctly. The file size should be 5.2 MB. (I had a few issues with my webspace hoster the last couple of days, maybe you just downloaded the file at a bad time.)
Also every time you play the game a log file is being generated in the /bin folder called “SurvivalGuide.exe.log”. Usually the content is something like that:

– Note – Timestamp – Start log
– Note – Timestamp – Using hardware surface
– Note – Timestamp – End log

If you have a completely different content, please let me know. I just tested the game on all four Windows PCs (all either Windows XP or 7) at home, but I couldn’t reproduce this error anywhere. If you have redownloaded and tested it again and it’s still not working, could you please give me some detailed specs on the computer you are trying to play the game on.

Tags: comment responses

After rewriting most of the code and taking out every library, I came to he conclusion that it just wasnt going to work on the web =(.

But luckily the .jar file works on windows and mac so i uploaded that.

Go check it out – Link

SAVORY SEA HOSS ended up being a complete success for me. I say this for 3 very important reasons.

1) I set out to make a game with an objective that could actually be reached (unlike my LD16 entry), and I wanted to include SFX and MUSIC (unlike my LD16 entry)

2) I wanted to make something visually and mechanically unique

3) I wanted to make something FUN / FUNNY

I knew these 3 things before the theme was even being voted on. I decided this after LD16, when I looked back at what I had done wrong. For starters, I completely ignored my GOOFY instincts and tried to make something SUPER SERIOUS. I can do that sort of thing, but it doesn’t come as natural, thus taking MUCH longer to create as I’m constantly arguing with myself over how to handle certain things. By using my naturally goofy / ridiculous initial ideas for LD17, I was able to crank something out at rapid pace, with little to no difficult decision making. Everything just sort of fell out of my head and I didn’t second guess it.

Secondly, on my list of things that I screwed up during LD16, I failed to understand what was truly possible in 48 hours. The game I attempted to create in December of ’09 was simply impossible. Sure, I got most of the very basic framework down, but what I had in my head was SOOOOO far away from what ended up on my screen. I seriously had about 10 percent of my planned content realized in the actual released code. I didn’t make that mistake this time. Sure, there were some things that I didn’t have time to implement, but my list was MUCH smaller and more realistic. Any time I seriously questioned whether or not I could fit something in, I’d either scrap it or find a way around it. I stuck to my 5 core ideas and saw them through to the end, and it left me with time to add extras. Very awesome.

Lastly, I totally postponed the implementation of AUDIO for LD16. I postponed it so deep into the competition that it became an impossibility. My game was silent, which was something I REALLY wanted to avoid. For LD17, I made sure to implement SFX during my second phase of development on Saturday. Then, at the end of the day on Sunday, I had time to make a quick song and wrap it all up.

So what about LD17? What did I screw up this time?

First of all, I got a late start. I didn’t do a single thing on Friday night but sit in the IRC chat and try to come up with an idea. I sketched some junk on paper, played some games for inspiration, listened to some reggae, and basically wasted 4 good hours. I was seriously stumped, so I just went to sleep with serious doubts. I woke up the next morning, walked my dog, got something to eat, and sat down to look at my concept art from the night before. You see, I was going about it all wrong on Friday. I was making concept art and trying to think of a way to turn it into ‘game art’. HOW STUPID! My ART was already right there in front of me! So basically my concept art BECAME my game. That’s when I came up with the ‘Crayola’ / ‘Squigglevision’ art style for my game as a way to CHEAT. I could have a character with very little frames of actual animation, but the art style made it look 10 times more lively. WOOT.

So I drew the main character and some scenery, then I tweaked the player movement for several hours until I was satisfied.

But that’s all I had. A purple thing in a orange vest on a leaf floating in the water near an island.

I had NO IDEA what the actual gameplay would consist of until my brain muttered something about the “meat and potatoes” of my game. I immediately drew a potato and created a quick and dirty mechanic that allowed me to toss infinite potatoes into the air.  For basically no reason. I then added some gravity, randomized the TOSSIN’ angle / speed, and created the water splash sprite. I didn’t even have time to really stop and think if it was even a good idea. It was already decided. My game would be a bout a purple guy in an orange vest on a leaf… in the ocean… near some islands… throwing food into the air.

AND SO SAVORY SEA HOSS WAS BORN

It made no sense, but I giggled the entire time, and I had a friggin’ blast. I learned a A LOT during LD17, and I can’t express how grateful I am that this entire thing exists. Ludum Dare is the single most powerful learning experience I’ve ever had in game design. It’s almost magical.

No, fuck that.

It IS magical.

Thank you, Ludum Dare.

NOW…. ON TO SOME GAME COMMENTS AND RESPONSES

crackerblocks says …

a tour de force!

Coming from YOU, that is amazing. Your LD16 entry was HANDS DOWN, my absolute favorite. It was pure genius. Hilarity at my fingertips. Most LD games get one playthrough… TWO if they’re lucky. I replayed EL DORADO like 40 times in one night. And as for your LD17 entry, I recently found out that I REALLY like hockey, so I couldn’t have been more pleased with your game. I hope to see you around for LD18 and beyond.

dgfitch says …

EPIC.

LOL

I wouldn’t describe my game as EPIC at all, but I’m thrilled that you did. Thanks for playing and thanks for the comment.

Tyler says …

Love the art style. I really wish you had more levels/gameplay, but the art certainly compensates.

Yeah, I have some GREAT ideas for where I want to go with this game, and it definitely includes MORE MORE MORE of everything. I’m glad you dig the art so much. Thanks for the comment!

Jonathan Whiting says …

Completely and utterly nuts, but in the great way.

Now THAT’S what I want to hear. Speaking of nuts, I had an idea for one of the castaways to yell, “HEY! PEANUTS!” and then you’re suddenly wearing a red and white striped outfit and you have to toss bags of peanuts at him for bonus points while the background randomly changes into a baseball stadium. Kind of like a MIRAGE type thing. Yeah. NOT POSSIBLE IN 48 HOURS. lol

Diet Chugg says …

Forget logic kill all the survivors! Simple and Hilarious game. I had a feeling it was going to be funny just by reading the instructions. The music was great would of loved to see some humorous sound effects added.

SIMPLE and HILARIOUS is certainly what I wanted to achieve, so I’m really happy that you say that. I’m glad you also liked the music. It was not easy trying to crank out a song in under 30 minutes to fit this type of theme. The one thing I had to cut from the game that was pretty high on my EXTRAS list were the hilarious sound effects. It’s certainly something I’ll be adding in the ‘final’ game.

If you haven’t played my game, I’d love it if you’d do that right now. And comment. I love that, too.

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-17/?action=rate&uid=1365

Alright. I’m off to play and rate some more games. Thanks for reading/playing. See you guys in that FYOOOOOOCHA!!!

I’m supposed to be working, but Sol_HSA’s thread got pretty big pretty fast. This is probably a good time to get an official word out there, to avoid future uncertainty, and to catch up those that missed it.

We had a pretty intense discussion some months back about how we were going to manage Ludum Dare’s growth. Ludum Dare today is a far bigger than any of us imagined it would become, and it wants to keep getting bigger and bigger.

On the one side, it wants to be more and more inclusive. We’ve relaxed the rules to include pretty-much every piece of gaming making middleware available today (even Unreal 3, our old example of what’s “not allowed”). The previous problem of enabling anyone to create sound effects quickly was practically solved by the introduction of sfxr. Aside from allowing outside content, the only thing we haven’t given the thumbs up to was teams (well, other than a slight rules page oversight this compo).

On the other side, we have what’s probably best described as classic Ludum Dare. A strict set of rules, everything from scratch, full source, the cliche “real men write their own compilers with soldiering irons” angle (not to disrespect the ladies, but we are the pig-headed kings of extremes ;)).

Unfortunately it’s not a simple matter of taking one side and growing that way. Or maybe it is, but that’d be like shooting ourselves in the foot. As things become more open, rules start to fade, keeping things fair becomes more and more difficult. We also have our legacy to consider, and we know from experience rules and restrictions keep things focused and produce results. After all, we are the 48 hour competition.

So what’s our solution?

The new Ludum Dare we hope to create in the coming months is something I like to call “The Ludum Dare Competition and Jam“. As expected we’re combining the two camps, but the tricky part was coming up with what we think is the best way to do that.

The Ludum Dare Competition is the same Ludum Dare you all know and love. It’s a competition. We tighten up the rules a bit, specifically, changing them in to eligibility requirements. Solo, include source, all content created in 48 hours, etc. Not much different than what you’re used to, but the emphasis here will be keeping things fair and realistic.

The Ludum Dare (Online) Jam is the new open Ludum Dare. Bring in a friend, keep your source to yourself, take an extra day (but just 1). Ludum Dare is a serious game making event, synonymous with the idea of prototyping a game in a weekend. We exist to be your reason to create something. And if you participated, we want everyone to know. Unlike the competition, there is no voting in the Jam.

So like always, you tune in Friday night for the theme (timezone respected), and you make a game. If you end up breaking the rules (competition eligibility), oh well, you can still submit it for the Jam. If you’re running late but still wanted to make something, again, you can still submit it to the Jam. Or if you regularly work with a friend or team, make it a Ludum Dare weekend! Crunch a playable prototype during the weekend, share it with us via the Jam, and submit it to the App Store a week later.

You could even take steps to create separate Competition and Jam versions of your game. For example, someone that’s both a coder and an artist could submit an eligible version of their game without sound and music, and a Jam version with help from their sound designer friend.

In a nutshell, that’s what we’re thinking the new Ludum Dare should be. Share your thoughts in the comments.

ByteJacker is totally awesome. This week they’ve been digging through Ludum Dare 17′s epic 200+ submissions for their favorites. Keep an eye on their front page for the latest. I’ll try to keep this post updated with links as they post them.

(Terry’s pre-LD game)
http://www.bytejacker.com/blog/terry-cavanaghs-new-game-almost-broke-my-mouse

http://www.bytejacker.com/blog/ludum-dare-17-brave-island-diver
http://www.bytejacker.com/blog/ludum-dare-17-radio-silence
http://www.bytejacker.com/blog/ludum-dare-17-island-rescue
http://www.bytejacker.com/blog/ludum-dare-17-island-hopping *NEW*

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 28th, 2010 at 11:13 pm and is filed under LD #17 - Islands - 2010. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

On Saturday (compo Saturday), Ludum Dare 17 got a not as the headline “Indie Game Links” article on IndieGames.com.

http://www.indiegames.com/blog/2010/04/indie_game_links_its_a_dare_go.html

Historically, IndieGames.com tends to post a few select entries from the LD competitions, so lets start making a list.

(Terry’s pre-LD game again… Stop being so famous you!)
http://www.indiegames.com/blog/2010/04/freeware_game_pick_sumouse_ter.html

http://www.indiegames.com/blog/2010/04/freeware_game_pick_brave_islan.html

What do you say to that, Jim?

Tags: motivation

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 29th, 2010 at 12:12 am and is filed under LD #17 - Islands - 2010. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

First, thank you to everyone who’s played, voted and provided feedback on Roller-Derby 20XX: Mega Islands of Awesome. You guys are the mega awesome ones!

Some responses to some of the comments:

1. Music: I’m glad everyone likes the soundtrack. As requested by skintkingle I’ve uploaded the MP3s and they are accessible here:  http://www.refrag.com/game-dev/roller-derby-20xx/
2. Title Screen: Glad you liked this Terry. I had so much fun making myself into an NES style titlescreen. I saved extra time on Sunday just for this final touch.
3. Collisions: Feedback around the “fishy” nature of collisions is good feedback to hear and very valid! In reality collisions are working exactly as I coded them. When you intersect an enemy there is a dice roll based on their “aggro-level” (which is randomly generated at spawn). There is a chance they will hit you. If they hit you you will either bump forward, or there is a chance you will fall. But yes I can totally see how this isn’t very intuitive. Surprisingly this dynamic tests better with more casual game players who seem to accept a “fuzzy” logic to collisions. The more experienced gamer seems to expect either binary rules or a way to pre-determine the result to better strategize. (Neato!)

I have some ideas on how to build on this game concept (thanks to your feedback!) and hope to flesh out and expand on this “world” in the near future.

Did anyone happen to download the SWF of my game, Sky Traders of Jupiter? I’ve accidentally overwritten the LD version and don’t have a backup. I downloaded the torrent which includes “most” of the games, but apparently “most” doesn’t include mine.

If I can’t find someone with the LD version, I’ll probably have to take my game down out of fairness, and either just go with whatever votes I’ve received so far, or drop out of the running entirely.

I thought this would be helpful since there is no in-game tutorial and the game may be a bit complex. The compo page for the game is here.

General Tips

The queen will randomly select a trade good to retrieve for the quest. If she asks you to get 5000 gold coins then reload. You will need to visit around 100 islands to finish and you will get bored.  Bananas might also get tedious (around 26 islands) if you are in a hurry to vote.

More after the jump.

The Trade Window

In the trade window, the arrow buttons show how the trading boxes link together. The player’s trade goods go from the left list to the upper middle trading box and the trader’s goods go from the right list to the lower middle trading box.To transfer items between the boxes,  first click on an item and then click the corresponding arrow connecting the two boxes.

Below the middle trading boxes is how much extra profit the trader is making on the trade. He will not accept less than 0% profit so you need to get it out of the negative. There are currently no effects for giving him extra profit or attempting to trade him negative profit too often so try to make his profit as small as possible while still remaining above 0%.

Another tip for making trade easier is to hold down shift while clicking the arrows. This will transfer items 10 at a time making large trades and trades involving coins quicker.

Towns and Tribes

There are two different types of islands to trade with, some inhabited by tribes and some inhabited by towns. These two types trade different sets of complimentary goods. In general, tribes will pay a greater price for goods made in a town and vice versa. The only goods that do not follow this rule are wood, cannons, swords and coins. Good trade goods to buy from tribes are wood, silks, bananas and beaver pelts. Good trade goods to buy from towns are spices and jugs of rum. The value of goods fluctuates depending on which island you are trading at. One tribe might pay more for your spices, for example, than the tribe on the island across the way. Conversely the two tribes might sell their goods at different prices.

Wood

Wood was originally going to be used for repairing your ship but that was cut for time. Right now, both towns sell wood but it’s only a good deal to buy it from tribes and sell to towns since towns value it at a higher price.

Gold Coins

Gold coins  are worthless to the tribes so it’s pointless to trade them there. What they are good for is making change for more exact trades with towns people. Gold coins are worth 1 value at every town so it’s not possible to make a bad trade with them (unless you trade them to the previously mentioned tribes). For example, if you find yourself 7 value short of a trade with the tribe you would have to re-allocate your traded goods or add more goods giving the tribe more profit, but with a town you can just add 7 coins to the pile and it will be even. Conversely if the town is making 7 value profit you can add 7 coins on their side and the deal will be even.

Cannons and Swords

Cannons are very expensive and tend to sell to tribes at a worse rate than to towns, between two towns you may get a good profit but where they shine is pirate protection. In a pirate battle, first the number of cannons is checked. If you have more cannons than the pirates you sink the pirates and win. It is the only way to get out of a pirate battle without losing any cargo. If the pirates win the cannon battle they then board you and then the count of swords is compared. If you have more swords the pirates leave with 25% of your cargo, otherwise they steal it all. Swords can be a reasonable item to trade as the fluctuation between values at different islands can be considerable, but tribes won’t pay that much more in general than towns for them.

Am I Getting a Good Price?

If you are curious what the base value of the items in your cargo screen are, press the I key while not in a dialog. It will list all of your items and their base values. You will also see the total value of your cargo and your quest here.

Help! I was attacked by pirates and lost all my stuff

Hit Q to return to the queen’s island, then talk to her and press the resupply button. She will give you the original set of goods (200 coins, 10 rum, 1 cannon, 2 swords) that you started with. I think the penalty for pirate attacks might be a little harsh right now so be sure to keep your cannon number up. The pirates will bring more cannons the higher your cargo value is on the “I” screen. It is good to have at least one cannon for every 5000 value of trade goods you carry.

I Finished the Quest but I Don’t Remember Where the Queen was

Hit Q to return to the queen and turn in your cargo.

Sorry, my original submission had a start up bug that made it crash for everyone.  It was a quick fix and I’ve uploaded the corrected exe.  Try it now

#1 yes I will be voting on games, but I also took a day off from work to LD, so I HAD to catch up on that

#2 thanks for anyone for playing my to big idea, all was going super awesome fast, then I hit a logic sequence bug that sucked 6 hours out of my day and the schedule went down the crapper! so at best i shoehorned in the very basic game mechanic and submitted it.

This game however is actually something I want to sit down and make right, and why not, I already have a “keyboard barf concept game” that (except for the last few hours) is reasonably openly scripted, even  if its cluttered and redundant

BUGS! yes I know, sorry

Yeah, bring the love 😀
Lost points for no image padding, but pretty cool game nonetheless. the combat mechanics could use some work.

———————————————

This was my first time using love 6, though my other 2 LD’s were with love 5, I have to say I still love it, but it was pitching a fuss on ubuntu and became rather annoying

image padding as in powers of 2 or as in collision?

combat was tossed in at a last minuet ditch to qualify it as a game, it needs a TON of work (you have init, you both roll a d20, anything over 8 is a hit)

Pretty cool idea. I fought against a pirate (red square) and after the fight, it seemed that the app stopped responding to input?

———————————————

I screwed up the world coordinates, and did not have time to fix it the hour before voting started, Ill update sometime but not on the official vote page, it still responds to input, but it only moves 1px at a time

weird. I get a white screen when loading. and crash didn’t come up. Looked fun though.

———————————————

I had that a few times developing it under linux but never under windows, usually a restart of the game would clear it, it seems to have something to do with love

on that note I have been moving to processing, its nowhere near perfect but it does more of what I want to do, and is on java so this will probably be my last LD love game  (cue 3 game montage)

I just wanna say a BIG thank you to everyone who has critiqued my entry for this Ludum Dare.
The comments have been very inspiring, and has motivated me to continue working on the mechanic.

Some points in response to some of the comments:

• Making use of the mouse is actually to keep the right hand occupied, because its really easy if both hands are available to press keys on the keyboard.
• Only 3 ports can be selected at once because that is the maximum keys on most keyboards that can be sensed.
• The representation of trading seems to be too confusing for many people, I’ll change that while keeping the core keyboard twister mechanic.
• And er… sorry about the lack of levels.  I just couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore at 6am.
• EDIT: Someone asked for the sourcecode of the game, here’s the .gmk file:
  http://xmashed.com/games/keytrader_source.rar

Thank you all for your suggestions and feedback.

With Gratitude,
XM

I’ve fixed some bugs with my entry.  So far it seems people only noticed the clicking bug (caused by the code I use to start the game in fullscreen at your native resolution, with black bars if your monitor’s not 16:10 – it was working before the compo, then I stupidly broke it during).  Other bugs fixed include the text rendering as black boxes on OSX, and it crashing straight away on my intel graphics netbook.

I consider these game breaking, and have updated my entry’s links accordingly.  If you want to see the original versions, here they are:

Windows – OSX – Linux/source code

Also, thanks for the comments guys   I pretty much agree – visually it’s my strongest LD entry to date, but gameplay-wise it’s just too random, with no real opportunity for the player to turn it to their advantage.

Ugly terrible sky, and stupidly placed ruffians, but I'm happy with the grass.

Guess what you can get your hands on? A post-competition alpha, that’s what! It’s finally got some content in it, and that kinda makes everything more enjoyable, or at least eye pleasing.

Any thoughts on jump height and water appearance would be much appreciated. Readme contains some notes and a changelog for those curious about such things, though it’s pretty brief.

Points for anyone who guesses which .zip is which.

Comments, criticism, etc would be lovely.

Things that went well:

• The fact that I managed to finish a pretty decent game in a day.
• My first ludum without C++. This time it was gamemaker, and given the time I had I couldnt have made a playable without it. That said, I miss C++, and there are things that would be different if I used it

Things that didn’t

• I have to ban vlc, and stop watching full metal alchemist and other tv-series during development. The game would probably have been slightly better if I didn’t.
• Avoid celebrating the birthdays of family and friends, they keep you back

Feedback response:

Given that I can’t respond to the feedback/comments in the voting system, and it kinda relates to the postmortem, I figured that I would respond to some here as well…

“Would of loved to see some music in the game.” Agreed I’m investigating that at the moment, as sfxr does the sounds I think musagi is a good bet for the music. To bad my music, so far, has given it’s listeners headaches

“it might be easier to use WASD” As far as I know arrowkeys are the only universal system. wasd works on qwerty keywords, but are a pain on azerty. It would be best to default to wasd, and let the user choose it’s settings, or have two settings. Time however stopped that path. If anyone have any better alternatives/quick paths I’m all ears

“cute graphics” – just have to say.. wow! someone likes my programmer art *happy*

Hungry Hungry Castaways Postmortem

Summary of the Weekend:

On Friday night I had no idea of something to make based on islands so I decided to sleep it over. I didn’t have much when I woke up either, so around 1 pm on Saturday (15 hours in) I decided to make a simple match-3 puzzle game about collecting food to survive while deserted on an island. I decided on a selection mechanic of dragging the mouse to select the group of pieces to be cleared and collected. On and off I spent the rest of the day working on getting the game up and running, i.e. setting up the game board, creating random pieces, having pieces drop down after being cleared, etc. Then I started coding hardcore from around 6-12 pm. On Sunday I worked on scoring and the “delivery” of pieces, where after collecting a certain amount, new pieces would be dropped on the board. I hit a wall when I spent hours trying to get the game to run on other computer (which was the main cause of my failure to submit last December for LD16). I finally got through DLL hell to spend 30 minutes on some polish and visual aspects, submitting the game 3 minutes before the deadline. Over the course of the weekend I probably spent only around 12 hours of coding (plus 2-3 hours for figuring out how to distribute).

What Went Wrong:

– I did not to any pre-competition planning. I just jumped in there on Saturday without a thought. Getting the game to work on other computers was a pain, and I should’ve learned from last time not to wait until last minute to do that.

– Also related to a lack of planning, I wanted to add audio to the game, but I have never used the audio library for SDL nor have I recorded any sounds for games before. I once again should’ve handled this during the week prior to the competition.

– The scoring system was very arbitrary, and I didn’t put much thought into it. I made the minimum score for round completion too high and should’ve done some play-testing with my siblings or my friends. Also,I should have put more time and thought into a reason why when people die on the island or get weaker, you don’t need less points to continue.

– A few other things like ability to pause the game and a display of the score that is needed to finish the round would have been good additions that I never put in.

What Went Right:

– I really liked the core gameplay mechanic (drag to select) for selecting pieces, and thanks to the feedback I’ve gotten so far from fellow developers who judged my game here at Ludum Dare, and a few friends who have played the game, I have found out that other people do as well.

– I finished! This was my first time submitting to Ludum Dare (second time competing), and I’m glad I was able to get it done and enter it in the competition.

Overall I think the game came out really well. I may do a post-compo version to add a few things and fix the scoring system, and will definitely explore the drag-to-select mechanic more (hopefully sometime soon). I’d also like to thank everyone who judged my game so far (and anyone who does so over the next week and a half).

(If you haven’t played the game, here is the entry page)