My ludum dare Jam entry is called U.F.O. where you play with a UFO which have an absorbing rays which absorb any enemy and make it a part of it so it can use the enemies powers against other coming enemies
Hope to finish it soon 
ScreenShot:
Tags: LD 18 Jam
I admit it – I already had a game idea coming into this compo, and then I took the theme and merged the two.
Here’s a retrospective post on how that happened…
A bit ago I read an article somewhere (possibly on the excellent www.designer-notes.com) mentioning that Civilization’s combat is actually it’s weakest point.
There’s not much strategy in the actual fighting – it’s mostly making sure you have a ton of decent troops in the area.
This set me thinking – how could you make the combat in (the excellent!) Civ 4 more strategic? Could you add flanking into something like Civ? I thought if they got that working for Civ 5 it would be totally awesome.
Then came Ludum Dare 18, with the theme “Enemies as Weapons”.
Bugger. All my thoughts of doing an abstract arty game with no baddies, no guns, and no nothing went out the window.
Probably for the best – I’m no artist.
How about a platformer where the baddies have guns, and you don’t – you have to move to the baddy and then can use their gun? For extra depth, maybe you have to get behind them before you can grab them & their weapon?
Could be good. But I’m already making one action game… I want to make something different. Something more like….. Civ? Bing! The two thoughts came together in a crazed shotgun marriage fuelled by ginger tea:
Civ with flanking, where you grab baddies from behind, and then can use their guns
You can see that my final game differs from this in places… but that was basically how I started.
I admit it – I already had a game idea coming into this compo, and then I took the theme and merged the two.hey guys just saying remember to vote!
my game http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-18/?action=rate&uid=2197
vote and play other peoples games!
Not that anyone watches these, but here goes 😀
Only 10 hours left, let’s show some gameplay, while we refine it.
SUMMARY
AVOIDAL page here on Ludum Dare (for rating and comments!)
Gameplay Trailer (watch me score 1.5 million points!)
Play the LD48 Official Compo Version of AVOIDAL
I had a lot of fun this Ludum Dare! After missing the past few it was good to participate again for sure. I’ve never done one of these post mortem entries but I enjoy reading the other ones people post so I thought I’d take a crack at it.
POST MORTEM
You can read my detailed post mortem below:
FRIDAY
I had an idea within two minutes of the theme announcement. This doesn’t always happen so I’m pretty excited. I normally spend Friday night sleeping on the theme announcement after drawing a few mockups but this time was a bit different. I had an idea that I figured would be simple enough that I fired up photoshop and drew the following mockup:
I read over my notes and the concept felt solid for fun potential as well as being in line with the scope of a 48 hour competition. For my game studio work I typically develop within the 1 to 3 week time period but I’m familiar with the 48 hour marathon since I’ve competed in about 6 or more of these 2 day game competitions. I’ve also worked on learning my lessons (failures) well!
I refine the idea into a color mockup by doodling it again in photoshop:
You can see that I’ve got the basic enemy and player elements of the final game already in place. Spike and seeker type enemies. A large and silly player character that eventually becomes a stylized robot character. The gold stars as targets for the enemies to collide into.
Having fleshed the idea out more I’m ready to open up the Flash CS4 IDE and start implementing a graphical mockup:
Now the graphical assets above are all usable as initial art once I’m finished creating the mockup in Flash. It is a really cool thing about prototyping in an IDE like Flash that I can quickly put game logic into ActionScript 3.0 files behind each of those assets.
I work for about 3 more hours trying to get a first playable prototype. Getting the first playable prototype build is so crucial to iterating on the next part of the game that the earlier you can get feedback and play the game–the earlier you will be able to see how much more you need to implement. This couldn’t be more important than in a 48 hour game competition scenario.
I manage to post the following prototype build at 2am–four hours into the competition:
You can even play the first prototype here if you want to see what I started out with.
I was very happy with what I was able to come up with at this point. I was able to know that the game idea was solid and more importantly–already very fun! I knew that I’d sleep well Friday night and was looking forward to beginning to iterate on Saturday with a good start in the competition.
Time spent at this point was four hours.
SATURDAY
I awoke Saturday morning after about 5 hours of sleep. I checked out the Ludum Dare blog and found that a few people had played my game already and had left some encouraging feedback. This was a big morale and motivational boost as it meant more than just myself found the game fun. I also found I had been awarded two funny LD awards: One for “Flash prototyping like Flash!” by Zlash and a second “Silver Star for Prototyping goodness” by Tyler. Thanks guys–you really made my morning!
Now today I was also excited because I was going to be driving over to Portsmouth NH for an in person meetup with some other Ludum Dare participants I had never met before. I’ve been working on getting out more into the game community around the New England area and this was an excellent opportunity to meet some other people who enjoy making games.
We met up in an awesome cafe called “Me and Ollies” and found an entire downstairs community center with AC and wifi and plenty of nice seating!
That is me on the left and billkyne on the right.
Here is a short YouTube video filmed by Jonny D of the beginning of our meetup.
The meetup went really well. It was so refreshing to be able to see what others were working on and to just talk about game development and Ludum Dare related things. I also enjoyed the strange looks I got from others in the room when we would talk about our games to each other or when I would take photographs of my food:
I ended up getting less than four hours of work in on my game but the small lack of productivity was more than made up for by getting to meet Jonny D and billknye. I was able to post version two of my game from the cafe.
I had so much fun and was inspired to drive back home after 6pm to get cracking again on my game!
Once I got home I was finally able to decide on the name AVOIDAL for my game. It took me longer than normal to pick a name this time. I like picking out unique names as well as names that often have domain name availability.
Avoidal isn’t a real word but it is in use lightly on the internet and has Urban Dictionary entries strangely enough. I decide that the low Google search noise will allow my game to eventually place well in search results for Avoidal.
I discover that avoidal.com was available and I register it and quickly setup some HTML and CSS in place on my sever to hold the eventual competition game entry. Why go through this extra effort? I enjoy crafting the entire experience for the player and I like the elegance of the idea of having my competition entry hosted on a dedicated, short, and memorable domain.
Having prepared the final destination for my game I get back to work on the actual game itself. Here is a screenshot from version three:
I spend some of Saturday night implementing SWFStats gameplay analytics. I love using an analytics package like SWFStats so I can start getting valuable aggregated play testing data to help improve the game as early as possible. It allows me to track custom metrics like average scores over the various difficulty levels and highest chain multipliers reached. Stats like that help me see graphs of what the difficulty curve is and make intelligent decisions about the mechanics and settings. I can also analyze play length data and number of views versus plays to see if my game is holding player interest or not.
I then focus on getting the bulk of the menus and game flow logic in place. I know from past competitions that once Sunday rolls around my brain will be a chaotic and spastic place. I like to handle all the mundane things like online highscores implementation, preloader and initializer, game over screens, game state tracking, main menus, pause menus, sound mute widgets and all the other miscellaneous ephemera that goes into making a polished game. I enjoy putting a high level of polish into my games so it helps to still be fresh when I implement these things.
All told I put about four hours into my game getting all the non-gameplay stuff in place. I know that tomorrow will be reserved for final tuning, final graphics, sound effects, and music composition. I am preparing myself mentally for what I know will be a long day. I head off to bed and plan on getting another 5 hours of sleep.
That brings my Saturday development hours in at this point at about 8 and 12 total for the competition so far.
SUNDAY
Final day and I am PUMPED! There is so much left to do to bring AVOIDAL to life and it’s time to get going.
I start off by redesigning the mine asset:
Those white spikes will become projectiles that eventually fly off if the player let’s the mine explode before destroying it. Those spikes also do the most damage of any of the enemies in the game. I want the player to be motivated to destroy the mines with the other enemies so I do two things. First the the chain multiplier goes up each time you destroy a mine. A mine has a lifespan and will eventually explode if left alone for too long. When it explodes it releases the projectiles as well as resets the chain multiplier. The second motivation for the player is that when the mines explode the spikes move pretty fast and in eight directions so they can be quite deadly. I’m hoping that this will be another aspect of excitement and tension in the game.
In order to get my coordinate offsets and angles correct I draw the following mockup:
This will let me spawn the mine tips at the correct coordinates when the mine detonates so that it will be a seamless visual effect of the tips of the mine sprite flying off. It ends up working quite well and my Sunday is off to a productive start.
I then go through and revamp all the graphics replacing all the placeholder art. I pick new colors for some things while others remain more or less the same. I put in animations for most of the assets.
I then spent some time to tackle the main character design:
On the left is the placeholder art for the character from the prototype. Next to that is the character I had doodled in my original mockup. I still wanted to capture the light-hearted and goofy feel of that doodle instead of the cool mathematics of the pentagon.
I initially drew the third image overtop of the original sprite in the Flash IDE. This was so I would have the dimensions be equivalent so that gameplay wouldn’t change. I couldn’t get a freehand style I liked that I felt blended in well with the polygonal style I was already working with.
I scrapped the third freehand concept and started using basic primitives to sculpt out what would eventually become the little flying robot. I even sort of think of him in my mind as being named Avoidal.
Once I saw him animated I knew that I was happy with how I captured my original intentions with the doodle of the little flapping guy with the target on his chest.
I now had all my final art in place:
When I wasn’t working on the final art for my game I was playing it as much as I could and posted two more playable builds to get player feedback and start working out balance and difficulty issues.
Here is version four and version five for reference.
Now at this point I’ve been working since about 7:30am Sunday morning and I’m starting to really feel it. I find myself zoning off into space and starting to lose track of my train of thought.
I realize that I need to grab a quick dinner since I only have less than three hours remaining in the competition and there is still final menu polish, sound effects and music to create! I run out and grab some pizza and come back and inhale it. I didn’t even have time to take a photo because at this point the game is clearly the priority for me.
It may sound weird but participating in Ludum Dare competitions over the years has really helped me to remain cool under pressure when developing. When I feel the brain-tightening stress start I remember to relax and breathe in and out. I then refocus and keep working. I find using an online todo list web app really helps me stay on track.
With just a few hours remaining in the competition I fire up the web version of SFXR and start cranking out sound effects like a machine. During this part I keep a list of sound assets I need and the game playing in the background. I tab back and forth between SFXR and my game in the browser and imagine what kinds of sounds I am going for.
Then it is a frenzied mashing of buttons and hoping I get lucky on the randomize feature. I really love this part in that it feels like I’m fishing and I don’t know what I will catch. I score some really lucky hits on randomize as well as some old standbys from the more normal themed buttons. I import them into Flash and tie them in with code. I even take the time to add some nice stereo panning to applicable sound effects based on sprite screen location.
I also have been taking care of various other tiny polish items from my todo list. I wanted to get a slight left and right lean to the robot sprite when the player is moving quickly back and forth. I also wanted to make sure to add an instructions screen in the event that someone gets stumped and actually decides to read the instructions (hardly ever happens I know…)
I now have less than 45 minutes remaining and I fire up Reason and use my Alesis midi keyboard to layout a quick menu chiptune loop. I compress it into MP3 and put it in place in the game.
Holy crap only 15 minutes remains to do final screenshot and upload. I’m sort of a purist in I like to have my game fully submitted by the deadline. I managed to get everything filled out in the form and turned in with 5 minutes to spare.
Now comes the relief knowing that I’M FINISHED.
Total time spent on Sunday was over 14 hours–phew what a crunch!
Total game time spent developing was 26 hours. I’m getting faster…
FINAL THOUGHTS
I’m really quite pleased with how my game came out and my weekend in general. I feel lucky to have come up with such a simple and fun idea very early in the competition. I had a playable prototype so early it really let me focus on polishing the heck out of this little game and putting in all the normal bells and whistles I’d put into a releasable Flash game from my studio. This has been my most successful Ludum Dare yet–now I just have to see how other players like it!
I have to really pump myself up sometimes to participate in something as demanding as the marathon that is Ludum Dare. I almost want to collapse or feel like I might vomit sometimes from the amount of strain and wear that hits me after working 25-35 hours straight over the two days.
Why do I do it then?
Despite the wear and tear it is just an amazing concept to participate in a global event with so many other passionate game developers. I have a strong sense of competitive spirit and I like the opportunity to demonstrate my skills and love for game development. I like feeling the inertia of 100s of other game developers trying their best and simultaneously creating awesome games!
Ludum Dare really teaches me how to distill a game down into what is critically important and make hard decisions about features and scope that I have found I can apply outside of the stringent competition to my normal game studio work.
I started my independent studio and returned to game development largely because of participating in Ludum Dare a few years ago. It will always hold a dear place in my heart because of putting me back in touch with mychildhood dream of game creation. I’m just glad it clued me into what a great game development movement was going on that I was unaware of.
I can’t wait to play all the other games here!
MY LINKS
AVOIDAL page here on Ludum Dare (for rating and comments!)
Gameplay Trailer (watch me score 1.5 million points!)
Play the LD48 Official Compo Version of AVOIDAL
Tags: as3, avoidal, browser, flash, gameplay, postmortem, summary, timelapse, trailer
I promised a lengthy post and I guess this is it…
This is a screen of my post-compo game, a few things changed. Play, comment and read the full list of changes here.
Today I spent most of my day sleeping and making the post-compo version with a few bugfixes. Next compo, december probably, I’ll use my own chronolapse that will rock, and will be out of my way. I’ll also write a tool or two that compensate for actionscrip not having templates/generics, and add a few base classes that make the flixel game development even faster.
I’ll probably do food shopping on thursday/friday instead as that is taking up too much precious time
The only other bad thing I did was not making the graphics at the start, and instead used temporary graphics for most of the compo. The good thing about this is that I focused on gameplay early on, the bad side is that I spent too much time tweaking and playing the game. With these changes I might have a showable game earlier, allowing me to get feedback from irc/other people instead of post compo feedback; and this good folks, really is the only thing that I want
Food photo times, you know you want to hit more…
Chokladboll batter and milk
Meatballs, garlic sause and rösti
Cashew nuts and milk
Newly made orange juice
Choclate chip icecream and milk
Tags: final, foodphoto, post-compo, post-mortem, screenshot
This was one hell of a weekend. This is my second Ludum dare, and the experience from the first one shows. I spent a lot more time doing and a lot less time learning this time around. Compare: LD17, The Naturalist
I panicked a bit when I saw the theme, it didn’t inspire me too much at first. But in the end it did make for a pretty funny weapons system. The end result is something like Kirby meets Sburb meets Tuper Tario Tros and they have a pixelated child in some horrible freak accident.
I liked: Getting results faster than last time with Flixel and actionscript 3. Having music this time around, it’s pretty nice to have a piano plugged in. The little red dragon running all over the place at incredible speeds due to some bug during development.
Didn’t like: Composing music for the first time during the last few hours; I really should have practiced that. It was also a bit hard to make sure the game was playable and not too confusing. Naming this in the last half-hour.
Overall I surprised myself, I didn’t think I could do this much.
Hi people, I couldn’t make it into the main compo, so I am goint to enter the jam instead.
You move the ship (ball with a yellow star) by moving the mouse, and have to make the turrets fire at you so you can avoid the bullets and have them hit other turrets. You also have a shield (hold left mouse button) which reflects bullets avoiding damage, but it drains energy which is slowly replenished. When there is only one turret left you win.
For now there are only two simple levels implemented.
You can try a working version here:
http://www.gemserk.com/prototipos/dudethatsmybullet-webstart-release/launch-webstart.jnlp
this url always has the latest “released” version and is updated as I work.
hope you like it.
Ruben – Blog
So this is it. I started looking for ways to make my game more interesting 3 hours before the deadline, then I made 8 new maps in half an hour (you can imagine the quality work 😉 ), but finally decided that the game wasn’t fun enough to be submitted to the compo. Plus I was too tired to do all the packaging and stuff.
It’s still playable and almost fun, so I submitted Stupid Squares to the Jam (Linux, FreeBSD and Windows builds available).
I don’t want to work on this anymore for the moment, so there’s almost no change since the compo deadline. If you’re bored, you can try to create fun maps…
Tags: final, jam, screenshot
I’m at the final iteration!
Basically, the tasks I have left:
In the last iteration, I was play testing and balancing as best as I could. I decided that the bat was too expensive, so I moved it down in front of the slime in terms of costs. I lowered the starting health of the Hero and gave him fewer lives. I also tweaked the level design a bit to accommodate the AI’s inability to see too far ahead. There are also victory and defeat screens now.
I finally got the AI working well enough that I realized that I wasn’t just debugging the program anymore. I was playing the game! And it’s actually not that lame! B-)
I’m glad with the JAM, I might even get something playable done this time!
So we finally submitted our sourcecode you can find the link here: CLICK
Still jamming away. Got the writing and code all done. Now I’ve just got to do backgrounds and title screen. Looks like I’ll be speed-painting them somehow (there are 13! EEP!!!)
Screenshot (sans background):
Bac-Attack is a little action based game, where you assume the role of a virally infected bacterium, and you have the ability to spread your virus among the healthy bacteria, from simply coming in contact with them helps spread the virus which can then spread even further.
So your main enemy is the antibacterial spray which a clean freak is spraying in order to make sure their house is clean, now be careful not to get in the line of the spray as it’s deadly to bacteria, which generally results in your demise.
Healthy bacteria also harms you when coming in contact with it, only slightly though as they aren’t a major threat, also when hurt you will slowly regenerate your health back.
So LD18 is now my 3rd Ludum Dare that I’ve taken part with and I swear it’s my best yet, it’s the most finished a game I’ve developed has been (excluding games I make outside of LD of course) and for that I’m happy. Of course there are lots of things I would change now looking at the game, but that will always happen when working on a game, especially when in a little time frame.
I made the game in Game Maker 8 as some may have guessed, I’m not an excellent coder like most of you on here, but I love the fact that I can take part in this competition thanks to Game Maker, games are my life and I’m happy I can spend spare time making games in 48 hours.
I will be writing up a post mortem for the LD blog, which I will attempt to write in my little spare time that I’m not at work.
I hope you enjoy my game, and I look forward to playing everyone else’s games!
Tags: bac-attack
Who wants a wallpaper made out of thumbnails from all the LD games?
This here python script (and png for the LD logo) will generate them in various sizes for you.
example output:
Once all the jam entries roll in, I’ll run it and make a post with wallpapers in various sizes for download.
It also dumps a non-resized-for-wallpaper grid.png and an xml file containing each game’s author, game id, title, etc. that maybe someday I will have a good use for. You can quickly customize it or update for future LDs by changing the variables at the top of the file.
It requires this Python module which you may have to download and install.
EDIT: whoops, I had a stupid bug in the part that was supposed to center the thumbnails within their grid cells and instead right-aligned ’em. It’s fixed if you download now.
Tags: grid, python, screenshot, tool
So this is my second Ludum Dare and I’m now declaring my first failure. My game project was too ambitious. I’ve done loads of work on it and it’s really coming together but there’s no way I’m going to be done even for the jam deadline without rushing it out and I don’t want to do that as I think it’s going to be a nice little title.
Guess I’ll post on the blog later this week when it’s done. NEXT time I will make sure it’s something I can do in 48 hours. 
A patched version is now available. (only minor bugfixes/crash issues updated).
you can get the updated binary and source here:
http://pixelsiege.net/Hacking4DummiesPatched.zip
http://pixelsiege.net/Hacking4DummiesPatched_Src.zip
Please note that your vote has to be based on the unpatched compo-binary.
http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-18/?action=rate&uid=2196
Here’s the time lapse for my 72 hours of development on Stop That Hero!
Tags: timelapse
