Someone in the IRC channel thought of the idea of sailing around an archipelago and discovering new islands (thanks, Ashkin). The idea got me thinking about things like sailing, discovering new lands, colonization, setting up a trade empire, competing with other empires, and, inevitably, piracy. I I’ll make an abstract game about seafaring.

Quite possibly with sci-fi hovercrafts as well as boats.

Because of the nature of the game, I’ll be using Processing. Here’s my first screen shot:

My battle plan is as follows;

Hour 1: mess around to think of an idea *done*
Hour 3: Have a tile map loading from the editor Tiled with a basic set of tiles.
Hour 5: Have tanks appearing on the map, constructed by a factory (factory pattern).
Hour 6: Have tanks shooting at each other, and using the basic pathfinding my framework includes.
Hour 10: Have selection of single or multiple items working.
Hour 12: Have user placement of buildings on the map.
Hour 10: Mock up of basic GUI elements completed.
Hour 12: C&C style building of stuff and then placing it works.

By that time ill be in a position to plan the next few stages. I have left 6 hours in the first day for contingency, in the hope that day 2 can be mostly focused on content creation.

EUREKA! I finally thought of a cool idea. My game shalt be called “Eureka” and shall involve (probably) running around a town naked doing stuff. I’m pretty average at coding and drawing, but I’ll see what I can do…… 😀

So I got an idea for the theme. You’re a miner and you find an unexplored cavern, where you discover new types of gems and such.
What’s next is how the game will be made. Either a side-view two-dimensional platformer or a top view exploration game.

I’ve already made a game in this theme for another contest, so I’ll try and do something more innovative, driven by the theme rather than by desired outcome. So, as a restatement:
I’m using GameMaker8 Professional, SFXR, Paint.net, and Sonar8 for coding, sounds, graphics, and music (respectively). I’ll be brainstorming ideas in bed, and I’ve got a few ideas already floating around as I type this. Here’s to a FANTASTIC AND OUTSTANDING contest!

Came up with an idea and a title, time to code.  More to come.

Usually this is the toughest part for me; but I have a decent Idea stirring. I’m writing it all down and getting it thoroughly planned out before I start anything; I feel doing so will result in saving time and progress will be much more efficient with outlined goals.
I’m quite excited. Time to start digging into that 24 pack of monster. =]

Heres what I’ve got so far.

Side note… IE9 does not like WordPress >_>

Currently 3am, and am working through my idea process. As usual I’ve decided to choose something a little imaginative with the theme, which I’m very excited about.

I’m sat waiting for my stomach to feel like food, although I’ve been watching the Food Network for little over an hour, and I’m getting hungry…

I have the draft for my character movements…

Just noticed the theme for this LD.  I like it, I’m sure a lot of great ideas will come out of this one. Meanwhile I will go to sleep and maybe dream some good ideas for my game.

Good night and see you in 8 hours.

Here is what I will be using as a base. It is my LD15 entry, stripped down to basic:

– XCode / C++ / Mac OS X (should port back to windows easily)

– SDL Graphics

– Sound

– SDL Image -> OpenGL texture loading

– Keyboard / Gamepad input

– Texture / Sprite drawing

– A 16x16px font

– A game loop

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2797357/LD19_BASE.zip

I think I will do the silly thing and find a way to adapt my idea (mining / digging / exploring / collecting game) to the theme. Seems to fit well enough!

Good chance to get hacking again. It’s been toooo loooooongggg.

My idea for the game is slowly taking shape (I’ve settled on the style, and hence the type of view). Here be a screenshot of the game so far 😛

Better game name coming soon :)

Moar screenshots to come 😀

Fourth (or fifth?) compo for me, I think the first was the 6th, and it was the one that I worked the most to finish. I tried to work as much in the other compo, but it always felt through.

So here I am, on my fourth, or maybe fifth, Ludum Dare. I should swear to finish it, but no coders can ever swear to finish a piece of code…

For the record, I’m using XNA 4.o/VSExpress 10, New Project -> Window Game.

OK. First check-in of my first LD!

My game will be a browser-based game (that was a given since that’s what I do). The basic idea is that your character is a wizard who travels around a 2-D isometric world and explores dungeons to find the lost spells of the Ancients. This is going to be a non-combat game. Your magic allows you to circumvent the various obstacles in the dungeons. When you get to the end you’ll discover more spells that can help you in other dungeons. I’m not quite clear on the “end,” but right now I’m thinking the overall goal is to make it through the dungeons to discover the Ultimate Spell or something. I’ll plotify it along the way. If I have time, I think I’ll do some stats that other players can see and take advantage of being web-based.

All I have done so far is one tile and the tile template. Using quick ugly art right now, but I have a few ideas for nicer art I’ll play with tomorrow.

An extremely modest beginning

I have a 3d cube rendering and a scripting console working (using Chaiscript). Most of this is from my basecode, but I wasn’t 100% sure the basecode would actually work, so yay!

Now to come up with an idea (this theme kinda sucks…).

Every time I go to a certain restaurant, the meal is begun with a glass of sweet mint tea. Seeing as how I have a ton of mint growing in my garden, and I need sugar and interesting consumables to keep me going for 48 hours, I thought I’d try and make it…. It’s not bad!

... is a cold glass of milo

Just got going on some prototype code…decided to make something in the console with C++ (not an artist) so I guess I’m trying to go down a different route than some people.  Last time round my entry suffered for lack of cool graphics and I’ve been teaching a lot of console based programming this year.

Splash screen, menu and general game loop/state stuff done btw

Alright, bit of a lofty concept for this LD.

Concept

Going with the theme of discovery, I figured I’d base the majority of my mechanics off of the Heroes of Might and Magic series. Players will explore a map covered in fog of war.

I’m sure I can get the hex movement down, troop management and combat. So once those are all ticked off it’s pretty much a “game”.  The twist for this Ludum Dare so it’s not completely derivative is that it will be a browser based game.

Four players will be placed into each game, games will run for a maximum of three hours.  Every five minutes a player will be able to perform actions with their towns (build new buildings) or heroes (explore the map).  Players will be able to collect resources, allies(extra troops) and treasures(items that boost the troops) as they encounter them in the map.

Each player will issue their moves during the five minute turns, their actions will resolve at the end of each turn. Combat will be automatic once heroes encounter each other on a hex.

The goal of each game will be to overcome the NPC troops at the center of the map, and obtain its horde of treasure.

Challenges

This game will be built with AS3 using PHP to make database calls.

• Finding the time to design and develop the DB structure and getting it working properly with AS3.
• Is my little tower enough of a web server to handle multiple games?
• Working with hexes and simple pathfinding.
• Simple AI in place of human players.

Initially the whole game will be single player with AI, I’m hoping thats not as far as it gets but well see how I can manage my time.

Conclusion

Probably not the most original spin on this theme, or for games like this in general. I’m not a big Evony fan, but I imagine there’s already a game out there that’s pretty similar to what I’m describing.

Regardless, I’m pumped. This is going to be a fun little design and tech challenge for the weekend!