Going with the year 1888 for a steampunk-ish gmae.  The west was won on the backs of spring-powered flying cowboys.  Yeup.

Anyways, have a game that’s been done loads of times in my mind, with a fun twist!  Been playing along with my companies’ players.  Me and my Fiance are streaming and chatting with them as we go and it’s been a much more relaxed, fun, and energetic experience then my last Ludum Dare that was a big ball of stress.  Ended up having to go with AS2, as a lot of my code samples and examples are on a computer I forgot to bring home with me, and my environment wasn’t as configured as I thought it was.  Oh well.  The game’s going to be simple enough that it should be fine in AS2.  It’s all about the polish and getting the physics to FEEL right, even if they’re completely smoke and mirrors.

My turn! This is the first LD I’ve ever participated in, but I’ll save my introduction for your reading pleasure at my real blog.

I’m working on this with two other people and we were so convinced we came up with a good idea. I was too, until I saw another steampunk platformer. =P

Regardless, I’m sure we’ll come up with something at least mildly interesting. =D

Interesting thoughts and junk after the break.

As I mentioned, this is the first Ludum Dare of any sort I’ve ever participated in. I’m majoring in Computer Science but I currently don’t have a lot of experience in game development. Yes, that is part of the reason I’m entering LD in the first place. =)

We are indeed attempting a steampunk platformer, but there are various reasons that I think I won’t get the game done this first time around:

• Awesome teammates, but our schedules differ a bit and we won’t be developing past Saturday night simply because we have lives to live. Ok, more like homework to do. >_>
• I haven’t started any coding yet and I probably won’t be able to do any until 5:30 pm tomorrow.

Well, I suppose I should rephrase my earlier statement. I don’t think we’ll complete it to the extent we had planned this time around. A few ideas are floating around in my head now for finishing the game quicker, so we should still have something come tomorrow night. Very possibly early Sunday. Enough babble, time for me to get some sleep!

I’ve actually got a demo working now!

You can walk around and fire your gun! No sounds yet, though…

Controls:

• Move – Arrows or WASD
• Aim – Move Mouse
• Fire Gun – Left Click

If you like, you can play it on SwfCabin here. (I would have put it on DropBox, but DropBox seems to be having some kind of weird problems right now, so SwfCabin will have to do :()

Here’s a screenie:

Not much to look at yet...

Going with a springy grappling-hook platformer style game.

Using chingu this time around, it’s pretty neat so far.

Picture time!

I’ve decided that I have a few goals for today. Hopefully, I can get all of these done by tonight.

Firstly, I want to have some kind of baddies that will stagger up to you and hit you. They should also die when shot.

Secondly, I want to have more than one weapon. Probably a machine gun, a shotgun, and a high-powered rifle in addition to the pistol.

Third, I want health powerups and player death. That’s pretty crucial, and may come before multiple weapons.

I can probably pull those few things off, I think. Given that, I’ve got a large portion of my game right there! 😀

I’m very optimistic. (Call me Pollyanna if you will…)

— Mr. Dude

Alright! So I have done the first graphical asset! An idle firefighter, aka you, once you’ll play the game. 😀

The game revolves around the huge explosion that happened in Halifax in 1917. You not only need to put out fires with a limited amount of water, but also you need to save all the civilians that you can. Doing so will rise your Courage meter, that goes down over time. Once you don’t have anymore courage or water, you lose. It might be a game with no end, the goal being to get the highest score possible determined by time.

Next up : animating the firefighter, then some gameplay, then some more assets, then sound effects, then music, then title screen.

I’ve decided that I want to enjoy the weekend more than I want to do a super-ambitious game. So with that being said I’m scaling back my idea.

I’ve settled on the following:

The soviet union has released a virus into the wilderness around Flint, Michigan that has turned hundreds of people into zombies. The player is a commando in the Michigan Militia, which has been contracted by the local authorities to deal with the monsters.

The player will fight through a series of “sectors” each of which has a given number of zombies. When the player has killed all of the zombies, they can move to the next area.

In each area, the player will have two weapons, one main weapon and their pistol. The main weapon will be chosen before the player enters each sector, and can be either:

• An assault rifle
• A shotgun
• A high-powered rifle

And you keep fighting and fighting, and eventually the zombies kill you and you presumably become one of them. There you go.

That’s the extent of my game for the Mini-LD. I can easily have this done by the deadline. 😀

Peace

— Mr. Dude

So, im not even sure what i was doing with this,

I implemented all my gameplay features FIRST this time, and then made a mockup (above). You can open in a new tab to see full size, i dont know how to link images without it failing on this blog

The concept

You control the world, not the ‘character’. The character will move automatically and you need to use the platforms, selected with the blue bar, to get him to his goals.

The video

Here is a progress video of the gameplay working but its really no fun, going to redo/rethink it entirely if need be.

Comments and ideas welcome!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cczFE2hY78s

Tags: Mini Ld 23

First round of a working demo of the game…

http://ebilgeek.com/mld23/thebouncything.html

It’s more fun then I’d have expected it to be.  It also nails the being instantly engaging goal I had.  It’s a LOT of fun already.  I need to add a few more bits to the engine to make it a…game… limit their springs and add the ability to get more.  The progress is good though, even if the minigame is very simple.

I did use some base code for physics.  Base code that I’m not going to be able to share (boo!) but code that I actually wrote for my company to do some basic trajectory pathing.  I’m sure I could have re-wrote it, but AS2 tends to handle angles a bit…backwards and I remember going crosseyed the first time I messed with Math.atan so would rather copy/paste then spend 4 hours frustrated again.

The art will be replaced, and I’m actually going to try for sound effects this time.

Click Here for an MP3. Be warned though, you will (most likely) either love it or hate it. Hopefully the former, though the latter is more likely.

Things are going a bit slow here, but I’m making some progress. I’ve got a man running around pushing boxes, and you can check out the current version here.

I’ve got some progress tor report! After a day of goofing off in IRC, I’ve finally got actual baddies working!

Right now, they can’t hurt you, and they just march mindlessly toward you.

I’ve got the demo up on my Dropbox here.

Peace

— Mr. Dude

Ok, here we go! My first post for miniLD#23! I choose the year 1871 and the game is about the great fire of chicago. You are (or let’s say will) control the Springman, the only guy who is able to jump over fire spots with springs under  your feet. Your task will be to save people somehow. Actually I didn’t think that far. When everything works I will create an android game out of this. At the moment you can just jump through a little level using box2d. Have a look

1871 – The Big Fire

I was really hoping to get more done today. I really was.

That being said, I have something that resembles a “game”. You can run around and kill zombies, even though the zombies can’t kill you.

Save for a sudden burst of motivation, I’m calling it a day. Tomorrow, I hope to turn this into a real game.

Regardless of that, a post-compo version is certainly looking good. It’s a fun concept, and one that shouldn’t take that long after the end of Mini-LD to polish into a finished game.

Here’s hoping…

— Mr. Dude

I just want to say… collision detection is really annoying. It’s finally working now, albiet a bit hack-y.

Anywho, here you can see the little robot in spring-swinging action. It’s actually a little fun to fly around using the grappling hook, although you can slide and hop around as in most platformers. My thought for gameplay is that you will have to pick up crates, while carrying a crate you can only move via grappling hook, you must deposite crate into… crate… depository…

…yes.

pics!

Alright. So today, I’ve done assets and animation (player, fire, skeletal remains, brick house backdrop and part of the HUD).

Todo list for tomorrow :

• Shoot water from gun
• Extinguish fire with water
• Civilians to save
• Time tracking / score
• Update of the HUD
• A basic level design
• Sounds
• Music

Nice to have :

• Objects
• Objects on fire
• Topdown view where you choose the building you want to rescue, like a hub of some sorts
• An intro animation, with the cargo ships

Alright, good work everyone!

Ok, actually I’m quite statisfied. Got my engine and blender->libgdx/box2d level/editor/pipeline running. Tomorrow I can concentrate on some gameplay elements. Everything is a bit slow! Have to think how to get this faster… Have a look in the video:

or if you want to you can try it on your android-phone (2.2). Here is the apk:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/11752001/1871-TheBigFire.apk

Adios and cu tomorrow

1773 is coming along great. I’ve spent waaay too much time just playing with the physics and toppling over piles of redcoats. I’ve got them shooting bullets, and first up tomorrow I need to make contact with the bullets or the redcoats kill the player. After that I just need to finish my slidekick mechanic and hopefully make it so you can crush redcoats under boxes. Then refine the spring board and scoring system. Then polish! Looks like it’ll be a long day.

The demo in my dropbox has been updated and is available here.

Hello again!

This is actually reaching the point where it feels like a game (rather than an exercise is random development).

You can run & hop around, as well as use the grappling hook. I spent some time refining the springy-ness of the hook and it helped a ton, still needs work though. There are now crates placed throughout the level, which you can pick up. While carrying a crate you move much slower, and can’t really jump (like 2 pixels high). You can, however, use the grappling hook to move around quickly. I’m thinking there could be some neat gameplay there, easily get to a crate, then figure out how to get out carrying it. After grabbing the crate, you must bring it back to the crate drop area (which shows a count-down of how many needed to beat the level).

After thinking about it a bit, I’m not sure they should be crates. Because I mean… who really cares about crates? Maybe they should be kittens, or chinchillas, assorted cute furry animals? Perhaps they all got loose in 2110 and it’s your job to save them? Hmm… perhaps…

TODO:

• Help / Instructions panels for intro level
• Sound effects
• Music
• More tile types
• Design a few levels
• Make it so after beating a level, it advances to the next
• Perhaps change crates into adorable pixely kittens

Screenshot time!

Any comments, questions, suggestions, or random statements are much appreciated.

Thanks!

It’s done! After working on it at an airport, on a plane, and finally at a hotel, I’m posting my game. At first I didn’t think I would have time this weekend to do the MiniLD, but it turns out I had more than enough even while travelling.

(I probably was only able to finish this game because it was incredibly simple, but still.)

Read it upside down calculator style. Except right side up.

You can go here to play 0xC0A57ED on Kongregate.

(Rule-following is as follows:
Year as title: it’s set in year 0xC0A57ED, so far in the future that we use hexadecimal for years.
Spring physics: the movement and connection between you and the squares seems like a spring, even though it isn’t really. Let’s just say they are year 0xC0A57ED hyper-springs.)