I'm pretty sure I haven't focused this long in a really long time. I guess that's a good thing :P But starting to feel it already.

PROGRESS!
http://imgur.com/XPFPblV.png

And by that I mean horrid developer graphics. But that's ok.

Started with first idea that came to my mind! Oh well, so it be!

I'm doing the 72hr Jam with some friends! Our tools:

Game Engine: Unity

Art: Adobe Photoshop

Animation: Spriter

Audio: FL Studio

Others: Trello, Dropbox, GIFcam

and lots of coffee!

I find that what I've just done with Ludum Dare is pretty terrible. I have placed all this stress upon my head and I don't have half the knowledge I thought I did. I had a good idea but nothing to show. I don't want to give myself grey hairs at this age.

Trying to do something like weird tower defense. Settlement on the whale. In a dark medieval style. Clay graphics, as usual. http://imgur.com/a/21rV3 :whale:

Aaaand again! My least favourite theme won! :D But i think after some :coffee: with :milk: i will :soon: figure something!

But now something about me!

My tools!

• Game Maker Studio 2
• BFXR and freesfx.com for SFX
• Music Maker Jam and/or freemusicarchive.org for music
• Pyxel edit and paint.net (maybe little bit of gimp or blender. Depends on style) for graphic.

I don't have much time for this LD, but I think I've got something workable. I'll see what happens and what I'm able to make in the time I have.

Finally figured out what I want to try to make, hooray! I'm gonna try using Ren'py - which I've attempted and failed with before. Presumably I'll also end up using GIMP and possibly Inkscape in this process. If I get far enough to worry about audio, I'll figure out what to use for that later. Gonna try to get an hour or so of work done before I pass out for tonight.

I just can't think straight, and I'm sure thats mainly because I didn't get much sleep over the week anyway (school and all that) So I'm just going to call it quits tonight, even though I really wanted to finish the framework for my game. At this rate I may have to enter the jam. Anyway, good night, Imma grab a quick few hours, maybe take a shower, and start again. Cya later.

Here's one you'd never guess unless you had to do art:

Big, flat, realistic looking ant mandibles look wrong and stupid on a low poly model. Skinny, curved, pointy, cartoon style mandibles look great.

Go figure...

On a related note, I've spent far too many hours looking at ant faces close up tonight. Gonna have nightmares.

As is my usual approach, I'm devoting Friday night to figuring out what my design plan is. My goal is to do something different from my LD#23 entry, and so while it's tempting to make a sequel to it in Pico-8, I'm committing instead to the Dodecahedron Plan. In a sense, a dodecahedron is the smallest possible "hex map" of a spherical world. It's got compelling graph connectivity properties; it's a good comfortable size - snug, but not cramped, in terms of where one can put game objects; pentagons are approximately circular. There's lots to like about dodecahedra. (Did you know that if you inscribe a dodecahedron in a sphere, it takes up more of the sphere's volume than a similarly inscribed icosahedron?)

Now how the heck do I model this thing in a game? Perhaps I should start by considering its dual, the icosahedron, which has the game-useful property of describing the connectivity of a dodecahedron's faces. Much to ponder.

It's way later than I expected (2:30 AM, local time), but it will payoff...

I was able to finally flesh out my original idea into something I know how to implement! The elevator pitch would go something like this:

Artist travels the world seeking inspiration and find unexpected links with admired people. It's a small world, after all.

It will play out as a side-scroller adventure. The player has to explore the world looking for interesting people and artifacts. Eventually, they will also come across relevant buildings (e.g., school they went to) or books.

Any relevant thing the player interacts with will be added to their Adventure Log. As stuff is added to the log, links between them are created. The objective is to connect interesting art to their creator and then connect to creator to the player (e.g., a cool statue made by a person that lives close to the player, or a interesting painting made by someone who attended the same school as the player).

When the player find everything, go back to their house or leave the game, they will be awarded a score and a flavor text about how small the world is.

Now, to get some sleep so I can scope this into something doable...

Aaaand again! My least favourite theme won! 😀 But i think after some with i will figure something!

But now something about me!

My tools!

• Game Maker Studio 2
• BFXR and freesfx.com for SFX
• Music Maker Jam and/or freemusicarchive.org for music
• Pyxel edit and paint.net (maybe little bit of gimp or blender. Depends on style) for graphic.

ORIGINAL POST ON LDJAM SITE Please consider making updating posts here too!

After a slow start, I've got something * *slimy ** cooking:

https://media.giphy.com/media/3oKIPv7ThMbL5QYv6g/giphy.gif

With the theme being "A Small World" I immediately thought of that famous quote from Neil Armstrong,

"It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn’t feel like a giant. I felt very, very small."

My idea is to do a lunar lander type game, where you land on the surface of the moon then get out, plant the flag, and then look up at the Earth and stick your thumb over it.

Alright, so the first day is wrapping up for me. So far, I've gone and prototyped several game ideas, and none seem to really hit the mark. I'm just going to choose one and go with it. So far all I've made is an inventory system and a couple of animations. Hopefully I'll find a bit of motivation over the next couple of days.