Novice at programming, art, music.... Just about everything it takes to make a video game...
But it's done! And I know I'll be doing this again. Feels so good to see even something as buggy and simple as this to be finished...
Quite happy with the results, all things said.
(lil secret.... The sounds the little people make are the notes from that Disney ride "It's a Small World" tee hee!)
This was my first Ludum Dare and I had a great time doing it. My game is Cubeua, so try it out!
I'm not sure what to think. I'm happy, but at the same time I'm not. This is better than my last LD entry, but still not as good as I hoped it would be. Damn. At least there is some gameplay.
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/$21709
So it's been a while since I participated in Ludum Dare, it's amazing to be back. My goals this time were to have a more complete/polished game than my last entry. I'd say I 100% accomplished that, even though it's still lacking in the graphics department.
What went right: Goals Achieved! My amazing boyfriend who kept me fed, hydrated, caffeinated, and motivated throughout the weekend. Game turned out better than I'd hoped, considering I wasn't fond of the theme.
What went wrong: My computer is acting up, has been for a while, so I'm honestly surprised it didn't implode on me this weekend. It did however decide that I didn't need internet on multiple occasions, forcing me to save and restart my entire computer. (Did I mention my computer is acting up?) Restarting takes ages lately... For some reason, chronolapse won't let me encode my screenshots into a timelapse video... >.<
Various bugs popped up, these were highly stressful and time wasting occurrences, but bound to happen of course.
I managed to concept, model and animate characters, implement new gameplay features, and improve the UI. Looks like tomorrow will be audio day. I'll probably keep the menu and tutorial as simple as possible, given how little time is remaining. Overall, I am pleased with how the game is turning out. Very glad I didn't try to submit in time for compo deadline, my hat is off to those who did!
The game is functionally complete, but ugly as sin. Fortunately I am doing the Jam version and will be spending a portion of my day tomorrow cleaning up the layout (and minor grammatical errors that crop up when you're busy coding.) It doesn't look like I'll get the audio sweetening I'd like, but I'll settle for better fonts and background images that enhance my IF.
See you tomorrow!
Yay! Finished my game. Had to scrap a lot of ideas as always, and just take the shortest route to the finish. But I did finish nevertheless with a playable game with intro and outro animation. I also managed to compose my own music using Linux Multimedia Studio, which is really cool! I'm happy with the result.
Sadly some performance issues in browser. Playing the Java .jar file works best, but not everybody knows how to run it.
You can play it here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/tiny-planet-corp
"I Just Wanted Groceries" is looking good so far. Tomorrow we wrap up.
@eonarheim @kamranicus @alanag13 @seanigo
Took me a lot of hours, my weekend and my ENTIRE NIGHT, and I can't go to sleep... I'll have to wait 12 HOURS for that! Talk about not planning right my time! Any way, game is finished! (the prototype at least)!
First Ludume Dare Done! Now let's hope for a sucessfull one next time! Also, here's the link! https://jason200101.itch.io/ld38-small-derpy-world
Hey everyone! :grinning:
LD38's compo just ended, and my "Small World" entry, Gaia, is ready! Check it out here when you can!
(It works with HTML)
Will be ready tomorrow!!!....be prepared!!!
With Visionaire Studio Pro 5.0 RCO!
So its fair enough to say, this day had a lot more issues than yesterday. My teammate was caught up for a few hours, and then there was lots of confusion with codes. Not using very good source control, Google Drive, for the project has been hell. Lesson learnt, set up source control beforehand next jam.
In Regards to the game, progress made since yesterday includes:
Picking up and storing objects in inventory
Using objects and removing them from inventory
More Models/Textures
4 Puzzles completed, almost all objects added
Few things left to do, some big though, but I think we can pull it off:
Get Sounds and Music working
Texture room
2-3 puzzles left
Menus and End screen
Who knows if it all gets done, but I believe in the heart of the cards. If you could only see the mess of code I've made for interacting with objects, its horrific. All the hardcoding. I know its inefficient and there's probably better and easier ways to do it. But I don't know them yet and time is an enemy.
Final Day here we come.
A tasty sneak peek at a build earlier tonight:
Before you get any ideas, they are meant to be statues of snakes, forgive my programmer art
After some lunch I finally have the strength to write this blog post :joy:
Finally finished another Ludum Dare after two sleepless nights!! You can play my Ludum Dare 38 Entry here: https://jackyjjc.itch.io/ld38
I just finished my game, so I thought I'd post something. This probably could count as a post-mortem.
So this started a while ago, when I joined some random 23h contest for making a Comic. I kinda decided to join at the last minute, so I sketched up something in 3h.
Later on, I found that I kinda enjoyed making comic. It's a way to just put out some story with some art, with much less commitment than making a game. So I just made another comic for fun. That comic was "We Live in a Tomato".
A few weeks later, comes Ludum Dare 38. I wasn't very enthusiastic about the theme at the beginning. I did have some ideas, then suddenly I thought back about the little characters I created living in that tomato. That does qualify as a Small World. Perhaps there was something to be done there.
While I copied the art style of the comic, I had to reproduce entire new assets for the game. I first thought of several mini-games happening inside and outside the tomato. That sounded pretty ambitious to have several games in one, for a 48h project. But I just started with that.
Originally, the idea was to have the mini-games affect some kinda of game economy. Basically, the idea was to balance your resources by planing those mini-games, with things like: - Energy - Tomatoes (base resource) - Product cooked from tomato - People - Location (move the tomato at a place where there's more people)
I wasn't very clear on the economic aspect of the game, but I knew what kind of mini-games I wanted. So I started to draw several screen.
I first setup the connection to go between different screens. One thing that I struggled in the past using Flash, and that is so easy now, is keeping the memory clean between scenes. That's because a new scene is basically loading an entirely new web page.
Then I started making the platform level, and as I was struggling to getting it done, it made me realize that perhaps trying to make several mini-games during a game jam could be a terrible idea. On top of that, I wasn't really sure what was fun about my mini-game. It actually wasn't meant to be that fun, just something you had to keep doing over and over to recruit more guys.
Eventually, I just scrapped the idea of economy. I started thinking of changing the plan, turning the game into a classic point-and-click adventure, but I started having a headache thinking of all the inventory and dialog system I would have to implement, and having to come up with puzzle like "Give item A to B" or "Use X on Y"... all that stuff.
So what do I do when I don't know what to do? Just keep drawing stuff. This made me realize that the most important point of my game isn't really the fun. It was more a medium to expand on the world that I created and introduce others to it. So I kept moving on with the mini-game idea.
Eventually, I came to the point where I realized that the game had no goal. I guess it's fine to play all the mini-game, but I didn't implement any score tracking system or even a UI to show how many stuff got collected. Adding that would not only be a pain in the butt, but also, so far I managed to get away without a single piece of UI, and I kinda liked the feel of that. Just like the comic, there's no dialog, nothing to read, it's just the game.
So I came back to the idea of turning this into an adventure game, but without much puzzle or anything. It's just that solving one mini-game would unlock the next one. It's not explained clearly, so I hope players get to explore the game enough to discover that by themselves.
At the end, I shoved in an ending. There wasn't supposed to be an ending, as this was originally an economy game where you gather more resources and more people, but as an adventure game it needed some closure.
So there you have it:
:tomato: :tomato: :tomato: :tomato: :tomato: :tomato: :tomato: :tomato: :tomato: :tomato: :tomato:
Unfortunately, I could not finish in time for Compo. Tomorrow I will have little or no time to dedicate to the game so I might not even finish it in time for Jam. Anyways, I like the project and will definitely complete the project in the near future.
Congratulations to everyone that completed their games in time! And for those still working to deliver tomorrow, keep it up!
Full playthrough of my vanilla JavaScript compo Entry.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3G1P0Z9Te2E
Play it now in your browser!
It was touch and go for a while - but despite taking too long to come up with an idea, and then blowing a few hours on a false start, I got a game put together and submitted for the compo.
Like every Ludum Dare game, it could use a bit more polish, a bit more depth, and a bit more length - but I'm proud of it all the same.
Don't want to check it out just yet? Well, that's OK - here's some gameplay footage:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBq5tv-jVSU
It's now 4:30am and my mind keeps racing with what I could have done with my game. Any experienced Ludum Dare competitors got any experience with this or advice on how to deal with it for a first timer.
