7 am… think i better get to sleep. made some progress. tried adding in message boxes, but it still needs some work. it’s super spaghetti code to the extreme, but it’s something. i have a feeling i won’t get much more done the rest of the weekend. i really should be working on my two final projects instead!
I always wanted to try this. No idea about how this could fit into the theme, but I will figure out something…
nothing awesome but still ….. SHMUP
I was hoping for the given theme to the extent of giving off a hollow and resounding “wooot!” as I read across the lines of my browser.
The theme immediately conjures up two strong elements and lets me segway into a third:
I figured this theme would be an excellent starting point to create a small game that critisizes the over-usage of the zombie theme in games over the past couple of years. In my opinion the commercial PC game market has become just a tad flooded with zombie shooters. Just a tad, mind you. We haven’t quite reached the level of genre-rape that constituted the WWII games of the last decade and the Guitar Hero license misuse of Activision over the last five years, but there are quite a few games with, shall we say, “overlapping” elements?
The third thing that I figured was that the theme itself suggests a caricature of these games, the following of a standardised formula with few to no variations on content to move gameplay out and forwards. This will be a point of contention as well.
The game itself will be very simple, following this genre bastardisation: zombie-runner-ware. Zombies. Runner games (ala Canabalt). And Warioware (heck yeah!).
This, at least, is the current idea. 😛
I HAVE AN IDEA (and I can finally draw some text/lines on screen)
The game is an abstract ‘shooter’ (slingshotter?)
You are given 1 triangle to fire (click+drag) use it wisely.
Well, the theme is – quite literally – a joke, so I’m adapting my favourite concept (was hoping Climbing or Colossal would win), which was a tower-climbing game. But it IS dangerous to go alone.
I might introduce an AI character so you’re NOT alone, as in Ico or the Prince of Persia second reboot (the toon-shaded one). But that will be a HELL of a lot of work, so you may just end up being given a useful tool instead.
It’s gonna be hard to ensure that my procedurally-generated tower is in fact climbable, so an alternative could be having the old man pop up providing “cheat” items when you get stuck halfway up the tower. Er…old men can levitate, you know. My grandad does it all the time.
My game is called Non-Solus. It is a game about friendship and reunion.
Here’s some of my sprites that I’ve made for it so far:
After spending a fair amount of time slowing down other contestants, I continued to execute my gameplan by prototyping a flea. Since fleas are the central focus of the game, you have to go the extra mile in terms of visuals. I’m pretty happy with the results. Now it’s a matter of sitting back and letting them multiply..you can’t control these beasts.. f*** cockroaches, they eat crap off the floor.. fleas are all about taking your lifesource away..the blood. vampires of the insect world. doesn’t get any more evil than that.
You’ve seen one… but once you learn about the reproductive rate of a zombified flea.. you are going to begging for a slow ass zed in your nightmares. Takes a zombie forever just to walk across a yard, but by the time a zombie flea has bit you and jumped to the next victim.. there’s a dozen eggs laying around. I think the zombification like beefs up fertility. go figure. George Romero didn’t tell you about that shit, cause he knew you needed sleep.
I might eventually break out some 3d fleas after the competition. Just not sure the game engine can handle all the triangles i’d need to push these babies through the graphics pipeline!
prototyping a zombified flea takes patience. handled with care...
As the compo starts 4 am for us lucky Europeans I was planning to wake up really, really early. As it often is with these things… It doesn’t really work quite well. But I did wake up somewhere between 6 and 7, which is a real feat for a night owl like me!
I’ve made a lot, a lot of progress actually. I made the bulk of the code for an isogrid (admittedly I had made something really similar for a previous unfinished game which makes it pretty damn easy) and now I have a working grid.. err it looks like a grid at least lol.
Naturally I messed up my timelapse script (I didn’t start it lol, and there was a fault in it). But now it should be fixed!
Now we’re soon going on a shopping spree but before then I hope I can get some more work done!
The competition started 04:00 local time and it’s now 08:15 – I’m still half asleep and I have no idea what kind of game to make out of this theme… going to go have breakfast somewhere and stock up on supplies while I try to come up with an idea…
In the meanwhile here’s picture of my chaotic little workspace:
I really don’t like posting until I’m done with the game, because I don’t like spoilers. I’m going to try it this time anyway. Fortunately the title screen isn’t much of a spoiler (especially with out the interactivity) and it’s pretty much all I got done so far (except for writing a theme song), so:
Priority Cats: It's dangerous to go alone. Take sis!
So, since my last post, my idea hasnt changed much; Your girl gets kidnapped by a big monster, and your task is to rescue her, and on the way kill many other monsters. The trick is, monsters dont like water! so your friend gives you a watergun to kill thoose bastards! (or just scare them out..)
Basic sketch drawing in a paper gave me a little idea: To draw everything in paper and then colour it on Photoshop! Here’s the result:
Pretty much what i had in mind while drawing, so, yay!
I guess thats it for the moment, the basic platform engine is done, i need to make the jump animations, scan a few mosnters (or maybe just draw them on pc, what gives) and im ready to start making the story!
G2g to watch something, see ya!
<upon reading the theme>
“Wow, this theme sucks.”
<Upon coming up with an idea>
“Wow, this theme is awesome.”
Okay, so i’ve got an idea for this one. Expect plenty of lasers, and some sort of cloning mechanic.
-DBS
I was initially stuck for ideas. Then I decided to make a little Zelda-style dungeon! Very simple. I shall steal ideas from Cleopatra in Spaaace liberally.
This is going to be Ludum… Wait for it… Darey.
It’s 8:15 am and I’ve finished a basic concept sketch – I’m gonna make a classic side-scrolling beatemup with a special twist: player can make clones of his hero using a magic item.
The funny thing is, all the clones have the magic item as well, so every time you use it, the hero count doubles – growing not linearly, but exponentially. Imagine 256 heroes, each of them obeying your commands simultaneously:)
Here is my concept sketch:
I’m quite happy for the selected theme, because I would hate to make the make the evolution game (which is largely over-used IMO) – evolution ended up 2nd.
Good luck to you all, fellow LDers!
Tags: concept
Sheep are so unhappy when they’re alone. ANYTHING COULD HAPPEN.
Not totally sure this game idea will work out, but it will be fun to find out. It’s my first LD, btw. Using Monocle.
Well, after a brief bit of alarm at not knowing what to do with the theme, I’ve decided on something I think is pretty cool. I’m going for the traditional top-down RPG hack n slash with a twist – the player controls the “this”, a magical sword, leading around the oafish hero and trying not to get him killed.
I’ll probably just stay with FlashDevelop and TweenLite for this, but perhaps use flixel for some of the utility functions, but I will keep the list updated as I progress.
Right now though, It’s about 8.30 AM South African time and I woke up about an hour ago, so I’m going to put in a bout of preemptive procrastination by doing things like showering and eating. Then on to more planning and getting levels and sword control going.
Good luck all!
Using my custom 2d lib written on SDL and OpenGL
Visible here: http://michaelhamilton.com (the 2d library)
Not 100% sure I’ll have something by the end of the competition, but I’m posting this now because it was in the rules to mention it early.
Here is my forgotten concept art i drew for this, with my two ideas:
-JaydenB
-Idea 1 (what i’m not using but want to and might end up using)
-Idea 2 (what i am currently using but the zombies are being a pain in the butt)
I’ve got my mini-map working and added perlin noise generated terrain so it’s not so useless, still needs tweaking but I can move on.
