Update madness 😀

• pathfinding using AStar working
• zombie and hero fight!

Initially I was super excited about the theme selection because it was my favorite in the final round of voting. Then I spent the first 12 hours doodling in my custom sprite editor and sleeping. I woke up today and started fresh. I finished the level editor and most of the main artwork. After lunch, I will be starting on physics and collision. Still hazy about where the theme fits in, but it will get there eventually!

So I’ve decided to change the name of my game from the ‘virusdanger’ to ‘Out of the desert’.

There are three keys, and three sections of the screen to touch.  The characters will all be drawn with lines, and geometry made of lines: beziers, rectangles, triangles as well as circles.

I don’t know javascript all that well, or newer versions of opengl so webgl is tough one to deal with.  I’m making progress.  My game is going to be a first person platformer.  How well it turns out depends on how far I get today.  I just about have the models of the game world objects done.  They aren’t fancy.  I have most of the code for moving around as well.  Once I get all that straight I’ll have to get some simple physics in place.  Then it will be a push to set up some abstraction so that I can script out my levels.  If I get all that done before bed then tomorrow will just be level design and play testing.  I’m hoping I’ll have time to add in niceties like sound and hopefully a tie into the theme.  Anyways, thats where I’m at.

I finally managed to make those bi-arrays work. So, now, corridor generation is working, though I do have to tweak it a bit, I’ve got to reimplement border generation, and then start the core gameplay.

I don’t think I’ll manage to finish but I’ll try, I’m so far behind…

Here’s a screen for you : the green square is the starting point. It’s chosen randomly in one room. The objective square (red) will be in randomly in another room.

Breakthrough

So I missed the first 11hrs while sleeping. I did read the theme before conking out though, and when I woke up, I had my idea ready. Basically, it’s a cave platformer, but you have a ‘device’ that flips your gravity. So you can walk on the ceiling or on the floor. The cave you are in and must exit is full of lava, spiders, slimes, crabs and bottomless and topless chasms.

So after 3 hrs, I have all of my sprites drawn and am working on the code. ONWARDS!

So, we are about 15 hours into the LD now, and I’ve made a little something to demonstrate the concept of my game.

You are a dude, and you’re dropped in a map littered with zombies. But before you go, take this! it’s an <effect> <ammo type> <guntype>.

Yeah, that’ll get you through the night!

'Heavy Bomb Machinegun'.. Nice!

The idea is that you get a weird new weapon every night. A burning fish shotgun or a  piercing zombie pistol for example.

Here’s a .rar with an example:

http://mc.glutt.us/upload/spud.rar

Controls are wasd for moving, Q for the next weapon and Z for zombies, aim with the mouse.

I’m making Oden!

Time to work my ASS off! I need this engine SPARKLING by tonight.

All the base elements are finally in place. The rest, as they say, is polish and  – well – art assets.

The title screen of ZRW

I think I might actually keep the title image…

Safehouse stage

The basic intentions here are in place. Need polish and flash and pazaz.

The game in action

Again, art is not my forte and the only three things I like about this image are the boards on the window (left – look nice an pixelated), the combination with real-life photos and the absolutely ludicrous notion of riding a sheep through a horde of zombies.

I’ll focus on the four item types, make about 12 different items for starters, and then look into the assets. Finally, code polish.

It’s a little lonely down here in the game dev bunker sometimes. But, if you want the fruits that come along with makinge games like it’s the end of the world, you must strictly adhere to the concept of there being no one left but you and lots of radiation.

You have to want brains, if you are ever going to eat them.

So the agenda for today is fleas. I am very tempted to work on blood effects, since I will have tiny zombified fleas in search of brains. If you are gnawing through a human noggin, blood is going to happen.

But, first i think i need to focus on their motivation. If they never have a unquenchable thirst for brains, they will not likely become ravenous enough to make this game worthwhile for the gaming community. So I will first create a victim class, who will be a shape of little definition. I will place a boolean property in the class named “hasBrains”, and I will most assuredly make sure that the flea class is capable of knowing the status of said variable.

I am thinking to start that I will focus on just having them use proximity to a brain carrier to determine their likelyhood of attacking.

Now… fully rested, I am feeling confident that I can train fleas to like brains. There are so many things i thought about while drifting off to sleep last night. One being — should I go with sloped terrain ? or a tile engine ? I’m leaning towards sloped, but… but we shall see.

I’ve scoped out more of the competition today as well. My opinion is they seem far too comfortable to be successful in this environment. I like imagining them OUTSIDE this bunker in the radiation. I see pictures of food that’s nicely prepared and laid out on a table with napkins and silverware. This kind of imagery has no place in game development, you need hunger. You need whats at the end of the journey — that’s what you are fighting for. Beer is only allowed because it can help temper the pain of serious game development.

So keep eating your muffins and other baked goods i say. Keep taking a timeout to stir fry some healthy food. Keep on taking pictures of your spreads of various delectables. Have you ever seen a picture of shigeru miyamoto with a fork and knife in his hands or with crumbs on his shirt ??? cmon people. You guys are making zelda clones with a fork and spoon.. this man paved the way by resisting such things. So while you are churning out another zelda, this man is going delirious from hunger and coming up with another stellar concept for you to copy!!!

Ok, if I don’t stop here, I’ll most likely be blatantly trolling again in no time. — by the way, is it trolling if you post taunts in your own updates… as opposed to as a comment on someone elses post ? I should probably not risk it, but I’m so close to calling out some of these meal driven developers. waka – waka.

no forks.. no crumbs.. very slim. food doesn't drive this man!

Well it’s about 4 hours in and we’ve got an idea, and some basic game stuff.

Goddamn Concept art.

Silly drawing

First printscreen.

the dude lives!

After eating a delicious pizza, of which I sadly don’t have pics, I’m now going to continue with the ‘puzzle’ in this room. Anyway, so far I’ve created the crusher enemy, which will crush you, and am now working on the first item you can carry and ‘use’, which is needed to get the hero out of this room.

All is going well but I think I’m going to have a hard time coming up with levels eventually. But still, so far, so good! Also, I planned on making the hero sort of smart and allowing him to do things, but maybe it’ll be even more fun if the hero is completely stupid and oblivious to what happens, like a true escort quest. But maybe that gets too frustrating, so I probably won’t do that.

Hi all,

This is what I have so far… I’ve been working on an isometric engine

I just read another post and there is another old school isometric game in the contest… good luck!!

After breakfast of course.

I’ve just come back from a walk. Here in Cambridge, a beautiful spring afternoon is coming to a close, and I couldn’t justify staying inside for all of it.

Anyway, my game is sort of coming along. You play an adventurer about to embark on a dangerous quest. A helpful but questionably sane old man of your acquaintance finds himself unable to allow you to proceed without first furnishing you with various enchanted items that may be of assistance. So, he keeps chucking useful items in your direction and you have to try to keep hold of them. If you drop one, the enchantment breaks and the item explodes and kills you horribly.

So far I have some items falling from the sky and some deliberately arcadey physics, but it is neither finished nor playable yet.

“It is dangerous to go alone,” he said.  “Take this.”

The little red heart is pretty, but I don’t remember how it works.

Hey! That guy has a sword.

I’m not sure if I will be able to do what I want… but anyway… that’s what I got so far

I am making progress now. I made the text boxes, a lot of sprites  and came up with a name for the game. Now I am going to do a lot more rooms, obstacles and enemies and after that there is maybe still some time to make a boss fight.

This also explains the story of my game and the use of the theme. 8 ó clock here. Just had some diner, and of course I made a picture. (A)

Got the menu-graphics and story ready. Oh – and animated character sprites 😀 (I never did any animation before so I’m quite happy I finished one which looks good – YAY) All text is hand-written because standard fonts are just too boring. Game Engine is also finished so far – time to create some interesting levels.

It's dangerous indeed

Spent yesterday evening coming up with a concept and knocking out some pixel art.

This morning I’ve been working on platforming. I’ve now got a tile-based map with a little dude running around and pixel-colliding pretty nicely.

Dinner last night was Baja White Sea Bass: