After some research, I found that I need to format my game so it can be played on computers without MonoGame installed. I think I found a solution, but I can't test it, because obviously I have MonoGame installed. I know its a big ask, but could someone maybe try this test (Not my Ludum Dare submission)?
https://speedysloth.itch.io/test-game?secret=GHfz5H02WIPTfNf0QaB2hdzj0
I have core mechanics, which are pretty fun (that suprised me). Time to add boss (one or three i'm not sure yet), few more enemies, level design, sounds, background, menus, music and everything! Still 18 hours to go, so I think i'll be able to make most of this stuff!
This is what happens when your jam playlist is mostly 80's synth music:
Neeeeooooooonnnnn. ...ok, this is also what happens when you're overly tired, so I say Goodnight to you! Or good morning...? Good something to you.
I've just began to draw everything in the game... So that's what it looks like at the moment. Next step is to draw the player and the client, and maybe change the color fo the buttons so the player know that's a button.
I just showed my family the last two scenes I added and I spotted a lot of errors, mainly with scenes not connecting properly, objects being at positoins they shouldn't be, objects not being removed after the scene changes, ect.
Also a minor amount of spelling mistakes (which is suprizing, I expected at least ten times more than that!)
Now all of the game object bugs are fixed, and the spelling is the only thing left! (Well, that, and half more scenes AND music. If time runs too low I'll just skip music. Probably for the best)
This GIF will tell about my progress...
So, we're past the halfway mark for the compo, and I'm guestimating that my game is too!
The core gameplay is done and scoring system in place.
All that it needs now is pollish on all aspects. As I'm using placeholder artwork and there are no sounds, music or menus.
I plan on staying up late all the way into the submission hour. For me, that's at 3 am, so I wonder how I'll cope...
@trulyspinach
Overslept, which means... 17 hours left to finish enemies and ai. This should be doable! I hope.
Heya! A quick update to start off day 2 of the jam.
I didn't manage to get as far as I wanted yesterday, I wanted to have the core mechanics of the game up and running before tuning out, so that I could concentrate on the squishies t'day (music, graphics and content creation). But alas I need to get some of the basics done some more, will try to get something up and running by lunchtime, and then do 1h of music and sound before I go into the last stage of polish.
I thought maybe this was a good time to list the tools I use for the jam as well.
Graphics: Photoshop CC + Wacom Intuos Pro Small
Music: Ableton Live 9 Studio + AKAI LPK25
Sound: SFXR
Code: Atom.io
Language: JavaScript
Lib: Phaser
And here's a shot of the morning scene here in Östersund, coffee and Swedish snuff is on the menu as you can see
Soo! The first day of LD39 has gone by and despite being incredibly doubtful I'd make ANY progress at all in my first game jam, I'm actually quite happy with the current state of the project. First things first, though.
To be honest, I wasn't a huge fan of the chosen theme at first. I guess the whole "running out of power" thing just lends itself a little bit to well to the idea of "just" having another time limit in your game. Nevertheless at first I came up with three different ideas: - a coffee simulator, where you just have to get through your work day by brewing the best coffee imaginable - a kind of puzzle platformer where every move you make gets weaker as you constantly lose energy - a twitch platformer where the levels and enemies will change depending on the lights being on or off
In the end, thanks to the input of my lovely Twitch chat (the whole shebang was live streamed after all), I basically decided on a mix between the puzzle and the twitch platformer.
So! Meet the Hyper Battery Girl: Batty Ree!
The current idea is to have the main character be able to accumulate an store energy when running over charging panels and using this energy up to do special moves and attacks to progress through the stage. When you run out of energy or overcharge too much, you die.
So, the game! As stated in my very first blog post, I'm using Game Maker Studio 2 for the project. Besides my own set of helper scripts (for managing sprites, state machines and controls, as well as some smaller convenience scripts) I'll avoid any external resources or libraries.
The game revolves around really tight physics and fast platforming. As such, getting the physics just right took a big chunk of the tight schedule! In the end, I'm sure it will be worth it though. I'm quite happy with the current (though unfinished) flow of the controls.
After getting the really basic prototype to work, it was time to start on creating a few assets. I'm not really a composer nor a sprite artist, so that whole thing took probably longer than it should've, but hey ¯_(ツ)_/¯. For the sprites I used Aseprite, an absolutely amazing tool for doing pixel art! Most sprites and tiles are only 8x8 px so the whole creation process wasn't too much of a headache. Still took my talentless butt a really long while to finish, haha!
For the music I decided to go with beepbox.co. I first tried to make something work with one of those music generators but I was never happy with the outcome. So I went to beepbox and just threw a quick tune together, which will be the main track playing throughout the game.
Finally, I thought it was an amazing idea to start debugging my code in the middle of the night. It worked out well, but I guess I'll need a lot of coffee today.
You know, to not run out of energy! Nyehehehehehehehe... sorry.
Anyway! GIFs! Progress! Here you go: (note that everything is still in a rough state)
http://i.imgur.com/sn16ZoC.gifv (as a link since the GIF was too big for this upload :|)
Now on to Day 2! Time to finalize and polish everything! o/
What old Flash game is infamous for "running out of power"?
You guessed it. Have some screenshots. <3
I'm doing a thing where aside from the normal fuel gauge that comes down fast, you can't see a lot when you're far underground. Turn on a flashlight to see more, at the cost of lots of power. Maybe that's good enough for the theme? I dunno.
Things left to do: nice distribution of minerals, win/lose conditions, some sound effects hopefully.
Alright, I need a change of pace, so figured I'd write one of these. I'll be entering the Jam, second time doing this thing solo. Doing a visual novel again this time around, but this time I'm going to make it more of a Choose your on Adventure type of thing with lots of choices. My game is going to be about the player on the phone with a loved on and passing the time by making up stories until the phone battery dies. As each choice is selected, a sketchy version of the story appears on the page. I plan on having some story that's going on behind the scenes, but not 100% certain how it'll turn out, so guess I'll find out when the jams almost over! Last time, I ran out of time to finish my art, so I'm hoping that won't happen again! Here's a quick mock up though.
And check if this repo:
https://Hilvon@bitbucket.org/Hilvon/ld39repo.git
is publicly visible? It's the fist time I set up a public repo in bitBucket and I don't want to eff it up.
This morning has been somewhat productive. @chaotikza found a tutorial on adding some effects using vanilla Audacity to make our voices sound a lot more synthesized. I think the results were great! Go to the links below to have a quick listen.
https://soundcloud.com/user-913277687/cyberwiztest https://soundcloud.com/user-913277687/chaotikzatest
While my cousin is working on implementing our battle mechanic I'm writing some dialog to be recorded and used within the game.
Progress is going great on my game. I'm aiming for 1.5 more levels and some final polish stuff, but want to do more if I have the time. The amount of Martian references I've been making while working on this is driving anyone I talk to slightly mad.
I'm really happy with the way this is looking so far, it took a while to get the feel right but its definitely moving in the right direction. A few areas are still looking a little unfinished, but i still have 17 more hours, so thats plenty of time, right? ...right?
Lots still to do, but first I must sleep.
This will not cause any problems at all, eh?
A quick tip if you didn't already know:
Make pre-defined rooms so you don't have to re-build them piece by piece and instead just add rooms to the connectors!
Time to start on the map and art :P
Give him a pillow.
I STARTED 12 HOURS AFTER THE THEME WAS ANNOUNCED (BECAUSE OF SCHOOL WORKS)
AND ILL BE FINISHING IT EARLY 2 HOURS BEFORE THE COMPO END (ALSO BECAUSE I STILL HAVE ALOT OF SCHOOL WORKS)
I HOPE YOU GUYS WILL LIKE MY SIMPLE GAME. GOODLUCK FOR EVERYONE AND HAVE FUN!