LD21 August 19–22, 2011

Not enough time for the miniLD

Well, I was planning on doing something for this mini compo, but real life caught up with me. With half of my Saturday gone and almost all my Sunday taken up, I pretty much got nothing done.

I was planning to make a text adventure game (old-school, think Zork) in Inform 7. In my idea for the game, the player is in an old hotel which has lost it’s electricity. There is also an unspecified monster in the room next door, which will eventually wander around after the player.

Well, that was the plan. I ran into some problems early on, which, when combined with the burden of real life, kept me from finishing in time. My next couple of days look busy too, so probably no real development time there either.

Sorry I couldn’t finish. I think I will continue to work on the idea sometime, and will make absolutely sure I have time to compete in LD #22!

Good luck to everyone else!

48 hours down, no game

So, I didn’t manage to produce a finished game within the timeframe of 48 hours. In that sense, this miniLD was a “fail” for me.

I did however manage to make something which I think has some potential. I think I’ll carry it over to October and thought that while it’s not ready to submit, I’d drop what I have here.  Try it out, it has issues and there are no winning/losing states, no animations, but tell me what you think, how the controls feel and whatever, that’d be a help going forward with this project!

Web-version (Flash) here

Comment here or send your thoughts via twitter!

See ya in October Challenge!

Comments

SusanTheCat
19. Sep 2011 · 20:39 UTC
Moving and shooting were good. Jumping felt … stiff? The monster was cool, but does he ever die?
20. Sep 2011 · 07:00 UTC
Nope, there’s no damage whatsoever, he just bounces around merrily all day!

No time.

Official time is over, was on a holiday this weekend. Need to go to school. Need to work. But still, I have some time :) so I will try to make a game before the submit time ends.

What I have so far:

  • An idea
  • Some graphics
  • More graphics
  • Very small start of code
  • And a idea in the trashcan.
Good luck everyone else. Corné

A small idea for the ludum dare website: better trophies?

So I had this idea, maybe give us a code to implement into our game that awards the player’s profile (if exists) with a custom trophy, just like you can do now (manually)?

 

This could be a great feature for the ludum dare website, as it would attract more people to join and it would be fun to have! 😀

Comments

19. Sep 2011 · 16:01 UTC
A simple way to do this would probably be by adding giving some(all users) the ability to define a set of trophies then award them to players via some api call like: ludumdare.com/?player=someone&tropy=superawesome3&cheatingprevention=3i48f7dnKJBNR8
SusanTheCat
19. Sep 2011 · 20:35 UTC
I think this would be cool
21. Sep 2011 · 10:04 UTC
I love the idea. I think the biggest problem is figuring out which user is playing your game. Of-course there is also the problem that adding a throphy cost precious time.

Afraid of the Dark

Okay, my entry’s up:

Afraid of the Dark

Windows and Linux-64 builds.  Linux has been up for quite a while.  Man, building on windows is a pain.

Anyway, I didn’t get a chance to do as much with the game as I would have liked (so it goes), but I had fun exploring creepy being stalked around a dark room dynamic.

Location, Location, Location – Damn the Deadlines

Still going on the Mini-LD. It’s my first time, so I figure I’ll get the blatant cheating out of the way now; it’s been more than 48 hours on the wall clock. I probably only have 12 hours of dev time so far, so I’m running with that. =)

Javascript is a tricky mistress/master when you’re not accustomed to working with it. I’m learning the CraftyJS framework at the same time (for the second time). Got the concept for a data-driven horror-ish story game pretty well worked out and more than half-implemented. It’s almost interactive now.

The premise is that the player is a location that has experienced something wrong. My sample case is a house which experienced a tragedy. Some folk have chosen to spend the night at the house, and it’s your job (as the house) to communicate the tragedy to the occupants through metaphysical actions. Your basic set of actions can produce different outcomes based on the person and the part of the house they occupy. The player learns the story through the experiences of the visitors.

 

Tags: craftyjs, horror, javascript, location

Comments

SusanTheCat
19. Sep 2011 · 20:33 UTC
This sounds awesome! I can’t wait to see it.

This is Blasphemy!

My first Ludum Dare game, Madness, may seem a little cheaply made, but I have reasons why it doesn’t have power-ups, or enemy intelligence:
I started working on it on Saturday after tea, just after installing openSUSE. I added the basics and implemented lasers. On Sunday I was near to completion when the computer froze and wiped the game (i was editting it when it froze – thankfully a back-up was made of it on Saturday) – I had to try and re-implement enemies in an hour, which I did.
However, they deleted themselves after like 3 frames. So then I go on to Monday, which was school, tea, computer 1h, scouts 2+1/2h, computer 1+1/2h.
So, that’s why my entry’s not so good and not so well-developed as the others.

Tomorrow I’ll finish off the game’s lost and won screens and add in more enemies – I promise!

Tags: 2D, explanation, game, javascript, madness

I failed :-/

Too much traveling around the country with shitty satelital internet conectivity due to Fiestas Patrias (and being to drunk around the clock due to them too), made me miss the mini LD deadline.

But I’ve made some great progress on the “typing of the dead” like input, so I’m gonna definately get the game into Experimental Gameplay Project. (I would love to give you a playable version, but if I do, it would comepletely spoil the surprise ending :-p)

Comments

SusanTheCat
22. Sep 2011 · 21:54 UTC
It looks cool so far.

Angry Bat

With only few hours left before I go to my bed a quick update of what I have until now. Want to finish this, but I go sailing tomorrow. But this is what I have until now: http://games.corne.info/AngryBat/1/

 

What works:

  • Jumping humans
  • Flying bat (controll with arrow keys)
  • And thats it.
I hope I can finish it, but i’m not sure.

Gratuitous Placeholders

So many placeholders. My goal for this evening is to finish the “go” button logic that executes your actions on the characters and rooms each night, dress up the placeholders a bit, and get a story put together that can evoke some horror from the player. That’s probably enough to submit for this, though not enough to satisfy me. I might keep polishing it for a while after the mini-LD with an eye toward this month’s Experimental Gameplay and Super Friendship Club.

I was able to formalize the story module format last night. Everything’s in CSV spreadsheets; characters, rooms, story fragments, story-specific game configuration… This lets me almost completely separate content from logic, and should let a person build a story module without learning/modifying the code.

Screen shot below. That’s the basic interface once you’ve started a story. Clicking a room gives you a menu where you can “lock in” an experience type for the night (e.g. noises, dreams, physical manifestations). Once the actions are locked in, the “Begin” button will start the night. You’ll get accounts of the night’s goings-on from the characters the next morning, which will help you understand the story you’re trying to tell them.

Screen Shot

Very nearly operational

 

Tags: craftyjs, horror, javascript, location, placeholders, screenshot

Love/Lua tutorials?

Hello everyone! I just started using Love/Lua the other day. I’ve gotten through all the ole HELLO WORLD programs and such, but I’m having a really hard time finding ways to learn the language. I played a few of the games on here and it’s only heated my excitement to start using this! I’ve got a few years of C++ under my belt so I’m no stranger to programming nor syntax. I’m just looking for a baby-steps intro into doing more exciting things. Thanks!

Comments

23. Sep 2011 · 12:12 UTC
I am all about lua, and I have found the best way to learn it is by dinking around the main website. I have found a bunch of interesting code there.
ichi1984
24. Sep 2011 · 12:38 UTC
Thanks for the offer! But I’m seriously lost even just looking at those. It seems like there’s just no good place to do any step by step learning. It’s either hello world, or it’s looking at code for full games.
Osgeld
27. Sep 2011 · 22:41 UTC
I agree there is not just a basic step by step guide, but its really not that hard of a language to learn (then add on the love crap later once you get basics down)

Anyone want to collab for the October challenge?

Well, the title says it all really. Anyone interested in doing a relaxed collab for the October challenge? (http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/2010/09/27/the-october-challenge-begins-a-guide/)

I’d be primarily interested in collaborating with an artist, seeing as my artistic skills are very lacking, but I think it’d be nice to work with someone else, regardless :)

I work in AS3, so if you’re a programmer too, I’d obviously prefer if you did too. 😛

Oh, and if you want to see some of my stuff just check out http://natpat.net 😀

Comments

onefineline
24. Sep 2011 · 06:40 UTC
Hahaha, I played your drugsdrugsdrugs game. Very funny. I really like the various ways your character starts to trip out! =)
blahoink
24. Sep 2011 · 12:20 UTC
Because I enjoyed drugsdrugsdrugs, I could definitely help you out on background art, pixeling, etc. Programming-wise, I’m flixel exclusive but I do know a good amount of vanilla as3. Just keep in mind I have school, so free time will be hard to come by sometimes. :I
Davidobot
24. Sep 2011 · 12:23 UTC
Can I help with some texures?

Failure…

Gah.  I spent about 48 hours on this last weekend, but the collision (which SHOULD have been simple) took me so long to debug (and there are still plenty of bugs) that I didn’t get any time to include actual horror… or gameplay, for that matter.  I’ll put up what Flash-work I got so far, but I’m done hacking this thing together.  See it here if you’re interested.

I was actually going for what McFunkypants jokingly referred to a few posts down- the horror of drowning.  That is, I noticed that sequences in many games when the player character can only be underwater for a certain period of time get really tense when the countdown clock is approaching 0 (as in Sonic 2, for example), so I wanted to capitalize on that and add some scary enemies, sounds, and music (I got one enemy done, but none of the sound/music, and I was SO looking forward to that).  Hold the arrow keys to swim slowly, and tap the spacebar to paddle once (tap repeatedly of effectively swim faster). The blue bar is the drowning meter, and the red is health.  I’m hoping the rest is self-explanatory.

The plan was to have the player swimming from surface to surface in order to breathe, as the paths between the surface areas got more difficult to navigate and infested with creepy stuff.  I only got to finishing one path, though, and a little stub branching off of it.

At least there’s the October Challenge… I’m looking forward to actually polishing a project for once.

Oh god.

Well I really need to sleep. But I feel like I need to finish some crappy game that I started, but it’s going to take forever. D;

Long Time Project Help

Hello, I was thinking of making a flash game with someone, so if you what to work together post a comment below and will get right to it! (tell me what program you will be using) Ok that is everything I have to say goodbey now…

Comments

25. Sep 2011 · 19:13 UTC
You’ll need to give a few more details, I suspect, before anyone will bite. What sort of games do you want to make? Do you want a collaborator to help with art or programming? Are you just starting and after someone to help you get up to speed, or a seasoned pro with an idea that’s too ambitious to do on your own?
Davidobot
27. Sep 2011 · 02:11 UTC
I’m starting up waiting for someone to get me up to speed.
digital_sorceress
28. Sep 2011 · 15:40 UTC
The truth is that most programmers don’t have enough time to devote to their own projects, so I think it’s unlikely you’ll find someone to give up time to play the role of teacher. Those sort of people do exist, but there are very few of them.

OpenGL (ES) 2 tutorials

While studying OpenGL 2, which is gaining widespread availability in mobile devices, I released there were few free/open (as in: anybody can share and contribute) resources on the subject – and too many outdated documentation on legacy OpenGL 1.x.

So a few fellow contributors and I set up a new set of tutorials based on modern OpenGL, through the excellent Wikibooks project (CC-BY-SA).

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/OpenGL_Programming


The code samples are in the public domain.

I bet quite a few LDers have something to say on the subject – we would much welcome proof-reading and comments :)

64digits.com Halloween Comp

Hi! 64Digits is having its annual game making competition, Scary Four Digits.

There’s some (very) modest prizes up for grabs, but it’s mainly for fun and everyone’s welcome, novice or pro!

If you’d like to find out more please visit 64digits.com. Here’s a direct link to the comp:

LINK TO COMPETITION LINK TO COMPETITION LINK TO COMPETITION

Thanks!

Hey there :3

im benjabby. i (attempt) to make games, but usually fail, i always give up, i have a series of games im working on, the Orcarage series, featuring orcarage; a strategy game. orcarage rpg; a platform rpg with about 50 classes :3 orcarage legacy; a SSB-like game. orcaragecraft; a minecraft inspired game :3 and finally orcarage-the board game, an isometric boardgame :3

Comments

29. Sep 2011 · 02:41 UTC
Sounds like you have a full plate!

Game development event calendar


I’ve been building a website for listing dame development events for a while now. It’s not finished yet but it’s starting to shape up, so I thought I could show it to you now.

The site has a neat calendar thing that shows all the events I know about. Clicking them shows a bit more information. Annoying time zone conversions are made for you. In addition, it has a feed that reminds you about the events two weeks (or when they are added) before they start.

Since the website is not finished yet, it has some problems and it’s missing features. Daylight saving time is causing troubles in conversions right now, but I’ll fix that later. Please let me know if you find any other bugs. I’ll add a way to change the time zone because it may not detect it right. Then I’ll need to add tags for events, so you could, for example, get notifications only about competitions in which you could use Python or have a prize.

Currently this is missing a name (just “Compos” now) and I hope you could help with that. Do you have any descriptive name ideas? I can’t buy a domain before I find a good name. And if you are interested in updating the content, contact me.

Click here to enter.

Only events that are available to everyone on the Internet are listed now. In the future, if others are interested, I might add a section for local jams too.