Well I’ve already come across a few hurdles, but they where overcome fairly quickly.

Lighting engine implemented – Check,

Map manager implemented- Check,

Camera implemented- Check.

Crappy moving sprite for drawing tests – check

.

One of the big issues with compos like Ludum Dare is sometimes, the topic just gives you no inspiration. You have no idea of how to work into it.

“Escape” however, is a bit too broad. There are so many genres you could do here, it’s insane. My guess is that 2D platformer will be the genre of choice. So to avoid that I’ll go with a genre I know and love well, Rogue-like.

I also have an idea of a source-inspiration. A short claymation film called Ward 13.

Hacking together a menu screen in Java, wasting too much time I think, with the idea for the actual game still eluding me. Maybe its time to hunker down with paper and pen, sketch out some ideas… At least the menu renders and has clickable buttons. Thanks LWJGL and Slick!

So, I see my alarm from 4.30 – woke up – checked out what the theme was. Escape! Ok, not so bad but I’m going to try and use a couple of themes anyway. Right back to sleep to dream about the theme….

6.00am – Blood is pumping like crazy, so excited! Downstairs (try not to wake significant other). Grab some brekkie:

Thats right, I have bread and butter. I might have mentioned I had eight teeth out yesterday so I can only eat soft stuff and take tablets (theres a prize for anyone who can recognise the tablets :)).  First thing I have to do is run through emails, twitter and forum posts for Legends of Yore . Check nothing has blown up since yesterday’s update – looks like we’re in the clear!

Next up, brainstorming.. I need at least 5 ideas before I pick anything. Here’s what I came up with:

So I managed to get 7 ideas, I’m going to try the the cell puzzle first since that fits in with the self replication theme. One button prison escape is probably my second choice. Both seem approachable in the time frame.

The prison cell idea is a puzzler where you’re the convict trying to escape the cell sokoban style but with an extra replication style mechanic. It’s a bit of risk as it might just not work out in terms of puzzle possibilities – but we’ll see. Always have the platformer backup plan.

On to Java/Eclipse and Cooooooooooodddddddddddeeeeeeeeee!

Linky

Testing stuff.
No death yet.

Tags: as3, flashpunk

Blocks now optimise themselves properly 😀

The idea behind Janitor Story is you play a janitor at a high school that is try to escape his dead end job by going to night classes until you get a degree. The basic game play will be a resource management game. You’ll need to balance working, going to school, studying, sleeping and spending time with your family. So far all I have is the basic mini-game of cleaning the floor of the school.

Woke up an 1 hour and 40 minutes ago and saw the theme… To be honest Escape wasn’t one of my favourites (ranked about 8th on my list) and my poor little Espionage… dead last :(!

So I’m going to follow jonbro’s advice and make an Espionage game to celebrate the fact that a theme I suggested at least made it into the final round! It will still fit the theme… after all: getting into a top-secret, ultra-high-security underground research facility is much much easier than getting out!

I had a few ideas, but they all sucked… then I came up with a great idea (hinted at above) while soaking in a nice hot bath… It’s ambitious! Probably too ambitious to do in 48 hours, but what the hell – I want something I can continue working on after LD this time, so I’m going to go for it.

Everything or bust!

Hi guys.

I’m going to be using my HTML5 game engine for the comp. This is also my first time entering the comp and I have to unfortunately balance my time with assignments to finish. I’m assuming this is where I post about any personal libraries I will be using.

The game engine is pretty straight forward and the API docs are all written up.

…imho a rather uninspiring one, because most game design can be broken down to escape from (situation, poverty, unimportance) to something (better situation, wealth, heroism).

Nevertheless I already got three ideas in the last hour and am actually choosing the one with best chances to get finished in 48 hrs.

Well, that’s it for now (going to sleep now -_-).  Not much has been done and I am really worried that I won’t finish this.  So far I have a tile system up and running, no player yet, no NPCs, and no gameplay…

So far, I have a simple intro sequence and the basic engine done. I’ll do some polishing on both of these tonight, and tomorrow I’ll focus on a bit of level design, and more assets.

I just had a CBO, large fries and  a large Coke. That was unfulfilling, but great nonetheless.

Also, hurr durr, I use flash on my cellphone camera for pictures inside my room.

Tags: deskphoto, foodphoto

I’ve now been working for about three hours and have a little bit to show for it. I’ve got a completely generic screen of tiles and small little character that can run around and collide with the solid tiles. So far I’m still thinking of an idea, but I obviously have the general direction that I want to go in set. It’s going to be a reverse tower defense game. Instead of building towers to kill mobs, you are the mob and you are trying to escape. The idea might change if the mechanics don’t work very well, but hopefully that general idea will stay the same.

Here is a video if it in action: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plRtQoZRzi4

Also, these posts are being mirrored at http://joedev.net 

Tags: LD21, Ludumdare

Right, so this is the first level. Everything’s working as it should; you win by getting to the upper stairs, jumping down and leaving the body you’re possessing. I’m already brainstorming for visual styles, music, traps and tricks, etc..

Finished drawing some stuff (there’ll be enough time for more stuff later, on my “artistic” level I can draw even with sleep deprivation, now it’s time to code more – one collision detection coming up!

I should probably try to think about overdrawing problem (all items are just simple scribbles with alpha placed over the background, so if more of them collide visually, it creates a mess, not sure how to solve it fast) , but that’s for later, meaning never.

The first few steps are done. Basic renderer works with a randomly generated level.

Tags: progress

So far I’ve been thinking about the game. I think I have an idea now. Here are some sketches made with MyPaint:

I started to code and I have a functional tile map. I started coding the movement of the main character using the keyboard as input, but then I decided to change it to mouse and will use a simple A* algorithm for path finding.

I’m tired now, it’s 1 am here, I have a full time job and I’ve been working all day. I’ll take a brake for sleeping and will be fresh tomorrow.

That’s all.

43 hours remaining and I did not expect the theme to be escape.

I’ll be back after an hour’s walk with ideas. I already have some, but so far it’s looking pretty much like a Metroid knock-off with self-replicating enemies. Let’s hope I come up with something A) more original and B) less huge in scope before I get back!

I might even be planning stuff out on graph paper so we’ll see if I have time to get that scanned in to post up or not. It’s quicker than faffing about with a tablet, really.

See you later!

Tags: Flixel, is that really the time, morning, waking up