Well, it’s starting to turn into a game, I just need to mop up a few animation bugs and add more puzzles and tiles, and it’ll basically be done enough to start doing the finishing touches (title screen, show when the game is paused, ending, etc.)
We are still going strong…ish, over at Team Helmet HQ. We still have plenty of Tiffin and never tire of Taffin… Anyways, we are going with a space psychological thriller affair, think Moon meets Event Horizon but better. Where we have a survival 2D shooter, Alien Breed-esque, with only a few precious minutes to get to the next available air pocket and your wits to propel you there. Something fishy is going on and you will find out more through a point and click style cutscene effort….blah blah, here are some screen shots!
The Mars Volta are pretty much the only thing that keep me apart from sleep…
My game now has a handful of levels, sounds, and should work on iPhone.
Let me know if the levels are at all challenging (or too challenging). 
Time to post some screenshots!
The first screenshot shows a part of the 30 seconds intro which took me about 3 hours. The second screenshot is part of the actual gameplay. You are a small worm-like something swimming around in an endless ocean of nothing. There is no objective right now, swimming around is all you can do. I am trying to stay away from ‘collect xxx to progress’ or ‘avoid yyy to not die’ but until now I was not able to come up with something different that is fun.
Theme seems easy enough, but actually building something is a different thing altogether.
Despite attempting previous LDs, this is the first time I’m posting. I’m going about this casually, and doubt I’ve spent more than 5 hours in total this first day. Here’s where I’m at:
The idea is a top down arcade game, where you have to sneak past sentries to plant charges, then disable all of them in one shot. Basic occlusion is in place, as well as a game loop and instructions for the sentries to follow. Yes, they move. But still a lot to go, of course.
Tech I’m using is just plain HTML Canvas 2D, driven by CoffeeScript. (No libraries.) The build process is a sprinkle of Node.js, Connect, Browserify and UglifyJS, but the result runs in any modern browser. Heck, the thing is not even half a KLOC at the moment.
I’m happy, and it’s fun. We are here to have fun, right? 😉
I’m about 5-6 personal hours in so far and my progress thus far is shown here:
Radioactive Feral Kitten Attack
You’re a dude alone in this compound with a bunch of radioactive feral kittens attacking it. You run around the base via the teleporters setting up traps in a tower defense fashion to defend them.
TO DO (PRIORITY FOR WORKING GAME):
Just noticed that I should have listed any odd code libraries I’m using before starting my entry. Hopefully, however, the Unity standard assets count as part of the engine, not as code libraries.
If I’m misguided, please tell me so in the form of an angrily worded message.
But, seriously. I’m winging it from scratch with only a select few of the Standard Assets to help me along.
22 and a half hours in, and I still don’t have an idea that would work.
And I don’t think I could make anything with the time remaining anyway.
Off to sleep, and if I manage to get an idea in the morning, I just might try to get something done.
Things are much easier now My buddys joined in. I don’t have to mess around with actually making the game, I can simply go back to doing the art which is my forte. Look forward to our game because it could now actually be good, also we might have a vaguely playable demo tomorrow (no promises).
Spend some more time on sounds and foliage,
Gonna sleep now.
hopefully I’ll be able to add some gameplay tomorow.
I’m thinking of a rather linear sequence of events.
The mood is quite nice, something really different from the stuff I have been doing.
Also the music and sounds play nice together I’m quite happy with that.
good second half everyone
So, at ~22 hours in I made a discovery about C.
Personally, I am a fan of forward declaring all of my functions for code readability, and have only just found out that:
<type> foo(<type>, <type>, …);
<type> foo(<var>, <var>, …)
{ … }
Is legal code where I have been using:
<type> foo(<type>, <type>, …);
<type> foo(<type> <var>, <type> <var>, …)
{ … }
Are there strong opinions on which is better practice? And what are the arguments for them?
Personally I lean towards the former style – it looks more elegant to me.
I’m about to take a dinner break, but figured I’d post my progress.
When I started this competition I didn’t want to use any game frameworks because I didn’t want to be limited in the types of games that I would be able to create. The good thing about that is that I’ll have a game that doesn’t have to have the specific look and feel imposed by a framework. The bad thing about that is that I’m probably not going to finish implementing what I want within 48 hours =P
Standard game convention is to show status with progress bars and number readouts. I was going to showing the player aging by having an abstract face that gets older as you play, but that still falls within the realm of a readout. Another thought was having the character move across a timeline which again is another type of progress bar. I settled on using the idea of seasons as a metaphor for aging. This allows the background to change in a meaningful way which integrates into the play experience instead of just being a backdrop.
Another progress problem is how to show the status of health, relationships and career. I was going to have a tree on the back of each card that was going to change as result of the player’s actions. I started hand drawing the tree growth from a sprout when I realized that it would be way too much work to create all the different possible scenarios. So I’m learning how to implement an L-System for tree generation.
Here’s a mockup of the visuals so far:
Time for another update! We’re waiting until 8pm here so that we can order pizza using a coupon that I have. We’re starving!
Oh, right. Games.
Things are going pretty well. I’ve been working on sprites all day while my teammate has been fixing some bugs and trying to make the game playable. He’s currently working on dialog things and conversations and pseudo-cutscenes, etc. We’re hoping to get everything done by tomorrow night. Even though we’re entering the Jam, we won’t have the full three days because my teammate works on Monday until 5pm and the Jam ends at 8pm. So we’ll be hopefully polishing off stuff by then.
Here’s some screens!
After finally thinking of a decent idea, i start Making the Game TODAY!
But i think its coming along nicely
Its a dark game, full of Mutants, and Monsters. Your just a scared boy finding his way home.
tell me what you think? ( Sorry for the bad quality )
I’ve added fully functioning enemies, weapons and projectiles. There’s also basic AI, and a basic user interface showing which weapon you have and some other things.
But the best part is that I’ve created a fully configurable content file, allowing me (or in fact anyone) to edit everything about this game, except the textures. I can now add new monsters, give them one or more weapons to choose from, and set their level. Then I can create maps, and add spawn points for specific monster levels. That’s it! No hardcoding monsters, weapons and projectiles, it’s all in the configs. Instant mod support!
So the plan for this game was to make it party-based, and have party members be interesting with lots of dialogue, and then have them die and let everyone else (or just you when you’re alone) cry at their death. I have no idea how far I will get with that tomorrow. I only have about half a day left since I have other things to do sadly, so I’ll probably scrap that idea. Maybe I still add party members and have them be dumb and suicidal, or maybe I’ll just keep it solo as it is now, I don’t know yet. Given my schedule, I’ll probably add a crapload of content (loot, inventory, etc) and turn it into a silly dungeon crawler instead of the story based party dungeon crawler I had in mind. But we’ll see.
Been a bit since my last update.
I’ve finally open Visual Studio, some 20 hours after the beginning of the challenge. Programmer art skills notwithstanding, my world-class palm-tree beach now actually moves and wraps on itself, giving me an ENDLESS LEVEL.
After a delicious spaghetti (of which there are no pictures of, cause it’s in mah belly) and a fresh pot of coffee, I’m ready for the night.
Now working with Inkscape to make some explosions & hit sprites! Will most likely post a screenshot in my next update.
Where have I gotten off to? I didn’t feel like spamming the IRC channel with constant updates, so all of my news is on twitter.com/oldtopman. The same as last year, I will be offering free hosting during the end of the competition. I’ll be on IRC during the very end, so PM me and I’ll see what I can do for you. I want to give all you people working on flash games a place to upload your stuff do people can play them without downloading it PM oldtopmanserver and I’ll check on it about once a day, PM oldtopman if I’m on. Best of luck to all of you in the competition and may the best game win!
Cheers,
oldtopman
P.S. I’ll be hosting the games until the next Ludum Dare.
EDIT: You can post a reply here too.
add main menu, end screen, life boost items
next steps for release 1 :
release 2
Tags: alone with myself, boost, life, menu, progress
Since earlier today I have made a fair amount of progress. You can upgrade the ship (Engines, Weapons, Shields, and Cargo space) and each upgrade makes a noticeable difference. There are now nebula’s that spawn. I have started to add the baddies that I want. The Drone/Scout triggers an invasion, you lose (if you die) or if you defeat the waves you win and set a high score.
Next add in combat, so you take damage, and can deal damage. Then Sound/music/menus/options, and hopefully a online highscore table.
The first baddie you'll see...The Drone/Scout