They look better animated! Also, the tree zapper aren’t actually supposed to attack the butterflies.

Tags: butterflies, journal, screenshot

Gave the game out to two friends and let my son try it. Everyone seems to understand it, but as suspected it’s still lacking in the fun department. I’m going to introduce a new tile type that can be removed only by removing its neighbors, which should give some meaning to the currently meaningless wall layout. Latest source here.

I ate out with a friend who was visiting from out of town, and every aspect of the experience took longer than anticipated.  Still, feeling pretty good about the progress I’ve made so far (and what I got to eat).

Look on in envy, mortals!

If I have more time today, I may continue on this, adding sound etc, but here’s RELEASE CANDIDATE 1 of my quickie.

I won’t tag this ‘final’ yet.. I’m pretty sure I have a few minutes before midnight to re-tag this =)

Tags: release candidate

Well, I’ve almost ended my first day of near straight up programming, and am suprised by my results. I’ve auctaully almost gotten a complete game with semi-tolerable graphics and gameplay. I still got plenty more to do, namely fixing a few bugs and putting in the sound, but I am proud of what I’ve made so far. It isn’t nearly as good as some of the other games I’ve read you all are making, but I’m happy what I’ve made so far and look forward to playing everyone else’s creations!

decoration ready !!! fishes hanging around the screen !! bounding boxes of collision regions defined, now its time to take a shower, the smell is getting really bad LOL

Tags: bounding boxes, decoration, fishes, shower time, smelling bad

Actually it’s not, very… but it’s going to grow up, soon.

http://vimeo.com/4219935

Making slow progress. Had to throw out my initial stab at a vertically oriented game and ended up going horizontal instead… I’m liking it a lot more this way. Got my moving beam and I can pick up and rescue people. I like the feeling of it so far, but I need to put more pressure on the player. Luckily Entar kicked my imagination and I have some ideas now.

So much to do before I sleep! I’m hoping to get the gameplay ironed out tonight, and focus on art + polish tomorrow.

that’s how it is: if you decide to code on the last day without sleep and get to bed early the day before, then  it is no wonder if you feel like crap after getting up early if you normally don’t.

I still have to travel, since i’m visiting my parents

I need coffee. now 😛

At least, FINAL ENTRY round one.

EDIT: Round two — Fixed what was hopefully the only one or two misuses of the OpenGL API that worked on my machine but croaked on others’. Still no confirmation from a 3rd party that it runs, though. After I get back from snowshoeing, I’ll try to get it running in VirtualBox. Also, if time allows, I’ll pull out my nice nebula pic with something photoshopped since it was a photo from the ‘net.

EDIT TWO: Uploaded direct to LD. Final entry, python source version, hosted on LD. Wait, never mind. “File type goes not meet security guidelines. Try another.” … I thought I was following the instructions; I’ll try again later.

EDIT THREE: The background, although not nearly as nice, is now one done from scratch.

EDIT FOUR: Post-deadline: Added two bug fixes that ought to make it work nicer on other computers than mine. (a) Some sloppy python code was restarting the game, and not properly re-initing the display, when you clicked “start game”. (b) I was using non-power-of-two opengl textures. (c) stripped out all the subversion crap, slimming the download considerably.

EDIT FIVE: A million thanks to allefant, who wrestled with pygame + pyopengl to create a windows executable that seems to work!

Python source version. Run src/game.py from the ld48 directory.

Windows executable. Run game.exe.

I’d appreciate anyone letting me know how (if) it works. This is my first time using pygame or python, so… at least I’ve got a full day (minus all my prior engagements) to fix anything.

EDIT: Oh yeah, move with arrows and left control to fire. Use the mouse to work the menu.

Tags: final

So, this is my first LD and most certainly not my last!  I’ll just make this a quick update as I’ve already posted a big chunk of exposition on my own dev blog http://dev.chadgodsey.com/

I’ve got most of the code and gameplay working.  I figure I’ll spend tomorrow adding extra flair and sprucing stuff up.  Or maybe just go outside…

Tags: zombies

You play on the side of the advancing wall of doom, which is trying to engulf all. The lousy civilization’s set up barriers, though, which the cloud can’t cross! Your job is to destroy these defences so that the cloud can continue its conquest.

Basic mechanics are working, the main things missing are enemies that fight back. Better graphics should be on the way, as well as some sound effects.

Tags: compo, progress, screenshot

the Louisiana BBQ down the block will get official mention in my game credits — gumbo, yam pie, baked beans, potato salad, and a snack earlier on top. I hope it’s OK that I seem to be paying more attention to my food photos than screens of my game…I’m very happy with how things are going, and I think I can I have something playable tomorrow, and hopefully with more graphics and sounds.

Tags: food

Battled with a stupid bug for maybe an hour. Turned out I had written an asymmetrical comparison operator which crashed sort. I’m not so great at debuggin D yet, at first I didn’t get the debug info, and when I finally did and found a debugger, it wasn’t so helpful. Funnily enough, I ended up solving it with traditional writefln debugging instead, which just took a couple of minutes. Hmm..

Anyway, what I had done before the bug was adding attack towers, which charge up blobs of darkness and fire them at the butterflies.

It mostly just looks like chaos, becuse I just randomly place everything.

Tags: attack, blobs, bug, journal, screenshot, towers

Spent the morning profiling and banging my head against the wall, hence all the timing data on screen. Finally figured out why my game was rapidly losing FPS over time. It was all because I forgot to clear my flex canvas before drawing to it, whatever that does.

I think that about wraps up my tech stuff on the graphics, dodgy 3d in flash and all. Time to add a game, or at least some wall doom.

Picture should take you to a “playable” version. There’s nothing to do but move left and right (arrow keys) and you might have to click on the screen after you start the game to gain focus (it is a mystery).

Tags: beach, compo, egg, forest

Very liquid based but that is all I can manage at this time on a Sunday Morning. Being up this early and not being at a carboot sale, it’s just not natural.  I predict a more substantial bacon based brunch later to address this unholy liquid / food imbalance. MORE NING ALL!

Tags: foodphoto

Finally.

The circles that make up the wall will absorb same-coloured enemy bullets. If you move into the circle and shoot, it will reappear (after a brief period) as the colour of the shot you used.

Enemies who hit the wall are immediately killed, but the circle they hit will be pushed back towards you! If the circle is pushed back too far, there is a chance that it will disappear. After three circles are gone, the entire wall disintegrates.

Currently there’s no way to regenerate the wall other than dying. However, once I implement the bomb/super attack (the next item on my agenda), the player will have a way to regenerate the wall.

Also, have an advancing wall of sickeningly cute.

Tags: LD #14 - Advancing Wall of Doom - 2009, shmup, wall girl

Advancing wall of gray goo…

Tags: goo, progress, screenshot

http://wardtek.ca/pictures/LD48-14/Doom.html

I decide to break down and learn flash so I bought a book on it 3 days ago and started reading.  Figured this competition would be good motivation and testing ground.  So far I must say I’m impressed with how easy it is to get things done in the language and how easy it is to learn.

For the game itself, I’m working on making a mini-rts style game with a focus on ‘sovereignty’ which gives you large bonuses while on your own turf.  So it turns it into a slowly advancing wall of doom!  Or something like that.  Tomorrow is all about polish.  Better (any) graphics.  Intro screens, help screens, visible win conditions, useful HUD.  Balance on gold in vs gold out and tactical management.

Controls are simple right now.  Spacebar spawns a new warrior (currently a cow) and you can let them wander about or you can click on them and move them into the field of battle.

I had mixed motivation levels today.  I did manage to get things to a playable point.  I should have gotten more done though.

Play my current build on line.

I am now at the point where I’m happy with how my game works. You can win, you can lose, it doesn’t glitch when you touch stuff, and there are even a few sound effects. I made a new wall, too:

He’s not much of a wall just yet, but give him time. Anyway, I still have a lot to do, because:

* There aren’t any enemies other than the wall

* There’s only one level

* Your gun isn’t much use

* No music

So, back to work again…