Like others, i came up with a maze game… I had to sleep right away so i’m not very far. And not only it’s on one screen, but it regenerate new mazes in real time!
It takes place in a simulation chamber, right now the walls are totally random, it will be my next task to make it fun.
I’m still thinking on the “fighting” system, it’ll be a mix between bomberman and pacman…
Almost there !
Have to add some depth into the game, otherwise it’s working fine !
However, I’m not sure how to publish it for the contest (i’d hate to not participate because of that)
OUF !
Due to a very late bug, i almost peed myself ! But i made it (hum, i didn’t got the time to test it… hope it acttualy works!)
I’m gonna compile other platforms/installer now. Oh and test my game (hum hum).
[edit] : I made it an exe instead of an installer (no install)
Just made this wallpaper from my game engine !
Enjoy
Entry:
After a few days and some honnest feedack from the community on ludumdare.com, twitch and others, I’d like to draw the conclusions of my very first game jam. I decided to enter alone, in the compo competition using Game Maker witch i’m starting to love and hate at the same time. I’ve been eyeing Unity for some time but it’s still a bit unclear for me.
The theme was pretty inspiring to me as it meant basically, “you can make a very simple game that takes place only on one screen”. I immediately thought about an “auto-maze” that can generate an infinity of mazes using a system of pillars that go up and down. A MAZE inc. was born! In my head… Then I had to go to sleep.
Process :
– First thing to do was that pillar system, as it was the core idea of my game, the rest would go by itself (…)
I drew my pillars directly in the paint-like editor inside Game Maker as it was supposed to be temporary, the first idea was to go with a metallic look within the hole game. And once i finally found a good way to control them i realized the hardest was to come. I wanted to create a random maze with a start, an end, some “monsters”, weapons (like bombs) and coins. The game would feel like a random pacman mixed with some bomberman. I felt exited.
– I knew the auto-maze system was ambitious but once it was done, the rest was easy it it would kind of spare me the level design phase.
I researched a lot on auto generated mazes and dungeons on GM. I haven’t found any working source that could inspire me. But what I should have seen was that most of them were pretty complicated. I spend so much time on researching and experimenting, I could have programmed an entire other game during that time! Finally I abandoned that system, I knew I didn’t have the time to make it work even if I was starting to get some results. At this point, I almost abandon the jam, then I had a game saving idead!
– I would abandon the auto-maze system and recycle the controller system so the pillars can be controllable by myself.
But I still wanted my game to take place in one single room, as it was the theme and the hole reason to my pillar system. I started to create controllers designed to move the pillars in that single room as i wanted. But it turned out to be a horrible lost of time. It was too much complicated and abstract. With much more time it would have worked but still I had to construct the different combinations in an other room, so i could see the end result. That’s when it strucked me.
– I could just construct different rooms and the player couldn’t really feel teleported as long as these rooms look the same and I have a good transition system.
I didn’t have much time left but it worked pretty good and the effect was very efficient! I felt relieved, this was a good frame for a real game. I started to create a few levels, added a very simple controllable character and an advanced AI system that can find you no matter how difficult is the maze, like i knew how to make. I made all the game stripes and created a music from a huge bank of samples (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZhwRobYmps). It seem a like a big step (and it is) but it’s really not the most time consuming phase, I didn’t get stuck one second and I’m proud of how fast I came through that process. Untill…
– I went to the restaurant with my familly!
It seemed like a good idea at first. I would rest and eat well before the final straight. See, I live in Lyon and we have a traditional festival the weekend of December 8, “La Fête des Lumières”. Basically there are great illuminations all around the city and many people from everywhere come to see them. The streets are crowded and the restaurants too. And my family and friends choose a restaurant in one of the most touristic places. I didn’t know where it was, I lost time finding it, plus my family couldn’t enter without me (given the ton of people they don’t allow partial groups). And you know, it takes some time to eat in a real restaurant. Oh, and the subway was crowded too, I had to walk.
– Finish Express.
With my easy built-in level designer, I felt confident that I could wrap up the game easily. But the restaurant issues made me loose so much time that I had to rush the end! Fortunatly, we had one our to submit the game after the ending time. If I learnt anything it’s that you should always schedule ahead and take this matter seriously. I eventually compacted a roughtly finnished game just a few seconds before the gong. But because I fifn’t have time to test it before I ship it, there was a horrible bug! A never ending loop of explosion right on the player. The game was unplayable. It took a few minutes to fix that bug and a couple of others. I consider my game standout but then again with the restaurant episode and my late start, I can say that A MAZE inc. was made in less than 48 hours.
End result:
A MAZE inc. is not exactly what I wanted it to be. I was stubborn to make an auto-generated maze but I’m not a programmer. I lost time in the process and gained nothing. I’m glad that I found a compromise but I didn’t have the time to use it’s potential to the fullest. People who played my game all loved the transition system, and the overall presentation of the game but found it not exciting enough. Some said it was too slow, some said repetitive, some were bored by the enemies… All in all, I didn’t spend enough time on the game system, too much time on the superficial. I’m still proud of my entry and i feel that with a few tweaks and addons, it’s a good recipe for a nice little indy game. Bigger mazes, more different enemies and obstacles, and a basic enigma system with boxes and switches, that’s what I’d do to improuve that game. Most of Compo entries are pretty basic or not finished compared to it, so I think it’s not too bad for a first game jam 😉 See you next year!
If you want to test it, rate it and add your feedback, the game is still as it was on the first day:
http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-31/?action=preview&uid=46758
So… my compo from yesterday recieved a few comments and some were interessting but it seems that nodody ever tried the multiplayer or the coop mode.
Since my game was originally uniquely intended to be played this way, I’d like to see that happening (outside from my own place). Solo mode was added because I knew that a lot of people would end up being alone to test LD games and I didn’t want them to be frustrated. Also, I wanted my game to be played by more than a few friends. But solo mode turned out to be the only thing people experienced so far.
In Digicross, there is a multiplayer in wich you duel over who is gonna own the pixel art, a coop so you can play as a team to defeat the timer and a solo mode.
First pic is from multi (I hear it sayin’ “tri me”), second one is from coop (says “it’s hype to play indie game in coop”) :
Thank you kindly for considerating playing this game! Or at least, for reading this.
PS: best compo I played was this one. And I’m not promoting a friend or something, I don’t know this guy at all.
This was a game in itself!
By the way, Digicross recieved an update few days ago. It is not the official download since it’s post Compo.
It’s all in the title ! A Tetris like game with a twist : blocks get added (so you get chunks of 5 or 6) and the more you have, the worse it is ! Also you can pick your next block, just to make it a little faire. And there’s more to come (hopefully).
Addtris+++ is a GemToy game ! What’s GemToy you ask ? It’s a handheld console that’s in your phone, and is (just a little) inspired by a good od retro pocket console. Addtris+++ is a GemToy game. I know I said it already but now you can understand that I already had the code for the GemToy, so my compo for this LD is the game itself.
I didn’t have much time to do it but I hope I can finish it ! Still have to implement the core creation block mecanic (yes, pretty crutial)
Downloads and Links
Soo... I just spent 3 hours on re-righting the exact same code I had because it generated a bug I never could understand. Now, it's starting to work, I still don't know what whent wrong and I am on my nerves !!!
I love making games, I HATE coding.
I am NOT pleased as there are some nasty bugs in game mode A... But hey, otherwise, I manage to ship a game in time so I'm still proud !
Check it out, it's not just Tetris! https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/addtris
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INTRO
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Hi, I'm 5you (it's an english pun in french, a concept in itself).
I think we all oughta learn about what we did good and what we did wrong when we make a game. A jam is a good place to reflect on that since it all goes so fast and everything is still fresh in our memories.
Of course I invite you to play the game, so we all know what I am writing about (and yes, I need ratings).
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/addtris
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WHAT'S ADDTRISS+++
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Still here ? Have you played the game ? If you haven't, you can stay but be extra attentive.
If you just like to read, know that Addtriss+++ is a Tetris kind of game, meant to be played on smartphone. There's no iPhone version because I couln't compile it without Apple credentials or whatever... There is a Windows version, that I used for testing and I chose to make it public so more people can test the game. I will not debate about the problems inherent to this version.
If you ever played Tetris on a GameSomething, you have a good idea of what Addtriss+++ is. But the game adds to the original formula to show that yes, it all becomes much more dificult when you "add more".
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THE CONCEPT
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"The more you have, the worse it is" Go now ! You have 48h.
Except I totally forgot there was a LD and I wasn't even home. In France, it started at 3:00am on saturday and ended at 3:00am on monday. I learnt about the jam on Saturday morning and started at about 2:00pm. I say "made in 38 hours" in the game, because I didn't even took the time to calcul, it's actually 37h and I submited at 2:00pm so it's a total of 36 hours.
With much less time left to an already tight schedule, I had the idea to enter the LD with a humble GameBoy™ like project, using my GemToy™ virtual machine for android. This schedule also oriented me in the idea to rethink an already existing game in order to adapt it to the theme, so I could go faster, skipping some of the thinking I would normally do.
So I took a somewhat simple game that could totally be broken if you add just a tiny more to it. What if Tetris had bigger shapes ? It would definitely "get worse" for the player.
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THE ENGINE [part one]
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No time to waste, I directly worked on Tetris engine. Used some tuto, adapted to what I wanted and felt like. And I imediatly based everything on an original Tetris metric. You could superpose the two games, it would feel right.
It took some work, but it turned out fine, and it was playable with the GemToy™!
If you've just raised an eyebrow, you probably played Game A and not Game B. This "first engine" is what's used in game B.
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GRAPHICS & RAFINEMENT
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I then worked on the visual aspect of the game, something that I really like doing, as it require no thinking, which is a very welcomed thing to have in a middle of a jam. That's why I don't delay it to the end. Also, I think it's important for the apeal.
I wanted to make something more pleasing to the eye than the cold and simplistic look of the original game.
It's also at this point that I realized that the game would be too overwhelming if your next shape is too hard to shove in your construction and I could as well give the player a choice between two shapes, because there was room for that in the UI.
After some testing and tweaking I added sounds that I quickly made on a virtual synth and "borrowed" a free of right cover of Freebird, a song that starts calm and become crazy after a while, a good fit. I finally went to bed. The prototype was ready.
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THE ENGINE [part two]
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I woke up pretty late (around noon) and had a good lunch with my dad. I then watched TV, a great documentary about WWI pilots, french aces like Charles Nungesser, René Fonck or Georges Guynemer. I wasn't too scared to waste some time because I had an engine working and more important, time on resting is NOT wasted time !
Your brain (espacially mine I recon) needs this time to wash out all the strain and exhaustion from all this work. Crunching is a part of programming yes, but too much crunching also makes you do stupid things and you end up wasting even more time. Plus it's not pleasant, and I'm not here to hurt myself.
With bigger shapes, the game started to get it's own interesting thing, but I soon came to a conclusion, It's too close to Tetris with just a few 5 blocks shapes, and I would have to add an infinite number (actually totally finite but it's a lot) if I want to include every shapes you can make out of 1,2,3,4,5 or 6 blocks ! I needed something that would generate them automaticly !
Let's get technical.
The original engine had shapes that only were sprites. It's very simple to handle, rotate etc... The new engine had to create shapes randomly out of a given number of blocks. And then be able to handle them with rotation and collision. It also had to be able to give you a preview of two possible next shapes.
My first idea was to make blocks work together, glued into one shape but it wasn't working properly. I then had the idea of using something I'm not very familiar with : surfaces. The engine actually creates shapes with blocks, register their coordinates and then draw blocks on a surface using those coordinates and finally turns this surface into a temporary sprite, with precise collision, that will be the sprite you're playing with.
As I stated in a blog comment, my brain melted at this point and things started to simply not work ! I had lines of my "old" code copy pasted in the new, it was exactly the same but it kept on crashing for no apparent reason! To this day, I still don't know what went wrong. I decided to re-type all this part of the code from scratch and it finally came alive ! I almost abandoned the jam and in a few minutes it was back on rails.
I added a system that increses the number of blocks per shapes with time and decreses it by one if you manage to destroy 3 lines in one shot or by 2 if you destroy 4. The scoring system is also more generous (comparatively to Game B) to compensate with the difficulty.
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THE FINAL STRAIGHT LINE
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Not much time left, about 2 hours.
The game still had a major issue in Game mode A. Note that there are minor and major issues.
I know the rotations are a bit erratic because the middle of the sprite is not always in the middle of the shape (this is due to the creation of the sprite on the go, handled rawly with no after adjustment). For the same (almost) reason, preview shapes sometimes appear a bit outside of the preview windows. And the dificulty balance is a bit off. Those known issues would normaly be adressed and corrected, but this is a jam and there is no time left.
There is also a somewhat game breaking problem, the major issue. In Game A, blocks seems to appear from nowhere either when you land (most often on the bottom right of your shape) or more critical, in the air, stuck to your shape. I'm not really sure why this is happening but I do have an idea.
The conundrum here was the following : do I finish the game and leave this nasty bug ? Or do I wrap it up into something that resembles a game, with working menus and a small score keeper ? I chose the later. A game has to be a game first, and then it has to work flawlessly. Plus I wasn't sure if I could correct the bug in time. I then proceded in uploading and shipping and the time was almost over.
With the last 20 minutes I could have tried to fix the bug, but I had no clue (now I kinda have) about what was wrong.
So, I hope people will see the game for what it is when it works and not for what it is when it's broken. The Game mode B works fine, so it helps understanding how Game A should feel.
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EPILOGUE
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I'm really glad that I participated again ! Making a game in such a short time is always a huge challenge for me. It's also a very very good booster as I realise that with some effort, I can come to a result pretty quick.
I hope that I'll be able to keep some of this energy in my next work.
It was also a good way to test out my GemToy™ project. This environement is meant to be used for a lot of smartphone games I'm working on and I want it to be solid. I realized after a while that the version I intergrated (it's more the other way around) in Addtris+++ was obsolete (for instance youcan release the diagonal buttons and they still show pushed if you hold a direction), but nevermind. It's working and the first feedbacks about it are positive.
Speaking of feedback, I hope I will get more. I didn't expected an Android game to get a lot of attention in a Ludum Dare, and so far I was proven right. Nothing grievous, but just a thought. My previous attempt at LD were worse and I had more reviews.
I suppose I have to play the game of playing/rating other games ! I only reviewed a few so far, maybe I'm more tired than last time.
Well, THANK YOU if you took the time to read all that ! I hope it was as interesting for you to read as it was for me to type ! And please feel free to comment and share your experiences during this month !
5you. (by the way, the pun is that it can be read as "cinq you" in french which resembles "thank you" with a french accent)
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/addtris
After the unavoidable post mortem, onething I really wanted to do was to fix the game's issues. I didn't do too much, nothing you can compare with the crunch of a game jam. But still even doind these little things takes time.
POST MORTEM : https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/addtris
GAME : https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/addtris/addtriss-post-mortem
Of course, I didn't remouved the old submition, this update is only meant for people who would want to play an unbroken version of the game. Here is the list of what's changed :
What's still broken :
5you.
If you don't like having to download the apk and put it on you phone ect... you can now access the game directly from Google Play !
It's the same release as the updated release, it still has a bug I'll have to fix.
Good new is, when I fix it, I'll upload the new build to Google Play and your app will get the update automaticly !
It's a free alpha with no ads.
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Google Play : https://play.google.com/apps/testing/com.BatboyGames.Addtris
Ludum Dare : https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/addtris
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It's a good way for me to do some testing so feel free to give some feedback !
5you.
Back with a new GemToy™ Entry!
This time, the theme is to mix genres so I’m making a Turned-Base Strategy / Racing game !
The core gameplay is there but now I need to program some kind of AI, make other tracks (super easy but time consuming) and make what I would call a framing to the game... And there is no sound ! I think I won't be able to make it a compo so even if I'm alone, this one is probably going to be a jam entry.
I suppose this is a Jam entry even if I made this on my own because it took me too much time ^^
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/brains-of-racing
This is a Turned Base Strategy/Racing game and, about halfway into it, I realised I never made any game of any of those genre... Anyway, I'm satisfied of what I managed to make, Jams are always very difficult. I have a few regrets there and there but the #1 is that I had to abandon the very idea of putting any sound in it !
Also, there is no tutorial so make sur to read the game's description (it's very simple don"t worry) !
PS: open that screenshot in a new tab to better see it, but still, it's less good looking than on actual smartphone because of the way I took those screenshots
And now, to my bed! (europeen timeezzzZz Zzzzz)
Hi! After a looong night of good sleep, I'm back for playing/rating/sharing experience !
And I know that I need to dive into it if I want my own game to be rated but it feels like not many people are playing on androïd.
What do you think I should have done ? - make it also playable on PC, at the risk of breaking things. - make an iPhone port. - forgeting smartphones altogether. - chillout man, just wait.
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/brains-of-racing
Wow, I got plenty to do in my life so I haven't had the time to do the play+rate thing as much as I wanted... But hey ! It's the last day and I only have 19 ratings in some of the categories so, it'll be awesome if sombody could check it out ;)
It's called Brains of Racing and it's a Turned-Based Racing game !
(androïd + Windows test port)
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/cats-get-9-bets
A party game you can play up to 4 people (gamepad requiered) or against the computer.
It's aaaall about beting your cat's 9 lives, you can also double bet if you dare ! It's risk versus reward gambling madness !
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/cats-get-9-bets
Hi ! Cats get 9 Bets 🐾 is my Compo entry for this Jam. It's a Party Game that consists in placing bets using your lives. https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/cats-get-9-bets
Of Course in a party game, the more mini-games the better ! And I almost made it to my goal of 3, but one was discarded (it makes for a sad mini-games roulette admittedly).
Meet "Maze Ra(t)ce" a mini-game in wich you bet on one of the 4 "rats". In the screenshot, they look like Beerus because I had to save time, Haha... They all have their own behavior, the maze is proceduraly generated. The only code that's not there is the one to determine who won (so close!!!).
Also, if you have more than 1 controller (and more than 1 friend) I would be curious to hear about your impressions ! I myslef, haven't tried more than a 2 players / 2 Computers game.
