I’m finally giving this jam a serious go, after not really doing much in the last few LDs. Hooray!

‘Heinous Yak Destruction’ is a name that came out of http://videogamena.me/ a week or so ago, and it’s going to be a b-movie-style “Giant Yak Destroys a City”-em-up. It’s just before 11am, I have the basic Flashpunk stuff set up, so let’s do this!

Tags: Charity Game Jam

Heinous Yak Destruction is going fairly well. I’m quite pleased with my little yak character. Turns out that small size + only 3 colours per sprite = really easy art. 😀

If you feel like being a giant yak, wandering a randomly generated (but currently rather dull) city, you can play here. I update the version on the site every so often.

Currently you can’t destroy anything, so you can start the game stuck in a building. Press ‘r’ until you get a city that lets you move.

Still to do:

• More buildings
• Heinous Destruction!
• People running in terror
• The military coming and trying to stop your aforementioned heinous destruction.
• Sound
• Music

So basically, all the things that make it a game rather than a remote-controlled-giant-yak simulator.

Tags: Charity Game Jam, playable, progress, yak

In case anyone else wants all the colours in hexadecimal form, here they are:

0xff7b7e7f,
0xff0000fc,
0xff0000c4,
0xff4028c4,
0xff94008c,
0xffac0028,
0xffac1000,
0xff8c1800,
0xff503000,
0xff007200,
0xff005800,
0xff004058,
0xffc1c0c1,
0xff0078fc,
0xff0088fc,
0xff6848fc,
0xffdc00d4,
0xffe40060,
0xfffc3800,
0xffe46018,
0xffac8000,
0xff00b800,
0xff00a800,
0xff00a848,
0xff008894,
0xfffbf8fb,
0xff38c0fc,
0xff6888fc,
0xff9c78fc,
0xfffc78fc,
0xfffc589c,
0xfffc7858,
0xfffca048,
0xfffcb800,
0xffbcf818,
0xff58d858,
0xff58f89c,
0xff00e8e4,
0xffffffff,
0xffa9ecec,
0xffbcb8fc,
0xffedb8fc,
0xfff4c0e0,
0xfffad9a6,
0xffdcf878,
0xffb8f878,
0xffa9ecec,
0xff00f8fc,
0xff000000,
0xff1f1f1f,
0xff595959

Hopefully I haven’t missed or duplicated any, but I might have done. These include an alpha byte first, as I’m using Flashpunk.

Well, it’s 9:30pm over here, so I’m stopping for today. (Yup, I’m hardcore and I know it. :P) As always, the current state of Heinous Yak Destruction is here.

I’m pretty pleased! I’ve got some sound effects, you can smash things, and there are little people who run in terror. So for tomorrow that still leaves the… bits that make it a game rather than just a toy. Some kind of difficulty or time limit, probably in the form of the military coming in to destroy you. Not entirely sure though. Oh, and music! Which I might not get done, to be honest. 😛

Not many people seem to be updating on the blog today. I feel like I’m spamming, but I last posted several hours ago. Where are you all!?

Tags: Charity Game Jam, update, yak

Whoohoo! I managed to make a game that actually feels pretty complete! This is unusual for me.

Heinous Yak Destruction is now available to play on the charitygamejam.com site. It has music, explosions, helicopters, and an actual lose condition! Huzzah!

I didn’t quite get the time to add online high-scores in. The backend is there, just not the stuff in-game. I’ll fiddle around with it tomorrow and hopefully get that included.

If I had more time, I’d have liked to add more buildings – I’d hoped to have big tower blocks and shops as well as the tiny houses. Never mind.

Tags: Charity Game Jam, complete, yak

It’s after the time, but I really wanted to add high scores, so they’re in! Let’s see who can beat me at yak-based urban demolition! As always, go to http://charitygamejam.com/ and then click the cartridge that says “YAK”.

And now, the post-mortem:

What went right:

• I chose something simple. This is by far the biggest help. I tend to want to do something fancy, with lots of procedural generation… this time, a simple game, which I had plenty of time to do.
• I used a language I was comfortable with, and which made me productive. I don’t know AS3/Flashpunk as well as I could do, but I have made things with it before, and this helped a lot.
• I found simple solutions for things. The city is a simple grid. You destroy the buildings where you land so you can’t get stuck in them. The enemies are helicopters, so I didn’t need to do any pathfinding.
• I made music, sound, and art that I’m pleased with! It’s nothing amazing, but the NES theme meant that I didn’t try and spend ages making it look and sound great, I could  just make things simple.
• I added little touches as I went along. As the game was simple, I had the time to add shockwaves, tween animations, and little people who run away, which made it more fun but didn’t take that long to do.

What went wrong:

• Not a lot! I could have been more prepared sound-wise – I had no experience of musagi, or audacity, so fiddling with those took longer than it should have. But it wasn’t a problem in the end.
• I didn’t get time to add the building variety I’d hoped to. Very few of the city blocks were planned to be empty grass. I wanted tower blocks and things, but by the time I could have tried adding them, it would have meant breaking the code probably.

What I’ve learnt:

• I can actually make music that I don’t think is terrible!
• I can make a 48-hour game with a decent level of polish!
• Heinous is pronounced “Hay-nuss”.

Tags: Charity Game Jam, post-mortem, yak

After a brief period of oh-my-goodness-what-on-earth-am-I-going-to-do-for-this-theme – related panic, I’ve settled on a game idea: Goblin Fortress! It’ll be a basic city-builder game: build up your goblin settlement, occasionally send some goblins off to ransack unsuspecting villagers, defend yourself from the angry townsfolk.

This is very much a game where I can keep on adding stuff until the deadline, rather than having a fixed goal… Hopefully that won’t be a problem. 😀

I’m using AS3 with Flashpunk, GIMP for the graphics, probably musagi and sfxr for the audio.

Good morning so far! I have a basic interface in, and some not too terrible art.

But first: The obligatory lunch photo! Cheese and pickle sandwich, banana, crisps, chocolate muffin and apple juice. 😀

Below is a current screenshot.Nothing too fancy, but it’s getting there. Next is to actually have goblins moving about – wander to the pit, mine some stone, go back to the hovel to sleep.

Tags: deskphoto, foodphoto, screenshot

Firstly: Play it here!

Made some decent progress. I have goblins in, with some basic state-machine AI – they get a job, then go to work until they get tired and go home to sleep. They did get hungry too… but I got horribly stuck while making the food industry. I think probably I’m tired and my brain isn’t working, so I should get back on track tomorrow.

I added goats! When a goblin works the goat paddock (no animation for him doing so yet… not really sure how it should look) it gradually spawns goats (don’t ask where they come from) which are adorable. I love their animations more than anything else in the game.

However, also visible is the butcher’s shop – that’s the building with the dead goat hanging-up in front. But don’t worry goat fans! No goats are actually harmed yet because of the aforementioned ‘getting stuck’. Currently, the ‘work’ code is the same for all buildings – in fact, all buildings are the same class with different data attached. It’s pretty handy as it means adding a new workplace only means defining its cost, size, image and how long it takes to produce things / what happens when it produces something. But the butcher is tricky, as I need him to grab a goat, carry it back, stay indoors a little while, then come out with some meat to carry to… somewhere. (I haven’t figured that out either.)

But yes! Not sure if I’ll make it an actual game in the time, because there’s currently no goal or lose condition! I wanted you to be able to send goblins pillaging, but apparently making a game based on Dwarf Fortress in 48 hours is a tad unrealistic. Who would have thought?

See you all tomorrow!

Tags: screenshot

It’s been an awesome weekend. 😀 Unfortunately, I attempted something far too big, and so while I’m really pleased with what I have, there’s no actual goal, or win/lose condition. Then again, I’ll probably continue working on this after LD finishes.

I’ve added sound effects and the last few animations, fixed the last couple of bugs I came across, and put in a spectacular menu screen:

Ah, isn’t it truly beautiful?

Anyway, it’s 9pm, and I know I couldn’t get much more in here, so I’m done! Good luck to everyone still working furiously on their games. 😀

Game page is here.

Tags: done, menu, screenshot

I’ve barely started, because I want sure what I was going to do until recently. I’m going to remake Goblin Fortress, which I entered to LD last December. As I left it, it was a very basic city builder, but this time I’m determined to get the ‘map’ section of the game done, letting you send little goblin armies to ransack the human populace.

Slow going so far, as I’m using a half-complete Component system, but I’m enjoying it anyway. No screenshot, as I literally just have a tiny motionless goblin on a black background.

Hey all! Hopefully I’ll be participating this weekend, but who knows what could come-up.

Depending on what idea I come-up with for the theme, I have two plans:

1. For 2D stuff, Java using libGDX and my personal framework.
2. For 3D stuff, Unity. I’ve only briefly toyed with it though, so this is a riskier option.

For art, probably GIMP, though Pyxel Edit is nice for making tiles. If 3D, Blender, which I have no experience in so that’ll be great! Audio is probably going to be me making silly noises into a microphone. I highly doubt I’ll have music, but you never know.

May the force be with you all.

Tags: im in

Today didn’t go wonderfully. I really struggled for an idea that wasn’t dull or impossible, then I faffed about with Blender for ages before giving up. Eventually fiddled around a little more, and I can present to you: A rolling ball that can collect cubes! Play in web browser

Tags: playable, screenshot, unity3d

After a complete failure of an attempt to use the Phaser javascript library, I’m back to using comfortable old AS3 with FlashPunk.

The game idea I decided to go with is that you’re the only crew member of a ramshackle submarine. You have to dash between posts to prevent the thing from sinking. So far, it gradually fills with water, and you can operate the bilge pump to drain it. This probably makes it the only Ludum Dare game with an operatable bilge pump.

I mostly just like saying bilge pump.

Tags: as3, bilge pump, progress, screenshot

That’s supposed to be water. Perhaps I should have simply called it a ball pit.

I forgot to post about this before. >_> <_<

SWAN QWOP is complete! It’s been a while since I’ve actually completed an LD game, so I’m pretty pleased. 😀 I’ve written a little more on my site, if you’re interested.

Tags: game complete, screenshot, surfing frogs

Lorries in SPAAAAACE! is an interplanetary haulage management game. Buy space-lorries, and send them off to buy and sell goods between various planets. There’s no real goal yet, but I’ll be putting one in tomorrow, all being well.

The game’s not done yet – I’ve decided to go for the 72hour jam rather than the compo, but the game’s done enough for people to play it (Unity web player). Enjoy, and let me know what you think!

Tags: browser, playable, unity

Click to go to the game page!

It’s done! Since the last update, I’ve added a goal (buy all the planets), rebalanced everything to be more interesting, and added a bunch of quality-of-life improvements. (Windows stay on screen, you can rename lorries, etc.) It feels like an actual game now, and I’m really happy with it.

It’s the sort of thing I might expand in the future, but currently I’ve got waaaay too many projects that need finishing first. Follow my site, or my Twitter account for more info! 😉

Tags: final, jam, unity, unity3d

After my usual period of panicking that I can’t think of something for the theme, I’ve got an idea I really like and have made a small start on it. I’m calling it Snowman Sumo, and you an probably guess what that entails: Roll around, gathering snow to get bigger, then attempt to knock your opponent snowman off this little island.

I’m using Unity, which is madness as I couldn’t make a cube in a 3D editor to save my life. As such, I’ll be making “models” from Unity’s prefabs, giving them very basic textures, and hoping for the best. 😉

All the best to everyone participating!

Tags: progress, screenshot, snowman, unity

Things are going pretty well! You’re now actually a snowman rather than a snowball, and gather up snow as you roll around. I’ve just added the second player (not pictured) but they both currently share the same controls so it’s not much of a game. 😉

Embedding a tweet below because I don’t want to crush the LD site with gifs.

Wheeeeee! #LDJAM Probably need to change how the controls handle, but I need the other player in first. pic.twitter.com/8aB3MXIXZL

— Sam Atkins (@AtkinsSJ) December 6, 2014

Tags: gif, progress, snowman

It’s the moment you’ve all been waiting for! Well, statistically none of you even know about this game, but that’s besides the point. 😉

Snowman Sumo is, well, a sumo game about snowmen. Roll around to grow in size, then use your increased heft to knock the other snowman off the island. Play against a friend, from the comfort of your browser window.

Click the screenshot to play!

There’s still some polish to add – notably there’s no audio yet. I’d also like to add a mechanic where collisions knock snow off both of you, but I’ll see if I get to that.

Tags: 2-player, playable, progress, screenshot, snowman, Unity 3D