Just at in the eleventh hour, I managed to finish off building a version of Heartbreak that should scale nicely for all Android devices. If you have an Android device, please give the .apk a try. I’d love to hear how it plays for others on their phones, or even tablets.

I also added in a little easter egg for those with tappy fingers.

Enjoy!

I don’t have much artistic experience to speak of. Doing even pixel-art sprites are very difficult for me because I lack a history of drawing. My only sprite experience has been with extremely limited sprites on the Atari 2600, which are practically colored outlines more than full-on sprites.

Tonight, I’ve experimented with a style similar to Superbrothers: Sword ‘n Sworcery, which I absolutely adore. Since it’s very pixel-by-pixel, the level of detail and accuracy in sprites like Shovel Knight isn’t necessary, and I appreciate its use of implied detail and the focus on animation while letting the viewer use their imaginations to some degree. I’ll probably be shooting for a style similar to this for the upcoming Ludum Dare, unless my idea (whatever it is) just isn’t appropriate for it. I suppose I have to start somewhere.

If anyone knows of any good tutorials for newbies to learn drawing/pixel art, I’d love it if you’d share them!

Tags: journal

Well, here’s me saying that I’ll be participating.

GameMaker + Photoshop

This isn’t my first Ludum Dare, but it’s my first one (not counting the last mini-dare) that is actually on a modern system.

Here’s hoping I can come up with something good with the theme. Fingers crossed!

I really haven’t gotten much done in the 3-4 hours I’ve been working on things so far (not counting the couple of hours it took to settle on an idea).

I decided on a top-down Zelda-style adventure game that incorporates the “You Only Have One” theme with the player having only one weapon: a magical staff. In order to overcome obstacles or attack/defend against enemies that have various magical powers, the player will need to set the combination of elemental magic that their one tool–the staff–will be giving out. For instance, the common situation of encountering a fire enemy. The player may switch to water or ice magic to attack with, or switch the staff to fire magic and block with it, preventing the player from taking the elemental fire damage.

This will be a big learning experience for me, since I haven’t ever made an action game before, even one as simple as a Zelda-style adventure game. Presently, I only have the controls (which currently require a gamepad, like that of an Xbox 360) implemented to select the elemental magics, as well as a life/magic bar in the form of blue pips that circle the center. I’ll get into the meat of this project tomorrow.

Goodnight, darers!

Tags: journal

So, my idea was a bust; I bit off more than I could chew. While my game concept was feasible within the compo period, I didn’t have enough knowledge to actually see it through in that time. I spent almost all day today just trying to get collision detection to work, and I have no clue about enemy pathfinding or a number of other critical parts.

I’ll be bringing the protototype to completion outside of the LD, just for the sake of the practice.

As for the LD, if I can come up with a decent game concept within the limited time left, I’ll try to race something out.

To those who know: what’s the difference between the compo and the jam?

Tags: journal

My intended idea at the beginning of the jam proved too difficult to complete. Then I had pretty much no ideas for the remainder of the compo period. Finally, just when the compo period ended yesterday, I had an idea for playing a bossfight from the boss’s perspective. The connection to the theme is pretty weak. You only have one… eye? Room? Goal?

Regardless, even though the game only barely touches the theme, is buggy, has no sound, has very unfinished graphics, and has incomplete gameplay implementation, I’m just glad to have something, even a very rough prototype, to show for the Dare. I’d have felt worse if I simply hadn’t been able to come up with anything at all and had had to skip over this jam.

Whatever one can say about Cyclops, it was a good learning experience. After I’ve had a break to cool down from this jam stuff, I’d like to return to the prototype and polish it to completion, just for the experience of it.

Tags: journal, postmortem

I did some hobby game development several years ago, then just… stopped (lack of motivation, I suppose). Looking back at some of the stuff I’ve done, even incomplete LD projects, I marvel at what I accomplished and wonder if I could even repeat that. I’ve wanted to continue for a long time and have beaten myself up every time I let a LD or a OGAM pass me by… but here’s my chance to get back into it.

Engine: Phaser or LÖVE (depending on which I feel more comfortable with in a week)
Graphics: Aseprite or PyxelEdit/Photoshop/Tiled (if necessary)
Sound: sfxr or bfxr (BeepBox looks cool but I probably won’t have time)

I’d like to hear any suggestions between Phaser.io or LÖVE from people with some experience. I presume that LÖVE makes for easier distribution (though I do have webspace for hosting, if I want) and that they’re comparable in actual flexibility/power (which is to say: both very good), but I’m open to biased preferences and hearing why.

College has begun again, and between juggling a part-time job and full-time college while volunteering on a student games project, I haven’t had the time to prepare with Phaser as intended. On top of that, I’ll be having family over this weekend to visit, so the weekend won’t be free.

I likely won’t participate this time, but I’m determined to catch the next one. Meanwhile, I’ll put the time to continue working on a micro HTML5 engine for the js13kGames jam.

Good luck everyone, and have fun!