I thought I’d only have time on Sunday, but I got some free time on my computer now and will probably have some more time later. YAY!

Even though I wouldn’t be able to start working on anything, I saw the theme as soon as it was announced (kudos for mobile network access… to think I didn’t use it until a few months earlier…). ‘Shapeshift’ got me thinking on the following things:

• slime that has to stealthily walk through enemies (changing into furniture and stuff)
• kirby (grab abilities from enemies and turn into them/grab characteristics from them)
• ninja that has to turn into enemies to mislead ’em (well, pretty similar to my first idea)
• Something weird related to transforming polygons into other polygons

The slime/ninja idea seems too simple (as in, a lot of people are probably doing that)… And I actually think that the kirby one also falls into that category…

Oh, well, let’s see what happens. XD

On a side note, my github repo is already up on https://github.com/SirGFM/ld35. I only really put my own template (https://github.com/SirGFM/GFraMe_game_template) there, so it still has got nothing, really…

I’ll try to keep you guys updated, but I probably won’t be able to check what you’re all doing… =/

See ya! o/

Short update: seems like “beauty and the beast” belongs to the public domain…

That seems like a promising starting point…

I’ll soon have some more time on my notebook… I should finish planning and (hopefully) start coding something.

I’ve finally written down all that I want on the game! It’ll be completely based on the “Beauty and the Beast”.

The game will be divided into 2 sections. The first part will be a short mini-game, in which the prince will fight against the evil fairy. On losing, he will be turned into a beast. Then, there will be a short outro, to explaining what happened since the prince’s fall and why the girl went to the castle.

Then, the girl will have to search for clues through the castle, to understand the story and ultimately face-off against the beast, leading to one of three endings.

Yeah, it seems like too much and I definitely won’t have time to do all that, but that’s the starting point…

Time to start coding with squares! (since I can’t draw without my mouse… =/)

This is what my “game” looks like right now:

But I don’t know how to finish it before the deadline… and I feel quite demotivated, right now…

I’ll do my best to finish something!

Hello LDers!

This LD was quite different from what I’m used. I had a few short slices of time in which I could work on my entry through the weekend, until I was finally able to work almost 10 hours straight on Sunday’s afternoon (the only part of the jam that I did timelapse).

Here’s briefly what went right/wrong:

What went right

• I finished something
• I used the theme on the narrative (in a way that I rarely do)
• Even though running out of time, I was able to explain the theme in-game
• Graphics were done quickly and (mostly) smoothly
  • Also, the flapping of the evil fairy!
• I was able to do three (pretty simple) variations for the game’s theme song

What went wrong

• The idea was too big for the time I had (less than 24 hours)
• Everything is as rough and unpolished as possible
• Gameplay is really dumb
• I was away from my battle station until mid-day, on Sunday

And here’s the timelapse, taken for around half the time I worked on the game.

Later, I’ll write a proper post mortem. I’d like to explain why I didn’t have much time, how I got the game idea, how I quickly done the graphics… etc.

Until then!

Tags: compo, LD35, post-mortem, postmortem, timelapse

It’s already that time of the year, again… I’m really looking forward to take part of another Ludum Dare and to play lots of great games! 😀

Once again, I’ll be joining the compo. My tools haven’t changed for the past few events, but here’s the list:

• Language: C
• Library: GFraMe (2.1.0, which will be merged into master later today)
• Music: c_synth (1.0.2b)
• SFX: sfxr/bfxr
• Editor: Vim
• Tilemap editor: Tiled
• Timelapse: Chronolapse
• Image editor: GIMP
• Beverage:Coffee, as always =D
• OS: Ubuntu 14.04
• Streaming: Open Broadcaster Software
• Base game resolution: 320×240 (I like this res… don’t ask…)

I’ll try to stream during most of the compo. I’ve done that for the last few ones and its was quite fun and interesting… You will find my stream on Twitch.

See you guys tomorrow. Have fun!

So far, I’ve got some ideas I could work with, but nothing that really took my interest (or that I know how to make interesting). Update: Writing devlogs is great! As I wrote this post, I was able to decide on a game idea! _o\ \o\ \o/ /o/ /o_

After the theme announcement, I started to write a list of topics within the theme:

• Floppy disk
• Colossi
• Egypt / Pyramids
• Wheel
• “Dumbphone” (i.e., a regular, “non-smart” one)
• 14-Bis
• Paper / Book
• Nintendo’s GameBoy
• Sega Genesis
• Trojan Horse (i.e., the Wooden Horse)
• Terracotta Army
• The Great Wall

Some of the items weren’t really technology (like The Great Wall), but it was a start… From those, I wrote a few short “pitches” for games:

• Paper / Book: You have an assignment due tomorrow, but the internet is down! Run to the nearest library and finish your research!
• Colossi (I): You find an strange mountain/monument emitting a mysterious light. As you climb it, you discover that it’s a colossus from ancient times…
• Egypt / Pyramids: Use your magical staff to lift and throw stones from the river to your pyramid-builder-partner, who must be able to catch the stones mid-flight and build a proper pyramid.
• Terracotta Army / The Great Wall: Scrapped, as it wasn’t related to ancient technologies.

Then, while writing this post, I had another idea:

• Colossi (II): There are mysterious shrines through a field. Upon climbing mysterious floating islands, you place magical lens onto burning glasses, lighting sacred fire on the shrines. Through this ritual, the colossus wakes up from its slumbers and… (?)

The shrines could be part of the colossus, and the end of the game may be a playable cutscene with the shrines floating into the air and becoming the colossus… I liked the idea of playing with lighting a lot, so I’ll probably start tomorrow by prototyping some pseudo-lighting mechanics. It would be great if my framework already supported custom shaders, but it’ll fun trying to move past this limitation.

Now, I’m off to sleep!

See you guys soon! o/

(Or day ‘0.5’, if you like 0-indexed better)

Good morning, LDers!

I just woke up and got back to working on my entry! Come watch me at https://www.twitch.tv/gfm123!

As many others, I didn’t really like this theme… but I finally found a way to use it that I like:

You are trapped in a mystical mansion/castle/whatever. Every rooms looks exactly the same, except mirrored. Find every gem on every room to escape.

To take that idea further, I’m thinking about using something like the grapple mechanic from Umihara Kawase:

Let’s see how this works out.

This has been an unusual LD for me. I want to try to figure out what I’m going to do and share with y’all why I’ve barely made anything. I apologize if it comes out as a rant.

I’m usually really keen to take part of the compo and give it my best. At the same time, I don’t really care with the results. I’m really in for the complete experience: *slaughtering themes, voting, making a game and playing/commenting on all your awesome games. (*yeah, I’ve always skipped the suggestion phase…)

I also enjoy the aspect of putting down my current project/whatever for sometime and try doing something new and/or different. It’s always great to see how much I’m able to accomplish in a single weekend.

And there’s a part of me that doesn’t want to break my streak… I’ve been able to successfully enter a new game every compo, even when I trashed my previous idea late during the first day and would be away for most of the second.

This time, however, I haven’t been able to fully focus from the beginning.

It started with the theme. I was pretty disappointed with it and couldn’t come up with any usable idea before going to sleep (the theme was announced at midnight, here). The following morning, I woke up even before the alarm rang, only so less time was “wasted” sleeping…

The idea I was able to come up with was quite… weak. The theme felt unnecessary and the game could work just fine without it. (The game was also a bad ripoff of another game’s mechanic.) But I don’t want to ignore it. I feel that ignoring the theme is ignoring a big part of the event. Also, if I were to ignore the theme and make anything, why not simply work on my current project? That would be more productive, but it would also mean skipping the event… This thought kept looming around, and was a big factor on my procrastinating through most of the day.

I still think I have more than enough time to wrap up my current entry. It wouldn’t be as polished as it could had been, but it would be something. But then, I get caught up on these thoughts…

• I don’t want to force myself to finish the game for the sake of finishing it
• But I don’t want to skip an event
• At the same time, I want to prove to myself that I am able to overcome all that and finish something
• and so on…

Well… I don’t know. I’m off to sleep. I’ll leave the decision (to continue or to give up) to my future, rested self. (who’ll probably be in a better mood…)

Last night, and during most of yesterday, I was considering skipping this LD.

Today, however, I felt motivated to keep going. So, yeah! I should still be able to submit… something. XD

On to implement the grapple mechanic and then a simple level.

Hello LDers!

I finished processing/uploading the timelapse for my entry, flipper:

The timelapse represents only ~14h of footage. Give or take some 2~3 hours that I may have forgotten to capture, I worked less than 17 hours throughout the weekend. I’ve made a previous post about how I felt through most of Saturday. That somewhat explains why I slacked off so much.

Still, another point was probably that I couldn’t see how to implement the main mechanic properly. I originally had thought about making a game like Umihara Kawase, but whenever you tried to leave the room it would flip in some direction.

Even after implementing the grapple mechanic, I still somewhat lacked motivation to finish. The game IS quite broken, and it would only be another bad game on my list of LD entries. At least, the game is so badly broken that you can enter walls by using the hook… which enables finishing the game in a few seconds. 😀 (since I’m really into speedruns, this is a plus)

But finishing something and submitting it to Ludum Dare is so much fun that I was able to motivate myself and finish it. Now, looking back at the game, I’m really happy with how it came out (given how little I worked on it) and I’m considering further developing that mechanic some other time (and in another game).

But now, on to play, rate and comment and your games!

It's time to once again drop whichever project I was working on and take part of yet another compo! :) Actually, this past few days I've been mostly playing games, so this is a great time to go back to developing stuff.

I feel like I haven't really been able to finish my past few entries, so I'll strive to do something much simpler and more polished. Worst case scenario, I'll have to hastily push my framework's branch with continuous collision half-implemented, so this isn't a repetition of my LD37 entry (old site).

My tools haven't changed at all from last time... However, there were a few modifications to my working environment! I can now finally cross compile to Windows, so no more restarting the computer to boot that and build the game. A simple make deploy will build for all supported targets!

• Language: C
• Library: GFraMe (2.4.1)
• Music: c_synth (1.0.2c)
• Reference project: JJAT 2 (mostly for references on the new template… and on collision)
• SFX: sfxr/bfxr
• Editor: Vim
• Tilemap editor: Tiled
• Timelapse: Chronolapse
• Image editor: GIMP
• OS: Ubuntu 14.04
• Window manager: i3 (first time using it on a LD!!)
• Streaming: Open Broadcaster Software (maybe, who knows...)
• Base game resolution: 320×240 (I like this res… don’t ask…)

I've already set up my entry's repository with an enhanced version of the template I've used on past events.

I hope you all have a great time! Remember to sleep and eat well, and to drink lots of water! And, most important: have fun! =D

P.S.: Shout-outs to Mike and everyone who has helped with the new site! I'm really hyped to take part of the first LD on the new site! Thanks for all the work put toward making all the events happen!

As always, I can't say I was happy when I saw the theme. Having repeated themes (it's pretty identical to LD#23's) kinda annoys me... But given how long ago that was, I don't see it as a problem, anymore.

I'm currently thinking about making something about meeting people. You know that "it's a small world" feeling? That's what I would like to accomplish with the game.

I'd probably have to do something that plays somewhat like a visual novel. Or, at least, something more story/events driven than gameplay driven.

Experience tells that this is a bad idea... But why not give a try, again? =D

It's way later than I expected (2:30 AM, local time), but it will payoff...

I was able to finally flesh out my original idea into something I know how to implement! The elevator pitch would go something like this:

Artist travels the world seeking inspiration and find unexpected links with admired people. It's a small world, after all.

It will play out as a side-scroller adventure. The player has to explore the world looking for interesting people and artifacts. Eventually, they will also come across relevant buildings (e.g., school they went to) or books.

Any relevant thing the player interacts with will be added to their Adventure Log. As stuff is added to the log, links between them are created. The objective is to connect interesting art to their creator and then connect to creator to the player (e.g., a cool statue made by a person that lives close to the player, or a interesting painting made by someone who attended the same school as the player).

When the player find everything, go back to their house or leave the game, they will be awarded a score and a flavor text about how small the world is.

Now, to get some sleep so I can scope this into something doable...

After some good resting and rendering the timelapse some 3 times (because of dumb reasons), I'm finally ready to write the post mortem for my latest entry, It's a Small World.

Usually, I try to write about my jam in chronological order, but I it always feels "without a point". This time, I'll try to write about relevant things that worked (or didn't) for me, choices that were good and bad... The kind of stuff that I feel a post mortem should be about.

Timelapse

If you want a better look on how my game was made, you may watch my timelapse!

I took a picture every two seconds, which summed up to almost twenty one hours of recorded footage into just ten short minutes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=macOZQo9QfY

I didn't record the first "few" hours, during which I was only planning the game. I would also stop recording whenever I left the computer. So I definitely used way more than only those twenty one hours... Only with stuff that wasn't interesting to record.

Tools and tech

First thing first. I like to brag about this, so... Bear with me.

Once again, I used my tools to make my entry. I have a (not so) small framework written in C that handles some common stuff (rebind-able stuff, loading/rendering assets, some physics, tilemap etc) that uses SDL2 to detect events and manage the window. I also have a small "music synthesizer" (or tracker, if you must call it that), that parses a MML-like language into a chiptune-ish sound.

Usually I try to use it in a "optimized" way. Therefore, I try to use as little memory as possible, write neat and (arguably) fast code... The kind of stuff that you should only care about before releasing a game or if you have the time. For a jam game, I shouldn't care about those stuff.

That's why I'm proud to say that this time my game seems to need around 40 MB of memory to run! Instead of over-optimizing, I did everything the simplest way that I could think of. Instead of bothering about reading things from a file only when needed, I load the entire game before starting it and that's it! I also alloc a predefined amount of memory for every "sub-scene", no matter how many or how many of it would be used.

All of that helped my in being faster at using my own tools... Which had been an issue for quite some time, now!

So, tl;dr: It's a game jam! Get things done FAST! Optimize when and if you have time.

Theme

I don't really like repeated themes. But when I think that LD#23, which theme was "Tiny World", was 5 years ago... Yeah, maybe it's time to let them row again...

I actually had some trouble having the initial idea. Most of the stuff I thought about didn't really "shine" for me, and I wasn't sure how to implement the only idea that I did like.

After thinking a lot, I came up with a way to use it. Since it was based on creating small stories within the game, it was also quite easy to limit the scope if needed: I simply wouldn't add more stories if time were short.

Planning

There are usually at least two mistakes to be made here: planning too much and planning too little.

This time, I decided to try and err for the excess. I spent the first 4-5 hours only planning the game. Since I had the idea of doing something that wasn't gameplay oriented, I didn't have to worry too much about getting a prototype done quickly. However, I really needed to know how it would play out, and if it would be actually feasible...

After all that time, I had a pretty good image of what the game was going to be and some rough ideas of how stuff could be implemented... I also used that time to mentally plan how the scope could be reduced if I ran out of time, which did happen!

Even though I had drawn sprites for more interactions, I decided to dump those in favor of polishing the little experience that I was building. I started actually adding the content that I had drawn/planned for the game around 4 hours before the end of the compo. That's the time that seemed necessary to add content and write the songs for the game.

Luckily it all worked out, but I only because I decided to drop stuff (and because I knew what to cut out).

tl;dr: Beware planning too much! Plan enough to be able to get through most of the jam without having to re-think the idea. Also, if possible, try to always know what can be cut if needed (and implemented that last).

Assets

I was able to draw an acceptable sprite in around 20 minutes, which I'm pretty proud of! However, I learned (was reminded, actually) that drawing is way harder than I remembered...

Usually, I impose pretty harsh contraints on my art. I only use a 32 colors palette, my sprites have to be small and fit within a power of two size, I try to avoid using lots of colors per sprite, sprites shouldn't have outlines... Those are fun stuff that may help you find creativity, but it can backfire.

This time, I didn't care that much about the size restriction, about outlining stuff nor about colors (though I did use that palette!). This helped me in drawing the environment, in making the sprites somewhat readable, and led to the fun fact that all hitboxes are somewhat displaced from their actual sprites.

But drawing an OK background is still too hard. I got pratice that more. Also, I have to learn to only do the most basic assets for the prototype/engine development.

tl;dr: Screw roofs! They are too damn hard to draw! (and background, in general)

The engine

I spent most of my time implementing the engine. I only had it somewhat finished and started to draw the final version of the tilemap 10 hours before the end of the compo.

I honestly don't know what to take from this. It kinda worked out, but I should try to make stuff simpler (so I may implement them more quickly).

I must say that I ran into few weird/funny bugs. It was almost smooth sailing... Except for that one time that I passed a pointer's address instead of its value. Debugging that was really fun.

Audio

I added audio, once again! I literally did it on the last hour... and it came out almost OK.

I have to go back to planning it while creating the engine, so integrating audio into the game is quicker. But it was somewhat OK... I don't know...

That's all

I don't know what else to say... and I'm almost out of characters! So it seems like a good time to stop. :)

Thanks for reading all that!