Technically my second Ludum dare, though my first was a bit of a failure in my opinion, so I don’t think I really count it.

However, since then, I’ve upgraded IDE, and learned one heck of a lot, so I’m hoping to create something quite good!

I’m probably going to participate in classic Ludum Dare, rather than the Jam, for a bit of a challenge.

Things I’ll be using:

• GM: Studio, with the HTML5 module to save on downloads
• BFXR for sounds
• FamiTracker for music, If I get round to it and…
• MSPaint (The XP version) For graphics. It may be old hat, but I find it good for pixel art.

Though, on the subject of MSPaint, I may have a little side project going on at the moment, as in a paint tool. I’m only doing this as I can’t find a free paint program, similar to MSPaint, that does everything I want it to (Animation, Layers, Transparency and simplicity). When it’s finished, I reckon I’ll release it for free.

5 hours left and my game is almost done. Only thing I’d like to do before release is fix a horrible bug in HTML5, that works fine in the desktop release, where reflections are messed up. Other than that, I think I can call my entry, “Beneath The Mirrors’ Surface”, complete, which is pretty good since I’d lost internet and didn’t know what the theme was for the first 8½ hours. So, yeah. Screenies! It’s only a short game, but a may extend it after the Dare, depending on how well it goes.

I  was hoping to be done by now! After fixing the mirrors, I found out the Bloody Mary boss fight is broken in HTML5! Will post in an hour or so when it’s done, and that’s it. after that, sleep.

Beneath The Mirrors’ Surface is finished, bug fixed and uploaded! You can view the Ludum page here, or go straight to the web version here.

What Have I Learned?

• It’s best if you play to your strengths. Last time, I attempted a TD style game. It sucked. However, I seem to be good at making platformers, and making cool sort of vector-based animation, so it didn’t take me long to whip up a working version.
• OPTIMIZATION EVERYWHERE! – Even if it’s small, and runs fine in one port, other ports can run REALLY SLOWLY if not fully optimized.
• You’ve got to test for bugs at every corner for every export! I thought I’d finished, BUT NO! HTML5 didn’t like my mirrors! And Bloody Mary didn’t want to die! Fix it as it comes, or it’ll cause issues later.

What’s Next for me?

Well, after all this Ludum stuff, I’m probably going to “finish” the game, and stick it on Kongregate and GameJolt, and add a few achievements. Otherwise, i’ll use the improved code I managed to create during this to base some other games on.

But imminently, the next thing for me, is sleep.

I think, given the good feedback I’ve got so far, I’m going to work on a full version of the game to release separately. This will feature new mechanics such as pushable blocks, broken mirrors, water which reverses gravity, maybe an attacking system, more Demons and a longer, fuller storyline.

In the meantime, Give this a play and vote for it on Ludum Dare!

Edit: Oh, and of course, I’ll fix any bugs. that you find. Eheheh.

So, my game, Beneath The Mirrors’ Surface, is going pretty well, in my opinion. it may not win, but the response I’m getting is pretty darn good. However, one of the main issues I hear is the controls. Either being “sticky”, or too close together. In this light, I am going to release a “post-compo” version, with keybinding. This is going to require quite a bit of change, such as new menus, title screen layout etc, which I think is too much of a change to get away with slipping in as a bug fix. On top of this, I am going to periodically update that version with new features and improved levels, making the earlier ones easier and adding more, with a larger story, and more difficulty towards the end, possibly with some new bosses too.
Anyway, just wanted to put that out there and, if you can, please check out my game.
And, with that, I bid you farewell!

SO, I made that game, Beneath The Mirros’ Surface, and since then, I’ve been continuing some work on it. This is an announcement to say that the (beta?) early versions of a full version are now on the internet. There are the same levels etc, but a bunch of new features have been added, and more gameplay mechanics are coming soon.

So far, I’ve added a full main menu, with key-config, a short “How to Play” page, which will be made better soon, and an autosave feature, so you don’t have to run through the game in one go. On top of this, I’ve done some optimizations, so, with any luck, the game should run faster on some machines, but it is still slow on some lower end machines. Despite this, the Windows Executable still runs fine on these systems.

This version will be updated frequently. I’m going to fix the “through the floor” bug, improve “shadow” casting, and then pack a whole bunch of extra features into the games, to enable me to make some quite interesting levels. I’ll also be working on the easy-to-hardness rate, so the game doesn’t get too hard too fast.

If you want to check out the post compo version, check it here.

If you want to vote, I would encourage you to play the original version first, vote, then check out the new version, for fairness’ sake.

Howdy-doo there! It’s Michael!

Back for another ludum dare, I plan to use:

• GameMaker Studio – For de code
• MSPaint – For Fabulous pixel art
• Famitracker – Maybe for music

And anything else I can be bothered to use!

With any luck, if my internet holds out, I’ll try to stream this time, as well as capture a timelapse, and mybe livetweet from my twitter account, @MaddeMichael

I was going to use a Java game engine I’d been working on, but sadly, it’s about 2 days away from being stable, so it wasn’t an option. Anyway, if this Dare is a success, I’ll recreate projects in java, if necessary.

Any ways, thanks for reading, and GOOD LUCK EVERYBODY! Have a great time!

Whew!

A quick process for me, I did a bunch of pixel art and assembled the core functions to my game, with the placeholder name “Of Light and Dark”. It sort of follows the theme in that the shadow and the light worlds are cone=nected, but some things can only be done in certain ‘worlds’. Basically, It’s a bit of a puzzle game.

Anyway, this leaves the next major thing to do as the player graphics, for normal player and shadow player.

Here’s a screenie of the bundle of mess I’ve created so far:

Unfortunately, as I’m using GameMaker, HTML5 doesn’t support the blend modes I’m using, so I may not have an online version :(.

One of my downfalls last time was that I didn’t include a keybinding system and controls were bad for some people, not to mention that some peoples keyboards are laid out differently to standard QWERTY. I’ve finished putting mine in, and I recommend you do too, for ease of use and comfort for any user!

If you want to see what I’ve been up to, check out my twitter!

I managed to come up with an Idea fairly quickly this time round. However, this Idea began to turn into a game I wanted to make about 5 years ago. It is most certainly not the same, but follows similar ideas.

What I present is a short puzzle game. Short, because I’m not very quick at level design, so there’s only about 11 levels.

All the graphics were done by hand in microsoft paint XP. Yup, you can hate me for it if you want, but I won’t care.

The goal is basically to solve puzzles and overcome obstacles by switching between two worlds — The nomal world, where darkness blocks, and the shadow world, where light burns. Anyway, here’s a pic:

Based on prior Ludum Dare experience, one of the first things I focused on was a key config menu: vitally important for those with out-of-the-ordinary keyboards, as well as people who are uncomfortable with the default controls. Believe me, it helps a bundle.

Anyway, the game isn’t up yet as I’m gonna see if I can’t compose some background music, but I’ll have it up soon enough on GameJolt and itch.io. If you’re interested in anything I have to say, check out my twitter, @MaddeMichael

By the way, after seeing what other people have posted, I’m blown away. It’s amazing what you guys can do in such a short time! Anyway, good luck!

Michael

First thing I want to say: I’m lazy and while I do browse through submitted games, it would be cool if you tweeted your games to me, @MaddeMichael, and I’ll play, rate an comment on them and wotnot. I’ll probably also tweet about the game too!

Anyway, other than that, I think I finished my game, “of Light and Dark“. While it is short, and the puzzles aren’t the greatest, I managed to finish it to a reasonable standard, and even added a 9 second background audio loop, which I spent about 3 hours making while trying to figure out how to use Anvil Studio, as well as compose it.

A more detailed post on the game can be found here.

Anyway, good luck everyone!

In case anyone didn’t see it earlier, any games that are tweeted to me (@MaddeMichael) I will play, rate and comment on them, and probably tweet about them to. What are you waiting for? Tweet me yo’ games!

It would also be cool if you could check out my game, “of Light and Dark“, and gimme summa dat feedback!

WOO YEA HYPE!

Yup, I’m in again, and once again, I’ll be livetweeting from my twitter (surprise!) @MaddeMichael, as well as tweeting about games I’ll play!

As per usual, I’ll be using:

• GM: Studio – For actual game stuff
• MSPaint (The good XP version) – For all mah pixelly graphics
• BFXR/My Fabulous Voice – For all dat cool SFX
• Famitracker/Anvil Studio – For de music

I’ll do my usual thing of making a HTML export for web players, as well as the downloadable (and usually more stable) Windows version. I’ll host my game on GameJolt and itch.io.

And, like I said last time, REMEMBER TO ADD KEY CONFIG FOR KEYBOARD GAMES! Really, it helps a lot.

I hated the theme. ‘Entire Game On One Screen’. I mean, that’s not really a theme, just looking at it, it’s a constraint. I do not like constraints. HOWEVER, it’s only a constraint on the surface. I turned it into a feature, other participants did other things. You could also make it into a game centered around a screen, using different meanings of ‘on’. It could be ‘about’, for example.

So the theme was workable, it just took too long to come up with an idea that worked. I did eventually come up with this little doodad:

 It is unfinished, cos I ran out of time. This resulted in

• A rubbish title
• No keybinding
• The worst end sequence
• A few elusive bugs
• Short Music

I also really wanted to add a bunch more features, such as

• More uses for electricity and wires i.e Lights, water pipes etc.
• More hazards i.e Exposed Wires
• A better death sequence
• An actual storyline
• More electrical components for some puzzles
• Better graphics and backgrounds

These features would have meant I could add some decent puzzles, as well as a dark room I really wanted to add, with flickering lights.

The main factory also isn’t exactly what I envisioned, as I ended up rushing it near the end, with a lack of implemented features.

Also, I don’t intend for The Monitor to be evil at all. It’s a properly coded AI, without evil capabilities!

Had I had more time, this game would have been feature-packed, with tonnes to do as well as humor, darkness and disruption. But this is Ludum Dare, not everything is perfect!

Despite all this I did learn/teach myself some pretty cool things:

• An actual working wire system
• Some good optimization techniques (for HTML5)
• A sort of slapped-together-but-could-easily-be-improved story system

I’m not too disappointed in the result, because I did make a playable game. I just don’t think it’s as good as my Ludum Dare 30 entry. That was rad.

But yeah. Give it a play here if you want.

I haven’t done nearly enough promoting this Dare, so I’m just gonna ask any last minute-ers to check out my game, “Oscillation”

Yes, it’s short, and a bit slow to begin with, but pretty soon things speed up. It isn’t quite as finished as I’d hoped, but I think it’s still a bit of fun.

Thanks to everyone who has or will have played+rated my game, and GOOD LUCK!

Hello!

One week to go, and I’ve hardly played anything. Thanks, college!

So, I plan to fix that this week, but in my own time. Other than that, I have a few announcements.

Primarily…

POTAT0WNED: THE REBAKE

After making the game, people seemed to generally enjoy the concept, but gameplay was awful.

And they’re right. The gameplay is awful.

I focused mainly on graphics this Ludum Dare; something I don’t normally do. I’m normally all about the systems, gameplay and code, but things went a little differently this time, and I spent more time working on graphics and sound, though I did create the POTATO SONG!

With the feedback I recieved and some extra time, I’ve been pouring my efforts into “Potat0wned: The Rebake”

You can visit the new WIP website, and/or play the new demo.

On the website, you can see a list of planned features etc, as well as what I’ve already done with the game. I was gonna put an example video up, but my recording stuff seems to be a bit haywire at the moment 😛

I’m not gonna go into detail on what I’ve done so far, you can check the website if you wanna know. In short: Graphics update, Gamepad stuff, android version, better controls/difficulty curve…. OH, AND YOU DON’T STOP MOVING WHILE YOU’RE THROWING POTATOES ANYMORE…

I have loads of new plans for the game (including a full OST), but there’s no point me adding them if nobody’s interested!

There’s only the one stage at the moment: the city. It’s quite a bit bigger and looks a bit nicer too, but nothing’s finished. Currently still only playable on survival mode.

I will definitely be adding the train again, as well as about 7 other stages. The train is my favourite.

YOU CAN STILL VOTE FOR/PLAY THE ORIGINAL GAME HERE!

Thanks a bunch!

Michael

Woah. I can’t belive it’s really been a year since I last did this. Crazy, huh? Last time, I made that dumb game, Potat0wned (which, by the way, is being made into a full game).

I’ll probably do the usual (since I discovered my hand drawn stuff looks terrible within the time constraints) – meaning, pixel art and GameMaker: Studio. I may do a jam if I feel like chilling, we’ll see.

I’ve also got something pretty cool I’ve been working on for the last week. Shame, I can’t integrate it into LD (Though it will be in Potat0wned, and maybe every game I make from here on). I’ll actually be explaining what it is on my Twitter sometime next week though, which is kinda nice. After all, it isn’t just for me, I want it to be for everyone.

Anyway…

Good look to you all!