I’m in as well, going for the compo…

I’ll be using:

• Java with Slick2D
• possibly TilED
• Cubase with some sample libraries
• GraphicsGale and/or Photoshop
• Coffee

I’m quite familiar with my tools and overall I feel slightly optimistic, even though I’m still a novice game developer.

Have fun everybody!

Greetings everyone!

I’m in for the OctoberChallenge and I’m really curious to see what I will be able to come up with.

I will take my game „Ideas“ which I made for Ludum Dare 24 and turn it into something which I hope will be commercially viable.

For everyone who missed out on my LD entry:

Ludum Dare 24: Ideas

It also received quite the favourable rankings:

#4

4.12

#20

3.92

#23

3.81

Nevertheless, I feel that I can still improve on it pretty greatly.

The name „Ideas“ will only be a working title from now on as I have come up with a new story. It will still take place inside a persons mind, but with a drastically more serious tone to it. I don’t want to give everything away right now so I’ll just tell you this much: I want to hit some Inception-Fight Club’esque emotions here!

I’m pretty confident that i can pull this off, even though the time is really short. Time shortage also partially has to do with me starting to study Computer Science at the university this month.

To better manage my workload I started to actually make 3 different TODO-lists:

• One for the entire month in which I drop everything that needs to be done at some point and then forget about it.

• One for the upcoming week. I put about one weeks worth of stuff from the bigger list in here.

• And then – you might have guessed it – one for the next day. In here I put one or two items from the weeks list.

I hope this system will help to relieve the feeling of „oh jolly good f**k – this project is (too) huge!!“, as the smaller lists really break it down into more managable chunks and help beat the procrastinating demon lurking inside of me.

Back to the game.

I aim for 1-3 hours worth of playtime in the end so there is a lot of content to be created (comparing to the 2-20 minutes of the original entry… depending on how great or sucky your platformer skills are). There will definitely need to be a handful of new game mechanics to make the journey stay fresh and interesting the whole time.

Today I finally took a leap of faith and jumped right into the horrible mess of code I left after the LD. 8 hours worth of digging and I refactored most of it and scratched some parts („UI“ and the simple scripting) which need to be redone.

Gosh, that was scary! But now I can happily start on some new features and improvements which are desperately needed for a product that eventually shall sale.

There are of course a lot more things to consider, including a simple but hopefully effective business and marketing plan. I will try to update you about my progress at least every couple of days. Until then, take this screenshot which practically still looks just like my LD entry:

Jump, Jump!

As suggested by Dir3kt, take this photo of my current coding castle (nice alliteration… note to myself: pat myself on the back):

As chaotic as always… OctoberChallenge or not, doesn’t matter 😉

Update on my game:

I’ve done mostly under the hood work in the last couple of days, added support for different resolutions and fullscreen, added my menu framework, support for multiple gamestates (which was desperately needed) and a basic scripting system. I’m pretty happy with the progress so far. Sometime next week I will probably start doing some actual gamedesign work again (note to myself: pat myself on the crotch!).

If you like to stay updated, you can also follow me on Twitter, where I’ll try to ramble a bit more often about my game and games in general (and it is also heartbrakingly lonely there :'( …).

Hey folks!

There are quite a lot of updates about my game.

First and foremost, I had to rethink the storyline, streamline it to make it fit in with the visuals and gameplay. Therefore I also had to change it’s name again… “Closer to You” was definitely chosen way too hastily. I’m learning valuable lessons here!

Anyway, the game is now called Memory Inc. and here’s what it’s about:

Memory Inc. is a 2D platformer with a mixture of quick jump n’ run action, a metroidvania progression and memento-like storytelling.

You’re an agent being sent into a guys subconscious by Memory Inc. – a company hired to help people remember. On your journey through the mind you set free the supressed memories about a long lost love, causing your host unbearable agony and leaving you to deal with a more and more hostile environment. The only way to heal your clients pain is to get to the bottom of it, whether he wants it or not.

It’d be real awesome if you could tell me what you think about that story setup.

Here’s some more stuff that I worked on:

I’ve made some more visual updates, added new sprites.

The slightly updated menu screen.

Updated the agents (players) sprite to fit in with the slightly altered scenario.

Made a little Illustration for the title screen (probably).

Also, I’ve started working on my homepage and naively hope to finish it today.

Remember to hit me up on Twitter for pizza and snacks!

I’m in for my second LD.

I’m playing it safe by sticking to my tools: Java and LWJGL (Slick2D).

I’m now gonna go stack up on food and drinks, then (hopefully) sleep early to wake up early to a (hopefully) glorious theme!

Have fun girls and boys!

EDIT: We’ll be making another post with a team account. So scratch this one!

Heyho everybody,

two friends and I are gonna join the fun this weekend.

We will be using Java with Slick2d, a lot of Club Mate and hopefully some fastfood to somehow get a game together!

Good luck to everybody!

Hey folks,

I’ll be trying to whip up a game this weekend.

I will be using:

• My own C/C++ engine which I should have prepared a lot more this week but oh well.
• Probably Blender for some uber simple models.
• Club Mate.