Let’s keep this short… we all have games to play

Giiver’s Preview

Play Giiver’s Hop

Prejam

Before the jam started, I realized Ludum Dare fell on the same weekend as my friend’s birthday party. So the entire time before hand I kept thinking to myself “I need to make the shortest possible game I can”. That was the set up for my entire weekend. After the theme was announced I started sketching out various concepts of how the game could work. It was all up hill from there…

What went right

I got the entire game done! I knew I wasn’t going to have a full weekend to work, and I was going to have to do art, level design and programming all myself. I did my best to keep everything simple with the possibility to add more levels and characters later. Once the basic gameplay was set, it was all downhill from there.

What went wrong

I completely forgot about designing a good title and win screen. Before the jam started I spent a good amount of time doing various UI designs in Unity  just to get use to working with it. But, once the jam started I spent way too much time playing the game than actually working on it.

What will I do in the future?

Next Ludum Dare, I think I want to do something with a different way to interact where I can primarily focus on user experience. I might do something non-arcade and more experimental.

Now get out there and play some games.

I'm in. Going to try and step up my Unity skills. Hopefully I can create a really cute game with nice looking effects. Going to go with Blender for sure, but depending on the theme, I may have to use Qubicle again.

When we first started Planet Nanadoo I originally wanted something a bit more Pikmin-ish. It was going to be more about navigating around with these little robots, picking up scattered power cubes and bringing them back. There was going to be a balance between building more little robot dudes and trying to get enough power/resources to build a ship back. Complicated stuff.

Fortunately we started figuring in how long it was going to take to build all of the characters, enemies, backgrounds, et al and realized all of the complications weren't going to fly. We trimmed everything down to just two characters "The Explorer" and "The Locals". Unfortunately there wasn't enough time to make a very elaborate looking base, so I just had to use the regeneration chamber.

When it came to graphics, I called my good friend MarleeZ a few hours too late, to do screens. She was more than happy to jump on it. @Cheldav did the audio for this one (she worked on our previous entry Cosmic Chaos Crunch). We opted to go without voice acting this time to keep the explorer generic. This kinda backfired on me, because I didn't get in a death animation nor sound. So the explorer just kind of disappears.

I made a post Jam version that I want to say is as complete as this game is going to get. Any of the original concept stuff I do for this, may just end up in a sequel. That way there aren't any questions of was there enough time to complete XYZ.

What went right: Even taking a 6 hour break to literally go to another game demo, we managed to get it done. I'm getting faster at doing animations, they're not great but they work quite well. (I think they have a level of adorable I was somewhat aiming for). I got to work with MarleeZ!

What went wrong: Unfortunately the controls weren't as tight as I would've liked them to have been. Unfortunately players wander too much in the dark. I'd like for the beacon to have been clearer. I didn't get all of the animations in in time, so there are small hiccups in gameplay that make you go "???" That darn dot that appears in the center of the screen caused by a light that I've never figured out. >: \

* Is this what you want!? *

When I went into this Jam I said to myself, no matter what the results, I won't get upset at my rankings. I'll make a great game in the 48 hours (Even though I had 72 I gotta work on Mondays) and my friends will love it. And yeah, that's what happened. Until... Well I watched a streamer play my game a day after the deadline. sigh More on that below

(My prep game)

Day 1 - Friday

I had an unachievable game I originally wanted to do, till my buddy came along and said "Troy, you're doing too much. Use this idea instead" It was so much simpler. So much more fun across the board. I jumped right to work, writing down on paper how the game was going to work. What I was going to do for AI. A lot of other things. I completely forgot to tell the musician what the new concept was... We'll that'll be taken care of tomorrow.

Day 2 - Saturday

Alright we had a false start, lost many of music hours building a track for a game that won't exist for now. We moved on and I started coding. I got the basic premise down and working, I was able to move the character around on the screen and collect the sheep. Sheep moved around in some what random seeming locations, but if a boy sheep touched a girl sheep... well... nature happened. Had the logic working where the boy sheep(The rams) would get angry and charge at you if ate a lamb. Everything was working kinda well. That means tomorrow I can spend all day on polish.

Day 3 - Sunday

Got a good nights sleep, ate somewhat healthy save for a few Red Bulls. I started putting in the graphics. This is the first Ludum Dare in over a year that I actually didn't do the graphics for. It is also the second Ludum Dare that I used sprites for and not vector graphics or 3d models. I tried to put together a simple animation engine without learning how Unity does things properly. Then I threw in a few screens. From the very beginning I wanted to have a screen that appeared on top of actual game play... And that's where I failed(see below).

(The after)

What went right * I successfully made a game, that had somewhat decent AI, save for a few hiccups. * I made a game that's 2D that I'm quite proud of. * I made a game that was so simple I people could pickup and play without any complications. * The music, I'm in love with the song used for the game * It's cute in a way I'm not use to.

What went wrong * In making my "clever" title screen. I disabled sheep breeding. Without this, the screen would slowly flood and after 10 minutes the computer would start to crawl as it tried to calculate physics and ai for the large amounts of sheep. * Barking didn't have a visual effect to let the player know that, that was the only way to calm down the ram. * It's too hard to tell what is going on at times. When you eat a sheep, your mouth is full. When your mouth is full any close by ram attack. * The AI is so, complicated that it looks like nothing is happening. The ram attack when you eat a lamb, their mate, or a sheep in front of them. * My not wanting to ever fix a Ludum Dare game while voting is still happening

Give it a try. And if you enjoy it the first time, hit refresh to get play again and get the sheep to respawn. https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/eat-love-prey

Clever joke that no one gets but me... laughs anyway

"There's never enough time in a jam."

    - Everyone

This jam I once again attempted it solo. My fiance was working on music but got pulled aside for other things, and she didn't want me to cancel the entire game. So, I kept at it. Hi... I'm MrTroy. And this is my Ludum Dare post jam post.

When I started this jam, I wanted to record all of my progress and edit it into a comical documentary about how I make games. I wanted to go in to detail about my process. Why I refuse to shave, what do I do for my AI, why I choose to use Unity over other platforms. So, more on this in a bit. I have a lot of work to do with that.

I decided to keep the game as simple as I could. You have a monster plant that you want to keep alive, and the best way to do that is to feed it. Original scope (which I didn't keep the scraps of paper I drew it all up on) said that the player should feed as many vegetables and fruits to the plant as possible, but it wasn't going to be as fulfilling as meat. And when the player ran out of meat, they would have to sacrifice a bystander for the cause. The character was going to start off feeling bad about it, and then end up enjoying it after a while with plenty of comical banter. Yeah. I had 3 days to do this game, most of that was ripped out.

What I ended up with was a game where you have your choice between vegetables and fruit on the ground, or sacrificing a passerby. As you feed the plant you get a higher score combo. Most of this stuff was buggy, but it worked for the most part. The game is kinda fun, it's a quicky "play for 3 minutes to get the basic idea of it" kind of thing. But, it's kinda bland without audio.

Hey hey! Guess what your best friend has been doing whenever he gets a moment!? That's right! Building audio and adding more in to the game for a post jam version. I added animation and bounce to the characters. I tweaked the movement so the character isn't as slidey/slippery as before. And, I fixed most of the bugs that weren't easily spotted. But fret not... there are still some... there are still a lot of bugs in the game.

I learned a lot this time around. And I had a huge scare when recording the video. My computer was glitching and played all of my recordings back with a chipmunk squeak. I thought all of my audio was ruined (until I actually started writing this post which almost didn't happen) but thankfully I have a few hours of video to search through and try and slap something together. It was a lot of fun this time around, and I think I'm going to try and relax a little more when Ludum Dare 47 comes around. :)

What went right: I got a game done without audio! I uploaded it and kinda walked away from it satisfied. I recorded something that may or may not be usable.

What went wrong: I still haven't figure out the perfect balance between making a fun and an achievable game. I spent waaaay too much time trying to figure out a toon shader to get the look right. I didn't record the video the way I wanted to, I reused the skin from when I use to stream on twitch.

Play and Rate the original LD version: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/46/feed-meh/

* and if you played it already *

Play the remix version with audio: http://patterport.com/feedmehwa/

I usually make difficult games. But this one... Oh man... I have to put in a lot of work for it. Good luck everyone! Hope this doesn't affect my ratings too much.

I spent a lot of time this weekend making the game just work as well as I could. I tried my best to make a solid entry without all of the bells and whistles that I try and cram in and then rip out late. But, one thing I always forget about when making games is difficulty curve. I consider myself a terrible game player so when someone says my games are too hard I'm always caught off guard. Since I had a larger team this time around, I had them play it and well... a different level designer stepped in and made the game playable.

That didn't stop ME though. I took some of the hardest obstacles that I made and I made a super secret level that's not so secret hidden in the game. No one would be able to figure it out without being told or show, so I put it in the description of the game. I'm hoping someone out there has the patients to get all the way through, unlock the secret level, finish that and see the secret message... I don't have a million gold coins to give you, but I'm going to give you a thumbs up if you can. :smirk:

Play Marble Warble here https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/marble-warble

Hello friends!

Glad you all are playing Actionmart at the Awesomemart: Starring Action Matt. Just a quick update to those of you having trouble figuring out how to turn the lights back on and survive. I didn't want to do a game update during the voting period, so hopefully I'm catching you with this post. If not... tell your friends.

I did my best to base the Awesomemart Super Store off of a real Target Super Store, so on the right side of the store there's where burgers spawn (There would've been more food types, but I was bug fixing until the 11th hour).

In the far back of the store is the electronics section, where the emergency generators are. There's a giant Awesomemart sign in the back, that's next to impossible to see when the lights are out, and because of muscle memory, I just pasted the instructions to say "By the sign". Which chances are you didn't see.

And in the front left of the store, is where you refill your ammo. Unfortunately because Action Matt decided to go in to the Awesomemart without a backpack, he doesn't have enough room to carry ammo, so you have to keep refilling when the gun is completely empty.