I entered the Ludum Dare 23 compo and enjoyed it greatly (at least until practically nobody voted on my game), so I’m entering again this year. I haven’t decided whether to enter the Compo or the Jam this time. Probably Compo.

My computer broke and I got a new one since LD23, but my new computer uses a Realtek r8168 network card, which has horrific Linux support, so I’m stuck on Windows this time around. It won’t be too bad, though, I’m sure.

I’ve been learning some Flash, but I only know the bare basics of animation and no ActionScript, so I’ll be making a Java applet because that’s what I’m best at.

As you may recall, the previous LD’s theme was “Tiny World”. I did not like that theme. I was really hoping for “Legacy” this time, but alas, ”tis not to be. I had a sort of vague concept of what my concept for what my idea for my game would be like if it was “Legacy”, but I guess that I won’t have the luxury of cutting the time to come up with an idea in half.

The purpose of this message had been to inform you that one day I will rule the world.

In the midst of a ton of “I’m in!” posts, here’s a post about a tool that was posted about last Ludum Dare, but which I had the misfortune not to notice. It’s a music generator so that people like me can have background music within the rules of the competition. It’s called Autotracker-Bu. I did not make this tool!

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/2011/12/13/if-you-find-it-hard-to-make-music-read-this/

I tried to make the deadline. I did. But I guess that I don’t quite know the limits of what I can do in 48 hours, because the AI in my game currently is horrible. I’ll switch to Jam and spend tomorrow improving it.

I had adjusted to the idea of when the deadline would be, so this is a bit of a shock to my internal schedule. I had expected for my game to stop taking up the entirety of my mind at 6pm today. So I’ll be taking a break for the rest of today and start on it again tomorrow.

Screenshot of the current state of my game:

A screenshot of my Ludum Dare 24 game.

That’s right, the moment the whole Internet has been waiting for for 72 hours has come: the moment that I, Pitzik4, submit my game! Just kidding. About the whole Internet caring about my game, I mean. I actually did submit. I find it to be a very fun game, and entering the Jam instead of the Compo gave me enough time to make a much better game. Link: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-24/?action=preview&uid=8883

Screenshot:

A screenshot of Untitled.

I watched Notch make Minicraft for LD22, theme “Alone”. It inspired me to join LD23 Compo and make Earth Evacuation, theme “Tiny World”. In LD24 I made Untitled for the Jam, theme “Evolution”, and I spent so much time on my computer that I had to take a walk to get my eyes back in good enough order to read my own code again. And now I’m going to join in LD25, whatever the theme may be. (I suggested the theme “Metagaming”, but I don’t know yet if it was accepted.)

I intended to learn how to use Adobe Flash after LD24, but I couldn’t get started. I wanted to start simple and learn how to animate with Flash, then learn how to use ActionScript, then learn how to use Flixel or Flashpunk or whatever, but I couldn’t find any good tutorials on animating with Flash. I also learned a bit of OpenGL recently with C++, but I’m not really ready to make a whole game with it. So, that settles the programming language and IDE I’ll be using: Java and Eclipse for the third time in a row. But I don’t mind, really.

In LD23 I didn’t have sound, but in LD24 I used sounds make with sfxr and music made with, as I think it was called, Autotracker-Bu. So, I’ll be using sfxr and Autotracker again this time. For graphics, GIMP.

In summary… Language: Java. IDE: Eclipse. Sound effects: sfxr. Music: Autotracker. Graphics: GIMP.

I’ll probably livestream at http://www.twitch.tv/pitzik4thegreat in case you care to see. It wasn’t easy to set up livestreaming. There doesn’t seem to be audio, but that’s fine with me, and I hope it’s fine with anyone watching, too. I’ll also probably make a timelapse. I will definitely do at least one of these, possibly both.

Edit: Oh, yes, I forgot to mention one thing. If you were wondering about the purpose of this message, it was to inform you that one day you will all be ruled by me. I will initiate my world takeover on the 21st.

I’m now streaming my desktop at http://www.twitch.tv/pitzik4thegreat, in case you want to watch. Don’t bother looking at any time before the Dare starts, I won’t be doing anything interesting.

Don’t worry, it’s still playable, maybe even fun. It’s a top-down RPG-style game. Try it here. Here’s a screenshot:

Screenshot of Prophecy of the Villain

It does have a goat:

+1 For goat!

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-25/?action=preview&uid=8883

Tags: entry, game, jam, java, RPG

I found time to make a playable alpha version of Prophecy of the Villain for LD25 and submit it to the Jam. Unfortunately, I have not yet had time to finish the game or to judge other games, both of which I would really have liked to do. Oh, well, I can still play the games now.

As another note, it seems like every compo I’ve gotten more ambitious. In LD23, my first Ludum Dare, I completed a rather poor game in 48 hours. In LD24, I completed what I consider to be quite a good game in 72 hours. This Ludum Dare, I aimed to make a top-down RPG, even though I’ve never made an RPG, or even a story-based game, before, and didn’t finish in time. The engine’s quite good in my opinion, though. I’m going to have to remember not to be too ambitious next compo… and not to work on the game engine for too long.

Tags: judging

Believe me, I’ve been 100% “in” for LD26 ever since I first watched Notch’s livestream of making Minicraft for LD22.  I just forgot to make this post.

So, yeah. This is my fourth Ludum Dare. I can hardly believe LD23 was a year ago, but I guess it must be true.

This will be my first time using Flash. I chose Flixel as my library. Maybe this year I’ll actually finish a game.

I don’t really have a choice but to make a Compo entry because I will be occupied on Monday.

So, here are my tools:

• FlashDevelop – IDE
• Flixel – Library
• ActionScript 3 – Language
• GIMP – Graphics
• sfxr – Sound effects
• Autotracker-Bu – Music
• Open Broadcaster Software and twitch.tv – Streaming (here’s my channel)
• Everything I forgot to mention and will use

Here’s my game so far. It’s in Flash. It reminds me of Portal.

To do:

• Make a name
• Make more levels
• Add a few more liftable devices

I think that I finally have all of the features I want in my game. Now it’s time to make levels. I have never been a good level-maker. This is my third game ever with actual levels, after Age of the Internet and Prophecy of the Villain. Neither of those had very good levels, which actually led me to give up on the former. If only I had chosen to make a shooter or something instead of a puzzle game.

So here’s just a link. And a screenshot:

Now that I have all of my mechanics done, the story written (pretty much), and all of my characters drawn, I can spend the final 21 hours 100% on levels! Click in the level to walk somewhere or interact with someone. Currently, clicking on any character except the one on the far left will cause you to become that character. They are all fully animated. You can’t walk through people, so it can be a bit difficult to get around. So, here’s the link. The words “the level” above also link to the game, but DRY doesn’t apply when you’re programming humans. 😉

In the final game, you will relive the same 10 seconds once as each character, and your actions as each character affects the ending. It only ends up being 1 minute and 20 seconds of gameplay every time you play, but finding all of the endings will end up taking a while, I think.

This game turned out better than I had hoped, but it’s currently 3 a.m. for me. I’m exhausted. Anyway, this game is one I really think I might do further work on, and here it is: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-27/?action=preview&uid=8883

So, I’ve got a simple platforming thing working. The jumping’s floaty, I’ve already fixed that in my version, but here it is: http://bit.ly/18rmbGJ

The guy has blue skin. Wowwwww, colorful. He’s also bald, but he wears a cap to cover it up. I wonder why his hat has a plus sign on it.

I turned the island into a cave! I added a starting cutscene and a second character! I added a sparkly microchip! I added an inexplicable bug under the flash platform that makes everything hover one pixel above the ground! I didn’t add a “Back” button to the Info page and I didn’t add a tileset! Exciting!

Try the current version out here: http://bit.ly/1bPzMGS

Oooh, a screenshot!

The game’s looking very complete right now! All I have to add is shooting and some endings. And a title. Then I’ll have a finished game!

Play what I have so far here: http://bit.ly/1fv8tCi

And here’s screenshot of the aforementioned boss’s introductory cutscene.

He’s going to kill me!

Yes, my poorly-named game, Wiped, is done! If you’re wondering why I posted this so late, it’s because I wanted to wait to post until I had my Windows build working and uploaded, which took an hour. Anyway, a screenshot and a link all in one:

The guy with the night vision goggles looks evil.

Have you seen AutoTileGen? It’s a useful-looking tool that will let its users generate tilesets from just a few images. It’s not coming out until April. Note that that is in time for LD29. It’s got an IndieGoGo campaign going, you can contribute to that here and, as perks, get a license when it comes out for $25-50 or early access for $120.

If you can’t wait or you can’t afford it for $25, though, I’ve written an alternative tool in Java, called GoTile. It’s free and it’s got a GPL version 3 license – its source code is here. I made the great majority of it in just 2 days. I think it works pretty well, but expect AutoTileGen to have less bugs, more features, and a better interface. You should be able to figure most of it out by messing with it, but custom levels should be CSVs and masks should be solid white in the shape of a tile. Here’s a screenshot, the GUI shows most of the features.

GoTile at its most show-offy.

EDIT: There have been a few updates to the program since I made this post, so I updated the screenshot. Make sure to get the new version, too – I added some good stuff.

Tags: autotilegen, gotile, tile set, tiles, tileset, tool, tools

So, you know those little mini-themes that have been in the past… how many Ludum Dares? Things like “Goat”, “Potato”, and… “Bieber”, I guess was one. Usually just showing up as little Easter eggs, but in a lot of the games. Those were all failed themes in the voting, I think, but whatever.

How about this for a mini-theme for LD29: the Konami Code! Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, start/enter. Just make something happen in your game when the player enters the Konami code! Some sort of Easter egg. It will be fun!

Wow, it’s like an NES controller with no style.

So, that’s all. I’m definitely putting this code in my game! I hope to see it in some of yours!

Tags: easter eggs, fun, konami code, ld29, theme