It seems the idea is to say “I’m In” here when you join Ludum Dare. I hope that’s right! It’s my first time.
I’m in.
I’ll be using Adobe Flex with FlashDevelop and probably a mix of Paint.NET and Paintshop Pro 8 for the graphical stuff, and that neat little sfxr tool for sounds.
Because it’s my first time and I’m crazy I’ll be making stuff with just the base Flex/Flash library and we’ll see how far I can get.
Thank you!
I’m in for Ludum Dare 27.
I’m going to try and make a 2D platfomer where the world cycles every ten seconds between three different backgrounds.
I’ll be trying out LibGDX, which I’ve never used and haven’t even installed yet, so there’s a pretty small chance of me finising in time. To compensate I’ll be trying to base my code on an open source/tutorial 2D platformer that is pubicly available.
Tags: Ludum Dare 27
7:10am – I just arrived at the McDonalds and got myself a McBreakfast. It’s time to Ludum Dare! I plan to do most or all of my work here at the McDonalds, it’s become practically my office the last couple weeks.
This season’s Ludum Dare theme is One Room. I briefly considered doing something like <a href=”http://www.onemorelevel.com/game/there_is_only_one_level”>There is only one Level</a> but I don’t think I could do that well within 48 hours.
I’m going to go with my No. 2 plan from before the theme was announced and make a Snake clone. It fits in one room, and it’s simple enough to make. I hope!
But first I should eat this lovely McMeal…
7:26am – McBreakfast done, I am now setting up Unity.
7:55am – I’m making the playing field in Unity. It doesn’t really need any coding so I can just plop it down.
8:07am – Okay playing field created. Now to figure out the game mechanics I need and how to implement them.
I’m making “Caterpillar”, a clone of Snake, which was originally a clone of some early primitive game you can look up on Wikipedia if you’re curious.
In my game, there will be a 32×32 grid of squares, cubes really since I’m doing this in 3D, and this bounded area will be populated by one (1) Caterpillar. This Caterpillar will be made out of segments which follow a Head segment along the grid. The head segment does not stop moving. If the Caterpillar head runs into its body the game is over. If the Caterpillar head runs into a wall, it automatically goes in the first clockwise open direction, unless there are no valid moves, then game over. There will be fruit pickups. Picking up a fruit increases your score but also increases the length of your Caterpillar by one segment. There will be trees. Trees are random blocking objects in the gamefield to make things more interesting. They act like walls. When you run out of valid moves and run into yourself, it’s game over and a score screen will display, along with the option to play again.
So, I’ve got to make the Caterpillar Head, Caterpillar Body Segments, Fruit Pickups (Apples), and Trees, as well as the UI to cover it. I’ll probably make a few Camera Controllers for different viewpoints on your Caterpillar, but I’ll start with an overview of the whole field.
Let’s see what I can do without thinking about it too hard.
8:38am – I’ve made some basic models and materials for my game pieces. Now for the scripting.
The Caterpillar will move by transform changes rather than physics, since it’s only going to move in square segments.
The control scheme will be something like this.
If a direction is pressed, move in that direction if possible.
If no direction is pressed or the direction pressed is impossible, move in the last direction pressed.
If the direction selected is impossible, search for a possible route clockwise until one is found or game over.
All the while I’ll also be checking if the path crosses the Caterpillar’s body, in which case it’ll be game over.
I’m thinking I’ll use something like a linked list to tell each caterpillar section to move, and if a fruit is eaten the last section will spawn a new section in.
I’m going to start by making the basic movement script for the head.
10:12am – Amazingly it’s already 10:12. I’m still working on the movement script for the head.
11:43am – I’m struggling with some complex mathematical formulae to figure out the caterpillar’s movement, and I’m getting hungry. So I’ve put in an order.
12:05pm – McLunch eaten. I had a Junior Chicken Bacon Ranch, a Garden Side Salad with Greek Dressing, and a small Coca~cola. Good, cheap, filling meal.
Now back to my problem. I’m not sure what went wrong with my code but presently the head of my caterpillar flies off to the left at a constant velocity which is faster than the speed value it was moving at before. I figure my obscenely complex math was incorrect or something…
1:46pm – I’m still struggling with getting the head to move to the exact coordinates of the next square and properly test for a direction to move in. It’s bizzare that it’s eluded me this long.
1:53pm – Blasted floats! How I hate your imprecision! Well I guess I’ll have to figure out a different way of telling if I’m on a square or not.
3:04pm – Still working on this problem. I’ve tried tackling it from at least four different directions with no luck. Very frustrated.
4:21pm – Direction five seems to be working! I just need to get everything else working now…
4:26pm – I have two bugs right now. One, the down button doesn’t work. Up, left and right all work. I’m not sure what’s up with that. Also, I can turn backwards. Shouldn’t be able to do that in Caterpillar.
4:36pm – I have a lot more bugs now!
4:41pm – Bugs are all gone now!
Well except the moving backwards one. Though, I guess that will be automatically fixed when I add the segments in.
So I’m going to add the segments in!
5:10pm – I’m feeling burnt out and tired and it’s getting dark out. I’m going to go home and sleep, and get back at it when I get up.
Tags: LD37, Ludum Dare
2:34am – I’m awake again and back at the McDonalds. It’s a bit noisy here tonight and pretty busy for two and a half in the morning, but whatever. It took a long time to get my food too. I’m chomping at the bit to get started!
3:28am – Okay so I tried to make the caterpillar segments move the same way as the head does but that results in janky movement because the segments don’t neccesarily finish their coroutine at the same time as the head. So, I’m going to try to move all the movement into the head’s coroutine instead.
3:55am – Well the caterpillar is sort of moving properly, except the segments after the first gradually ‘turn’ where they should be moving straight into the next square.
If I wasn’t on a Ludum Dare deadline I’d go back and redo the whole head/segment construction, having them both inherit from a common class with a static variable list that contains each segment so I can make sure they move properly. But hind-sight is always sharper.
3:59am – On further thought, and testing, this isn’t going to work as is. I’m going to have to do like I said and redo the class structure of these objects.
4:06am – I just went to the bathroom and while I was there the fastener on my pants broke off. It’ll be difficult keeping my fly closed until I get home, and I guess it’s time to switch to my new pants…
4:09am – I was starting to think about what my generic caterpillar part would need when it hit me, I don’t need to make a generic caterpillar part, I can put a list of the caterpillar parts on the head!
4:49am – I’ve got a problem that my Caterpillar segments are scrunching together and I can’t seem to figure out why. :/
4:55am – Hmm… The segments, once they get scrunched up, stay at a constant distance of 0.5. They should be staying at a constant distance of 1.0, and they DO until the first time the caterpillar turns.
4:59am – I fixed it! There was a point where I was halving the distances… I’m not entirely sure how it’s connected but it fixed it!
Now I have three things left to do to get the basic game mechanics working. I have to do the Apples, Add More Segments to the Caterpillar, and add the random Trees to the map at the start.
5:54am – Hokay I’ve got my trees and apples spawning, and the trees block correctly. Now I just need to make it so that when the head collides with an apple, it returns the position the apple was at to the pool of random positions, destroys the apple, and adds a new segment to the caterpillar.
6:28am – I have the apples colliding, returning their posions, and being destroyed. Now I just need to figure out how to make my Caterpillar grow…
6:43am – Oh, I didn’t think that would work but it did! Now my caterpillar grows. <3
Next I need to gradually add new apples to the map over time.
I’m not sure what rate to do. Should I add one every so many seconds? Should I add one whenever one is eaten? That might be easier.
6:50am – And it works! I have the gameplay fully coded. Now to add a UI to the game to track score and handle gameover and restart.
6:56am – Before I go any further, it’s been about four hours since I ate last. It’s brunch time. <3
7:23am – I’m feeling kind of burned out now that I’ve surpassed such a big milestone. I’d like to take a break, but I just spent almost a half hour eating and watching a YouTube show.
8:44am – Well I officially have a game. It now has a titlecard show for four seconds before dropping you into the game. It displays your Score at the bottom of the screen while you play, and when you get a GameOver everything pauses and it shows you “Game Over” and your final score.
There’s a lot I could do to polish this game, but I’ve done it. I’ve created a game in less than 48 hours from scratch. I still have around 12 hours to go.
9:26am – I had a bit of a problem when I built my game for windows but I fixed it. Then I checked out the submission page and it doesn’t seem to be up yet so I guess I’ll have to wait to submit my game. ^.^;;
I’m not sure I want to bother polishing the game. It was enough just to make one. I’d like to go home and rest and maybe play some video games instead of making them for a while.<br />
Tags: compo, LD37, Ludum Dare