Would it be a better idea to do all the LD Catch-ups and just keep doing them until done (about a year and a half’s worth of work), or should I instead continue to work on a single game until it’s viable for release online?  I realize it means getting through all the LD themes in a much longer time span… say 5 years give or take.  (Let’s say I did one game every 3 months).  Would it be better to do 21+ complete games within 5-6 years, or 21+ prototypes in a year and a half?

What are your thoughts?

Tags: LD Catch-up

Since some of you suggested I make the games and only worry about polishing any later, I’ve decided to take that advice.  I’ve also decided to shorten the length of each of the prototypes to 1 week or 10 hours.  Yes it’s so little, and yes so little that my first LD catch-up game suffered from the amount of time I didn’t put in.  But I’m thinking it will hone my skills, not to mention not take a whole year to do all 20 themes.  Instead it should be about 2-3 months.  Then I can decide on how and what to improve on.

And unless I get an overwhelming response to this change (from 30 hours to 10), this is my final decision.  If any of you raise any logical objects I will hear them and respond accordingly.

Thanks

Tags: LD Catch-up

As some of you may know by now I’m setting a goal of making 12 games by the end of 2012, basically one a month.  To facilitate this I set myself a task of coming up with 36 game ideas that I could turn into possible one-month games.  Now I need to decide, and I would like you to help me.  I’m going to go for two rounds, the first round I want to get it down to 24 game ideas, and then finally get it down to the 12 I’m actually going to use.  I will use the ones that receive the most votes.  So I would like to ask you all to vote in the comments and pick the 24 ideas you think could most likely be done in a month and you would think would be fun.  Just by writing down 24 numbers for the ideas you like.  I will wait a week for the first round, and then create a new list of the top 24 games that were voted on (even if they only get a few, I will still do it).  Then I will narrow it down even further, later.  Since this post is going to be long I’m going to put a page break here.  Please read the whole post and vote.  Thanks.  (If I get enough votes quick enough I might even try to get one of these games done for the October Challenge).  Most games will be played on a single screen, which means it’s going to be non-scrolling.  If there are any scrolling games the level will be randomly generated.  Please click “Read the rest of this entry”.

1. Turret Gunner – Your goal is to clear the playfield of all enemies by shooting them from a turret in the center of the screen.  The enemies come from all directions.
2. City Defense – Your ship is the only thing standing between you and the destruction of your city.  Destroy a mothership above before it destroys the city below.
3. Space Gem – Collect gems on various planets, avoid robots that move up, down, left, and right, while you can move diagonally.  This is not a maze game (like Pac-man).
4. Space racer – Try to get the best lap times in your racing space-ship.  Try to avoid black holes and supernovas.  Use warp pads and worm holes to help you.
5. Dog Show Obstacle Course – There’s a dog show coming up, so you need to pick a breed and teach it to walk through a doggie-obstacle course.
6. Laserpath – Arrange mirrors to fire a laser at a target
7. Deep Sea Treasure Hunt – Swim underwater to find treasure, avoid dangerous sea creatures and pirates.
8. Egg Catch – Using an egg carton move it along the bottom to catch eggs falling from hen houses at the top.
9. Star Catcher – Use your catcher which looks a bit like a dream catcher, to grab stars to get energy to open a wormhole to the next level.  Avoid shooting stars.
10. Tracer – Trace squares on a random grid to mark the squares.  Mark all the squares to move to the next level.  Beware baddies also on the tracer lines.
11. Tunnel Flyer – Try to navigate a treacherous cave tunnel, and shoot anything that moves.
12. Gemfall – Match-4 falling block game.
13. Bubble Blower – Blow bubbles and gain points for how long they last and how high they go until you run out of soapy water.
14. Paddle Ball – Hit objects arranged in rows 3 times to remove them with your paddle and your ball.
15. Long Tails – Eat objects with your snake to grow it’s tail and try to make your opponent crash into your trail.
16. Miner – Dig in a mine to uncover gems until a timer is done.  Then with another timer try to collect as many gems as you’ve uncovered.  Bonuses for uncovering and collecting all gems.
17. Cops and Robbers – You’re a police man trying to catch multiple bank robbers and put them in jail.  Run around platforms to catch up to them then take them to jail at the end of the platforms.
18. Circle Pong – Keep a ball in the center of two rotating circular paddles.  Score points for bouncing off each paddle.  Try not to let it fall out of the circle.
19. Chicken – Figure out how to get the chicken to cross the road, either walking, or riding on something.
20. Flood – Try to jump on platforms to escape a rising flood of water, see how high you can get.
21. Conveyer – Try to exit a room full of conveyer belts, and try not to fall to the bottom where certain death awaits.
22. Escape 2048 – Collect energy balls in a maze in the complex of an evil scientist who built killer robots and use the energy to shoot the bots.
23. Exploding Bumper Cars – A demented clown has taken over the bumper cars in a carnival and rigged them to explode.  Try to ram your opponents to get them to explode before they get you.
24. Hangman – Only instead of the traditional hangman picture, try different ways to die or lose, and create some cool winning animations.
25. Speedjig – Assemble a jigsaw puzzle as the puzzle pieces are falling from the top.  Get one puzzle piece out of place and lose a life.
26. Gold Runner – Run around a room with platforms and ladders and collect gold.
27. Escorter – A ship is moving around the playfield and your goal is to escort it to safety by clearing the space of mines and ships.
28. Alien Abduction – shoot flying saucers as they come down to pick up people walking on the ground, otherwise tractor them until you have safely rescued the humans.
29. Wall Ball – Another paddle and ball game. Bounce the ball on the upper wall to score, make sure not to lose the ball.
30. Something like pinball – Use flippers and bumpers to rack up a high score depending on where the ball touches.
31. Tank Command – Use your tank to destroy an enemy tank.  You can only shoot one bullet at a time.
32. Bomber – You’re a WWII bomber and you’re trying to destroy targets below by dropping bombs on them, avoid cannons on the ground and enemy fighters
33. Animal Hunter – Try to shoot wild game for food ala Oregon Trail, but make sure the animals are in season and that you don’t shoot endangered species.
34. Polar Squishers – You’re a seal trying not to be eaten by polar bears.  Get rid of the polar bears by squishing them between two blocks of ice, using your nose to slide the blocks across icy platforms.
35. Pod Shooter – Direct a moving “pod” into the open spaces of a maze, and shoot your opponent by touching energy fields.  You can’t move the pod yourself but must change direction when you’re allowed to.
36. Classic Board Games – Checkers, Chess, Go, Parcheesi — Would possibly make this as one game, might not be doable in a month.

Here are the game ideas.  If you have any questions feel free to ask.  Please vote on the 24 most likely to be done in a one-month period and the ones you’d most like to play by listing the numbers in a comment.  I will wait a week unless i get a lot of votes early.  Thanks!

Okay it’s not actually my first game.  It’s the first 1-day prototype that I will turn into a single month game come January.

Not really October Challenge worthy but who knows it’s still October.

Wallball

Keep in mind is not really what you’d call a release-worthy game.  It’s just the bare minimum I needed to call the 1-day prototype finished.  The code is going to have to be severely refactored.  I’m going to have to add something in that will make it more gamey or something.  Obviously will need polish, high scores, etc and so forth.

Second “1-day” prototype for my 12 single-month games for 2012.

Turret Gunner.  Z,X,M for rotate ccw, rotate cw, shoot respectively.

Final version (final 1-day prototype version) on the bottom of the post.

For LD #22

I haven’t figured out if I will be able to participate.  I will try to make a good-faith-effort though.

I probably won’t get this entered in to be judged,  but we’ll see.  It took me 3 hours to get that little pink block to move around, that’s because I was building sort of a scripting language, you might say (yes in AS3)

http://www.gamesafoot.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/EverybodyWantsYou1.swf

Anyways I think the “script” code is kind of neat —
npc01 = new CNonPlayerEntity(11 * 8, 8 * 8);
npc01.patrolScript.push(new CPatrolCommand("east", 3, 6));
npc01.patrolScript.push(new CPatrolCommand("wait", 1));
npc01.patrolScript.push(new CPatrolCommand("south", 3, 5));
npc01.patrolScript.push(new CPatrolCommand("wait", 1));
npc01.patrolScript.push(new CPatrolCommand("west", 3, 6));
npc01.patrolScript.push(new CPatrolCommand("wait", 1));
npc01.patrolScript.push(new CPatrolCommand("north", 3, 5));
npc01.patrolScript.push(new CPatrolCommand("wait", 1));
npc01.QueueNextPatrolState();
add(npc01);


It may not be brilliant to you, but to me it’s pretty neat. Basically the only commands or directions it recognizes right now are north, south, east, and west, as well as wait. second command after wait is the wait time in seconds, otherwise it’s a measure of speed, the third command is distance in tiles. You want it to move back to the original position, you need to use the same distance as you did when you got there. this makes one complete circle. before starting all over again.

I had every intention of submitting something for LD22, but as often works out I’m usually busy on weekends and this one was no different.  So I’m bowing out.  I might get something done for the jam, but we’ll see.

If One-Room is not chosen as the them, then I’ll jam.

I know how popular LD has been getting… last time it was over 1000 and now it’s just over 1402 — who knows what LD 24 is going to produce.  I decided you know what, I am going to relieve the LD community by not producing an entry.  What’s this mean to you?  Instead of 1403 it’s the 1402 you have now.  Instead of 1601 it will be 1600, or instead of 2016 you’ll have 2015 entries.  See I did this all for YOU ludum dare community.  You who has supported me over the years in my non-participation.  Specially all of you tasked with playing and rating as many games as possible.  I don’t think *I* could ever rate 1400+ games.  It would conceivably take the rest of my life, so my hat is off to you.  So in the interest of not burdening you any further I will try to extend this courtesy to possible future LD compos.

Thank you for your time and your service.

Sincerely,

Keith Alan Weatherby II Esquire

Technically speaking there’s not much here, but at least I got it done and made an effort to do an entry.

there are only 2 levels and you use the keyboard.  I leave it up to you to figure out how it works, think of it as a towlr exercise

You need LÖVE 2d game engine to play this.  Unzip anywhere double click the .love file

Tags: ld24 final

PoV rocked my entry since I did finish it before the deadline — Also I created an executable version for windows (sorry mac and linux guys you’ll have to use the love file)

I don’t even care if it’s voted pretty darn badly — it’s just the fact that I participated.  Trying not to be so anti-social.

So thanks to PoV and i’ll be playing and rating everyone’s entries soon!

Tags: ld24

I made a pretty crappy entry probably worse than most of them out there.  But I was so proud to put forth an effort into making something in about 2 hours and actually submitting it that I didn’t realize that I had to click a submit link.  Not only that but I had missed the submission period (that I didn’t even know there was).  A long time ago you could put final in your tags on the post for your game or whatever and it was submitted but i guess since it’s so big that now an official submission process was created.  I was feeling pretty good until I just learned that I can’t submit a compo entry because it’s too late.

I don’t want to enter the jam, I wanted to enter the compo and then play and rate some games.

So much for f*(#ing participation

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-24/?action=preview&uid=53  — here is my compo game.  My original idea was to have the player and enemy (or enemies) evolve with each level, however because of my limited time I was only able to get this done.  True If I had participated in the Jam I would have gotten something more playable done.  But I didn’t want to do the jam I wanted to participate in the actual compo.

For those of you that know me I would appreciate it if you would play and vote (and it’s okay to vote poorly, it doesn’t really bother me)  The important thing is that I entered.  For those of you that DON’T know me, don’t feel obligated to play it since it will probably disappoint you 😉

Now if we can only get the rules to allow every entrant both a compo and a jam entry it would be cool.

That was going to be my next plan, even though I didn’t have much for the compo, I wanted to actually take the same game add more stuff and then submit it to the jam AT THE SAME TIME AS THE COMPO VERSION — It would have been cool because I actually got in something on the compo, and then at the same time the people who played the games would have had more fun with the jam version.

Some of you guys know my record of finishing things.  Right now I’m working on a Sonic the Hedgehog style platformer.  Now it might take 6 – 12 months to get this thing done, so it might not be until October Challenge 2013 that I get anything to sell for a buck.  I have a good chance of at least getting first playable by the end of this October, and I might could even possibly squeeze an alpha in by then, so I have a challenge for you Ludum-darians — I’m going to bet you $1 that I can get up to alpha version of my game by the end of October.  If I manage this, you send me $1 via paypal, and if I don’t I send YOU $1 via paypal.   So basically I get an incentive to get off my butt and get a game done sooner than I might normally.   I get a finished playable/sellable game.  I get your respect (well maybe — I just mean if I finish something you guys might have a little more respect for me).  If I win I get a buck and win the October challenge.  YOU get someone participating in LD’s October Challenge, you get a great game that’s actually finished, and if I don’t get to alpha stage, YOU get a whole dollar (US, and paypal only).  So no matter what happens it’s a win/win!  And to sweeten the pot everyone who bets gets a copy of the finished game, no matter if you win or I win.  (What it will mean is if I win you get a great game for a buck, if you win you will get a great game for free and you will get a buck

So what do you say?

P.S.

Some people suggested they might bet a dollar if I came up with a list of items to complete for this alpha to be completed.

Well let’s see —

full game map created with layout graphics (meaning triangles and boxes and stuff to layout the places Flash can run)

Collision including walking up and down slopes and using momentum to go around loops.

Enemies

Enemy attacks

Powerups

Logical map flipping

Boss round/level

bonus levels

I think that about does it, no sound effects or music, and only the basic of graphics — just enough to get the point across.

pps.  If you want to take the “bet” please leave a comment below to make it “official”

ppps. To clarify — Whether or not I win or lose you still get a copy of the full version of the game, and any updates from alpha to release!

Okay so for those not familiar with the bet… I bet people 1 dollar (US) that I could make my October Challenge game to alpha by the end of the month.  If I lose I would pay each person who took me up on it 1 US Dollar – in addition to giving them free copies of the finished game as well as all the updates from alpha to finish for free.  If I won each of you who participated would pay me a dollar and you would still get all the updates as well as the finished game for a buck.  As I see it it’s a win/win for everyone.  I had only 7 people take me up on the offer.  I think I know why… it’s because I intimated that I would only use paypal.  Well  I’ve since looked at a number of options and can say that you do not have to pay via paypal should you lose.  We will work something out, I’ll either get something that will only take a buck, or we’ll use good old fashioned snail mail, or whatever is convenient for you.  If you win we will also work something out there too — it might mean only get a dollar bill through the mail from the U.S.  In any case don’t feel you can’t participate because of lack of paypal.  Also if you can’t do it digitally I will take paper money in your currency of choice… but that’s if you can’t do it digitally.

if you want to follow the game’s progress just go to my website by clicking HERE!

If you want to read the original Challenge post  CLICK HERE!

P.S. I’m still open for accepting participants — just leave a comment to this post to make it official.

Thanks,

Keith aka Uhfgood

Here it is, folks sloping tiles! — It works, now all I need is gravity and jumping.

Link to the bet.

Still not 100% but getting there –

Click the image to watch the video.

October Challenge won.

Okay so I didn’t get an alpha done so I owe 6 people a buck. Hopefully with paypal.

So if you guys have paypal give me a paypal address. If you don’t, we’ll probably have to do via mail. (Or come to some other arrangement, voxel mentioned me writing an OC post-mortem in lieu of a dollar).

GBGames

voxel – Not paid in full (updated Monday Nov 5th, 2012) – refused dollar –
“voxel> Uhfgood: I dont want your money”
“voxel> i dont want you to bring me down by sending my cash”
“voxel> Uhfgood, I want you to hold onto the dollar so that I can always mention that you owe me a dollar”

SethR – Paid in full (updated Sunday Nov 4th, 2012)

NeiloGD – Paid in full (updated Friday Nov 2nd, 2012)

ratking – Paid in full (refused a dollar, but paid 1.00 for a game from his site (updated Friday Nov 2nd, 2012)

Raimonds – Paid in full (updated Thursday Nov 8th, 2012)

————————————
Jedi – had agreed instead of me sending him a dollar that I buy a copy of his first released game, which I agreed to do.

Or maybe you didn’t?

It looks like I’m actually going to be able to participate.

That’s right. You don’t need to check your eyesight as you did read that correctly.

I’ll state it again I’m actually going to be able to participate.