My game can now be played online here:

http://www.wieringsoftware.nl/ld/SaveTheSheep/

I’ll probably also add a post-compo version with Mochi highscores.

This is how the game works: you are the yellow circle and you must save the sheep from getting caught by the lava. You can move around with the arrow keys (or wasd) and push blocks and kick sheep. The sheep need to go to the dark green zone all the way at the right. You’ll need to divert the lava to have enough time to get the sheep in safety. To do that, make walls to hold the lava for a while. The darker blocks will decay first, so you know where the lava will be coming out next. Be sure to use at least one of those. If you don’t, all blocks will break simultanously and you won’t have a chance!

All sounds and music were recorded during the competition. The background music is from an orchestra rehearsal yesterday (I’m not completely sure if that’s allowed).

Here is my time lapse video, the first version had better audio synchronization, but then VirtualDub crashed and I had to start all over again.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YqyUk5sIsE

Tags: timelapse

I intend to take part in LD15 and get a game finished in time! So far it looks like I’ll be home most of the weekend so that’s great. Just one little concert tomorrow.

I plan to make a Flash game using haXe and I’ll probably use (some of) my base code which I’ve published before. I just updated it to version 1.2, you can find it here: http://www.wieringsoftware.nl/ld/HaxeBaseCode-1.2.zip (I have a blog post about it here, but unfortunately the WordPress plugin I used to embed swf’s no longer works so you can’t see the demo).

Depending on the theme and what I can come up with, I might use Physaxe or try something 3D with Sandy.

Good luck everyone!

I woke up at 5.00 am to see what the theme was and then went back to bed. This morning/afternoon I played with a string quartet in a little concert for somebody’s 90th birthday. Now I’m back again and it’s time to get started.

Not sure what I’ll make yet, but I’m thinking about doing a platform game using Physaxe. I’ve never used it before, so I’ll start with experimenting a little.

Here is some food I had:

I spent a long time experimenting with Physaxe, and now I can set up the bounds of a level from Tile Studio. It’s going very slowly, I might still decide to go without Physaxe and just do it the old fashion way.

I spent the entire evening trying to get Physaxe to work like I want it to, but I give up! I´m sure it´s possible to make a good platform engine with Physaxe, but it´s not going to happen this weekend and not with the tiny bit of documentation I could find.

Time for plan B, I’ll stick with rectangular tiles and make a simple platform game without those beautiful slopes.

BTW, here is some food I ate:

I’m now making a platform game called Cave Miner, I just spent a long time drawing some graphics. I can make simple levels now, but there is still a lot to do!

I added a dummy main character to get the movements working and it can now walk and jump, now I still need to draw the actual character.

Here is a pic I forgot in my last post:

And I just cooked (and ate) supper:

I finished drawing my main character in Tile Studio:

And here he is in the game:

Here is my timelapse video for Cave Miner:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhmhxYSmflg

You can play the game here: http://www.wieringsoftware.nl/ld/CaveMiner/

Tags: timelapse

I just finished porting sfxr to Haxe, but as a library instead of an app. Instead of generating a WAV file in sfxr and storing it in your SWF, you can now generate it while your program is loading, or the moment you need it. Why? To save space in the final SWF and to provide more flexibility, like being able to vary a sound a little depending on something in the game.

http://www.wieringsoftware.nl/ld/sfxrhx/

There are several ways to use it:
– you can start with making a sound in sfxr and save it as a .sfs file and use the load() function
– generate random sounds in your program and simply save the random seeds of the ones you like, use create(), randomize() and mutate()
– if you need to fine-tune a sound, you can also edit the individual parameters in your program
– use generate() to create the wave file in memory
– finally, use play() at any time to play it

Tags: haXe, sfxr

I have two concerts this weekend, but I hope to have time to make something.

I’d like to try out Flixel this time, but in case I get stuck or something, I’ll use my Haxe base code again.

Good luck everyone!

Last night I had a concert and a party after that, and I was home just before 3.00am, when it all started. I like the theme, I want to make a game where you explore a level and keep getting extra abilities so you can go back and explore more.

I wanted to at least get something working with Flixel right away, so I downloaded the newest version 1.40 of Flixel and the Mode demo. Two hours later I was still not able to get things working. Turned out that Flixel was just being updated and already had changed twice since I downloaded it. The new version 1.41 did compile without errors, but the Mode game doesn’t really work like the example.

I just woke up and now I’m going to try to use Flixel and make something. If it doesn’t go well now, I’ll go back to haXe.

I hardly got anything done yesterday, I had to do some shopping and played in a concert.

When I returned from the concert I played around with Flixel for some time and it looks like it’s pretty easy to use. I hope I can get a little game finished in the next 12 hours.

Now I’m able to import maps from Tile Studio into Flixel. I still have to make a game out of this.

Well, my game isn’t half of what I’d planned, but it’s at least playable, just one level. Jimmy was going to be a mouse, but I didn’t have time to draw his sprites so now he’s that yellow thing. As you explore the level you will find power-ups that will help you get further. There was no time for sound unfortunately.

I had never used Flixel before and I’m glad to have tried it out. I did spend a lot of the time learning it, so I could probably have done a lot better if I had studied it before the LD started. This was also the first time I used as3 instead of haXe and I must say I do prefer the haXe language.

Anyway, I’ll probably use Flixel again next time, and then I won’t have to learn it first, so I might actually finish a complete game…

You can play the game here:

• Play Jimmy’s Adventure

I just made a timelapse video, you can watch it here. I removed the parts where I was away or asleep. The music is from a concert I played on Friday (from Brahms’ 2nd symphony).

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buC_zbkgDHU

Edit: programs I used: FlashDevelop, Tile Studio and my new pixel editor which is still work-in-progress.

This time I don’t have any concerts or rehearsals, so I hope to be able to spend lots of time on LD17! This time I really want to finish something that’s playable and has sound/music.

My tools:

• depending on the theme and my idea, I plan to use FlashDevelop and either Flixel with AS3 or my own code base with Haxe and SWFMill (the newest version has support for mod files based on BadSector’s FMP), perhaps box2d or physaxe, or perhaps BlitzMax / Blitz3D
• Tile Studio, PhotoImpact, Inkscape, Photoshop, GIMP
• Nero Wave Studio, bladeenc, audacity
• MilkyTracker / NoteWorthy Composer
• instruments: keyboard, cello, double bass, guitar
• my ZOOM H2 audio recorder for recording sound samples
• ETL.exe and Virtualdub for time lapse, ManicTime for time/app logging
• FireFox with ChatZilla
• digital camera
• I just bought a Wacom tablet, I might use that, but haven’t really had time to practice drawing with it yet
• food & drink: almost none left, so I’ll have to do some shopping tomorrow

Good luck everyone!

I didn’t have much inspiration for the theme, but eventually decided to make a simple platform game. I was planning to use Flixel, but had trouble getting some basic stuff to work, Flixel has changed a lot since last time I used it. In the end I went back to haXe and my own code base.

I’m using my new Wacom tablet with Photoshop Elements and it feels great! Here is my first screen shot:

Tags: flash, haXe, progress

I added a background layer (which is the same as the foreground, but mirrored) and tuned the colors some more. Not sure what to do at the bottom where the water starts.