Alright, I’m going to do this thang.

I’ve been lurking about for a long time, and I think it’s about time I got my feet wet.  So this is me saying I’m going to be attempting Ludum Dare #20.  Even suggested a theme and everything. Oxymorons! Wonderful things.

My current plans for tools are :

• Code – Flashdevelop
• Graphics – Flash/Inkscape
• Sound / Music – Sfxr / Buzz

If any of these change, I’ll be sure to let you all know. Good luck to everyone, and good luck to me! I’m sure I’ll be needing it!

– a.

I was planning on doing a screen capture timelapse of my attempt at LD20, and rather than use notepad like I’ve seen so many others do to post their ‘SLEEP’, or ‘EATING FUD’ messages, I thought I’d whip up a quick one in flash.

Figured there might be someone else out there who would want to use it, so I thought I’d post it here.

You can find a copy of the .swf here : http://tenfiftyfour.com/ludumdare/LudumDareTimer.swf It has a text entry area at the top ( where the | pipe is ), so you can write whatever it is you are doing. and it will display the current time, as well as how long you have been away for.

It’s kind of ominous, but for us Australians, ( on the east coast anyway ), LD20 starts at High Noon on Saturday! I can feel the tumbleweeds already.  Best of luck to you all.

I’m starting with a pretty empty pallette, but I will probably end up using something from in my little code library, so here it all is

http://tenfiftyfour.com/ludumdare/basecode/

Nothing crazy, nothing superspecial, but there’s a few timesavers here and there.

Gluck all.

Figured it was about time for me to post info on my game idea.  I’m taking a sideways route around the theme, but I think it still fits quite nicely.

Title : As yet undecided, I’m sure I’ll come up with something witty later though.  Current working title is ‘Small Hands’

Concept : You are a thief, and you need the gold.  However you don’t want to get pinched by the fuzz.  So you start buying orphans from the local orphanage, and training them to be your little thieving monkeys.  You send out the orphans in groups to steal as much as possible as they can and come back to you safe ( without being arrested ).

An orphan sent out by himself is likely to be caught by the police, thus diminishing your income.  The idea is to plan accordingly so that you send out enough orphans that they can collect appropriate amounts of money, and then make it back safely.

So, the theme? Dangerous for the orphans to go alone.  And they take your stuff.  Clever little orphans.

Will I get it finished? Hopefully!

Good thing I checked my Chronolapse folder to see how my screenshots were coming out.  Turns out I had it pointed to the wrong monitor for the first 4 and a half hours.  WONDERFUL.  I’ve got 4 hours of debug screens.

Fixed it now, but make sure you  don’t make the same mistake kids…

Woop! I actually did it.

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-20/?action=preview&uid=1282

Sure, it’s not a fully functional awesometime adventure game, but It’s a game, and things happen in it.  More of a proof of concept / prototype? Yeah, we’ll go with that.

Gluck with the rest of you, hope you get finished soon.

I meant to post this a few days ago, but better late than never, right ?

So this was my first Ludum Dare.  I made a game about using Orphans as a team to Steal from people.  Overall ? It was a great experience and I’ll definitely do it again.  Especially as I now know exactly what to expect from myself, and from the competition.

There are a million things I would have loved to add, and I think that’s why I feel like my game is more of a prototype/proof of concept than a finished game.  But there’s still a bunch of things I think went quite well. Still, I am glad that I actually sat down and did this.  And as I said, it is definitely something I will do again, and again until I make something that I feel is worthy.

Anyway, Here is my timelapse, all vimeo-d for those who like things flicking past the screen really quickly for a few minutes.

Ludum Dare 20 Timelapse from a|A on Vimeo.

Alright! Let’s do this thing!

This will be my second LD attempt (my last was LD20), and I am pretty excited. 16 days and counting.  In terms of code library/game engine – I tend to prefer starting with a fairly clean slate.  In saying that, I’ve got a bunch of helper classes I’ve written throughout my travels, I’ll post an updated version of those as we get closer to launchday.  At a rough estimation, the comp will start for me at 6am.  Awesome.

Coding:
– actionscript3! wooyeah!
– flashdevelop.
– and, if I feel the game needs it – harnessing the rad power of Stage3D via Starling.

Graphics:
 – Flash.
– TexturePacker.

Sound:
– Jeskola’s Buzz
– Audacity
– Sfxr

Other Tools:
 – in LD20 I made a quick little ‘away timer‘.  I’ll probably be using this again, might make a few changes here and there, Will keep you people posted!
– I will also be using chronolapse, to do a rad timelapse.

And finally, I will LIVESTREAM the whole event via kondoot.com – I’ve made an event in preparation and everything.

Alrighty, Im in.

– Actionscript, Possibly Starling+Stage3D if the mood takes me.
– Music Sound with Audacity, sfxr, Buzz

Alrighty, Im in.

More than likely : Actionscript+Starling.  Maybe Feathers as well for some GUI stuff.
– Buzz for Audio
– And will timelapse using Chronolapse.

Oh My that was fun!

There was a portion of time where I didn’t think I was going to finish this one.  I originally started off with an idea about being the villian in a scooby doo episode – scaring away people from real estate so as to lower the price.  (of course, it was going to be called “And I would have got away with it”), but after a day or so of development, my heart just wasn’t in it.  I took some time off, had a night to chill, and then came up with the idea for ‘The Twist’, my Moustache Twirling game.  And I couldn’t be happier I switched.

Sure, there are problems with my finished product

– Moustaches bug out sometime
– I constantly misspelt ‘Moustache’ as ‘MousEstache’
– Multitouch goes weird on tablets sometimes
– For some reason my perfectly timed audio is no longer perfectly timed

And there’s a bunch of features that I never got time to implement

– ‘Angry’ lines when you get hit
– ‘Chains’ of combos ( ie, plans + damsels + money + getaway = super combo ).

But Im really happy with what I accomplished in the time I spent.  I hope you all had as much fun as I had working on your own games. Im now going to enjoy playing each and every one of them!

You can play my entry here, or – here’s a video of a round in action!

I’ve spent some time on my Ludum Dare 25 game ‘The Twist’, and have now released it for Android.  Got a new high score system, added some new graphics, some time bonus powerups, and other little features.  I’ve also got a new game mode in the works.  I thought those who played it during voting might be interested!

The full version is 99c, but I’ve also released a free version with some limited features (no time bonuses, and no online scoring).  Hope you enjoy it!  Looking forward to the next LD.

Yep, I’m in.
I won’t have time for the full 48hr – but I’ll do what I can in the time I have.