Fylgjur

The Bad

I spent a lot of time leading up to LD35 making other projects to get ready for it. However, per my usual standard, I somehow always choose to make a game type I’ve never made before. I’ve done one similar to this but it was in an entirely different software. The first animations I made are very ugly and I’m surprised so many of the comments are that they like the animations. Personally I think the skeleton was good but the player animations I made are sloppy, because of time and being the first ones made.

The player was made with the intention of adding a bow into the game so you can take out distant enemies quicker and control them better. The skeleton was also planned to have a bow so that your shield had a use. Unfortunately I didn’t get that code done in time so I removed it from the weapon changes you could make. There were a lot of features I wanted to add in but these were the ones that got removed after being started on.

The Good

I was surprised to find that many people loved the animation and at least for now I plan to leave it in, but will probably tweak the first ones I made to flow better. I managed to get three different weapons in the game that give you a variety of different ways to take on the enemies. I got the skeleton finished in the last 5 hours hours of the competition from concept to art to code. I was very worried I would just have the skele-bird but I guess all the practice helped.

I almost did not have a method for the player to regain health, and it might not be very noticeable. If you give your player time to rest or run you can see your health slowly ticking back up. I added a slow regen to the player since I couldn’t finish with the fruit pickup plan I had. The original plan was for the player to hit fruit off of one of the trees and pick it up to regain health. I might add it in going forward but I was also planning on overhauling very many different things so we’ll see if we need it still.

There were a lot of hiccups in that game development process but I kept it moving pretty well. I think that this is the best game I’ve made so far and I do plan to continue working on it post-LD. I’ve been developing a few features and goals that I will keep secret for now but you might see a few in a couple days. For now though why not give it a play?

Go on, don’t just stand there!

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PLAY GAME

Fylgjur V1.1 TEASER

I worked a bit on the game this weekend and managed to get the start of a combo system in place. Now I just need to make all of the animations and I can release V1.1, so here’s a teaser!

Play Fylgjur

I have updated my game hosted on itch.io under the Post-compo web link. I have added UI scaling and it should be all good now. You can play it at the standard resolution in the browser or full screen it for maximum enjoyment!

PLAY FYLGJUR

Greetings, I wanted to continue playing peoples games but I tend to be picky when given choices and it is easy to miss some gems when there are so many entries. I’ve made a form that takes less than a minute to fill out. I’ll work my way down the list and try to play them all.

Entry Form

Also, if you haven’t tried Fylgjur yet please give it a look. I’ve made two post compo updates and I have some ideas on further updates, feel free to leave a comment even if you don’t play it and let me know what you think would be cool to add in!

I opened a form for me to make finding/playing straight forward. Feel free to add your game to the list, so far I’m at 33 submissions on the form. It’s the weekend so I’ll be hammering them out.

Form

After you add to the form, maybe give Fylgjur a try too? I tend to pay it forward and always try to play games of those who tried mine!

I learned from my first LD that to play it safe you should make a web game with high replayability and something to drive the person to playing it again. That makes me lean heavily towards arcade style games. Which, is where Fylgjur ended up. I like my LD entry and find it to be one of my best works so far. I will not be updating it any longer, but I will be taking the idea of it and try to turn it into a real project.

Fylgjur will be turned into a 2D action & adventure game. I plan to make a large map filled with boss fights, secrets, and norse mythology.

Play Fylgjur, and to see the improvements check out the post-compo version. I’ll be working on the true version now.

I wanted to throw this out there for people like me who probably learn best from books and text. One of the places I get a daily free ebook from is having a sale on dev books so it’s a good time to pick them up. I’d like to point out I benefit zero from this, just giving people another resource.

https://www.packtpub.com/game-development

Check out the new updates from the post-compo version. I’ve corrected many of the original complaints.

CLICK TO PLAY! WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR??

I plan to finish up rating when I hit 200 games. I’ve also spent some time planning out the future of my entry. I do not plan to continue the game as it is now, but I am taking the idea of it and turning it into my first real project. I plan to keep the idea the same but am going along the Castlevania genre of 2D action. I’m working on a large world to explore filled with Norse mythology and thrilling boss fights.

I know many liked the animation style and art work in my current entry. If you played it let me know what you think of my planned UI and new player sprite.

Even without seeing the results I feel I did not do as I had hoped. So, hopefully I can continue to improve and be better prepared for the next compo. My current weakness is audio and experience. I can’t say my audio will improve much, but I plan to be better equipped experience wise for LD36.

Thanks for playing if you did, and if you haven’t and have 5 minutes here is a link.

I’ve done the last several ludum dares solo and typically went for the compo since it was impossible to compete with people in the jam as a solo amateur. I plan to make use of the extra 24 hours this time and compete in the jam, assuming those two haven’t changed.

That said. I use Unity, Gimp, and when forced to SFXR or BFXR.

I’d be interested in partnering up with one or two other people depending on roles. Mainly interested in finding an artist, modeler, or musician.

LD36 entry submitted. Check it out!

Be the great inventor Daedalus in this short, and overly ambitious, entry that covers the escape of Daedalus from King Minos. The same scene famously depicting Icarus for his folly. Enjoy!

I went through and played some games today on my lunch break. My favorite part of ludum dare is after all the work is done to see what others have made. And usually wish my entry was as good.

Comment with your game and I’ll check it out tonight if my internet cooperates.

The Flight of Daedalus

When the theme was chosen, I was fairly disappointed with the theme. I think a lot of other people were too which makes me wonder who voted for it. I noticed after viewing a lot of posts and entries that many seemed to cling to their preferred theme instead of the theme chosen. Regardless, I stuck with the theme and kind of just went with the first thing to pop in to my head. I had watched a Greek mythology series in the past few months so Daedalus was in my mind. I decided I would do a bit of research on him and come up with some story for it.

I easily found the story of Daedalus and Icarus’ escape from King Minos which ends with the well known flying too high for Icarus and the ego of Daedalus costing him his son. I had an idea to make an action platformer that tells this tale.

The Good

I learned a few techniques during this LD that taught me more about pixel art in Unity and how to arrange them to prevent bleeding edges. I used a lot of the same code logic as I did for my past game controllers and that helped me avoid some easy time wasting bugs or research. I actually felt fairly confident through out the whole 48 hours that I would finish with at least something. I was definitely taxing myself trying to do everything I planned and also doing it well, but with so many great entries next to mine in the past I knew I had to try even harder.

The biggest win for me this LD is that I learned more about Tiled and Tiled2Unity. Being able to build a level and import it into Unity was something I struggled with in the past and having that tool open to me now I was able to make multiple levels instead of just 1. I also branched off from doing a repetitive arcade game, which honestly might be a worse choice for a short compo, but it is my own way of challenging myself in these compos. I don’t think I’ve done the same thing twice yet.

The Meh

I spent a super long time making sprites, then reworking the spritesheet, then reworking it again, and again, and again. I lost so much time fixing some of my prior mistakes that I had to cut out a lot of the features I had planned and many of them kind of important. I added in a health system that works similar to some old games where an item, like a heart, represents your health. But of course the enemy in my game wasn’t done being coded so it just stands there. I also managed to get a weapon coded but it’s just used for comedy or getting rid of bees, which do hurt you if you walk in to them. So, I mean if you die in my game it might come as a shock.

The Bad

I lost a lot of spirit towards the final hours of the compo. Instead of wanting to make a fun game, I just wanted to be done with it. I don’t plan on making any updates or fixes to the issues in my current submission. While I feel this ludum dare helped me grasp a few useful concepts and tools, I lost a bit of my motivation.

There are a couple bugs that I am aware of that involve the sound, and that is if you never go in to the sound menu the sound default never gets set. Meaning that I get comments telling me it would be better with sound, when in fact I made a track for each level. The game is technically “finished” but so much had to be cut that it’s kind of a shell. I had planned to add dialogue when you interact with something or reach key points in the game. I also planned on you killing birds to get the feathers you need to make your wings, robbing hives for their honey and wax, and sneaking into the storehouse using a guard’s key to get the rope you needed. Then once you made your wings you were to escape from the tower using the wings and avoid arrows and catapult boulders. I know I am capable of making that game a reality but I needed either more time or more hands.

If I decide to compete in the next ludum dare I think I will try to keep it simple again. One core mechanic, replayability, with a splash of humor. I did not have the active knowledge to build what I wanted in 48 hours, and so I was disheartened with the result.

Compo Entry – Ultimate Showdown

You play as the victim of an evil wizard that has decided to send you to his battle room. The evil wizard continues to throw new things into the room on a schedule as he cackles maniacally as you struggle to survive. How entertaining will your visit be for the wizard? Muahahahahaha!

Tags: LD37, ultimate showdown

I had several annoying bugs, one of which made this big guy invisible. That’s all fixed now. Please have a look!

I’ve done several ludum dare compos now. I see that there are a large number of people that choose niche platforms or add some component to limit those that can play or rate.

Multiplayer – The majority of players that I can see are solo entry and are just going to be playing solo. I know personally if I come across a multiplayer entry I tend to skip them since I don’t plan to find someone else to play with, especially local multiplayer. I feel that making a multiplayer only game limits the number of people legitimately rating your game.

VR – The barrier to VR is a minimum of $600 at this time not counting the cost of PC upgrades. I have a VR kit and I am still skipping over these because of the setup.

The same goes for needing to install software other than the game in order to play the game as well as being unable to play because you lack said platform or software.

I just think that for a compo where there is an obligation to play other’s games it should be done in a medium that is best for the average participant.

I’m still working on the first post-ludum update to my game. The problem with not writing things down is you end up with a lot of things to fix haha. In this gif, there is a tag on the bow dealing damage on contact, yet, the arrow just pushes them back no damage at all haha. Also, forgot to reverse the arrow when firing left. But I’m really happy with the animation.

Update should be coming some time tomorrow I hope

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Version 1.1 Post Compo is done!

Added in the option to select sword or bow. I plan to make these “classes” or at least an upgrade path down the line but for now you just pick one up and go! Let me know what you think.

Ultimate Showdown

Good:

Overall, I feel I did rather good for this compo. I came up with my game idea and expanded on it by using some of the themes that didn’t get chosen to improve it. I had very few bugs this time around that I actually had trouble solving so little stress there.

I even found myself planning features to add in updates once I was finished to make it more fun.

Bad:

Unfortunately, I think there was more bad than good this time around. I spent a lot of time adding that fine polish to try and cover most of the things people would normally complain about. By doing this I neglected to actually make the game fun in an engaging way. It’s basically just a simple arcade game.

I also didn’t have the time or the desire to make time to rate 200 games like I have been in the past. As such I am basically trading 1 vote for 1 vote. I managed to hit 20 but I doubt I’ll get any real review or love for my game.

I can see why people want to take away the rating system. It makes it so you have motivation to put in your best effort, but it also makes it sad when you don’t get any love. This also seems to make comments and rating very quick and cookie cutter.