I really cant think of a good name for this one. Commodore Tanks? Commodore Brigade? Bleh. Im open to any suggestions.

But Ive had some good progress after a much needed pivot in the overall idea at the start of Day 2. Ive decided to drop the idea of actual BASIC scripting, and instead the game/tank now runs from custom commands, just C64 style and using the editor. The tank and level scene have also seen some updates and a lot of the input controls are now working, opening up some gameplay potential finally. Also fixed a bunch of bugs with the editor which is now far more reliable and easier to work with.

Certainly a long way from where I wanted to be at this point though, but I knew at the end of the first day I was going to be aiming for the JAM so Im not stressing over the COMPO deadline anymore, its just not going to happen this time round.

The current tank model:

Heres a rough gif of me sending commands to the tank via the C64 commandline:

Much better quality on twitter: https://twitter.com/Alex_ADEdge/status/1251871538824966145

And finally, I 3D printed the tank!

Video of it in action here, I couldnt resist making the turret adjustable: https://twitter.com/Alex_ADEdge/status/1251874776739491840

Onwards with the final 34 hours.

If youve ever wanted to control the destructive power of a military tank using an oldschool Commodore 64 interface, now you can! (lets be honest who hasnt)

Playable now and in-brower! (No downloads needed)

*LD Game Page Link: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/46/commodore-commander *

Commodore Commander is and action puzzel game about an unfortunate mistake which lead to a high-tech tank being equipped with the processor of a 1980s Commodore 64. Its up to you (and a helpful AI bot named ABOT) to ..

KEEP THIS TANK ALIVE

..while heading out to patrol a dangerous cyberpunk landscape.

After an amazing 15 hours of sleep I finally got around to making the game page presentable, so heres a quick post and some screenshots to entice you into checking it out and letting me know what you think (plus votes are also great!)

Im certainly pretty happy with this game, I failed LD45 which was a bummer, so Im glad the work I put in to furthering my gamedev skills paid off. This game was probably the most ambitious one Ive finished for a Ludum Dare so far!

Now I'm off to see what other games youve all made. Looking forward to 20 days of playing and voting! :D

If youd like to follow my work, twitter is the best place:

My game Commodore Commander is getting some great feedback, thanks to everyone whos checked it out so far. If you havent yet, give it a go and let me know what you think! (and also please vote of course!)

Windows and Linux builds are now also available as well as the Web build for those not wanting to download (note the linux one is untested currently)

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/46/commodore-commander

Likewise leave your game in the comments if youd like me to check it out and rate it

Im digging into all the games at the moment, really enjoying seeing all of the entries for this jam - its time to play them all! :smiley: (or at least as many as humany possible)

Comment your game if youre looking for more votes and feedback, I'll happily play them in the final days!

Theres still a few days left to play/vote/give feedback for my game Commodore Commander too. Super glad to see so much feedback already :) But at the same time Ive seen only 1 person get to the end screen - during a live stream which was very amusing. Is anyone up for the challenge?

Game page: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/46/commodore-commander

Theres also a version on my itch.io account now: https://alex-adedge.itch.io/commodore-commander-ld46

The game is available in Windows, Linux and HTML5 (in-browser) Im not sure if the Linux version even works, if someone is able to test it, thatd be great.

Today I also put together a quick look at the before/after of my game too, with comparisons of the early 2 hours prototype mockup scene and game UI and then the final game after 72 hours of work:

Quite the difference. I really like how the UI evolved through development, just as the game concept evolved, eventually becomming nicely polished. Theres some pretty strong elements still present from the first iteration as well! Its also interesting to see how much the graphics changed, from a prototype simple environment to a proper cyberpunk themed game. Likewise that initial cube in the prototype scene, I originally had no idea what it represented other than some kind of trap/obstacle element in the game - and eventually it became a main obstacle in the game.

Almost time for final results, best of luck to everyone, it will be interesting to see what games come out on top :slight_smile:

I'm probably in for LD48. Ive got an idea I'm brainstorming, just uncertain if I have the energy for a full weekend of gamedev right now. The plan is to get the ball rolling though, and just see what happens.

So far, 2 hours in, I have completed my quick and ugly initial prototype scene (usually my first goal in a gamejam)

The idea of the game is simple: Youre a citizen in a 'tiny' city - youve been tasked with creating as much chaos as possible.

A bit of player control setup and camera work:

This time round I'd like to focus on fun since I dont feel like my past few games have been too fun to play - it doesnt seem to be something I prioritize often! Ive got a fast and fun gameloop in mind, with an emphasis on chaos & destruction which should even make dying/failing fun with minimal consequences. The main mechanic involves explosives and slowmo, so Im pretty keen to get that working asap.

Goodluck to everyone for their Day 1!

Day 1 is down, I hoped to wake up early this morning and get a few more things done, but nope.

Im pretty happy with day 1 progress though, Ive never really completed the core game loop on the first day - something I always set out to do. But this time I have!

So currently you can place bombs and triggers, set them off (which triggers a dynamic chaos-driven slowmotion) which causes (a little bit) of chaos (which is scored) and then once youve died the UI triggers to give you an overall score and you can restart the level and try again with your newly gathered points.

Its very rough and a good few conditions arent yet covered, and its a bit hard to see whats going on because theres no zoom or great camera controls yet - but thats it, thats the game loop.

Next up Id really like to spend a few hours at the start of Day 2 on graphics, and really get the style down.

Just a quick starting post. 20mins until the theme drops so I'm going through my initial Ludum Dare prep and setup.

I'll be using Unity (as per usual!), Photoshop and Blender3D for any 3d assets.

Goodluck everyone!

Ok so we're into day 2, I wanted to quickly post about progress from the first 24 hours.

Going offroad for LD50!

I certainly like the theme for this jam, and had plenty of ideas right off the bat. But one game/prototype thats been bouncing around in my head for a few weeks now is a game about driving a jeep/vehicle over randomly generated terrain. Mixing this idea in with 'delay the inevitable' and I brainstormed the idea that youre transporting explosives or something dangerous - with some kind of chaos (hazards) going on and youre just desperatly trying to delay the inevitable failure. This idea set the game up nicely and I really like how it fits in with the theme. Ive got some further ideas about how to 'delay' the inevitable here too, so theres room to add even more.

But on to the basics, I need a vehicle controller thats fun for starters! Ive never made a physics enabled car before, so this was interesting to tackle.

First hour, after some brainstorming, a 3D modeled a jeep!

Heres some placeholder (static) terrain to test on - the green circle is a debug 'goal' area, which the player will be chasing around a map to get to.

2 hours in and I had a very simple jeep and terrain setup, basically a mockup of the main elements of the game here.

Vehicle physics have been interesting to get into as well, but I pretty quickly got a decent suspension setup going, along with a system which can be set to front-wheel-drive, rear-wheel-drive, or all-wheel-drive. Acceleration is also based on both whether a wheel is in contact with the ground, if its enabled via the drive select and if the wheel exists. This makes for a pretty interesting system where wheels can be disabled, fall off, or just dynamically not provide acceleration if theyre not touching the ground - and all of these elements will effect the way the vehicle handles.

(ie front wheels will only provide acceleration if its a front or all-wheel-drive vehicle and the wheels are currently touching the ground)

Now I need to get into some more game-type stuff before I tackle terrain later today. So I'm in for a long night! Im still deluding myself saying I can make the COMPO here with this, but I have a good feeling I'll be entering into the JAM to get that final 24h of time.

Sharing lots of updates and gifs on my twitter:

twitter.com/Alex_ADEdge