My turn! This is the first LD I’ve ever participated in, but I’ll save my introduction for your reading pleasure at my real blog.

I’m working on this with two other people and we were so convinced we came up with a good idea. I was too, until I saw another steampunk platformer. =P

Regardless, I’m sure we’ll come up with something at least mildly interesting. =D

Interesting thoughts and junk after the break.

As I mentioned, this is the first Ludum Dare of any sort I’ve ever participated in. I’m majoring in Computer Science but I currently don’t have a lot of experience in game development. Yes, that is part of the reason I’m entering LD in the first place. =)

We are indeed attempting a steampunk platformer, but there are various reasons that I think I won’t get the game done this first time around:

• Awesome teammates, but our schedules differ a bit and we won’t be developing past Saturday night simply because we have lives to live. Ok, more like homework to do. >_>
• I haven’t started any coding yet and I probably won’t be able to do any until 5:30 pm tomorrow.

Well, I suppose I should rephrase my earlier statement. I don’t think we’ll complete it to the extent we had planned this time around. A few ideas are floating around in my head now for finishing the game quicker, so we should still have something come tomorrow night. Very possibly early Sunday. Enough babble, time for me to get some sleep!

tl;dr version:
We didn’t finish the project but we had a hell of a good time and will definitely be participating in future Ludum Dares. What follows is a list of useful things we found / were reminded of. If you’re interested in reading the rest of the blog (including what game we attempted to make and general feedback from our experience), hit the break.
* GraphicsGale / Allegro Sprite Editor (heheh)
* sfxr (how have I lived without this?!?)
* Pauls Online Math Notes (reexplained vector manipulation better than the other results I found)

—

Well well well, that was a fun weekend! =D

Friday night, I took part in Ludum Dare for the first time with JD and DR. Yes, I’ll get their actual names here soon. =P Anyway, we got together at JD’s house and got right into development with the first idea we had: a steampunk platformer. I started reading the spring physics tutorial generously provided in the comments on the LD announcement for the competition.

Enter lesson number one: if you’re trying to learn something, start coding WHILE you’re learning about it. I spent the majority of Friday night reading the spring physics article. I didn’t even begin coding it until about the same time Saturday night. When you have less than 24 hours to work on something that is at least a 48 hour project, this isn’t a good thing. xD

While I was doing my thing, DR was sketching out ideas in a program called Pencil.

Lesson number two: set the bar loooooow for Ludum Dare graphics. It wasn’t until midway through Saturday night that we actually started up a sprite editor. /facepalm

During this whole time, JD was having fun in sfxr. xD

Lesson number three: SFXR FTW, so hold on to the cool sounds you make even if they don’t match the game you are currently working on! JD seemed to have a knack for attracting very…interesting…sounds. Seriously, one sound JD generated was an explosion that dissolves quickly into static, as if a camera was watching an explosion and then got hit by the shockwave.

Odds are There is other stuff worth saying, but I can’t think of it right now. The last few days have been fun but busy, and the rest of the week is looking to shape up the same way. Bottom line is I had a great time and I’m looking forward to next month!

MiniLD 24 is technically this weekend, but I’m going to being prepping early. Since we get to pick and choose rules this time, I’m picking non-puzzle Tetris game, game must end in 60 seconds, and all game code must be completed in three hours or less. I’m also planning on using the unbelieveably-original name Sirtet3(60).

As for the actual game itself, I’m still brainstorming, but I’m leaning towards something to do with the garbage blocks or the Catch mode found in Tetris DS.

After having a nasty concentration issue last week, I’m finally able to focus a bit more on both RL and this mini. I’m not going to be able to make it by the 48 hour deadline, but I will have something playable within the next few days.

I decided to switch up the rules I’m using. Now, I’m rollin’ with non-puzzle Tetris game, game must end in 60 seconds, and use a tool you haven’t used before since the three hour coding limit is too much (or too little?) for me. The tool I’m using is Graphics Gale, and even that is hideous overkill for my current graphics!

I decided to put Tetris into the space shooter genre*. The asterisk will be explained once I’m further along in the development process. I’ve also decided that Sirtet (originally devised in about two seconds before I even picked a game genre) is a stupid name for the project, so I’ll be renaming it once I make a bit more progress.

This should turn out interesting. =]

What with school and some other things that have popped up recently, I (for the second month in a row) did not finish my MiniLD entry. However, I am a HUGE fan of the concept I came up with! Sometime down the road, I will complete this project and remove all references to Tetris so I can legally release it. :]

The last time I was here was in February, so I’ll briefly reintroduce myself. I’m alfredofreak (or Nick) and I’m currently studying CS / game design. When I make music, it gets released under the name chroxic. And yes, I may very well be providing my own music for my entry.

This semester has been EVIL and I haven’t taken the time to properly plan out any game development time recently, so count me in. As you may have guessed by the overused TF2 reference, I’m expecting to get SLAUGHTERED in the competition, but that’s OK because I’ll finally get to some honest to *insert deity of choice* game development!!

Subject to change (edit: just found the new and improved tools page so this is DEFINITELY going to change), but here’s my tentative list:

• Code stuff: C#, XNA, and Visual Studio
• Sound stuff: (wait for it) sfxr (:P), possibly FL Studio, more’n likely public domain / CC music
• Graphics: Paint.NET, maybe GraphicsGale

And my ridiculous work station (that soundtrack kicks ASS btw):

Tags: deskphoto

Following a good piece of advice I heard on Twitter yesterday, I came up with an idea for the theme less than 10 minutes after the theme was announced and decided to stick with just that idea. However, it took me until about noon today to figure out what exactly the gameplay would consist of. This is where I’m at thus far:

It still counts as progress, especially since there is hidden game state stuff going on!

No, I’m not very far, but I have FINALLY for the first game project in my life implemented the game state right off the bat instead of trying to forcibly shove it in later. I’m WAAAAAAY behind on the code, so back to Visual Studio for me!

Oh yes, and this is my snackage in-between meals: (drink of choice for LD 22 is orange Fanta)

These are AWESOME.

My game is not quite done yet, so I’m sticking myself into the jam instead. I am perfectly fine with this as I have spent the last 48 hours sleeping, hanging out with friends, going over to visit family in town, and (most of all) watching my brother play through the epic game known as Chrono Cross.

I am slowly making progress though! Here is a current screenshot, minus gameplay:

There are key elements still missing that I need to implement during the slow parts of Chrono Cross :P

Jeez, that was close! My game, Lonely God Dude, is now finished!!! 😀

Here is a screenshot of Lonely God Dude a mere eight seconds into the game.

If you would like to give it a shot, hit up this link.

EDIT: Post mortem coming up in the next 24 hours or so.

I haven’t written this yet because ChronoLapse hasn’t been cooperating and I wanted to post my timelapse at the same time. After several days of wrestling with various video programs, I finally got my timelapse video uploaded. If not for the video, enjoy it for the music:

Since I’m sure another wall of text on the front page would be annoying, I’m going to let you hit the break if you want to read on. I’m going to babble on about my life as well, so you are hereby officially warned. 😛

Ludum Dare 22 came at a very interesting time in my life. Midway through fall semester,  I was left with a very now-or-never personal realization: if I don’t get my shit together, I am not going to make it through this computer science program. I got out of high school with a 3.5 GPA, but college is different. For the last two years that I’ve been attending, I’ve been just BARELY getting by in the program. Sure, I would pass some classes with A’s or B’s, but in the spring, for the third time, I will be retaking a class I couldn’t get through the first time around.

Thus, in November, I left my student computer technician job to focus on school. I still didn’t make it through the class I’ll be retaking, but I’m pretty sure I got through my other computer science class. Anyway, the point is I’m at a point where I feel like I need to start moving my life in the right direction, hence my decision to take part in this Ludum Dare. What better way to start moving towards owning your own game studio than getting off your ass and actually making something?

As all of you that have played it are no doubt aware, the game isn’t the best:

• Very little “gameplay”
• Difficult to determine the health of the dudes
• Game becomes literally impossible to progress any further beyond the second evolution in generation 3 due to an unknown bug

Even with all of the bugs in the game and the fact that it is 100% guaranteed not to win, I’m still glad I finished! I tackled this as a solo project, so I did everything myself from scratch:

• All of the code from scratch (C# with XNA but nothing more)
• All of the sounds from scratch via sfxr (it works for LD)
• All of the graphics from scratch in Paint.NET (not the best but this still means I’m working on my graphic capabilities)

Granted, I’m sure none of the stuff I’ve made for this particular Ludum Dare compares to most of the other entries. I’m also fairly certain that next to no one is going to read this. I am perfectly alright with all of that because the completion of this game marks the first “complete” game I’ve made outside of school. However small of a gap it is, I have finally busted a hole in the personal wall preventing me from moving on with some of the major goals in life. There is a very long way to go, but I finally feel like I’ve taken the first legitimate step.

And no, I did not include a damn kitten. 😛

Original intent tweet six minutes before theme announcement, so “technically” I’m not late in giving my notice ;P

Alright, I’m breaking one of the biggest rules in Sol’s guide by starting this late, but I’m not entirely concerned with finishing this time around. You see, the new semester has just started and I’m taking an introductory game development class. My professor seems pretty bent on having us use GameSalad. While I can respect the program, I’m not interested in having my final project for that class be an OS X game or an HTML5 game built on their own HTML5 engine of questionable performance.

Therefore, I’ve petitioned him to let myself and anyone else interested use FlashPunk because it seems pretty damn sweet. To cover all potential bases for that class, my LD entry this weekend will be created in Flashpunk having zero prior experience with it and having not touched AS3 for about three years.

If my professor agrees to let me use FlashPunk: I’m ahead of the game and ready to start prototyping ideas as soon as possible, something that very few people in that class are probably going to do.

If my professor refuses to let me use FlashPunk: I’m only out one weekend and even that doesn’t really count because we haven’t started any sort of actual development in that class yet.

Conclusion: win-win no matter what! Well, more win if I can use FlashPunk 😀

Finally, here’s an abbreviated version of my LD history. I’ll post again once I’ve got something going!

LD History

• MiniLD #23: First LD, no actual game.
• MiniLD #24: No actual game but I did wind up with a tangible idea this time.
• LD #22: I finished something! Broken as all hell, but it is something! Used XNA, sfxr, and Paint.NET.