Well not really and I think I’m going to start preparing only a few hours before it starts.
Anyway, I’m in this time and I’m taking Game Maker: studio with me. This will be my first game jam and hopefully not the last.
Wish me luck! Maybe I should pack some food as well… Also beers.
I had to sleep to recover from a tough week at my day job and waking up on the theme “You Only Get One” is not firing up a lot of ideas.
So far I have 2 ideas that I don’t really like but I think I will change strategy and jam randomly in Game Maker to see what comes up.
First idea: You’re alone on a desert planet, you need to escape but You Only Get One bottle of oxygen.
Second idea (I noticed someone already got it so I guess I’ll leave it):
Cheers!
I made ennemies (red) following the player (green) but blocked by walls.
Once the Player meets the One and Only Friend, the ennemies will flee the player (not done yet).
Is this any good? Hmm I’m not sure…
I could make a top-down rpg where you start with One Match and your goal is to bring light to your room/house/city/country/world/galaxy/universe (à la Katamari). But am I able to make such thing in less than 40 hours? I don’t think so…. Should I try? Maybe! Yes! Oh man….
I just got lights and raytraced shadows system working thanks to Flokkienatur
Now that this potential obstacle is somewhat clear, I can continue with the game mechanic.
Here is another screenshot update.
I haven’t progressed much on the core mechanics but while I think about it in a background process of my brain, I work on getting the look right.
I added a better tileset, particles, a slightly improved the player’s sprite (a more relevant sprite is in the works) and the beginning of a GUI to show when the match/torch will be consumed.
There it is, only 1 playable level for now. It’s just exploration with a torch light mechanism.
Use arrow keys or WASD to move…
http://www.ashtom.net/games/ld28/TheLastMatch_LD28_0.1.exe
And I’m going to bed!
Bonus: a glitch shot with too many lights
I’m trying to get the navigation system going but I’m fighting with a game crashing bug that is difficult to debug (apparently). Here is another room though!
I just finished my game! What a ride!
Well, it’s not a big game but I’m definitely happy with the results and all the things I learned in the process.
Go check my entry and thanks in advance for playing!
http://www.ashtom.net/games/LD28/TheLastMatch_LD28_1.0.exe
Just before the theme gets announced!
I’m doing it. Using mostly Game Maker: Studio and any other tool that might be useful for the occasion.
Wish me luck!
A bit too early but heh, why not!
Not sure yet what I’m doing but I got a spaceship moving with arrow keys on screen. Not bad.
This is looking like something arcady… is it? Maybe in my subconscious arcade games are very tied to that single screen restriction.
I have added rocks that appear gradually on screen.
I think I making a self-contained world that is taking shape in front of the player’s eyes. I like where this is going. Hopefully I’ll execute this well enough.
Oh and I added score! Right now the player gets 10 points every time an enemy leave the screen. I think it’s better than just a timer to measure how long you survived.
I just noticed that the score didn’t show up in my previous screenshot so here we go!
I have now 3 enemy types: Basic (with 4 degrees of freedom), Advanced (with 8 degrees) and Pro (full rotation).
I also implemented collision between rocks and enemies for bonus points to entice the player to aim for enemies to rush into them.
I keep progressing on my game. Making something super simple feels good for once. I think I can manage the volume of things to do and gradually increase the content.
I added HP for the spaceship and I implemented acceleration/deceleration for the ship (following precious advices on the GM forum).
Also there is weird square on the screenshot but I’ll let you try to guess what it is…
Stilll some quirks here and there but nothing very problematic so far.
Let’s keep going!
Based on my plan to shape the world as the player experiences it, I decide to grow turrets that will fire projectiles. They are the purple things on the screen. They appear like obstacles, then they grow seeds or fruits to finally fire them to become moving obstacles for the player.
I think I may be doing a remake of Asteroids. At least that’s the direction it seems to be taking!
I started to polish the visuals a bit by paying with alpha values to smooth out the rough edges. I still have work on the sprites themselves but I don’t know if it’s worth it for now.
I fiddled a bit too long on the particle system of Game Maker: Studio to create the effect for the thrusters. Looks ok I guess.
And finally, I added the first item: a medkit!
I’m kind of satisfied with the state of my game. I have a spaceship that moves well. I have ennemies with different way of moving. I have asteroids that shape the levels in realtime. I have turrets that shoot projectiles. I have medkits to recover health.
I still need to implement collision between player and hazards (should be easy but very important). Once that done, I will focus on the title screen, menu and game over screens.
Then I’ll do music and sfx. If I have time, I’ll try to implement a high-score leaderboards or something.
But for now, I?m tired, sleepy, ready to go to bed.
G’night y’all
Title and game over screens are somewhat done and now the game has a complete flow.
I composed the main stage music and done some sound effects with cfxr (the OSX version of sfxr). I still need to compose a title soundrack as well as a game over track if I have the time.
Also, I’ll need to balance the waves of ennemies to gradually increase the difficulty. That’s a lot left to do!
my best score so far: 5560 (I haven’t tried much actually).