Hi, it’s my first time here

I’ve got a crazy idea for an exploration game where you have to explore an environment using sound only, kinda like a bat with echolocation. It will have to be very simple because I’ve only got today to write it (lots of stuff to do tomorrow). I’m intending to use Flash but I never used it before so things may get ugly.

Wish me luck!

OK, I’ve figured out the basics of Flash and got a title screen and basic buttons/sound playing working.

Got all screens (title, instructions and end) done.

Also got first person movement working with a temporary square (had to struggle with ActionScript for it to work right – blame all the outdated Flash tutorials out there). Not that bad since I’m learning Flash today but not as good as it could be, either.

Got basic gameplay working: map loading, collision detection and game ending. The walls are white and the red dots are the trail of the character – all graphics are placeholders and will be removed later.

Now to the hard part:  implementing the echolocator, adding sound and getting rid of all graphics!

I’ve finished the game mechanics/score and pretty much everything besides the procedurally generated sound of the echolocator and a decent map. I’ll have to keep it *very* simple to finish on schedule since I will have very little time to work on this tomorrow, if any time at all.

If I don’t finish it was fun anyways, I went from zero experience with Flash to making an incomplete game in a day.

Time to go to sleep.

I won’t have time to code today so I’m considering my game done.

The procedural sound isn’t as nice as I wanted, there is only one level (but it’s a pretty hard one) and there is no high scores list (altough there is a score when you finish).

I had never used Flash before so I think it turned out fine. It’s not polished but it’s playable  and works as a proof of concept of a hearing-only exploration game.

You can play it here: http://www.nogard.net/soundscape

I’d love to receive comments and bug reports. If any bug is found I might have some time to fix before submitting tonight.

Just submitted my game: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-16/?action=preview&uid=1556

It’s the same from my last post with a few bugfixes.

Kinda late but here’s my idea:

A boy is sitting on his room playing a game and wants to be left alone.  This is obviously no easy task with all the “intruders”. His weapon? Soda cans to throw at everything that threatens his peace.

Not sure if I’ll be able to finish because this is going to be my first shot at both making a 3D game and using Unity. Just installed it, reading the tutorial right now.

Now leave me alone so I can try to finish it 😉

Since I’ve decided to do 3D I’m going to go oldschool style and create the art with my voxel editor (Paint3D). Already managed to get a (very poorly drawn) TV into the default Unity project using 3ds max to convert. Obviously I’ll drop the default project after I get the basics 😉

Also managed to import some sounds. Unity already magically makes them 3D, yay!

Still figuring Unity out. Got a basic scene mounted with placeholder art and a script that send a can flying away when you click it.

Cans can now be thrown at the point clicked. I intended to use C# (I love C#!) scripts on Unity but most of the docs and stuff are in JS so I decided to use that instead. Programming seems simple enough, maybe I’ll be able to get something barely playable by the end of the day.

Got the can to play a sound when it collides. Recorded something with Fire on the iPhone. Will re-record better sounds with an actual soda can later.

I’d never rigged a character before. Struggling with 3ds for over an hour now and I have a feeling this won’t work at all :/

It kinda animates:

Yeah, right! Probably rigged it wrongly. Guess rigging is *not* one of those things you can “learn” in an afternoon.

3 hours lost on this is too much, giving up animations. Hovering characters will have to do…

Now I have a moving (hovering, not animated) NPC that can be killed. Too much to do, probably won’t finish in time.

A moving NPC that can be killed and a basic score counter.

Killing NPCs and living longer will increase score.

Concentration will go down faster if more NPCs are alive and up slowly if you’re alone.

No way it’ll be done in time.

Slightly playable and starting to look better but there’s no way I’ll finish it in 3h.

==What went right==

-I really liked my idea (a boy that wants to stay alone playing his video game while everyone tries to disturb him)

-I managed to finish my first 3D playable game using an engine I’d never used (Unity)

-Made the art with my own voxel tool (Paint3D) and it looks kinda cool and old-school. And it took very little time!

-I learned *a lot* (specially Unity and 3D game making)

-Had a good time on a rainy weekend 😛

==What went wrong==

-Lots of other games with the same name (700 games is way more than I expected), at least I haven’t seen one with the same idea yet.

-RIGGING – lost 3 out of about 13h trying to rig a character voxelled on Paint3D. This is not something you “learn” over an afternoon. Had to give up on animations.

-As always I decide to use something I’d never used before and got only about 13h working on my game. It’s good to learn something new but I reeeeally need to change this on the next compo 😉

-The game isn’t 10% of what I intended it to be – it should’ve been funny with several “enemies” with different behaviours (mom, dog, little sister, neighbours, guitar player, aliens), dialogs, music and realistic recorded can-hit sounds. Right now it’s just a barely playable one enemy shoot-em-up.

At least I think they are. Wasn’t very hard at all 😛

I had to use the screen sideways to ge the most pixels vertically. It’s also glitching very badly due to a poor contact between the PCB and the LCD itself.. Can’t fix that but it’ll still be playable. If you look closely you’ll be able to see an image there (from the library demo, not my code yet).

The small square besides the blue speaker is the only button, it will be used to switch the type of the falling piece.

Coded the button interaction. Electronic buttons need a hack known as debounce because they bounce back and forth between 0 and 1 very quickly  until they settle. The hack consists of reading the button twice with a short delay (say 10ms) to see if the state is the same.

So here’s what the code does now: init the screen, button and speaker. When the button is pressed the speaker beeps a middle-A note and the screen inverts (black to white or white to black).

Now to figure out the game loop!