Never done a code jam before, but I’m going to try this time around. I’ve had a busy week, I finished up and submitted a Kickstarter project for my action-adventure game BiFission so I haven’t been able to plan for this as much as I’ve wanted, but I’m still going to try and make something, even if it’s simplistic.

My setup is a  little abnormal.  BiFission has it’s own engine, and since I’ve been in that code the most lately, I’m going to use it. It is an HTML5 Canavs and Javascript based engine. That’s probably going to be the most limiting factor, but you’ve got to use what you’ve got, right?

• Engine: fission (written by myself)
• Language: javascript
• Graphics/sprites: I’m bad at it, so expect blocks or text from Gimp
• Sound/Music: Probably not
• Stable-ish version: http://ludum.atrodo.org/
• Streaming: We’ll see.  Possibly once I get going

So the theme is announced, and I’m not fond of it since its not as versatile as some of the others. But I’m not going to complain, just going to soldier on. I’ve got an idea, so that helps me not complain. I’m going to write a semi-reversed mega man like action game. You’re the boss at the end of the level with special powers that the hero has to defeat. But I’m going to set it up in rounds, each round if the hero wins, he gets your power. If you win, you get to keep it. Then the next round you get a new power and the fight starts over. Here’s my plan of attack this weekend:

1. Get the engine setup
2. Make a black and white boxes for the two characters
3. Setup terrain generation to have a playing field
4. Give white a stupid ai
5. Give white and black health and health bars
6. Create guns with the physics system
7. Create a special weapon
8. Create another
9. Setup multiple rounds
10. Give white a better ai
11. Create more special weapons
12. Polish

But right now, its sleep time . See you in 6!

http://ludum.atrodo.org/ – Live but non-functional yet

Step #1 is done, only took half an hour.  Should have already been done, but let’s move along. Let’s recap

1. Get the engine setup
2. Make a black and white boxes for the two characters
3. Setup terrain generation to have a playing field
4. Give white a stupid ai
5. Give white and black health and health bars
6. Create guns with the physics system
7. Create a special weapon
8. Create another
9. Setup multiple rounds
10. Give white a better ai
11. Create more special weapons
12. Polish

http://imgur.com/xzCdH

That was quick. I love it when things come together quickly. Another recap:

1. Get the engine setup
2. Make a black and white boxes for the two characters
3. Setup terrain generation to have a playing field
4. Give white a stupid ai
5. Give white and black health and health bars
6. Create guns with the physics system
7. Create a special weapon
8. Create another
9. Setup multiple rounds
10. Give white a better ai
11. Create more special weapons
12. Polish

http://ludum.atrodo.org/

I’ve done some tweaking and adjusting and now I have an entry area for black and an entry area for white, each one starts in it, and you can get to one from the other.  I love progress.  So recap:

1. Get the engine setup
2. Make a black and white boxes for the two characters
3. Setup terrain generation to have a playing field
4. Create sprites for sword attacks
5. Give white a stupid ai
6. Give white and black health and health bars
7. Create guns with the physics system
8. Create a special weapon
9. Create another
10. Setup multiple rounds
11. Give white a better ai
12. Create more special weapons
13. Polish

Did you notice the new milestone? Good.

Alright, entirely too long to take that, but that’s what I expect when there’s sprites involved.  But, the sprites are done and the code is up to date. You can now take swings at that goodie-goodie.

1. Get the engine setup
2. Make a black and white boxes for the two characters
3. Setup terrain generation to have a playing field
4. Create sprites for sword attacks
5. Give white and black health and health bars
6. Give white a stupid ai
7. Create guns with the physics system
8. Create a special weapon
9. Create another
10. Setup multiple rounds
11. Give white a better ai
12. Create more special weapons
13. Polish

http://ludum.atrodo.org/

Got to thinking, so I went ahead and did the stupid AI.  It’s really stupid.  It tries to get close to you, but not too close. Also, it can’t even leave it’s little area. As I said, stupid.

1. Get the engine setup
2. Make a black and white boxes for the two characters
3. Setup terrain generation to have a playing field
4. Create sprites for sword attacks
5. Give white a stupid ai
6. Give white and black health and health bars
7. Create guns with the physics system
8. Create a special weapon
9. Create another
10. Setup multiple rounds
11. Give white a better ai
12. Create more special weapons
13. Polish

http://ludum.atrodo.org

After a brief interrupt of life, I got back in and finished up the code to add the health bars.  This is actually a pretty exciting feature, before I couldn’t put anything on the screen that wasn’t apart of the physics world.  Not only can I now do that, I can do it with dynamic images.  Well, it’s time to take an extended break to spend time with the family, so I’ll get back to this a little later.

1. Get the engine setup
2. Make a black and white boxes for the two characters
3. Setup terrain generation to have a playing field
4. Create sprites for sword attacks
5. Give white a stupid ai
6. Give white and black health and health bars
7. Setup multiple rounds
8. Create guns with the physics system
9. Create a special weapon
10. Create another
11. Give white a better ai
12. Create more special weapons
13. Polish

http://ludum.atrodo.org/

After an long (planned) break, I got back on the Ludum train this morning to work on having multiple rounds, as well as removing the “feature” that lets you kill white very quickly, or instantly.

1. Get the engine setup
2. Make a black and white boxes for the two characters
3. Setup terrain generation to have a playing field
4. Create sprites for sword attacks
5. Give white a stupid ai
6. Give white and black health and health bars
7. Setup multiple rounds
8. Create guns with the physics system
9. Create a special weapon
10. Create another
11. Give white a better ai
12. Create more special weapons
13. Polish

http://ludum.atrodo.org/

This milestone took longer than I wanted to, but I wasn’t surprised it took as long as it did.  But, I can now shoot bullets at that too-good idiot white.  Plus, I’m pretty sure I now know how I’m going to do the special weapons, which should make up some time.

Overall, I’m really happy how this is coming together.

1. Get the engine setup
2. Make a black and white boxes for the two characters
3. Setup terrain generation to have a playing field
4. Create sprites for sword attacks
5. Give white a stupid ai
6. Give white and black health and health bars
7. Setup multiple rounds
8. Create guns with the physics system
9. Create a special weapon
10. Create another
11. Give white a better ai
12. Create more special weapons
13. Polish

atrodo> I have two very important decisions yet. A name, and how to use goats … Hirsch> atrodo: Goatocalypse … atrodo> Hirsch: That’s almost too good not to use

So I think I now have a name. I’ll come up with a “Story” later.

http://ludum.atrodo.org/

This milestone was actually pretty fun. I got different kind of bullets loaded into the system and it’s selectable now.  Going with this simple ro-sham-bo type of weapons makes making a lot of them easy.  That saves me the hardest part for later.  So I’m feeling pretty good at having a success for this jam.

1. Get the engine setup
2. Make a black and white boxes for the two characters
3. Setup terrain generation to have a playing field
4. Create sprites for sword attacks
5. Give white a stupid ai
6. Give white and black health and health bars
7. Setup multiple rounds
8. Create guns with the physics system
9. Create special weapons
10. Make the round rules in effect
11. Give white a better ai
12. Polish

http://ludum.atrodo.org/

I just finished up the main mechanic of the game.  Each round a weapon is up for grabs.  In traditional MegaMan style, the villain boss has a new weapon to use, and if the hero defeats the boss, he gains that power.  So, each round, black is given a new weapon. If the white is defeated, black gets to keep it, but if black is defeated, white gains it.  And right now black always wins because white is an idiot.  Which is my next task, to make him a challenging idiot.

1. Get the engine setup
2. Make a black and white boxes for the two characters
3. Setup terrain generation to have a playing field
4. Create sprites for sword attacks
5. Give white a stupid ai
6. Give white and black health and health bars
7. Setup multiple rounds
8. Create guns with the physics system
9. Create special weapons
10. Add gaining and losing guns
11. Give white a better ai
12. Polish

http://ludum.atrodo.org/

I’ve worked for several hours now on the AI for white, and the results are not spectacular.  He’s not as stupid, but I’m just not getting him smart effort to be much of a challenge.  I figured this was going to be my hardest point.  But, the game is playable, and I’m quite proud of it.

Expect a postmortem later, but I doubt I’ll be able to polish it much before time’s up.

1. Get the engine setup
2. Make a black and white boxes for the two characters
3. Setup terrain generation to have a playing field
4. Create sprites for sword attacks
5. Give white a stupid ai
6. Give white and black health and health bars
7. Setup multiple rounds
8. Create guns with the physics system
9. Create special weapons
10. Add gaining and losing guns
11. Make white not completly stupid
12. Polish

So it’s been a day, and I haven’t been able to add any polish to my game since I went to bed late last night (or early this morning, I guess).  So, I’ve had a day to contemplate about how it went, and I feel pretty good about it over all.  Because of the rest of my life, I wasn’t able to dedicate the whole weekend towards the game. I’m still quite happy with what I accomplished.

What went well?

• The idea was simple and small
• I was real pleased with what I came up with
• I was able to stay on track most of the time
• Even with limited time, I got a game done
• I was able to extend my engine with some really good solutions
• I didn’t spend hours on sprites

What didn’t go as well?

• AI
• Because of AI, didn’t do any polishing
• With a week AI, the challenge level of the game is low, and it’s fun is limited
• I spent way too long on the “swords” sprites
• I was somewhat constrained to make this kind of game because of my engine

I decided to do this Jam not just to force myself to write a game from start to finish.  The engine I used is actually one that I wrote for my larger project BiFission, and I just submitted that project to Kickstarter at the end of last week, and have been waiting approval.  I decided to use this jam to prove that the engine was usable to make a game from start to finish, and help me understand what part of the current code is the engine and what part is the game.  In that regard, it’s been an outstanding success.

Tags: postmortem

So I’ve decided that I am going to try Ludum again, and after some skepticism about the theme, I’ve found an idea I’m pleased with.  Since minimalism is stripping things down to the core of it, I decided that what better way then to write a game where you’re presented the game mechanics raw.

The idea actually comes from my time playing Eve a few years ago. It’s been said that Eve Online is just a pretty spreadsheet, which is really rather true.  A few years ago I had the idea to write another MMO that was, literally, a spreadsheet.  It was simple and minimalistic.  When I remembered that idea, I knew that I had to do it for this Ludum dare, minus the MMO part.

I’ve been working for about 4 hours now, and after going through a paper and excel mock up, I’ve got the base for my entry all drawn out onto canvas. I’m going to have to take abreak, but I’m excited to get back to work and start working on actual game mechanics.

Mockup:

Progress so far (actual, ingame screenshot)

I’m back from break and I’m ready to get moving.  Took a little bit and wrote up a to do list, and made some progress, albeit it didn’t take much.

1. Get a repo, dev site and fission_engine setup
2. Brainstorm
3. Mock up on paper and excel
4. Draw main interface view
5. Start the game data interface
6. Show the game data on the interface
7. Get a publishable version up
8. Get game mechanics started
9. Hookup input
10. Add turns
11. Add enemies
12. Make winable
13. Polish

http://ludum.tarshish.us/ld26/

So I’ve got data showing up in the spreadsheet now and I finally get to really start doing some actual mechanics and letting this game actually start to come together.  The part I’m about to do, this is now the fun part.

1. Get a repo, dev site and fission_engine setup
2. Brainstorm
3. Mock up on paper and excel
4. Draw main interface view
5. Start the game data interface
6. Show the game data on the interface
7. Get a publishable version up
8. Hookup input
9. Get game mechanics started
10. Add turns
11. Add enemies
12. Make winable
13. Polish

http://ludum.tarshish.us/ld26/

After a few tweaks and coding in circles for a little bit, I decided to call it a night and sleep.  Now that it’s too early and I’m awake, I’m making progress again.  I’ve got the start of the interface up and running and am ready to start making it usable.

1. Get a repo, dev site and fission_engine setup
2. Brainstorm
3. Mock up on paper and excel
4. Draw main interface view
5. Start the game data interface
6. Show the game data on the interface
7. Get a publishable version up
8. Hookup input
9. Add weapons and armor
10. Make weapon and armor selectable
11. Add turns
12. Add enemies
13. Make winable
14. Polish

http://ludum.tarshish.us/ld26/

Things are starting to work. I have armor and weapons (everyone gets everything) that you can select and are actually reflected in the game data and shown on the spreadsheet.  Next up, actions and turns.

1. Get a repo, dev site and fission_engine setup
2. Brainstorm
3. Mock up on paper and excel
4. Draw main interface view
5. Start the game data interface
6. Show the game data on the interface
7. Get a publishable version up
8. Hookup input
9. Add weapons and armor
10. Make weapon and armor selectable
11. Add actions
12. Add turns
13. Add enemies
14. Make winable
15. Polish