Hi everyone,
Joining the fun this time around 
Weapons of choice:
– Libgdx framework (libgdx.googlecode.com)
– Eclipse
– GraphicsGale
– Espresso Machine
I’ll keep regular updates of my progress for anyone interested and also for everyone not interested.
Cheers,
Bach
Well, more than 5 hours into the competition and it’s time for a progress update.
The game will be a very simple adventure game called “Still Dreaming”. I’m mainly interested in creating a piece of art that also has game elements. This won’t be the typical game, but more something to just enjoy and maybe get a good laugh out of. My main goal is to create an atmosphere surrounding the game that sucks the player into the dream world.
You’re playing as a character called “Kyle” through a set of abstract / simple puzzles trying to escape your dream. The game will hopefully reveal how you got caught in this bizarre place.
That’s the basic idea. Oh dear, there’s much to get done.
Here’s a screenshot of my progress so far:
I spent most of the first few hours working out a game concept and then setting the visual style. The visual style is heavily inspired by the amazing Sword & Sworcery. I just fell in love with the style and always wanted to try something similar.
For now all you can do is walk around. That’s it
Now I just gotta turn this into a game. I need coffee.
Got lots done, but also still have way too much to get done. Getting tired here, so I’ll be taking a “sleep” break and start up early tomorrow morning.
I’m pretty happy with the basics in place. Now I actually have to make a game out of this. In saying that, it’s pretty interesting how the idea has evolved the more I work on it. I have quite a few nice ideas for the level design & puzzles that the player will be facing (Needless to say that this will be a very very short adventure. It’ll be almost like a short film.)
Check out the preview video here:
Last night I submitted my first ever entry into LD. Loved every minute of the experience. At times I definitely felt like quitting. Glad I got my act together and submitted!
The game itself is a small adventure with a mini game on each screen. Just keep looking around for visual and audio clues and you’ll figure out how to get to the next stage.
Screenshot from the game:
My main focus was to create an interesting atmosphere to suck the player into the weird world. I think I succeeded fairly well in that aspect. The music & graphics work very well together in my opinion. Overall there’s a very distinctive vibe to the game.
I wish I’d had more time to create a few more puzzles and add some more clues into the game on how to resolve the puzzles. But I just ran out of time and probably made some bad design decisions along the way that prohibited me from created more puzzles.
This game was written from scratch in Java using the amazing libgdx framework. Pretty amazing cross-platform framework. Check it out here: http://libgdx.googlecode.com
I’ll definitely be taking this project beyond LD and make a nice little game out of it. It’ll also give me time to further tweak the assets & music and give it some good old polish.
Check the game out here: Still Dreaming
Congrats to the other 500 people that submitted an entry so far (wow!). Looking forward to the next couple weeks of playing everyone’s games!
Cheers,
Bach
It’s already been a week since I submitted my first entry into LD. Been reviewing quite a few games and am impressed with the sheer amount and diversity (and similarity ;)) found in the competition. Truly an inspiring place to learn from others.
My game “Still Dreaming” has been reviewed by lots of people. I’m overwhelmed by the amazing feedback I’ve received. Thanks everyone for playing & enjoying the game. Main point of criticism has been it’s shortness which I completely understand. I’d love to keep this game growing over time and add more puzzles as they come to me.
I spent some time today tidying up a few things in “Still Dreaming”. Mainly there were a few visual aspects I wasn’t completely happy with.
Screenshot above is from the “improved” level 2. Check out the enhanced version here: Still Dreaming – Enhanced
Cheers,
Bach
This is for all the kittens out there. They’re probably the only ones that care about this post anyway..
Either way I’m joining the fun again!
Weapons of choice:
– JAVA
– libgdx
– Reaper
– GIMP
– Espresso
– Pen & Paper
Looking forward to seeing everyone’s games!
Cheers,
Bach
Quick status update on my game. I tentatively call it “The Invention of Colour”. Once again I’m just trying to create something engrossing that’ll captivate the player for a short amount of time. There’s still a ridiculous amount of work left to do though.
Alrion, the beast, is looking for colours to make him feel happy and get rid of his loneliness. Will he succeed?
Just a quick post to show you what I gave birth to over the last 48 hours (seriously feels like it ;)).
“The Invention of Colour” follows “Alrion” on his journey to find “shimmers”. I love creating stuff with a distinct atmosphere, so that’s once again what I was aiming for. It’s not a real game as such but should much more be viewed as modern interactive storytelling, but hey nothing wrong with that 😛
Inspired by the likes of “Bastion” I added some narration to the game. I like it – though it seems I’ll have to add subtitles to the thing. Either way, make sure you have a good audio source (headphones preferably) around when playing it.
Click through here to get to the entry. Would love for you guys to check it out!
I’m planning on full post mortem once things have settled a bit. Meanwhile.. I’m off to check out everyone’s games!!
Tags: kitten-challenge
I finally got around adding a walk-through video for my experimental storytelling game “The Invention of Colour”. Since the game is very much focused on atmosphere and “the experience” you can actually get a very good impression of the game by just watching the video. Make sure you use a good pair of headphones to enjoy this to the max:
Walking into this competition I had one goal in mind: Create something that has a dense, expressive mood and portraits a distinct character to the player. I wanted the player to walk away from the game feeling like he actually got to know the main character’s emotional world by just listening to him for 2 minutes.
I personally find the transfer of emotional concepts to be one of the most challenging for a game designer. Quite often realism does not translate to something that’s emotionally impacting. The current trend seems to be toward hyper-realism. But to be honest I was a lot more emotionally involved in some of the classic games of the 8bit & 16bit era. There’s a huge potential when we leave gaps for the player to imagine things.
What do you think? What makes a game emotionally interesting? How can you involve the player in the world you’re trying to create? Would love to hear your thoughts on this.
Oh and when you’re ready to rate my game click through here: The Invention of Colour
Well Christmas is here and I thought I’d take 5 minutes to christmas-ify my Ludum Dare entry.
I gave “Alrion” a little Santa cap and made it snow – The game is exactly the same besides that. You can give it a whirl over here: The Invention of Colour
Take 5 minutes and post a christmas version of your LD entry! Doesn’t need to be fancy (mine was a quick 5 minute job), but it would be lots of fun to see. Let’s get out our pixel snow and elf ears Make sure you let me know if you post a Christmas version.
MERRY CHRISTMAS everyone and stay safe.
Tags: christmas
I’m in for this Ludum Dare. Excited beyond words!
Code: Libgdx
Pixels: GIMP & GraphicsGale
Sounds: Reaper
Looking forward to the madness
Cheers,
Bach
Well it’s another Ludum Dare and I needed a new avatar. So I made one. This one fits my nick nicely. Also because everyone in the irc channel keeps bugging me about the nick 
I present to you .. “The Bach”
Oh wait, Ludum Dare wasn’t about making a new avatar, you say. Hmm, I guess I better get going with a game then! 
May the best pixels win!
Cheers
Bach
It’s been a big day – lot’s of progress on my end. Though there is still a ridiculous amount of work that needs to be done.
However, it’s time for a little screenshot:
The game will be a turn-based strategy game a la “Advance Wars” with a twist 
Some of the details are still a bit vague, but ultimately it’s meant to portrait how humanity is “Nature’s Villain”. So, YOU are the villain!
Anyway, need some sleep.
Cheers,
Bach
This entry was posted on Sunday, December 16th, 2012 at 12:47 am and is filed under LD #25. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
This was one hectic Ludum Dare! Happy about what I ended up with. The game “Nature’s Villain”, is a strategy, turn-based game in style of “Advance Wars”. It also has certain influences from games like Battlfield 1942, where you have to capture & hold bases.
Check it out when you get a moment and let me know what you think!
To the game: Nature’s Villain
Now the real fun begins: Playing all your guys’ games!
Bach
Taking this weekend off from working on Halfway to enter Ludum Dare once again! Doing it solo this time and properly scared. I feel rusty 😉
Good luck to you all. Can’t wait to see what everyone will come up with.
Tools of the trade
Code: Java + libGdx
Art: GIMP + Sketch
Music/Sfx: Reaper
Bach
I made a little game with a super simple core mechanic of clicking and collecting triangles. I seem to always focus my games around atmosphere and this one is no different. Each time the game is played it generates a unique galaxy from a Julia Set fractal (including a unique color palette). I gave the fractal a “voice”, so when you explore the different systems you can actually hear a musical interpretation of the fractal. I thought that was pretty cool I also stayed away from my usual pixelart stuff to try and do something different visually!
This game was quite difficult to finish as I was lacking motivation throughout the compo. I actually only spent about 28 hours total on it, but because of lack of focus I had to enter it into the JAM. Nevertheless, I’m glad I finished something.
Have a look at the game and have fun destroying some fractals: GAEA
Looking forward to playing everyone’s games!
bach