Took me a long time to find some inspiration.  So here are the list of ideas I came up with.

Sniper (pretty obv snipe scope game)
taking candy from a baby (Puzzle game?)
Hackers (Puzzle reaction game?)
Bank Robbers (Stealth game)
Invasion
Mafia
Destroy city(I really like this one.  Not so familiar with 3d but it was going to be a running game where you destroy the city while you are running add some infinity blade in there)
Mr Freeze( dual stick shooter where you play as mr freeze stealing things in gotham)

And I think my game is going to be…

Dual stick shooter where you collect time crystals so you can take over the world!  Add some RPG puzzle stealth elements.  We’ll see pretty ambitious.

Tags: LD 48

Man that took longer than I wanted and I still want to setup windows. I’ll probably have to do that on monday. oh well. Lets make this mobile game!

Plans for the next hour.
Get a guy moving on screen.

Tags: cocos2dx, LD 48

So food has been eaten and character is now onscreen.  Moves toward my tap/click.  Not much more to update on.

Goal for next hour:

Dual sticks

Tags: cocos2dx, LD 48

This was way easier than I thought it was going to be.  First I found joystick code here. http://www.cocos2d-x.org/boards/6/topics/2438.  Some modifications had to be made.  This was from a year ago so some functions have been changed and it was for 1 joystiq.  I just made some simple change not very robust to make it two but it will do. I then found some art for the joystiq here http://opengameart.org/content/side-scrolling-fantasy-themed-game-assets.  It’s a little off center but I think I can figure it out but for now it’s good enough. Goals for next hour: Shoot things with other joystiq Android version

Tags: cocos2dx, LD 48

Woo got projectiles in with the other stick.  A little hacky at the moment but I need to get box2d in anyway so I’m not too worried about it.  Also got the android version up and running.  Noticed things are real small. TODO put in scaling constant.

Going to bed.  Too tired from the hobbit last night.  Hopefully I’ll get up early tomorrow.  I have a lot of things to do.

Saturday:
box2d
Maps
Enemies
sunday:
Level design
Bug fixes

That is the pie in the sky what I hope happens but I think it rather achievable.

Tags: cocos2dx, LD 48

Super slow super slow. Lots of issues getting this to work and still not perfect. Thinking about changing the game up a little. Not quite sure yet. Next goal: Android scaling

Tags: cocos2dx, LD 48

Almost made the hour goal this time. Still a little buggy also. The Ball is too big. Not quite sure why. I will have to fix when I deal with the map code next. Also there is a lot of memory churn. Need to fix that as well.

Goal for Next Hour: GYM

Goal for hour after: MAPS

Tags: cocos2dx, LD 48

Hey guys, Sorry it’s been awhile. Going slowly again. I made the map class. I have fixed the scaling on android with that class as well. It seems that there is an issue if the screen isn’t iphone size. The background shows outside the box so I will have to have a different background for the squares then the background in the device. Hard coded map right now. I guess these are more like tweets. Thinking about making this a dodging game and the more crystals you get the more you can slow down time. Goal for next hour(aka next post): Tile to load the next area

Tags: cocos2dx, LD 48

Man these posts never make the hour mark. Well anyway I can now load the next level. Clears the map and brings on a new one. Pretty awesome.

Next Goal: Collisions with proper next level

Tags: cocos2dx, LD 48

Now it loads the next level when you hit the gray area using box2d collisions. Slow as usual but hopefully I will add some projectiles for you to swarve around.

Next Goal: Projectiles restarted level

Tags: cocos2dx, LD 48

Getting closer. Still not quite there. I added projectiles but since they are kinematic bodies they aren’t getting removed as well as I would like to. SO I need to work on that. Getting pretty tired so I’m going to call. Lots of work to do yet. Hopefully I can get this finished. SLEEP

Tags: cocos2dx

Woooo. Got some more turrets. Actual things to avoid. Looking like this could actually be fun.

Gonna have the turrets be placed randomly and have a higher chance the more time crystals you pick up. Also speeding up the actual projectiles.

Next Goal: Time Crystals

Tags: cocos2dx

Woo I think there is a game here. Crystals have been added. They vary depending on how many you have. Time to get some nicer sprite for the main person and add a title screen.

Next Goal: Title Screen

Tags: cocos2dx

WOOOOO I think the game is pretty much done. Now I need to fix all these crashes. It doesn’t even work on android :(. Need to fix that to call this fully completed. So I have added loading screen image. Icons. Menu to start. Game Over screen. Congrats Screen. Def filling out.

Next Goal: Stability

Tags: cocos2dx

WOo fixed a ton of bugs. Works completely now on Android. I’m still running into some Heap corruption errors. Not the best code I’ve ever written. First Ludum Dare Completed. Looking forward to the next one.

Download apk here https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B0KydNNUSpLPYmF4eFlqVDQtZ0U

Tags: cocos2dx

I’m doing this again.  I missed the last one due to vacation and the one before that I was working and had to make a small game.  Anyway idea has been made.  If you want to follow I’m blogging over here http://lorenzgames.wordpress.com/.

Using

Blendor/paint: Haven’t decided on 3d or 2d

Unity

Missed the last ludum due to a local jam so this will be the third one this year.  Super excited.  I came up with a couple ideas and I think I’ve landed on one.

So my first idea was to have a metroidvania game where the map view would be the whole game.  So you would zoom in and the game would be very pixelated while you traversed the world.  The problem I have with this is it isn’t unique.  It doesn’t really use the theme in a very good way.

Another idea in the same vain was to have more of a mystery/detective game with the same map as the overworld.  This would allow you to travel between places and try and put clues based on the map.  This has the same problems as the last idea.

An Idea in different vain was to have a puzzle game where it would slowly reveal an overworld that would end up on one screen.  So you would beat a level and it would show up in the overworld and eventually all the levels would spell something out or solve a puzzle.  Again this had the same problem as my previous ideas.

In my game you will play as an adventuring detective.  You will play in a zelda esque view and dungeon where you travel from screen to screen however whenever you go to a new screen the world gets smaller because all the screen ends up staying on your screen.  Can you solve the mystery before you are too small?  

I like this idea because it uses the theme to provide the constraint of the game.  Now some challenges with this idea.

• Is this going to be fun?  Having yourself get smaller and losing focus on yourself is not necessarily fun.  The game will have to be tweaked a lot. Maybe fast speed so the game is quick.  You get stronger the smaller you are.
• Is this more of an adventure or detective game?  This will have to be tweaked.  Its hard to tell at the moment what is going to be fun.  I will probably try a mix of both and see which one turns out to be more fun.
• Can I get this done in 48 hours?  Isn’t this always the challenge with these things.  Sound and art are always tough for me to get in these things.

So I’ve got character movement and autolevel generation working.  I think my code this time around is actually rather good thanks to this book Game Programming Patterns.  I’m about 70% of my way through.  Most I already knew but it is nice to get some refreshers and quantify things.  I want to have more in depth posts about these patterns in unity.  Once I get some time.

The Command pattern is super awesome and I spent some time implement for movement of my person.  So hopefully Enemies will be super easy to make.  Maybe after this weekend I can implement replay.  That would be awesome.  One of those things I’ve always wanted to do.

So now the next steps are:

• Move camera back to see whole game
  • This is going to be some rather difficult math maybe.  It is going to require some thought and probably some data around that is the size of the world so far.
• Enemies
• Different Levels
  • With Enemies
• Puzzles

I may just tackle the enemy thing here first.  Not sure.  Will force me to have an end condition so that will be good.  I also need a win condition maybe.

Got some naive enemies working.  They just go right after the person.  Unfortunately my command pattern didn’t work due to trying to move toward the person.  I feel like there is a way but it was just way easier to use Vector3.MoveTowards().

Some problems so far.

• Enemy not killed from sword for some reason.  Writing this I think the enemy needs a rigidbody to collide but I’m not quite sure.
• When the enemy collides with the human for some reason the human starts rotating and then the camera also rotates.  This is a very annoying thing.

Only managed to really knock off one thing off my basic checklist.  Too tired to keep working.  See everyone tomorrow.

So I added puzzle pieces.  Along with 3 riddles that let the user know where the puzzle pieces are.  When you collect all 3 you get a winning screen. WOOO.  Losing and winning creates a complete game!

This took me forever because there is some weird behavior in unity where a prefab cannot instantiate another version of itself without using itself as a reference.  So what happens is that the object instead of being (clone) ends up being (clone)(clone) the more you use that prefab.  The only I found around it is to use a 2nd class to instantiate it.

So now to they gym for a little bit next steps when I get back.

• ART ART ART ART
• Fix bug where Levels get cloned on top of each other.  Stupid ray tracing is being a dick.  Maybe I’ll just keep what levels have been instatiated and prevent new ones in those positions.  This will work.
• I added hints to the riddles.  I need to add a button to show them in the pause menu.
• Find the fun.  I want to add guys and see how that changes the game.  Right now its pretty boring.  I’m want to full with how fast you and enemies go based on how big the level is.  This should add some fun.

Alright till next time.