I actually managed to wake up 4am to read the chosen theme. Escape…I’m actually glad it got chosen because it’s leaves a lot of freedom, at least in my head.

So I spent about 4 hours brainstorming and thinking of possible escape games. A lot of them unfeasible to implement in this short time frame and others just plain boring. I’m quite happy with what I’ve come up with, I’ll explain it in a later post, though I’m still struggling to make it actually feel like a game and to make it feel like you are escaping from something.

Anyways here is one of my doodles and two screenshots of some cubes and balls. I decided to go for LWJGL despite my previous “EVERYTHING FROM SCRATCH” attitude and I’ve been copying a few basic snippets here and there. Feels good to have something on the screen.

So I haven’t posted an update in a while. Basically Around mid-day yesterday I ran into a bunch of problems. The idea which I originally had didn’t work out. In that it relied on me come up with just too many good ideas. I wanted the player to move through a world that is about to collapse. So you are inside a little cell or something. And it collapses, so you try to escape from it. And as you move out of it you begin to realize that this small cell reacted to the world around it. the world is composes of all of these smaller cells that feed into a bigger picture. And some kind of virus is destroying the stable state it was in. And that would destroy you too. So your goal becomes to escape this whole system or track down whatever is destroying it. As you can probably see this whole idea is way to abstract. And despite me being pretty sure that this idea would be cool and maybe even possible to make within the timeframe of 48h if I base the system on some simple rules, I wasn’t able to get any concrete ideas that seemed to work out.

So I backed off that original concept. What I’m currently working on a a game where the player is tied to something by an elastic band. Which means the player is trapped, because the band is pulling him back at all times. But of course there is a way to escape all this. You are surrounded by hooks that allow you to move further, and maybe at some point reach something that frees you from that rubber band.

Basic functionality is implement. I have to make some levels now and different kinds of hooks(moving, smaller, etc) and maybe some enemies that can weaken your grip by shooting you. And of course nicer artwork and music. That’s a ton of stuff.

I would show you a screenshot but this site is too slow atm. But I have an executable for you to test: PLAY

Hey

My game is in a playable state. I haven’t finished the level yet. But there is quite a bit which you can play so far.

Download Beta2     arrow keys to control

Does it work? Are you good enough to reach the “E” at the current premature end? Do you like it? Do you get why it’s an escape? Any name suggestions?

Ton of artwork, titlescreen, ending still to make. I got music, but it’s not really running yet. Thinking about switching to libgdx to get some stuff to work easier.

Tags: half life 3, java, lwjgl

Here are a few minutes of gameplay of my compo game “elastic prison”. I think the compo went quite well for me. Considering this is my first time here and that I haven’t really finished a game in a loong time.

Go to the entry page to download it.
I’ll post my time-lapse later today. And maybe a complete playthrough sometime this week, because I like the ending.

Tags: java, lwjgl

Here it is. I kinda screwed it up though when I stopped and restarted chronolapse…sometimes it didn’t record. So some hours are missing. Better luck next time, and I’ll try to have one of these neat on screen clocks.

 
My entry: elastic prison

Tags: java, lwjgl, timelapse

Someone playing Elastic Prison

Alright so here go my final thoughts.

Game Mechanic:

I’m pretty happy with how everything went. The first day I spent a lot of hours just brainstorming, trying to come up with a really cool and simple concept. I’m a big fan of generated content and simulations that give the player something interesting and new to play with. Something that encourages the player to experiment instead of just running through everything completely deterministic. And I came up with a concept that was just way too abstract, and I wasn’t able to fill the blanks with working/realistic ideas. So about 10 hours in I somewhat hit a wall and was feeling quite stressed out. So I remembered to keep it dead simple and came up with what turned into my final entry. Elastic Prison, a game where the player controls a ball that is attached to an elastic band that keeps pulling it back to the starting point. And for the player to free himself, he has to cling & swing himself from one floating hook/ball to the next to maybe reach something that will remove this rubber band.

First I focused on how the player controls this ball and how the elastic band attaches itself to these hooks. I had something running pretty quickly and felt satisfied with the controls. Then I started to focus on the actual level creation. I knew there needed to be some variation so I created different kinds of hooks. I also put a few minutes into improving the performance so I could just throw everything into one big level.  The next step was creating the level. I did so by making one challenge at a time for me. Every time I tried to make it different from the previous one, or even so that it builds on the skills that were acquired earlier. I tried to make later parts of the game really hard as I hear people are complaining a lot about games being to easy these days. So I could just barely play through these final stages that I created. Still it’s not impossible and after uploading my submission I recorded a 12 minute play through.

Tech:

Using LWJGL was a pretty straight forward decision but looking back it might have been smarter to choose libgdx because it’s LWJGL + more nice stuff (mp3 support). It’s been smooth sailing with LWJGL though. Currently I’m working on porting my game to libgdx to maybe have it run on android or as an applet.

Sound and Artwork:

Those were the things I was most confident about and surely enough I was really quick. Ableton and Photoshop did their job well. The sounds turned out a bit quiet though.

Feedback:

I have to say I was quite surprised with the feedback. Yes people liked the concept, art and sound but had a gripe with the controls, expecting them to behave differently and not really being able to figure out how to master them. And they were quite frustrated about how checkpoints work, as they won’t keep  you forever from going back to the beginning. Well I can see now how people expect the controls to work and it’s too bad that I didn’t hear that kind of feedback before I uploaded my final submission. While working on it I was told it is hard but fun, which is what I was going for. Now to the checkpoints. I guess the problem here lies completely in not communicating well enough how they work. The funny thing is that it is a really simple concept. Every hook behaves the same way. But some might hold you longer, depending on their size. You won’t end up at the beginning if you understand this concept and make sure to reattach yourself to these large hooks again when they stop glowing.

Once you get it it’s a challenging and interesting concept. And I thought it goes quite well with the theme. The player is trapped and tries to escape. Once he stops struggling he is in danger of being back where he has started.

Future:

I look forward to the next Ludum Dare. I’ll make sure to get more feedback while working on my game, and to keep it simple straight from the beginning. As for Elastic Prison, I’ll make it available as an Applet and maybe do some more with that concept sometime in the future.

My Entry

Tags: java, lwjgl, post-mortem

Hey…

For the most part of today I have been brainstorming ideas. I had a lot of abstract ideas but nothing where I exactly knew how these game ideas would play out.

I’ve decided to go with one and put some time into thinking through the mechanics. It could turn out to be fun. But it’s a lot of work and many things have to be worked out quickly.

My goal is to finsh the gameplay until around Sunday noon and then just focus on making the art und music more interesting.

I started coding about 2 hours ago and I got some initial results pretty quickly. I’m trying to make the collision work atm. I guess it’s one of the biggest struggles. Then it’s all fun…I hope 😛

Check out my current progress here:

http://bitbof.com/ld22/

I will probably update every hour. My actual game idea will be anounced when I have some working gameplay.

Keep fightinggg

yo…

been wasting too much time on the physics. So I’m badly behind my schedule.

Anyways…I’ve settled for much less gameplay. That’s finshed for the most part. Now I’ll focus on graphics and sound which will make it way more obvious what all of this is about.

http://bitbof.com/ld22/

so…I’m done with the art.

http://bitbof.com/ld22/

Trying to make some music and sound in the remaining time. oh god

Hello again to all you strangers. I can’t believe it’s that time again….way too quickly.

If somebody is interested in being testing buddies (testing each others wip entries) hit me up.

See you on friday.

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 15th, 2012 at 7:44 pm and is filed under LD #23. 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.

Okay, I think this time I got a fairly realistic idea relatively early (3h in). Last time I spend almost a full day, so that makes me happy.
It’s gonna be about small things that stick together and spin (hopefully that’s cryptic enough). After posting this I will immediately begin coding.

What I will use: Java with Libgdx, Ableton Live (music+sound), and Photoshop.

hf gl to everyone

Okay, so I’m mostly done. Can’t make myself write a lot because there is still stuff to do (intro, ending).

You can test the current state

HERE

Can you guess what game inspired the music? 😀

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So here is my game, my third one here at Ludum Dare.  I am happy with the result and hope that you have fun playing it.

Entry Page

[/stextbox]

I figured my game looks best in motion. THUS, VIDEO!

Play and rate

This time I had the goal of making a game that I’d like to play within the context of Ludum Dare. Something that is still enjoyable although you just played a ton of other short games and your patience is running low. Here are some of my criteria:

– Needs to deliver in 1-5 minutes (show interesting stuff as early as possible)

– Don’t let the player wait

– Simple to grasp game concept (I get braindead after playing a lot of different games)

– Easy to play through

– Something isn’t interesting when most other games do the same thing

– Music and sound that don’t cause ear-cancer  (music that loops too obviously is super annoying, huge jumps in volume are annoying)

– A 5 minute experience with proper beginning and ending

How it went:

I used my regular selection of tools that have proven themselves in the previous LDs and I woke up super early for the theme announcement. For the brainstorming I forced myself  to focus on stuff that isn’t too vague. A vague idea doesn’t lend itself for something that needs to be finished in 48h, but the problem is I usually get super excited by vague ideas and hate most of my concrete ideas. Anyways after a while I settled for something that wasn’t too vague and started working. Strangely on Saturday I was lacking motivation that faded into a feeling of doubt in the evening. On Sunday I felt a lot more motivated and positive, starting the day with creating my own level editor and making some music. I think I uploaded my submission 30 minutes before the deadline, which is okay imo.

The Good:

Compared to my LD22 entry, this one turned out to be an actual game and people seem to be less frustrated with it than with my LD21 entry. Many actually played it through. I’m fairly happy with the game mechanic, visual style and music/sound. Also I didn’t get distracted by the real world or had to struggle with bugs/tools. Conditions were great in that regard. I even made my own little level editor which was fun.

The Bad:

As I mentioned, on Saturday  I was lacking motivation which resulted in less work done, less ideas explored, less problems fixed and less quality of the overall experience. It would have been nice if that day had been more productive.
Here are some of the issues I see with my game:

– The Intro doesn’t really sell that it’s related to the theme … in general there aren’t many theme related things going on

– It starts fairly boring (first screen)

– The flashing background gets a tad bit annoying

– Some levels focus on the weirdness of the controls rather than the spin mechanic and some are a bit too hard

– The spin is too fast

– The ending screen is bland (an animation or something would have been nice)

– The music is too fast compared to the gameplay and maybe a bit too repetitive

– Sound should be a bit louder

– I regret not having more interesting stuff going on (visual and gameplay wise)

Conclusion:

All in all good.  Gotta tackle those issues next time, and also finally make a 3D game.

My entry http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-23/?action=preview&uid=4912

None of them were seen again…until Monday.

It’s time for me to join again after skipping the last Ludum Dare.

I’ll be using libgdx, Ableton Live, Photoshop. Maybe I’ll go 3D this time. Looking forward to spending my Saturday morning next week brainstorming tons of insane/impossible ideas.

See you around.

I thought it would be neat to have a live updating hub where I’ll post all my updates. I kind of dislike the navigation around here.

…counting down…

So keep an eye on it

My Hub

I’ve been trying to come up with ideas for a while now, and I think that I’ve settled for something. You can see the concept drawings on my Ludum Hub.

Still super WIP and early in dev, but I put up an applet of my game

click to play

You can test it HERE

Some art I made for my game. God…so much work.