So, I’ve never done Ludum Dare before, but I’ve done the Allegro Speedhack a few times (seems like another life ago now); and I’ve been wanting to get back into gamedev, so… why the fuck not?

Also, Ludum Dare has a few things that Speedhack didn’t:

1. No file size limits!? FUCK YES.  (As opposed to speedhack’s 250 KB limit — heh, zip level 10 time, take your sprites down to 4 bpp, let’s get that mp3 sound-fx system working, ’cause wav aint cuttin’ it, etc. haha — way too much time fucking around with bullshit — for the benefit of the 7 people left on this planet who still call the internet up on their telephones — and not enough time coding the shit out of some awesome games!)
2. No technology limits!  That means I can use C#, or any other technology stack I so choose?  DOUBLE FUCK YES. (Seriously, C++ is only 3% faster, and for all the trouble it will cause you, it’s really not worth it if you’re writing something that’s going to run in “user land” anyway.)

Sounds like I just have to wait for the rules to be announced, and then submit my game to the appropriate thread in time, and bam — I’m good to go.  I can’t tell from the rules so correct that if I’m mistaken — somebody — please.  Also do I have to decide if I’m doing the 72-hour-jam or the 48-hour compo up front?  I mean — if I start out aiming for the 48 hour comp, but decide later on that I really want the 72 hour jam , I can just switch it over, right? — Man, I wish I was an IRC nerd right now.

–Mikey

Tags: Challenge Accepted, fuck, fuckyeah, I-gave-that-blogpost-a-picture-blogposts-love-pictures, jam, questions

So, got off work around 6:45 PM — saw the theme a little after it was released.

Having done speedhack in years past I was expecting some complicated themes and requirements.

NOPE!

“Minimalism” — well fuck — there’s some irony for you right there in the theme itself.  Not even a description.  You have google right?  You go figure it out.

Anyway, remembered last minute that it was my friend’s birthday — so I went and watched his band play for a bit at Black-Coffee Co-op (in Seattle).  Played a few games of chess… mulled it over a little.

I did some thinking about “sticks and rocks” — maybe a boy and his blob clone but with “A boy and his rock” — where your pet rock hops around and follows you… and you can pick it up and throw it at bad guys or something.

Seemed kinda lame.

Originally, I was thinking about doing something multi-player — maybe HTML5 based with SignalR or something.  Maybe I still will.  So fuck it. — It’s been a while since I did a Zelda-clone.  Maybe the world needs a 2D HTML based multi-player Zelda-clone? — ’cause you know — I’m sure at some point this weekend I’ll have 3 or 4 hours to code that. XD

Fuuuuckkkkkk.

I got this Chronolapse thing going.  Installing Visual Studio 2012.  Going to watch the latest Naruto.  Then get some sleep.  I’ll have at it, freshly in the morning-ish.  Maybe.

Night, yo’s.

Tags: fuck, Fuuck, Fuuuck, Fuuuuck

So, less dudes, but cooler screenshot.  We’re finally getting ready to rock this thing! (Now that the competition ends in less than a day for the non-jammers. Derp. XD)

Someone already made my game. And probably better.

You get psyched on an idea that you think is totally unique, and you start coding it… and bam, you see a video online, and someone already made it, and it’s better than yours (well yeah, ’cause you just started, duh).

Fuckers, dammit, fucking fuck, !$#@$^%&*.

Oh well, I’m’a keep going anyway… fuckers… stealing my ideas before I had them. ~sigh~

On the plus side, I’m learning a lot of new technologies (ones that I wanted to learn), like MVC4, and SignalR so that’s pretty bad-ass.

Anyway, as far as the “it already exists” thing goes, just *shush* don’t tell anybody, pretend it’s not there… and keep coding. XD

Good luck everyone, esp. all you LD48ers who are almost done for the weekend.

Tags: .net, ASP.NET, C++, MVC4, SignalR

So, I just published “Venture Ville!” from Visual Studio up to azure at:

http://brainslugs83.azurewebsites.net/

Be sure to log-in and check it out! 😀

Also, in the spirit of Ludum Dare’s whole Latin thing that it has going on, we gave our team a motto — wasn’t able to really double check it as apparently, my friend’s who get Latin are out of town. — But Google Translate’s cool with it, so I’ll leave it at that. 😀

I’d throw the source up somewhere, but it’s like 40 MB… maybe my Google Drive?  I didn’t see anywhere on the LD site where I could upload it.

Also, I Chronolapsed everything, so I’ll be cutting that this week and hopefully YouTube’d by Friday.

Happy Monday!
–Mikey

Tags: finish, finished, fuck, unfinished

Looks like I showed up late to the party, again, but I got some voting in before the final round at least — also, the link on the main page makes it look like Round 4 is up and ready, but when I got to it, it just says “you must be logged in to vote”.  Maybe it’s just not ready yet?  Seems weird that both would be available at the same time.

Anyway, here’s how I voted:

Tags: LD #27, voting

Hello again, everyone!

I’m Mikey (aka BrainSlugs83), and this is my second Ludum Dare, I’ve done some other compos before, like Speedhack (but that was years ago).  Last time around (at #LD26), I didn’t actually finish an entry, it was kind of a last minute decision to join, and I did a weird experimental project with Signal R and ASP.NET MVC (I’d previously used neither technology. >.<), so debugging the weird Signal R messaging loop stuff ended up taking up most of my time.  (I work in biz-dev land, so, I’m a bit out of practice with gamedev anyway.)

So this time around I’ve decided to go with something much simpler, just a plain-jane C#/XNA game.  And I spent my after-hours during the last week spinning Visual Studio 2012, C# and XNA — just getting my bearings and such — I built a small primitive rendering library and a WiX installer that seems to work (comment if you’re interested, and I can put the sources up somewhere).  It also seems to work with Mono-game as well, so my game may even port to Linux or Mac when I’m done, woot to that. 😀

Anyway, I’ll be doing the Jam again, as I prefer to work in a Team, and life will try to get in the way, I know it, so 72 hours is more better than 48 hours… but otherwise I’ll be following most of the rules, and trying my best to adhere to the chosen theme (unless the theme is really balls, then I might not, but for now, I’m just going to go ahead and plan to stick with it).

As for graphics, in the past for these kinds of things, I usually just used Paint Brush, and IrfanView — might mix in some Paint.NET — my trusty Ludum Dare partner, Bonita, will probably mix in some Gimp, and who knows what…  We might also do some net scouring for sprite sheets, or maybe even just throw some polygons together, who knows?

For sound, I’ve always either scoured the net for free to use stuff, or played with my microphone and processing effects (usually in Wave Editor or Audacity) — Music has almost always been an afterthought — I have some musical friends, but the timing never works out, it seems like it would take a bit of coordination, you know? — Usually — IF what I build for these types of compos even has music — I’ll end up scouring for free midi files somewhere.

So yeah, definitely the Jam, as scouring the net for reusable/free resources is kind of a no-no for the 48 hour competition.  Still though, very excited about this, and hoping to get a good / working game out this time around. 😀

Tags: LD #27

Really want to do this — and actually keep it simple enough to finish an entry for once — but dammit — I’ll probably be working my balls off this weekend, making sure an over budget / behind schedule product ships. — or sleeping — :-/

Choices, choices…

If I do do it, it’s going to be like a super-simple, ridiculously small scale game — maybe even in WinForms… — super casual — and I’ll probably take all 3 days and only put like 4-8 hours in a day — if that.  .NET, BFXR, and PaintBrush… — not shooting for the moon this time — no overconfidence to slow me down — if somebody can recommend a better suite to make animated sprites, I’m listening, the tools section selection is kind of balls…

Dammit all to hell, I think I just talked myself into doing it… I’ll get a project template set up, I guess… and … but… If the theme sucks, I’m not forcing it…

Tags: LD #28

So…

I really wanna do it this weekend — definitely gonna be Jam at this rate.

Spent all day yesterday and today working so far… and tomorrow is Family-time or some crap… sooo… I have four hours: Go! … ?

Heh, seems like I’m playing the theme IRL; I only get to finish ONE:

• Work
• Ludum Dare
• Family Stuff

Which will I pick!?

Fun times…

Tags: yogo

Well, four hours into the compo [for me, at least] (+1 hour to figure out how to make an animated gif, derp.) — and I have my bloopie walking!

Now to start adding some gamey-type stuff! 😀

Tags: yogo

So, about 8 hours in now… kinda fuzucked, since tomorrow is family time all day — and super behind on work — really don’t want to make another unfinished game — might just stay up all night and see what I can make bloopie do!

Tags: yogo

So, after 10 hours of total work on my entry, I have my Bloopie riding up and down the happy-go-’round — but no real game to show for it yet.  And the rest of my weekend is kind of spoken for — I’ll see if I can invent some time tomorrow night, but probably not. Damn it!

Tags: yogo

So, had a late start, and pretty much 2.5 of 3 of my days taken away from me… and that sucked…

But, man, it’s been like 7 years since I actually finished and submitted a game for a weekend game coding compo.

Oh well, I have a couple of good games started off from these past couple of Ludum Dares — so that’s not really bad — is it?

I think I want to continue working on this one over Christmas break — if I have time — I won’t have time — but if I did — that’s what I would do.

Tags: yogo

Nuff said.

Using C#, maybe the new SIMD stuff that got released to CTP this month.

No idea on anything else.

*FXR for sound of course.

Will probably ignore the theme (JAM style) and spin the rule-o-matic @ http://speedhack.allegro.cc/rule-o-matic/spin

Tags: LD #29

Well, Dang it — Maybe #LD30 will be the one for me.

I spent two days screwing around with different technologies again — eventually decided back on XNA (after my Winforms game’s FPS dropped through the floor, and encountering bug after bug after bug in Mono game…) — I spent most of saturday writing code to draw primitives… and now I can — I can blit me some circles and boxes like you wouldn’t believe…. but as for gameyness goes… I wanted to do Rogue meets Zelda kind of game, where you go deeper and deeper — kind of like Dungeoneer I did a few years back, but not as sucky… what it’s looking like I’m capable of at this point is more like Atari’s Adventure…. no seriously, I have a little square and everything. >.<

I miss the good ol’e days — with Allegro… — don't miss the C++…

So, anyway… I'm going to spend the rest of the weekend "ramping up".

Peace guys, maybe next time.

Well, the original game I was planning — which fit the theme decently — is probably going to take way more than 72 hours — but whatever, I’m joining the jam anyway with a much simpler game. I’m still going to try and tie it into the theme, but that’s a secondary goal. My #1 goal is to finish an entry this time, so that’s why I’ve scaled everything back, including graphics.

They don’t really do anything yet.

I was thinking about making them really destructive and then changing them to be like a Dragon’s weapon or something… but who knows if I’ll get to that in time.

I’m doing the Jam, so I have the whole night still — but I work tomorrow, so probably won’t be able to get anything done after I go to bed in the morning…

So, still working on my game*, and I just added a way to heal yourself (besides dying), can you guess what it is?

Dungeon Blaster updated for Taco Tuesday!!

(*: not modifying the Jam version or any funny business, just having fun with it, might upload it in a week or two with the caveat that it’s not the official #LD30 version…)

Tags: dungeon, dungeon crawler, tacos

I’m in for the Jam for sure!

I’m intending to use MonoGame / VS 2015 / C#.

For assets I’ll use Paint.NET / Spriter / Pyxel Edit for art. — Spriter (Brash Monkey) and Pyxel Edit (from the Tools page) are both really awesome tools, by the way.

For sound, I’ll probably just screw around in Audacity against noises I make with my voice, and/or bsfxr; I might get Taco to help with some of this, we’ll see how much I can rope her in for.

I plan on taking a look at Ogmo editor (from the tools page) today, before the competition starts, just to make sure I have the basics down (I’ve never used it before, but I’m hoping it will speed things up, and not having the opposite effect…)

If I get that far, I’ll probably be scraping the internet for CC~ish musics.

I’ll might also scrape the internet for other filler assets as well — well see. Would prefer to make everything myself, but I’m not that talented. I’ll make sure it’s all CC or at least GPL.

I don’t want to jinx it, but I’ve never finished one of these before, so wish me luck, I really hope I can knock it out this time.  For now, I’m going to get some sleep.

Woot!
–Mikey

Just getting something on the screen I guess.  Super lame how long some things can take.  I guess I’m out of practice.  I hate running out of time on these.  Oh well, tomorrow will be a better day.