This will be my first Ludum Dare, so I’m not too sure how I’ll manage with cramming everything into the 48 hours.

I’ve decided to use Java and LWJGL. I haven’t started a game from scratch using LWJGL before, but have used it while helping out with other games, so I hope it’ll be a good learning experience for me.

Should be fun nonetheless!

I was a bit surprised to see the theme be Tiny World. I had a whole game lined up for some of the other themes, but Tiny World had me stumped.

Luckily I figured out a way to…sort of mold my game idea around the theme, so it still fits.

I am currently well underway with coding, working on the title screen and text rendering at the moment, hoping it wont take me too much longer else I’ll not get much of the game done.

Tags: progress

So it’s almost 5 hours in, and I’ve honestly not done much that I can show.

I have a title screen for the start of the game which I threw together while I was thinking about the actual gameplay. I have a basic state-based system for updates and rendering, and I’ve just now started on the mammoth effort of coding the gameplay.

I hope to get the basic design of the gameplay in before I have a crack and getting something up and rendering. I figure if I spend the first hours where I’m not sleep-deprived writing code, I can spend the groggy wee-hours drawing crappy graphics and making shitty music to go with it.

Should be fun

Tags: progress

So we’ve just past the 8 hour mark, and my brain is slowly starting to melt.

I had a couple of hours there where stuff would just not end. I set up a system to render certain Strings on the screen, then realised I had no idea what those Strings were. from there I spent 2 hours building the framework for my game, just so I could get those strings to test it all.

Frameworks man, frameworks.

Anyway, now I have something small to show, a bit of String rendering, but it contains a good chunk of the gameplay framework just to get there

So I haven’t really said anything about this game yet, so let this be a small explanation.

It is based off a game design from 2001-ish, where you build your own ‘monsters’ and depending on the parts you use, they get certain skills that are used to battle other monsters. In my version however, the monsters are bacteria. Tiny World? Micro World!

Dinner comes soon, then I hope to get some basic battles going before I focus on rendering some ugly graphics instead of nothing.

Tags: progress

13 hours in, and my brain is going into meltdown, so i’ve switched over to poking at graphics.

I’m truly horrified to find out the amount of people that actually have artistic talent on this site, my art extends to bad finger paintings.

Nonetheless, I push on.

Here’s a new pic:

Tags: progress

So I’ve been sitting here for 16 hours trying to work though this game. Admittedly I haven’t accomplished much in the last 4 hours as my brain turned to mush, so I am going to go get a few hours sleep.

I do have a recent build up for play-testing though, only Quick Play is currently working:

http://buddat.net/ld23/

Tags: progress

I had a couple of hours earlier today where I got pretty much nothing done. It was at this time where I was mainly working on pseudo-GUI stuff, which is extremely boring.

I managed to push through it and get it done however, as it was critical to the main ‘gimmick’ of my game. That gimmick being the ability to create your own bacteria out of various parts to use in battle.

It’s starting to come along nicely if I do say so myself, although I will have to do something about the graphics.

As per my last post, the latest(ish) version can be played here: http://buddat.net/ld23

Tags: progress

Well theres about 6 hours to go, and I am done. Well as done as I’ll ever be.

I have just submitted my game, BioBattle.

Link here: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-23/?action=preview&uid=3280

The timelapse that I have been recording is listed on that entry page too.

Here’s a preview pic of the final version:

Tags: progress

So I’m entering LD24.

This will be my second LD, looking forward to it. Got a few ideas already, hopefully the theme turns out to support one of them, otherwise I’ll have to think up something new when I wake up.

As per LD23, I’ll be using Java, LWJGL, Photoshop, and whatever else I feel I need. Probably something for sounds, not sure what yet.

Good luck all!

So I’ve run into my first (second) hiccup already.

In the image below contains two applets running. The first one (top one) is running where the dummyImage line is not commented out. The second (bottom) applet is running with the dummyImage line commented.

This may seem alright to you, but:

1. dummyImage is an empty 1×1 image
2. backgroundImage is the pink image
3. the clear colour is black (not white) – the white you see in the second image is the backgroundImage being drawn without a texture

Does anybody have an idea of what is happening? (P.S. this is Java, LWJGL and Slick2D)

So I’m pulling out before this gets hairy.

I’ve spent the last 12 hours trying to get this game going, but I’ve just run into brick wall after brick wall with no end in sight.

I wanted to get a fluid game going with some nice GLSL dynamic lighting and physics, but just starting at the lighting threw me off. I’ve done some GLSL lighting before, but everything I tried to do this time just had something wrong with it. The first problem was Slick not rendering it’s first loadded texture for some (still) unknown reason. Second problem being the point lighting (based off the mouse position) not lining up the the display area – so when the mouse was at 0,0 the light was at 0,0; but when the mouse was at 400,400, the light was at 800,600.

Once I hit this wall I just decided to crap what I had and start fresh so I could see where I went wrong with the lighting positions. That has just led me around in circles for the last 3 hours to the point where the light just isn’t rendering at all.

I’m going to keep working on this, and probably extend everything into a framework so I’m not pissing around with it all for the next LD – but I won’t be entering anything this time around unfortunately.

I think I need a drink.

I guess I’m in with a theme like that. Makes it easier for us programmer types that have no talent for art.

Will be using Java, LWJGL, Slick and various image/sound tools depending on how I feel at the time.,

Already have an idea in mind that I’ve been thinking about for a while, that could tie nicely into the theme if done right. We’ll see how I go.

Good luck everyone!

Last minute post to say that I’m in.

Spent most of yesterday setting stuff up to get ready, prepped all the distribution stuff so I’m not fussing about with that on Sunday – pretty lucky that I did since it took about 5 hours to get it working how I wanted.

But anyway, I’m in, and I’ll be using the following:

Language: Java
IDE: Eclipse
Libs: LWJGL, Slick
GFX: Photoshop
Audio: SFXR
Food: Lots of crap and energy drinks

I might go and look at setting up a timelapse similar to my LD23 entry too…hmm

Good luck everyone!

Tags: LD27

Looking to be using LibGDX and Java again, this time in the 48 hour solo comp. Have an idea that I want to try out, though no idea how it will actually play. Looking forward to trying to jam the theme into the idea somehow, haha.