I thought about joining a Ludum Dare in the past but it was never the right timing. I happened to notice #24 was going on while surfing (Several hours in) and even though it’s pretty late to be joining, decided I would see what I could come up with. After brainstorming for about 90 minutes I have an idea, so I’ll be starting development after a brief conceptual sketch.

I’m working in Game Maker Studio, hopefully producing something that’s playable in the browser. Illustrator for graphics, and probably Absynth for some ambient music, we’ll see about that since I rarely ever even make any music.

Finished my first task, which was creating code for growing 2D trees. Very basic at the moment, but all I need is a working prototype to test gameplay with.

I had a vague idea of what my game would be when I started, bit I’m mostly letting it “evolve” as I create it. It started out as being a growing tree or plant, for which you can guide the growth of the plant to a goal by choosing which branches would continue to grow. After one growth cycle, several flowers appear on a limited number of branches. You choose a flower based on the growth direction of the branch it’s connected to. Eventually the plant will have grown in the proper direction and made it to it’s goal.

Beyond that, I’m thinking that you will have to grow flowers that defend against enemies, like a tower defense game. Perhaps the type of enemies that appear in each wave is determined by the color of flower you clicked to continue growing the plant. The player has to then think about which flower to click to move the growth of the plant towards the goal, but at the same time, choose the color of flower carefully since they will have to deal with a more challenging enemy wave or wave type depending.

I’m working to design something a little more dynamic, but I’m starting to program these basic components, and improve the plant/tree growth procedure.

Starting to feel tired. I haven’t made a lot of progress, but I made some important changes to the way the plant thing generates. I’m finding that I’m wanting to move away from it actually being a plant, and just having a plantlike structure and growth system. I’m thinking more abstract now. I’ll probably sleep soon, but I need to make a little more progress first. I’d like to be able to program some of the enemies and defense placement system when I wake up, then begin graphics.

I’ve added growth nodes that the player clicks when they have enough collected energy, these will grow the evolving network of energy in various directions, adding hardpoints along the way. Hardpoints are where you can place defense objects.

The Network

After having a fight with my webhost, I finally got my “not quite a game yet” online. Have a look: http://ld24.zzl.org/

Click the lighter colored nodes to grow the network in various directions. Still quite a bit of work to do, but it’s time for bed.

EDIT- I forgot to mention you can reset with “Space”, handy for when it goes off screen or does other wild things. Which reminds me of the next thing I have to create, the scrollable camera.

8 hours of sleep, food, looked at the progress others are making, feeling good. Work time.

It’s been slow, but I made some progress. You can play it int he browser here (providing that your browser supports WebGL) : http://ld24.zzl.org/

There is now an energy counter in the top left corner. Creating new pathways (by clicking on the light blue circles) costs 25 energy. You can create turrets (by clicking on the dark circles (hardpoints)) which cost 5 energy. You can also click and drag a turret from one hardpoint to another for free. There are many many bugs, which is what I’m working on right now, so you can press “Space” to reset.

Turrets!

While my game is kinda neat with the procedurally generated energy network thing, it has a lot of bugs due to how basic it currently is; overlapping parts, objects that aren’t placed properly etc. I was feeling kinda down about it because it didn’t have that, feeling, the one where you know it’s gonna turn out good. Then I added some enemies and watched my turrets massacre them… I feel better now.

I think after I get more polish into the game, add a “win” state, and some more AI, I’ll be able to focus on fixing the bugs and the procedural stuff that’s bugging the hell out of me. But I’m happy with the way this whole “make a game in 48 hours” is going. Good luck to anyone else who is having issues with things or is doing this for the first time. Just remember, it’s fun!…right?

Latest build has been uploaded with working, movable turrets, enemies, and more bugs fixed. Details below. Play in your browser here: http://ld24.zzl.org/ (WebGL)

The object of the game is to build and evolve your network of energy as large as possible before being overwhelmed by the enemies. To start, click on the flickering energy nodes to expand your network, this costs 25 energy points. The game will generate a portion of the network that’s powered by that energy node (which will now look like a glowing orb). The white enemies are attracted to these energy nodes and will immediately move towards them.

If an energy node runs out of health points (indicated by the orb shrinking) it and the entire portion of the network that it powers will disappear forever. To protect these nodes, click on a hardpoint (a dark circle) which are spawned in various places along the network. This will create a defense turret (costing 5 energy points) which will target enemies and shoot them down. Turrets can also be relocated to another empty hardpoint, useful when a portion of the network is about to go down, you can save the turrets by moving them. The white number in the upper left corner is your energy points. The orange number below it is the spawn rate in milliseconds.

Currently you cannot zoom the camera out, but you can right click and drag to pan the camera. There are still many bugs (a game stopper being when it decides not to spawn any more energy nodes) if you encounter one, just press space to restart. I played for about 20 minutes before either dying or thinking of something I immediately wanted to change, so I haven’t really played it out all the way yet. Lemme know what you think. More gameplay, polish, and bug fixes to come!

I tried making some kind of ambient thing but it’s just not working out. Anyone know of some kind of generator that would be good for ambient music? That allows you to actually export to a file? And is free?

I’ll confess that I haven’t been doing anything to Evergen since the compo and jam ended, aside from creating a mockup screenshot with different colors lol. I mostly played Skyrim. But, I’m going to begin development on the post compo version of the game when I wake up later this evening. I’ll start with re-writing some things that I hastily slapped together, and then start on implementing some new things I’ve come up with that will make the game feel more polished and complete, as right now it’s literally a single 5 minute, non-interesting, intro really to what would be a single level.

I’m adding real progressive level design, more turret and enemy types, and hopefully some audio. My most important objective is to show what this gameplay mechanic is capable of. Present it in a way that better realizes what I originally had in mind.

Also, I was wondering if anyone has suggestions of where to continue updating progress on games after the Ludum Dare judging and everything dies down. I can make a blog to publish news and updates on the game, but where are some good spots to place my game that will pull people to it so that I can continue to get feedback?

Had a rough day painting my grandparents living room after having been awake for 24 hrs already. I stayed up now just long enough to see the theme, and now I’m going to spend the first 8 (probably more like 12) hours  snoring in a new pillow which is, far too comfortable (add 3 hours).

Second time entering Ludum Dare, I got in late on the last one (evolution) and didn’t get to finish my game to the extent that I was hoping. Now that I know what it’s all about, and I was aware of the event ahead of time, I think I’ll manage to finish a proper game this time.

I’m joining the 48 hr compo like I did last time. I’ll be dreaming of ideas for my game, and when I emerge from my slumber, tea and clicking noises on the keyboard.

I slept for many hours to make up for the lost sleep before Ludum Dare even started, then spent a few hours with family etc. I’m actually getting a later start this time than last time, so I’m going to enter the Jam instead, and have my sister help with graphics. One thing I’m happy about is that I was able to come up with a decent idea within about an hour. I went through all of the initial ideas people get and was able to find a more interesting one that actually fits within the universe of a browser game I was in the process of designing before Ludum Dare. I’m really excited about that, as it means this project will have a more streamlined beginning, and it’ll have somewhere further to go right after the Jam.

The timing was bad and there are now multiple things going on with family that prevent me from participating. :/

I got about 5 lines of code written before I was pulled from the computer in a hurry, someone should give me a trophy for “Least amount of code written before quitting”. It was unforeseeable, but now I can only look forward to working on my game in a few days after Ludum Dare, I’ll have to be content with playing games instead . Considering the next Ludum Dare won’t be for a while, perhaps i’ll enter a different jam before then. And I’m still excited to work on my game next chance I get.

Good luck to the rest of you, can’t wait to see what comes from this theme.