This is going to be my first Ludum Dare and I strongly doubt anyone reading this will have the faintest notion of who I am, but all the better! I’ve wanted to join this compo for a while and only recently do I have the time to do so. But enough ramble!

Tools I intend to use:

Main game: Flixel, a Flex library

Graphics: Photoshop CS4

Sounds: CFXR (a nice OS X port of SFXR) for sound effects, and either MilkyTracker or Sunvox for music

And if I think I’ll need anything else, guess I’ll post about it then!

BEHOLD!

Some people might say my desk is small. I say it's the right size.

Planning is all done. I’ll come up with the idea first, implement the core mechanics and draw the stuff for the core mechanics, then add anything else that seems like it’ll work and draw stuff for that, then add sounds and (time permitting) music.

It’s a very rough plan because hey, no plan survives contact with the enemy. Especially if the enemy is an abstract concept like time.

Still, here’s hoping it all goes well!

It’s 7:50 AM, I just woke up, and the theme is, well, uh. Suffice to say it was not what I was expecting to win, but such is life!

No ideas yet, but I have my screen capture thing going and my livestream (which is at http://livestream.com/cirr for the record) will be going hopefully for the entire 48 hour period, bar crashes or a need to kill it because my poor three year old macbook can’t handle the strain.

Breakfast is probably a good idea here. Maybe take a walk for an hour to get the brain whirring into action and make ideas faster. Maybe I should take care. It’s dangerous to go alone, after all. I should take something with me.

Well, I’m having some problem coming up with ideas here. Or more accurately, deciding which out of my candidate ideas are good ones. Here are three of my candidates:

1. Robots in a facility trying to escape except one of them is for some reason (to be decided) temporarily unable to move. This immobile robot provides advice to the mobile (player character) robot. “It’s dangerous to go alone, take this advice.”
2. A cat with a cannon that launches itself takes on an invasion by the dog and bird alliance. Cannon being both the cat’s only weapon and means of long-distance transport. Thinking more like a platformer instead of one of those “press button, launch thing, hope for the best” games. And the cat has some ally who delivers some new neat thing every level. (“Every level” already ringing alarm bells for me here.)
3. An average guy wandering down the street before he suddenly gets some improbable weapon thrown out at him by a clearly insane person screaming the theme at the top of their lungs before disappearing altogether, and then beat-em-up with increasingly bizarre enemies or something.

I haven’t really got anything else here. I already had to sleep through the start of the competition. 7.5 hours gone and I don’t even have a concept yet. Aaaaagh! Curse you, sleep!

Wow. I keep checking the blog and it’s like everyone else is so much further than me because they didn’t spend the first eight hours of the competition asleep or something!

(Damn timezones.)

But I’ve decided to go with the robot idea I mentioned earlier and have just been setting up the platformer physics before I start making things more interesting. I’m trying to focus on art and other niceties like that AFTER the core mechanics are done.

Screenshot may not accurately represent final product.

Yes, it’s a platformer. Yes, there will be some relevance to the theme eventually. As for me, I’m going to stop ignoring my empty stomach and go eat lunch. Noodles, probably!

So I had a complete change of idea for how the setup for the game should be after a conversation with someone. Rather than be assisted by some voice in the facility, instead the player character takes the other robot along with them and can use them as a platform. The immobility is caused by some experimental device that leads to the robot being immutable in space, which is also how they can be used as a platform (and for some reason the robot’s legs aren’t working I don’t know bear with me here.)

Okay, so, I think I’ve planned out the main thing. Each level/screen/section is basically push button, open door, get to door, next level/screen, except using other robot as a moveable platform. No direct upgrades, instead having new features.

Hazards can be things such as pools of energy that just happen to be lying around, electrical strips intended to take down rogue robots if crossed the wrong way, and the good old laser beam. Also, some mobile enemies that can’t really be defeated directly, but perhaps destroyed if they’re made to fall into a hazard themselves.

Other things that’d be good are launch pads to launch the player into space, conveyer belts because they’re always fun, and devices that can return platformbot back to you for use again. Also perhaps a means to give powerups like a station that allows you to jump and replace the platformbot but only once. Well, let’s see. I think I’ll spend the rest of this day implementing as much cool stuff as I can and spend tomorrow creating graphics and levels.

I like my idea of adding all the bits and pieces for a level first and then doing levels and graphics later.

Unfortunately it has lead to me bouncing up and down on the launch pad over and over. Curse my terrible attention span!

The launchpad happened to disappear when I took this picture.

Get a load of that programmer art. Oh yeah.

So after hitting a few dumb coding blocks here and there due to forgetting my originally far more scaled down plans, I found that I had actually done some doodles for planning. And as a master of planning, the majority of my plan for the actual level of the game is “fill in later”. This bodes well. In fact this entire plan just smells like a recipe for success. Oh well.

So much for "take this".

This is going to come back to haunt me tomorrow.

Still, getting there. Should have most of the code done by the end of tonight.

I’m going to go sleep in an hour and a half, and I’m thinking I’ll probably call it quits for development tonight. Starting with not a single clue on what to do and getting to this point gives me hope I’ll actually finish by the end of the competition. Still using the programmer art and all but art is slated for tomorrow anyway.

You can't tell, but the rectangles are meant to be robots.

For now I’ll be hosting the prototype on my site at http://cirr.info/ld20/LD20.swf so you guys can prod it and poke it while I’m asleep. I’m aware there’s a ton of niggling little bugs and not much to do yet, but have faith! Greater things are in store! Oh, such greater things. Probably. Hopefully. I think. Erp.

EDIT: So apparently my site is down. Here’s an alternate link until it comes back up: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/7124203/LD20.swf

And there’s 17 hours to go. Oh dear.

Here’s the list of stuff I need to do left and to be tackled in this order:

1. Implement gradual damage that slowly heals so death isn’t so abrupt.
2. Add elevators.
3. Tweak partner flight-path.
4. Implement one-way platforms that damage you if you walk the wrong way.
5. Add spawn points.
6. Add simple enemies. Ground based and air based should be fine.
7. Remove unfun elements like long drops if you fudge a jump.
8. Add quips and quip triggers.
9. Add cutscenes and dialogue boxes.
10. Add a better UI that indicates status of buddy and player health.
11. All graphical assets. (aaaaaa)
12. All sounds.
13. A piece of music.
14. Add a boss fight, time permitting.

Expect items to be cut from this list as time goes on.

Right, already botched this post once. Let’s try again.

Twelve hours left and I haven’t done art, sounds, music or added the ability to have any sort of ingame text. Hmm. Cutting out things left right and centre here. Aside from the shiny stuff that makes people want to play the game, out of the stuff that makes it an actual game I have the following left to do:

• Triggered platforms for fun switch puzzles (I hope they’re fun)
• Simple enemies to avoid
• Cutscenes/dialogue boxes
• Better UI
• Final level design

Hmm. Maybe 12 hours is more than I think it is. Also have a screenshot.

Pictured: working spawn point, one-way paths, elevators

Okay. Post over. Back to frantic, frantic work.

Pictured: HUD which could do with some refinement, enemies which could do with some refinement, and two boxes that still don't look like robots

It’s almost feature complete, code-wise. All I have left to do is add in the ability to have intro and outro cutscenes (shouldn’t be _too_ hard) and in-game text triggers. Then I just have to design the one giant level this game takes place in, draw all the art, and do some sounds. I might even have enough time for music.

Ostensibly, the game is finished. With just a single hour, I could rush something off and just scrape entering the compo. But I need actual proper art assets.

For this very reason.

But the dialogue thing is done.

As can be seen here.

All that’s left now is the creative side of thing. All of the bits and pieces are there. I just need to assemble and paint them. And… stick a squeaky toy squeaker in them. And a music box. Okay, this analogy has worn out its usefulness. BACK TO WORK!

There’s a whole bunch of stuff I wish I could have done (mostly being sound, music and better graphics), but isn’t that always the case?

A post-mortem will be on its way at some point in the foreseeable future, and I have yet to decide whether or not I want to jam it up and submit an enhanced version of my game with actual sound and music and better graphics. Signs kind of point to no, but we’ll see what happens. No screenshots, because there’s plenty of them over at the entry page, so.

It’s 3 AM. I am going to sleep for so long. FOR SO LONG.

So I finally got my timelapse for Throwbots up. It’s on YouTube right now! Just click the link below to watch it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QpwoeDswoE

I know that’s not particularly interesting a post, but it’s taken me literally all day to kajigger it into working. Couldn’t even get music into it, had to use the YouTube audio swapping thing (which isn’t in effect yet as of this post). Unfortunate, but I wanted it up for people to see it. Post-mortem for the game should be up by tomorrow or by the end of this week at the very latest.

Hi guys! Long time no post. It’s been pretty hectic for me, unfortunately, so it’s taken me almost a week to fix a few small but crippling bugs in the game:

• Elevator shafts are now less lethal to enter
• Elevator damage is now higher if you end up being crushed
• The ability to restart from last checkpoint has been added (press R)
• Removed the stuck-behind-a-staircase-forever checkpoint, if you get stuck there hit R

If you haven’t already played it, play it by clicking here!

The entry has been updated with a link to the new bug-fixed version with the original one left there for comparison. Now, the post-mortem! It’s a little short because I’m new at this and not so sure what I’m doing.

Those scuttlers served no purpose other than to look threatening.

What Went Well

Considering this was my first Ludum Dare, I’d say it was a pretty big success. In 48 hours I actually got a game from a bare basic moving-a-box-around-other-boxes to something that was actually more of a game! I was even able to factor in a few miles walk at the start to get my brain going. The coding went pretty well and I got in every single feature I wanted except for a boss fight I was on the fence about adding to begin with. The programmer art I ended up keeping in as the final art due to a far more positive reception than I was expecting (and also to save time as covered later).

I think I kept my scope realistic for the deadline, and am overall happy with the result, except…

What Went Badly

I of course ran out of time. I wasn’t so good at time management and perhaps spent a little too long on breaks than I would have liked. I massively underestimated the amount of time it’d take to create and add content like graphics, sounds and music to the game, but the number one thing that tripped me up was the level editor I used, DAME. You may notice that I never mentioned DAME in my initial “I’m In!” post. This was because I literally just remembered I had it as I started the competition, and so I spent a good deal of my 48 hours looking up various features in it and learning my way around it. Well, lesson learned for next time: familiarise myself with every piece of tech I have even the slightest chance of possibly using.

I also left most of my content planning to the last minute. Bad idea. This is why one of the rooms ended up trapping the player behind a moving staircase – I had to rush the play-testing so I could submit before time ran out.

I also regret not being able to give my timelapse better background music. I apologise once again for the choice of background music.

Behold the most hastily rendered sunset I've ever drawn.

What I’d Do Differently Next Time

Next time I’d definitely familiarise myself with the tech and probably plan a little more rigorously than I did this time (where I spent about 30 minutes planning before giving up and going back to coding). I’d also consider elements of the game that would make it easier to recover from error (either the player’s or mine) by including features like a restart button, and perhaps focus less on a game demanding a level and more of an endless arcade sort of game.

Future Plans

I aim to eventually (not immediately, due to various real life things whirling around me) get the game polished, with better graphics, art, sound, and cutscenes, and aim to include more than one level (probably five or sixish). After that I’ll be submitting it to somewhere like Flash Game License to see if I can get a sponsorship for it and go from there. I’m completely new at this so my ideas are likely laughably naive, but hey, if you’re fully aware I’m walking into an obvious trap, I’d appreciate it greatly if you could leave a comment for me 😀

Already have some ideas based on all eight given themes, and I’ll likely be using the exact same set of tools as before. Flex, Flixel, Photoshop, Audacity, some variant on SFXR, the DAME map editor, and IntelliJ as my coding IDE.

Let’s see if I can get things done.

The Fall

Misfortune throws you deep into the wild caverns below. Forging past the danger, you will return to the surface, no matter what.

This game is intended to be a Metroidvania sort of game involving collecting upgrades, all based on each of the themes given, to be able to progress further up the level. In a way, the primary theme is an inversion of Descent – the descent has already happened, and now the protagonist wants to return from it.

Disclaimer: Final graphics practically guaranteed not to resemble this whatsoever.

Checklist:

• Core mechanics
• All eight ability upgrades
• Sub-upgrades for some of the upgrades
• Five enemy types
• A boss fight
• In-game scripted sequences
• The main level completed
• Graphics for player character, NPC and enemies
• Sounds
• Ambient background sound
• Incidental music
• Title screen
• Ending/credits/shout-outs screen

So my original goals were far too ambitious. With the six hours I have left in this day, here’s the updated checklist:

• Core mechanics
• All eight ability upgrades
• Three enemy types
• The main level
• Graphics for player character and enemies
• Sounds
• Title screen
• Ending/credits/shout-outs screen

If I can get all this done before the deadline maybe I’ll add music. Maybe.

Yeah, my intention to enter this was too ambitious. It’s a shame, but rather than consider what I’ve done so far as a waste, I will keep working on it, and I’ll post a link or something to the final product here anyway.

(Is there a Jam (72 hour) for this compo? Because if there isn’t I’m totally defining one and pretending it existed the whole time.)