I’ve never participated in a Ludum Dare before, so I thought I would give it a try. I’ve participated in music competitions before, and they always ended up being really rewarding, even though I often didn’t win. Even if I don’t place anywhere near the top, it’ll still be fun to work within the confines of whatever the theme ends up being. Adding to this, I’ll be using Megazeux because I have far more experience there than in Unity. This should also pose an interesting challenge given that MZX is limited and outdated… but in my book that only adds to the fun. Let’s do this thing!

• Engine: MegaZeux
• Visuals: MegaZeux built-in Char Editor
• Audio: Renoise, bfxr

I have a concept for our gallant hero’s weapon: a television! No, seriously. At any point, you can place down the television, and enemies in front of it will become transfixed until you get rid of the TV. Aside from incapacitating those who attack you, you can also prevent others from operating machinery, etc. Visually, the game resembles a roguelike, put plays very differently.

Currently partway through working on the TV light mechanics, which are pretty important to the gameplay. Decided to turn in for the night because my brain is fried. Screenshots tomorrow.

TV game has made some actual progress!

PEW PEW PEW!

The beautiful light of television!

Bask in the wonderful TV rays!

For those who didn’t catch my last post, anyone caught in range of the TV will become distracted until you get rid of it. This includes enemies trying to kill you, as well as people operating machinery, etc.

This seems to be coming together really nicely!

This is a most precarious situation.

Haha! You cannot resist the power of daytime programming!

Uh oh, this guy’s after me too!

The OG TV disappeared! I’d better be careful…

Sometimes you just have to chill out in front of the TV.

These force fields won’t yield…

TV Rays can go through them, though!

Now the lower field is off!

And I can hit X to get rid of the TV no matter where I am!

Huh?

Whoa!

Added the ability to change direction without moving using WASD, which should prove useful for puzzle design. Oh, and I made this possible with azerty and dvorak keyboards too:

I’m not sure how those two guys in the upper and lower corridors could possibly see the TV, but it’s probably better not to think about it.

What’s this green stuff? TV Rays can’t pass through it…

And when I try to enter, I get teleported to the other side!

The teleporting means I have to take a bit of a roundabout route, though…

This jerk isn’t helping either.

Looks like I’m home free!

Or not.

Huh, this puzzle seems a bit simple, actually…

Uh, uh oh jeez!

Wait, what does teleport goop do when it’s up against a wall?

Huh.

I have to say, this first full day is going really well! Not sure yet if I want to call it a night now.

Whoa! There’s no way I can get through this many enemies alive!

Unless, of course, I get clever.

Hehehe…

And now I think that’s enough for the night. This first full day has been super productive! TODO: final levels, story, music, sound, maybe some visual touching up.

Have you ever wanted to escape a facility while distracting the guards with a television? No? Well now you can!

So I’d say enough time has elapsed since I released Quality Television for me to look back on it. The concept is simple yet silly: your only weapon is a television, and placing it anywhere will hypnotize any guards caught in its entrancing rays. Developing this thing was a lot of fun, as you might imagine! First up, the development process:

1. First afternoon- Brainstorming! It actually only took about 5 minutes of brainstorming for this idea to pop into my head. My first idea was a JRPG where you use words as a weapon, but I’m terrible at JRPG design. My next idea was BANANARANG!, which is exactly what it sounds like, but that seemed too indistinguishable (mechanically speaking) from a normal boomerang. Then I hit upon the TV idea, loved it, and started prototyping. It was all engine work today, but not much else.
2. Second day- I made a phenomenal amount of progress on the second day; most of the content you see in game is from this stage of development. Level design was top priority, and I finished all but level 8 (which was a story level more than anything else).
3. Final hours- From here was the aforementioned level 8, the beginning and ending sequences, and sound and music. I wasn’t as productive here as I was the previous day, but I’d say I’m pretty happy with how complete the game feels.

I guess I’ll go straight to what went well and what didn’t:

PROS:

• Core Gameplay: The core mechanics of the game worked out really well. I ended up with the game alternating between action and puzzle levels, with the final levels (Levels 6 and 7) being an effective mix of both. I feel like the Level 4 difficulty spike was a bit too much though, maybe I should have had an additional level to better teach the unusual light mechanics.
• Technical Stuff: Aside from a Windows version crash that was fixed within a couple hours after release, there weren’t any major bugs.
• Sound and Music: I had enough free time on the final day to put together a decent (albeit short) soundtrack in Renoise. If you pay attention, you’ll notice that additional instruments come in when the TV is in play. I even made the added instruments low-quality and static-y, as if they were coming from the TV itself.
• Art: Well, it was there. I do think that its simplicity worked well.
• Story: This was a lot of fun. The story is, again, simple, but the opening text really set the tone, featuring the “Sinister Governing Body” (or SGB). I’d rather not spoil the ending here, but suffice it to say that it’s pretty crazy– and a natural extension of the game’s mechanics, too!

CONS:

• Scope: Generally, when you see “scope” in the “cons” section of a LD postmortem, you expect the author to have overstretched themselves. In fact, the opposite ended up happening. There are only 8 levels, the last of which is entirely story-oriented. I feel like I could have done a lot more with the concept with the time allotted.

So here we have the pros vastly outweighing the cons. What a successful success this success has successfully been! Successful.

Download Quality Television here. Successfully.

Check out Quality Television, the only game that features hypnotizing guards with a TV!

Better play Quality Television right now!

Thus ends my first Ludum Dare. It’s been a really cool experience to create something concrete in such a short space of time. I got 48 Coolness and 45 votes, which seems pretty respectable. Even though the rating period has ended, there’s still nothing stopping you from playing Quality Television.

(That said, I do have a question: how long can the results be expected to take?)

Hi, I’m crazya02. I made Quality Television back in Ludum Dare 32, and I plan to participate here. I currently don’t have access to a computer, and will probably lose an entire day. This can only go well!

Also, the URL assigned to this post is “the-plan-9”. I just felt that was worth mentioning.

Picasso is nothing compared to this.

I suppose this could charitably be called an “animation”.

SITUATION: I am new to Unity. I have a gameObject that needs to disappear when the player touches it– but ONLY when the player gameObject is playing a certain animation state. I haven’t figured out how to get the colliding player’s animation state. Anyone experienced with Unity can help?