So I lost an entire evening trying to get my warm up game shareable through dropbox and have tried every solution I could find on google and nothing is working. first timer here so if anyone could shed some light my way on how I get the embed to work I would be very grateful. As I just get told DL failed each time.

Compo Entry finished, kept it simple (2 kids and a Game Jam do not make light work) but it as my own work (if without sound) http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-33/?action=preview&uid=53023. Its a 1 player card game where you play through a story deck of cards and use your own deck to overcome different encounters using the 3 tools at any monsters disposal, being scary, being spooky or being cuddly. Didn’t get to blog much about the progress so added some art below.  In the end weren’t we all monsters……

Tags: 3d unity, card games, compo, final, LD33, pixelart, YouAre

I almost didn’t take part.

I had stayed up until 2am to see the Theme announcement and then I went to bed. No early morning notes or ideas, no, no thinking about format just sleep.

The truth is the Theme left me pretty cold, it still does. I am new to LD I only heard of it 3 months ago due to following @Ploogle on twitter and having casually started up Game Design as a Hobby I spent a weekend reading some blogs, playing some games and even offering a name to someone on twitter when they asked for ideas (if you played Flail Rider at LD32 and thought great game, terrible name that one was on me). I had never been involved in any Game Jams I kind of figured they were not for me. I have 2 kids, a job and a mountain of housework, my days of staying up till 3am playing video games is well behind let alone building them in 48hrs.

A little over 2 weeks ago I thought about LD and checked out the website and I saw the countdown timer and I thought about taking part,then I quickly dismissed it as a foolish notion that I would not be able to find the time for. I then started to help with the theme slaughter, almost a game within itself good, bad, slaughter like a tiny bit of power in my hands. I was a roman emperor deciding which themes would be fed to the lions, and boy did I throw a lot to the lions. I mean there were some really bad Themes in there. There were also some really cool sounding themes, I personally enjoy the open 1 word themes that could go in any direction. Then came the voting, where I was starting to convince myself I would take part. I had a system for how I voted, down voting the ones I thought dictated mechanics, upvoting the ones that offered creative possibilities, ignoring the ones that just didn’t inspire me. and then it was Friday, it was 2am. I had waited out the storm and the Theme and I even had an idea half formed if it was World in the Skies (a theme that did remarkably well in the voting).

Then I read the 4 words at the top of the page

YOU ARE THE MONSTER

“Well fuck!”

If there had been one theme I had been rooting against it was that one.

I just thought it was dull and uninteresting and would end up with a lot of very similar games (it was no Unconventional Weapon!) and it did the opposite of inspire me. It sent me to bed.

The next morning I woke up, still thinking I probably wouldn’t make a game, if I was going to spend a weekend almost ignoring my family to Jam did I want to do it making a game that didn’t inspire me? While my kids watched Cbeebies I turned on my Laptop and slowly changed my mind. I would keep it simple, not try to do too much and just have a go to see if I could. my focus not on the art but the functionality. I knew how to make card games so decided I would go in that direction, I could already see from the blog that my prediction of a lot of reverse dungeon games was coming true so purposely took it out the dungeon, There was also a lot of blood splattered pictures and dark interpretations of the Theme so I wanted to go in a different direction (anyone else having a Cuddling mechanic in their game?). So I hashed out what I could and I made a game and submitted it for the Compo.

Then people started playing it.

At time of writing 27 people have played my game which may not be a lot but its 27 more people than have played any game I have made upto this point and the feedback has been……fair for the most part.

A number of people have liked my idea but felt that the game was a little phoned in, needed more polish, needed audio, needed a better guide. They aren’t wrong and I started to feel like I short changed myself and the 27 people that played it a little by not trying. It turns out Audio isn’t as hard to muster up as I thought it was and just because I instinctively know how my game plays it doesn’t mean others will.

So I took all the feedback on board and made the time today to polish it up, now this doesn’t replace my Compo entry, that can stand on its own 2 feet and take the punches it deserves and if you want to give it a try and rate it on its own merits you can find it here.

Monster Of All Trades

But this is the polished version, and it is not meant to be rated on or improve that rating of the compo entry but its for the 27 people that played my game that I could of done better with. I borrowed a little open source Art, I made some sound effects and music like I should of done 2 days ago and I wrote a guide on how to play the game. So hopefully some of the guys who played my game will see this and try the polished version which I wouldn’t have made had it not been for their mostly positive feedback. Here’s the Dropbox link

Monster Of All Trades V2.0

For those who won’t play either but might want to see the comparison

Before

After

Tags: ld33 postmortem

My computer auto updated as I was playing a game the other day when I wasn’t paying attention. Didn’t catch the band of the game and haven’t found it since.

You were a little boy alone in a house with your teddy, at one pint had to take some pills and open a safe ( won’t say too much to spoil it). Had a Lone Survivor look and feel to it, really atmospheric.

Not sure if I downloaded or played on the web but currently have 40-50 LD games just called Ld33a-z/aa-az

Anyone know what I am talking about?

First Came The Thinking, Then Came The Jamming, Then Came The Playing, Now Comes The Learning

So I have Jammed and made a game and am playing through the ones I can with the little spare time I have and probably won’t play all 2700! So I am prioritizing playing Compo entries and the people who have left comments on mine. Which means there are lots of games I am just missing and some will be great and some I will want to read the source of and learn how they made such an awesome game. So I am asking for a little help, Unity is my drug of choice so which of the games using Unity can I learn most from?

Platformer, puzzler, tower defense, 3D,2D its unimportant, I just want to learn so Jam or Compo please point me in the direction of the games I should be playing, and reading the code for and absorbing into my small but growing understanding of making games.

If you built one yourself or played one that showed a great level of polish drop its name (or even better a link) in my comments and I will take a look.

Well I picked the 3 I thought were best from my list of ten I used to try the beta.

Which would you hope for?

unfortunately the themes have left me a little cold but to be honest I thought that might be the case when the final list was posted a couple days ago. Trying to find time around kids and housework is tough enough at the best of times, taking the time for a theme that does nothing for me when I have a game I am already working on that I am really passionate about (Mechonomic Boom, coming January 2016 – end of shameless plug) seems a far bigger ask.

But I want to play and rate games and realise that making one is the price of admission so.

Theme-Growing

Working Title – Rosebud

Engine – Unity

Graphics – Paint/pixel art

Sound – Cross that bridge when I come to it

Game Blurb – Shmup where you play as a Rosebud trying to grow as big as possible, collecting sun to power up and avoiding various {insert Enemy Types Here} score based on height grown

What do you do for a 48 hr game jam when you will also be looking after your kids at the same time?

Keep it simple!

Rosebud is using the Growing theme and you play as a flower,a rose to be more precise. Surrounded by giant trees your only wish is to see the sun but to do that you are going have to weave your way through the thick prickly branches of the trees surrounding you. Your only help comes in the form of the rain and drops of sun falling through the canopy & a helpful Bumble Bee or 2, but watch out for the Acid rain as it will not help your progress.

I knew I wanted to keep things simple so I decided to take a basic Shmup control scheme and remove the shooting, I guess that makes this just a Mup then. Once I had built the controls I designed a basic leveling mechanic to allow the rose to grow not only in length but to blossom as a flower.

I purposely kept the art on the simple side as I knew I wouldn’t have a lot of time to invest and as I mentioned in a previous post my intention was not to blow anyone away but I wanted to have a submission so I could play and rate other peoples games. The theme was not one that inspired greatly (just a little but more than the other one) but that said i actually really like the game. Plus the option to polish it up at a later date is always there.

When I entered LD33 I submitted a game without sound and despite not selecting audio as criteria to be scored in I received a great deal of feed back about the lack of sound so I wanted to not make that mistake again. If like me you aren’t musically gifted I would recommend to website http://www.beepbox.co/ its a really easy to use Chiptune site and I did all the games audio with it (for better or worse).

So please play, rate and comment on my game, I live for feedback! 

But while I have your attention please check out the non LD game I am working on right now which I am working towards a January release. Its called Mechonomic Boom and you can see a quick playthrough here. Its a management game of the Kairosoft elk (Game Dev Story et al). Where you are running a Mech factory in a 80’s cartoon inspired future and you get to build Mechs to your own design and rent or sell them. It is a 1 man made game and is something I am really passionate about and took some time away from this weekend to jam with you all.

If you are interested in it please follow me on twitter for updates about it, you can find me @cynicalmonkey and any help spreading the word is always appreciated. Or if you prefer CynicalMonkey99 onTwitch, please follow & subscribe.

but for now I am off to play and rate some of your games, might even stream some of the games I play, so if you are already finished drop me a comment and I might play/stream yours. I will also play and rate anyone who does the same for me so make sure to leave a comment on Rosebud after playing and I will get to yours. Although if you get past level 10 keep quiet about what happens in the comments, that’s a suprise.

Tags: 2D, compo, CynicalMonkey, Growing, ld34, Ludumdare, Mechonomic Boom, Rosebud, twitch, unity

Okay so I have updated the game slightly but not in a meaningful way that I think is against the spirit of Ludum Dare but feel free to make up your own mind on this one. I have left the source the same though

1- Framerate – some lazy programming on my part had made it a game that was tuned to the FR of my laptop but on better machines was unplayable. switching out Update for Fixed Update has solved this.

2- Acid rain – a number of people had complained that the green & yellow drops were to similar and hard to tell apart. I have darkened the sprite and added a skull & cross bones symbol which took all of 15 seconds to make. This is purely cosmetic and changed only to assist the player. I do not think it fundamentally alters the game.

example of previous green & yellow

new Darker acid drop

3- Difficulty – despite a number of comments I have not changed the difficulty. some people had said they disliked that the branches could present you with an undodgable scenario but I have left that in. In my heart that was the game I was making, it wasn’t supposed to always be 100% fair, its not a puzzle game and isn’t supposed to be infinitely playable. The difficulty ramps up until the Maths generates something you can’t beat, and the game ends. That was by design and changing that would be more than a simple patch, it would require new mechanics and that would not be in my mind in the spirit of Ludum Dare.

So yeah feel free to judge for yourself if you think those changes break the spirit of LD but I feel I can sleep okay tonight.

In other news someone has played my game, streamed it and uploaded to you tube (thanks Dave), so if you want to try before you buy here you go.

Favourite quote “I can move Up & Down!? This changes everything”

Tags: Growing, ld34, Let's Play, patch, Rosebud

So last time round i would play batches of 30+ at a time when i rated and find myself getting pretty burnt out, i also spent most of my time with the Compo entries but this time plan to do things differently. My aim is to play and rate 10-15 a day and try and spread it between Compo and Jam entries.

So yesterday I played 11 and below is my favourite Jam Game & my favourite compo game

Jam – Grow Up!

nice art style and incredibly similar to my own game which drew me to it in the first place.

Compo – Rocket

Nice and simple game with the 2 button theme, what I liked about this is I think they nailed the controls. it seems simple but there are some games on that theme that haven’t done that and i think if you are picking that theme and you don’t have your controls down then you did not hit the theme, no excuses

and it wouldn’t be a communal post without some kind of shameless plug so please play and rate my game as well as the 2 above

Rosebud – Compo – Growing

So i don’t know if you played my game yet, you should I think its great and some people agree its called Rosebud and as a short description its a simple shmup you play as a flower.

check it out

well I have updated  post compo version which now has local 2 player mode, so if you have already played it and find it to simple you can now compete with a friend for extra difficulty.

Download is here

So the best Jam & Compo Game I played yesterday

Compo – MarelleWestern – a cute little hopscotch rhythm game

Jam – Pete & The Beanstalk – best game I have played so far, i love everything about this stop reading this sentence and go play it

hey saw your post and you seemed unhappy with your initial art, I am still learning myself but I knocked this up for you as a warm up doodle this morning if you would like it

So I am not setting myself up as some kind of expert on Sound or Scripting but one thing I have seen alot in games across multiple Ludum Dare is a lack of sound effects, my own games included. Its easy to overlook in a 48-72 hr time frame especially for the many of us who aren’t musically minded. Its also easy to write off as not being important or as important as other areas of the Games development. In truth the difference sound effects and music can make in a game is huge, the instant feedback you get from hearing a button beep or an explosion go boom can be a key part of immersing in a game and can really help notch up an extra star in the scoring. So I have been there, telling myself that I will add the sound later once I have nailed the key mechanics down, or got the art done or one of the many tasks we set ourselves only at the 47th hr to not have the time to go through and add in the code and sound effects, especially when a project has spiralled out to 20+ scripts with as many different things that need it.

This time I plan to handle things very differently and the code I will be using will get created at the beginning and look like this.

So rather than having multiple audio sources attached all over the place I am creating 1 & putting all the music and sound effects in one place. A bonus to this is I don’t need to work out every sound effect at the beginning of the project. All I need is a place holder beep and each time I need a new sound effect I can add new entry into the sound effects array. Using code as I go an anything that sets of a sound i just add in

Soundcard.Soundselection=?;
Soundcard.Playsound();

or

Soundcard.Songselection=?;
Soundcard.Playsong();

and when I reach that 47th Hour all that’s needed is that I drop the sound effect/music I am using for each one into the array in the editor (Unity user :)).No extra coding, no worrying about conflicting sounds, no adding multiple audio sources.

So I thought in the build up the LD35 I would share one of my solutions to a problem that I have faced & i thnk alot of other LDers have to.

Feel free to tell me my code is dumb and awful and wrong in the comments

I might just make a game where you have a magic torch that turns you into John Hurt and you have to chew your way through the scenery of the level.

i might make that whatever the theme is….

So it will be my third Ludum Dare, hope to keep up my proud tradition of making something I am vaguely proud of but shouldn’t be. My weapons of choice are

Sword – Unity 5
Shield – Paint.net/Krita
Armour – Beepbox or something else or whatever I have lost track of this metaphor
Planning – a note book of some kind, spirally rimmed, brown papery looking cover, £2.50 from paperchase, marked down

So what kind of prep have I done to get ready, well I have a little opening sting

Hmmm Minty

and I made a prototype of what its like walking anywhere with a toddler which i would share with you but it is larger than 2MB gif but here click the link, it is less funny than you think it might be

https://twitter.com/cynicalmonkey/status/719221137838841856

Imagine Ico but 10 times more annoying and lasts about 3 minutes

Instead I made a wallpaper based on a dumb joke I thought of based on a 19 year old TV show !

I make sensible decisions

Tags: #LDWallpaper

Okay so I woke up at 4:30 am checked my phone saw the theme and fell back to sleep. Now its 7am and the kids have been fed and its Ludum o’clock. So starting with some brainstorming for an idea as off the bat I don’t quite have one to run with. I tried asking my children what a shapeshift game would be like and their suggestions were

4yo- a princess games where the princesses are dancing and shapes make them do different dances

2y0- SUPERHEROES!!! FLY!!! HIT,HIT,HIT!

first few ideas i have had haven’t really given me that ooh yeah I want to make that game/That is achievable within the 48hr time frame.

Detective game hunting a shape shifting criminal

Shmup where the craft you pilot changes and shapeshifts, adaptive soundtrack, randomly generated enemies, low fi pixel art……wait i am just describing Luftrausers….god damn you Vlambeer you beautiful genius’s

Platformer where you change your shape to overcome obstacles

Physics game where you have to load random shapes onto the back of a moving truck and drive them a distance within a time limit

FTLite where you play a match three game to generate shapes you can then spend in key areas to power your ship

actually I don’t mind a couple of those…hmmm anyway

Time – 5 hours gone
Idea – In flux
Coding – Not started
Testing – Not started
Art – Not started
Audio – Not started

So of to a less than flying start

Tags: LD35

So have an idea I am going to run with and while its not the most original idea I wasn’t hit with to many waves of inspiration (despite voting for this theme so no one to blame but myself) but I am hoping I can implement well with a few twists to make it different enough but putting most effort into making the playing of the game fun (I hope).

no real art assets yet so nothing to much to show but hope to have something soon

Time – 7 hours gone
Idea – Bullet hell arcadey Smup roguelikey whatjamacall it
Coding – Controls done, ship creation next
Testing – Not started
Art – Not started
Audio – Not started

Tags: LD35

Well I had about half the time I wanted in the end but I got to try out several things I hadn’t done before, Learnt alot and am happy with the end result.

Meant to share a lot more as I was going but Life happens but please go and play my game, leave a comment and I will track down your game and play it to

Tags: #LD35 #gamedev #indiedev, compo

I am from the learn as you go school of game design. Unity Tutorials, Forums and Stack Exchange make up a significant chunk of my base knowledge about code but I don’t like to copy and paste, I make sure that anything I put into my game I know how it works. What I love about LD is that it forces me to try new things and in the process learn new things. Unfortunately the time restraint means the understanding new things becomes more optional especially when a lot of the new things you learn come with some complicated maths. Game Jams are not a good time to come to terms with new maths, but it brings me to another thing I love about LD, having to think your way around a problem. In a lot of ways Game design is the best and most abstract puzzle game I have ever played.

In LD35 I ended up in this spot a number of times and enjoyed my solutions to my problems. Sometimes it effected games mechanics. As an example when I was programming my Ship’s shooting mechanic. Because my ship had a variable speed the trouble I kept facing was the ship could out run the shot. It looked terrible, made the cannon look weak and also was problematic when it came to being chased by enemies. So I came up with an elegant solution

The cannon fires backwards. 3 Birds with 1 stone.

Another problem my shooting mechanic faced was aim. The ship in my game can rotate 360 degrees try as I might I couldn’t get the projectile to leave the ship in a line that looked correct. It would go in a straight line or come of at the wrong angle and it looked and played awfully. It was a maths problem and there was probably an elegant solution I was missing but I was already behind and I didn’t have the time to experiment until I found it. So here is how i solved my aim problem.I cheated!

A. I created am invisible game object that was the child of my Ships core and placed it about 20(unity distance) behind it. we shall call this game object Margret.

B. As a result it would follow the same rotation as my ship like it was on a spoke

C. at the point of firing 2 things happened

1. a projectile was fired from the ship
2. a new game object was spawned at the exact spot Margret was

D. The script on the projectile that made it move would take the game object dropped by Margret as a target and move in a straight line towards it while at the same time rotating itself to face it. It also meant I could have them destroy each other if  they hit Meaning the game didn’t become littered with bullets.

There might be hundreds of simpler solutions to this, some using more obvious code I didn’t think of or elegant solutions I don’t know how to do. I have described the way I code to people as hanging up pictures by nailing string to the ceiling and right now it works for me.

But this LD I found a creative way to cheat my way around something I couldn’t work out how to do the right way and if i hadn’t been doing LD probably wouldn’t of needed to but that time constraint really makes you think.

So if you read this thank you for indulging me and please play my game

Shift Commander

And if you have already played it please check out the Post Jam Version on Itch.Io as I have taken on a lot of the feedback in the comments on board.

https://cynicalmonkey.itch.io/shift-commander

Tags: #LD35 #gamedev #indiedev, itchio, postjam