Two weeks ago I thought to myself: Ok, this weekend I’ll write a 3D-Game. Well actually I stuck at a certain point and while browsing the internet I found “breaking the tower”! Made during a 48h competiton! Wow! Next one LD,…in two weeks! Yeah I will participate,…I need pressure to be able to do compromises!

Two weeks later I am sitting here in germany just coming home from watching a glorious victory of bayern munich in german football(soccer)league in tv and full of hope for tomorrow.

I’m going to code in Java trying to use the jMonkeyEngine that is using OpenGL. Too bad all I did until now was trying the tutorials and using Milkshape to model a very simple character.

Well, my goal is to finish a work. I am really curious about….

First Steps:

Kill the alarm at 4:55am! Start computer! Start coffee-machine! See the topic! Translate the topic! Shower! ThinkThinkThink….That my plan for the beginning!

This are my workspaces:

Cu in 5,5h, ToM

Yeah…still about 6h for giving my “game” some life and more important gameplay. As I just started with my 3D-Engine jMonkeyEngine and I’m quite new to the 3D-Topic it took me about 24h of terror just for creating a terrain you can navigate on and set some points in the 3D-Space. Didn’t think it could be such a hard work to achive this.

Well, don’t know I will be able to finish my work. For that I must not play my own game ’cause otherwise I will fall asleep 100% 😀

http://thomas.trocha.com/ld13.html

Tags: Add new tag, final

I fixed a major bug. My project had only a german locale language-file (even I acutally don’t use it 😀 ) which ends in throwing an uncaught exception at the beginning if you don’t have locale set to de_DE! I fixed only this. (If you play the game you will see I didn’t fixed any other bugs 😉 )

It is still available here:

http://thomas.trocha.com/ld13.html

Some time has past but I still wanted to finish my LD13 project. Maybe some of you remember the big 3d-bug I published! Hehe…well the game is still not very intuitive but I added instructions, fixed lots of bugs added some graphics and models! I would say it looks almost like a game! And that was my task! I learned a lot as it is my first game I finished.

Have a look here:

http://thomas.trocha.com/wp/?page_id=19

plz read the instructions in the game before starting!!

Here is a video-tutorial how to survive the first three levels. Maybe that will help to get a clue what the game is about :D.

http://thomas.trocha.com/wp/?page_id=88

Now I can start finishing my miniLD Cryptogame! (On LD#14 I will finish in time! I’m sure 😀 )

CU, ToM

PS: I want to thank everyone who tried to figure out what the first version was about! I know that must have been a hard time that surley was followed by massive nightmares! 😀

Tags: post-mortem

This is my second LD and I am soo looking forward to it. Even a friend’s birthday on friday won’t stop me. 😀 (Hopefully)

My two main goals

• keep the game simple
• finish more than just something like a demo

My setup:

• OS: Windows
• IDE: Eclipse 3.4
• pr.lang: Java 1.5
• framework: JMonkeyEngine 3d framework
• blender
• gimp
• if there is time to include sounds: reaper

CU on Friday (Saturday 5am for me),

ToM

Wow,…the theme “Advancing Wall of Doom”. During the voting-period I already thought:”That sounds nice! But what kind of game could I develop for that!?” Still, I don’t have a clue. Maybe a cup of coffee will help me to wake up.

Let’s the party started and have a lot of fun….

Well,…I decided to do soemthing like a simple platformer-game where you have to climp the wall of doom! But acutally I need much of time for the simplest tasks! I’m still tweaking the “physics”: running, jumping, falling! It’s  a mess! 😀

One Day in over now….and this is what I got! Not much,…but maybe afte some sleep there will more progress tomorrow

Well,…sad sad sad but true I have to capitulate….I tried everything but for some reason I was not able to get  RayPicking work properly! Don’t have clue…. My player is always falling through the moving-objects. Not good for a platformer. I really should have switched to another approach earlier….

Ok next time I will use a Physicsengine for that…It is really disappointing as I was so full of hope for LD this time…

Well, ok! But nothing is for nothing!I gained much experience about how to use e.g. blender as Level-Editor with my jMonkeyEngine with exporting the “Level” as Wavefront .obj. Quite cool! Here two screenshots. Maybe the pyweek will be better. But I doubt cause I will take it as booster to learn python!

Congratualtions for all who finished! Maybe on the next miniLD!? 😀

Greetz, ToM

Increpare, can you give some details about the date of Mini-LD #10? I want to produce some stuff to be (mini)reviewed 😀

Well,..finally I got ready more or less.

It’s is a typical collect stuff in order to come further game:

It is about Sandro Sand that is searching the last Sandbox in the world as the government forbid everything that makes fun including sandboxes… 😀

In the second level (on the other island) there is a bug that the camera perspective is changing to very high above the player. You can still see him very very small (beside the mousecursor) so go on collecting and go then to the brown door of the tower! Actually to finish the game you need about 2-3 minutes 😀

Here two screenshots:

This my second try in python. First one was in pygame, now I tried panda3d (as I usally use jMonkeyEngine). It was quite cool. Nevertheless somehow I wrote everything in one(!) class. LOL….usally I’m a java  programmer using for every small piece a class 😀 Quite a difference…Panda3d has a pack-function that makes an installer for you. Problem is that the package gets quite huge. This one is about 57MB. So be warned… 😀

Nevertheless I hope you are able to run it. (Starting it from the installer doesn’t work for me! Try to use it from start-menu) At the moment I have only a win-installer but will try to create a linux-deb as well.

Here is the LINK

And here is the source with all of the blender-stuff included also: LINK

CU, ToM

Tags: final

With hearing the theme “exploration” my first thought was cave exploration… As I always wanted to create a platformer it decided to do something that should be a bit like pitfall in caves, or so…. Still my biggest problem is that I get stuck in too much details and it was quite exhausting to create some kind of engine that let me create the in blender.

I think I have now a more or less good base to start with gameplay tomorrow. Here a first screenshot:

Usually I planned to publish the game (if it will be one) as java webstart. But actually it does only work for me from the commando-line at the moment. It would be nice if someone could try to start this from the browser (I didn’t succeed).Nevertheless I think I will have to provide it as downloadable archive….

Browser: http://thomas.trocha.com/games/exploration/exploration.jnlp

left/right :  a/d-key

jump : right shit

Command-Line:  javaws http://thomas.trocha.com/games/exploration/exploration.jnlp

But now I need some sleep. Adios and cu tomorrow,

ToM

After quite a rush in the end I got “Lost in Exploration” finished. Or let’s say that what I had time for is finished.

Actually most of the time I created a platformer-egnine based on jMonkeyEngine. That took lot’s of time and when I started using it (with the help of blender). In the end it was a real good job when I compare the result to my first LD (one year ago).

The first scene:

The whole scene how it looks in the  my blender-“editor”:

Have a look here (hope the webstart works for everyone):

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-16/?action=preview&uid=479

So,..still the sourcecode to pack…

It was really much fun again…

Stuff used for creating this pice of software:

eclipse,java,jMonkeyEngine,blender,reaper,drpetter’s supersound-generator

Ok, more than a week after the compo finally ended, here my short summary what went fine and what was a fail (again?)

Good:

– After about one year experience with jMonkeyEngine and blender the comparison between ld13 and ld16 is really a progress.

– clear gameplay (platformer game – 3 buttons to use)

– added music. actually I’m quite happy about that smooth music. Wasn’t that difficult to create 😀

– added soundfx (thx drpetter :D)

– webstartable java game. (most of the people was able to start it)

– timelapse

– created quite extendable platformer-framework for jME and blender

Cons:

– created quite extendable platformer-framework for jME and blender (although this might be good for the future it was not good for the compo! I hadn’t enough time to really show its capabilities)

– christmas-party the day before + 2h earlier starttime

– webstartable-game: not everyone was able to start it

– too less gameplay  (4h more time and……. )

Ok, even I’m not happy about the low-level gameplay I’m quite satisfied with the overall-experience. Next time I will for sure not start with jME from scratch again. It’s time to concentrate on gameplay! 😀

Ok,…here my timelapse (3:30min)

http://thomas.trocha.com/misc/timelapse_ld16/ld16.htm

LD-Preview

One last think: To the people that are not able to start my game: Plz post me your configuration (OS, Browser and if possible installed Java-Version) THX…

Actually I just wanted to go to bed and checked a last time for news about MiniLD….

Argh…the theme was there ==> no sleep! Clone,…yeah! Always had in mind to clone once one of my favorite games of my childhood. So I started immediately. And of course as always starting with the content, hehe. May I present: the three protagonists.

Does anyone recognize the game?

Well,…my history in finishing games is not the best. Nevertheless I’m optimistic as ever to finish this time  😀

Stay tuned and good night

Ok…finally I will call my game “Plague”. So far I have my character in game, moveable with keyboard-controlls. Still lots to do but I’m on the way.

Btw: For those people how don’t know about the game I want to remake (and I think this might be 100%!?) here a screenshot from original:

I finally implemented NPCs. Well, they are dumb as hell, but they are moving from their own will. It is quite funny to watch them trying to break the wall! “YOU WON’T SUCCEED, LITTLE BLACKHAT-GUY!” 😀

Well, after quite some time in front of my computer I finally came to a playable demo where you can drive your tank through a 9-color landscape and fire you bullets as much as you want 😀 . Actually I used an indexed-colormap in gimp to convert a baked colormap in order to fit the color-constraint.

Control:

1-Left 3-right 8-forward 9-backward 0-fire

You can start the game from the website with java-webstart. Follow this link:

http://thomas.trocha.com/games/sheriff/sheriff.html

You will need java to start the game. (Just try what happens if you press the button! If it does not work, plz tell me your configuration…)

Soo,…after lot’s of work and lot’s of problems at places I wouldn’t have expected before I finally have something to release. See it as demo as I again hadn’t enough time to really design a level. But now I have to stop cause I have somehow think about work tomorrow…. 😀

The Level is still the same as yesterday now with NPC…Very very “intelligent” ones with from time to time strange behaviour 😀 Actually I worked lot at my engine but in the end didn’t use most of the new stuff… (clever, isn’t it? 😀 ).

Here a satellite-picture from the whole scene:

Play the game here:

http://thomas.trocha.com/games/tank/tank.html

It tried to fulfill all constraints. (color,24sec loop,microphone effects,size and input)

This miniLD was like more or less all of the last competitions before. I work and work on writing frameworks for the specific game leaving not enough time to do something cool gameplay with it. So I decided to invest an additional weekend so that I finally can say:”Yes it is some kind of game!” 😀 So stay tuned and buy some fuel for the upcoming Tank-Missions 😀

Ah, as the competition is over, I decided to add one green color to the colormap and I will really think about kicking the input-constraint or just adding additional gamepad-support. Maybe I will use a MiniLD and a Normal-Mode. Similar to the old “Turbo”-Button of my very first PC (8086) where you could lower the speed from 10MhZ to 4.8MhZ . Unbelivable 10 (TEN) MhZ…. seems to be some years ago 😀

Here a very first possible new tank…(blender render)