I really have no clue yet, I’ve been stockpiling potentially useful programs. Since this is my first time, I’ll be heading for the Jam rather than the compo, hopefully though that won’t be the case by LD#25.

So I won’t be Streaming or anything.

I guess that I’ll probably be working with Java and Eclipse, although if I can’t think of anything i’ll just go about making a text monster.

I’m genuinly excited!

-Sam

But I had such an incredible Idea for 100 kittens!

…Sheesh OK, OK, I didn’t, I didn’t.

I think I’ve got something, gonna call it “Spore”.

It’s 4AM here. I’m still thinking this one through.

-Sam

So, I’ve finally got me an idea, (I’ll propably post it in a couple of hours once I’m set in it a bit more).

Now onto reasearch!

I’ll be wasting the next half hour playing Pong And DX-ball.

Carry on.

-Sam

So I was prepping bowl of cereal about 4:30AM today when it hit me.

THE IDEA:

A game about evolution? Heck no! This game evolves!

Well kinda, it’s a pong like game (Working title EVOPong – Yes I know original) where for every couple points the game levels up.

Whenever the game levels up you’re given a shop screen where you must purchase a mutation with the points you’ve just earned.

Except you aren’t mutating your character! your mutating the very rules of the game!

Currently I’m thinking of letting the game branch to two effective directions (the initial game being a paddle vs a wall), breakout clone and pong-like.

Extra mutations along the line: COLOR! , stories, and whatever I think of next.

Originally I was thinking of doing an evolving JRPG, but realized I have no experience with tiles yet, and I what to focus on evolving the theme rather than that.

AND SO THE “HAPS” AS OF NOW: (KILL ME IF I EVER SAY “HAPS” AGAIN)

So I spent about an hour and a half playing some pong, and my personal favoprite breakout clone “DX-Ball”.

For research of course.

Went out for a walk.

When I got back I noticed my screens had died. Cue two hours of screen CPR (intermixed with some TV as I waited for the computer to turn on and off repeatedly).

Finally went back to sleep. Now I’m finally back and Eclipse is set up with Slick2D.

I’ve decided against doing an applet. I’m not quite sure why yet.

And so it begins.

-Sam

Turns out I’ve managed to code myself into a nasty corner. I’ve been spending the last couple hours trying to get out of it. Hopefully I’ll manage by morning.

Most defiantly not going to hit the compo deadline, anyways I was aiming for the jam.

Today’s setbacks simply mean cutting down on branching.

That’ll likely let me polish and balance better.

-Good night (didn’t even get a chance to take a picture of my dinner)

So after I pretty much screwed over a whole day of coding yesterday, I’ve managed to get much further along today.

I’ve got graphics and interactivity, and by 4AM here (the 48 hour mark) I hope to be “feature complete”.

And now, a screenshot!

“Wait what? What does this have anything to do with evolution!”

Well: between stages the player gets to chose mutations. So that by stage two this lonely game of paddle v wall becomes –

Pong!

And of course you can go really crazy.

Hopefully by 4AM here I’ll finally be done with all the specific “gene features” (as in walls, paddles, etc’ and I’ll get the chance tomorrow to work on the “meta” game (menus, gene selection, saving), if I have any time left I’ll try and work in some mutations I had to cut (colors more likely, if I end up with allot of free time I might just bring story back into the fold).

-Sam

So one Ludum Dare later, and now the world has “Disgruntled Paddles VERSUS Evolution“.

I’m not quite sure yet whether that’s a good or bad thing.

More or less it’s a pong game that evolves based on active (none of that behind the scenes passive evolution or adaption here) into different play styles.

This is the first game I’ve completed since the 5th grade (it has been in layman’s terms a veeeeeeeery long while), I’m glad to finally not feel guilty when I tell people I make games… (“Awesome! so can you show me anything you’ve done?”  “…um well, I can show you about 13 unfinished projects, 25 if you count unutilized sign documents.”)

WHAT WENT RIGHT:

• The Design / Scope: I took the time to think about what I was doing, I got up saw the theme and started spit-balling. My initial idea was to do pretty much what I ended up doing except that instead of evolving PONG / Breakout clone I was going for evolving jRPG clone, but threw it out almost immediately due to excess of scope. I spent an hour drawing blanks after that, but eventually I realized I could maintain the unique aspects of my initial idea and maintain a smaller scope simply by switching to a simpler Genre, the “first genre ever” came pretty quickly, then I realized I could go crazy non-liner by adding breakout (and for a short period of fantasy space invaders) elements (which is something that didn’t exist in the original jRPG idea). What really helped me with all of this was how modular everything was, excising elements from the design (as I did with plot mutations, visual mutations and a space invaders evolutionary path) didn’t effect the integrity of any other element, just the game variety.
• Slick / Java: I come from a background of trying to handle very “abstracted” visual programs, Game Maker, Stencyl, and RPG maker which I could never quite get a hold of given the amount of “workarounds” needed to implement certain features or genres I desired, Java more or less gave me complete control. Slick was just great to work with, simple and intuitive and with a wealth of tutorials, I went in knowing nothing about the framework and by day 2 I felt I had enough knowledge to tackle any (2d) project I desired.
• Food: I had some leftover pasta, which I ate each day for lunch. I used a store boughttomato based sauce which I spiced up with some ripe freshly cut tomatoes, olive oil, “chunky” sea salt, and parmesan. For dinner I’d eat either a combination of veggies and meat balls or low fat yogurt and something bread based. Throughout the whole jam I felt satisfied, full, and digestively undisturbed.

WHAT WENT WRONG:

• Planning code structures: Not really something I won’t repeat next time, but I spent about an hour planning my code structure day one, but as it turns out this is a big no-no when you’re walking into a framework / library system you’r unfamiliar with. I’d have probably made the same mistakes had I not planned out, but having to dump all the code work on the first day and lose that hour probably wasn’t good.
• Slick: As I said slick was awesome, but -turns out- new technology is not your friend during a game jam. As I mentioned I made a drastic mistake on my first day in regards to how I understood slick’s structure, and I ended up having to dump most of the coding I had done that day. Not to mention I had never ever exported a project out of Eclipse, which was troubling once I figured out whatever I exported didn’t work. I still don’t know the reason why, but a series of (probably redundant) workarounds later I finally got  working, and three hours almost ended up going down the drain. All in all the lost time ended up costing me balance testing, AI, and Sound.
• No Testers Lined up: Sure I ended up barely making the deadline, I’m not referring to basic bug testing, but even afterwards I had no way of knowing whether the mac or Linux versions were working at all which as it turned out weren’t, I think I’ve got it fixed, but I have no way of knowing until someone with Linux or OSX comes forward with a confirmation. Having some testers lined up from day one could’ve cleared this up earlier.
• No Kittens: Seriously guys. This one is on you.

So, thar you have it. My first java game, my first game Jam. To many more! Hopefully I’ll get time this weekend to fix some annoying glitches, balance and speed things up where needed, add sound and post a post-LD version for y’all to enjoy. Till then: Toodles! (I’ll be playing other entries now. Forever.)

-Sam (you can find Disgruntled Paddles VERSUS Evolution over -> here)

Tags: jam, ld24, post-mortem, postmortem

So, second LD,

I’ll be sticking to eclipse, java and slick2d.

Not much to say, I’ve been sick, hopefully I won’t have to stop mid-way.

-Sam

I’m sick, seeing a doctor tommorow, might’ve gone further or even for the jam, but my idea just isn’t as exciting enough to justify working through the sick. Till next time!

So yeah.

I have lunch with my mother and grandfather tomorrow, and I’ve got movie night after that with friends.

I’ll also be working on sunday and on monday….

So IF I do participate I’ll go for the jam again (since I’ll be losing a bunch of time).

I’ll be writing in C (HOORAY MEMORY ALLOCATION), and for the sake of forsaking most graphics I’ll be using NCURSES (which I’ve never used before…) (HOORAY ASCII).

I’ll also be using eclipse CDT, which I’ve very fortunately already got set up.

-Sam

So I’ve written way more of these “I’m in” posts then I’ve participated in LD’s.

But this time I’m actually gonna do it. The die has been cast, I finally have a job and I’ve take Sunday off so I can LD all day (and all night before).

I’ll be working with C on windows, utilizing the pdcurses library, which means It’s gonna be an ascii game, and bstrings which means less chances for string bugs in the shortened LD time-frame, might get an STL like library along the way if I feel it’s absolutely necessary.

I will not be using Glib, or GObject, as I am totally unfamiliar.

I’ll be writing in visual studio.

I know, I know. It’s c89, it’s about as portable as dog poop, and it won’t run on Linux (or osx for that matter). “Electric Monk” my Arch Linux virtual machine passed away last week, and I’ve spent my free time trying to reconstruct it rather than learning make and using clang properly as I had originally intended to.

Hopefully once “Electric Monk”‘s replacement (“Gordon Way” or “Susan Way” if I give up on arch and just get Ubuntu) is up and running next week I’ll port whatever I come up with, although my todo-list also features catching up with work, fixing a friend’s PC, fixing my old PC ala current media center (“Marvin” beeps when he boots!) , and (hopefully) meeting women.

So that’s that.

So yeah. No game.

Too little planning. Too little time.

Postmortem coming tomorrow.

EDIT: Submitted what I got.

So… I was at a conference all week presenting a paper, and it dawned on me that I would be flying back home DURING Ludum Dare.

I’ve got two flights over the next 25 hours, one is 2-3 hours and the other is 10-12 hours, and (battery charge allowing) I was thinking about giving “Ludum Dare on a Plane” a shot.

Given my lack of access to online resources I’ll probably give ASCII a shot again. (Still uncertain whether to use Libtcod or PDCurses).

One screen seems like a cool theme. Maybe I’ll do a game about a guy stuck on a plane trying to make a game during Ludum Dare.