Obligatory Working-area photo!
The most important piece of equipment here is the cup of coffee.

My gameplay mechanic just started working, so I thought I should share a screenshot. If you can imagine the white blob in the middle as a character, and the other white milky blob as ‘lava’, you get some idea of where this is going.

My project has been going pretty badly, but I’ve decided to see it through to the end. If I work super hard I should be able to get something I can share by 4am. o_o

A few serious crash bugs towards the end killed any chances I had of getting anything out for the deadline, unfortunately. So, no LD entry from me.  Still, I’ve learned a lot from this challange and I’ll definitely be back in four months. Hopefully third time lucky!

I’m planning to do Ludumdare this weekend!   This will be my third ludumdare attempt, and I’m hoping that I’ll finish a game on time this time. My previous two games ended up in an unfinished state, and I’m hoping to avoid falling into the same trap this time.

I’ll be using Unity for my game.

Making breakfast is no reason to leave #ludumdare! :3

Still thinking about what sort of game to make. I’m determined to make this one count!

Pushing ahead with my caverns idea. Haven’t figured out the gameplay yet, but I’m starting to get a feel for where this is going. It’s not yet 9am so I think I’m in decent shape.

The best thing about this theme is that it gives me an excuse to use grid paper (and to spill coffee onto said paper, whoops!).  I’m planning out some caves and hopefully I can get something up and running by the end of today.

Here is my working setup. Same as last time pretty much!  Note the cafetiere which was previously full of coffee! :3

And here is my game thus far! It’s all looking a bit too ‘fecal’ for my tastes so I need to consider a different palette soon. Hopefully it won’t take too long to get all the pieces in so I can start building my game.

My caves are no longer stereotypically brown! They are now stereotypically blue! I’m going for the whole icy cold cave thing I think.    Just been working on collectable items which have a nice sound effect thanks to SFXR! It feels almost like gameplay!

My girlfriend made me some awesome risotto!

Followed by some strawberries whilst I do some 3D.

I had a few difficulties with my game, but it’s starting to come back on track.

I’m starting to get a feel for where this game is going. I have NPCs working in game now, but I still have a lot of work to don on the graphics. I’m working my hardest to get the game design and goal working, and then I can come back and clean up the art towards the end!

I got my first test environment working in the penguin game!

Test it out (needs unity3d browser plugin):  http://deadpanda.com/lj/ld15test.html

I  submitted the game an hour ago, but I forgot to post on the blog!

Play it via the browser <a href=”http://www.deadpanda.com/lj/ld15submit.html”>HERE</a>, or grab the download (Windows or Mac): <a href=”http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-15/?action=preview&uid=472″>HERE</a>

I’m very excited because this is my first successful ludumdare entry. My last two attempts crashed and burned, and this was pretty close to doing the same. I was able to scrape it with a few rough edges and submit it on time.

Ludumdare 15 is over! This was my third time entering, and my first time having a successful entry. It wasn’t without its problems though, so I figured I should do a write up of how it went.

The idea behind the 3D environment was to make 3D ’tiles’ that can be put together in a grid arrangement. These were made in 3D Studio Max and exported to be used in Unity. The shapes had their texture co-ordinates setup so that they share one material for all of the objects. PCs can render a LOT of geometry so long that it shares the same material. This concept worked out pretty well, as the final game runs nicely on even the shittiest laptop!

I also decided to go with low-resolution textures, with 32×32 per metre square. This didn’t quite work out unfortunately because 3D Studio MAX’s UV texture co-ordinates are pretty inaccurate at low numbers, and even unfiltered textures suffer. This method was a thoery that didn’t work out, but that’s okay.

The graphics in general are very rough. These are all my ‘first pass’ attempt at graphics, and I didn’t have enough time to clean them up. The tiles for the walls were never really finished properly, and some of the areas didn’t get a proper treatment for the floor. In general I think the graphics look okay though, and I was pleased how consistent the visuals are.

Building the 3D environments also took me a while longer than I had hoped. Things because faster when I started from scratch, but I didn’t expect the environments to take so long. Unity’s editor isn’t too helpful with this either because there are no easy ways to select multiple objects, so I had problems with things like enclosed areas being invisible or hard to click on.

I lost a bit of time by wasting time on code that wasn’t important. I spent a while trying to get good keyboard only controls working, which I later scrapped because they clashed with the mouse controls, and I didn’t have time to make a toggle (despite the mouse controls being a bit annoying for some). I would have been better off spending that time on a title screen and ending screen, which I regret not implementing.

I used ‘SFXR’ (CFXR on the mac) for sound effects, and I was massively pleased with the results. I started work on some music but I couldn’t get anything to suit the theme. Sorry the sound effects are a bit loud! I was pleased to get some sounds in there though, it makes the whole game feel much more responsive!

In terms of game design, I didn’t really have a solid game design figured out. Towards the end I decided to use what I had working well (doors and object-keys) and make the game progress based entirely on those. I think this worked out okay, with the game being a bit of a challenge but not so long to become boring.

All in all, I think it went okay! I am looking forward to the next ludumdare!

Timelapse video of “nice cave”

The dual monitor setup made this timelapse a pain in the ass to put together! I hope some of you enjoy it though.

How do I embed youtube into the LD blog?

Hey ludumites!! I’m here again, this if my fourth consecutive ludumdare! My first two attempts were pretty much a failure, but I succeeded last time with “Nice Cave”, and I’m very determined to make it come together this time!

– Unity + Textmate for code.
– Photoshop + 3D Studio Max for art.
– SFXR + GarageBand for sound and music.

See you guys on the battle field, where we’re all fighting against the common enemy: the deadline!   Come on everyone!  Give it your all!!

Gawker for the mac is a nice free app for recording timelapse videos. It will record screenshots every X seconds, and then compile them into a MOV file.  I’m doing a test over several hours at the moment, but I think it will be fine.

Breakfast was delicious! 😀

I’m still getting started with this, struggling for inspiration somewhat. I’m probably going to make a third person exploration game. Hmm.

Still don’t have a direction with this game, but I’m trying to get some of the mechanics out of the way. I have textboxes and questions working in a fairly tidy way. Need to get my inventory working, and then I’ll be able to start thinking about what is possible in the game!

Chicken rolls for lunch! Game is going a bit slowly, but I’m slowly checking off my list of mechanics I want available, then I’ll be able to build the game based upon what works.