Yet another newcomer to Ludum Dare (having sat on the sidelines for previous competitions). Mainly used to C++ and Ogre3D, but for the compo I’m going to be using Java with LWJGL. Mostly to stop me getting carried away with pointers… Probably best to leave hard-resetting code to my PC than yours… :}

Blog:

http://dustystylus.wordpress.com

Using:

Eclipse + Java + LWJGL
Photoshop CS
Cubase 6.5

With plenty of reference to:  “Programming Game AI by Example” and “3D Math Primer for Graphics and Game Development”.

UPDATE – Blog also has some premade code uploaded that I’ll be using. One is a 3D Vector class, the others are basic AI/Entity classes.

I really shouldn’t have picked Java at the last minute, I have no idea what I’m doing…

Game idea is roughly something along the lines of being something in a rockpool and having to evolve without being exterminated. But so far it looks like someone dropped LSD into an aquarium…

Yep, should not have picked Java at the last minute. Or at least, I should’ve spent the days before the compo converting all my C++ classes to Java and declaring them at the start. Only just got the StateMachine and rudimentary Steering working. But at this point there’s no way I’m going to have a functioning game by the deadline.

What I DO have, however, is a crab chasing some shrimps… before spinning round and round (not intentional). Yay!

(Flash Movie ~ 10mb)

Hooray for programmer artz!

Well, a game is starting to form, but I doubt it will be ready in time.

ROCKPOOL

You start out tadpoles in a rockpool with 3 bullies thrown in.
– A Ray (with lightning power)
– A Jellyfish (poisonous)
– A Crab… thing (with spikes)

The point of the game (if it works) is that as the Alpha you can:
1. Summon others to you.
2. Tell them to flee.
3. Tell them to fight.

The ‘evolution’ part comes in here…

Basically, you need to let a certain amount of your followers be exterminated before new replacements appear… and there’s a chance that, depending on how many kills each of the 3 baddies has made , you will get a new power.
1. Lightning. (your closest followers will fire it at the baddies)
2. Poison (harms them when they eat you)
3. Spikes (both fires and harms baddies when your followers are eaten)

You ‘win’ when all 3 baddies are dead and that’s presuming all your followers haven’t been killed off. :}

Took a couple of hours off coding to work on a music track for the game. It was supposed to be an orchestral, spacey track as it’s set in an alien rockpool, but once I added the drums it all got silly.

Probably horribly over-compressed as well, so watch your ears/monitor!

music1.ogg

Haha, the joy of looking at the code you did the day before and thinking… “in no sane state of mind would I have written it that way”

;-D

Phew! Think I’m going to make it on time! (time for a celebratory beer?*)

* Deuchar’s IPA – highly recommended ale!

NO MORE. I think I’m done. Now for the horrors of JAR packaging and missing dependencies…

Crap name for a crap game. Downloaded the JAR on my Mac to test… didn’t work. ;___; Downloaded the OSX .app, didn’t work. ;___;

Recompiled for Java 1.6 and now it works properly. At this point I have no idea if the .exe, .app and .jar versions are all working but I’m tired and want to go to bed. I’ve also realised the game is incredibly easy to win… almost without actually ‘playing’.

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-24/?action=preview&uid=15902

Nitey nite everyone.

Finally got my entry working in a Web browser. (well, mine at least…)

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-24/?action=preview&uid=15902

But not before crow-barring my Application into an Applet and then into the LWJGL Applet Loader whilst reading a million web pages on various Java exceptions and wondering why no resources were being found, and the ones that were were throwing security exceptions.

Now if you’ll excuse me, my spleen has popped out and flown across the room…

Well, this was my first foray into Ludum Dare. Time for a post mortem:

The Good:
1. A wise man once said, “Do, or do not, there is not try”. It might’ve been Yoda, I forget… Anyway, the jist of it was that when under pressure I found myself solving problems without giving in to frustration.
2. LWJGL is good. I mean, REALLY good. Everything is very simple to use and it’s a great template for making quick games.
3. I’m surprised at how fast Java seems to handle lists of references which I’d thought were going to slow things down, as for some behaviours the baddies have to iterate through the whole list of tadpoles to find their closest target.

The Bad:
1. Doesn’t look as nice as I’d hoped.
2. Entities go offscreen and you have no hope of finding them. That is going to annoy players. Some zoom function was needed. World needed to be bigger!
3. That background. You’re supposed to be looking INTO the pool, not through it. It should’ve been top down looking in. Could’ve had nice textures and visual distortions to make it look like water.
4. You can win the game by just letting it run?? After a while you get the poison power from the Jellyfish and then you just let the badddies eat to their hearts content.
5. There were supposed to be several ‘stages’ of tadpole for each new power, but I ran out of time. :C

Summary:
Wayyyyyy to much time was spent preparing libraries and utilities that should’ve been written and declared before the competition started. We’re talking basic things like the statemachine, the steering, the texture manager and the sound manager which along with everything else was written on the fly.

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-24/?action=preview&uid=15902

Bring on LD25! I will be ready.

The first casualty of Ludum Dare. I left you all alone…

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 28th, 2012 at 6:12 am and is filed under LD #24. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Just a quick note, some of your Unity links are being used from Dropbox and start with :

HTTPS://

Many of us will just see the “Please install Unity” page, even though we have it installed. Please use:

HTTP://

in your dropbox links!

That confusion means a lot of us are probably missing out on some of your awesome Unity games! D:

I originally uploaded a gameplay video for my game Alien Rockpool (playable here) shortly after the competition ended, but Youtube kept corrupting the upload and it looked like it was being played on a clapped-out old TV which was getting very bad reception… (the effect would’ve been quite funky had it been intentional)

Anyway, with a faster connection I finally managed to get it uploaded properly. Couldn’t fade in the sound, so it’s a bit….# BWAAAA! So verily, tuneth down thy digital luggole transmitters. o___O

I’ve decided I’d like to take the game further and develop a new version taking into account some of the criticisms (very helpful – thank you!) which have been posted so far. I’ve had such a great time with this competition (given I loathed the topic when it was chosen) that I’m really looking forward to the next one!

Urgh… going out last night was not a good idea. Hours wasted, headache the size of a small planetoid.

I’m glad this topic came up, as I’ve recently been watching one of my favourite films.

Ivan the Terrible

I have an idea for a game that involves using your “oprichniki” to seek out rebels prevent a revolution. Basically as time goes on, more and more rebels appear and you must identify the ring leaders and intercept them.

There will be 5 important buildings in the game. A cathedral, fortress, port, factory and bank (better suggestions would be nice!). If rebel influence takes over one, you will need to send oprichniki to take them back.

You have a certain number of oprichniki (police) and you may lose them taking buildings back.

If all 5 buildings are taken over, your corrupt (erm… GLORIOUS!) reign is over.

You basically lose if democracy wins. 😉

Graaaaaa… well, it’s kinda coming together.

The game is still about tackling a rebellion, but I’ve decided to do it ‘indirectly’.

I was watching DUNE (the David Lynch one) recently and there’s a bit where 2 Atreides are decoding Harkonnen signals and I liked the kinda clunky radio-with-knobs setup they were using.

SO… the idea is that you’re monitoring the radio for rebel communications. Once you get the correct signal decoded, that rebel leader appears on the map (old map of Edinburgh, to be replaced!) police are dispatched to catch them.

I have no idea if this will work as a game… whether it will be fun… or whether I actually have the skills to get it working in Unity. D:

I had the usual half-day panic where at lunchtime I switched from Unity to LWJGL… then panicked and went back to Unity again.

The end result is, most of the stuff I wanted in the game probably isn’t going to be finished in time. ;___;

On the plus side, what you see here (but can’t hear, unfortunately), is me correctly tuning the dials and uncovering an insidious freedom fighter! Urgh! That’s just not playing tennis, old boy! Now that you’ve been found, the Inquisitor (in blue) will locate you and ask you some probing questions over tea and biscuits.

The white thingy is the Insurgent Compass (yes, it’s an awesome name!), the first 2 dials find the location of a radio signal, the 3rd dial is the freqency and then the 4th dial is a decoder. Once you have the location and the frequency, then you’ll be able to try and decode.

I had hoped to have buildings on the map slowly taken over and you lose if they all get taken over, but as I say, I don’t think I have enough time, not if I want a menu and basic instructions and music etc. :c

Right, the basic game seems to be working, so time to call it a night methinks!

At this point:

– Freedom fighters move between 4 important buildings (docks, factory, cathedral and fort) recruiting locals.
– When all 4 buildings are fully overtaken (all red) then you lose.
– Each freedom fighter has a unique frequency and decoder, as well as their position, so you have to start again tracking each new insurgent.
– Your Inquisitor wanders about until freedom fighters are identified and then moves in for the ki-err… polite word, tea & scones, “morning vicar!”, how’s your father?, etc..

I’ll have to replace that map as it’s stand-in from some old maps website.

To do:

– Start Menu
– Win / Lose screens
– Music
– Instructions (to be honest, might just leave these on the submission page)

So sleepy… resht… resht I must… forever shleeep… -____-

[EDIT – oh, something interesting… possibly. When you decode an insurgent, you hear them speaking. This speech is the Magna Carta, played through Google Translate to Welsh (Gaelic) and then processed in Tone2 WarmVerb… it sounds… interesting….]

I haven’t given any thought to how long it will take to upload the Unity webplayer onto Dropbox! D:

Anyway, I ran out of time so the intro music is also the ‘win’ music.

If you lose, you get different music… so it’s not all bad!

Suffice to say, my entry is finished! Wheeeeee! (at least, as finished as it’ll get without me endlessly playing with bits and bobs!)

Use your Insurgent Compass to find those nasty people who don’t like you. @___@

You can play it here:

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-25/?action=preview&uid=15902