Hi there. I’m another LD newcomer who’s finally decided to get involved after catching the bug from previous Pirate Kart and GMCJam events. I’m planning on aiming a little lower this time and actually possibly getting my entry finished even, following a bit of a disaster with my last Jam.

Tools I’ll be using

• GameMaker: Studio because why not
• Paint Shop Pro 9 because I still can’t accept what Corel have done to my poor PSP : (
• FL Studio because I’m never going to have the time to crack out my guitar, you lucky people
• BFXR because beep boop

Best of luck to everyone taking part, should be a good one.

I know from past experience with this sort of thing that running headlong into coding after the first spark of an idea tends to end badly (for me, anyway), so I’ve been having a coffee and a smoke and brainstorming a few ideas to see what sticks. I figured I might as well write some down here to save myself finding out I’ve been doing the same thing as someone else. That and I’m not gonna have much time to write later.

Ten Seconds (working title, obv.)

A pistol duelling game that tells the story of ten “seconds” who have to defend the honour of the unluckiest five pairs of duellists in history, where the principals in each duel have shot each other dead and a deciding round is fought between their seconds because of Reasons. You play five of these duellists against opposing seconds of varying skill, with a suitably fiddly aiming process to liven things up a bit.

Well, better get to it then.

Just finishing up for Day 1, didn’t get as much done as I’d like but at least the essentials are getting there. Lots to do tomorrow, but in the meantime you can check out a little alpha demo of the duelling system (that’ll be “seconds” as in your trusty backup when it comes to pistols at dawn). At the moment the enemy’s reaction time increases with each round, but hopefully we can put something more interesting in there too.

Controls are your trusty mouse and your left mouse button. If you’re stuck: click the icon in the centre of the screen to start, then keep your cursor inside that icon until the bell sounds. Once you hear the tone, tag the other flashing icon that appears to ready your weapon, then left-click to fire. Your shot will be more accurate the longer you wait before firing, you can tell by the size of your crosshairs. Listen out for the sounds of your opponent readying his weapon too, there’s a brief giveaway before they fire.

“Ten Seconds” Online Alpha Demo (HTML5)

Really gotta do something about that interpolation, ah well. Hope you like this silly little thing, I’ve got a few more ideas to spice things up a bit but I guess time will tell on that front.

Keep at it out there everyone, you’re doing great : )

Just submitted the final version of my game. For those who haven’t checked the earlier alpha, it’s a fast-action duelling game called The Duellists. Two feuding Generals send their ten trusty “Seconds” to do their dirty work for them, and it’s up to you to win the day.

If you’d like the check it out, there’s Windows ZIP and live HTML5 versions available in its official entry page, or check the web version out right here.

I managed to get most of the planned features included. You have five distinct heroes to face the cookie-cutter villains, and a mix of guys and girls. The enemy AI can now be rushed into shooting early, can (very occasionally) misfire and can even be shot in the back before they finish their paces if you’re feeling sneaky (this is of course an instant disqualification, like you’d do such a thing).

One difference between the two versions: the windows version has a persistent graveyard in the background that gradually fills as more and more matches are won and lost, but for some silly reason it’s not working in the HTML5 version at all. It’s a little irritating, as I really liked that (it’s a nod to Sensible Software’s Cannon Fodder). Everything else seems to be present and correct, though.

Anyway, hope you enjoy the game, and to everyone else out there still crunching through the last couple hours of the comp or the second day of the Jam, keep up the great work. Thanks all : )

So, thought I’d have a quick bit of further testing before deadline and found an absolute show-stopper of a bug with minutes to go. Any misfires in the game (a rare condition that happens maybe one time in twenty shots, in a game that only has a couple of shots a minute) would just stop the whole thing dead and stop the game from continuing. I think that was the fastest bit of typing, fixing and swearing I’ve done in quite some time :S

Man am I glad I give that one last try. Having my misfire code misfire on me has to be one of my more ironic bugs yet.

Started work on my (still untitled) proto this morning, and as I’m about to turn in for the night I’ve got the guts of it together.

Design Stuff

The proto is a mixture of styles, crossing the constant, perpetual ball motion of Pong with elements of Air Hockey. Central to the design is a tactical approach, as once you’ve made a move, your piece is unable to move again until the ball either hits your opponent, ricochets back on you or bounces three times (the three lights on the paddles indicating when you’ll next be able to move).  Pieces are moved by shooting them off in a given direction until friction brings them to a stop. You can cross into the opponent’s side or bounce into them, though such daring moves are likely to leave your goal open for an easy attack.

AI is still a mess, it can throw itself around a little but that’s about it.

One last screenshot of the alpha as it stands, still in need of something a lot less placeholder-y:

So far it’s going well, see how I feel about it tomorrow I guess.

Been polishing up my proto a bit, finally got a rough html5 test version you can play around with. It should be in fairly functional shape, just don’t be surprised if you get a few quirks with the physics at this point. The html5 build hasn’t been tested much, but it seems okay. The native version will of course be a lot smoother when it’s done.

CONTROLS

You’re the blue one on the left. Point the mouse to aim in a direction. Left-click to fire a strong shot, right-click for a light one. You can only shoot when all three bars on the front of your ship are lit up. You gain bars every time the ball bounces of a wall. You instantly gain all your bars back when either the other player makes contact with the ball or you do on the rebound. Yes, the AI is terrible at this point, but they’ll move around to make things interesting at least.

I’ll keep tweaking and polishing away for a while until it’s good to go, controller support (and local multiplayer) are next on the list. Feel like having a try? Knock yourself out.

Update: If anyone had trouble with local multiplayer, this has been fixed in the current version

Okay, I didn’t get quite everything I wanted in there, but it still ended up in decent shape. Here’s my entry for MiniLD58, OneShot.

Even with the extra days I still ended up a little pressed for time towards the end, but a very late one last night help carry the day. I’m too frazzled to say much beyond that at the moment, but I’m looking forward to checking out everyone’s stuff once I catch a breath. As ever, it was a blast and I look forward to the next time.

LD link with Web & Native Windows versions.