I guess I’m in… I think.

Gonna be using either as3 and FlashDevelop or slick2d and Eclipse.
That is all!

Some progess. I’m almost shocked that I managed to put something out for this LD.
I don’t know if it’s minimalism though. If I have time I’ll make a rocking 80’s soundtrack…

MINIMALISM!!!

Now play my space-laser-shoot-em-up-dodging-not-minimalism-game!!!

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-26/?action=preview&uid=4101

And listen to this while you do it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrroahG9D3s

No real gameplay yet, but atleast it’s starting to look somewhat screenshot-worthy.
Very grateful that I’ve chosen the Jam and not the Compo this time around.

1 day left to create the gameplay… and I’ve no idea what it should be. I’m thinking of just making it sort of a puzzle-toolkit. But we’ll see what happens.

Streaming development at:
twitch.tv/rutgermegahertz

The deed is done. I think I’ll just do a quick post-mortem(I think that’s the correct term)
http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-30/?action=preview&uid=4101

What went right

– I didn’t chicken out and started to fear the code
– I pulled through.
– I actually got some decent sounds out of SFXR
– I’m really liking the overall feel of the game; how the signals switch and moves through the grid.
– Pretty decent aesthetics and artwork
– Streaming was a lot of fun and motivating!

What went wrong

– Java
– Single file of Java- Massive blob of Java
– Editing said massive blob of java 40 minutes before the jam ended and realizing I had broken the game.
– Got my gameplay idea too late and faffed about with technical issues rather than actually making a game..
– Not enough playing around with levels and I didn’t have time to create enough interesting blocks! The game is barely a challenge as it is right now.

Summary

Overall it was a positive experience; I actually learned some new stuff and tried to make a puzzle game(which I’ve never done before).
I wish that I’d done a lot of things differently, but next time I shall focus less on technical issues and more on core gameplay.

The top-image was my concept art for the entry; a very simple endless runner with exaggerated gore and particle effects. But after a while the game naturally started to suffer from feature creep, last minute objects were crammed in and any mention of clean and robust code was thrown out the window. Originally the character was supposed to be a Wolf-man cyborg with a wedge-shaped head, hence the title. But since that fella proved to be too tedious to animate, I settled for this easier and slightly more humorous protagonist. Feeling both proud and dissapointed with this one!

My entry.

So once again I did it, I conquered sleeplessness and delivered a product on time! This year I’m proud to present my first submission in full 3D, from previously using various 2d-Frameworks I’ve now switched to Unity. The biggest benefit isn’t really the added render power but the ease of workflow. Having a decent editor is crucial for productivity and is something that’s usually missing from the framework-oriented style of development.

Anyways, this time I wanted to focus more on atmosphere and aesthetics. I wanted to create this mystery world with a very distinct aesthetic, where not everything was extremely obvious at first glance. This meant though that the design of game mechanics suffered and I settled on a simple puzzle mechanic with rotating blocks. Overall though I’m pretty proud of how much better paced and presented this entry was compared to my earlier attempts in Ludum Dare.

First test trying to get the right aesthetics

Here I was trying out some of the UI, obviously going for the clean look.

More motion tests, gameplay tests

Final product (Windows only):
http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-36/?action=preview&uid=4101

EDIT:
These were supposed to be gifs, but they don’t seem to be working?