42 hours, 1 picture every minute: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJ_VKS0ptDI

Tags: timelapse

After LD15 and LD17, LD19 is gonna be my 3rd participation to the great LD event (although not on purpose, the pattern seems to emerge).

Also, for the first time, I’m gonna roll with a fully open-source setup (Ubuntu YAY!) on my netbook.

Tools:

• AS3 Flash via Flixel
• GIMP + Inkscape
• sfxr + Musagi (if I manage to get it working)

I tend to focus on building original and complicated systems, not having time to finish the content and tune the overall gameplay experience. So there go three small private pledges for LD19:

• select just 1 iteresting gameplay mechanic (forget the complex system)
• prepare mockups, scrutinize the rules BEFORE coding anything
• make use of the sandbox gameplay or procedurally generated content (you won’t have time nor energy to handcraft levels at the later stages of development)

See you all there!

Although this is gonna be my third LD, it will be the first time I’ll be making a LD game completely in Linux using my new laptop. Stickers are the essential part:

Tags: deskphoto

I did not have the guts to get up at 3 AM at the LD start, so now it’s 10 AM for me and I am beggining to craft an idea.

Tags: foodphoto

…and get rich!

Brainstorming notes:

And some mockups:

Tags: brainstorm, mockup

I tend to plan far too complex games, that’s why I’ve screwed the LD19 (I got mad at myself and dropped the LD). I’ll give it a shot at LD20, with less expectations and, hopefully, slightly better results.

Coding: Flash(AS3) using vi + Flex + Flixel

Graphics: OpenCanvas + GIMP

Audio: SFXR + Audacity

Music: musagi

Good luck to you all, see you there!

(And all you space fans out there – don’t forget to watch the STS-134 Endeavour launch, it’s just a few hours prior to the LD20.)

… because you cannot do anything less than AWESOME with a Three wolf moon shirt:

I also got some food and my workspace ready:

I have decided to take a little side-quest: to make an entry that could be controlled using a gamepad. A bit unusual for a flash game, but not to hard to stick to, since I’ll be using the Flixel engine (that emphasizes key controls).

Tags: deskphoto, foodphoto

It’s 8:15 am and I’ve finished a basic concept sketch – I’m gonna make a classic side-scrolling beatemup with a special twist: player can make clones of his hero using a magic item.

The funny thing is, all the clones have the magic item as well, so every time you use it, the hero count doubles – growing not linearly, but exponentially. Imagine 256 heroes, each of them obeying your commands simultaneously:)

Here is my concept sketch:

I’m quite happy for the selected theme, because I would hate to make the make the evolution game (which is largely over-used IMO) – evolution ended up 2nd.

Good luck to you all, fellow LDers!

Tags: concept

Black currant juice, mazanec (sweet bread) leftovers and apple/banana mix. Yum!

Tags: foodphoto

I doodled some basic assets (hero, monsters, terrain) while I have some creative powers. Now on to coding.

Tags: progress

… is all I’ve got so far It’s flash, click on the image to test it. I’m going AFK to make some lunch.

Tags: screenshot

Spaghetti with tomatoes, ham and cream sauce.

And here’s a present state of my TODO list:

Tags: foodphoto, progress

Warrior cloning works as expected, enemy bashing as well, try it out for yourself: (click the image to get redirected to flash)

Now I’ll move on to set up level scrolling, cloning item cooldown and some basic HUD. Then multiple levels, then sounds and intro&outro&title screen.

Wish me luck

If you encounter any problems, please let me know.

Tags: progress, screenshot

All 5 levels are now playable, we have HUD showing magic item cooldown and cloning limit, CLICK TO PLAY:

My TODO list keeps on shrinking:

Things going pretty smoothly, I’m gonna grab some dinner and then on to title screen and cutscenes, then some sounds and music

Tags: flash, progress, screenshot

Last night I created a title screen and this morning I put together a cutscene system:

Play the game (5 levels): http://www.jarnik.com/pub/ld20/index-v4.html (FLASH)

Now I’m gonna focus on creating some sounds and music.

Then I’ll add more levels and enemies – any suggestions? So far I’ve got: blackforest + wolves, graveyard + zombies, volcano + lavamen, stronghold + balck knigts, hell + devils.

Tags: flash, progress, screenshot

I generated some sounds (using SFXR) and a music ( autotrk through schism tracker). Now I can attend to creating more levels and enemies

Try the game: http://www.jarnik.com/pub/ld20/index-v5.html ( FLASH )

And a screenshot from the final scene:

Tags: flash, progress, screenshot

My entry has already been submitted, but I wanted to share the photo anyway. Oyakodon:

Tags: foodphoto

25 hours of work, frame taken every minute, played at 30 frames per second (timelapse music: “Gloves Of Power” by dB Soundworks http://dbsoundworks.com/ ):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlKWTmex1Zw

I used scrot and mencoder to put the timelapse together.

PLAY THE GAME online (flash): http://www.jarnik.com/pub/ld20/

Tags: timelapse

Thanks to you all nice people out there, I’ve got some interesting feedback and decided to update the game a little bit.

Updated controls: jump using UP key (instead of SPACE), attack by shortly pressing X (instead of Z), clone yourself by holding X (400 ms).

Throughout the levels, spawn points now appear – this should give some action to the clones at the rear of the group.

Play in browser (FLASH): http://www.jarnik.com/pub/ld20/index-v6.html

If you care, share your thoughts, please.

I liked some of the sprites, so I’ve created a little mashup of the in-game graphics on DeviantArt.

Tags: flash

I’ve decided to accept the October challenge by finishing my LD20 entry – the Clone Wolf. It’s a platformer where you simultaneously control multiple instances of a hero while fighting monsters.

In addition to the LD version, there’s a new display style (single-screen defense instead of side-scrolling), more content (complex bosses), tutorials, dialogues, a storyline and music (by a renowned Czech geek, who was awesome enough to let me use it just for a credit).

The game is made in flash (yay Flixel!), I’ll try to hit as many platforms and markets as I can.

Left on my TODO list: draw 5 level backgrounds, draw intro illustrations, fix a few bugs, create a trailer, make a few screenshots.

Box art:

I’m quite cautious about showing my games to other people, therefore I got to playtesting a little too late (just last weekend). After a short playtest it was evident, that without a tutorial, the game was confusing and unplayable. I sat down, rewrote the script, added more tutorial levels, redesigned a GUI.
Conlusion: even a short playtest session can reveal serious design flaws. Playtest, silly me! Playtest more!