Oh yes, I am. But, first timer, so results are unpredictable
Will most likely use my own crappy 2d flash framework, ZnQPF.

In the unlikely event of me going 3d: Polycode or Unity.

/Hannes

Good morning

Woke up about an hour ago. Checked the theme. Thought about if for a while.
Something looking like the seed of an idea formed in my head.

I have a sense of the general mood I’m going for, so while the idea crystallizes I figured I might as well start somewhere.
Booted up photoshop and started pixeling away.

I was hoping not to go for pixelart, but I just couldn’t help myself. This will prolly make me go down the flixel route instead of my own framework.

Now breakfast and work on the idea a bit more.

/Hannes

In-game screenshot this time. Coded it up using flixel + flixel power tools.

Controls, collision, abilities and some map randomization is in place.
Characters are also animated, which took waaay too long.

Had some strange flixel problems. fading doesn’t work as I thought and rotation is kinda messed up.
Lost quite a bit of time trying to get that to work.

Tempus fugit!

Time for some food + thinking about mechanics.

/Hannes

Ok, development-wise things have been going great. Everything is working.
Idea wise it has been kinda meh.
Been prototyping different mechanics but nothing totally awesome has come from it.

Think I’ll take some shuteye and keep fingers crossed for brilliance during sleep.

/Hannes

Overslept a bit, but sleep brought new ideas

Just hope I have time to finish this!

Less posting, more hacking.

/Hannes

What went well
Except for some flixel hiccups the coding went very smoothly. Granted, this kind of game isn’t really rocket science.
Art was 80% done in the first hour but the good ole’ 80/20 rule applied big time. Spent way too long animating the characters. This is partly due to that it’s the first time I animated in this top-down perspective.
I am pleased with the end result.
What went worse
My initial idea didn’t work at all. It just wasn’t fun and didn’t convey the feeling I was going for.
So at the end of day 1 I kinda paniced, scrambling for ideas. I think my mind got a bit locked in due to the fact that I had put so much time in the art and basic gameplay. I wasn’t ready to ditch the multiple characters and mechanics. Maybe if I had prototyped using red and blue boxes this wouldn’t have happened…

In the end I turned it around and figured it out. If I had more time I could have put more stuff into the world that told the story and guided the player a bit more. I havn’t user tested this at all, I’m pretty sure that players will give up due to lack of clues.
I should have implemented a simple checkpoint system, playing the same parts over and over again in a game that already has quite a bit of backtracking is not fun at all.

Lessons learned
The combat in the final version is not super awesome but it’s a lot better than it was in the beginning. The turning point was really when I added the little particle effect. It made you feel the impact a lot more. Thinking about it now, I really should have added the same sort of thing when the player got hurt. Deaths kinda feel unfair and random, stronger feedback to when you get hurt would have made this better.
Next time I will try to NOT start with the art until I have a solid grasp on an idea and have basic prototypes. Having someone to bounce ideas off would have helped greatly.

Conclusion
After a weekend of almost non stop solitary game development I’m surprised how eager I am to get started on the next project.
While this was my first Ludum Dare, I have been making games for a while now and I can’t say that I’m getting tired of it in the least.

I love making games.

/Hannes

Apparently I’m going to spend this Ludum Dare at the Free Lunch Design meetup in Gothenburg. Beyond pumped!

Not sure if there will be jamming going on or if I’ll go solo.
If solo, I’m prolly going with flash+flixel.

Pretty sure it’s going to be a fun ride, just like last time

/Hannes

So, I felt like making something this weekend. Good timing with MiniLD 😀

Here is a concept:

It’s sorta like Super Crate Box + Doodle jump at the moment.
Not much of a game yet, but there is some sweet catharsis destroying misbehaving computers and jumping ever higher
Not sure how unique that combo is, but what the heck.

You can try out an alpha build here: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/17881592/Secret/JamJamJam3.swf
Arrows to run and jump. Space to shoot. 

Adding enemies is up next. And maybe multiple weapons. And dying, that would be good
But first sleep is sorely needed.

If you have any brilliant gameplay ideas i’d love to hear them.
Also, how does the controls feel?

Hugs!
/Hannes

Allrighty. Put a bit more work into my untitled bullet-hell doodle-jump thingie.

Have added a couple of ways to die, scores and such.

Also tweaked the controls and collisions a bit, hopefully to the better.

Not sure what to do next. Maybe I should do powerups like other guns, a jetpack, a shield etc.
Maybe more obstacles too. Have some lasers and such in my concept.

Another Question: Should I keep the One Hit Kill or add a health system?

My high score is 4498 cm at the moment. Can you beat that? 😀
Play here

/Hannes

Had some friends over for dinner tonight, so not much time to work on this but I have added the powerup system and tweaked a couple of things.

You can now pick up powerups. They replace your current powerup.

Some powerups I have planned. Only Machinegun and Double pistols implemented at this point.

Play beta 8 here

Might get some music from another talented indie tomorrow, fingers crossed!
Prolly gonna use bfxr for sounds.

Now sleeeeep!

/Hannes

Turns out I am going to Stockholm for work and won’t get home until the evening of saturday.

I hope I am able to get my laptop out and start hacking on the train.
Probably going to have to go for the Jam thing even if I’m going at it alone.

Probably going to be something small in flashdevelop, flixel, photoshop.

/Hannes

So, lost the whole first day due to travel. I thought I might use the travel time to get some ideas thought out, but nothing really came to me.

Hard to focus on a train I guess.

Today I woke up not only early, but also with an idea in mind.
I think it might fit the theme well enough and could be atleast prototyped in a short amount of time.

Not sure if this will actually go somewhere, but, lets try it out for the lulz, so to speak

Now, shower and breakfast, then rock’n’roll!

/Hannes

Weekend schedule cleared.
The lady is away on business.
Only thing left is to stack up on snacks and soft drinks 😀

Been toying around with Unity the last couple of days. Maybe I can get something working in there?
If that poses too much of a challenge, I’ll fall back on flixel or plain flash.

Prolly going for a Jam entry. We’ll see!

/Hannes

So, being time-zonedly-handicapped, I got up about 5 hours in to the compo.

The idea is in place and a horribly looking grayboxed prototype is running in Unity3d.
Considering I don’t know Unity, and that I have been away from game development for many months I think this is a good place to be.

This time I tried to not push the narrative parts to the very end, and thus hopefully I will not get rid of them totally.

The story is very much inspired by Thomas was alone.
The gameplay idea came from watching a “Zelda a Link to the past” video through tired eyes.

Now time for some visual development!

Hugs
/Hannes

I have now submitted my entry Beth and Maggie.

It’s a puzzle adventure thingie.

I did get a bit of hubris, thinking I could write a story and narrate it myself. That might have been a mistake.
Also I didn’t have time to model and animate the two characters. I left them as boxes.

Other that that, I think this came out fine, for what it is. A 48 hour Unity game from someone who don’t know Unity.

Unity have been a dream to work with. Just one or two gotchas along the way.
I won an edu license at GGJ earlier this year, but would be nice to get that watermark off, and be able to make commercial stuff.
Looking at one of those subscription deals.

Try the game at my dropbox.
Tell me what you think, here.

Thanks
//Hannes

So, day one is over.

Coming up with an idea was pretty easy.
Coding the prototype was a piece of cake. Unity <3
Arriving at a graphical style was a friggin’ struggle. Went in a bunch of directions before I arrived here. All in all, I think it looks pretty good right now.

Was supposed to have a white cat as the main character.
Drew and animated it but everything fell apart when I was trying to get the idle/run/jump animations to fade seamlessly between each other.
I couldn’t figure out the BlendTree stuff in Unity in a reasonable amount of time, so I gave up. </3

So now, the main character is a glowing white box.

The gameplay is nothing revolutionary,  a mix between portal, vvvvvv, and ibb and obb I guess.
Hope to be able to make up for it with gamefeel and atmosphere.

Most of the time have been spent on graphics and tuning the movement.
Really need to get going with level design.
But that will have to wait for tomorrow!

Hope you like it. Feedback is appreciated!

Now sleep.

Hannes out. Peace.

This is how the game looks right now. 

Gameplay GIF

Tags: compo, game, screenshot, unity, video

My compo entry is a puzzle platformer with hand painted graphics.

I used Unity to create the game, Photoshop to paint and Cubase, some synths and my mouth for sound effects.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to finish the music.

I managed to finish 8 levels ranging from easy to rather tricky.
It’s possible to get stuck in places, press Enter to restart the map.

There is no progress saving etc, but once you know how, you can finish the game in a minute or so, so shouldn’t be a big deal.

Made on a Mac so Windows and Linux are completely untested, but should work.

All in all, a pretty successful weekend.

Let me know what you think!

Download and vote here.

Gameplay GIF

Tags: finished, game, Unity 3D

Gameplay Gif

This time I partnered up with my old coding buddy Alfred.

We decided to do a simple single screen bullet hell style game.
You control the little cube with controller or keyboard.

What’s a bit novel with this is that you can jump over the laser beams and bullets.
If you stomp the cannons they go away for a while.

There is a health bar and some scoring outside of the recorded area.

Surprisingly fun to play! Gets super hectic after a couple of minutes.

Hope to be able to put a couple of more hours in tomorrow, adding some polish and some sound, hopefully.

This is made with Unity, Photoshop and Blender btw. Sfx and music will be done in Cubase.

Our game Dancefloor, a bullet hell style game in a single screen is now available for download from here. Please vote and leave feedback!

Development of the game went smoothly. This idea was the first thing that came to mind when I drowsily saw the theme.

My buddy Alfred (@veryafe) came over around lunch and in a few hours we had the basic gameplay. Starting to know my way around Unity at this point, not a lot of trouble in that department. A couple of badly timed unity-editor freezes coupled with poor saving habits set us back a little, however nothing really major.

The only real work on day 2 (today) was adding sounds and a title screen.

Felt really good to collaborate on this very simple design, get it done in really just a few hours and be reasonably satisfied with the result.

Anyway… Play and post your highscores below. Ours is 154 😀

Thanks in advance!