Hello echo,

here i am. I wanted to participate ever since i heard about this Competition a few years back, but somehow it never came to be.

Now my weekend is free, i have all the time i need (well, 48h) and i am eager to finally finish a game (well, now that i think about it, i did finish two games, but i started a lot more that never saw the light of a screen).

I have no idea what i am getting into, but for me this is a thing of beauty, because the limited timeframe will force me to just get things done and to don’t linger too much over details (which is always my problem with these things, i want it to be perfect).

No idea what i will do exactly, it is either

3D: Unity + C# + Sprites (PS)

2D: HTML5 + Sprites (PS) + Some game engine (will do some research during this week)

As for sound and music, i have no idea yet…

So here i am,

finally,

let there be game…

Well, i am off to a great start,

i can’t keep my eyes open (’tis almost 2 a.m. here) and it seems like everybody already got a headstart by makeing some boilerplate scaffold for their game in advance that they then just publish to comply with the rules.

I knew you can do that, but i wanted to have a completely open mind and clean slate and not just have an idea in my head before i know the theme, as a lot of ppl just make the game they want to make and then just adapt it a tiny bit to the theme, if at all.

Maybe i took that idea a bit too far, but, what the hell, who knows.

I wanted to see the theme before going to bed to use my unconsciousness during sleep to give me some great ideas, hehe. But looks like thats not going to happen…

At least i know which JS engines i will use, PIXI.js and/or melon.JS. For the sound i will just use one of the several tools presented on the tools page.

So,

LETS GO

… to bed

my coursiosity is prbly gonna wake me up anyhow.

gl&hf to everybody starting at the beginning, i begin at the end

Sooo, there it is,

i finally had an idea, and it only took 6h of sleep and 4h of pondering, so there is still plenty of time to go (*shiver*, *cry*)

Anyhow, the more i think about it, the more i think it might be a bit ambitious, but well, we’ll see.

Now i have to decide with which tool to do it, i guess i’ll go with some JS framework.

So here is the first appetizer:

yeah, i think grafikswise i am doing pretty well compared to the others (…., many professional artists around, no?)

anyhow, am psyched, eager to find out where it will take me

gl&hf

So, i finally finished my first LD… kinda…

After following LD for years, wanting to participate, but never finding the time, i finally made it. And loved it. It was not how i thought it would be, but i learned a lot.

Goals i had:

• Finding new tools and learning how to use them
• Creating a game from start to finish in a restricted timeframe
• Curiosity what i could come up with grafix and gameplay wise
• Wanting to start from scratch, going from 0 to 100 km/h, seeing where that would get me (0 to 62mph that is 😉 )

Inherent problems with my goals that i now see:

• Not knowing some tools i wated to use (PIXI.js)  i didn’t realize how much additional work would be needed, this could have been avoided with some research and tests before the Compo started. This is how i wanted it, thats how i got it, lesson learned, i am now one experience richer.
• Starting from scratch means that even the basic and simple game mechanics like start screen and tutorial screen had to be created. This is nothnig fancy, basically just routine work, those things could have been avoided by using boilerplate code (which a lot of ppl do, i didn’t like the idea of this, but in the end, it effectively gives you time to sleep/work on other things that pertain to the actual game idea you have).

Thoughts about the theme:

It was not my first choice, to me it seemed very generic, sth. that you didn’t have to create a game for, just use any game idea you have, and you can adapt it a bit to match the theme, e.g. just apply a time limit. “10 seconds” is more a GAME MECHANIC than a THEME.

Themes like Evil vs. Evil are really a THEME, because it influences the GAMEPLAY and great ideas will emerge. Maybe

My Theme interpretation:

As i didn’t want to go the obvious way: “AAAAwesome, we can make a game that, waaaait for iiiiiit, …. lasts 10 seconds and you have to play reeeeeeeal fast, wooooow, duuuuuuude, EXCELLENT!…” i wanted to move in the oposite direction, make it reaaaaally slow. Nothing came to mind, but then i thought about the fact that they always tell us “time is relative”!? So i came up with the idea of calculating the time relative to an external beholder, while the players time goes faster or slower depending on the gravity field the ship is currently in.

The science of this is aaaabsolutely and a huuuundred percent … something… dunno, ask someone else about that ;).

The simple principle i used is: the more gravity, the slower time passes, relative to an external beholder. Exagerate this by several orders of magnitude, threw in some wormholes for good measure to make up lost time, et voilà, you have “10 seconds are an eternity” (please comment btw ).

Conclusion

It was a very interesting experience, i learned a lot and i am very content with the idea i came finally up with (took me 4h).

I am amazed by the beautiful games and designs ppl came up with, i can’t wait for the final scoreboard to see the best of the best. So, lets keep on voting and congratulating each other :)It is a bit sad that i couldn’t finish it 100% in the given time, but i think you will see what i was getting at, and i definately plan to make a post-LD version of it.

Saludos

Lars

p.s.: please comment on my game too 10 seconds are an eternity

Tags: html5, LD27, PIXI.js, postmortem

EXIIITEEEEEEED
so in i am.

After my first LD which was #27, i unfortunately had to skip the #28 one, but this time, finally, i am in again

I will try to adhere the lessons learned last time around (see my ramblings about libraries and boilerplate code here) and again my goals are clear this time (tsetse, what do i know…)

GOALS

• Learn TypeScript: never really used it before, but as i also switched to SASS for all my work, i thought it’d be time to improve the good ol’ JS a bit too
• Learn Phaser.js: yes, i want to be able to use at least one JS GameLib and not reinvent the wheel every time (with more or less interesting results
• See if PHPStorm is really as good as everybody tells me (Aptana seems to be stuck in some endless bugfest)

HOPES

Hopefully i will be able to get ANYTHING done seeing that i am jumping into the cold water again, not really knowing what i will do and especially, HOW,

• with a library i never employed before,
• code in a language i never wrote before,
• with a Tool that i never used before…

WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG?!

(nice theme idea btw.)

But, one thing i am certain of, it will be a very interesting experience and … FUN.

So Good Luck to you all,

goeth forth and codeth

Tags: html5, phaser, typescript

What to do what to do…
This time i can’t really decide, i have 2-3 ideas that i could do, but none of them are really convincing, for various reasons:

• Just a remake of an old and well used idea
• NO idea how this game mechanic could be turned into a nice game
• Not really too much of the theme in there

can’t bring myself to just choose one idea and go with it because the other ones also have their merits / downsides, it is just as in real life i guess

Last time i participated it was much simpler, i had a clear idea which way i wanted to go even though i didn’t like the theme too much (10 seconds it was back then).

Now i love the theme, but too many posibilities…

Not so much a post mortem about the game, but about my goals: Same as last time (LD#27) i wanted to use this oportunity to learn, to get to know PHPStorm and to make my first Phaser.js game using TypeScript.

Well, i have to admit, i am very happy with the outcome. Not that my game Beneath the surface with Sir Walter Wuffington is so great and enjoyable that i am utterly sattisfied with it as a game per se, but i achieved my goal of finishing my first Phaser.js game and i got know PHPStorm a bit. On the TypeScript side i have to admit that i had a hard time to adapt the way i code JS to the TS style and paradigms, but these things can’t be achieved over night so to speak.

THE GOOD

Which JS Gameengine to use? After wrestling with my bare hands (i.e. without any game engine) last time around, i decided that it is time to try one of those nice geme engieenes everybody was talking about. After doing some research Phaser.js caught my eye for being relatively new (i.e. supposedly not filled with obsolete clutter and paradigms), which seemed to have a relatively active community and responsive developers (rich hangs around a lot over at the html5gamedev forums) and mobile performance is one of their main focal points. Now, after implementing my first game with it, i am a convert. Try it out for yourself, there are tons of examples and tutorials, and on top of all that it has TypeScript bindings too

Is TypeScript really that much better than CoffeScript or just plain JS? No idea! Looks good though. I have to admit that even with all my motivation, i simply lacked the time to really make use of TS’s advantages. I managed to write my game in TS (well, TS compliant) but it is basically plain JS with a coating of TS to make it compile. After all the time i spent setting up the whole TS / PHPStorm / Phaser.js shebang, there was not that much time left to worry about elegant coding, sth. that i normally value very highly (although i am more an average programmer solutions that are generally more interesting and than elegant).

I found my new personal favourite IDE: for everyone out there pondering the question of which IDE to use for all their JS / PHP / HTML5 coding, i can give you a warm recommendation: PHPStorm (or WebStorm if you don’t need the PHP part, PHPStorm is WebStorm + PHP) After using Texteditors, KDevelop, Eclipse, Aptana for over a decade for all my WebDevelopment, i have found my new IDE of choice. The code completion, existing templates (jQuery, Drupal, WordPress, …) JS Debugging, the ease with which it integrates with other libraries absolutely convinced me, after being disapointed with the slow improvements and overal buggyness of Aptana.

THE IMPROVABLE

Expectations: As i mentioned before, due to the time constraint and my high expectations i had to the game itself, it is not as good as it could have been, but that was to be expected. As i spent probably two thirds of my time figuring out how to do stuff in Phaser.js, TS and PHPStorm, there was not that much time i could invest into the actual game making. I am still pretty content with the result, this time i even have some sounds (two to be exact, but it is a start). If i continue at this pace and stay with the current toolchain, i might produce sth. halfway decent around LD#31

I was still expecting too much from my game i guess, as i wanted to learn all that stuff but at the same time couldn’t bring myself to tone down my ideas for the game, as it would have felt even emptier / more boring than without the second view. It might be worth to scrap that second part and add some juicyness instead, but who knows, next time around i’ll probably have enough time for both as i will be more proficient in using my current toolchain.

THE BEATUIFUL

As always it was amazing to see how much can be achieved in such a short time. For myself i am happy about the work / learning i did in just 48h, and it is always stunning to see what other ppl can come up with in just 48h / 72h.

The fact that there are others like me out there that just love making games, creating stuff, seeing their ideas come to life and being (more or less 😉 ) enjoyed by others warms my heart.

I can’t wait till next time, till then
goeth forth and codeth

p.s: But please, don’t let my ramblings keep you from trying my game :

Beneath the surface with Sir Walter Wuffington

Tags: phaser.js, post-mortem, postmortem, typescript

SO…

this time I’d like to (finally) make a game that is worth the name, meaning a game that you can actually play and have fun in doing so.

My first two entries were more like test balloons about what I would be able to do with the tools I chose, this time I really want to create something that has ‘gameplay’ and is fun, lets see if it will work out.

Tools are the same as last time since i realized that i don’t have the time or energy to create my own libraries anymore.

TOOLS

• Phaser 2D (reusing some of the code from my previous game i think)
• Audacity (as i haven’t bothered learning to use any real composing tools and are not musically adept, so my distorted voice has to suffice)
• Photoshop / Fireworks
• Maybe some audio tools mentioned in the tool section
• PHPStorm

.. the rest depends on what kind of game i am going to do, i saw just now that there are some awesome phaser plugins out there…

Well, on that note,

goeth forth and codeth,

for that we all may have fun and learn

Great, first of all the theme did not inspire any immediate reaction from my brain, just useless stuff i discarded right away, then i spent the first four hours to salvage the code from my last game and set up the environment for the new one, and now…
I am where i was before, no idea, lots of ambition…

Grmbl…

Well, i guess i will just have to throw a dice somehow and use one of the not so interesting thoughts i had before, but this is kind of a downer…

Anywho, can’t wait till monday to see what others come up with, hehe…

12h of diddling around and this is all i have:

literally, i have no idea how to implement the theme.

Yesterday i did basically only the setup of phaser and loading of spritemaps + animations, hoping that today i’d have an idea what to do.

Then this morning i found out that the physics system i was using was not the right one for the job so i had to switch to another one with no idea how to do that.

Now i am exactly where i was yesterday (well, this morning at 3) and still no idea.

Guess i will just make some j&r proof of concept and just try to squeeze the theme in there

This sucks because for me doing something interesting with the theme is always high on the list, but this time…

nothing…

Tags: journal, yargh!

Seeing as Mike has problems keeping his RL while working countless hours on LD, maybe Notch would like to step in as an angel-investor and help in developing LD while keeping it as free and open as possible?!

A new feature that might then be added could be the setup of a pseudonym account which gets merged with a persons real account after the voting period (to prevent ppl like said Notch being trolled while still adding to their ‘portfolio’ after the jam has concluded).

Thinking about it, the whole thing should then probably be done behind the scenes to prevent minecraft fangirls and -boys flooding LD.

So, here is the secret formula then:

Notch + PoV => LD++

Pick up the phone mr. persson, mr. kasprzak needs your help

p.s.: Almost forgot: Goeth forth and codeth

I don’t really have time, as a self-employed developer i need to make ends meet, but…. Finally making an android game and bring it to market is sth. i have been planning to do for quite some time now, but there was always sth. that prevented me from finally doing it, same as right now.

So what?… October is laughing at me? Teasing me for never seeing it through to the end? It is CHALLENGING me, DARING me to DARE a game to the world?!!

CHALLENGE  ACCEPTED

I will make some HTML5 game or another (prbly some simple puzzler), the challenge for me will be to set up all the workflow i need from a HTML5 game to a mobile app (CocoonJS or PhoneGap) for future reference and use.

So, the goals are simply:

• earn 1+€
• learn how to publish my html5 stuff to mobile

(in reversed order obviously)

So, lets find some time then

Goeth forth and codeth…

So here i am again, last year i had to skip the December round as i had a full weekend with the better half, this year i got the weekend of but will travel back to my mothers to help her move to a new apartment during the week, so i am not sure what i will be able to get done as i only have my  laptop and its tiny 13″ screen to develop on and a once again even more limited time-frame.

Lets see, i think i will definitely do sth. but probably will have to dial back on my ambitions (yeah, that has worked sooo well in the past compos… ehem…)

My weapon of choice will be again the good old HTML5 combo with Phaser.io / Pixi.js / Plain JS depending on what i will do.

So, hope to see you next weekend, best of luck for everyone,

goeth forth and codeth

Just found this gem of a tool, looks like it does exactly what i need and not more, will probably try to work with it this time: http://canvasquery.com/

Ceterum censeo SNOWMAN!

p.s.: (that was actually the biggest reason for my post :p)

p.p.s: Oh, and check out my october challenge entry here

I don’t know, but to all those naysayers who didn’t want the snowman theme, isn’t the ‘entire game on one screen’ waaay worse as every game is technically on one screen and none has to change anything to make any game fit to the theme?

I am very interested to see what ppl will make of it, but seriously, whuuuut?!

Don’t think i can come up with sth. for this one that is more then: Err, here is the game and it is on, errr, my screen….

Anyway,

gh&hf

goeth forth and codth

I was pretty busy this weekend and also started coming down with the flu or sth. but i wanted to make at least sooooomething, so i glued this together:

It is Snoikaman, a remake of the great perestroika game, but this time as a metaphor for the work we live in, riddled by the man-made greenhouse effect that is ignored by so many ppl.

Snoika man

Check it out here.

Too sick to write more, just happy i made it (could just find 6h this time), will write more when i feel better…

Goeth forth and codeth

Is it that time of the year again, when i will aim high, miss by a great margin but somehow always manage to learn something and enjoy the experience.

Well then, i am in (bar any unforseen and awkward ‘social interference’), during my first LD’s i tried out different libraries and tools, but this time i will probably go back to Phaser.io as i did a prototype with it and this yo generator really makes it easy to do that.

IDE is as usual my favourite (yes, it is so good that i even paid for it instead of going for any of the free alternatives) PHPstorm, no other IDE comes even close to its features and you can find plugin for everything ( i really DO like it a lot ;p ).

Hopefully this time i will manage to make a ‘real game’ and by that i mean a game that has a beginning and an ending, that is fun, can be won and restarted, has sound (woooohoohoooo, things to hear…) and challenging victory conditions aka motivation.

Lets see if this time i am able to squeeze all that into two short days.

Oh and did i mention that as always i want it to be a witty interpretation of the theme?!

So what could possibly go wrong, it just has to be amazing! 😉

On that note,

goeth forth and codeth / designeth / haveth funeth

Tags: #phaser #phaser.io, phpstorm

After having to deal with a family emergency (all went well) that had me spend 14h in a hospital waiting room and then a night with barely any sleep on a hospital couch i got up on Saturday morning here in Europe and was a bit disappointed by the theme.

Although of course there are weapons in games, making the main theme of the game a weapon didn’t sit too well with me, so i immediately tried to interpret the theme in the opposite direction,

Weapons = Kill, Hurt, Maim, War, Pain

Opposites = Life / Birth, Heal, Peace, Happiness

But HOW to make a game of that that is easy to do in 48h (well, 40 by that point) and fun?

So, with my blank brain i did my duty as family caretaker that day + night, and here i am with an IDEA (yeah, finally).

But again, pretty sure it is impossible to do in the time i have left by now, but i am also sure that at least SOMETHING will come out of it, so lets see

Can’t wait to play some of the games i read about here on the page, some real gems among them. So on that note,

Goeth forth and codeth

p.s.: the idea i have would be a mix between Sid Meiers ‘covert action’ and ‘hotline miami’ (yeah, i know, a real peace of cake in 15h, lol)

Well, too much RL this time for me, today i could finally start on my game, but half a day was just not enough.

But as i feel that it could really be a ‘real game’ for once (start, finish, a gameplay to speak of) i will also go the JAM route for the first time. I still don’t know if another day will be enough, but at least then i will be able to bring it to a state where it has a semblance to a game (i hope).

So lets see what some extra hours after work tomorrow will accomplish.

Goeth forth and codeth

Yesterday at three o’clock in the morning (LD deadline time here in western europe) i made with a heavy heart the decision to not enter the compo as i always do, but the JAM. I had only worked half a day on my idea, but i really think it could have been a nice one with a bit more time, even if that meant i had to compete with whole teams which have great artists and musicians.

But i haven’t spent a single minute on my project yet, alas.

Ok, so, enough whining, i think in 1-2h i can start working a bit more on it… finally

Goeth forth and codeth