My first Ludum Dare (or any game dev jam for that matter)! I guess I'll be happy if I can end up with anything barely playable!

My Plan

Theme will be announced at midnight in my time zone. I am considering sleeping early on the Friday and starting early-ish on the Saturday, fully charged. If I go to bed after seeing the theme, I'll have a hard time getting some sleep -- which doesn't sound like a good to start to me :smiley:

Anyway, whatever time it is, I'm planning to spend a couple of hours on the idea and basic design. I'll try to follow some advice I read here: find some very simple core idea that can be implemented quickly, then add bells and whistles as the time allows.

I am going to use the Godot game engine, which I haven't really used much, but already makes me feel more productive than any other lower-level tool I used before.

So, let's see how it goes!

The idea: you can carry as many guns as you wish, but guns are made of metal. Too bad the bad guys have installed things that metal detectors and giant magnets that make your life more difficult if you carry too much metal.

So far, I got a moving player and a couple of static henchman. Still a lot to do, I guess :-)

Did some work on the internals. Can switch weapons and beat the bad guys to death.

About 1/5 of my MVP done and gaining some momentum, I guess.

Returning from lunch after the first morning of development. I am quite happy with the results so far. I might even be able to achieve my goal: end up with something barely playable. I don't think I'll have much time to balance the game, but that would be a stretch goal!

Last addition are magnets, which will mostly annoy the player -- especially those carrying many (metal) guns (the more you have...). The magnet physics still needs a bit of tweaking.

So far, lots of fun!

Some 15 hours since my first commit, it's time to get some rest. This is my first time game jamming -- I didn't thought it was so tiring!

Nice progress today, I am happy. Features implemented since the last update:

• Magnets are fully functional
• Add generic obstacles; for now, just bushes (which can stop bullets, oh well)
• Foes can follow a patrol path
• Foes can see the player, in which case they will fire the alarm and enter in their aggressive mode
• Foes have a rudimentary AI for the aggressive mode
• Player can get hit and hurt (though he doesn't actually die)

Main points for tomorrow:

• Implement the "the more metal you have..." mechanic
• Implement a three-level alarm system
  • Including spawning enemies
• Implement multiple screens/sectors
• Make the game winnable/losable

Important additional stuff (if time allows): * SFX * Music * Better visual effects

Spent most of the morning working on some assets. I am in a point in which I need final-quality sectors before I can implement the next set of features. Still have a few hours before the lunch to work on code. Priorities: moving between sectors and the "metal-based" alarm system.

BTW, the shore is animated :-)

Wow! Two minutes before the deadline, a playable (if unbalanced and certainly buggy) game is published in the compo!

For now, the HTML version is up. Maybe I'll upload native ports along the week.

Great Ludum Dare debut! I am happy! And tired!

Second Ludum Dare for me. LD40 happened in a perfect moment: I had a full weekend without anything else to worry about. LD41 will be a little different, so I better plan to have less time available.

I manage to finish my previous game within the available time, but my idea was too large -- I ended up with something really unpolished, unbalanced and "un-fun". This time I'll try to come up with something simpler, and spend more time making it more enjoyable. Let's see how it will go!

I'll use the Godot game engine again, which worked beautifully for me last time.

Loved the theme! Before the theme was announced, I was thinking about a turn-based soccer game with RPG elements, but I guess this would require too much work to become interesting (same mistake as last year). Now I came with an idea that could become interesting with much less work (or so I think). And I even got a great name!

Blind Faith will be a stealth god game. You are a deity. Your worshipers always thought you were invisible, which is unfortunately not true. So, you must do your god things while hiding from your worshipers, as being seen would reduce the faith they have on you.

I am happy with the concept. Next step: turn this into a more concrete (if incomplete) design.

End of first morning. Slow start for my Stealth God Game. Got some basic assets, a moving character and a bit of things under the hood.

In the afternoon, I hope to have some basic NPC AI working. And maybe some miracle-making 👼...

Now, time for lunch!

OK, for time reasons, the character perspective doesn't match the rest of the map -- but, hey! this is a cute primitive village, isn't it? Not bad for programmer art, I guess!

Drawing these tiles was a lot of fun, but I should be doing some programming instead...

So, night has arrived here. Still got some hours of work before getting some rest. My next steps from the previous post remain the same: implement a basic AI for the worshipers (NPCs) and let the player do some miracles.

Just to recap: Blind Faith will be a stealth god game. You are a deity. Your worshipers always thought you were invisible, which is unfortunately not true. So, you must do your god things while hiding from your worshipers, as being seen would reduce the faith they have on you.

Good progress since the sun left the skies. I have worshipers wandering around, with nice icons showing their internal state. And they can perceive the player -- again, with decent visual feedback. Oh, and I even got a rudimentary HUD in place.

Next step: make some miracles happen! (Will probably just start this today -- I should get some rest soon.)

In a certain sense, I am already more pleased with this game than with my LD40 entry. Blind Faith is looking much more polished than Metal Fear.

Blind Faith will be a stealth god game. You are a deity. Your worshipers always thought you were invisible, which is unfortunately not true. So, you must do your god things while hiding from your worshipers, as being seen would reduce the faith they have on you.

I just implemented the first miracle, which is a very important requirement for such a game. Look at those miraculous particles around those worshipers. That green heart means that they are very healthy, thanks to the divine player intervention. The particle density is proportional to the healed amount. And that circle indicates the miracle effect radius.

Blind Faith will be a stealth god game. You are a deity. Your worshipers always thought you were invisible, which is unfortunately not true. So, you must do your god things while hiding from your worshipers, as being seen would reduce the faith they have on you.

Seven hours left, development is progressing quite nicely. I've added a tribe of nonbelievers; they have a very limited AI, and will remain like this (the screenshot shows the nonbelievers village). But the worshipers are much smarter now. They will do things like harvesting stuff from the garden, going to the granary to eat and to the hospital o heal. There are new miracles, too.

You can already lose in the game, but you cannot win. The idea is that victory will be achieved with the annihilation of the nonbelievers (what else could it be?! 😜)

So, I guess the next steps, in order of priority are:

• Make the game winnable
• Add some more miracles (like hurting enemies)
• Add sounds and music (my kazoo is eagerly waiting right beside me! 😄)
• Balancing
• Add visual feedback about what each worshiper is doing.
• More balancing

I don't know if I'll reach the end of this list, but I guess I'll end up with a playable game!

Back to work!

So, it's finished!

Blind Faith is a stealth god game. You are a deity. Your worshipers always thought you were invisible, which is unfortunately not true. So, you must do your god things while hiding from your worshipers, as being seen would reduce the faith they have on you.

I am very pleased with the results! Way more polished than my LD40 entry. More balanced also, though I cannot tell much about balancing. All in all, I can say it is a game.

Check it out!

Made with wonderful open source tools: the Godot Game Engine, Krita and Audacity.

First, recapitulating: Blind Faith is a stealth god game. You are a deity. Your worshipers always thought you were invisible, which is unfortunately not true. So, you must do your god things while hiding from your worshipers, as being seen would reduce the faith they have on you.

Recapitulating even further to the past: "This time I’ll try to come up with something simpler, and spend more time making it more enjoyable. Let’s see how it will go!" Aaaand, I failed miserably. Or did I?

• Blind Faith is still too complex for a compo game. All the compo games I really enjoyed playing were simple, but quite polished and well-balanced. I simply cannot do this with a game as complex Blind Faith (or Metal Fear, for that matter). But, hey!, I don't want to make simpler games! So, should I forgive myself for this? Yeah, maybe. After all, this is all for fun, right? Right. But I still know that going simple and polished would be a wonderful exercise -- one that I must do some day, either in my next LD or in my "normal free time".
• I spent too much time doing the graphics. But, hey!, I had just got a new drawing table, and had a lot of fun using it. I forgive myself on this one.
• The game is not enjoyable. Maybe some people could enjoy it a bit, but most people wouldn't (and for good reasons). I'd say the biggest issue was that most players wouldn't know what to do. Metal Fear was better in this regard: the very concept was more familiar to the players, and I even added some tips in each screen, explaining the mechanics as new elements were introduced. I'll count this as a lesson learned.
• On the positive side, and still related with enjoyability, I think Blind Faith is much more successful than Metal Fear in giving feedback to the player. The players might not know what to do, but (generally) I think they know what is happening!

So, what about the scores? This time I opted out of Mood and Humor (incidentally, humor was my best score for Metal Fear). In the other categories I improved my score and ranking:

• Overall: 3.146 (up from 2.328)
• Fun: 2.708 (up from 2.438). So, while not really funny it is funnier than my previous entry.
• Innovation: 3.739 (up from 2.453). My best score. I liked the idea, indeed. Maybe I could try to work further on it.
• Theme: 3.583 (up from 2.75). OK, fair. I not-so-humbly think the concept was 5-stars in regards to the theme, but 3.5 is very good for the execution.
• Graphics: 3.28 (up from 2.094). Quite an improvement, but I really hope to spend less time on graphics next time.
• Audio: 3.104 (up from 2.71). Not bad for a theme song played on a kazoo and a Pilates ball! And this time I even had the time to make the audio play from both speakers!

All in all, again, I am very pleased with the results, the overall LD experience and with the learning! Thanks so much for everyone who player Blind Faith and left comments!

Maybe I already said this before, but this time I'll try to be more a game designer and less everything else. I want to at least try to design mechanics that are related or at least inspired by the theme. It doesn't matter if my characters are only squares or triangles, as long I make an honest effort to make my game have that something that makes a game a game.

After a night of rest, I found out that the theme was not exactly an easy one. At least not for my self-established goal of coming with mechanics related to it. After a couple I couldn't think of anything really interesting beyond the obvious (using your life or hit points to purchase things).

So let me try to at least be a bit creative with the interpretation of the theme: you, the player, have worked all your life on the mint (your life is currency!). Your work is to keep the mint producing coins, despite all the challenges that happen in the everyday minter life (I don't know... visitors, thieves, ghosts...). You need to maintain the coin production at a certain rate (because, yes, your life is currency also in the hit points sense).

You can also buy stuff to help you keep the mint working, but this costs currency/life, so you need to judge if buying stuff helps more than it costs.

Sounds like a plan (if not a brilliant one). Let's see how it works out!

Update before dinner: as usual, slowish beginning, then gradually gaining some momentum.

The player cannot do anything other than walking around the mint. But the mint is alive, with raw metal going through the production pipeline until turning into coins (with machinery slowly getting damaged and thus working slower).

Still have a couple more hours of work today. Will now work on allowing the player to do things -- starting with fixing malfunctioning machinery.

Compo entry submitted: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/ld44-minter :smile:

Not a good game, not too bad either. Maybe a bit too easy... maybe to compensate my previous entry :slight_smile:

Will add native versions and much needed instructions in the upcoming days.

Thanks for all of you who kept the feed busy! Following everyone's posts makes the event feel special! :heart:

Now, time to rest! :bed: