Just landed home and here I am for my 7th LD.
Previous entries:
LD #28 You got just one – Hard Point
LD #27 Ten Seconds – Mission Luna
LD #26 Minimalism – Alien Raid
LD #25 You are the villain – Moonrise
LD #24 Evolution – Flagellum
LD #23 Tiny World – Organelle
Tools:
Code/Engine: C# /Unity 3D
Art: Corel PaintShop Pro X6
Model: Blender
Music: ModPlug
Very first and full of placeholders screen of my entry – Hammerhead in the sea of monsters.
The player drives a submarine that research and hunt weird mutated sea creatures.
“Beneath the surface” was really one of my favorite themes of all LDs that I took part.
“Hammerhead in the sea of monsters” puts you in control of a research submarine in a sea full of gigantic hostile creatures.
The initial idea was to gain resources from killed creatures to upgrade the sub. The final objective would be the oceans bottom where player fights a kraken-like screen sized monster. Time allowed me to reach at near 65% of this.
Too much effort was wasted with code in features that I never used: lots of AI on creatures attacking each other; devices that could get damaged and start to malfunction; many other devices (sonar, spot lights).
Result is that by sunday 12:00pm I barely had a playable gameplay with lot of code missing and no graphics – entire game was on placeholders. Lot of things had to be cut and graphics rushed. Well some placeholders stayed – Yes, if you find a giant cylinder swimming at depths that was suposed to be the hardest creature of the game =D
I have to say that I really liked the end result. The game got its atmosphere and have a clear path to be further developed. I’m planning more creatures, more devices and the final kraken.
Well, true is that this is the 3rd time that I promise a post compo version from my entries but at least one of them, the last one from LD 28, Hard Point, finally is ready in its full form:
www.arcadiumplayware.com/Hard.Point.html
Thank you all for another high class compo, I’m on my way to rate at least 200 of the games.
See you ate LD 30!
Whats on the dark side of the moon?
Back in LudumDare #27 (10 seconds), Mission Luna was my entry and it surprisingly got some reviews on media and some players asking about post compo version. So, here is the first preview from new version gameplay where (finally) moon landing is implemented along with new graphics, models, ship upgrades and a sure cliche alien plot.
I’m in for my 8th Ludum Dare.
Code/Engine: Visual Studio 2013 (C#) /Unity 3D
Art: Corel PaintShop Pro X6
3DModel: Blender
Music: FL Studio
Previous entries:
LD #29 Beneath the surface – HammerHead in the Sea of Monsters
LD #28 You got just one - Hard Point
LD #27 Ten Seconds – Mission Luna
LD #26 Minimalism – Alien Raid
LD #25 You are the villain – Moonrise
LD #24 Evolution – Flagellum
LD #23 Tiny World – Organelle
Player controls a corporation that must provide communication links between cities at planets, using transmitters, satellites, space mirrors and whatever 48 hours allow.
50% of time gone, 40% of tasks done.
My first game in space without aliens, who needs them. You will have enough problems with data links.
Some gameplay from Stellarlink Corp.
LD to do list:
[x] Complete game in time
[x] Shameless self promotion
[ ] Write a post mortem
[ ] Post compo version
Here is the post mortem for the Stellarlink Corp., built as a jam entry for this 30th Ludum Dare (and my 8th edition).
Theme
As always, theme is announced Friday 22:00 here in Brazil, and right after it the overall idea came clear to my mind. I’m somewhat cautious about using themes literally (there would be room for much more creativity) but working alone with limited time, you simply can’t have the best of everything in your entry – a legacy knowledge from previous Ludum Dares.
Initially this game should be in 3D space but after a second thought I saw some problems with this approach. Mainly with player interaction and the strategies to fix/improve it would lead development beyond jam deadline, so fixed camera was chosen leaving the game environment in X/Z plane.
Stellarlink Corp. idea is that player controls a company that provide data links between cities at planets. These planets orbits a star and have their own rotation movement with random settings every game (angle, velocity).
There would be upgrades to apply on city transmitters, links and satellites to buy.
Environment
Heavy work started at Friday night and by Saturday dawn I had a functional environment with cosmos background, proper planetary movement and a cool random perlin surface generator. This last one took me like 40 minutes and I really liked the results. Morale was high so I went to bed.
Saturday – Gameplay gameplay gameplay
Cities and their attached transmitters were created and fixed at their planetary sites (thanks Blender).
First gameplay tests proved that this game could be fun but it also made clear that (then again) it would be a hard game with an unusual player interaction where one must split attention between precise aim and overall surveillance about planets motions to spot possible link paths. As the player progress, the links requests start to come in row and more often, turning the link delivery business into a chaotic experience for the unprepared. It was time to upgrades.
Saturday night – Upgrades
I had enough time to code every single planned upgrade and they really do a lot of difference in gameplay. The last one coded/modeled, Satellites, were one of the top reasons that convinced me, back in Friday planning, that the whole idea had potential. And I really loved how they fitted to game;
I spent some more time on balancing and tweaking values and prices, adjusting satellites control/function and by Sunday dawn Stellarlink Corp. was a complete game.
Sunday – round the edges
Some work on UI, some more balance/tweaks, intro and game over sequences, bug fixes. Then, for the first time in all Ludum Dares that I took part, I had a clear chance to submit a game in the 48 hours compo, except by 2 little details: 1) The game would go with no sound/music and 2) that would forbid me to use the only previous made asset in game : The blue cosmos background. So, I decided to stick with JAM 72 hours and start to add sounds.
Monday – real life work then sounds/music
As JAM rules allows, sounds from several sources were used, with some remix at the amazing Wavosaur.
Then I got my old keyboard from under the bed and started the music creation at Monday 20:00 in FL Studio 11. I had some problems trying to make a seamless loop to fit nicely in gameplay but at Monday 21:30 time was up and I had to upload as is.
As always it was amazing to take part of Ludum Dare. This one was a breeze, no rush, no stress, things worked as planned and I’m liking players feedback.
Thank you, see you in LD#31.
Here is a list of some really cool games (imo) to take a closer look.
I’m in for my 9th Ludum Dare.
Working alone but “We are twice armed if we fight with faith.” – Plato =)
Code/Engine: Visual Studio 2013 (C#) /Unity 3D 4.6
Art: Corel PaintShop Pro X7
3DModel: Blender
Music: FL Studio 11
Previous entries:
LD #30 Connected Worlds – Stellarlink Corp
#72 Innovation(Jam)
LD #29 Beneath the surface – HammerHead in the Sea of Monsters
#77 Graphics(Jam)
LD #28 You got just one – Hard Point
#208 Fun(Jam)
LD #27 Ten Seconds – Mission Luna
#29 Innovation(Jam)
LD #26 Minimalism – Alien Raid
#155 Mood(Jam)
LD #25 You are the villain – Moonrise
#82 Theme(Jam)
I’m working on a one screen kitchen game.
Player must plant and harvest vegetables (inside kitchen) and them cook many dishes.
I’m accepting name suggestions
Here are some that I most liked
The Shelter by Alter
Leaving by H-Bomb
Bionic Bliss by Mechamew
Also, here is a gameplay/walkthrough from the 1st scene of my game Chefs Legend
For no reason at all, I decided to check some themes that gets high voting count (sometimes more than once) but so far were not elected:
1 Corruption 694 2 Creation 593 3 End of the World 488 4 Construction 434 5 Death is useful 426 6 Break the Rules 406 7 Abandoned 405 8 End of the World 376 9 Randomly generated 359 10 Break The System 351Source (from LD 16 – 30)
Just writing to share a random idea that came to my mind thinking about the rating system.
There are some inspiring ones that provide you with rich and constructive reviews, to all of these, thank you for making the world a better place.
Nothing against those that do not write reviews. It’s ok, as long as you play the game in all its details and give a fair rating.
But the problems start with those who give quick random votes to get more ratings to their own game. This is a real problem that can throw the whole score system to trash. Of course Ludumdare (IMHO) is about you and the game that your create, but the score is a cool part of it.
So the idea: The only way to rate a game is with a token, written in a text field in rating page. This could be provided by the game author, registered in entry page and displayed at some point inside the game where he/she thinks is a good place to qualify a full play. Of course one could give away the token from start (or better yet, have an option on entry page to disable token system). Later, this token could also be randomly generated from LD servers (bye KISS), fetched by the game to ensure an unique rating session.
Thank you all for another great LD, see you in LD 33.
I’m in for my 11th Ludum Dare.
As usual, working alone but “We are twice armed if we fight with faith.” – Plato =)
Code/Engine: Visual Studio 2013 (C#) /Unity 3D 5
Art: Corel PaintShop Pro X7
3DModel: Blender / Sculptris
Music: FL Studio 11
… the monster looks impatient while you pause to debug
Based on http://ludumdare.itch.io/:
93093 votes
Now if we split entries in 10 groups (sorted by votes):
29,16 %
14,86 %
12,01 %
10,32 %
8,917 %
7,875 %
6,805 %
5,349 %
3,153 %
1,445 %
0,088 %
Check that the top 5 block got 75% of all ld votes
For those like me, curious about the full list of theme suggestions:
http://pastebin.com/PsSyAfFC
On paste bin, for 1 week
source (words from PoV):
This endpoint is temporary, but you can get a JSON formatted list of all themes here:
http://theme.ludumdare.com/api-theme.php?action=GET_ALL_IDEAS
Every suggestion, with duplicates removed.
You shouldn’t expect this URL to be around in the future, but feel free to use it for now.