Hi, “anyone who read this”

My name is Manuel Etchegaray, and im an indie game developer/designer.
Im kinda new to LudumDare, since i have never participated in one before, but im not new at game design. ive been using GameMaker as my main game developement tool ever since (mm letme think…)  around 2005.  (thoose great years where GM6 was the best ever hehe)
Yeah, i know: “Why havent you joined LD before???” simply because i have never been interested in making games for compos. But now i see the fun on it…  hell im in!

As i said before, my main Dev tool is GameMaker. I know some C++, but the results are not from the same quality than games i make with GM.. not even close.
To make my graphics i personally love CorelDraw (for thoose who doesnt know what it is, Corel is one of the best tools for drawing 2D vectorial graphics.. i think its even better than flash). The speed and ease i have with it makes it perfect for tight deadlines like LD.
And to make my sounds and music i use SFXR, simple, and can be edited later with more advanced tools like FruityLoops

Aheading to the upcoming LD ive been practicing a little bit in this “make a game in 48hs” thingy a few weeks ago, and i made a few nice little games (that im not going to publish here.. feels a little “spammy”.. if you ask i will publish)  I recommend that for anyone who is interested on entering LD, Select a theme, make a game in exactly 48 hs, and chck the result! feels great i must say

Anyway, im looking forward to this competition, And best of luck to everyone!
(looks like its going to be the best LD ever :D)

Ps: this counts as a declaration, right?

Well, we all know that LudumDare lasts 48hs, but i think the biggest issue is the to dedicate all of thoose 48hs to make your game, since you need to rest at some point.  So, how can i stay active for as long as possible without feeling down? Here are some of the things i do in theese cases, most of them are very casual things you’d probably already tried out, but still quite effective:

_Coffe: Classic, in the first place for sure. The coffe wont make you feel dizzy for a while, but the effect wont last if you are too tired, i may just give you stomach pain if you drink a lot :S

_Apples: Most of people doesnt know that apples are used to stay awake, this is serious stuff (my dad uses to do eat anapple on its way to work when he is tired) it doesnt avoids you to asleep, it just makes your brain to stay more active.

_Sleep a lot before the Compo starts: Of course, the day before the compo starts you sleep a lot, simple.

_Eat: When you eat your body gains energy, you may  have noticed that when you just had dinner its harder to get asleep. Eat stuff with sugar is also a very good idea. (thats why you must not give children candies at night :P)
One important thing here: If you have only one big meal you will feel tired once that whole bunch of food gets diggested. break the consumpion in smaller dosis.

_Music: Listening music is great to keep your mind busy, specially if its something you never heard before, or that you havent heard in a long time.

_Lights on!: This is very important, in darker enviroments you will tend to feel more sleepy (Natural light is always better)

_Have some air you punk!: dont keep ur ass in that chair all day long, go outside, clear up your head, play ball, do something!
I think thoose are all i can think off right now, remember to get at least some sleep too, since the key is to stay active for as long as possible, not to stay sleeplees and tired 😛

Gettin’ ready for LD, just cleaned up my desktop o.O  (doesnt happen that often)

Humble, but it does the job smoothly 😉

ps:  darn, the countdown clock makes me nervious…

This is something i found a few minutes ago, do me a favour and download some of theese!

http://www.8bitpeoples.com/discography

Enjoy! 😉

Well, almost three hours after start, ive made some good progress with my game:

Its a weird mix of a platformer and an arena shooter.. well see how the idea turns out.. The style, as some of you might notice, is a bit inspired in FlashPunk (even if the game itself is made with GameMaker).
The gameplay is not even close of being done, only the platform engine, and a bit of a preview of the enemies.

Since my game is pretty much finished i was triying to pull up something hearable with SFXR and Fruity loops with no results, i definately suck at making music 😛 (specially 8-bits music)
Aaanyway, im posting some screenies of my entry now, the game, as i said is pretty much finished, ill use the rest of the day to eat ice cream and poolish what i got so far:

Yeaah, you can rotate the world! yay!

Who says hearths are harmless?

Yummy

I finished my game (i think), you can check it out Here, i finally decided for the name “Rotate!” ..and then realized someone else took it XD anyway, i dont feel link changing it, and the game is totally different, so no worries about that 😛
I will be uploading the timelapse later, when everyone else starts to do so (im editing it right now)

Ludum Dare rocks!

Enjoy the rest of this wonderful compo people!

This is my timelapse video from the making of my entry, “Rotate!”. It was made with an application of my own design (thats why it may look out of time at some points), and also removed 14+ hours of screensaver hehe
Have fun watching it, for the next LD i shall use Chronolapse 😛

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGAaLyCw7z4

Just stepping by to give my declaration; this will be my second LudumDare, and im quite excited about it!

The stuff ill be using:
For overall developement: GameMaker 8.1, with some extensions or DLL’s, if needed.
For graphics: CorelDraw and a bit of GameMaker too. (photoshop edits, maybe)
For sounds: SFXR, simple and fast. Just the way i like things to be 😉   (plus, not using sfxr in LD is sacrilege)
For unsleepness: Coffee and Chiptunes.
For awesomeness: All above? dunno..

Jokes aside, best of luck to everyone, hopefully everyone will finish in time and well get some excellent games submitted by the end of te week! Cheers! 😀

Ok, first of all my main concern is the theme, but instead of making a random game based on any of the other theme candidates, ill give it a try and try to make a game with the actual theme of the compo.

(do notice im analizing the theme as i write)
First of all, what the heck is THIS? at first it could be a weapon of some kind, something that helps me in my quest.. yeah, sounds nice but too normal. A weapon could be a sword or an AK-47, so maybe not a weapon..
It could be something more friendly, something that helps me to achieve the quest in a more easier way (after all the theme impies a quest for sure) That could be a peak if i have to digg, something to jump higher (a pogo maybe? haha sounds funny) or maybe something to dive in deeper..

Now, the object can only be deduced by knowing where we are going to, since you wont give a toothbrush to someone who is going to kill zombies.. unless the zombies need a teethbrush and they need to be willing to get it..
Now, where, where in hell can we go??? maybe we need to rescue our girl who was kidnapped by a big n ugly monster, and in the way we slaughter other littler monter’s.. so we leave the kidnapper to the last.. Sound good to be, but i guess it a bit of a cliché.. (clichés are awesome)

Mmm keeping this line of thought the theme is quite doable.. i guess i changed my mind from when i started writing this post (yeah, i can change my mind pretty quickly hehe) So, ill keep poolishing the “Where” and then make a “What” ..The girl and the monster sounds like the best option so far 😛

So, since my last post, my idea hasnt changed much; Your girl gets kidnapped by a big monster, and your task is to rescue her, and on the way kill many other monsters. The trick is, monsters dont like water! so your friend gives you a watergun to kill thoose bastards! (or just scare them out..)

Basic sketch drawing in a paper gave me a little idea: To draw everything in paper and then colour it on Photoshop! Here’s the result:

Pretty much what i had in mind while drawing, so, yay!

I guess thats it for the moment, the basic platform engine is done, i need to make the jump animations, scan a few mosnters (or maybe just draw them on pc, what gives) and im ready to start making the story!

G2g to watch something, see ya!

Catching up with before i get a little nap (its 9:46AM over here, and i havent slept for over 15hs now..)

So, the platforming engine is now completely done (with walljumps, animations, colors for the character, blah blah blah) So i made the ghost that will give you your watergun to kill monsters!

Take this watergun!

Basically everything in the intro is drawn, but i need to scan it.. i guess ill have to do it later, since its too early in the morning.. After i finish the intro where you are given the quest, i can happily start making the enemies and the rest of the story. I guess ill have to keep it short since its gotta be done for tomorrow.. well see how that goes.

See ya all in dreamsland! ^^

Just felt like posting a few screenies from what ive done already:

On the picture above you can see the first enemy i added, ill start working on the watergun and killing the enemies later on the night. Everything looks very promising for the moment and im quite satisfied with it, i think ill be pretty tight with the time (specially if i keep making the animations frame per frame colored in photoshop..)

The main game will be a mix of the classic platform physics; three or more lives, if an emeny touches tou you loose a life, you have to grab some upgrades for the weapon and one or two keys on the way to unlock the big boss.. pretty standard.

Cheers! ^^

Not much new; im pretty much done drawing sprites for the overworld, if i have some sapre time at the end of the day i will draw some more, here’s how the game looks like by now:

Now all i need to do is:

• At least one or two more enemies.
• Add lives. (and subsecuantially, death)
• Coins or something to grab when you kill monsters.
• Final boss draws and fight.
• Maybe some collectables hañfway the game.
• Main Menu? who knows..

Ill see if i can get some sleep, so see ya all later, Cheers!

ALMOST done with my entry, i uploaded it anyway, even if its incomplete

Things i didnt had time to do:

• Sounds.
• Last scene, when you save the girl.
• Bonuses or something liked to get more lives.
• A menu :S

This Ludum dare rocked out! i am VERY pleased with the final result, i knew my project was ambitious since i started drawing it, but i almost finish it, and thats what matters, right? Hopefully next time i wont draw my characters in photoshop :S

Play it here:
LINKY
 

A quick upload of my timelapse. On this ocassion i slept a lot and i set chronolapse to 30sec shots, so in general the whole thing turned out to be quite short..

It works as a timelapse, so here it goes:

Well, i have absolutely no idea what im going to make this time.. i guess itll struggle my head with it tomorrow and on, but i’m in for sure!

My developement tools declaration:
_GameMaker 8.1 for the main engine and stuff.
_CorelDraw for the graphics (with some photoshop, if needed)
_SFXR for the sounds.
Will be getting enourmus quantities of coffe and cheap food too (yeah, it also counts as a tool)

Pretty casual, as usual.. Cheeeers, and let teh best dummie theme win!

Escape… At first i thought of a platformer where you had to escape from a building before the times runs out, but while developing the main prototype it didnt felt so well.. not to mention the time restrictions. now i’m considerating something a bit more.. extravagant.. as a mouse-controlled labirnith, also time-based. We shall see.. i seriosuly hope to come up with a reliable prototype!

[…]

I’m not sure why, but this theme doesnt motivate me at all.. its like.. weird.. never happened to me before in a LD! I’ll see if i can come up with something playable before the first day has passed, else i’m afraid i’ll have to quit early
Such a pity, since i was looking forward to participate this time.. but if nothing comes up, fair well.. u.u

Well, since the themes werent any of my like on latests ludum dares i wasnt participating that much on them.. last time i found myself working 20 hours on 5 different ideas an noone of them actually worked under the 48 hour time-frame, so eventually i quitted.
BUT this time there are many great and awesome themes to choose from! i ended up voting +1 to almost all of them till i decided to remove a few and leave space for the ‘best of them’, this time i actually loved voting themes, and im positive that this one will be a pretty cool one!

So, no more of my sad stories (?) here is my declaration of tools:
For coging, engine and pretty much everything on the game;
GameMaker 8.1 Pro(as usual)
For sounds (no music, please i suck at making music..)
DrPetter’s SFXR
For graphics, (if i dont end up using GameMaker itself)
CorelDraw X5

And as much food as i can have, coffe and (hopefully) a good night sleep somewhere around the weekend, cheers and..

GO KITTENS!

Its 6AM over here, and i suddenly got sleepy, so this guy is off for a nap..

Before i leave, here is a screenshot of my current progress; The main character was supossed to be a racoon, but it ended up looking so much like a cat that i ‘converted’ him into one hehe

The game is pretty basic but yet fun, get the orbs, unlock the door, jump around, avoid stuff, etc.. the main engine is completed and now i should start focusing on making different levels to check how the game behaves on a more dynamic enviroment 😉
I’ll have some serious headaches when inserting the theme into the game, but i guess ill figure it out sometime tomorrow..