Hi there, this is my first time doing something like this. I have made many games/ experiments already but never really finished or released anything. I wonder how much I can do in 48 hours.

Anyways, this is what I plan on using

• Enviroment: GameMaker; Although it sucks for large projects, it is great for making something workable in a short time frame.
• Graphcis: Mypaint for backgrounds, Gimp for everything else
• Sound effects: Bfxr; it is simply awesome for creating sound effects
• Music: Public domain music, possibly wolfram tones; I have very little musical talent, so I have to keep it simple here

The weird thing is that I like using GameMaker for quick game making even though I run linux. It runs perfectly in wine though.

By the way, I upvoted Potato. I am very interested to see what kind of things people come up with if that becomes the theme.

I potato does not become the theme (which it probably won’t) I plan on adding a potato easter egg, just ’cause

Tags: first-timer, gamemaker

Hi there,

I have decided to make a livestream this ludum dare. Hopefully people will like seeing my game come together or learn something from it. I have been testing it yesterday and it seems to be working quite well. The main concern I have it that I might reveal some personal information by accident. For instance I might start reading my mail, which I don’t like other people to read.

If you would like to view the live stream tomorrow, you can find the stream here: http://www.twitch.tv/martijn_ludum/videos or by searching for the game “Ludum Dare” on twitch tv.

Today I woke up early to start Ludum dare. I had seen the previous polls and was sure the theme would be either destruction and creation or afterlife, So I already had an idea of what I wanted. My original plan was to make a platformer based around explosives set in hell where the goal was to bomb yourself out of hell.

Then I red my email: the theme was minimalism. This I did not like at all, not only were my ideas useful, I could not think of anything interesting to do so I simply started googling a bit. After a while I tried imitating Piet Mondriaanand I got something looking like this.

After that I started implementing the mechanics; Normally you cannot pass through the black lines and you must have touched both the red, blue and yellow parts to go to the next level. By pressing a key you can slip through the black lines, but If you make a mistake you fall off the screen and have to redo the level (not that the levels take very long). After some time I had the genius of laying a piece of paper under the printer. I then used my gimp skills and improved the graphics by making every texture based on paper. (also added custom shadows, but they are subtle). The same level as above looks like this now:

(There actually is a potato hidden in that level, but it’s hard to find).This actually looks presentable, and I choose to stick with this style. I have also already settled on the name: “Between the Lines”. My main concern is that since I have started many games, but never finished one, I might end up with an unfinished game. So I put a lot of focus in making the game presentable.

I succeeded. I have a custom loading screen, a “Menu” an ending and have even implemented the potato sub-theme. Here is a screenshot of my collecting a potato.

The good news is that the Game is going pretty well and could already be submitted.

The bad news is that it is still kinda short. I would like to make the game have 30 levels. Right now there are 15 levels and I can finish the game in about two minutes, which means that a new player would probably take 10 minutes. This is probably enough, but somehow it feels to short.

I’ll update tomorrow to let you all know what improvements I have made

Tags: between the lines, minimalism

Done,

My game is done way ahead of time. It took me 17 Hours, 24 Minutes and 37 Seconds of total work (according to my twitch stream) and there were still 14 hours in the competition left when I was done.

You can find it her:

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-26/?action=preview&uid=20699

if you want to try it out.

You can find my progress of yesterday here:

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/2013/04/27/everything-went-better-than-expected-2/

What I changed since yesterday:

1.Graphics

First image are the old graphics, second image is the new graphics

Basicly I added more shadows. I have written my own “Lightning engine”. It is very simplistic, but looks quite nice. This is basicly what it does

1. Add a drop shadow for all static objects (black,blue,red and yellow areas). This is done at runtime by calculated them and placing tiles below them.

2. Add an shadow object to each moving thing (player and potatoes) and have it move relative to the light source and object. Right now the light source is the center of the screen. This takes very few resources as there are usually at most 2 objects moving object onscreen.

3. Add a filter over everything that darkens the edges and keeps the center bright. For some reason this makes things look better.

I also added the following which doesnt show up in screenshot that well

1.Particle effects when jumping. Since I could not get sound effect to work together with music, I decided to drop them. To give some feedback to the user I decided to add some particle effect to let the player know they jumped.

2. Squishiness, basically the player will change dimensions slightly when jumping, running and landing to make the player look more “alive”

Moar blocks

Because I had trouble making enough levels, I decided to add some more mechanics. I added the purple area, which when you touch it causes instant failure so You have to move around them. I also added a green “Portal” area. Basically each green block is point to another green block and when you touch it you are teleported to the other block it points to. It allowed for some interesting levels. Also the green blocks are capable of changing your velocity, so making a green block point to itself effectively  allows you to launch the player.

Moar potatoes (and more levels)

Yesterday I had 15 levels, Today I have upped that to 32. Also there are now 42 collectable potatoes and they are quite challenging to get, so it adds some replay value. Right now it has more than enough levels. It took me 11 minutes to finish the entire game. Which means it is more than enough for a player new to my game. Also I think some of my levels may be too hard, so I made a skip level button appear after you died a few times to allow everybody to reach the ending.

Sound

I forgot to mention this in my previous post, but I suck at music. So I used freely avaible music in my game. For my game I used music by Kevin Macleod (http://incompetech.com/) who is so awesome that he lets anyone use his music as long as you give proper credits.

I have been looking but could not figure it out. How do I change my profile picture?

So I thought some of you would be interested in seeing what other people would come up with.

Below is a screenshot of the only real level in my game, a simple platformer

Basicly the aim is to try and collect the “coins” (colored blocks) before the 10 seconds run out

After the ten second you are given the option to upgrade your abilities, which in turn allow you to move faster and jump higher

Now the goal of the game is to reach the end of the level, however in the beginning you are to slow to reach it in 10 seconds.

Personally I am not completely satisfied as I feel the concept is both not that original (I really could not think of anything else) and the game is a little bit to frustrating (hard) and I dont know how to fix the second part.

I was thinking of adding 2 difficulties, one 10 second per live and one easy more where you are given 10 seconds of “valve time” so that you have some more time if you fail to often.

Anyway, tomorrow I will probably make a proper ending and title screen, add sound and music and polish everything up.

And I kinda suck at music. I have been experimenting with wolfram tones for a while, but still am not satisfied.

Anybody got any tips?