I’ve never entered the Ludum Dare compo before, but I’ve been checking it out for a long time now. I’m pretty excited to see what I can come up with.

Good luck to all!

I’m a big fan of Python and of PyGame. But I’ve been doodling with Processing for several years now, too, and it’s idea of “sketches” kind of lends itself to a competition like this. For anything more substantial, I’d definitely rock it out on Python… and I still might. But the ease of getting simple things up and running on Processing is really appealing, as is the rock-simple cross-platform capabilities. It’ll depend on the theme and the concept that comes out of it, I suppose. We’ll see in about 35 minutes from now.

Tags: processing, python, tools

So, my idea was to create a game around an air-traffic control tower in a troubled country.

Players have to manage their air space and land all the planes successfully.  Planes refuel and stock up on aid supplies to deliver to the people.  Take off too early, and you don’t move any supplies.  Land too late, and you crash.

Can YOU keep all your birds in the air?

Tags: aircraft, timers, tower

Very, very happy with the results so far.  I wanted to make an unconventional game with a fairly unique mechanic, and I think I’m on my way.  Now I can focus on usability, UI, sound, and level design.

Tags: airplanes, timers, traffic

Here us the first demo of Choke Point. It is an air-traffic control game where you try land planes so they can pick up and deliver medical supplies:

http://files.onearmedman.com/games/ld/12/demo1/

(It might take a minute to show up, so don’t worry)

To play, you have to click on the planes to land them.  The airstrip can only hold a few planes at a time, though, and bigger planes take more space.  When the green bar at the airstrip is full, space has run out. If you try to land a plane on a full strip, it won’t listen to you.

Every time a plane takes off on its own, it carries cargo to be delivered to people in need.  You can make a plane take off early to clear room on the strip, but it will take off without its cargo.  You need to airlift all of the cargo (blue bar at the airstrip) before time runs out.

The fuel is always running down on all the planes, so keep an eye on that–when they run out of fuel, they crash, and you lose points.

That’s about it!  Let me know what you think and what kind of problems you run into.  Have a good night!

Big disappointment with getting sound to work in Processing (some Java Weirdness), but I’m generally pretty happy with the game as it stands.

Final version

Tags: aircraft, final, timers, tower