Well, after seeing that Notch can make a game in 72 hours, I decided that the Ludlum Dare Jam would be a good start before the Christmas season.

In short,  I am known for making some simple mods/plug-ins for Bukkit and want to see if I can program a simple game in 72 hours.

So, here goes nothing:

Since we now know the theme of this Ludum Dare “Alone” the team that is working with me has been brainstorming like crazy.

They came up with the wonderful idea of making a side-scrolling adventure type game. So we’ll be working on that a bit more.

But for now, time to get some sleep as 5:55 AM just past me …

Good night for now and we’ll see you back at the “Dark” side

Team Aphelion

After a good sleep, some milk and good bread we’re up for day 1 to get back to work.

Team Aphelion

We’re about to start working on the artwork, the first parts of the story are written out, even our player sprite has come alive

Now for the fun part … programming the sliding images so it looks like you’re not bumping your head

Team Aphelion

After a bad start duing the day, we settled for having the sprites done and can move our “hero” around in his world.

Time to get a good nights sleep and hopefully have a clean mind for programming tomorrow

Team Aphelion

Shame that I have to write this post but since I have had some “bad” news,  the Ludum Dare for me has come to a screeching hold.

I have thought it deeply over but I do want to finish up the theme build before the next Ludum Dare.

So for now, Team Aphelion signing off

Last year, the Ludum Dare stopped for us after a less happy message during the weekend.

So let’s see what we can do this time:

We hope to be using HTML5/Canvas, Music by our own people and maybe some good graphics from our designers

Let’s get ready to rumble …..

Well, that’s a different theme this time … Tiny World

I’ll have to get a good nights sleep over this before I start programming away something that I might throw in the bin tomorrow.

But it’s definitely a theme that can become a good and funny game

After a good nights rest, the idea came all of a sudden.

Tiny Tale, the RPG that takes your character through a small world, getting wiser every step of the way.

After deciding on the style, the first small problem encountered: CreateJS doesn’t have a good manual that explains how to make things move without having to write a whole set of extra libraries

So, after looking at what we did last year … I am eager to make sure that this time there’s something to show that’s better.

Another 3 hours work later, the first pieces have come together as you can see in the picture

Well, last picture before I dive into bed to get some well deserved rest. Tomorrow another day to work

I found out that having a day in the weekend feeling like …. broken doesn’t help the contest spirit.

But i did manage to get a lot of things done and still working on perfecting the last bits before I declare it “Complete”

Next time, hope not to be sick in the next Ludum Dare weekend so I can effectivly work on things.

A great thanks go out to:

* Valesse (For the help with the logo’s)

* RISGaming (For the help with all the artwork that I “made bad”)

After a long day at work, I found out that writing a simple Post-Mort-em would definitely be a good idea:

Tiny Tale was made in 72 hours, something I didn’t believe myself as well. I was hoping to get at least some basic things done and work on it some other day but to my own surprise there was a complete game out within the time limit.

What went right:

• Idea was there within the first 24 hours
• I announced it at the forums for my team, they knew when the Ludum Dare would be
• Had enough time to work on it, thou being sick doesn’t help the brain waves

What went wrong:

• Taking too much time making graphics which I had to call people in to “remake” them
• Being sick
• DropBox didn’t push the last version correctly so some people played the incomplete game
• Trying to use a scripting language and library that you don’t know too well.

Next time, no more JavaScript or HTML5 before I learn them properly.

In the end, I did manage to make a game, which I think is a good thing within the 72 hours the Jam has.

Till next time, August 20212

Team Aphelion signing off

I planned the whole weekend off, no people coming over or sick people to take care for.

Hopefully the theme will be a good one again.

As I suspected the theme would be a “easy” one like Kittens, I wasn’t expecting Evolution to come out of the high hat.

Thinking about the movie as @jwaaaap suggested, I didn’t come up with a shred of ideas to start of with.

And then it hit me (apple falling from the tree idea), Evolution is about life as well.

So, I have decided to take my main character through his own life, as he’s growing older and hopefully wiser.

Next update will be tomorrow, now back to the coding

Sadly, I have to stop working on the Ludum Dare as I just (1 hour ago) walked down my stairs, slipping with the foot and hitting the ground a bit too hard.

1st thing I thought, “O no, there goes my Ludum Dare”.

So, at this moment, with a little headache and some bruises, it’s time to say “Stop, heal up first”

I might finish up the game later, maybe not.

Signing off

Hopefully this time I can be participating without breaking things like legs and feet.

So, here we go again

I’M IN

After thinking if I have the time and resources to make another game this time, I decided to clean out my complete schedule for the coming week so I can do some work on my programming and game sprites creating

So time to saddle up and ride the wild bull that’s called the “Ludum Dare”

Hearing that the Ludum Dare this time is on a better moment in time in December and also gotten some better tools to work with, let’s get this party started 😀

Well, I still have some hours left but my head has gone for a worse after 24 hours of no sleep.

Time for me to at least show what I made to the world. I might enhance it after the Ludum Dare a bit more with new levels.

Looking back, the theme wasn’t really working for me in the first 24 hours. I had no idea what to make out of it.

Then I looked at an webcam in Canada and saw some kids throwing snowballs and small Santa.

So, yeah, there was the idea. Just make Santa visit some houses and then ride off back to the North Pole.

Learning Curve:

* I learned how to work with Fusion 2, didn’t work with it before the Ludum Dare so had to find out the hard way that it might have been easier to learn to work with it.

* Had some better sleep in between so I could have a clear mind as well.

See you all next year and happy Holidays to you all

Since I only heard about it today and it’s Kingsday tomorrow in the Netherlands, I will have a look if the theme is gonna be any good.

Will be participating in the Jam as always as it makes it easier to define people for a team as well.

Programs being used:

* Multimedia Fusion 2

* WikiLoops (Music created by live musicians)

* Paint.Net for the lovely graphics