Trying to make water work. it’s not doing so great. Here’s how it’s going to work:

• If there is an empty space below water it will fill up that space
• if there is a block below the water and space available on the sides, it fill flood up those sides
• Only downwards and vertical movement, in a way that makes underground rivers, not lakes.
• Water will probably instantly kill you, as a result you’ll have to make sure ore doesn’t fall in.
• Ores float in water; temptation

oh, and I also made the darkstone more beveled.

Once Water’s working I need to make it be dangerous, I’m still not sure whether to do insta-death or oxygen bar.

I’m also changing the game, whereas before it was going to be some sandbox thing; I don’t have enough time to do that. So your goal will be to collect a certain % of ore before time runs out (getting the same ore in a row gets you more points), and return to the surface with them. After water I’ll add enemies or something. maybe some details like trees and tree roots.

[/pun]

So yeah, water works more-or-less the way I envisioned it, it does in fact make lakes instead of rivers, but it just makes it that much more dangerous, which is good. The next thing to do is make ore float and do something about water’s dangerousness.

and after that it’s enemy time, I’m thinking a mole and the ever-mandatory ball of slime.

It’s completely ridiculous and I love it.

updated

• water graphics
• added roots
• added trees

If I can’t find anything else aesthetic to do, I guess that means I have to makes something useful. Blob enemy time!

Here’s what I need to do:

• Slime enemy
• implement some sort of HUD (showing score, health, and oxygen)
• Add the menu stuff (instructions, etc.)
• polish and stuff

Let’s do this!

Slimes are done! I may give them the added feature of leaving a slimy trail if I have time later, but for now this is enough

Slimes:

• Move at your speed (2x faster than the mole)
• Deadly
• If it hits water it dissolves into it, making the water toxic (toxic water insta-kills you)

Moles:

• Move at half your speed
• Deadly
• Every so often it will destroy the next dirt block it runs into (max 8 )
• Acts kinda like ores do in water

And I’ve started work on the HUD, take a look:

Done implementing oxygen, I’ll take a few moments to catch my breath, and it’s off to implementing score!

My game is done! I’d tell you all about it, but I already did that over at http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-19/?action=preview&uid=1548

I’m mildly baffled at the audio ratings my game recieved.

[ – – 5  3 2 – – 4 – 1 1 – 2 2 1 – 2 1- -]

First off, look at all those dashes. My game certainly had audible sound, and my game being made in game-maker, I see no reason for it not to work. I do however appreciate the amount of dashes I got versus the amount of ones, Protip: make sure those headphones are plugged in.
Although I may be biased, my audio certainly deserved more than a one.  This makes me mildly angry because those ones are mostly either
A) I’m on mac/linux and I’m jelly because I can’t play it but I’ll vote anyways, I’ll just give audio 1/5
B) I don’t hear audio, has nothing to do with the fact my volume is turned down. I’m in a bad mood so I’ll rate 1/5 instead of n/a
C) the game only has one song and one sfx, I am completely ignoring the fact that the game really doesn’t need any more than that and rating 1/5 because there aren’t 50 songs and/or they’re not chip-tunes and all pixel art games need chip tunes

I also got a lot of dashes for community, which is almost more gobsmacking. Remember people, there is a handy button for viewing the person’s journal

The humor category also bit me hard, as I didn’t make a funny game. Which make memad at the category, as I’m sure I’ve said before, giving a game props for being funny is great, but we shouldn’t be forced into making a funny game, and we shouldn’t turn a cold shoulder to more serious or neutral games in the process.

Anyways, </rant>, I think I’m just disappointed because I got 95% praise in the comments, and then I get on the computer today to see this. I’d really appreciate it if people commented for reasons other than to congratulate as well. Being told your game is great is good and all, but nowhere near as helpful as some good ‘ole constructive criticism. A few people commented that the game was “missing something to make me really enjoy it” and it frustrated me that they offered no solutions (as in, I had to sit around for a week and figure it out myself).

I’m really happy with the game I made, but this puts a bit of a damper on my desire to work on it more.

also whoever rated 2/5 for graphics. . . just . . .

don’t have much of an idea for what the game’s going to be like, so I’m fiddling around with the menu.

THEME: fishing

LIMITATION: game ends in 60 seconds

RULE: all variable names must be palindromes (fairly easy because I’m using GameMaker :V )

I ditched the latter par of the whole “So bad it’s good” thing. AKA “It’s bad”. I mustered up all my experience from my 8th grade game-maker games in order to create this masterpiece entitled: BOBER<S QUEST

alt title: Why game-maker is so notorious

Here is a screenshot for your viewing (dis)pleasure

actual post thing where I say the exact same thing again: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/minild-25/?action=preview&uid=1548

btw sorry if this post is completely rubbish, I’m in the rubbish mindset from wasting an hour of my life on this.

Good luck and good fun to all! see you next week-end

I’ve run out of whale related titles, but I am back from our “super official Victoria LD meetup” with Blackduck and Zatech. and I decided to set up my computer in a different spot, which allowed me to finally set up a second monitor!

Behold: workspace photo!

So yeah. I’m still fiddling with getting off the whale. so here’s a pic of our brainstorm last night (I’ll give you a guess as to which marker was mine)

Ipods actually take really good photos. I’m impressed

You’re awesome.

I was going to post the usual frustrated-about-voting-results post. But I let it sit there for a while and realized it was useless. I just wanted to say thanks for the great LD as usual, and thanks to everyone who commented on my game! And a really big thanks for those of you who gave me a rating for community even though the game didn’t even work for you. The comments are always my favorite part of post-compo fun and I’m thankful for those that I got.

I tried to put all the over-thinking of it and strategics away this round; I Named the game what I wanted to, not something that would show up on top just for the sake of it showing up on top. I didn’t like the theme; I threw it in the gutter and made a game I actually enjoyed. Hell, I wasted an hour making “box art”. I just had fun and I hope y’all did too. I’ll see you at the Mini-LD!

Not sure if I’m going to bother actually starting this game, but here’s the concept nonetheless

Title:
In case of emergency use stairs

Desc:
You are aware of the presence of cake on the main floor; get there ASAP via the closest elevator and let none get in your path.

Mockup:

As you head down in the elevator, others will try to hitch a ride. you will then need to use a combo of your abilities (open doors, close doors, emergency telephone, Lobby button) as well as changing the indication of which direction your capsule is moving in. every time someone is let in, they will select a floor they want to go to. The floor they wish to get to will be incremental (first duder wants the lobby, second duder wants the 1st floor, etc.). When you arrive at a floor someone wants to get off at you will be forced to stop, slowing you down and making it easy for others to get on. The game ends when either you get to the lobby or your elevator is forced to move upwards (because the last selected floor is higher than your current height). Yeah.

Done when:
The game is done when there are atleast 50 floors, randomly interspersed, and everything mentioned above is included. There will also be a menu and a menu theme and a song for the game itself, aswell as some encouraging vocal stuff when you pull off good combos. There will also be a score meter, giving you more scores the better your combos.

Okay so about a month ago now there was ORCAJAM2 and it was awesome. Some of us took turns making 5-minute games (highly recommend you try that, it’s also awesome). Anyways for the October Challenge I’m currently working on a full version of that 5 minute game. Because I had to make a game in 5 minutes I used Game-Maker, and I’ll be continuing with it since I’d much rather have a good time and actually have a finished product than learn something new…. again. Anyways, you’re a little submarine, going around caves, and you can’t see nothing. So you have to fire little depth sound torpedo things to see with. Yeah. It looks more fun than is sounds and it definitely plays more fun than it looks.  Anyways, I’ll just cut to the chase and link to the gameplay video. (you should make sure you watch in 720p fullscreen if you want to actually see anything).

Submarine game test

I’d post a screenshot but it’s not really a game that lends well to still images. So yeah! Basically I just need to refine the controls right now. Then from there I decide if I want this to be some slow-paced strategically  benighted maze, or if I’ll just ditch the lighting and go for something faster paced. And then I make levels. And then Menus. And then I try and figure out how one sells a GameMaker game!

I’m going skiing for most of the weekend, but that doesn’t mean I can’t do the jam and finish for monday! Anyways, here’s one of these because they’re fun.

Alas WHAT IS THIS DUNGEON DAN YOU SPEAK OF?

well I was off skiing all weekend with no internet so I didn’t get to post about this at all, but HERE IS MY JAM GAME
(naming this post has me already missing all the bad puns and alliterations I usually title my posts all along LD)

DUNGEON DAN

There’s only one level (as explained on the entry page) but I still find it to be a lot of fun personally.

PLAY DUNGEON DAN: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-22/?action=preview&uid=1548

And if the game seems really familiar that’s because you might have played my LD16 game, TOWER QUEST (http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/2009/12/13/tower-quest-almost-done/) which this is basically a revamp of but with less levels.

So yeah! Happy LD everyone!

I’ll write up a Post-mortem later tonight

Isn’t that cool? Isn’t that just the most coolest thing ever? Because it is. It really is. I want to get deeper into this but really that’s all there is to it. I’m going to make a video game, you’d better make a video game too. Who wouldn’t want to make a video game? I can make a Video Game, you can make a video game, we’ll all make video games and it’ll be amazing. Truly amazing. Just think about how amazing that is. I’ll tell you how amazing it is that so many people take part in making video games; it’s the best. I spend a lot of time around people who know things about making video games. So I often forget how AWESOME it is, how UNIQUE that actually is. So just remember, you’re making a video game, you’re creating a video game, and not just any video game; your video game. and that’s just about the best thing ever.

AND I’LL BE SEEING ALL OF YOU, YES YOU, ON THE 20th

WOAH WOW. WHERE WERE YOU ALL WEEKEND. I was not making video games. Except for today, today I was not not making video games, and in the little time I had I slapped this togheter. SO YEAH here’s Circuit, where really the only tiny thing about it is the resolution! wooh!

mandatoryscreenshotforyounowhave. also a map you can cheat with. you cheater.

So yeah you can go check out “Circuit” right now over at this here fine link I’ve so graciously provided for your clicking pleasure.

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-23/?action=preview&uid=1548

I might polish it up a bit more for the jam tomorrow but that depends of things like school