Another Ludum Dare, another game done! It’s been awhile since our team worked so thoroughly on one of these. Even with different timezones, blackouts and time displaced samurai-themed cartoon breaks, we somehow managed to put it together.

Let’s keep it tidy and simple, after creating and developing Colossorama (LD36) and Hyper Holomayhem (LD37) on past events, we would like to present you Petty Puny Planet 38!

Why have a pet rock when you can have a pet planet? (Technically the same. The planet is just a bigger and cosmic rock). As some bigger-than-life entity, it’s your job to take care of a tiny small world - and the tiny people that live on it - and take it for a spin. Decide every century on how to further develop it. Give the people reaches! Teach them about fire! Mutate them if you must!

However, take in mind that being in charge of a planet is hard work, so you’ll have to take a hundred years long break after every choice. Just hope that the tiny people are still around when you’re back. They’re smart people. They’ll figure something out.

And of course, there wouldn’t be choices without consequences! Take the right decisions and your people can be prepared for the worst. Certain decisions branch into others. Some could make them richer and happier, while others can have the opposite effects! With 8 endings, it’s up to you to put the Plan in Planet and take the people onto a new era!

Or if you don’t want the responsibility, then just go and make the wildest planet that you can. Most choices and events have a visual impact on the planet, making this one of the most outlandish dress up games you’ve probably ever played. If you decide to player the desktop version of the game, at any point, feel free to press the camera button and a screenshot of your planet will be saved on the game’s data folder.

In case you don’t really like desktop versions, you can also play it on your browser, or download it for Android devices! We hope that you like it, and that your feedback can help us add more features in the future! Hopefully, any post-jam updates will take less than a hundred years to be developed! We’ll update you with a post-mortem in the coming days, so I hope you keep us in your sights for a while.

Well then, what are you waiting for? We’re looking forward to see what kind of small world you’re going to have in the end, and we hope you share your screenshots with us! Go on now, you can create your own planets over on itch.io, and don’t forget to leave us a comment over at our Ludum Dare page!

In behalf of team Whales and Games, enjoy your pet planets!

My buddy @jorgegamedev already posted a timelapse video about our game, Petty Puny Planet 38, highlighting the evolution of the project from the coding and developing point of view. However, there’s nothing there about how the art assets actually got done, because I did that on the side. Hooray for teamwork!

Let me talk a bit about why I used Krita, a free open-source digital painting program, to make the game assets for our 3 game jams so far, plus some other projects with varying degrees of success.

Some sprites from Hyper Holomayhem 37, made for Ludum Dare 37. It’s a quasi-randomly generated shooting arcade platformer.

The most important part comes first: Krita is free and open source. Completely free. No hidden charges, no recurring payments, no shades-of-gray morality involved, no account making. I’ve been using it for years now, and it’s a solid alternative to others like Paint Tool Sai, Fire Alpaca and even Photoshop (as long as you don’t need to use vectors or text, which are Krita’s weak points. In which case, yes, I use Photoshop).

If you check the website, you’re probably thinking that it’s mostly a program for digital painting art, and yes, it is. Regardless, like pretty much any other art program, it can be used and adapted to suit your needs. For example, I’ve been using it to make 2D assets for a few projects that @jorgegamedev and I have worked on. Our most recent one, made for this past Ludum Dare 38, is Petty Puny Planet 38, which uses full layered drawings.

A sample of Petty Puny Planet 38’s assets. Check it out and leave us a comment!

During Ludum Dare 36 and 37, however, we instead made games that used sprites. With brushes, guides and tools that can help with it, I also used Krita to make everything that you can see in our games, minus the text. All the UI, buttons and such were made with it as well. Krita is just that flexible.

*Colossorama 36 made for Ludum Dare 36, was our first game jam project. The original title screen was too gory, so we later updated the game as just “Colossorama”, with this more refined and appealing title screen*

Thus far, I’ve shown that we’ve used Krita for a platformer, an arena and even a simulator of sorts. While it’s not public, we also made a tower defense game at some point. The assets, again, were made with Krita, even though the animations and what not were done inside of Unity itself. (Krita actually supports animation, but that's something I haven't dwelled on yet)

Some enemies made for out tower defense game, which we might release in the future. It was a school assignment. Here, you can see some enemies, with their limbs separated, ready to be animated.

Since we’re a team, it’s been a breeze to separate our work and allow for the coders to code and the artists to art, which have resulted in appealing and polished experiences, or so we’ve been told. But if you’re a one person game jammer, well, with enough practice, you can have some of your most needed assets done within minutes. I’m still learning a lot about this, but so far, I’ve had a lot of fun.

Platformer shooter concept art and assets that never were put to use. Oh well. Not all projects can be winners.

Aside from games, though, I’ve mostly used Krita to draw fanart, comics, original characters and even channel art for youtubers, streamers and what not. Feel free to click on this shameless plug if you’d like to check my deviantArt.

Krita doesn’t reinvent the wheel nor try to do some arcane magic, so whatever you know about art theory, layers, filters and what not still applies.Here’s the link again if you’d like to check it out! Take it out for a spin and see if you can put it to use in your own projects. As for me, I can see myself using it in Ludum Dare 39 as well.  Before I leave, if you liked this post, please give Pretty Puny Planet 38 a try. I hope that you like what you see there. In behalf of the team Whales and Games, thanks for reading. Cheers! :whale:

Follow moski on Twitter

Follow Whales And Games on Twitter

Hello, fellow pet planet aficionados! Hope that you enjoyed yesterday’s Star Wars related goof. As you can see, we’ve had some good laughs sharing around our game, Petty Puny Planet, which you can play on your browser, download or even play on Android devices.

But today, we’re not going to do the talking. Instead, we want to say thank you to the people that have featured us in their YouTube channels. They took their time to showcase our game, so we’re going to return the favor!

Mind, you’re entering a spoiler asteroid field here. Some of these videos feature some endings of the game. There’s still some more though!

Blootrix

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgVxABxvptE

Steven Cookies

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNNsWKoMzMo

Randomise User

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpQ6MKZtGEM

The video also features Polyorbis, Snowed In, Small Golf and Hibernaculum. Consider checking their entries as well!

Gamesena.com

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VlzeoUdPtw

The LittleBro

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyyxGvjEVZk

The game was also showcased by Alpha Beta Gamer. All of this sharing has given us very good feedback, and we’re looking forward to making an improved version sometime in the future! Also, streamers from Dare to Play posts have been playing it as well. We’re achieving global outreach here!*

In behalf of our team, I also want to thank the people who have played, reviewed and/or commented on Petty Puny Planet. We’re replying daily to the comments we’re receiving, and we’re keeping track of the feedback. Thanks for helping us improve!

If you’d like to get some more insight of Petty Puny Planet, you can always check @jorgegamdev’s timelapse video or my art related post.

Thanks once again. Whales and Games wishes you to keep enjoying the post-Ludum Dare 38 days. Go play some more games! :whale:

*Not actually achieving global outreach, but our dreams are bigger than our Puny Planets.

We've gotten so many good wishes on our game, Petty Puny Planet 38, and since ~~I'm done watching Samurai Jack for the first time and I'm waiting for the next episode~~ I felt it'd be cool to share, here's our word cloud, from Whales and Games with love!

Petty Puny Planet Post Palooza:

• Play the game! Download it, play it on your browser or even get it on Android!

• Post-Mortem

• Timelapse video

• About the art

• Star Wars Day post

Hope you have a whale lot of fun with the rest of the jam! Go play them games! :whale:

As we've mentioned in the past, we couldn't be any happier with the reception we've gotten, from players, youtubers, streamers and the like, for our game, Petty Puny Planet. But we at Whales and Games have been so busy that we haven't had time to properly give back.

However, with the introduction of games filtered by danger, we got pumped up. I spent a good chunk last night rating and commenting on games on that filter, and I'm pleased to see that, today, they've all passed the 20 ratings barrier!

Among the ones I've checked out so far:

• Ellipticats, a physics based collectathon with simple, yet deceivingly wonderful mechanics.

• Duckinator9000, a bathtub twinstick-but-not-really shooter about a rubber duck and laser eyes.

• Tiny Colonies, a minimalist simulation experiment where the people live, eat and work on their own.

• +1CashEmoticon (the game), a game which title I can't really pronounce. In game, it's a pseudo clicker that, plot twist, becomes a competitive scenario.

• Game of Worlds, a game where you recruit meat shields by day, and fight evil at night.

• NT-virus, a shooting game that starts slow until you start wondering if you're a worthy opponent of its end game challenges.

• Yume Dream, a gorgeous top-view adventure experiment with very different maps.

And it's only increasing. Now, here's the problem with the Danger filter. It's mostly showing those games that are about to get past the 20 ratings necessary, while there's a lot more around sitting around 10 that need notoriety. And there's even some people that keep asking for ratings when they're not giving some around. I personally avoided some endangered projects because of this.

I want to keep rating endangered games, but I'd also like to further help those that have been giving feedback to others as well. So, while we're going through more Danger filter, leave a comment here with your game on it if you've given 5 or more ratings, and we'll rate you back. Even if you're past the 20 mark, we'd like to further encourage those that are actively playing and rating more games (playing and rating our game would be cool too, but this is not about us, so it's not a requirement ;3)

Please keep rating and making the LD a more feedback friendly place! Let's help others leave... the Danger Zone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siwpn14IE7E

Thanks for yor time. If you liked this post, here's more Petty Puny Planet stuff for your reading pleasure :whale::

• Play the game! Download it, play it on your browser or even get it on Android!

• Post-Mortem

• Suggestions to add stuff to the game

• Timelapse video

• About the art

• Star Wars Day post

Today is the day! No idea how much time we've got left, so let's make a final effort! Leave me a comment with a link to your game, and I'll see upon commenting on it. While you're at it, please take a look at our game, Petty Puny Planet 38. I hope that it's of your liking.

Well the, what are you waiting for? Show me what you got.

While I'm here, congratulations to everyone that participated on the LD38. I got to play so many cool games and experiments, and I'm looking forward to what you can come up with in the future. In behalf of our team, Whales and Games, I want to wish you all a happy judging!

Woke up, no results about the judging yet. So I guess our team is going to be hyped all day long for both that and Samurai Jack's season 5 finale. Oh boy.

Well, while the thing is still in limbo, we might as well keep rating, right? Leave a link to your game's post in the comments and we'll check it out. While we're here, would you like to check our game Petty Puny Planet 38 as well?. I mean, whatever helps us all pass some time.

Pray4Aku :whale:

Ahoy! 4th time LDjammer person right here. I'm @Moski, co-designer and lead (if not lone) artist of Colossorama (36), Hyper Holomayhem 37 and Petty Puny Planet 38, all past LDJam entries playable from WhalesAndGames.itch.io. (Colossorama got heavily updated post-jam. Classic jam version should still be downloadable somewhere there)

This time around, though, I'm not participating with the usual team. Instead, @kroltan will be the coder and (lead?) designer of the game, and @jmm will do the music (and possibly co-design. We haven't talked that much about the extent of our roles yet). Code, graphics and sound. A well rounded team. I'm pumped up!

Tools of the trade

The tool I'll be using this time around is still going to be Krita. I wrote about it in the past, showing examples of what I made with it for the past LD Jams. It's versatile for 2D assets and it's completely free and open source.

It's not very good with text though, so if there's any need to make text, I'll use Photoshop instead. In case you'd like to know, I'm using a Cintiq 13HD this time around (I've used an Intuos Pro for the last jams). It's not really that important when it comes to simple game assets though, so even the cheapest of tablets could work.

Teamwork-wise, we're communicating through Discord. Better than Skype and similars, and, of course, free. There's some LDJam channels around, in case you'd like to look for a team or to share ideas with other jammers.

Closing remarks

Well, that's pretty much it. Follow me on twitter if you'd like to stay in contact post-jam. There's not much else to say on my part. Let me just wish y'all the best of luck, and I'm looking forward to seeing what you come up with this time around. Cheers! :whale:

After skipping LD39, team Whales and Games is back, buckos! We’re proud to present our LD40 submission, Jazzy Beats! Be an idol and capture your rival’s fans! The more you have, the worse it’s going to be for her!

Play as Jazzychan, and roam around the ~~butchered perspective Shibuya-ripoff~~ street in an impromptu popularity contest against her rival, Bluessom. She has sent her fans to ~~rip you a new one~~ put you out of business. But the fans aren't very loyal, so beat some sense into them and make them fight for you!

But don't fight each other directly, okay? That's unprofessional.

Hope you enjoy the game as much as we enjoyed making it! Here's a link to our LD page again. You can download the game or play it on your browser. It even has controller support!

In behalf of team Whales and Games, enjoy Ludum Dare 40!

Hello there. I've come to talk a bit about the art direction of Jazzy Beats. As usual with our games, we've got a dedicated programmer ~~who can barely doodle~~ and a dedicated artist ~~whose programming knowledge dates to 2002's HTML classes~~. We've also got a cool audio guy around. But my point is, a game like this one was only possible because of division of labor.

So I want to talk about the art. First thing first, the program I used is the free open source Krita, which I use for all of my drawings, spriting and what not. All of our other games' art have been made with it too. The banner as well. And while any digital painting tablet works just fine, I do happen to have a Cintiq display. That's a year and a half worth of commissions though!

Now, what was my workflow to make as many of these sprites as possible? Well, since I did dabble a bit on Unity this time around, the idea was to make "basic poses" only, and manage the transitions through simple Unity movements, like bouncing. So, I didn't have to sprite all the frames. That would have been unreasonable for a project like this. Heck, this was unreasonable. My wrist ended up aching so much by the time of the deadline. But it was well worth it!

So, by making quick sketches first, then lining them up, coloring and adding extra details, I was able to make a pose. Then another, and another, and so on. Because of time, I had to cut on corners wherever it was possible, so most characters have the same poses. And for purposes of gameplay, some characters are only recolors:

However, I didn't just want to make the recolors be recolors for gameplay purposes. There's a lot of colorblind people out there, so, trying to make it as accessible as possible, I tried to reverse the values of clothes. Note how the yellow guy has bright pants, while the blue character has a light shirt instead. I admit my ignorance when it comes to how colorblindness works, but I want to say that at least I tried to accommodate.

Finally, since the game was about a very crowded street, I wanted to make as many enemies as possible. Time was a constrain, so there's only 4 different looks (8 if you count the recolored versions). Cutting corners, the second version of characters were just a new layer of stuff above the old one, with some minor tweaking here and there. For example, the second male fan was the same with a goatee, different hair, a scarf and boots. Here's how the final sheet for the yellow alternate fan looks like:

I'm extremely satisfied with the results. If you happened to be the artist of your game, I'd like to know about your own experiences when working on it, so do let me know!

Here's the link to the game again, in case you'd like to see these in motion. And do leave us some comments if you'd like me to check out your games as well, since I'm really pushing on Feedback Friends this time around. In behalf of my team, we hope you're having as much playing games as we are. Cheers! :whale:

The reception we’ve gotten for Jazzy Beats has been fantastic, and it’s been fun to reply to them and to check out your games as well. But there’s some things that are still yet to be said about the game, so we decided to make a list of some interesting tidbits about the game’s development, references and so on. Here we go!

1. Lava lamps saved the game

After 4 hours of brainstorming, we still had no idea of what to make for the Jam. For some reason, we got stuck with Idols as our theme. Eventually, @jorgegamedev suggested Lavachan, and it all started to take form after that. I made some sketches, and eventually, she became the first finished sprite, which then we ended up calling Lavasama instead. However, we opted from using her as a protagonist, and she was too cool to be an antagonist, so now she’s just a cameo on the background. Still, if it weren’t for her, who knows what we would have done instead.

We originally wanted a comic/noir feeling to the game. To contrast with a darker world, I made Jazzchan because she’d be yellow, and instruments like trumpets and saxophones are common in noir media. For her rival, we made Bluessom, since her colors would contrast, and Blues seemed like the perfect enemy of Jazz. While her name’s not as catchy, Bluessom is also a play on words on Blues and Blossom, because of her outstanding flower.

2. The World Ends With Skullgirls

We’ve been told that our game resembles TWEWY and Skullgirls. It’s not by accident, as both games were visual and mechanic inspirations for the game (and so was Dynasty Warriors). Because we had girl idols fighting, and we wanted to put it on a Shibuya-like street, we kinda merged them both. Since originally the gameplay wasn’t as spectacular, we eventually made it so there were a lot of enemies on the screen at once, like in Warriors games.

I already mentioned that I made Jazzchan yellow to contrast with the world (which, in my mind, was far more red and dark than the final product). The color came first, and then the theme, which was a result of playing too much Skullgirls. So, she is heavily inspired on that game’s Big Band.

3. Do you like anime?

We love anime, manga and japanese games, so we put some references here and there. Specifically, @jorgegamedev wanted to make a pun about that Dragon Maid one. The 140 is both a reference to the Shibuya 109 building and TWEWY’s 104 homage. It’s a 140 now because @jorgegamedev wanted to make it a reference to Ludum Dare 40. Boom! 3 references in one! And finally, because Steins;Gate is a recurring joke of us since I promised to watch it 2 years ago, I just put the satellite crashed into a building.

While not anime and not necessarily a reference, I made the lamp posts while thinking about The Beginner’s Guide. Just a nod, unless you want to give it a deeper meaning.

4. Whales and Games' references and inside jokes

I also drew a bunch of things to reference other projects from Whales and Games, including released and unreleased ones. Let's be honest: There's pretty much no way that anyone playing on the LD Jam would have gotten them. You should still go play the rest of our games though.

A quick round up of them:

• Dapper Sushi’s fish is a reference to an aquarium game we never actually made, but the character is just so funny to me I reference it on every opportunity.
• Gladiator balloon and Petty Puny Pizza signs are references of older LD games. Blatant pitch for you to check them out
• Shockwave Cereal, seagull, missing poster and everything on Empire's Springs are references to projects currently in development ~~or missing in action~~. You can find more of them by following us on twitter.

5. It's about artistic liberties

@jorgegamedev showcased some gameplay to friends who said that the street looked weird. I'm never been good at perspective or buildings, and it was too late to fix anything, as we were approaching the end of the game. So, pretty much just for kicks, I added a nod to the whole situation. It's about integrity, okay?

Wrapping up

I hope that you liked having a bit more of insight about how Jazzy Beats came to be. We're just some guys trying to make games while having stupid fun while we're at it. Here's a link to check it out again, in case you haven't tried it already. We've had a blast reading your comments and playing your games. It's been fantastic! If you also want to chat and hangout, you're more than invited to our Discord Server.

That's pretty much it for now. Have a whale of a weekend! :whale:

Other articles of interest, upgraded with clickbait titles: - Jazzy Beats' Music made by someone with a computer. Orchestra musicians HATE HIM - Is Jazzy Beats the latest Newgrounds megahit?! CLICK HERE TO FIND OUT - 6 ways Jazzy Beats drew his artist insane. You won't believe number 5!

Newgrounds couldn't stop Jazzy Beats from spreading, so, now, it is also available at GameJolt. Check the links. It's there too!. We're hoping you have a... jolty good time? Who came up with this? @jorgegamedev, get me better puns. Well, anyways, do check it out. It's actually quite hot in there as well, or so we're told.

With that, the game is now available to be played from itch.io, Newgrounds and Gamejolt, with Windows, Linux, Mac and Webgl versions. If you made a game as well, we really recommend taking some time to make different builds of it too. It's been helping us, and it can help you as well.

We at Whales and Games hope that you're having a great time on this rating period. If you want to hang out with us and some fellow game developers, come have a talk at our Discordorino serverino. And once again, thanks a lot to everyone that has played Jazzy Beats. Your comments keep brightening our days! Cheers! :whale:

@jorgegamedev, @robinhoodpt, the Whales and Games Collective and the discord channel, wish you all a happy holidays season and a superb new year! It's still somewhat early for that, but it's never too soon to wish you the best, is it?

I drew this banner to celebrate both the occassion and as a milestone of how far WAG has come since LD36 (and even before)! This drawing features:

• Glade, from Colossorama, made for LD36
• Hypergal, from Hyper Holomayhem, made for LD37
• Petty planet, from Petty Puny Planet, made for LD38
• Joule Thief, from Joule Thief: Charge Your Phone, made for LD39 by @kroltan, but accepted in the Whaleverse canon. Check Kroltan's LD40 entry here!
• Jazzchan, from Jazzy Beats, made for LD40! Go play it!
• Samurai, from Onigami (In development)
• Engineer, from Blueprint Apocalypse (In development)
• Bandit Leader, from The Farming One, made for the Game Maker Contest 2014, before Whales and Games was even a thing!
• Bikini Boss, from Sunset Shockwave for the Global Game Jam 17
• Waddleduck, Dapperfish and Grimbox, miscellaneous recurring concepts
• Polite Whale and Whalechan, from Whales and Games' social media

Our holidays are as cheerful as they can be, with the comments we have kept getting on Jazzy Beats. Jorge-boy just replied to a bunch of comments that had piled up. The team is still continuing to play and rate games, and we're finding some real jewels! It's been a fantastic gamejam! (And yes, this is a very shoehorned pitch, but we do need to keep it relevant to LD40, right?)

Well, it's all been said and done now. Just a few more days until this whole thing wraps up, so I hope you are doing your best at commenting on other people's games. One good comment can really lighten somebody else's day. Happy holidays to y'all! May your new year resolutions become reality! Cheers! :christmas_tree: :whale:

We're still overwhelmed at how many people have checked out Jazzy Beats, which might even make it to 200 ratings soon. That's far more than anything that our team could have anticipated! Thank y'all!

So, we wanted to share a bit of the love and support we've been getting. Here's some people that have featured Jazzy Beats. You're the best!

Mug and Play, who even made a Jazzy Beats style character on the thumbnail! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O98TiD0zx7Y

Randomise User, who checked some other awesome games from the Jam https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEapySEVwTE

Gubbzington's is here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7oxWFefLYM

And here's AwesomeMe's https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98bOJDKDQ2A

And last but not least, a review from Gamejam Curator. In their words, The art of this game has fascinated me, it’s very polished and with a lot of personality, which seems to be a usual feature in the games of Whales and Games. They have managed to give their game a very professional finish, so I'’ll definitely remain attentive to their future projects. We're overflowing with joy :)

Once again, thanks a bunch for the fun times on this jam. As the clock keeps ticking, there's still a lot of people who are below their rating goals, so be sure to give them a good chance just like you've helped us. We're still checking out games as well (when the team is not sick). Let's keep supporting each other! :whale:

And so, the LD40 is finally over, and we're all going around checking final statements, results and whatnot. Incredible games and fun rides all over the place! Even if I have to say so myself, Jazzy Beats, our entry, did quite well! Working on it was a blast, and we're so eager to start other projects! (Sure, we still have a lot pending, but that's besides the point. The job of gamedevs never end).

Here are our results, which are comparable with those of previous entries. On our own averages, we're doing better in art and audio, but we could still do with more understandable themes and innovative games. But learning is part of what makes LD so great! Just keep on improving!

Of course, I'm proud on the graphical department since I'm the artist, but I actually want to congratulate @robinhoodpt for scoring so high on the audio section as well, and @jorgegamedev, whom without, this wouldn't be as polished and unique, which certainly were overall factors. Congrats, fam!

But surely, none of this would have been possible without you, people. We couldn't have gotten the Jam's 4th place in number of ratings if it weren't for your constant support. The last few jams we felt we hadn't given enough proper feedback back and we're a bit disappointed by it. This time around we focused on giving feedback more than ever, and we're quite amazed that we're somewhat featured on the category! Awesome!

The team will be celebrating by sleeping off our different sicknesses and hoping to feel better soon. Maybe some hot chocolate, if we can stand up long enough to prepare it. But while we're seating, you could come chat with us on our Discord channel or even follow us around on Twitter.

For Jazzy Beats we tried to post some dev-logs in regards to the games development. If you have the time, check the post about building the character logic. There's also one about making the music and one about making the art.
There's one about coverage Appreciation for videos and links, and a Happy Holidays post as well. And finally, just assorted Fun Facts. Stay tuned, as @jorgegamedev still wants to post a timelapse, and we're working on the post mortem. Jazzy Beats won't end!

Once again, in behalf of the team, congratulations to all the LD participants, and we hope to have further chances to develop games along you in the future. Happy holidays, and have a magnificent, whalesome 2018! :whale:

Whoop! It’s almost time for Ludum Dare! Who knew! I’m very excited to see the upcoming batch of games and experiments. And, of course, participate along y’all.

I’m not on my own though. I’m just posting on behalf of the team, which consists of…

• @Kroltan, designer of MAGNETOGRABBER 2000 on the past Ludum Dare compo! He’ll be doing the main design and programming. He'll be streaming, so go check him out at some point

• @Moski, aka me, the art designer of Jazzy Beats, also from Ludum Dare 40.

• @RobinHoodPT, doing the sound design. He also made the music and sounds of Jazzy Beats.

Our submission will be done in representation of team Whales and Games. Come say hi at our Discord if you want. We’re looking forward to cooking up something spazzy. Cheers! :whale:

@kroltan, @robinhoodpt and I are proud to present, in behalf of Whales And Games, our pool roguelike lootfesta, Wizsnooks! Get your ball into the magic pool and push it for helmets, weapons and witchcrafty glory!

In behalf of the team, I hope y'all have a whale of a time with this one. Hazzah! :whale:

First of all, great work y'all for making it to the LD41. I've already played some games, and the genre mix-and-matching has been genius so far! Hit me up with your best and I'll hit ya' back with my rates!

Speaking of hitting...

Come try Wizsnooks, a challenging pool experience with lootdrops! Kill enemies, equip better, and disenchant the excess to recover health! It's hard, but I have faith in thee!

On Ludum Dare 40, I wrote about how I spent 2 days drawing characters for our game. It was a follow up to the post I made on LD 38 about Krita, the free open-source program. Today, I'll be retreading the whole thing, but applied to the art of our latest game, Wizsnooks!

The games developed by Whales and Games usually consists of a programmer, a sound effects person and, in the lack of any other art-people, me. So, during the brainstorm of ideas for our game, someone suggested mixing snookers with roguelike elements in a medieval setting. Seeing the appeal, I quickly sketched a concept of sorts for it:

When we finally decided to use that theme as our game, we had to start thinking about the whole "looks" of the thing. I even tried at one point going with non-lined art to parody Dark Souls or something, but in the end, we chose to stick to my classic style. I even sketched many possible faces for our protagonist white ball

And Just Monika.

I could go into detail about the story behind every enemy of the game, the tiles and the weapons, but the core of what I want to comment is this. Because of how our team is managed, the programmer(s) can focus on making a great game and the sound person usually does a few tracks and then offers main support to the programmers. I, the lead artist, have no real knowledge of programming and can barely use the tools to upload my own assets. However, having one sole task, I get to draw a lot, and then some, and then some more. Here's a few screenshots of the development of art assets of our game:

I really want to thank my team, since, otherwise, I wouldn't be able to participate in game development in this fashion. Dedicating pretty much the whole game jam time to art lets us make more with our time. If you're interested in seeing how this all went from still assets to something live, do give Wizsnooks a try.

And for those that would like to do their own assets for future game jams, go download Krita. It's 100% free and constantly updated. It can also be used for sprite work. Like all good tools, it takes a while to understand it, but even with a very cheap digital painting tablet, you could really make your future projects sparkle.

That's all for now. Whales and Games thank you for reading and for participating in this jam. If you feel like chatting, our discord channel is live. Cheers! :whale:

On my previous post, I talked a bit about why the art of our game, Wizsnooks, looks like that, mostly showcasing some assets. Today, however, I want to bring up something a bit more meaty instead. Say, how about a step-by-step deployment of an asset?

And what better than doing that by showcasing bad guys? I mean, @kroltan already showed you the guts of the game, while also proving once more than old-timey cartoon villains are the best. So, let's go from there.

Remember, the tool I'm using is Krita, which is completely free and downloadable from here. To make the best use of it, you need a digital painting tablet. This can still be done with a mouse, but it may take way more time. Getting a 50 to 100USD tablet is a wise investment.

---

Wizsnooks is snooker or pool, mixed with roguelike fantasy elements. So, clearly, our enemies will also need to be pool balls. So, the assets begin with a simple circle over a backgroundless layer.

Below it, I filled the layer with color, which can easily be later shaded and recolored for different enemies. The less layers you use, the quicker you can do the process, but with a color and a shade on different layers, you can have more customization in the future.

When I had the ball done (which was layer copied, pasted and edited multiple times to make a sheet), I proceeded to sketch enemies. Each sheet consisted of an Idle pose and a Rolling set of poses. The plan was to make the idle look menacing, like an enemy should, while the rolling was meant to look funny.

So, I turned down the opacity of the ball, and sketched on a new layer above them. Then, when I was done sketching, I would make yet another layer with the lineart, and delete the sketch.

I later colored on a layer below it. There's techniques such as coloring over alpha and the like, but I'm mostly just going with the basic instructions. This is how the colored layer looks under the lineart.

And here's how it looks with the opacity of the ball at 100%.

Needless to say, the process is repeated for every pose. Because these are circles, it would have been simple to just draw over the circle, like the protagonist, and be done with it.

However, that was by design to allow the player to look good with helmets and swords. The enemies, to outstand, would need a bit of volume, so there were parts that needed to stick out.

And there it is. Now, @JorgeGameDev made an animated version of the Dragon Orb (which we affectionately call Dragorb). Here's the cute little fellah.

That's pretty much all there is on the subject. Feel free to ask any questions or the like about the development of these assets or the use of Krita. I'll try to answer to the best of my ability.

---

Here's hoping you get a chance to see the whole thing come alive by playing Wizsnooks, available on your browser and downloadable for Windows, Mac and Linux. If you want to chat, this discord server is where it's at. And last but not least, here's the Whales and Games Twitter, so you can keep in contact with us.

In behalf of my team, we hope that you have a fantastic judging phase. We'll continue to check more games, so be sure to put your best face. Cheers! :whale:

More Whales and Games posts of interest

• Snooker your way into the Music of Wizsnooks!, by @RobinHoodPT
• Getting the Ball Rolling in Wizsnooks: Hopefully a Success Story, by @Kroltan
• My role as the artist of Wizsnooks, by @Moski
• A wordcloud, brought to you by ~~the collective histeria of the Ludum Dare community~~ @RobinHoodPT