MrPhil

LD11

Ring.Insert(My.Hat)

I’m excited to have the chance to join this time. I’ve completely cleared the weekend and should be able to spend 100% of my weekend sleeping and gamedev-ing. Might even have a couple nights this week to do some warm-up!

This will be my second Ludum. Last time was a few back; I think the theme was Growth, so that would make it LD 7. I wasn’t able to finish that one because I got hopelessly mired in my graphics code. This time around I’m going to use IndieLib and be able to focus on game play. I really want to walk away from this experience with something visible and modestly fun. I’ve been working a long time on game development without something visible to show off. It’d be nice to finally get something out there I can point to with pride!

Good Luck,
Mr. Phil
Mr. Phil Games

T-02:18:34.1

  • 5:30 PM EST Nap
  • 7:54 PM EST Take picture of desk area
  • 8:09 PM EST Post desk photo

My desk for the Ludum Dare 11

Interesting things to note:

  • Apple remote for tunes
  • Nail clippers and brush for lap cats
  • Tums for code burn
  • Deluxe Mixed Nuts for emergency brain food
  • Shredder for embarrassing ideas

Tags: deskphoto

Comments

PoV
18. Apr 2008 · 21:20 UTC
Awesome. A fedora too. 😀
19. Apr 2008 · 12:38 UTC
Man has to hang his hat somewhere!

Friday Dinner (T-00:50:00.1)

Ludum Dare 11 Friday Dinner

Creamed Spinach, Herb Potatoes (somewhat smashed,) fish sticks with Tarter sauce and a Fosters.

Tags: foodphoto

Winner, Minimalist

Theme winner is Minimalist.

I’ll have to think about this one.

Comments

18. Apr 2008 · 23:08 UTC
bah.

1 day 20 hours 19 minutes remaining until impact

I’ve had to abandon my idea of using IndieLib. I had some strange problem with running in debug mode. Oh well, I am excited to be using PTK instead. It was also on my list of engines to try. So far I like it. Actually, Wow, it is an appropriate engine for this theme because it takes a very minimalist approach to everything.

I’ve decided to do a minimalist turn-based strategy game. I’ve been contemplating what the bare necessities are required. The idea is still fluid, but I have put together my framework and implemented the ‘Next Turn’ button. That seems a necessary element for a turn-based game don’t you think.

Here’s a screen shot:

First screen shot of my minimalist turn-based game.

The logo is actually a test of my codes ability to put a sprite up, it won’t be a part of the game 😉

And you can even download my executable here to try clicking the ‘Next Turn’ button! (Windows build, sorry I don’t have a Mac or Linix to create builds with) Let me know if you have problems. It’d be useful to address them now.

Tags: screenshot

Comments

HybridMind
19. Apr 2008 · 03:20 UTC
your win build worked fine for me MrPhil. tested it on an xp box
19. Apr 2008 · 12:38 UTC
Thanks for checking HybridMind. I keep a look out for yours and return the favor.

Midnight snack

Midnight snack

Hopefully this will help me last for another hour.

Tags: foodphoto

Breakfast: Biscuits and sausages

Breakfast: Biscuits and sausages. What no fruit!?! No veggies?!?! Well, actually there are blueberries inside those sausages. No really, they are there…. truly.

Ludum Dare 11 Saturday Breakfast

The magically ingredient to this dish is in the jar. That is genuine Vermont Maple Syrup, carried in buckets from about 35 trees to a boiling pan and then canned by ME! That is what I did last weekend at my Uncle’s homestead. It tastes AMAZING!

WOW am I full! Tomorrow I’ll have to only have two biscuits and three sausage links.

Tags: foodphoto

Comments

HybridMind
19. Apr 2008 · 12:45 UTC
I live in VT and can attest to the the quality of our syrup… and cheese! 😉
19. Apr 2008 · 14:07 UTC
Oooo…. Cabot Sharp Cheddar…. Mmmmmmm…. might have to run to the store!
HybridMind
19. Apr 2008 · 14:13 UTC
I’m down in Brattleboro.. you know, the ‘banana belt’ of Vermont.. 😉

Well, nice to see another Vermonter here!
19. Apr 2008 · 17:54 UTC
Ah yes… I love the names areas have around here. My Uncle lives in the Northeast Kingdom.

Entering dangerous territory

Lunch: Corn chowder with a steak sandwich washed down with a Fosters.

Ludum Dare 11 Saturday Lunch

I’ve got the basic idea worked out now and starting to put the pieces together. I’ve reached the point where I need to refactor some of my code because it is starting to get repetitive. This is a dangerous area of me because in LD 7 I never got past this stage!

Second screen shot of my minimalist turn-based game.

Tags: foodphoto, screenshot

Sun attack

I hit a wall this afternoon. After lunch the sun started to warm-up my side of the building, my brain slowed down. I tried to pound out the new GUI system but eventually relented and took a nap. So I’m back in action now with a little help from my Dr. Pepper.

Post nap pick-me up

Tags: foodphoto

Comments

sgstair
19. Apr 2008 · 21:32 UTC
yeah, got pretty hot here this afternoon :\ I’m doing some cooking and waiting for things to cool down a bit.

Scope fears

I had a little less sausage and biscuits this time for breakfast this morning. The glass of grapefruit juice looks brown because I added some brown sugar to cut through the acid.

Ludum Dare 11 Sunday Breakfast

The scope of my project is too big for the time remaining. I keep getting bogged down in the internals of the user interface and little time has gone into the game play. So even though it feels like I’m wasting time, I’m brainstorming solutions.

Here is new screen shot. Not a lot has changed, but believe me a lot has changed in the code.

Sunday morning screen shot of my minimalist turn-based game.

Tags: foodphoto, screenshot

Oh… despair.

I am resisting the strong urge to throw in the towel. I’ve yanked a bunch of complicated graphics and GUI stuff out. I’ve gone completely text based which helps with the deadline and actually goes with the theme! I now call my game BATTLE MAGIC!

Sunday afternoon screen shot of my minimalist text-turn-based game BATTLE MAGIC

Tags: screenshot

Is it called supper or dinner?

Here is my early dinner of a calzone with sausage, onions, green peppers, black olives and mushrooms. All with my favorite soda Dr. Pepper! Oh, and red gravy naturally.

Ludum Dare 11 Sunday Dinner

4.5 hours left! Can I do it?!?!?!

Sunday eveningscreen shot of my minimalist turn-based game.

Tags: foodphoto, screenshot

Comments

DrPetter
20. Apr 2008 · 18:51 UTC
Hmm… those new pepper cans are weird-looking. We don’t get those over here I think. Not that I’d know, since none of my local shops carry anything but boring old coke and fanta :/

Battle Magic Done!

Its done! And it turned out pretty hard to win.

Windows only, sorry.

Download

If someone thinks they can help me port a PTK codebase then leave me a comment.

Battle Magic - Ludum Dare 11

Tags: final, screenshot

Battle Magic: Epilogue

I used the PTK library and wrote all my code from scratch.  I used Visual Studio as my IDE.  Paint was my trusty graphics app, but none of my graphics work made it into the final game!  (There was a little Photoshop Elements, but don’t tell Paint.)

Here is a look at my code.  You’ll be surprised how much GUI work I did.  Download Battle Magic’s source code

Tags: sourcecode

LD12

Why does it start spinning just before hitting the ground?!?

Pretty much spent every hour since the start trying to get the Farseer engine to work.   My biggest and lengthiest hurdle was discovering and then fixing the fact that Silverlight uses a TopLeft coordinate system and Farseer use a center of object system. I probably would have figured it out faster, but I just happen to pick coordinates that interacted in a way that my small test box would hit the corner of the ground and bounce off spinning. Visibly the ground took up the bottom of the screen so it sent me on a wild goose chase looking for buggy forces.

Farseer finally behaving

PS.  I’ve been Twittering as I work in a sort of experiment.  If anyone else is, let me know and I’ll follow: http://twitter.com/MrPhilGames

Tags: MrPhil

Comments

10. Aug 2008 · 00:54 UTC
Man I hate those wild goose chases based on translation of two slightly different coordinate systems …. following on Twitter too :)
10. Aug 2008 · 04:39 UTC
Neato! I have a follower! Heh heh.

Stacker (maybe final)

Getting close to the deadline so I wanted to submit a backup final.

I’m calling my game Stacker. Goal is to get the little blocks to stack up to the line. If you are successful the next level raises the bar a little. I have not made it too the very top yet. It should reward you, but I haven’t been able to tested it yet.

How high can you go!
Here is the link: Stacker

Tags: MrPhil

Stacker Final

I made it harder at higher levels.  Have fun!

Stacker Final

Stacker Final—(See note below)
It is written in C# for Silverlight 2.0 Beta 2.  It should run in Firefox and IE on Mac and Windows.

I used the Farseer Physics Engine and the rest was written from scratch.

NOTE: I found a bug that can lock up the browser: Here is the repair Stacker Final (Repaired) I now limit how many blocks you can use and make you restart the level if you go over. The Farseer engine starts to suck up all the CPU cycles after about 90 blocks.

Tags: final, MrPhil

Comments

Alsee
24. Aug 2008 · 12:33 UTC
Gahhh, yuck. It wants to install Microsoft Silverlight.

Stacker High Score

I actually enjoy playing my game! I finally beat level 14!

MrPhil Stacker High Score L14

Has anyone else done better?

Tags: MrPhil

LD13

Count Me In

I’ve decided to enter again.  This will be Ludum Dare number 4 for me.  This time I’m planning to use BlitzMax and Jake Birkett’s Grey Alien BlitzMax Game Framework.  Here is the basic setup code I’ll be using (if you follow the “Start Here” document this should be your result, except I added a try-catch around everything for unhandled exceptions):

SuperStrict

?Win32
Import “../include/fullaccess.cpp”
Import “-ladvapi32”
?

‘Import various Mac OS API calls made in C.

?MacOS
Import “../include/GAGMacLib.m”
?

Include “../include/commoncode.bmx”
Include “../include/commontypes.bmx”

Try

ccCreateMutex(“BasicSetup”)

AppTitle = “BasicSetup”

ScreenWidth = 800
ScreenHeight = 600

Game = New TGame
Game.SetSubPathWrapper(“Grey Alien Games/Basic Setup”)
Game.Init()
Game.DebugDisplayX = 5
Game.DebugDisplayY = 95
Game.SetEscapeSound(“ButtonClick”)

Global images:TImageBank = New TImageBank
images.SetPath(Game.ImagePath)
Global sounds:TSoundBank = New TSoundBank
sounds.SetPath(Game.SoundPath)

‘Instance both types that we created
Global TitleScreen: TTitleScreen = New TTitleScreen
Global GameScreen: TGameScreen= New TGameScreen

Game.GraphicsCreate() ‘Create a graphics context
HideMouse ‘hide the mouse
LoadData() ‘load data using a function we will define
ccFlushAll() ‘flush keys and mouse

Local LoopExit:Int = 0 ‘boolean for exiting the main loop
Game.FixedRateLogic.Init()
Game.NoTimingTicks = 3 ‘only applied if Game.NoTiming=1

Repeat
‘do the logic separately from the drawing
If Game.MainLogicLoop() = -1 Then ShutDown()
‘draw the screen and flip it to show it
Game.ScreenDraw()
Until LoopExit = 1
ShutDown()

Function Shutdown()
Tgame.MakeGoodExit()
ShowMouse() ‘just in case it was hidden.
‘Exit the program
End
End Function

‘Instance both types that we created

Function LoadData()
AutoMidHandle True
ccClsVSync()’Ensure clear screen when loading

LoadSounds()
LoadImages()
TitleScreen.Load() ‘Call load method of TitleScreen
TitleScreen.Start() ‘Call start method of TitleScreen
‘Now loading is complete, let the main loop handle the drawing
Game.CurrentTScreen = TitleScreen

?Win32 ‘Has the app been suspended while loading? If so, deal with it.
If GetForegroundWindow()<>Game.WindowHandle
Game.SuspendedEvent = 1
EndIf
?
End Function

Function LoadSounds()
sounds.Load(“ButtonClick”) ‘load the sound “buttonclick”
End Function

Function LoadImages()
Game.mouse.Load(“pointer”) ‘load mouse pointer image
images.Load(“Paused”) ‘Load “paused” graphic
‘Create Paused sprite
Game.SpritePausedCreate(Images.Find(“Paused”))
End Function

Type TTitleScreen Extends TScreen
Field x#,y#

Method Load()
‘this is a TScreen method
ImageLoad(“title.jpg”,FILTEREDIMAGE)
MidHandleImage(Image)
‘this gets midhandled automatically
HeaderLoad(“logolarge”,screenwidth/2,100)
Menu = TMenu.Create(“ButtonMO”, “ButtonClick”,0,0,10)
‘Add a new Button
‘Allow Space and Enter to trigger it
Menu.AddNew(“playgame”, “playgameMO”).OKButton = 1
Menu.AddNew(“exitgame”,”exitgameMO”)
Menu.Centre() ‘Center the Menu
‘Move the Y position of the menu
Menu.SetY(Menu.Y+50)
End Method

Method Start()
Super.Start() ‘Call Start method of base type TScreen
Game.GameFade.Init(FADE_SPEED,0) ‘fade in
Game.Mouse.On()
Game.FixedRateLogic.Init()
End Method

Method Logic()
‘Call the logic method of the base type
Super.Logic()
‘If the start button is clicked, fade to the next screen
‘and set that next screen to the GameScreen
If Menu.FindButton(“playgame”).Clicked Then
Game.GameFade.Init(FADE_SPEED,1,Game.MusicChannel, True)
Game.DestinationTScreen = GameScreen
EndIf

‘If the exit button is clicked, fade the screen and exit
If Menu.FindButton(“exitgame”).Clicked Then
Game.GameFade.Init(FADE_SPEED,1,Game.MusicChannel, True)
Game.DestinationTScreen = Game.ExitScreen
EndIf
End Method

Method Draw()
SetBlend SOLIDBLEND
‘Image is a field of the base type TScreen
DrawImage(Image,screenwidth/2+x,screenheight/2+y)
SetBlend ALPHABLEND
Header.Draw() ‘Draw the logo that we loaded earlier
Menu.Draw() ‘Draw the Menu
End Method
End Type

Type TGameScreen Extends TScreen

Method Load()
ImageLoad(“bg1.jpg”)
HeaderLoad(“logosmall”,210,35)
End Method

Method Start()
Super.Start()
Game.GameFade.Init(FADE_SPEED,0) ‘initiate fading
Game.Mouse.Off() ‘Turn the mouse off
Game.FixedRateLogic.Init()
End Method

Method Logic()
Super.Logic() ‘handles menu core logic
End Method

Method Draw()
Cls
SetBlend ALPHABLEND
DrawImage(image,0,0)
Header.Draw() ‘Draw the header
SetColor 255,255,255
‘Draw instructional text
ccDrawTextCentre(“Press <esc> to Exit”,560,1)
End Method

Method SetEscDestination() ‘over ride base type method
‘if esc is pressed, go to the TitleScreen
Game.DestinationTScreen = TitleScreen
End Method
End Type

Catch ex:Object

Print “Unhandled exception:”
Print ex.ToString()

End Try

Tags: MrPhil

Iron Roads

I found the theme to be difficult because all of my ideas seemed to big for the timeframe available.  So after a lot of thinking and brainstorming I decided to just to shoot for the idea that interested me most: railroads!  I’m calling my game Iron Roads and hope it’ll be a playable but simple railroad business sim.  Honestly, I think that it is too big of a a project, but we’ll see.

Iron Roads Map Screen

Comments

increpare
06. Dec 2008 · 22:49 UTC
Oh! I didn’t notice the black nodes until I zoomed in. Cool. Hope it works out, in time or not.