This is my first Ludum Dare and I didn’t think I’d be able to think up a theme for it, but I have!

For those who are still stuck I’ll write down my brainstorm and additional thoughts to help you with idea making.

So the theme is “You Only Get One” and I came up with the below list:

You only get one:

• Weapon
• Colour
• Sound
• Shape
• Graphic
• Enemy
• Level
• Life
• Mechanic
• Move
• Pickup
• Minion <- This is the one I’m going with.

As an idea, you could combine pickup and move as one idea or use one mechanic per minigame (like the WarioWare games).

Another older game to look at, based on this theme, is Hunt The Wumpus, where you only had one shot and if you missed it was game over.

Anyway, I’m going to grab some lunch and then start streaming on twitch – I’ll start in an hour.

http://www.twitch.tv/namcos

Good luck to everyone else!

I’m not sure if I’ll finish or not, but the experience has been a memorable one!

The story of my game is that Santa’s Elves have been locked in the Amazon warehouse and have to escape the maze-like corridors, whilst also rescuing the overworked Amazon employees so that they can safely get home for Christmas.

The concept is that each level has a certain amount of elves and employees to rescue and you have only one elf per go, so for example, out of say 3 elves, you have to rescue 6 employees.

Game title:

Game screen (purple area is where the maze bit will be):

I may be out of the competition but I’m not done with the work.

I’ve come too far with the game to abandon it for another year so I’m going to try and finish it this week, as a post-LD project.

Until the next LD!

Good luck to everyone else!

The next Ludum Dare is fast approaching and thanks to the one back in Xmas, I’m ready to tackle this one. I know where I went wrong and I’ll have C++ templates set up, of course this is depending on whether I can get an idea out for the chosen theme – but isn’t that always the case?

I don’t know whether I’ll be participating in the warmup weekend as I do have other things on, like rebuilding my websites and continuing on with the ET remake which desperately needs to be finished for this year. It is getting on well though – thanks to the use of to do lists.

My tools of the trade are as follows:

• Notepad++
• C++ (GNU)
• Graphics Gale

So, until next weekend, I’ll see you then! 😀

I couldn’t do anything on Saturday as I was busy with freelance work that took far longer than I anticipated but I did start doing a mind map and thought about what I could do. So here’s what I managed to cook up in terms of ideas using a program called Freemind:

Started early this morning with a mind to do just one level as that is all I’ll have time to do today. The game itself is called Gold Hunter and is a clone (of sorts) of Lode Runner, with the object being to collect the gold and avoid the enemies (Troggies) who can smell you but cannot see you.

Here’s a screenshot of the game (no sprites or level assets yet) running:

And here’s the latest shot of the mockup of the part done level structure:

Just taking an hour off before I get back into it!

Tags: Beneath the Surface, ld48

Ooooookay….time’s a ticking and things are looking a little tight.

Here’s the screenie for the built level using a int matrix:

And here’s a gif showing the boundaries working on the top area:

It’s looking good so far (just hope I can finish in time)!

Yup, there’s no way I’ll be finishing Gold Hunter in three hours (getting stupid bugs in the boundary detection and I’ve not started the AI yet).

However, unlike the last LD in December, I’d accomplished more in one day than I did in a weekend – which means I’m getting better!

I won’t be abandoning the LD entry as I’ll be completing it at a later date this year, after I’ve finished some other projects.

Will I be back for the December LD? That depends on whether I finish the last LD entry as a full release. If not then I’ll definitely return for the April/May one!

Good luck for the rest of the entrants and I’ll see you at a future LD! 😀