nilsf

LD13

Custom framework

Here‘s my custom python + pygame framework for the mini LD. It’s little more than the pyweek skeleton with image and sound loaders and a barebones state system. Consider it public domain so feel free to do anything you want with it.

Tags: framework, pygame, python

Done

I finished my entry. Random and unedited thoughts follow. :)

Quick instructions: You are the “@”, use the nethack keys to move (hjkl and yubn for diagonal movement), t to toggle your light. Run into a wall to dig a tunnel with your pickaxe, make your way to the surface (“<” are the up stairs) collecting valuable gems on the way.

I didn’t get enough balancing in so chances are it’s too easy / hard. I wish I’d added an in game help thing (as it is pressing F1 will just tell go to go rtmf). I feel I did capture some of the original game’s essence (run away from the guards and don’t let your flashlight’s battery run out) so I’m pretty happy as far as that is concerned. Hopefully the learning curve won’t be too hard, which is a risk with roguelikes I think.

Codewise, feel free to look but it’s probably worthless except as an example of how not to make good software. One part I feel could have used more time was the cavern generator, it runs quite slowly (but not enough for me to take time to fix it) and I don’t fix the results for connectedness which is why I included the digging feature. I’m not too happy with that. :S

Anathema RL Python + Pygame

Tags: anathema rl, escape from anathema mines, final, roguelike

Comments

ArmchairArmada
09. Nov 2008 · 19:37 UTC
The play control is awkward. It would have been easier if the arrow keys were used, instead of a straight line of keys that go in all different directions.
nilsf
09. Nov 2008 · 19:54 UTC
You can use the arrow keys as well (but not for diagonal movement obviously). HJKL, YUBN are the standard vi keys used in many roguelikes (and I don’t have a numpad on my laptop 😛 ).
10. Nov 2008 · 03:39 UTC
Cool :) I don’t have the right version of python on my linux box (old distro) I really need to upgrade so I can play these games. Anyway, it looks pretty neat :)
11. Nov 2008 · 08:07 UTC
I love a good roguelike. Many pits. Reminds me of ET on the Atari 2600 😛

Nice clean code (something I’d like to emulate :) ).
nilsf
13. Nov 2008 · 06:49 UTC
From wikipedia: “E.T. is seen as marking the beginning of Atari’s downfall and is often viewed as one of the biggest commercial failures in video gaming history, as well as the worst video game ever made.” 😛

Readiness

If you don\'t I\'m afraid you are a slacker.

Don’t get caught off guard.

Tags: motivation

Comments

04. Dec 2008 · 16:23 UTC
Yep! I always jot things down on Post-Its for the top vote getters on each day. Good motivational poster!
04. Dec 2008 · 16:59 UTC
Heh. Nice.
04. Dec 2008 · 19:33 UTC
LMFAO!
04. Dec 2008 · 19:46 UTC
Haha, awesome.
05. Dec 2008 · 00:50 UTC
Oh I’ve had a colossal flood of ideas climb the road to my colorful balloon of a brain, only to decay and shatter into a thousand tiny uncooperative pieces, but like a train going over a bridge, the circuits reconnect and evolve into new ideas and rise like hot air back into the orbit of good ideas.
HybridMind
05. Dec 2008 · 13:39 UTC
nice greencow.. heh

Tradition

Comments

05. Dec 2008 · 23:36 UTC
:)

Food shot

Mandarines are delicious. And my progress is blocked by what should be a simple problem. :(

Tags: foodphoto

Foodphoto

Peanuts!

Peanuts

My entry is slowly coming together despite a late start and lots of wasted time. Unfortunately I can’t write music and this game could really use some. :S

Tags: foodphoto

Voyage, a puzzle game

Voyage is a puzzle game: slide the tiles around to make a continuous path to lead the red car forward.

My girlfriend gave me the idea for this game for which I am quite grateful. Roads wasn’t a theme I was psyched about so it isn’t my best work, but I think in the end it came out ok. Sadly I’m no good at making music and I feel this is a game that really could have used some. Maybe I’ll find some Creative Commons music for a post compo version.

More thought later, for now I bid thee all a fair night. 

Download Voyage (Python + pygame / GPLv3)

 

edit:

windows port

Tags: final, gpl, pygame, python, voyage

Windows port

After lots of frustration and a visit to my parents’ house (they have computers with windows; what an odd idea…), I made a windows version. Hopefully it will work on other computers as well. It is exactly the same as the compo version except for some fiddling to get it to load the (default!) font. I also noticed an annoying bug while testing, but I’ll release the fix later in the post-compo version.

If you’re masochist enough to be using Windows check it out: Voyage (for windows)

Tags: voyage, windows port

Start

The first LD since I bought myself a tablet and I’m spending it away from home. Oh well, another game with crappy graphics from me (not that using the tablet would make them much better anyway, but it would be more fun).

I don’t really have an idea but I’m tired of not coding so here goes. I’ll start as soon as I post this, so I’ll have a convenient time-stamp. But first breakfast!

Later: here we go!

CQZ — Finished

I made an adventure game! It’s called CZQ because I couldn’t think of a name for it. I followed the usual rules (all assets made during the 48h) which means it doesn’t have any sound, feel free to sing while you play.

It’s quite short. The graphics suck. The menu and victory screen suck a little less because I made them just now at home with my Gimp computer.

Use the arrow keys to move around; bump into stuff to interact with it; press the space bar to dismiss a dialog.

Python + pyGame: download. No binaries, if somebody wants to make some I’d be grateful.

Comments are very welcome.

Tags: adventure, cqz, final, mini ld 7

Comments

cap
09. Feb 2009 · 02:39 UTC
Very cute. It’s been a long time since I’ve had that “leave town, go back the way I came, hmm, where did the town go?” experience. I really liked the simplicity of the interface; you managed to tell a story and set some mood with minimum hassle.
09. Feb 2009 · 12:55 UTC
that was really quite fun. I won! hehe. Loved the joke about the Towlr asylum inmates. I also found a talking tree. Got a little lost while taking my Nessie photo in that I didn’t find how to get out of that screen until I realized you had to touch the land at the north.
09. Feb 2009 · 20:57 UTC
Excellent work, very funny.
phren
12. Feb 2009 · 11:59 UTC
I agree with the “setting the mood part”, somehow this game just felt more interesting than the various other adventure games I’ve played from earlier gamedev competitions. (maybe it’s just because there are fewer games so I’m not as desperate.. :P)

Seven Day Roguelike

The 2009 7DRL is happening in a few weeks. The goal is to make a roguelike in 7 days (which is like years for hardened LD48ers like us 😛 ). The event takes place March 7th to March 15th.

Info here

Tags: 7drl, roguelike

Comments

20. Feb 2009 · 08:39 UTC
hehe.. I like your comparison for hardened LDers.. 7 days is like years..! I often feel like LD mentality is getting into other parts of my life.. ya know? You’re like.. hmmm well, I made a game in only 2 days so I should be able to fully build my own home in like.. what- 4 days? 😉
20. Feb 2009 · 10:01 UTC
sweet, though I’m actually seeing the whole seven day thing as a challenge, sure I could get ‘something’ done in no time, but it will be against people who are used to making the most of a week, so it will be interesting to have to change strategy a little :)
Edwardoka
25. Feb 2009 · 07:05 UTC
I’ll be partaking in this one – I’ve always wanted to create a roguelike and never got round to doing so.

LD14

The Glacier of DOOM

It seems there are a lot of games with the word “DOOM” in the title…

Anyway, here’s my entry. :) I decided to try something a bit different so I made three mini games that are all played with only mouse. The games are wrapped in a story mode and you can unlock arcade versions by winning the story versions. The sound effects are rather crappy so you can press “s” to toggle the sound.

Download (python + pygame)

I’ll try to make a windows binary tomorrow though I remember last time it was a rather painful experience.

I’ll post more comments and perhaps a post mortem later. Good night.

Edit: windows port: download

Tags: final, the glacier of doom

Windows port

After several hours of screams, cursing, tears and mild violence towards inanimate objects I have a windows binary for your enjoyment. In case it doesn’t work for you, (which wouldn’t surprise me that much :( ) you can shove it up your… 😀

Download

Tags: glacier of doom, motivation, windows port

Comments

Zak_Spark
20. Apr 2009 · 13:23 UTC
It says 403, forbidden.
20. Apr 2009 · 14:13 UTC
Hey, tag this ‘motivational’, will ya?
20. Apr 2009 · 14:15 UTC
Gack. Strike that. ‘motivation’ !
20. Apr 2009 · 14:36 UTC
Added the tag and fixed the download.

Why I didn’t rate your game

It sucks to have very few ratings and comments on your game, so here are a few pointers for next time.

Platform
The most rated games are the ones you can play in your browser. Try making your entry in java or in flash and embedding it in a webpage for maximum exposure. If you don’t want to have to suffer the horror that is (Java|AS|Flash) at least make a binary release for Windows since most people seem to have access to that platform (I don’t so please also make an OS X version 😉 ). If you’re making your game in Python (or its pale imitator ruby 😛 , or any other interpreted language for that matter) you might think you don’t need binaries but you’re wrong, people aren’t going to install a different environment for every single game. Same for Löve games.

Dependencies
If you do only release as source, or if you only release for one platform, or dynamically link libraries, keep dependencies to a minimum. If all I have to do to build the game is type “make” there’s a better chance I’ll try it than if I have to install 13 libraries which each in turn depend on half a dozen others.

Screenshot
I try to play all games regardless of the screenshot (in part because my own drawing skills are easily surpassed by those of a drunk monkey with a pen) but if the entry requires more than clicking on a shiny icon to run, I’ll definitely spend more time trying to get an entry with a cool screenshot working.

Rate other games (and leave comments!)
While I am determined to try as many games as I can, I prioritize rating the games from the people who left comments on my games first.

Of course these “rules” aren’t set in stone. You can make a game for the Atari 2600 and still have plenty of ratings. You can also make a game with an uninspiring screenshot and win best overall.
Of course you could also cheat by making a ton of games under different names to rate your own games 😛 .

Comments

28. Apr 2009 · 21:05 UTC
I think that the fact that mine is a Flash game was an incentive to rate it, definitely. Good tips overall.
Radix
29. Apr 2009 · 02:11 UTC
I think I probably would’ve gotten more ratings if my screenshot wasn’t dark as hell, but I had trouble taking something fairly representative of the game that didn’t spoil the ending.

That and I was really, really tired.
Endurion
29. Apr 2009 · 05:28 UTC
Hear, hear!
Mike_W
29. Apr 2009 · 07:37 UTC
I’ve rated quite a few . I had problems with the python ones that were not py to exe’d. I rated as many of those as I could, then found myself in the midst of a windows reinstall.
29. Apr 2009 · 08:57 UTC
I hear you. At the same time, as long as it’s technically possible for me to run something, I’ll install anything (short of malware) that’s needed. It doesn’t usually take long to download, and in the meantime I can go try other entries.

LD15

This cake is real

I didn’t have any ideas so I decided to bake a cake.

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IMG_0527 IMG_0528

I still don’t have any ideas that satisfy my minimum originality threshold, I may be forced to make something boring if I don’t find something soon. Also I forgot to preheat the oven for my cake.

Tags: foodphoto

Cake failure, breakfast and an idea

First of all, my cake failed:

IMG_0530

The turning plate thing in our oven is broken so I placed the cake mold on an oven-safe pie thing so it would turn, however the mold was too flexible and the batter spilled.

Next, breakfast (3pm is a perfectly acceptable time to have breakfast it seems):

IMG_0531

I finally had an idea for my game :) . It’s not terribly original but oh well. Now I just need to make it. 😛

I also decided to reuse some collision code from a previous entry of mine. I feel that since you’re allowed to get the same functionality in a library it should be ok.

Tags: foodphoto

Comments

Tinkergirl
29. Aug 2009 · 13:47 UTC
I cry for your cake. Good luck with the game though – at least if it’s not too original, you know it can work and you can focus your efforts on polishing the implementation?

BBQ and no progress

bbq

I just came back from a friend’s BBQ. It was very good and the company was excellent. On the other hand that plus a late start plus grocery shopping means I’ve made pathetically little progress on my entry. I’ll try to get a little more done tonight and work all day tomorrow.

Tags: foodphoto