Very excited to be part of my first real LD48, i do however have a very short work shift at the start of my second day but hopfully i will pull through.

Using Java with my own base libraries. 😀

Bet i don’t finish in time :(.

OK so i have been busy working on a lighting system in Java and it has been giving me a major headache, as a result i still havn’t managed to get into the game play but as this is my first blog for the LD allow me to introduce:

Super Kommandant Extreme!, inspired by my favorite TV show Hogan’s Heroes, although the similarities are small, you are in charge of a German prisoner of war camp and it is your job to make sure none of your prisoners escape! better dead then free!, Light is a very limited resource in this game, you only have 4 watch towers to illuminate the area, spotting prisoners is what it is all about.

The game will pit you against increasing numbers and frequency of escapees, giving you an overall ‘efficiency rating’ at the end of each, if your rating drops too low you will be shipped off to the Russian front so i hope you enjoy winter sports! If you would like to have a look at my progress i have been updating  Super Kommandant Extreme! every so often, your welcome to have a look

Just one warning, the lighting is quite inefficient so it might have trouble on some older PCs, i have spent the last 8 hours or so getting it to the point it is at now!

11 Hours in i must say i am starting to feel really good about this LD48, my lighting effects are behaving themselves quite nicely and i now have patrolling guards around the area armed with flash lights (which thankfully didn’t break the resource bank), with all the major parts of the game in place i am hoping to have this finished by this time tomorrow.

Hope you are all having as much fun as i am, PS check out the current version here!

Goodnight all!

Alright i have been hard at work again today and have finished my game play completely, that is right i have finished the meat of the game, only thing left is to add in sound and music which i am leaving myself 3 hours to do tomorrow before the contest finishes, i am not foreseeing any problems ;).

Again if you want to give the game a go head on over to www.nothinggames.com/ld/skx/ and enjoy! see you in 8 hours my fellow LDers!

Alright so i had a ball this Ludum Dare, really glad i entered anyway, rather then writing a huge essay i will just write a few short(ish) points:

What i did right:

• Stuck to my guns! i had an idea and even though i found it very challenging to implement the basic game mechanics i feel a great sense of achievement as a result.
• Slept at least 8 hours each night and ate a reasonably healthy diet.
• Pulled myself together on day two despite feeling quite restless and distracted.

What i would change next time:

• The idea i picked and the way i implemented it ended requiring a lot of instructions for not that deep game play, looking back on it now i feel i need to adjust my designs to allow for  ease of learning, stick to mechanics which are self explanatory or familiar.
• I made the fairly bad mistake of choosing to do ‘quick and dirty’ code ignoring years of good practice with dynamic systems, even though i thought these would save me time i believe they ended up costing me extra in the end and potentially limiting the players experience as a result.

So whats next?

To me Super Kommandant Extreme is an unfinished game with which i can do a lot more then i am presently so once i have settled down i will begin working on a post-dare version with the following features:

• Many varied enemy types!
• Day time, allowing the player to control the ins and outs of prison life!
• Expand and customise your prison!
• New victory condition : Become a General! every German officers dream!
• Host functions, Embezzle funds and get investigated by the Gestapo!
• Manage your daily budget and save up for that extra watch tower you have always wanted!
• Re-done Graphics, sounds and sooooo much better AI!
• Better lighting efficiency so we can put even more light sources in game!
• Customize guard behavior, patrols and more!
• Deal with Sabotage attempts as well as escapes!
• Many more!