Oh boy!  Ludum Dare is almost here!  What will I do? I should do some planning…

The compo starts at 2:00 a.m. (in Spain). That’s too late… or soon… don’t know… Let’s do things easy.

I’ll use Object Pascal and Allegro (Allegro.pas actually), of course.  To avoid the problems I had in the 2nd PGD Challenge (no one of the judges was able to play the game) I’ll use Allegro 4 instead of 5, even that first release is much more stable that the SVN one I used for Momen 3D. Problem evaded.

Artistically, I think I’ll do Old School, you know, pixelart and beep-boop sound efects. May be I’ll add some 3D (No OpenGL available, but Allegro’s 3D stuff is great actually) but not a lot. A simulated Mode 7 at most, and only if it’s really necessary.

I think this is a good plan, isn’t it?

Tags: Planning

So, Beneath the Surface. As I said in my previous post, let’s do it simple.

Under the sea there are a pirate vessel. Of course you want the big pirate treasure. So you get your mini-submarine and enters the sank and starts to go through the cabins until find the Pirate Chest…

Looks familiar? Actually I played that game a lot time ago in my friend’s Sinclair ZX-Spectrum. It was a fine game.

The map will be generated randomly. It will be a labyrinth with traps, closed doors and some puzzles (I hope).

… I have only a set-up system and a scaffold of a 2D sprite system.

This is getting hard. I have a nice and simple idea, but I’m too slow coder. Sigh. I’ll try to have a small submarine the player can control and few obstacles before this night. If I can’t, then I’ll not be able to finish.

Also, I see some stuff around and wow! Just wow!

I’ve realised (late) that Allegro.pas included a sprite+tile engine. I suppose that it counts as middleware, doesn’t it? Anyway, I did some changes to it.

So, I have the engine and a sprite that doesn’t move. Fortunatelly, I have the game design finished.

After dinner I’ll try to make the submarine control. Then tomorrow I’ll try to finish. If I can’t then may be I can swap to the Jam compo…

Late. Too late. But there’s the first screen shot. There’s a small submarine somewere…

Tags: first screenshot, screenshot

Now I have much more interesting rooms. There are a few glitchs and sometimes you can’t access to all the places.

Now, I just need to add the items, starting by the Pirate Chest, and implement the pic-up system and the game will be complete!

Tags: screenshot

Finally, it moves.

Just adding some stuff (doors, oxygen, sharks…) and it’s done.

Tags: gameplay video

I did it. I’ve finished the game and uploaded.

I’m very happy because this is the second time I finished a game in a compo. I’ve participated in several ones (SpeedHack, TINS, PGD Challenge…) but only finished one game. Now, I have two.

Now, sleep. Tomorrow is a new day.

Tags: completed, finished entry

We are ready. Not only myself, also my friends Ivan Sarnago and Gonzalu Díez “Chapu”. So we will have a good time this week end.

We will use one of the blogs I’m working on for the studio (yes, I started to work in a professional studio!), so you can join the party at El Saloncito del Cómic. Anyway, I’ll write in my twitter count too (@piopiojuegos) and may be also here.

Good Jam, people!

I start just now because I was preparing the studio blogs and Twitter and Facebook, and telling people what I’ll do. So I’ll write here few things.

Like always, I’ll use Pascal, Allegro and some new stuff.

You can follow me (in Spanish :P) in Piopio Juegos on Twitter.

…I have an idea: An inverted King-Kong designed like a dobule-screen Game&Watch machine.

I was looking some actual G&W screens, and they where really small. A single screen machine that fits in a 640×480 window has a screen of 320×240. So a double-screened machine is even smaller (640×960 window is not a good idea).

Of course I’ll not create a exactly copy of a machine, so I can change proportions so it can fit and have a fair big screen. But I want to show the classic G&W look.

Let see this afternoon.

Tags: ideas

Didn’t do a lot, but enough for today. Here you have all graphics I need at the moment. Once I finish the game I can tune the graphics making them more beautiful.

See you tomorrow.

…and the game isn’t yet started! I have a full set of simulated LCD graphics and I have (almost) no idea about how to move them!

But they’re cute, aren’t they?

Yes, new rules. Some allegroids were decided to add Speed Hack’s Rule-o-matic rules to this Ludum Dare, and they’re inspiring, or something.

Speed Hack is a competition similar to Ludum Dare, but also different. It is mandatory to use the Allegro game library, which is cool. Also there are space limitations, and some rules that are defined by the Astounding Rule-o-matic. So the rules are:

Genre requirements (from Ludum Dare)
Two button controls! Growing!

Technical requirements
There are 2 technical requirements:

Final Boss
The game must have a final boss to defeat. This does not limit you into an adventure or action game! Even Tetris Attack featured “bosses” of sorts.

Just a minute
The main gameplay must take exactly one minute to complete, whether the player(s) win or lose.

Artistic requirements
There are 2 artistic requirements:

Brainwashing/Propaganda
It doesn’t matter what the idea is, but the program should stamp it in at every available moment, or let it sub-consciously sift into the user’s mind. The more complicated idea the better. The more effective the better. Please make note of what you are trying to bring over, so it is verifiable.

Mutating visuals
The game must continually change its visuals – distorting, changing colour, or changing the shape of playfield altogether – the more creative you get, the better.

Bonus rules
There is 1 bonus rule:

Act of Politician
Hide your incompetence! If one rule is too tough for you, omit it by putting in a distraction that kicks donkeys. F.i. if one rule says you must have a high score table, you should make the UI look like if there was one, but when game ends, interrupt everything with lots of eye candy and great music. Or with a neat bonus mini game.

Let’s see what happens…