My first time at doing a LD entry, and things are going well. Its going to be a late night, but I anticipate having a completed game in the next few hours and can refine from there. #gallery-1 { margin: auto; } #gallery-1 .gallery-item { float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 33%; } #gallery-1 img { border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; } #gallery-1 .gallery-caption { margin-left: 0; } /* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php */

Its a space game, you’re stranded on a planet alone, and you need to find your way home, looking for resources and oxygen on various other planets.

Its being done in Unity, and even with the regular crashes, progress is being made. Tell me what you think.

Flight Testing – Alone in space.

A second flight test.

Ship has been adjusted so it looks at least a little right.. and the particles are now black / white to suit the feel of the game.

LD22 Alone – Flight Test 2

Well, its been a long (almost) 48 hours!

My submission is finally in! http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-23/?action=preview&uid=5709

Check it out. I learnt a lot while making this game, and I learnt about some of the changes in the newer version of Unity.

I think with some love and attention, this could become quite a fun casual game.

I love the Ludum Dare Community.

If ever I was doubting my abilities or in need of a pick-me-up, I just need to look back at the comments on my submission for LD#23. Not only is there some great positive feedback, there is some really well thought out constructive criticism, and even an offer to help if I want to expand on the game (which I totally will).

For some of the criticism, if not all, I found myself nodding while reading. I’m able to understand where people are coming from and I can definitely see room for improvement. Here’s some notes on my submission in response to the feedback I have already received:

1. Walking is slow / sticky

Yuck. Yes, I knew this one. Its the reason I put a note in the instructions to indicate that jumping was important. Jumping gives you the momentum to move forward at a decent rate, and you can even get into orbit by running and jumping! However, the mechanism that I use to halt a player when they land on a planet causes them to be “sticky” when attempting to walk on the surface without jumping. I know why this occurs, with induced drag to prevent grounded players from falling through the planet, but I don’t know the best way to fix it (yet). Below is an example of running (constantly) and jumping (constantly) to achieve an orbit:

2. Score resets to 0 on death

I knew this one shortly after submission, and it was 3am in my timezone. The score does accumulate, and its a single line fix to restore. Its a real shame this didn’t work for the final release though

3. A mini-map could be useful

Agreed. I didn’t even think of this, and its probably due to the fact that I knew how the mothership was moving (it spawns the mini UFOs). I also planned to play a sound each time a mini UFO was spawned, but it was low on the priority list. A minimap would be one of the first things I attack in a future version!

4. Whats the floating log in the sky?!

Haha! It was left there as it was an attempt at a non-spherical planetoid. In early gravity tests, I was walking around it instead of around the sphere. This was done at the request of a mate of mine. It was left in as I felt it gave the player a bit of additional spatial awareness when moving about the planet. But.. yeah. This should be removed, and replaced with other planetoids (perhaps that you can JETPACK to, if you want!)

5. Explosions!

Woo! Yeah, the explosions were very important, I think. They achieved a couple of good things for the gameplay:

• Players (and other UFOs) get blown back on explosions. This gives some space between attackers, and it is forceful enough to blow other UFOs off the planet for a bit, giving the player some time to recover and get moving again.
• It gave a real sense of attack / achievement to the destruction of the UFO. Simply removing the object from the game would have been really lame I think.
• The use of particles in the explosion was a “cheap” way of simulating bits flying off the UFO on fire.
• Who doesn’t like a good explosion? (If you love needless explosions, see this LD#23 submission)

6. Gameplay a bit “stiff”

Agreed. I think with some tweaks addressing the points above could resolve this, in addition to extending to provide other planets, rather than just the one.

Conclusion? I’m super happy that I even finished LudumDare. I have attempted it in the past, and once previously, I submitted for the Jam. This time around, I was able to finish on time, and I’m supre happy with the feedback, and great constructive criticism. My game submission is by no means brilliant, but I’m encouraged by the feedback, and will definitely continue with it!

Thanks everyone!

Don’t forget to give me 5 star ratings! (I know you want to vote me 6 stars, but 5 is as high as it goes.. 😛 )

The theme has me stumped a lot earlier than usual. There were some really interesting themes up for voting this time around, and I honestly don’t know how this one made it through the slaughter.

I’m completely stumped for ideas currently. Its going to be a LONG 48 hours.

Well, A couple of hours down, and I have a concept.

I’m working on a stealth oriented “plant the bomb” game.

I’m trying to focus on the atmosphere more than anything right now, as I generally have really terrible game art, I decided to flip things around this time, and work a bit more on the visuals. Let me know what you think!

So, as you pilot this remote controlled bot, bent on planting a bomb without being discovered to destroy.. something.. You get to use the bots camera to view the situation. However, being a villain, bent on world domination, you don’t have the resources that more profitable villains have, and you have to settle for substandard electronics. Enter, the bot-cam. A sub-par grainy crap view of the ingame world… But its going to have to do, if you are going to achieve your objective.

I really like the lighting and environment that I have created so far.

I am sure there are better ways to do this, but at the moment, doing it all by hand is probably faster than trying to build a city-builder…

What do you think of the general look so far?

I think this accidental screenshot captures the mood of my game perfectly.

This still needs some work.. And creating the map is so time consuming that I think there will only be a single level for the LD entry.

I just love it.. Text is coming soon. This is the main menu you will see when starting the game:

http://twitch.tv/grahamweldon

Dear fellow game developers.

It saddens me to contact you under these grave circumstances. I declare that at as of the commencement of this announcement, we are at war.

This evening, at precisely one glass of wine before I wrote this announcement, Commander Dezzles has proclaimed war on all of us.

Commander Dezzles declares War

For years, we have lived at peace. For centuries we have tasted freedom from oppression and equality for all. I thought as a people we’d moved beyond those tormented days of vegetable segregation and the oppression of the Capsicum for equal rights. Yet tonight, following the broadcast of @dezzles from his “secret underground lair” (presumably the UK), he has yet again flaunted in our faces his unwavering support for the global domination of the potato.

This cannot stand.

This will not stand.

As a people, as a community of strong and committed game developers we must stand against this common enemy, and strike back for the common good.

With your support, with your commitment and trust; we will defeat him and his potatarian war machine.

Stand with us, and help the fight. Vote -1 for Potato, and spread the word with the #NoPotato hashtag.

Potato trauma

I’ll be participating in my 4th LD this weekend.

I’ve been doing #1GAM (One game a month) and have been streaming all my development through Twitch (almost daily). I’ll be doing the same from the Tokyo LD real world gathering at Pico Pico Cafe!

If you’re in Tokyo, come by and say hello, or feel free to watch the live stream and provide feedback while I code!

This will be my first LD where I attempt to do a time lapse of the whole weekend.

Good luck to everyone out there! I’m looking forward to seeing what you come up with!

• My website
• Live stream
• Twitter

Hey!

I’m live streaming from now until the end of LD48. Feel free to watch along, listen to my music, and offer me some suggestions (and criticism please!) http://www.twitch.tv/grahamweldon/new

Good luck to all participating!

Build it! Ship it!

So we’re now officially 7 hours into LD26, and I’ve finally decided on a game theme and started to implement the basics.

Thus far I have the initial level with concept lighting and controls implemented. See the screenshots for a better idea of whats completed already.

Basically you’re only able to see the area of the map thats immediately adjacent to you. You are tasked with finding the exit on each level, and to progress through a series of increasingly difficult levels.

There is no bounding box, so you are required to stay on the platforms to survive. If you fall outside of the bounds of the level, you will be immediately returned to the start of the level, and your time will be reset back to zero.

For this LD, I intend on implementing a global scoreboard and stats gathering to ensure the levels are progressively difficult, but not prohibitively challenging.

I think I can finish the bulk of this on day 1 (today). I will focus on the controls and some introductory levels to educate the player about the control systems and level interaction, before I head on to create more and more levels.

I hope you enjoy the screenshots! Let me know what you think!

I finished!

This LD has been amazing! What a whirlwind!

It started with being completely stuck for ideas, and then I stumbled across a concept while out for a walk. Just over 28 hours later, and my game is complete!

Submission entry / page is here

I’m attaching  some screenshots to demonstrate the art style.

To get a feel for the game, you really need to play it. There are builds for Windows, Mac, Linux and Web. Hopefully that meets most peoples needs.

I’d appreciate any feedback, and of course, welcome any votes when the time comes!

Good luck to everyone still working hard on your games!

Firstly, I hope everyone is having an awesome time. Ludum Dare is something I always look forward to!

I submitted! I actually did it 3 hours ago, but I’ve been tinkering since, to see if I could do anything else fun with the game, but I think keeping it simple is the way to go..

Check it out!

Submission page is here