I’m looking forward to this, my first Ludum Dare. I’m down for the competition, but I may be going out of town in which case time will force me to participate in the Jam.

The tools I’ll be using:

• C# XNA Framework (for code)
• Paint.Net and maybe a little GraphicsGale (for what else, graphics)
• Sfxr/ Bfxr (not decided yet) (for sound effects)
• Logic Pro 9 or Musagi for music (depends on whether or not I get use of my friend’s music studio)

And that’s it, I’ll be using some base collision code I wrote and (depending on the theme) the tile level editor I built (no logic built in).

Good luck everyone and make great games.

This one’s real simple, it’s just a basic PAINT style interface that exports it’s content into a text file. It’s simple, but because of that it’s easily adaptable. Right now, there are a bunch of graphics and things loaded into it, I’ll change those sometime today.

https://sites.google.com/site/pvaiungame/MapEditor.zip

So, the Dare starts in 1 hour, so I figure I’m gonna make my first post. During the dare I’m going to post every few hours, just letting those who care know what I’ve done and where I’m heading. As it is now I have : NOTHING (those are the rules). So here’s a screenshot of what happens when I compile my code as it is now:

Unfortunately, in trying to reach the maximum user base possible I decided to use XNA Reach  and thus had to remove my animated intro, even though it was awesome, because it was something like 39000 pixels wide, and Reach wouldn’t take it.

Just so you know, I’m going to be using C# XNA 4.0 for my code, Paint.Net for my art and probably my cello and logic pro for all sound.

Let’s do this!

Oh, and self-replication, I have voted for you, now win!

Tags: journal

So I didn’t update yesterday because I was, get this, sleeping. So, the real journey starts today. I’ll explain my concept when it hits me

Tags: journal

So my initial idea, which was to make a top down escape from the bring your kid to work at the office style game, is not something I think I can finish in time. I currently had the player, walls (babies)  and enemies (fat kids). Back to the drawing board. I’ll let you know more when I know more.

Here’s what I had:

Tags: journal

Alright everybody, last post may have seemed overly pessimistic what with having to restart everything again. However, I am happy to say I do have a new idea. In the game you’re a person who is suffering from depression and has to escape from the sick parts of themselves (represented as the person’s “shadow self”). Pretty much, it’s a tile based puzzler, where every time you move, you doppelganger moves the exact same way (minus inverted vertical movement). The point is to kill your shadow by making it fall into traps (so far all I have are burning fire pits) without getting yourself killed. If you die… well you know the drill. Also, level loading and a level editor are working perfectly

I also implemented a text system to the one in LoZ with text seaming to be “typed” onto the screen. The system is in the screenshots, but neither the positioning nor the text are representative of the final implementation (I’m pretty sure you could have guessed that one).

A sample level

And a second sample level

Tags: journal

So, last post I told you guys that I had completely changed ideas, and that’s true. Howeverm I thought it’d be fun to run through a few of the ideas that almost made it. I was initially going to make a game about trapping yourself, and then you were able to escape by pressing the escape key. However, you needed to be trapped to do it. So it was kind of like a reverse sokoban game. It wasn’t fun. A second idea was a game that revolved only around using the escape key. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that wasn’t fun. Anyways, I’ve added teleporters to my game and included some new levels (I’m at 7 now).

Here my newest level (definitely NOT going to be until much later in the game)

I

If anybody takes takes the time to comment, well, what kind of features do YOU think should be included?

Tags: journal

So it’s been 17 hours since my last post, but the site being down and a little something called sleep made that necessary. Anyways, I’m completely done the gameplay now. I’ve got 12 levels, 4 types of special tiles and 12 more hours to make sound, music, story and art. I’m going to finish this baby.

No screenshot, nothing new to see 😉

See you on the other side.

Tags: journal

Look for the submission for more info! I’m done.

My first Ludum Dare was a success

Tags: journal

Just a heads up that I’ve been out of town since the end of the compo, and will be posting a post mortem when I get back (in a few days).

I’m sure everyone has been holding their breath in anticipation!

Tags: journal