ARGH. I’m starting to really… dislike… Processing. I really am.

So back to JavaScript and HTML5!

I’m glad I sorted this before LD proper.

I’ll make a thing…

Peace, love, and web scripting,

– Henry

I have my warmup game concept. In it, you throw a paper airplane, trying to get it past obstacles and land it in a basket at the end of the course.

There will be three types of planes and many types of obstacle.

This Monday at 12:00AM GMT (well, around then), I plan to have the base gameplay as well as a few demo courses.

I will expand it beyond that after the weekend. I’m giving myself until the 23rd to have this complete, but I’m  going to have at least the base gameplay done by Monday at 12:00AM GMT.

Hey there, folks.

So, I have nothing visible on Paper Glide. But… I do have much of my base code done and I have my libraries sorted out. The canvas is working, and there is a main loop. This is going well so far.

More tonight if anything happens. Otherwise, tomorrow.

Peace, love, and web scripting,

– Henry

Well, I’ve decided on some parameters to guide the design of the “microgames” that I want to make for LD.

• The games’ state must be tracked as a collection of numbers, ideally integers
• The games must use very simple stages (single-screen, four or fewer types of terrain element including open space) or a single stage
• The games must has integer scores
• The games must have one or more definite loss conditions, but must be continuous (IE: no definite win conditions)
• The games must each give the player only two retries (three tries total), but must clear misses at certain score intervals (will vary between games)
• The games must have some kind of event at a high score threshold (event and threshold will vary between games)
• The games must not involve combat
• The games must only use the arrow keys and space bar, but ideally not all of them
• There must be four or five games (no fewer than four, no more than five)

I’ve decided several things about my LD entry, and these are final.

• I will use JavaScript and HTML5 for my game
• I will try to spend the jam day on a nice page for the game
• I will not decide on my game concept until the theme is announced
• I will not change ideas half-way through (not this time)
• I will not give up, I will never surrender

I have some promises for everyone here, especially those who know me.

• I will keep my emotions under control
• I won’t decide that I don’t have the stamina to continue
• I will sacrifice sleep if necessary
• I won’t decide half-way through that my game is rubbish
• I will use my time effectively
• I won’t spend half of the time on scaffold code

This time, things are different. This time, this time, this time I will give it my all.

However…

Failure is always an option!

Peace, love, and courage in the face of the inevitable,

– Henry

I was going to post a picture of my regular old desk. But then I decided, “no, I can do better. I can do much better.”

Pictures after the break! 😉

So I did. Enjoy.

Woah! It's all blurry! Is this from the FUTURE?!

It has space for a drink, too?! Is this guy living in NARNIA?!

Is that from indieconversation? Videos?! Without sitting down?! HOLY CRAP!!

This must be the guard animal! Cripes! He's vicious!

I submitted a patent to Ikea, but they told me that it’s a bunch of books stacked in an empty dresser drawer.

Why don’t they recognize my genius?!

Peace, love, and hyperbole,

– Henry

LD IS ON!

Nobody Blink…

Come on! Man up!

Go for broke!

TRIUMPH!!!

OR!!

DIE!!!

Tags: heading abuse, ld start, motivation, street fighter

I’ve got my idea all set, and now I’m coding.

The title of the game is “Desolate” and it is what would be called a “platform hell” or “masocore platformer” sort of game.

The idea is that it is incredibly difficulty to beat, even more so than most hard games. Think of I Wanna be the Guy or Super Meat Boy. That kind of difficulty.

I don’t have much of anything yet. I have a rectangle container that can do collision checks and some simple collision response, a game state container and a game world that can update and draw themselves, and a running update loop.

I’m using HTML5 and JavaScript, so it will be a web game. It won’t require a plugin, but it will require an up-to-date browser. If you’ve got FireFox or Chrome, you’re probably fine. If you’ve got Internet Explorer (why the #$@% would you, by  the way?) you’ll need version 9 for this game to work.

I don’t have much of anything to show for my work yet, though. Stay tuned for more!

Peace, love, and web scripting,

– Henry

PS: I’ve taken McFunkypants’ kitten challenge, but because of the way this game will work it’ll be very hard to get to the kitten. Expect it to be heart-warming. That is all.)

So here’s how my day went:

Alarm clock did not wake me. Apparently, it did go off, but I slept through it. Woke up at 11AM, 4h later than I wanted to.

I’ve been working for 4h now, since I lost 4h this morning due to oversleeping.

I have a dark gray rectangle that sits there and does nothing. I have a tiny amount of work done on a tilemap for terrain. I have no art or sound. I don’t even know how to do sound in HTML5; I’ve never done it before. Art will take me several hours at least. Some of the traps are things I’ve never implemented before, such as crushing traps.

I’ve got low hopes that I’ll finish. I’m determined to get something submitted. It might now be a presentable game, and it probably won’t score well.

I’m really angry with myself right now. I lost too much time this morning and now I’m paying for it.

I don’t know whether to sleep tonight. I know that if I do, I’ll oversleep horribly on Monday morning, just like I overslept this morning. This really sucks.

I’m sorry to be so negative, but I’m really angry with myself about oversleeping and getting so little done.

I’m unlikely to succeed. I want to clarify that. I’ll fight on, but I’m starting to lose hope. I’ll be happy to have something playable at this point.

No peace or love this time, too bummed out,

– Henry

Tags: losing hope, progress

Well, I’ve done it again. I’ve wasted a bunch of time, and now I’m likely not going to finish.

Well, failure was always an option.

I’m not going to give up!

I’m in until the end.

I have some new goals for my game. I’m going to try my hardest to get these done.

• Player movement: Walk, run, and jump
• Level terrain: Simple tileset and three rooms
• Ending: Maybe an ending scene, maybe just “You win!”

That’s about it, really.

I’m really wishing that I hadn’t wasted all the time that I did.

I won’t give up, though.

More after the break!

The LD version of Desolate wasn’t intended to be the finished game, anway. I’m going to keep working after LD to finish it.

Also, I’m dropping the “platform hell” difficulty level. I intend to keep some challenge, but it won’t be hardcore.

I’m hoping that this all works out for me.

Peace, love, and a grander vision,

– Henry

So here we are. Ludum Dare 22 is over.

I didn’t finish.

I’m going to try to stay positive.

What Went Well

I was reasonably familiar with the processes behind making the art; I have made pixel art before, even though it’s not usually my style.

I had a pretty solid idea, as well.

What Didn’t Go Well

I was too ambitious for the time. I didn’t have basecode. I chose something that required too much art. I changed platforms halfway through. I did a lot of things wrong, okay?

Seriously, though, most of what could have gone wrong went wrong. I don’t want to talk about it in detail.

What I’ve Learned

So… here’s the part that isn’t so negative.

I’ve learned that my ideas are often too ambitious for my time and resources. I try to do two weeks’ work in a weekend and I suffer for it.

I’ve learned that I need to choose whether I want to make lots of art or write my own basecode. I can’t do both, which is what I tried to do. I’m going to make that choice from now on, at least in Ludum Dare.

I’ve learned to prepare. I had the warmup weekend, but I didn’t do it the way I should have. I could’ve avoided these mistakes.

I’ve learned that I should be ready to surrender an idea if it isn’t working out. The main reason that I didn’t finish was that I wouldn’t give up my original idea (even when I said that I would) and wound up losing hope at around 8h before the jam deadline, getting distracted, and not finishing.

I’ve learned that I need to stick to a d*mn platform. I failed partly because I derped and decided to switch to a completely different platform. I switched to C++ and SDL, which was a big part of why I failed.

I’ve learned that I don’t enjoy these big projects that much. When the deadline came, I looked at what I had, flopped back into my bed and thought “Thank Sekhmet that’s over with, now I can let that thing go!” I didn’t want to continue with the game that I was working on, and I still don’t.

Where to Go From here

I’m going to move away from these huge projects. It’s really killing me to work on these things and not get anywhere.

I’m considering moving to app development. I can develop a simple game in less than a month, be finished with it, and move on. With publishers like the Chrome App Store and eventually Android and iOS, I stand to make a little bit of money from my work instead of laboring for years on one big thing and not getting anywhere.

Hopefully, developing smaller games will be more fun for me.

People in IRC can expect me to ask them to playtest some of these games, certainly. It’ll be great fun, I think.

Peace, love, and nowhere to go but up,

– Henry

Quantity over quality? Yow! I’m down for that!

Here’s what that looks like for me:

• Python and Pygame
• Microgames
• Sounds made by me into my microphone in Audacity and reused
• Microgames
• Dance music (for me, not for the game)
• Microgames

Look out for epic tales such as…

• Click the red square!
• Leave the room!
• Solve the math!
• Click the moving circle!
• Jump the gap!

These tales of bravery, courage, and heroism plus many more will be my contributions to Mini-LD #32.

Peace, love, and a sweet hot beat,

– Henry

Um… hey, guys.

So… I’m using Python+Pygame for the Mini-LD, and I’m on Linux. py2exe apparently doesn’t work correctly in Wine.

So… I’d like to ask for help from a friend who has Windows, Pygame, and py2exe. I’m only going to have one game for you to port since I’m doing a microgame compilation.

Any help would be appreciated,

Peace, love, and something something something,

– Henry

Tags: friend request, help, py2exe, pygame, python, this is the only post with this tag

Change of plans regarding my miniLD entry.

I recently rediscovered Love2D and have fallen in love with it again.

I’m going to use Love2D instead of Pygame. I just… like it more.

Because I can distribute a Love2D game with the Love2D binary, I’m not going to need help with packaging! 😀

I… do know that Love2D can produce an exe, but since I’m on Linux it’d produce a Linux executable. I’ll provide a package with just the Love2D package for folks who already have it and then packages with the Love2D binaries for each platform. That way everybody’s happy (hopefully!)

Again, though…

Microgames, microgames, microgames.

Peace, love, and a simpler approach,

– Henry

So I have an additional layer of challenge for myself.

I am only going to work for 24h out of the challenge.

I’m doing this mainly because I have homework that I intend to do tonight, such as a mid-term assignment for my HTML5 class.

So here’s the deal. I’m going to work between 10AM and 10PM EST. This ought to be good…

Also, changing up my coding music. Listening to classical music instead of my usual trance and metal.

Peace, love, and smiles,

– Henry

So… yesterday I woke up late. Then, I realized that I had planned to clean my room and I got started since it hadn’t occurred to me that I needed to do the MiniLD. Then, I had to do my HTML midterm and homework assignment. By the time I had done all of this, there was only about 10min left in the challenge.

I’m going to take the game I was going to make and develop it anyway. The idea is too fun to simply abandon.

I’ll share my progress on it both on Google+ and also in IRC.

So… yeah. That’s that.

Peace, love, and apologies,

– Henry

Sorry that I’m a bit slow in posting this, folks. But… here it is…

That’s right! Doodles! 😀

You can theme your game after doodles in general, but the theme is meant to be in the way you get the idea for your game.

Before you begin your game, you must make a doodle. You can make the doodle before the Mini-LD begins if you want to. The important thing is to make the doodle before the game.

When you begin your game, make a post that includes the doodle. If it’s a digital image, insert it. If it’s a drawing on paper, scan it or even take a photo, then insert it. The important thing is to see the doodle.

You will then make your game based on your doodle.

On the submission page, I’d like to ask that you folks put your doodle in the screenshot section to show others what your idea looked like as a drawing.

The jam will run from March 17 at midnight GMT to March 24 at midnight GMT. However, if you can’t make it during that time, submissions will be up from the 20th all the way until the end of the month. You can start your game outside of the Mini-LD time, but if you decide to do that then post your start and end times when you announce your entry.

[ Submit | View All ]

Peace, love, and imagination,

– Henry

So here’s what happened: School got in my way.

I’m starting and ending late. I said in the rules that it is allowed, so I’m doing it.

I am starting on March 22, 12:00AM GMT and finishing on March 29, 12:00AM GMT.

Here’s my doodle:

It's a girl staring down a goblin, which should be obvious

The game is about a girl fighting various monsters using a sword and shield. The final boss will be a dragon, but isn’t pictured.

The Mini-LD version will only have a single level, but I may make more levels for it afterwards.

Hell, I may make more levels before the end of the jam if I have time.

I’m looking forward to seeing this through.

Again, starting and ending late. No big deal, right? Right. 😀

Also, tools:

• Language: Perl
• Libraries: SDL, Perl’s YAML module
• Graphics: Inkscape
• Sound: Some SFXR variant, not sure which
• Music: If I have any, probably MilkyTracker
• Target Platform: Mostly Linux, but if you have Perl you can just use cpan to install the SDL and YAML modules

I’m looking forward to making this!

Peace, love, and extra cheese,

– Henry

I’m not sure.

Well, after getting tangle in Perl, it became too much to handle. I’m too anal about my code to use Perl, it seems. The OOP really got to me.

I’m using C++ right now.

But… I’m not sure that I’ll make my 1 week time limit.

When Wednesday (the 1 week deadline I set for myself) comes, I’ll submit what I have. It won’t be complete, but hopefully it’ll be something.

Well, that being said, I’m still working on it.

I’ve switched my tools around a bit, but I’m not going to post them just yet. I’ll post more later.

I’m going to finish this game one way or another, I promise you folks that.

Well, stay tuned…

Peace, love, and understanding,

– Henry

I got buried under a mountain of base code. I have an executable that runs some silent tests in the background and exits successfully. That’s not really a game, so I didn’t bother submitting.

Here’s what I do have to show for this exercise.

I have burdened myself with several major issues:

• Indecisiveness
• Extra work
• Poor time management
• Lack of focus

So… I’m going to talk about these a bit. I’m putting a break here for folks who don’t necessarily want to read all of this. If you’re curious about why I think I’ve failed, go ahead and read after the break.

Still reading? Cool.

Indecisiveness

Here’s the biggest issue that I have. I get an idea and then drop it when it’s already too late to change ideas. This has caused problems for me in lots of ways, including in game jams.

I have to get it together and actually pick something to work on.

Extra Work

Oh yes, extra work. I enjoy C++ and low-level libraries. I have enjoyed Love2D, which provides very… limited… data format support (like, it only supports media and plaintext). Perl+SDL was an interesting choice for me and certainly a learning experience, but Perl makes it hard to do anything big due to being poorly suited to organized code.

I will have to find some way to save myself work. I’m thinking of biting the bullet and using Python+Pygame for LD like I do for PyWeek.

Poor Time Management

I have a tendency to spend my time unwisely. I get caught up in high-level stuff (XML content, high-level classes I don’t need yet) while ignoring what I actually need to make the game work. I also tend to work non-stop during the day and wind up exhausted, making me less effective as I go.

From here on, I’ll probably use Pomodoro to manage my time more effectively.

Lack of Focus

I, like many here, spend too much time on IRC during the compo. I also get distracted by other things, like cooking or drawing. It’s really embarassing.

So I’ll have to develop some focus. That’s not a matter of strategy, just discipline. I can manage it, though.

Conclusion

So… I did have something to show. A really good lesson about my problems as a game developer. These things don’t just happen in jams, but all throughout my life. I’m going to need to take steps to correct them.

Also… Sorry about posting late. I’ve been working on something and forgot to post here. That something… well, I’ll post about it later.

Peace, love, and determination,

– Henry