Lighting is fun

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8n2EvXYNSyQ

We just posted a video of a play through our atmospheric game about a man who spends all of his days operating a giant machine of unfathomable purpose.

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/la-masino/

This'll be my first time soloing a gamejam! (Though I've made a lot of little prototypes on my own time). I'll be making my game in GMS1.4, music and sound in LMMS/Audacity/BFXR, and I'm not sure where I'll go with the art yet, probably pixel art, but I'm toying with the notion of lo-fi pre-rendered 3d.

It'll be fun trying to coming up with a compact enough concept I can do all on my own.

I'm finding the idiosyncrasies of this : https://videogamena.me/ is putting some ideas in my head. If you want to mash genres together randomly...

Allied Boxing Nitro - turn based squad boxing

Silent Goth Stars - silent stealth rhythm game??

Cyber Monster Truck Crime Scene Investigation - self explanatory

It's Baseball in Hell! (Horror-Sports), and it's getting there. Probably going for Jam unless I manage to integrate the base-running mechanic in the next few hours.

Hey I just wrapped BASEBALL in HELL, my First-Person-Horror-Sports game.

I made it in Gamemaker 1.4, LMMS, Audacity, BFXR, Photoshop, and ASEprite. I hope there's a modicum of fun to be found within it!

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/baseball-in-hell

@ragtagradical

I just added some slightly more detailed instructions on how to play my game and some brief ludo-narrative text.

• also a few small tweaks to audio balancing and audio cues
• the AI is a little better at baseball
• added some new, subtle and vague UI effects to note when you're 'safe'
• I also made the Victory Screen that no one will ever see a little friendlier.

Give it a shot! https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/baseball-in-hell

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ee82vfFDClQ and they actually enjoyed it!

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/baseball-in-hell

Mostly unbeknownst to the player, the creatures that stalk them in Baseball in Hell are actually trying to play some kind of janky demonic baseball with their own set of rules. A lot of it is purposefully vague in the context of the game to add to the creep factor, and because it's funny to me to make detailed simulations that nobody notices.

• As you can see, there are a LOT of bases to run, and the distance between them, and the direction can vary. The player is free to choose to run at any time. They have to listen if the creatures are nearby, and for the ball screaming.

There are 4 Classes for the creatures whom I call "Chasers": * Pitcher: The Pitcher will always stay near the pitcher mound (which is always at a specific offset from the player), unless he is closest to the ball. Other classes will attempt to stay out of the way of the pitcher, so they don't block pitches. * Fielder: These guys will always chase down the ball, and their positions will reset to a random offset around the player. * Baseman: These guys will stay on offsets near the player unless they are the closest to the ball * Outfielder: This guy will always be in an offset based on the direction the player is facing, so they will usually be in the direction the player bats the ball. (He's actually the creepiest, because you'd often see him just running out of your view in the direction you're heading and turning)

Catching and Throwing : The chasers pass the ball between one another. When the player is off the bases, they will pass the ball to the Chaser nearest to the player. When they're safe, after a while they will pass the ball back to the Pitcher. Sometimes they really stink at throwing.

Attacking Player : Like baseball rules, the Chasers can only "tag" the player when they are carrying the ball (or the player strikes out). Getting tagged will halt your momentum, and at one time I forced the player view to rotate toward the attacker, but the game was already disorienting enough.

Reset Positions : This mode activates when the player has been "Safe" for an amount of time. The Chasers will return to their offsets and pass the ball back to the Pitcher, so he can Pitch the ball at the player.

My Gamemaker "3D" Engine : i had this idea a while back while i was making Laser Lasso BALL to try to convert 2d positions into depth to appear in perspective. I've since learned a bit more about gamemaker so found some easy ways to achieve it. * I parented each object I wanted to draw to an object called "3DEntity", and then drew all 3Dentities to a surface based on their positions and angle relative to the player. It's all rather hacked together, with some tweaked magic numbers. * I added "Z" height to the objects which simply affects their y position when drawn on the surface. * The ground is actually just a static image, of a circular hilight drawn on a plane, while the sky is a scrolling tile of horrors. * The Bat and HUD elements are then just drawn on top.

I had a lot of fun making this game. I'm still amused by the theme. As soon as a friend of mine said "Survival Horror and Sports" the idea popped in my head, and I feel like I've gotten pretty close to that original vision. Like any project, I could probably tweak it endlessly. There are still some issues with collision--- which has been my bane since I started making games--- and the mechanics could use some more balancing. I'd love to hear your feedback!

• PS. If you'd like to access the Dev Mode in game you can press Shift+Tab

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/baseball-in-hell

I guess I was pretty open to a lot of these themes this jam. Pretty much if it was remotely interesting or amusing I thought "okay, i'd like to see someone try this". Well... maybe a lot of it was filtered through a sadistic glee of wanting to see people struggle with something. Schadenfreude.. that'd make an interesting theme.

Or just to see what three thousand games about Lasers looks like.

I'm in! Solo again. There are some decent themes IMO, and here's to hoping that one of the ones that I perceive as 'decent' gets voted in! I'll be using Gamemaker, Photoshop, ASEprite, LMMS, Audacity, Maya (maybe), and anything else I might need.

It's been jumping in my head to try to build some kind of weird asynchronous multiplayer... so maybe I'll attempt that.

Otto Lilienthal was a pioneer of flight, and developed some of the very first successful flying machines. Of 2000 successful flights he accumulated a total FIVE HOURS of flight time (impressive for the 1890s). But his flying career was cut short when his glider stalled and suddenly nose-dived from 15 meters! Otto's neck was broken, and before he died he exclaimed to his brother, "Sacrifices must be made!"

R.I.P. Otto Lilienthal 1848-1896

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Lilienthal

WHEW! Somehow I just managed to 'finish' my entry. Managed to add in all of the features originally planned for it. I took it upon myself to try to make some Asynchronous Multiplayer, which ended up taking a whole lot of work and learning! But I'm really happy with the result (when it works). I did everything on the project. Programming, art, sound, music.

I mostly learned to work with data structures and json such and such using this free json server ( https://jsonbin.io/ ). I am so tired that words are getting pretty hard to come by, so I'm just gonna leave this here for now! Really looking forward to seeing the rest of the submissions when my brain comes back to me!

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/43/bla-v-raa-eternal-god-battle-brothers

**Day One : **

On day one it seemed that Raa had a distinct advantage with a 2,540 lead. Someone had built a path of launchers up to the #250 Sacrifice Hole, and Blaa's side had been blocked off with walls.

**Day Two : **

But checking in today, The Blaas have taken a dominating lead of over 6,000!! Raa's side has become a disorienting miasma of launchers dropping Raa followers straight down into the lava! Will the Raa's come back from this? or will their beloved god be consumed by the unholy hot hot very hot flames of the volcano?

Who will champion their god and turn the tide of this here battle of the millennium?

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/43/bla-v-raa-eternal-god-battle-brothers

Someone must have gotten to one of the high value Sacrifice Holes on Raa's side, because the balance has been tipped dangerously in Red's favor! Someone stop these fanatics!

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/43/bla-v-raa-eternal-god-battle-brothers

By the gods!

And by gods I mean Raa and Bla, the tide of battle has swayed enormously in the past 24 hours. A healthy balance seemed to have been reached by mid-day yesterday, but checking in this morning things are looking dire for followers of Blaa Raa takes the lead again with a massive 141,313 TAKEDOWN!

I hope to add a tracker in to tally the scores by the end of the voting period to determine who is consumed by the eternal hot hot very hot flames of the volcano and then absorbed by their brother in what is essentially the amniotic fluid of great mountains and continents, and by that I mean lava.

Blaa needs your lives!

Due to massive amounts of player feedback we have found it necessary to update the economy of Raavblaa Redemption Online. We have removed all existing Coins. Now the world is destitute and poor. The hammer of poverty has fallen on our heads once again.

Please head to https://ragtagradical.itch.io/blavraa to get the latest build. We appreciate your patience and your piety.

Actually, I just managed to fix the coin dropping, syncing, and picking up to work as I originally intended it to. Players can drop all of their coins into a stack, the coins will stay in place until someone picks them up. Meaning 1 Coin = 1 Death. There really weren't supposed to be so many launchers right away! You were supposed to WORK for it! But c'est la vie l'economie potpourri i don't speak french.

(Also, I modified the Lava sprite)

Yesterday was rough for Blaa. It seemed like there was no coming back. Raa had cornered him to nigh the ends of oblivion.

But this morning awoke to holiday surprise. Blaa had taken back the lead! And a tentative balance of 19,463 returned to our civilization. Will discourse and brotherhood be the themes that guide our great society into the future!?!? Will we find that together we are STRONGER? Or does our eternal conflict of morality and self doubt make us weak? Also, The Coin Fairy came early this year, and with him, a slight art update and the inclusion of new elusive Sacrifice Holes of unfathomable values.

• Also Controller Support Added

Get the Latest Raavblaa here

For a time there was balance in the universe. Blaa and Raa were level and center, but is balance truly an ideal of nature? Perhaps nature in itself is spawned from chaos, and order only appears once dominance has been established.

Does a planet not revolve around a great sun?

Would a planet not greedily consume any outlying satellites that deign near its gravitational influence? Once heavenly bodies decaying in their orbits only to be engulfed in the flames of its hot hot very hot atmosphere!!!

After a weekend of slouching and debauchery this observer returns to discover a red wasteland. Raa has pushed Blaa beyond the bounds mortal reckoning!

CAN THERE BE A RECONCILIATION? CAN THERE BE A RETURN TO ORDER? CAN'T WE ALL JUST GET ALONG??

(Actually is a collaborative/competitive asynchronous multiplayer platformer with hats) I had it in my head to try to make an Async Multiplayer game regardless of the theme for this jam. Something where players are affecting the state of the world and then interacting with it. Once the theme was chosen I had several ideas that seemed fun to try to execute, but I landed on a collaborative platformer, where players are trying to expand ever upward by building their own routes, with each death getting them higher.

Well, after the first iteration on Friday evening I noticed that this was EXTREMELY BORING, building ever higher with no goal, I just got in a loop of building ladders. So I came back to the theme: Sacrifice. Maybe players were trying to feed their gods to grow stronger. Maybe it's competitive so you aren't just dealing with optimized paths, but also trying to screw up other players.

It was my first time trying to tackle any kind of online multiplayer in a game, so I had some new concepts to learn. I knew in my heart that what I had in my mind was relatively simple (syncing and updating a single file), but I only had a slight idea how to execute it. I had glimpsed Gamemaker's http request functions and asynchronous events in the past, and bookmarked tutorials without actually looking at them.

Eventually I gleaned that I needed a place to host a single json file, and then I needed to be able to access that file remotely and update it. I was able to find a few free solutions for hosting the files and I settled on https://jsonbin.io/ . The documentation for the API was really straightforward, and by comparing it to the examples I had from tutorials, I was able to figure out the necessary syntax. example of the json file { "god1": 45993, "god2": 44950, "objects": { "24,-667": { "name": "Jojo", "dir": 0, "y": -506, "obj": "obj_Token", "x": 24 }, "372,-42": { "name": "Ravamba", "dir": 0, "y": -42, "obj": "obj_Platform", "x": 372 }, All of the world data is stored in a singe Gamemaker ds_map. The map contains the scores of the gods, and another map within storing the information on each object. Each object is stored as a (mostly) unique name by it's x and y value, and then referenced that way.

Whenever the game refreshes, it goes through the map of objects and recreates the instances based on the info. I ran into some issues with async events being called before previous ones had ended, which caused some crashes or loops to occur, but eventually I sorted out most of it.

Since I had some fun integrating this, I'm thinking of making a short tutorial, or a Gamemaker asset so others could get this simple async MP in their projects quickly.

I somehow achieved what I set out to. As a game, I'm not really sure it's all that compelling, as there isn't exactly a victory state, though I do find a sort of dreamlike quality to interacting with other players without being at all aware of them... As it stands it's more like a social experiment to determine if people like the color red or blue better.

Right now it seems like people really like red.

Check it oooout : https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/43/bla-v-raa-eternal-god-battle-brothers

P.S. If I had more time there are several things I'd have liked to add: - Leaderboard (tracks your sacrifices and deaths) - Lock names to chosen gods - Better Construction UI - More stuff to build (spikes, traps, monster spawns?) - God Combat ( victory/tallying matches/rounds, some animation ) - MORE HATS