Howdy folks !
First timer here. I’ve wanted to join for a long time.
My goal here is to finish a game.
I’ll be using :
-Unity/C# with Google : “Why does this thing never works ?” “Oh…Ok, my bad.”
-Photoshop, maybe Maya if I decide to go 3D (most likely not)
-SoundBox/BlockDust for sound. I’ve actually never created sounds for games, it will be fun to experiment (if I get this far :D)
Good luck and have fun everyone !
Let’s call it a day and go to sleep. I think I’m good with these two mechanics and i’ll work on the level design around them tomorrow like proper objectives, puzzles and traps, etc…
But first, rework that ugly token design.
I’ve got this feeling like my veins are filled with nothing but cafeine (that’s not true, it was just a reference to the song “light up the night”…okay, that’s a bit true).
So, I have my win condition : light up all the beacons.
Took me a bit of time to find something interesting design-wise for the beacon (I still really don’t like how the fire fit the overall design).
I also added some foam at the end of the waterfall.
I’ve got a name \o\.
And a Main Menu /o/.
And I may or may not start to feel tired and so, losing my sanity \o/.
I was about to start a classical “push button, receive bacon” menu and while searching the design in photoshop I tought “zomg yes making the main menu an actual level wow doge such genius” only to remember 0.5 seconds after that “yeah, that has been done plenty of time before”. But I kept the idea and I’m pretty happy with the result.
Now : more levels, more coffee, sounds and onto polishing.
I’ve got a name \o\.
And a Main Menu /o/.
And I may or may not start to feel tired and so, losing my sanity \o/.
I was about to start a classical “push button, receive bacon” menu and while searching the design in photoshop I tought “zomg yes making the main menu an actual level wow doge such genius” only to remember 0.5 seconds after that “yeah, that has been done plenty of time before”. But I kept the idea and I’m pretty happy with the result.
Now : more levels, more coffee, sounds and onto polishing.
It may be a bit confused ’cause I’ve just had a 30 minutes powernap in the last 39 hours.
It was hard, it was painfull but most of all : It was worth it.
That was my first Ludum Dare and I enjoyed every moment of it.
I was totally out of my comfort zone, If someone had said a year ago when I couldn’t differentiate a int from a float “you’ll see, soon you’ll be able to do a ludum dare alone” I would have answered “Nope. Nopenopenope. I can’t code, don’t want to learn how, I have other things to do”. They say to enjoy the small victories, but for me it is a pretty freaking big milestone.
Before this day, I had never released a game. I’ve been working on some stuff for the near and short term. But now, I have pushed a baby out of my fingers (that’s a strange metaphor, yes). I know that’s a weird looking kiddo, but i’m proud of it.
That was an experience. No fiddling around “mmmh, I don’t like this shade of red. And let’s move this one pixel to the left. Yeah that’s great”, no feature creep (maybe a bit a the end), everything straight to the point. It was savage. I probably produced some awfull code (I’ll look at it tomorrow after a good day of sleep), I made some terrible decision design-wise but in the end, the game is here and that all that matters.
10/10 would suffer during three day again.
Second LD, I had so much fun and learned a lot last time.
My tools :
Good luck everyone !
Day 2 has been rough, I couldn’t work as much as I wanted on my entry because of more important things.
On one hand, I think I’ve got something and that’s pretty good. On the other, I don’t have a good feeling for this game, I may have overestimated my abilities to handle time.
I don’t have a good feeling for this entry but I’ll finish it nonetheless (as my alcoholic neighbour always said : “NEVER QUIT !”).
I tried to add more juice to the gameplay, it’s better than this morning but…meh. Oh ! And sound ! My last entry was really lacking that. I’ll pull an all nighter and see what comes next. But it’s not going as expected.
My goals are :
-1 or 2 boss.
-A few more ennemies (1 or 2)
-A rough combo system for fighting
-More animations
Anyway, here’s wonderwall :
and once again, here’s the timelapse, the first hour is missing because I’m a derp :
Yay, I finished my second LD \o\.
I’m not really happy with the result but it has been, once more, a wonderful experience. So here’s “The coffee room”, a wave-based beat them all.
http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-37/?action=preview&uid=112394
What went wrong :
-I’m not familar with the beat em all genre, I was clearly lacking knowledge and the game lacks juice.
-Artwise it’s “meh” at best, I spent way too much time trying to make the assets work visually and I’ve made way too few of them the game feels pretty empty.
-Artwise again : I totally screw up the few animations I had to do, the walk-cycles are “okayish I guess” but the punch animations are…awfull. Dynamics have never been my strong suit but here’s a new low.
-The theme (coffee shop & demons) and the gameplay are lacking cohesion, It doesn’t feel right, I should have gone with a lighter approach.
What went right :
-Once again, I’m surprised by how much I can do codewise, even if it’s poor and ugly, it still works.
-There’s some assets that are not that bad, even if they are classic, individually they actually are decent.
-I love failing, it’s easier to see what you could have done and really think about it (and it keeps your head on the ground). I’m pretty sure if I ever do another game like this in the future it’ll be far better (wich is pretty easy). And it’s knowledge I can apply to other genre.
-The theme itself is actually a good idea, I always wanted to make a game with some jazzy lounge influence. It’s not this one but I have a clearer idea on how I might do it.
And, of course, the timelapse for the third day :
Let’s go for LD38 now !
Duh.
Woke up early to work on this one.
I'm going for a "pick tokens, grow your world" kind of game. I struggled a bit but I think I have a prototype and I'm starting to feel the general vibe of the game.
http://i.imgur.com/J3mxN1i.gifv
Timelapse of the day coming tonight. Now I'm gonna grab a bite and work on the controls.
This one is coming along surprisingly well. I struggled a bi...a lot by going for a concept way over my competences but in the end (helped by my good friends google and youtube) I feel things are going smoothly.
The concept is pretty simple : pick tokens, grow up your world, get point by doing pattern (ex : a line of three block will grant you a tree). I wanted to play a bit on gravity modification too, add some platforming elements to the game.
As of now, the world creation is done, token picking is done-ish and the growing is almost finished. I'm currently working on the tile updating. Next is most likely art and the patterns/points. But first of all : sleep. Current progress :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2neWLYhh6Q
( and the timelapse for the day : https://youtu.be/lvA6ZWKCX-s )
So there's a bit less than 10 hours left and I'm finally getting somewhere artwise. I spend way too much time yesterday trying to get something decent and I feel like I wasted precious time fiddling on the visuals.
Here's my progress :
http://i.imgur.com/Ag3kZmF.gifv
(light will move slower in the final version)
I still need to finish animation, add scoring and special scoring tiles. And UI. And Sound. Well, damn.
First of all : Happy Bday Ludum Dare. Third time here and it was, as always, a fantastic experience.
What went right
Suprisingly, a lot of things kinda worked out. I realy enjoy how the game works in its core concept. I'm pretty happy about art : pixel art sprites + normal maps, even if a bit tedious to make, look really cool.
Concept-wise I think the idea is pretty cool, code worked and is scalable if I ever want to come back and make a post-ld version.
But most of all : going to sleep BEFORE the theme release instead of waiting for it like a kid on christmas was the best idea I had for this whole jam.
What went wrong
Timing.
Timing.
Timing.
I wasted most of my second day trying to find a decent style for my character. I think I made 5 different versions. Then I was lacking time for everything else and had to cut a lot of things : no music, no sound, a pretty basic UI. I also feel like the controls could be muuuuch better. I made enough platformer to know what I'm doing wrong.
In the end, the game is meh. It doesn't feel finished. There is no win/lose condition, just an empty world to create and a bit of thinking on how to make special tiles.
Also : Prolapse (timelapse software) crashed and didn't save the .wtf file. I wasted two hours finding a way to recreate it before going to sleep (I shouldn't have but sleep deprivation and rational thinking are mutually exclusive)
And now ?
You can play the game here : https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/grw
I'll add Mac and Linux build tonight, fluff out the entry and I'll think if I can do something more with this game or just let it die.
Day 2 and 3 timelapse
I usually post my timelapse at the end of each day but day 2 was the day of the recording crash. At the end of day 3 I went to sleep, woke up, took a nap then went back to sleep.
Day 2 :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yj-7pMTVFbk&feature=youtu.be
Day 3 :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_N6GpqBqw8&feature=youtu.be
End of day 1 : I think I'm near nowhere. I have this concept where you must save and carry creatures on a spaceship, they give you ammo and you can carry multiple of them to get some more bonus when you save them.
The more you carry, the slower you are. You don't have your gun, ennemies are around. I liked this idea of having to chose between getting bonus ammo and speed, I hope I'll get around that.
But for now, I only have the main chara and some PEW PEWs. I'll focus on gameplay tomorrow but I think this is gonna be pretty rough to end in time for the Compo. Well, Jam it is then !
Who would win ? a) Me. b) A debug value I forgot to delete.
Spoiler : it's b.
So I finished the dudes you'll have to save (if being launched into a rainbow teleporter is being saved), worked a bit on the controls and did some design/animation. It's pretty funny : I'm at the same point that I was in my first LD at the end of day 2.
I lost a lot of time in the animation code for the dudes but I'm getting somewhere. I hope I'll have time to add enemies and wrap this up. Now I'll get a quick powernap and go back at it.
edit : Forgot to congratulate all the Compo finishers. Good job boyz !
Better late than never
Here we go !
First of all, as always, it was a lot of fun.
Day by day debrief :
Day One : I focused on character design and controls. It's always a bit tricky to get the jump to feel right, it was okay in the end. Now that I look back at it, even if there's some recoil in game when you shoot, the character animation for shooting lacks life.
Day two : I worked on the main mechanic : carrying and launching the guys you have to save. It all went right until I tried to add a pickup animation. I fucked up and lost a lot of time (between 3 and 4 hours) for something that didn't matter that much. I also added a pick/drop gun mechanic and it was a pretty dumb idea.
Day three : "Okay, I have less than 16 hours. I have enough time to add ennemies, make music and level design." I did not :D. So I started the day by working on ennemies and I like them a lot. I had a bit of a problem with the shooting since their gun was very low but I ended up with what I think is a cool idea for the bullets.
I tried to cram everything else in what time was left. I ended up with 3-ish levels with some basic tilemap and no music.
In the end, I'm a bit disappointed that I lost a lot of time on some bullshit ideas. If it doesn't work throw them right away, you can't polish a turd. Even if I think the way I tried to follow the theme is a good idea, I lacks juice.
I'm pretty happy with the design ideas and the work on vfx/explosions. I usually try to make game in genre that I haven't tried seriously before and now I think I have a better grasp of the 2d shooter style, I might even try to push this one further with a focus on fighting/level design and gamefeel.
Now it's time to try and rate games \o/. MacOS and Linux builds will come tonight.
TimeLapse
https://youtu.be/3ntX698dEPI
PS : Please. Don't do that.
Dick. I don't really care for ratings but I'd rather get an honest bad rating than a bullshit "I pressed buttons lul, now I have good feedback rate. Gosh I'm so lonely.".
This doesn't look like much but I feel the core mechanics are almost there. I think I could even make it for the compo.
Concept is pretty simple : you have to gather ressources to build your way out of a spaceship. Ressources are gathered from the environment BUT you get fewer and fewer ressources from the things you build there you might run out of space to move while the litteral space is out there to get you.
Also your jetpack is using the same ressource, there might be blackholes and all those lovely things.
I still have a bit more things to put in (tiles building, black holes and some funky objects) and I'll be able to focus on level design and art things. But first, some sleep.
(gif is a wee bit faster than actual gameplay, dunno why)
I almost have every mechanic taken care of and I think might finish in time for the compo.
But I still haven't started on "those things that should take half an hour top but end up taking your whole time and now you must abandon all hope of finishing in time for the compo and you're somehow already late for the jam" so we'll see about that :D.