This is our first Ludum Dare Jam, so it will be interesting to see what we can achieve (if anything). That’s what it’s all about right? The experience and challenge.

We are a two man team. One coder and one artist . I imagine this will either go very well or very badly.

Tools

• Native C++ using VC++ Express / Xcode / Codeblocks (Hoping to compile for the big 3, time permitting)
• Photoshop CS6
• Blender
• Tiled
• freesound.org

Libraries (may not use some of them)

• glfw
• glm
• EasyBMP
• tinyxml

Tools

• Xcode 4 / VC++ 2010 Express / Code::Blocks (C++)
• Photoshop CS6
• Zwoptex
• Tiled
• Blender
• freesound.org

Libraries (Some may not be used)

• glfw
• glm
• lodepng
• Box2D
• OpenAL
• OpenGL

Hardware/Work Station

Setup for LD24

iMac 27″ 2010 Model (12GB RAM), Apple Pro Keyboard, Harman Kardon Soundsticks III, Wacom Bamboo Tablet, Xbox Gamepad, Magic Mouse, Logitech M305 Mouse, Cloth Precision Mouse Mat, 1TB External Storage (behind screen), iPhone 4, iPad3 (Used to take the pic) and one comfortable padded leather office chair.

Only things missing now are the food/drink supplies

Some interesting themes so far. Good luck all!

Tags: deskphoto

The end of the first day is upon us…

After several hours of brain storming this morning we finally settled on doing something a bit old school.

Anyone remember Golden Axe/Streets of Rage ?

Essentially we decided to go the route of a side scrolling beat em up. The idea is you start out in human form and begin a journey through your own dreamscape. As you progress you can choose to remain human and use those abilities or you can embrace the darkness. By doing so you begin to evolve into something else through death becoming more powerful each time you die. By conquering the various challenges posed to you throughout your dreamscape you can aquire new dark abilities causing you to evolve further. The more you evolve, the less human you become, until the darkness takes over and you become something else entirely.

Will you stay human, or embrace the gifts of the darkness and become something new?

Status

• Sprites for the player and all dark forms are almost done.
• Code for sprites, fonts, rendering & creatures almost done.

Tomorrow

• Finish up on previous days items
• Sprite animation code
• Start working on the first level
• Sprites for the other creatures
• Player and input code
• Working play test

Phew, time for sleep… (long day)

We are live streaming on;

• http://twitch.tv/ravenix_dave (Me, Programmer)
• http://twitch.tv/ravenix_shozak (Jam partner, Artist)

Well, it’s that time and officially we have failed.

We built the entire game from scratch, so too much time got eaten up writing collision and sprite code, meaning the last few hours have been a mad scramble to put all the visuals into something playable.

We managed to get a bare bones version of the first level working here: https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B-Xy-sCsNttpS3prSm8xZk9aWnM (Mac) and the Windows version will be out soon.

Originally the idea was that the number of enemies make the game unreasonably tough and that defeat forces you to adapt – increased stats and slow, physical evolution to overcome enemies.  The ultimate challenge being to complete the game without dying and remain human, or to evolve for greater benefits and ease.  A lot of stuff, such as enhanced attacks, particle effects, sound and health drops are missing but you can get a feel for the style of the game at the very least.

After a bit of a rest, we will try to finish the game and update you when the final version is available, as we think the concept is fun and merits a bit more work.

Next time…. we’ll try not to build from the ground up.