I have finished writing up the entry for my game and getting the binaries and sources on my public site. If you’re interested, have a look at Q-Bers. It is a puzzle game in which you must manipulate the grid of cubes to reveal a specific picture given a single clue about what is in the picture.
I’ve just released a post-compo version of Q-Bers which includes the following:
-Puzzles after level 16 are not quite as difficult
-Cubes are a bit larger
-I’ve fiddled with one of the puzzle pictures and made it a bit easier, although not quite as pretty, to solve if you get it in full rotation mode.
Try it here, or checkout my original competition version here.
My LD#18 game, HackBotz, was the first game I did using Flash. I felt like it was a pretty good concept, and so when the October challenge came along I was motivated to polish it up a bit, add some levels, and release it into the wild. A couple of months on Flashgamelicense.com and a few sponsorship offers later, I managed to get a non-exclusive with addictinggames.com which was pretty cool. It was a good learning experience, and I owe it all to the Ludum Dare compo. You can play the game here.
Tags: SuccessStory
I ‘m planning on computificating in the compo this weekend. My tools of choice will be:
Engine: Unity
Graphics: Paint.Net, GIMP, Blender
Music/Sound: Audacity, Ableton Live, sfxr
I have also cobbled together a bit of framework code for Unity (some of my own code and some from various other sources) which can be found here
Hello to all of the Paint .NET users out there. Are you struggling when trying to create animations in Paint .NET? I used to feel the same way, so I created the Sprite Sheet Animation helper plugin. I’ve used it the last couple of LDs and it has proven to be quite helpful to me.
Download the zip file, unzip it, and drop the dll into the Effects folder where your Paint .NET installation lives and get to animating. Download the plugin here. For instructions on its use, check out this video tutorial (it is not for the latest version but everything is still valid).
Tags: tools
Well, I just spent the last 6 or 7 hours with Blender 2.57b watching tutorial vids and reading docs trying to get up to speed on how to rig a model with bones and animate it. I think I’ll be ok with Blender – I even managed to get the import into Unity to work like I want it with all my actions coming over correctly. Now I have two hours to figure out the best way to do UV mapping and texturing. Blender is really complex and huge, but also really cool once you figure things out. This will be my first 3D attempt with Unity so we’ll see how that part goes…
Well I’m into it pretty good now. I have to stop doing the frilly stuff before I have an actual game though. As you can see below I took the time to paint both of my robot models – hopefully that won’t come back and bite me. I’ll be offline for a bit as I am hosting a dinner party – I’ll be back around 8:30 EST for more fun.
It feels good to finish!
I like to use the Ludum Dare compos as motivation to learn something new – or learn something better. This compo I decided I wanted to learn how to create models and animate them in Blender. I also figured I’d ratchet things up a bit and go 3D.
This was my first try at using Blender to model stuff with animations and I have learned a lot and had much fun in the process. I spent a bit of time with Blender before the compo began learning about how to do bone animations and getting the exported fbx files to come into Unity correctly. That prep work paid off and my work flow from Blender into Unity went very smoothly. Check out my entry and leave a comment here.
LD20 was lots of fun for me as I got to learn a bit of Blender modeling/animation,have fun making a game, and reading all the status updates from everybody. Here is the timelapse video for my LD20 entry. I hosted a dinner party on Saturday evening so if you watch long enough, you’ll see some of the kids come down and sit at the desk to color. I never thought to tell them that I was doing a video. The song I used is called Love Found Me by December radio as covered by my church band. Check out the game here
I’m pumped for LD21 and will be using the following tools:
Sound: Audacity, sfxr, Ableton Live
Graphics: Paint .NET + My animation helper plugin , the GIMP
Modeling: Blender
IDE/libs: Unity3D with SpriteManager 2 and EZGui
After a bowl of strawberry cream oatmeal and a waffle, I’m ready to begin creating. Last night when the theme was announced, I took some time and came up with something that I feel pretty good about. Is it doable within 48 hours? We’ll see…
Well I’m progressing. I’ve got the look that I want. Now it is just a matter of putting in the enemies and all the other goodies. Should be easy … yeah right.
Well, since yesterday I’ve made pretty good progress. I have the enemy AI working reasonably ok to where they will walk around and if the see you they will give chase. Still not what I want, but for this compo, it is good enough. I also implemented safes, and I’m thinking that before you escape the blueprint, you will have to open a set number of them. Finally, I’ve added bushes and a title block to the blueprint think it looks pretty cool now.
I want to do at least one more blueprint, but alas, attention must be paid to other things..
That does it for LD21. My entry, The Blueprints, is now history. I feel good about it, aside from how bad the title screen looks in the thumbnails. Also I wanted more than two levels, but creating these things takes time. Check it out here.
Well here is my timelapse for this LD. This time I got a good chunk of uninterrupted work in on Saturday (about 18 hours) . All total I estimate that I spent around 27 hours on LD this weekend. Woot!
Tags: timelapse
This will be my 8th LD competition, and I’m looking forward to it as always.
Current thoughts on this compo: Depending on the theme, I’m thinking of trying to use simple shapes where possible and keeping any modeling I do in Blender as simple as I can. This I hope should give me more time to work more on actual gameplay and non-graphic content.
Tools:
Engine: Unity3d
Audio: Audacity
Graphics: Paint .NET and The GIMP
Screen Capture: Chronolapse
3d Modeling: Blender
There is a possibility that we may all be doing this for the next 48 hours…
Another completed LD48, and it feels good. I was pulled in several different directions this weekend and so didn’t get to spend as much time as I would have liked, but I think it came out OK for what it was. The really fun part was doing the 3D models in Blender. Anyhow, if you’re interested, here’s the link to my entry page:
I’ll give proper attributions when I figure out what I want to use.