After being a spectator in the past few LDs, I finally have enough confidence to give it a try! I hope to get something out by the end.

My tools of choice: Unity, Paint.net, sfxr, Audacity

Got an idea that I want to try for the compo, but having a bit of difficulty starting out.  Once I get some of the preliminary stuff out of the way, I am hoping to pick up the pace.  Not too much to show right now.

Since this is my first LD, I decided to stay simple. Here’s a very primitive version of a Pong-like game I am working on, and I am trying to use both the “2 button” and “growing” themes.

Get the ball into the rotating “cup”. The hole in the floor grows, making it more difficult. I’m still thinking I need to add a lot more obstacles. Ummm… yeah!

Here’s my current prototype of the game I am making for LD34. Hmmm… is this fun?  Hopefully, it will be.

Made a lot of progress since my last update. My pong-like game is coming around.

I added a few different obstacles. This video shows one of the later levels that include static (red) obstacles, and the green ones are breakable, but grow back after 8 seconds.

Day 2 will be spent on adding some other random sounds, more random obstacles, and polishing.

Submitted my game, called Retro Rebound Challenge.

Considering this is my first LD, it went surprisingly well, and I had a blast! Thanks to the LD crew and to all the game devs for making this possible.

I am going to take a bit of time to relax, play some of these awesome games, and perhaps write a Post Mortem in the next few days.

My timelapse video is up…

Ludum Dare 34 has come and gone, and while it is still fresh in my memory, I decided to put my thoughts down about the development of Retro Rebound Challenge in this blog.

After the theme was announced, I spent about an hour hashing ideas around, and decided on a “throw a ball in a cup” game that eventually morphed into a pong-like game. Keeping it simple was the key… the theme was 2 button controls, and a retro pong game should use retro graphics, so the paddle, ball, and brick images, as well as the sound effects were a simple design that I feel worked well.

• Unity 5.2
• Paint.Net
• sfxr
• Audacity
• iTunes (for me!)

• Since it was my first Ludum Dare, and my first time actually using Unity to finish a project, I really didn’t know what to expect other than it was a very good possibility that I would not get anything released at all. I did get a playable game out!
• Saturday morning I got up and thought that perhaps I should start over with a new idea, since I wasn’t happy with the progress. I decided to stick with it, and it came out better than I thought it would.
• I am glad I added a level select feature. This is great for my testing, and for rating my game. The game adds complexity as you play, and I don’t expect a reviewer to play all the way through.

• For some reason, it took several hours to get the ball to behave correctly. Guess I need to refresher in Unity physics settings. Looking at it now, it seems easy enough, but it was very frustrating at the time.
• I wish I had time to fix a few minor issues (Don’t we all).

I accomplished what I set out to do… release something that is playable, and I exceeded my expectations. I think Retro Rebound Challenge came out better than I could imagine.

To conclude, I had a blast, and I look forward to the next Ludum Dare. Depending on responses, I may continue development, since I do have several ideas I would like to add.

I was hesitant to add a WebGL version for a while, but I decided to do so… just to make it easier for some to check out my game, Retro Rebound Challenge. The WebGL version has a slight sound issue when the ball hits an object… it sounds a bit “raspy”. If you decide to play this version, I hope you can overlook that as it is beyond my control. If the ball sound does factor into your rating, please check out the Windows or OSX versions.

I tried various “blip” sounds, and for some reason the WebGL version rips it apart. I will continue to work on a solution.

I am also interested if you feel I should continue development. I have some unique ideas for this game, including an editor so you can make your own levels. Is there room for another pong-type game?

After submitting Retro Rebound Challenge as my Ludum Dare entry, I received some positive feedback. I asked folks who played my game if there would be interest in me continuing development, and I decided I should at least explore the possibility of a full release.

I’ve spent the past week developing a real-time drag-and-drop level editor that can be used to create the in-game levels. It’s a bit crude, but it works. I am going to try to tighten the code up and add save/recall features.

If I can create some puzzles for a single player and co-op mode, I am considering releasing Retro Rebound Challenge as a full release. My plan would be to include the level editor so people can create and share their own levels.

As always, I am interested in your thoughts on the game, whether I should continue development (is there a market for this), and any ideas for improvements.

Less than 12 hours remain to play and rate games! I am going to try and play as many as I can today, and I would appreciate if you would check out my game, Retro Rebound Challenge,  as well.

Overall, my first Ludum Dare was a success! I did actually release something, I used Unity to publish, and I am working on a level editor for RRC with hopes to polish this game enough that I can be released on Steam.

Looking forward to the next LD.

Ludum Dare #34 has come to a close, and my score is (drumroll):

• 570 overall (out of 1232 compo entries)
• In the top 30% “fun” category.

My thoughts? Being that this is my first LD, and my first attempt in getting something out in Unity, I am happy. It’s also a baseline for LD35.

Thanks to all who played Retro Rebound Challenge.

Thanks to the LD Team for an awesome compo!

Looking forward to LD35… this will be my second LD.  My first/last LD resulted in Retro Rebound Challenge.

For LD35, I’m planning on using:

• Unity
• Photoshop
• Paint.net
• Audacity
• bfxr
• Inkscape

Well, after about 10 hours (dev and sleep), this is what I have for LD35. No idea what game to make from this. Progress is much slower than my previous LD. IU hope to have something (something!) playable at the end.

About 18 hours in and I have a lot done.. except for the game rules.

I have to admit, this LD theme is really messing with me. I spent a lot of time working on the shape shifting routines even before I came up with this game idea. No sound yet, no game rules yet, but still chugging away. It is beginning to look like a game, and I’m hoping to submit something that is playable and fun, but it looks like a simple game with simple graphics for me.

This is a quick video of the shape and color shifting functionality.

It’s about 27 hours into Ludum Dare 35 and what I have is the shape matching game shown in the video below. As I mentioned before, the theme of LD35 was difficult for me to work with for some reason, but what I have is playable. What’s nice is that I do enjoy playing it, and I can see some possibilities for improvements post-LD.

I’m getting a bit tired, so tomorrow (or if I get a second wind tonight), I plan on a bit of polish, some graphical enhancements, and a few UI tweaks.

Shape Shifter Match Maker has been uploaded!

Another great weekend of LD development. Started a bit slow for me, but after finally settling down, I put something together.  I hope you give it a try.

Next comes the fun of playing a lot of games, a Post Mortem, and Timelapse Video!

I added a Linux version to my game Shape Shifter Match Maker. I tested briefly, so if there are any problems you encounter, I would appreciate knowing.

Another Ludum Dare in the books! Another great experience, another game released.  My game is called Shape Shifter Match Maker:

Click picture to play and rate my game!

This was my second LD and to be honest, I was not thrilled with the final list of themes, so my enthusiasm dropped a bit the day before. Once the theme (Shapeshift) was announced, I drew a complete blank on what game I should make. I spent more than a couple of hours hashing ideas and came up with nothing. At this point I figured I had to do something, so I decided to create some code to take a shape and change it. This was out of desperation, since I didn’t want to waste valuable time just sitting around and hoping an idea would come to me. Once the basic shape shift code was created, I was determined to take that code and wrap a game around it. The result was this game. I don’t normally recommend working like this, but since time is valuable I needed something.

I utilized Unity’s cube and sphere assets, but I needed a third model and decided to use a triangle. My Blender skills absolutely suck, but I managed to take a basic cube and make a pyramid out of it.

So now I have code to change shapes and colors, and a basic game around it.  Time to get going.

I recently bought a Tweening library called DOTween and decided to use that in my game. I didn’t have a chance to use the library before LD35, so this was an added unknown in the development of my game. Tweening libraries are fantastic… you can easily move, rotate, and animate objects with some cool effects. I used DOTween to:

• Rotate, shape shift, and color shift all the 3D objects in the game.
• Warp in the additional level objects.
• Animate the colored backgrounds.

Also new to me was the use of audio tools bfxr and Otomata. Both (free) tools are incredible for creating sound effect and music. Otomata was a gem of a find. I was very pleased with the outcome of the music.

I am not sure how I feel about my game. It’s not what I expected to develop, but then again, I didn’t expect to develop anything at one point. As I play it, I do tend to enjoy it.

About a day after I submitted the game I had an idea to use the left and right mouse buttons to change the shape and colors. Hmm… I wish I thought of that while I was in development mode. I think that would be better than clicking on buttons.

An hour after my idea for improved controls, I had a brainstorm for a much better game. I am not going to explain it here, since I am seriously considering developing this new idea.

• I finished and uploaded a working game within 48 hours.
• Great opportunity to learn and use new tools DOTween, bfxr, and Otomata.
• I decided to use C# Events instead of linking to scripts via Unity’s “Find” and “GetComponent” (where appropriate) like I did in my previous LD entry. I prefer a loose coupling, but this can get out of hand very quickly if you are not careful. I also prefer C# Events over Unity Events, but that may change after I revisit Unity’s manual for another read-through.

• I had a tough time thinking of an idea… I guess I was very short sighted in using this theme.
• Better game play is needed. The game does not get harder after the 3rd set of controls warp in.
• Using multiple new tools during a 48 hour game jam is a little stressful. Glad I did it though, since it greatly improved the game.

Of course, I am looking forward to LD36. In the meantime, I need to decide if I should continue to work on my current project, or shelve that for a bit while I look into developing the new version of Shape Shifter Match Maker. I guess the comments in the review section of my LD entry will help me decide that.

Well, the results of Ludum Dare 35 are in.  This is my second LD, and I improved in some areas, did a little worse in other areas, but overall, I am not surprised by the score. As I wrote in my previous Post Mortem, I had a bit of difficulty coming up with a game for this theme, and settled on a simple matching game.

I like what I developed, but I totally get it… it’s nothing great. My main goal for both Ludum Dares was to submit a game, and I did. I got to learn some new tools (I even muddled my way through Blender), and that is a plus as well.

All in all, it’s a great weekend of gamedev. Congrats to all those that participated and submitted a game… you know how hard it really is. Thanks also goes to those that played and rated my game… I appreciate your comments.

Looking forward to the next LD, and I am hopeful that I can improve my scores.