First Ludum Dare!

Engine: Construct 2

Graphics: PyxelEdit (awesome! you should try it!)

Audio: BFXR, audacity, LMMS (freesound, looperman, etc.)

GLHF!

First things first: my English is not too good, so i hope this will be clear enough.

I didn’t want to wrote a whole post-mortem. Since, while thinking about it and try to find stuff to put in it, my mind stop at one thing that, I think, was my principal “revelation”. Astroz turns out to be a kind of action-puzzle game. I define Action Puzzle to be a puzzle (game with a dominant strategy) with an execution difficulty. Portal is probably the best known (and made) kind of action-puzzle game.

I’m not a level designer. So when I first realize that my game turn out to be a puzzle game, my thought was : “Ouch, I need to make at least one level per mechanic in my game, plus some other here and there to let the player practice the mechanic. And, one or two final levels, the icing on the cake.

I made 15 levels. I think some people made it through the twelfth. In the last hour of the LD, I just create a last level, put everything in it, try it, and thought” mey… that should be feasible”…

After all this, my approach of dividing each mechanic in a separate level, I think, was good. But since it’s an action-puzzle, I think it’s also important to create level just for understanding one puzzle mechaninc, but then, there must be another level just to practice execution.

So, in a way, if your solution is hard to find, it should not be difficult to execute. And, if it’s hard to execute, it should not be hard to find. Except maybe the last level (or last chapter, or last level in a chapter… well you see the logic here). What’s important is to isolate the resolution component from the execution component most of the time. And, combining both should be only to test the player in the end of a series, like an exam or midterm exam, to make sure that your player is competent enough to the next chapter, series or what ever you want to call it

In the end, it seems obvious. But I think it’s still a good rule of thumb when you’re in the final rush and you have the wonderful idea to make a action-puzzle game.

for the second time!

Game Engine: 2d: Construct 2, 3d Unity c#
Art: 2d: PyxelEdit, 3D Qubicle, Blender, Inkscape
Audio: Bfxr, Audacity, BoscaCeoil, Soundnation, my beautifull voice

Tags: ld #31

My first arcade Game!

With “entire game on one screen”, my first thought was to make an arcade game. The same kind of game that you could play during the golden age of the arcades. So, what’s the main difference between those arcade games and most of the PC/console games? If I think of games like PacMan, Donkey Kong, Space Invaders, etc. most of the golden age games don’t have ending, they only become more and more difficult, fast, until it’s game over. From the first “PC” game, SpaceWar! the objectives of those games (non arcade games) were to simulate a complex environment that the player will eventually master to some degree, then he will win. It’s the same thing today. But in an arcade game, you can’t win. The only winning you will have is to put your name on the scoreboard. All the people on the scoreboard are all losers, but much less than people who are not on it… So, what is at the core of an arcade game: chaos. But not absolute chaos, only the progressive chaos perceived in the eyes of the player who will inevitably lose control.

I don’t know if I succeeded in making this kind of chaos in my game, but you should give it a try and tell me!

http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-31/?action=preview&uid=38770

Snowing in Montréal! So why not play some Super Cave In!

http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-31/?action=preview&uid=38770

Third LD!

Construct 2
PyxelEdit and my faithful old wacom
Bfxr and bosca ceoil
Something to make my kids sleep at night and sunny sky to make then play outside….

… Or I could make them sleep outside…. Hum……

Before going into the technical stuff, I want to share some of the things I have done that helps me a lot, a lot more that I would have thought.

First, I stumble on that Ted Ed video a couple of weeks ago:

In short, it tells you how bad it is for your body (and your brain) to sit for too long. I decided to change the way I work since then. That is, working upright. Not only it’s good for your health in the long term, but it really (and I mean REALLY) helps you to stay focused, awake and alert. Woking almost 17 hours straitght or more in one day is not normal, so you need all the small tips you can have to avoid loosing too much time on dumb bugs made while you were pseudo focus. To do so, I just move my laptop from my desk to my kitchen counter, helped with wooden wine boxes.

You should try it!

I also use my wall painted chalkboard that we made for my kids. It’s at least as useful as Trello (when working solo) or mindmap softwares and helps you change your eyes focus from time to time, which is perfect for avoiding headache and expose all your ideas, all at once!

Finally, take walks. Go outside for 15 mins, try not to think about your game. The subconscious is very effective to find solutions when you dare to let him work. Remember Archimedes and is Eureka? Einstein dreaming about riding a photon? Newton and this apple? Our conscious brain is powerful, but slow and singletasking, our subconscious though is ridiculously efficient. Sometime, it’s best to step aside and let him do the work…

btw, if “you wanna know what love is”, come and try my game!

Tags: Love

Hi fellow LudumDarers,

Do you have some suggestions for recording webgl games et animated GIFs, I tried different softwares, but they doesn’t seems to work very well… Or at least, I don’t understand how to use them very well..

Any ideas?

Since there’s a couple of puzzles in my LD, I made a walkthrough. There are some spoilers (well… it’s a walkthrough… ), but if you were stuck somewhere, you had a game ebraking bug, or it was too laggy on your browser, at least, you can have a wider view of the experience. And it only cost you 6 minutes of your time

Play/Watch and vote!

-Less buggy!
-More optimised!
-More particules!
-Fuller fullscreen!

Play compo version here and rate!
Play post compo version here

You can play the postCompo version on gamejolt

And why dont rate the compo version while you are here!

Both kids are sick… Crossing my fingers that they will be ok in 7ish hours…

Construct 2
Aseprite
ChipTone
Bosca Ceoil or FL

4th compo!

Post compo verion of my LD34 entry is here

on gamejolt:
http://gamejolt.com/games/seed/114087

and itch.io:
http://vermine.itch.io/seed

But most importantly, come play and rate the pure original version here:
http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-34/?action=preview&uid=38770

sweat and tiredness included!

Someone ask me if I use procgen to create my trees in SEED:

yes

try it here!