Hey! This time I don’t hate any of the themes, so I can’t go “OH BUT THE THEME SUCKS I COULD TURN ANYTHING INTO THIS” like last year.

Unfortunately, this year I have maintenance… in 7 minutes.  So I kinda… yeah.  Let’s see what happens.  Plus my sleep schedule is completely messed up.

PROBABLY using:

Lua, either love2d or Phil Hassey’s new thing (which does html/js too.)

OR

I will do something stupid and do javascript something somehow.

I should use python, but … well not … we’ll see, I’ll do the idea for the game first and THEN decide what I am doing. Maybe it will be 100% server stuff and thus python.

Tags: december, Ludum Dare numbersomething

Oh look I’m on vacation and will be able to put the Amiga coding away for a bit – this will allow me to do both, on a schedule.

Yes. This works.

Lua / Lo:ve / swankypaint perhaps.

Editor will be combination of Sublime Text and, if it compiles and runs properly under Arch64, zerobrane studio.  (For live adaptation of the stuff.)

I’ll probably grab gfx from one of the open game gfx sources so I do not need to worry about that, as I _do_ need to get something coded.

•  No, I won’t do that, because it’s against the rules.  Thanks to quill18 for the rule clarification post, which had a question from 7soul asking about open game assets, and a corresponding “no.”
•  Luckily I’d already asked if Swankypaint was ready for this, and apparently, it is.  Which is good, tho I do need to grab it/build it … Friday in the prep time.

21:45 here in Helsinki, so yeah, it’s 4 am when then theme goes live.  This is always an issue.

That said, I’ve got the store things handled (apples, bananas, some digestive cracker whatever they ares for quick munchage; corn flakes + milk; also have soup made. Probably make more soup in a bit to cover.)

Also have sodastream canisters in place, and the mango energy drink is not horrid.  Will supplement with tea, must prepare tea area better (the current setup is sub-optimal.)

Codewise, lo:ve is set up on both dev boxen, sound stuff is installed (sfxr) and now need to be sure I have swankypaint installed for gfx.  Will prepare git area and be sure my lo:ve stuff is set up for sublime2 in a minute.  As a backup, wingide is there if I end up adding python stuff for any server side stuff or similar.

Lua dox at hand, will review that and Lo:ve in a few, possibly making a small library for moving things about.  If that happens before the end, I’ll release the code here. It probably will not be something you want to use, or that I will want to use, but I need to do some lo:ve code before 4 am and the ensuing nap afterward.

I am trying to be positive about the theme thing, but most of them suck (VAGUE THEMES SUCK.) When it launches, I will go into ‘idea’ mode and plan a small thing.  Stick to small. Stick to small. Small is good.

Ok, let’s … wait.

I have swankypaint alpha 5 ready to rock.

This is a wonderful dpaint type painting program made by my friends at wetgenes, and it’s available here:

http://dime.lo4d.net/dl/swpaint

They also have a great challenge-paint page daily, which uses the web version (which happens to run only in chrome for now, as it’s using ‘native code’ – and chrome and Firefox use different methods under the hood for such. (This is not a full technical explanation, and it’s inaccurate, and if you want to obsess over that go ahead, I am not going to.)

http://paint.lo4d.net/welcome

As of right now, the challenge is using the c64 palette (woot) in 16×16 pixels, for the challenge “Metallic Eskimo.”  Some of you might have fun with that, I certainly have.

Anyway almost ready to get the theme.

Since this isn’t a theme, it’s a vague “make anything” crapfest, it’s time for:

CONNECTING THE WORLDS OF DENTISTRY AND CAR RACING

Already have 2 graphics done.  Placeholder or not, don’t care, going with this.

Hmm need a font… and Swankypaint seems to have decided that it can’t render (:  It is protesting the crap theme!  But no worries, I will fix.

Going to sleep, but this is the furthest I’ve been in a LD and I actually have some things accomplished.  Notes for next time / review:

1. Collision detection: this does not work like on the c64.  Lost some time thinking I could do it that way, but – no, that would be slow IF it worked, which it will not as we do not have hardware sprites.
2. Math: I am not particularly good at math and need to review some basic things about this, though this was good practice (and I accomplished the math I set out to do.)
3. Swankypaint works very well for doing the gfx, use it again – easy to mock up, and easy to adapt afterward better.  (Was fun when the red car showed up and I went “holy crap, that actually looks _good_”)
4. Next time, just assume the theme will suck, take the ones you liked from the suggestion voting, put into a randomizer, and randomly pick that theme at launch. Then apply the sucktastic theme afterward.
5. The idea of working with a sucktastic theme isn’t so bad, it’s good practice, but then – you have other things to practice.
6. Do spend more time on this to get collision detection ideas in.
7. You didn’t get to the Dentistry part, mostly due to the collision detection (which was mostly math issues.)

Ok sleeping, putting this away – may pick it up later and work on it (in particular, the dentistry part probably needs to be done.)

Right, in Finland, we have this thing called ‘pikkujoulu’ which is basically “Little Christmas.”  You know those things called office Christmas parties?  Right, just add darkness and lots of alchohol, and you’ve got the general idea.

So… ours is the 5th.

Now, see, Ludum Dare doesn’t actually start until the 6th.  I know, it says the 5th, but it’s the 6th here when it starts.  So I’ll actually be HOME when it starts.  But I’ll have to avoid drinking heavily, and that’s not going to be easy because … it’s just not going to be easy.

So this may be interesting.  Cuz I really want to do this, and I’ve been doing well on coding the Amiga demo for FAP (Finnish Amiga Party) which is today/tommorrow, but… we’ll see.

The timing is all bad, but the next week is worse – got server cuts and all that Tuesday and just tons of crap.  So it woudln’t work to move it.  It’s just pikkujoulut is just… the wrong day (:  But it’s important too.

Wheee!

so… pikkojoulut. posting from there. tommorow… finnish independence day.  and 5 servers of my own to update after finally getting the after 2 years. with 4 of them in need of severe RAID repair .

not out. just going to have to delay for 1 week.

(Edited to fix spacing issues when posting from my phone at the bar.  Kids: Don’t try this in the US.  )

I don’t have 48 hours!  I have… I have no idea!  And I’m a bit damaged from pikkojoulut.

But I have an idea for a game mechanic and – let’s do it!

(This will end badly (:  )

Game Mechanic Coding starts…. NOW!

(Oh, I should announce the tools, yes:

love2d / sublime text / git / sfxr / autotracker / Swanky Paint.

(Swanky Paint:  http://dime.lo4d.net/dl/swpaint  – tho I have a beta and you probably can get one too if you’re interested.)

So simple things like “triangles” were coming out … odd.

I now have a cool ‘splotch’ instead.

My development process, right now, is “idea – execution – nope, oh hey wait that’s cool, use that instead”

(I’m just posting short updates as I go, because “maybe it’s entertaining later. or for someone.”)

Took a nap for about 6 hours.  I mentioned the damage from pikkojoulut, right?  That was the cause.

Spent quite a bit of time trying to get HSV working – wasn’t even my code, but that may have been the issue – it just didn’t work properly at all.  I can mess with that some other time, I don’t really need it – I just need color choices that are better than completely random.  Using the article from http://devmag.org.za/2012/07/29/how-to-choose-colours-procedurally-algorithms/ which emoon pointed me toward a few months ago.

So, back at it, I think.

But, of course, today I have to bring machines in the data center up, so… no idea how much time I have.

After post yesterday I ran into more issues with color choice, and more “oh let’s just use this code here for HSV” “wtf is this doing why is it all purple/red/green” (and never all blue.)  So, yeah, HSV is simple, really, and I’m going to just write a HSV thing that works today, and test it.

Because, again, it’s next weekend that matters (due to, again, the damage.)

Again, this is NOT the weekend I’m doing this, due to pikkojoulut damage _and_ what I have to do now: bring a bunch of servers back online after their unfortunate “going dark” episode a while back, and subsequent damage to the filesystems.  That’s been ongoing the past week.

What I have now is a nice library for color management, which I found here:  http://sputnik.freewisdom.org/lib/colors/  which I’ll likely do some fiddling with in the coming week as I have time, then I’ll use it for generation of stuff next weekend.  Along with that, in the coming week, I may make this idea I started on (and didn’t get to) into a sort of rendering library for myself this coming weekend, where I can actually make the GAME part.

So, overall, much more success than expected – as I expected “nothing.”

Also, my “let’s not look at the themes” and subsequent lack of dissapointment is a good thing, I shall do that again, I think, next LD.  If it isn’t the same time as 7DX 15 (:

And now – server restoration! (actually just tons of installations.)

Remember when I was going to not have the flu and work on the game this weekend?

Yeah, the flu heard about that and decided that now would be a GREAT time to visit.

I don’t know my schedule now, I have so much to do and so much flu brain mush.

… AND WHY DOES THE LD SITE THINK I AM IN STOCKHOLM?

Mind you, sol_hsa’s post is a good point – I should prepare. But… well, seeing as how I was just laid off, I do have Wednesday thru Friday to prepare.

And I have some things this weekend to work on, codewise, along with server wise, that I need to get done.

So I’m very possibly going to be doing updates over the next week on preparations and so on.  At this time, I figure I’ll be going with the same setup I used last time – git/lua/löve/sublimetext/swankypaint/sfxr .

Oh, and pomodoro for keeping track of time.

So Myrathi has talked me into live streaming, and … yeah! That’s going to be… interesting.  Because I’m fairly sure this is going to be a weekend of “not exemplary code or anything else.”

Also, since I now am not needing to maintain the work servers (due to being laid off) the laptop has been completely overhauled and is now set up as the main editing thing.  This means 4 screens on one machine, rather than 4 screens on 2.  And a slightly better layout; and the one monitor that wasn’t really… it has a cyan stripe occasionally.  It’s going bad.  It is no longer in the setup.

I have not done today’s Finnish lesson, I reviewed yesterday’s, but need to do today’s.  And I need to set up for live streaming (meaning: actually… you know… test that.)

We have a few hours left, right?

I hope to be ready for the announcement of the theme, followed by ‘sleeping on it’ for a few hours (I think the theme hits at 0400 Finnish time.)

Remember that scene from ‘Legend of Party’ – the Legend of Dungeon trailer?

“Let’s Do This!”

Ok so that’s sort of set up now, and I’m tired, and it’s 2 in the morning and there are … 2 hours to go and I think I will nap.  I normally start out sleeping the first part, getting ideas while I’m sleeping / dreaming.  Because it’s 4 am when it’s announced, and starting off when that tired is just plain silly.

I will _eventually_ be streaming on twitch, on my channel… I guess myrathi and shi/xix will pop in.

I will also say I am not particuarly thrilled with how obs handles vertical monitors currently – but I just used xrandr to mess about with it, start obs, and then fix the monitor properly.  I also am not sure you can see the code that well but well we’ll see.  And I guess that’s not so important anyway as I have to _finish_ more than _stream_ anyway.

So yeah, just joined irc, we’ll see if I sleep or not.

Oh yeah here’s my new setup, I guess I’ll post that (:

Started, crashed obs once, have drawn 3 tiles (crap placeholders but hey, there we go) and have written game concept idea in, and time to start coding.

Stream is up, I have informed xix/shi/myr.

Rendering stuff works, still loads to do, and I hope the allergies don’t get in the way tommorrow.

Most of the ‘game’ portion still needs to come in, but, well, yes. This is about what we can expect at this point with my not having touched this for months. We’ll see tommorrow.

Right now, the dude can walk about the map, which is… pretty good considering the allergies getting in the way. I should be further along, but, yeah.

Tommorrow.

I should probably point out that I am using zerobrane studio for both debugging and for ‘livecoding’ – things like adjusting border locations on the fly.  I actually had forgotten that I could adjust, then save the locations from within zerobrane, and it would of course then be able to be edited in the main sublime(3) stuff.

Saves time and is, well, pretty darned good (:

So add ‘Zerobrane Studio’ to the list of tools.  And, of course, mad props to Swankypaint by Wetgenes (Xix and Shi.)  Cuz it rules.  (You can see how Swanky Swankypaint is by going to http://paint.lo4d.net with chrome or firefox. And, despite what Xix says, Chromium (:  He’s just worried some people will be using chromium without the important native client, which I guess some Debian-based things (like Ubuntu) won’t have.  Archlinux users like myself have no problem. (:  )

Anyway Zerobrane got me my borders much faster than the adjust/run/re-adjust/run non-construct.