Using Amazon Web Services S3 and .tk domains, here’s a simple website for my miniLD entry. It was pretty painless so far. I don’t know if the .tk domains are good, I’ve heard some bad things. I might have to consider just making my own site and putting my games on it into subfolders.

Here’s the site.

Here’s my TODO list that I updated as I went. Whenever I got a brainfog situation, I could check the list what I was doing and got back on track. Couldn’t have kept the project together without such a tool. Maybe other people have their process they want to share?

@started(15-12-09 06:43)

Ludum dare game pre-compo:
✔ Learn a little bit about EasyTasks @done (15-12-09 06:44)
✔ Fill out this document @done (15-12-09 07:21)
✔ Test Unity 5.3 @done (15-12-09 07:33)
✔ Make a short song with FL Studio @done (15-12-09 15:24)
✔ Prepare musik list or radio @done (15-12-10 14:50)
✔ Figure out best pixel art app (aseprite, PS, Paint.NET, GG) @done (15-12-11 16:33)

LD foodstuff (est 3h):
✔ Make a list of stuff: popcorn @done (15-12-12 21:53)
✔ Visit le shoppe @done (15-12-11 16:33)
✔ Cook le foode @done (15-12-12 21:53)

Process:
✔ Guy movement with just two keys @done (15-12-12 07:10)
✔ Plant climbing? @done (15-12-12 10:04)
✔ Player carry things @done (15-12-12 10:04)
✔ Scroll screen with player @done (15-12-12 12:08)
✔ Player walk animation @done (15-12-12 14:28)
✔ Player climb animation @done (15-12-12 14:28)

✔ Checkpoints/level is also place to recharge water/plant food @done (15-12-12 10:04)
✔ Plant size change @done (15-12-12 14:28)
✔ Level restart after death @done (15-12-12 16:26)
✔ Sounds @done (15-12-12 17:28)
✔ First music track (background) @done (15-12-12 19:59)

✔ Full tilemap with Tiled & Tiled2Unity test Scene @done (15-12-12 21:15)
✔ Generate objects and prefabs from tilemap @done (15-12-13 12:52)
✔ Layerbased collision in addition to tags @done (15-12-13 12:53)

✔ Enemies @done (15-12-13 09:30)
✔ Enemies shoot bullets @done (15-12-13 09:30)
✔ Enemies can’t go past plants @done (15-12-13 09:30)
☐ Kill enemies by jumping on them
☐ Invulnerability powerup

✔ Text signs @done (15-12-13 18:17)
☐ Jump force control (how long is key pressed)

✔ Level loading, end/next level @done (15-12-13 20:33)
☐ Level design process, aim for 7

✔ Speedrun timing @done (15-12-13 20:56)
✔ Esc quits the game @done (15-12-13 21:00)

☐ Moving platforms
☐ Optional: Some more environmental sprites, trees, rock, grass
☐ Optional: Background, mountains, sky

This time I will actually make it to the finish line. Pixel graphics instead of full 3D. Not sick. Enough supplies to last the weekend.

Last time I made an almost finished game, full 3D, but got caught up in trying to fix the pathfinding and physics issues. Doing the game in 2D shouldn’t have such complications near to the same extent.

Software: Unity3D, Photoshop, VS, FL Studio, Sublime Text

So I decided to be inspired by the Dark Brotherhood quest in Oblivion. The one where you kill all the competition participants in that house. Also Agatha Christie and Then There Were None. Hitman games also had this sort of gameplay.

You play a sneaky murderer that kills everybody but doesn’t get noticed or found out.

Aim high, right? Well, it was a little bit too challenging. I made the 3D assets well in time–It’s just that various complications building the project with Unity 3D made my project grind to a halt. At the moment I’m stuck trying to marry Navmesh agents with Rigidbodies and it’s not looking very pretty. Debugging sure takes the majority of my time. If everything just went smoothly I might be already done.

Now as it is, my game does have a three story house, and various things. The gameplay just is very barebones and consists of shooting people with banana peels. A simple mechanic of making people slip into a banana peel and fall over the edge may include unforeseen complications. Like, what is a root bone. Oh, it may have been a good idea to build my character rigs with those, but oh well, maybe I will do without…

Anyhow. It looks like I won’t make it in time. It was a nice try. Would have been cool to actually make it to the finish line.

edit: If you click the picture you can see the animation. I don’t know how to GIF.

So… hmm… when is this Ludum Dare. Let me check. It’s still a couple of weeks away, right? Oh, 15 hours! Dang!

Also my monitor just blew to pieces, but luckily I have my trusty laptop and about ten hours to install and configure all proper software to it, and prepare mentally and physically.

I will be using Unity. Too bad about the web player. Hopefully, I will figure out something more user friendly than just downloading the executable.

Good luck everyone! Make some awesome games!

But made anyway because sculpting 3D things is fun.

Also my internet completely broke and using 0.1 Mbps cell phone connection for internet is not fun… Good timing, ISP.

50/50 if I actually finish the game before the DL. 50/50 if I can actually upload the whole thing in time with 0.1 Mbps.

How’s it going? Hope you’re having fun preparing for the Ludum Dare. I sure am.

Graphics: Inkscape, export to PNG

Platform: The browser, Javascript & HTML5, Phaser.IO library. I wish I have time* to figure out a proper skeletal system for animation.

Music: FL Studio or Reaper. I can’t decide on the two.

Audio: If I have time*, some nodal system with self designed synthesis, and my trusty microphone.

*I will not.

Making platformers is kind of hard when you are not dealing with tile maps and bounding boxes, but physics objects and bounding polygons. I might have bitten more than I can chew. Especially on the monster AI department. Needs two raycasts: for avoiding falls and to turn on obstacles. Also have to figure out the idiosyncrasies of Construct 2. I’m sure there’s a way to do everything, it usually is just easier to code those things. But Construct 2 keeps things orderly.

At least the game looks kind of pretty and the lighting worked out fine. Drawing tablet and Krita have been amazing so far.

Taking it easy. Not doing any heavy coding this time.

Platform: HTML5

Main tool: Construct 2

Audio: Audacity, Cakewalk, Roland keys, a mic, various LD related procedural music and audio tools

Visual & design: Krita, Paint.NET, Wacom Bamboo

Self: 1 liter thermos of English Breakfast Tea, tissues.

4.00 1h: Design by drawing tablet
5.00 2h: Basic assets
5.39: Basic assets and rendering in Love2D complete
5.48: 15min break
6.00: Prototyping actual gameplay viability (wall, civilian, werewolf, hero, crossbow) no animations, no sounds, no menu system. Hero movement with mouse aiming
6.20: Diablo 2 style character movement done. Maps and collisions next.
6.54: map drawing ok, map collisions next
7.00: shopping break, refresh and relax
7.45: back from shop, food, eating
8.10: continuing work
8.49: map tile collisions working ok.
8.56: break
9.48: picking up crossbow, done
9.57: I JUST REALIZED THAT I COMPLETELY FORGOT THAT LUA HAS A “LOCAL” KEYWORD, OH WELL…
10.12: Fixed my first bug. Player could always pickup a new crossbow, it was just now invisible
10.21: I just realized I will have horrible time without some kind of general game agent inheritance that generalizes all mobs, and I don’t have time to grok a class system for Lua.
10.50: Shooting arrow, arrow wall hit, rotating crossbow done
11.41: werewolf ai, partial
12.22: Text rendering, end screens and messages,
12.41: Break. Feeling tired.
14.25: Finished victory and defeat screen. still need musics,  maybe later
14.40: Break/finish for the day/trying to sleep now
15.39: TODO: BUGFIX: bind all timers, movements to time delta
—— zzz
23.10: woke up, starting work again
23.37: civvies exist, next up: colliding civvies with player
23.54: civvy collision with player done, next up: werewolf eating civvy, civvy panic mode
1.17: Werewolf eating civvies and civvies running away done, next up some polish
2.00: Level system kind of works all right. But it’s a little boring to play and need more levels, next: shiny crossbow background halo on theh ground
2.45: Shiny crossbow background halo on theh ground done, taking a BREAK
3.22: Just discovered that there’s a Love2D library for loading Tiled map editor maps. Too late now.
3.25: Lots of useful Love2D libraries it seems, that I REALLY, REALLY, REALLY should have looked into before diving in. https://love2d.org/wiki/Category:Libraries. Well this is called learning by doing and it’s certainly working for me.
3.45: eating
4.32: added some better graphics and paniced civilian image, taking a BREAK
11-12: zzz
12.00: shop
12.50: lack of sleep and bad sleep rhythm are really taking the toll. been unable to sleep or really rest, but also unable to write any code or do any art.
13.14: Haven’t really learned much. LD is not good for learning. Would require more time to carefully consider all options and to stop and think. What LD is good for is getting stuff done and not carefully considering everything.
13.48: particles done
14.06: 1 more level doesn’t seem feasible unless I implement more mechanics, which I have no time for
14.13: arrows now hit civilians
14.27: design of the game was quite successful, even if what I originally intended as the prototype wound up becoming the actual end result. The original design had all the aspects I have now and even if I anticipated that the gameplay wouldn’t be much of a thing, it’s still engaging enough to finish all the levels, I would think.
14.58: pause screen done
15.01: i think it’s time to make the first package of the finished product

Looking back at it. I really should have done Love2D warmups. The code is very raw, with a lot of repetition, with zero library usage. Also Tiled seems like a solid program. It’s unfortunate that I don’t have ground tiles, or a separate collision layer, but the method I used would have made that very laborious to implement.

I’m exhausted. Going to go chill and watch people code on Twitch. Maybe sleep, if I can.

My super quick sketch on what game to make.

What I actually have at the moment. It feels a free-angle version of Boulder-dash, without the boulders. Hopefully I can make an enjoyable game out of this, instead of just a concept that doesn’t really draw you in. You can die, you can win. But is it fun to do?

Editor: Sublime Text

Engine: LÖVE

Sound: BFXR

Graphics: Paint.NET

Learning Lua and LÖVE at the same time. Not sleeping a lot. Drinking a lot of water and maybe finishing a game. First attempt at LD for me. So hopefully I will find the right buttons when it comes the time to publish.