Finally, an initial idea.

You play a spider (either a jumping one, or a weaving one) – in each level you need to get to the fly. The thing is that everything will be from the spider perspective, so the world rotates such that the spider is always facing UP on screen, but gravity is always in the same absolute direction. You will be able to jump/send web upwards (relative to the spider) – and you need to think of how to do that to get to the fly. Things may kill you on the way, not sure what, exactly.

Hope it’ll work out, here’s an inital sketch:

See you later!

Daniel

Hi Everyone,

I have my idea for this LD – you will play a prisoner of some sort, who needs to escape from a series of prison cells or something. You will have to avoid guards and spot lights in your daring escape. You plan your route of escape using a series of check points, and the character will run between them in an attempt to avoid the line of sight of wardens, guards and such.

Here’s a rough sketch of the idea – I hope it’s not overly ambitious!

Good luck to everyone!

Daniel

Hi All,

It’s been almost two weeks since the competition, and I figured I’ll write a bit about my experience in creating Dragon Island.

What went right:

1. Graphics and tile engine: I am quite happy with how the graphics turned out, given the time limitation. Even more so, I am happy with my trusty tile engine which grows from LD to LD – this time I added “depth” sorting to allow for this “3d” look.
2. Music: I really like how the music turned out to be – after writing it I though it reminds me of a part of “Dune 2” music, but that was not intentional (although my sub-conscious probably is to blame…).

What went wrong:

1. Gameplay: I am actually disappointed that my gameplay didn’t go as planned. It is full of bugs, and controls are iffy. This seems to be a common problem with my games, but this time it was the worst – I think next time I will need to prototype the game play MUCH MUCH earlier on in the competition, and make it work first. Pretty graphics and nice music doesn’t help when the gameplay is flawed – we are making GAMES here.
2. Time management: I am not sure what happened this time, but I didn’t really manage my time well this time around – I got to the evening of Sunday with very few working elements, and needed to rush everything – usually I’m better at this.
3. Theme: I didn’t like the theme, and I didn’t even know the reference for it (Zelda, and/or the Meme). Well, I work with what I get – but I don’t like the silly themes, so it would seem.

I think that’s about it – thanks every one for a great competition and be sure to play and vote as much as you can (I am very busy these days, I just hope to rate the assigned games at least…). Go play!

Thanks,

Daniel

My LD submission “Dragon Island” is finally submitted!

I ran a bit out of steam towards the end, but I am happy nevertheless – I’ll write a postmortem later on this week.

Hope you enjoy this, and good luck to everyone!

Daniel

Got the tile engine and character/enemy up and running!

You can now “attack” enemies, but it still doesn’t do anything interesting, it looks like this:

Tomorrow I will add real interactions + levels, monsters and winning losing conditions.

Plenty of work, not much time – let’s see how it goes!!

Daniel

A lovely avocado sandwich which was consumed!

Should keep me up and running while I start coding!

Daniel

Here’s the main character of the game – our brave (lonely) warrior:

Pixel art style – pretty decent I think – will take a lot of time drawing all the angles with all the actions – but hey, it’ll be OK.

Will now draw side views and start some coding – Visual C++ here I come!

Daniel

OK, Hi!

I must say the theme is not 100% to my liking, but hey that’s what this is all about, no?

Anyhow – my idea is as follows: You are a warrior sent to a dangerous/scary mission, maybe to a forest or something like that. probably to kill a DRAGON.

Anyhow – it’s dangerous to go alone, so the village/town/kingdom wizard gives you this sidekick – a small creature that accompanies you, provides light and possibly some defense/offense capabilities.

The game will probably be an isometric platformer of some sort – but as I have never wrote one, it might be harder than I think!

Good luck to everyone!

Daniel

Hi everybody,

I thought I’d share some of my experiences from LD19 creating “Caves of Darkness”, what went wrong, what went right and so on…

What went right:

1. Design – for the first time ever, I thought of a game idea, and implemented all the necessary game mechanics! Here is an early sketch from the morning of the competition:

Those of you who played the game (And if you didn’t – please do it now! ) will note that the game and the sketch are pretty close, something I consider a success.

2. Graphics – I think the graphic style of the game went very well, I worked quite a bit on the lighting effects as they are a major part of the gameplay mechanics, and I think the result is decent!

3. Sound – although the music is not exactly as I wanted it to be (I wanted it to be a bit darker, and mellower) – I think it is not bad after all, and suits the game well.

4. Levels – another first for me – my code base actually supports adding new levels easily, loading them and the game elements from file. This is a HUGE step forward for me, as I really think this makes this thing a GAME and not just a sketch.

What went wrong:

1. Controls – a common problem I have on all of my LD entries – controls are a bit twitchy. Fine tuning the parameters is hard, and because it is based on a simple “physics” engine, it makes it even harder. I think this should be the main thing to rewrite towards next LD competition (or in general, for that matter).

2. Game Elements – this is probably because of lack of time, but I really wanted to have more gameplay elements – moving platforms, collapsing floors and more – maybe for the next LD I will be able to make those happen, now that the code-base is growing.

Overall, I’m pretty happy with the result, and I had lots of fun participating.

So thanks, and if you haven’t played my game already – go, now! and vote!

Thanks,
Daniel

Here’s the latest screenshot:

Collisions are working, also lighting – note the cool torch effect!

Had breakfast:

Now on to to some timestep issues, and actual gameplay!

Daniel

Well, after a slow start I now have a tile engine with light controls!

And of course – I made lunch a while ago:

Farfalle with aubergine, yoghurt, tahini and basil – yum!

Hope to have more things soon – sprites, gameplay and sound! stay tuned.

Good luck to everyone!

Daniel

The game will be named “Caves of Mystery”.

You are a lone archeologist, trapped in the ancient caves of mystery – you need to find your way out, but you only have your trusty torch and a few balls of cotton dipped in gasoline – which you can throw to light up your way.

In each level you need to find your way out – but everything is dark, so use your fire balls wisely!

Hope no one made something similar in LD15 – I see it was about caverns (but I did not participate, nor did I see any game from it…).

Now, art and coding time!

Daniel

Hi,

Since the competition is over (good luck jam people!) I thought I’d share some of the lessons I learned during the 48h in the making of HOME.

What went right:

1. I got a complete, working game. As someone who started many projects, but finished very few, this is the best thing about LD for me – I actually FORCE my self to finish this, and it rocks! It happened in LD17 as well, but this time was as good!

2. I think the style and general feel of the game is quite good, and as I intended. Everything runs fast and smooth, and has this vectorized look, which I like. Although I implemented this using sprites, it look quite crisp IMHO.

3. Music turned out to be atmospheric as I wanted it, maybe a bit boring, but it’s background anyway…

4. The code (available, of course) is surprisingly neat – it only started getting messy towards the end.

What went wrong:

1. Gameplay – I think the whole tractor beam mechanism is not fun enough, and not really necessary for finishing the game (although it helps) – this is both due to the physics code which should have been tweaked more, and possibly the general game idea.

2. The game is WAY too short, it’s not that easy (sometimes it is, depends on random values) but you can finish it in under 30 seconds if you’re lucky. not good.

3. No sounds effects! This is actually a technical issue, something weird with how clanlib handles sounds – I got the music to work after a LONG time, but sound effects were very problematic. ANYWAY – you can’t hear anything in space.

4. I wasted a lot of time of getting rigid body collisions (spheres, actually) which I didn’t use – it’s a shame really..

That’s it, I think.

You are welcome to play my game and of course, VOTE!

Can’t wait for the next LD!

Daniel

Hey – just submitted HOME – my LD entry for this competition.

Here’s a link to it – don’t forget to vote!!!

Thanks everyone!

Daniel

Well, game mechanics + effects are nearly complete.

Need to do scoring, dying, winning and title/ending screen. Need to add sounds as well.

I am going to make it!!

Here’s a current screenshot showing off asteroids, enemy ships, tractor beam and particles!

Good luck to everyone!

Daniel