For several categories, and in general, I think this is by far my best result in LD.

So lets tease it apart and get into that post-mortem mood.

#26 Mood

I wanted to learn the Camera Effects now available to everyone in Unity, and I think I did throw in about half of them.
At the same time! Crazy me. Actually, it might have been a bit too crazy since there were several reports of people getting nausea from playing.
There was an obvious attempt to scare and discomfort without using violence (at least not against other entities), but making players ill was more than I wanted.

There is something about mood, when it comes from strange and trippy-land. I thought it wouldn’t do to explain much to the player. It was important that the player got to discover. That is a big part of the mood. So when the game doesn’t follow all game-convensions it becomes very hard to ease the player the right way.

One nifty thing I partially succeeded with in regards to this was how the game starts.

The player is locked inside a small room (lower left) with a strong visual queue, the first partial goal. The door only opened after that goal was achieved.
However, the position of where the player started in combination with the size of the trigger meant players happened to get the unlock without understanding they’ve solved the first part.
Even worse, upon completing a part wild-with-crazy-ideas-me though it good to reset players (using exactly the same visuals as for “death”), which meant players didn’t even understand that they were progressing.

#68 Audio

This actually makes me more happy about the community than anything. The game doesn’t have music. All it has is some random sounds (thanks squeaky boards in my floor), and me attempting some voice acting. I think that should say something to others, like me, that don’t really have the talent to make tunes. There are great tools to procedurally generate music, but not all games will do better with those songs.

#165 Innovation

I expect you get some from the fact that it is a strange game.
I think having a rubber chicken that you hit yourself with is a rather novel weapon.

But in general, I’m actually quite happy that I managed to keep the game logic so conventional.
Except, maybe, having health drain fast with movement.
And a bit uncommon with the “weapon”. It is a typical, unlimited use melee weapon, but you are the one being hit. So while it makes you calm/gives you health, it also makes health drain faster when you start to move again.

#169 Graphics

I’m not very good at keeping a style, and very new to 3D models.
So, I did crazy number of models:

And stuck to two and a half colors (Grey, yello, and a splash of red)

I’ve also been playing some Borderlands, and I really wanted that toony-outline style (not visible here, but play the game and you’ll see! ^^ ).

#296 Overall | #659 Humor | #728 Fun

I think this points to general communications issues in the game.
People not progressing fast enough, the game should really never take more than 3 minutes to play.
The feedback on what are the partial targets, that the player progressed, where to go if you don’t find the target. It all needed to be better.

Though it seems scary, it is actually more of a fun game if you ask me. But it is only fun if it doesn’t take too long and you must reach the end.

#785 Theme

This is just wrong. OK, I was very unhappy with the theme because of its center around violence. But I was wrong there. It was a good theme. A great diversity of games were made.
I still think some either can’t let go of weapons needing to hurt others. Or that unconventional must be in the mechanics somehow. It would make me sad if that’s the case.
So lets hope the blame is on me, because maybe just noticing there’s a rubber chicken isn’t enough to say it’s good theme-wise (though I don’t really see why not), but if people didn’t really understand what it was doing… then it is on me. It should have been clearer what the chicken did.

Post-compo

And as it happens, I think I’ve made a version of the game that actually addresses amost all the issues, so if you are in the mood… give it a try:

Where’s Manno?

Me, I can’t wait for the next LD! I’m so happy and proud. Next I’ll do something even stranger. That’s a promise! (And please excuse my sloppy language in this post)

Last year, this time, we got together a couple of friends and made a game.

Protagonist last year

It was said to be disturbing and other adjectives that we appreciated. We hope to repeat those feelings in the unfortunate players who have the bad luck of playing what we make. Since it isn’t even clear who “we” will be this time, it’s even less clear what tools we will be using, but if I am to guess we will use cameras, microphones, toys, scissors, pens, pencils and various software (GIMP, Audacity, Inkscape, Paint.net and others). Probably it will be Unity that assembles it all into a game, but that is of course also not decided until we start.

Whatever the theme is, I wow to manipulate my co-conspirators into creating something that will have people saying This game is completly mindfuck and scary again.

And even more urgent than last year, it will of course be #NoSexism.
Depending on what you consider violence, it will probably be #NoViolence too.

My own personal programming goals are to succeed in:

• having easily understood controls
• having smooth controls
• having a reasonable difficulty progression

Let’s forget life and have a fantastic ludum weekend!

Completely forgot to say I was in. I am. This time jamming with a friend. After two days of dev we have most working properly, just going to add some more and better thought through levels tomorrow.

Tools of our trade:

• HTML5 / CSS / JavaScript with jQuery and Kinetic / JSON
• vi and emacs (look at that!)
• A pen and a paper / camera / GIMP
• Autotracker / BFXR / VLC (in->ogg) / Audacity

Previous LDs there appeared a post with everyone’s results in a nice spreadsheet. It was great and I had fun plotting graphs and clustering people’s games. Many seemed to like it.

I don’t remember who posted that data. But I sure would be happy doing new stats from it if it appeared again…

I didn’t get any coding done until after sundown, but this Phaser-thing seems quite straight forward. So far.

The little pod is flying above the surface for now even though it is contrary to the theme. It’s because the level generation is tomorrow’s task, and as of now there’s nothing down there:

(Thanks to Cat for lending me her hair as a playing-field)

Tomorrow, I need to add sounds (if Cat cooperates) to the pod.

The Dermites will need a culture, there has to be a reason for all the Fistulae Foraging!

And the world needs structure and content.

So I’ve got an idea of what to do.

The problem is I swore to myselt that I wouldn’t do another game in Unity3D, at least not for a while. So I’m trying to install and learn game making tools. And I don’t have too many hours to work on the game this weekend. And I should know better…

Heading for the first fail… wish me luck.

(I put this text on Ludum Dare because I have no where else or better place to put it. This, in my opinion, also matters to everyone here.)

We who made (and still make) games for #candyjam do it because trademark law and predatory companies are stealing our language and robbing us of our freedom of speech. It is horrifying that common words can be stolen.

I make computer games in my spare time as a way to express myself and to contribute to culture. I do it because I find computer games important as it is one of the most prominent forms of art and entertainment of our times. It is a young form of expression in which there’s still much room to explore and invent. If even I, as a hobbyist, can’t make games without the risk of legal harassment, then there is something very corrupt in how we’ve organized our societies. I believe that laws are only valid when they serve the people and not by their own right. The use of trademark and copyright law to effectively censor culture voids their validity. Even more troublesome is the fact that most major internet infrastructures are located in the US, their laws have practically become international. For us who live outside the US, the right to participate in and produce cultural expressions on the internet (even freedom of speech) is outside democratic control. Instead these rights are, for all practical purposes, controlled by a few powerful companies who don’t understand and have no incentive to care about the gravity of what they are doing
This state of affairs is simply unacceptable.

Yesterday, there was an Ask-Me-Anything (AMA) on reddit, and unfortunately the discussion derailed into legal matters. I think this left quite a few of us disappointed. Not in the fantastic people who make #candyjam possible, but in the outcome of the AMA. For sure, the legal risks may be relevant to discuss, but they are not as important as the fact that we are making these games. Or why we make them!

If you’ve read this far, chances are this matters to you too. There are some ways for you to show this:

• Make a #candyjam game if you already haven’t — you have all week before submissions finally close. I know you want to!
• If you made a game, cast a vote or write a comment on someone elses game on itch.io to let them know what you think.
• Play a game or spread the word (since most or all of us have yet to get a single dollar from all our game making efforts, we measure our worth in page views, clicks and links)
• Let the people who put this impromptu jam together know how much you appreciate them on twitter. (#candyjam)
• And finally, when the next Ludum Dare swings around, I expect all of you to have some candy in your game!

Cheers,
Local Minimum

I made this entry for the rebellious candy jam… pretty sure it’s my best game so far!

Check it out!
Made with: Unity, Inkscape, Sfxr, Autotracker

Once, in a place not too different from ours, there was a people yearning for a life in peace. But they were ruled by a ruthless King who only loved one thing more than to see his people suffer. He loved candy. Most of all he loved playing a game he himself had “come up with”.

Each time the King got three candies connected, he scored. And when things were going badly, he cheated. The people had to produce new candy at an alarming rate to satisfy their King.

They had to resist.

The people started removing candies on the playing field right under his nose. They even went as far as to condition the King to play faster when they pressed a special buzzer.

The most daring used it quite often.

To gain the most, they needed the King to loose quickly while removing as few candies as possible. It was after all they who had to produce them.

Good luck, and save us all!

UPDATE: NOW FIXED STUPID TRANSPARENT MENU THING THAT WAS BLOCKING PLAY…

Give it a spin and let me know if you find it fun. Or if something could have been made better. Become the world record holder.

Lesson learned from this blunder of uploading games in the middle of the night while very tired and quite stressed: Don’t do it.

It has been a few days now since the end of miniLD#48 and I think now is a really good time to sum things up.

The Good Bricks

• The brick smashing obliterating effect with smoke and shards flying everywhere. By far my best and most well worked Unity effect. Very fun to just destroy bricks.
• The whispers from the usurping bricks and how the pointer position was used to listen in to their conspiracies.
• The code structure was kept simple and the interfaces for the classes seems to have held quite a lot of further development. Some adjustments I’ve had to do, but mostly additions.

The Bad Bricks

• The initial game was probably impossible. Way too hard! And I’m quite commonly complaining on others to make them do easier beginnings. How did I end up… I think I got too tired on Sunday to bother tweaking the game. Bad me.
• There was only one level, and it was sort of a bare thing, so much needed to be scratched from the plan due to time constraints. From simple silhouettes to make the game look architecty, to brick shakings and easter eggs.
• The controls may have been the least wonky I’ve made for a Ludum thing so far, but there were still many issues. Some of them relating to the fact that it is a 3D game but the user interacts with it as if it was 2D. Thus using 3D-distances was really not a great idea.

The Updated Bricks

I’ve added a new Level today (image above), also fixed many other things including even more fun for you when fail on a level. This is sort of an odd design strategy, to have the most effects and effort put into the loosing experience. I think it is interesting though, so I might very well dig into that idea further in a future game.

So if you have a little time on your hand, head on over an give my updated version a try. And while you’re at it, let me know what you think.

This miniLD I think saw some awesome games, I’ve played most but not all by now (I think). In fact I think the level of awesomeness per game is significantly higher than in the past LD28.

The miniLD had the most addictive game I’ve played so far, two LDs and this mini encountering:

I don’t know if it was the combination of wanting to have 10 presidents or those other silly upgrades, or just the joy of click-click-click.

It also had this challenging backstabbing puzzle that came with surprising depth and variety in challenges:

And the most deceptive game every:

These three have all gotten a handful comments, which is still not very much. Not for the energy and effort put into making a game in 48h. Many others have only one or two. So if you read this, it means you’ve got some coolness. You hang here, you probably make games, and you definitely are willing to play one or two. So do that, and let the maker know what was good and what could have been improved! The miniLD doesn’t have ratings and anyone registered can comment. I think I learned at least half of what I’ve leveled in game making past months from playing others’ games, so there’s something in it for you too.

PLAY AND COMMENT!

I was thinking that I need to fix the stuff that mostly irritate me with the version I submitted to the miniLD#48. If this was a proper LD, I would of course upload a newer version side by side. However since it’s just a mini — does it matter? Or is there a point to keep the original submissions as to show what can and is being done in 48h? Anyone with an opinion.

Also, since there’s no rating — please comment! Even if you don’t like the game you just played, just say something. I have the rule to write something on all games I play and as an aim to come with some constructive though too whenever I can come up with something. You can do it too!

Try curing the facade from the usurping rogue bricks or just have fun listening in to their rebellious whispers and smashing bricks for effects.
Some sort of “the good and the bad will” have to come later. Now it is time for some well needed sleep, for me. You should play my game:

Yesterday there was little to show.

Today, the basic mechanics feel quite complete so I’ve had a great time experimenting and adding effects.

All fonts and several assets are still just placeholders, but that shouldn’t be too demanding to fix tomorrow.

I’ve done a main menu and a tutorial level. As a happy accident, the bricks I was painting the menu terrain with happened to swim all by themselves. They are obviously up to no good, but I think it worked great.

And though the surroundings to the brick wall is still to be replaced, I’m very happy with that brick shattering and the tweening when new bricks are shoved into their right place:

The skip button for the tutorial is in place (upper left). Don’t forget skip buttons if you have intros or tutorials!

It will appear on the levels too after the player has attempted some few trimes.

The main obstacle is I won’t have time to work for half of tomorrow and to make a decent first level at least, I would need to make 3D assets (windows, doors, and whatnot).
We’ll see how it goes. Worst case scenario, I can put the bricks in new patterns and have the levels work by adjusting the amount of usurpers and rate of conspiracy.

Almost keeping the schedule I’ve set for myself so far. For tomorrow there are still many thing but those with low priority could probably be regarded as a wishlist.

I, must say, I’m having very much fun. Fourth game development in Unity and the rocks I hit are definitely more spaced out and softer.