So, I rated 50 games. What can I say?

After playing first few games, I thought that the theme is bad, because there were a lot of games with the same interpretation or without one at all.

But now I can say that I was mistaken. There are games which use the theme nicely. Here are some of them:

(I picked games with little ratings)

Aketa,

a jam entry by chikun Dev Team.

A game about a little girl stuck in a big maze. And the maze is stuck in one screen. But this time Aketa is going to escape! If it’s not enough to make you play this game till the end, there is an ending song!

Cathode Ray,

a compo entry by Figglewatts.

Even wondered how does a computer screen work? This game will tell you! Follow the electron in its epic journey to a computer screen. More specific, to displaying “ENTIRE GAME” on one screen. Got it?

The Broadenlands,

a jam entry by Wolve.

You wanna go adventuring? Instead of going somewhere far away, why don’t you go to your bedroom? It has much more than you think! In fact, this entire game takes place in one bedroom.

Also, why won’t you play my game?

Kaleidoscope,

a compo entry by Me.

Have you ever looked through a kaleidoscope? There are some crazy stuff. Now, put some moving polygons inside it and play it.

Kaleidoscope the game

I get a lot of positive comments on my game! I like this game more than my previous games. So, how did I manage to make a better game this time?

KISS is for keep in simple and stupid. I read about this principle here a while ago, and this time I was totally going to use it.

Good stuff:

• Planning. I woke a minute before the LD started, it’s my first time seeing the final countdown. And I started programming about 6 hours later, because I had stuff to do. So, I could take some time to plan my game well.

Level sketches

• Game idea. This game is simple, but it’s still fun and original, so I didn’t need to implement big features or draw big artworks or anything.
• Time. I can’t say that time-management was perfect, but since my game is simple, I spent less time on it than on previous games.
• Graphics. I’m bad at drawing, but I managed to make good graphics with almost no drawing! Instead, I used a lot of graphic effects and details.

So-so:

• Music. Oh, I can tell you so much about making music for my game! At first I wanted to try out a new tool I found recently, Sonant Live. I composed some music and realized I’m bad at it. Then, I decided use a time-proved tool Abundant Music, which is a music generator. But it has 2 problems. 1: it can only convert into .mid, 2: I guess you have to be a pro at it to make it generate exactly what you want. After some time, I managed to convert the most fitting track into .wav, with this amazing device I invented during one of previous LDs:
  

  Super Awesome Sound Wave Generator 20000

  …yes, I just put the microphone between my headphones and ran sound recording. After some tweaking using Audacity, I managed to get good sound quality. So, the first problem is solved. But I couldn’t solve the second one! Abundant Music didn’t generate a track I’d like. So, I went back to Sonant Live and made music with it. It turned out to be pretty good, maybe that’s because I had no other choice.

• Code. OMG my code. When I wanted to add recoloring floor, I just modified “move walls” function to check if the input entity is a tile. When I wanted to add moving enemies, I just modified “move walls” function to check if the input entity is an enemy. One function does 3 things! And loading level is done by 3 functions, so if I want to find something, I need to look through all of them. Also, I had several nasty bugs those took me a couple of hours to fix.

But I learned something:

• You can make a game that’s both simple and innovative.
• I’m not a noob at making music, and Abundant Music isn’t a panacea.
• Graphics isn’t only about drawing.

Play and rate my game!

..this post feels empty. Ok, I’ll submit post-mortem next time, and that is not going to be empty!

Yay! YAAAAY!!! My game is finished!!!!!

Time to sleep. And… 3 weeks of non-stop gameplay are coming!

I’m worrying so much. I like this game the most of my other LD games.

Gamepage here.

My Kaleidoscope might be finished! But you can still play it post feedback. I’m not going to submit it right now.

I have added more levels and a high-score list. And that’s pretty much it.

Kaleidoscope is a game about coins, enemies, disorientation and symmetry.

I’ve almost finished it, I only need more levels.

So, I want some testing!

Please, play it and give feedback.

My livestream

I made a lot of progress. I managed to fix 2 big bugs (They were about 10 lines of code away from each other) and made some more levels, sound effects and a mute button. And also made difficulty increasing.

Now I only need a finish screen and some more levels! That went quite fast.

My livestream

I’ve finished enemies and music. It took me longer that I expected because of buggy bugs.

Now I only need more levels and maybe more graphic effects. Oh, and sound effects, too. But more levels is my priority. I want difficulty to change as you complete levels, so, in first few levels controls are normal.

My livestream

I’ve made much progress in my game called “Kaleidoscope”!

Designing levels is hard… They have to be symmetrical.

You control a polygon to collect shiny coins. Collect all 3 to complete the level, get points for fast completion. Sounds easy?

What if I told you that up isn’t always up and right isn’t always right? Directions change dynamically!

Oh, and the game has a cool level changing animation. Check out the previous post to see it.

I also have a livestream. Though atm I’m going to eat.

It’s been… A year! I guess I lost a lot of my skills, and I don’t really think I had gotten any more.

Tools:

• PhYard builder, the same one every time. Maybe I should stick to something else, but I’m so used to it!
• Chronolapse.

That’s pretty much all the stuff I’ll use for sure. But I might use this:

Graphics: GIMP or Inkscape. Not good in either.Audio: more likely Abundant Music. Maybe Guitar Pro or some other stuff. Found Sonant Live recently, might use it as well.XSplit for streaming.

I got a bit busier, but I’ll hope I won’t be affected much. If it goes wrong, I might just join jam instead of the compo.

What can I say about the themes… I don’t like the ☃. If it wins, there’ll be 90% white-blue games with a snowman protagonist… From the voting rounds I participated in, I liked themes “End Where You Started”: good for interesting storylines, and not restraining; “Love”: I haven’t seen this wonderful theme before, did it took so long to realize it can be used? and “The Red Button”: a bit cliche, but promises some fun games.

Hello, LD folks! This is a post-mortem of everything I’ve made in 2013. I just feel like I must write one. We don’t end years often, do we?

This year started with the end of Ludum Dare 25. Results weren’t high, but they were higher than anything I’ve got then. Let’s call it a beginning of a beginning.

Also, I joined One Game A Month. In the first month, however, I almost failed. I managed to make a very short game about 2 days before the month’s end.

Then, MiniLD 40 came, so I made a game. Actually, I’ve made 2 games in February. The second one was, perhaps, my first serious game. I found out that I can make games.

I didn’t participate in MiniLD 41. I think I went somewhere then. I managed to make a game for 1GAM though, so I can’t say I wasted March.

April came next. And LD 26. I participated in it, and I did better. I was making several other games, I still didn’t finish them. Well, it was a very productive time. I had been on some kind of peak then… until I fell.

Yep, I fell. It was summer, but (so?) I didn’t participate in MiniLDs. I made 2 games for 1GAM, but eventually I broke my own combo. I missed the LD 27. It wasn’t because of my lack of motivation, but who knows if it could bump me up?However, I didn’t lose fully. Since the September, I was programming. Not really making any games, just programming. So, I didn’t really do anything during the autumn.

But then, in November, MiniLD 47 came. And that was the first time I pulled a game from beginning to end since April. And results were great! I put effort into everything. Even graphics, though before I thought graphics isn’t my thing.

Now, Ludum Dare 28 passed. I’m glad with what I’m done. And it’s only the beginning.

Here is what do I want to tell. Imagine yourself playing a game, where you fight against armies of enemies. And if you get killed, you lose absolutely nothing. What will you do? You will bravely attack them, won’t you? That’s Ludum Dare. What do you lose if you do something wrong? Nothing. So why won’t you put all your efforts to it?

So far, in 2013 I:

• Participated in 2 Ludum Dares, 2 Mini Ludum Dares
• Made 8 games (out of 12) for 1GAM
• Made 10 games total.
• Left 3 games unfinished.
• Made 48 posts in LD.
• Made 14 500×500 images, 8 nice little sprites.
• Composed 3 pieces of music for games.
• Made 17072 screenshots for timelapses.

I don’t rate a lot of games. Well, who rates games on the New Year’s Eve? Anyway, here are several good games with little rating I’ve noticed:

• Batteries Not Included by Photon
• First Hour Superpower by tayl1r
• John Power by Anoarith

And you might want to rate my game: Maverick.

Happy New Year everybody! I wish you to do everything you can and aim for the best!