Play our little game Pre Gumbo!
.. and learn the true story of creation!
About FistBumpGames (twitter: @FistBumpGames)
Entries
Ludum Dare 35 | Ludum Dare 34 | Ludum Dare 33 | Ludum Dare 32 |
Ludum Dare 31 | Ludum Dare 29 | Ludum Dare 28 |
FistBumpGames's Trophies
 you have been in Helevenium #LD29 Awarded by alvivar on May 19, 2014 |
FistBumpGames's Archive
first day progress..
Updates Updates Updates!
Posted by FistBumpGames (twitter: @FistBumpGames)
Monday, May 19th, 2014 5:33 pm
Hi guys!
We are back from the dead with a big update – new level, new AI, new assets and animations –
Now that the voting comes to an end, we want to show what we managed to contribute to our game in the last weeks. If you had already played it and gave us feedback, there is a good chance that we already fixed/included your bug/idea ;D
Anyhow thank you all for this huge amount of reviews, and have fun exploring the world beneath the surface :3
http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-29/?action=preview&uid=30260
Here the direct Dropbox-Link: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/27665639/BTS_2/BTS_2.html
NoNoBattle aka FistBumpGames
Beneath the Surface – Update and Post Mortem
Posted by FistBumpGames (twitter: @FistBumpGames)
Friday, May 9th, 2014 4:09 pm
Beneath the surface is an unforgiving pixelart action game.
The player takes control of a nameless hero and ventures into a mysterious cave to face whatever lies beneath the surface 😉
It was our second LD jam entry and our team consisted of 6 people this time.
What went right:
Theme/Idea
We watched the voting sessions very closely and centered our game-ideas on the themes that were likely to win.
We were therefore able to set for a scenario/idea early and start working on it. This was one point we were able to improve over our fist LD.
Atmosphere
Presentation is an important thing for us and one thing we always bear in mind, when working on a LD entry, is to create a compelling looking game.
LD is always a nice opportunity to try, incorporate and improve new techniques. This is why we settled with the pixelart look again.
Part of our team had little to no experience with pixel art but our artists/level designer did a great job and we are very happy with the final result.
Music/Sound
Thanks to the bigger team we were able to integrate more and better sound effects.
One programmer even disappeared for several hours before deadline and left us out in the cold…..
Just to come back with a self-composed music theme which adds a lot to the atmosphere of the game.
What went wrong:
Time Management
We submitted the game like 15 seconds before deadline…oO
Again we were not able to add all the things to the game we wanted and QA/polish those that are in it.
Even with – or because of – the bigger team we were not able to plan time accordingly.
But LD is the best opportunity to gain experience in project management without a real risk (except the time invested)
Controls
Our plan was to create a challenging game because we like difficult, challenging games. It is a coincidence that Dark Souls II was released on the LD-Weekend.
But us not being able to play it, due to the Jam, somehow translated into our game 😉
The thing that makes the DS Games so compelling for us, is the fact that the player is always in control of all his opportunities to react to a given situation accordingly.
Every death can be tracked back to a fault of the player. Its often nasty but never unfair.
Due to our – not great – time management we were not able to put more time into polishing/tweaking the controls and the animations.
This affects our game because we were not able to give the player the feedback and the precise controls that he needed to interact with the enemies as intended.
What we take away:
Things never go as planned and they always take more time than initially assumed! 
Every time invested in player interactions and really tight controls is time well spent!
Sound/Music design improves the Atmosphere a LOT!…duh
Final Words:
We have worked on an more accessible and improved Post Compo-Version of Beneath the Surface.
Please give it a try:
http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-29/?action=preview&uid=30260
Thanks to everybody who played our game and thanks for all the feedback and comments – We really love the LD-community and we’d love to see you again in four months!
Best wishes,
NoNoBattle
One-hit Permadeath
Posted by FistBumpGames (twitter: @FistBumpGames)
Thursday, May 1st, 2014 12:13 pm
Hey guys!
Wow, so many reviews since the last post <3
One thing that obviously scares off many people is the difficulty in gameplay. It is very tight and unforgiving, but with practice comes perfection.
Me ripping through some boney fellas (animated GIF)
We chose the One-hit Permadeath intentionally to give you a challenge and stay longer in this little world that we have created, but we admit that a gameplay like this can be very frustrating if you are not willing to spend some time and deaths to learn the mechanics.
Anyhow, we are working on an Easymode at the moment so you can relax and enjoy the art :3
We can’t await your reaction!
NoNoBattle
Bugfixes incoming!
Posted by FistBumpGames (twitter: @FistBumpGames)
Thursday, May 1st, 2014 3:57 am
Hey guys!
Thank you very much for your amazing reviews so far!
We are glad to hear of your thoughts and appreciate constructive criticism, it keeps our spirits up 😉
If you like to check out what we fixed and improved, go see our updated version!
Have fun and good luck!
NoNoBattle
Drone! Post-Mortem
Posted by FistBumpGames (twitter: @FistBumpGames)
Thursday, December 19th, 2013 3:45 pm
The Team:
Drone! is the first Ludum Dare entry of two aspiring Game Enthusiasts/Designers/Programmers/Artists from Austria.
The Difficulty with ideas, the box and time pressure
The things we agreed on were to use sprites, pixel art and pixel lightning. Technics both of us had very little, to no experience beforehand. When we first read the theme it took us about 12 hours until we had some ideas to get startet. We tried so hard to think outside the box that we were not able to come up with ideas that translated well into a game. Thinking outside the box – while having limited time is very hard!
The final game was a step back to the basics. You only get one minute to get to the rescue pod (which was a good way to keep the scope as small as possible). The only “twist” on the theme was that the drone has to get No.1 (the char with a big one digit on the breast – how smart 😉 ) and rescue him.
The Game Mechanics
The player has one minute to navigate the Character (1) using W (up) A (left) S (down) D (right) to the end of the level. The way is blocked with closed doors which are opened at consoles. While standing in front of a console the player has to hold the Space bar and enter a random generated code – consisting of the letters W A S D.
If the code is entered correctly the door opens and the player is able to advance.
To add pressure to the player he is also attacked by random numbers of aliens. In order to defeat the aliens the player has to navigate around and target them with his rescuer – the drone – using a left mouse click on the alien.
The Problems
Everything in the game was created from scratch. Every line of code and every asset. We also tried the new unity features like the animator or the 2D feature, but they dont support pixellighting and our shader skills were not advanced enough to come up with a shader solution. Therefore we faced a lot of problems while working and implementing stuff. We also had no real workflow or pipeline defined. Which let to nearly every task taking longer than expected. There are a lot of things we had ready but couldn`t be implemented in order to submit in time.
Like Sound and particle effects – for more player feedback – or animations.
Conclusion
We are very happy with the final game.
We also know that the game has issues – which would not be there if we have had a better time and workflow management.
If we are able to define and mangage those things better in the future, we are able to create more polished games and maybe submit them before the last 2 minutes (pfff – it was realy close this time)
Final words
We worked a lot over the weekend but we also had a ton of fun and we learned even more.
The Ludum Dare community is awesome. Reading the first positive comments is an incredible feeling – thanks to everyone!!!
Happy holidays and see you in April!
Alfi and Lukas
NoNoBattle