Team Jamplifier will also be participating in this Ludum Dare! (:

After our previous 2 Ludum Dares we are more than excited to participate in our next one.
This time we even have an extra artist to help us out on the visual department, stuff is going to be really cool! (We hope, at least)

Participating;

-Riko Ophorst: The first of our 2 developers, specialised in JavaScript
-Daniël Konings (me): As a second developer, specialised in graphics programming and C++
-Rens Verspagen: The first of our godlike artists, if I have to say so myself, specialised in 2D digital artwork
-Jos van Gils: Both 2D and 3D art is his playground, new to the team and we can’t wait to see him in action

Weapons of mass destruction;

-Sublime Text 3 – Gameplay sided programming
-Visual Studio 2013 – If we run into engine problems
-Audacity – To edit our sounds/music
-Adobe Photoshop – Obvious reasons, to create art in
-3DS Max/Maya – If we do any 3D

The game will be powered by Snuffbox, which is my own engine I’ve been working on for the past couple of months. It renders using Direct3D 11, is interpreted by Google Chrome’s V8 JavaScript engine and does sound via FMOD. Its git repository can be found here; https:/www.github.com/acidvenom/snuffbox-cmake (Actually still have to implement sound in the refactor, but that’s little work)

Good luck all!

Team Jamplifier, out

Hello everybody!

For anybody who was not seen Dwindling Fire yet, check it out!
We personally think it is a really cool game!

Here’s the link to our entry, click!

Here’s some quick snaps from the game!

Well, our second Ludum Dare! We made it in time. Time lapse coming up (:
Play it here: http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-31/?action=preview&uid=30185

Good luck in the voting rounds everyone! Excited to see what everyone has made.

Well, Snuffbox is doing a great job so far! (: Had some difficulties at the start, but fixed the issues quite quickly.

Haven’t had any encounters with problems since, so that’s good.

Here’s a little sneak peak for you all! Good luck!

Pump up the volume!

It’s time for another Ludum Dare; Team Jamplifier is on it!

With our first entry during LD29, Dwarves & Goblins (finishing at an overall ranking of #77!), we are really excited to be tell you guys that we will be participating in Ludum Dare 31!
This time around we are no longer locked up in a sun parlor at Daniël’s elderly house, but got our very own house now!

Having said that, let’s move on to our weapons of choice this time around..

• Snuffbox
  • Snuffbox is Daniëls personal DirectX game engine – check it out on github here.
• JavaScript
  • Snuffbox embeds Google’s V8 engine to make for easy game programming.
• Adobe Photoshop
  • For obvious reasons..
• Even more music than last time!
  • I mean, we are of course Team Jamplifier!
    
• Visual Studio 2013 Ultimate
  • In case Snuffbox decides to mess up
• Sublime Text 2/3
  • JavaScript is love, Javascript is life
• Fruity Loops
  • If we make sound ourselves that is..

And a little backstory on who we are:

• Daniël Konings
  • Daniël is an amazing C++ programmer who has made Snuffbox which we will be using during the jam! Daniël is currently following an internship at Abbey Games! Quite a dull guy, often calls himself sharp. He doesn’t really know why. Loves cold weather.
• Riko Ophorst
  • I (Riko) am a developer, capable of getting my shit done in JavaScript & starting on C++. I was following an internship previously at Spil Games and currently at BoosterMedia! Crushes your JavaScript issues to damnation using his powerful arsenal of knowledge. Not to be messed around with.
• Rens Verspagen
  • Rens is an amazing artist who just keeps on kicking ass for Team Jamplifier! Often compared with God, he’s the creator of all. When a world needs shaping, Rens is the majestic ‘alpha-to-the-omega’ guy you require! He is currently following an internship at Art King Studios!

Good luck everyone!

Finished game here: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-29/?action=preview&uid=30185

As it was our first Ludum Dare I decided to share a little post-mortem on it with you guys. I won’t go into all the details, but I’ll describe most of our work within the project.

Ok, here goes.

The three of us decided to participate in Ludum Dare 2 weeks before the start. We made this decision in an Irish Pub, quite ironic when you hear the music used in the game.
We know eachother from school and we all 3 have whopping internships, so why the hell wouldn’t we join in? The decision was made and the date was set. We were ready to roll.

The concept
After the theme reveal at 3AM, we went for a walk around the block deciding what our concept was going to be. After looking at some cliché concepts like shadows, portals and all that stuff, we decided we wanted to do something original without going INTO the surface but instead ON the surface. Our artist, Rens, stood up on a bench outside and felt it shake. That’s where our concept started; something with tremors/shakes that would affect your underlying surface. The idea of a circular landscape came very soon after that, we wanted to go into infinity with it. An arcade style game with tremors.. Hm. What happens INSIDE of the earth? Magma eruptions? Earthquakes? Mining? Oh, wait, yes, mining. From there we decided it’ll be real cool to protect miners from their demise by providing overhead.

Dwarves & Goblins was born.

Preparation
We didn’t think about game mechanics yet but we were already on the drawing board. Making a mock-up of the level you can now see in the actual game. We didn’t change much on that end. Developing and designing on-the-fly is what we did and to be honest, even though is not advised, it worked out pretty well. With a lot of motivation and being stoked about finishing this concept we started. After all, we never saw anything like this before.

What went well?
To be honest, almost everything fell into place like pieces of a puzzle instantly. There weren’t many difficulties and our framework we built on-top of PIXI JS really did its job. We had an amazing workflow, using git and proper communication because we were sitting next to eachother. Only about 2/5th in we already had a working prototype we could build further on.

What went wrong?
Close to the end we ran into some difficulties with the framework though, we had some issues with the animation manager for instance. God, we were stuck on some ugly bugs and scoping issues. However, after some hacky code and a whole chuck of music we finally got through with it. It might not be the best solution, but it worked. That’s what matters.

What have we learned?
We learned to work in a short timescale, that’s all there is to it really. I personally think we’ve done a proper job by not over-thinking our concept. If we would’ve done that we’d probably never finish it in time. We didn’t overestimate ourselves and I’m really glad with that.

All in all it was a great experience to never forget and we’ll surely be participating in a new Ludum Dare sooner or later. For now, go smash those goblins to bits and we hope all of you guys enjoyed as much as we did. Without all of you there would be no competition and thus there would be no fun in making this game. Thanks a bunch for this amazing experience!

Oh, also, we’ve made a couple of VLOGS you can check out right here;

#1 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGGtl0M_OoI
#2 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSoaESVg5BM
#3 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtkgabfHBsc

Cheers. Team Jamplifier, out!

Well as it was our first Ludum Dare I’d have to say it was quite an amazing thing.
I loved it from start to finish, even the frustration because that’s part of it also.

A lot of credit to my other 2 team members, Riko, Rens, you guys are amazing.

Link to our game can be found here; http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-29/?action=preview&uid=30185

We also made some VLOGS;

Check them out here (The mood change from #1 to #2 is amazing, by the way):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGGtl0M_OoI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSoaESVg5BM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtkgabfHBsc

Up here, a little preview of what’s coming ;D
The name of the game will be Dwarfs & Goblins.

Can’t wait to see this game finished as it’s our first LD!

Let’s rock on! Team Jamplifier out.

Well, knowing we made the first steps into the core mechanics of the game I’d like to elaborate what we have so far.

Core mechanics:

You play the role of a dwarf with a gigantic hammer. You run around on a circle platform which is actually “earth”. Other dwarven miners are working in mineshafts to extract ore and other resources. However, these dwarfs are not alone. Some goblins don’t favour these dwarfs in their beloved territory. You protect these dwarfs by smashing your hammer on the ground, jumping around, etc. creating shockwaves ALL OVER THE DAMNED PLACE. Shakes are you weapon but like the goblins — also your enemy. The earth has a certain stability you have to take into account. If this stability breaks you lose the game. If the goblins eat your dwarfs alive.. Well.. You’ll lose also. It’ll be all arcade like and it revolves around getting the highest score possible.

Special notes:

We’d like to include different styles of play and we’ll attempt to make the gameplay as smooth and arcade-like as possible. Forcing the player to make fast decisions. Special attacks are a must with all kinds of crazy special effects.

That about rounds up our concept. NOW, BACK TO WORK. HOORAY.

Team Jamplifier, out.
(Fits pump up the volume, by the way.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGGtl0M_OoI&feature=youtu.be

Twitch linky link: http://www.twitch.tv/crocodilealligator
Twitch linky de la link: http://www.twitch.tv/sanctumed