Well I’ve once again fallen into the trap I often do.  In trying to think up something to make a game interesting, I came up a delicious problem to chew on, which has eaten all my time.  I think the key to finishing a solid LD entry is to avoid things you don’t know how to do already when you start, but that is hard for me because tricky problems are so much fun.  And since posts with only text are not much fun, I’ll add on the quick maze hallway tilemap I’d made up, though I had planned to have a number of variations on each tile and a bit more detailing.

Oh well, good luck to all else.  With some of the pictures I’ve seen on here I am really looking forward to checking the entries out.

Not made much pogress code-wise, but have an idea of what I want to do.  Somehow, a sort of non-euclidean (or at least an impossible space) maze has slipped in there, even though I had no ideas for non-euclidean before the actual theme was announced.  Just sort of seemed to fit natually with what I was going for (a sort of L-Space feel).  Anyway, some scribblings and a sprite with the general feel I want.  Not sure if I can push out enough assets in time, will have to see how much I can get done tomorrow, for now it is bedtime.

Last minute (or hours) “I’m in” post, with picture of my makeshift workspace and declaration of tools. 

As for tools:

Working in Flash Develop, using AS3 and Flashpunk.

Graphics will likely be GraphicsGale, with Gimp to touch up transparency.

Sound (if I get to it (which I really want to this time)) will be sfxr, or maybe bfxr, and possibly trying to grab some music from inudge.

Tea shall mostly consist of peppermint.  Huzzah.

So I ended up trying for something too large to complete in a sleep deprived final 10 hours.  About an hour and a half before the end, I decided to go by the old mantra “Time running low .’. branch the project and add spiders”.  A frantic hour followed, accompanied by a great boss music medley from nicovideo, and I got something submitted, albeit without any win condition/loose condition/much point.  But dayum, it freaks me out some it does.

Submission page here: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-19/?action=preview&uid=1190

It at least shows what I was going for with the shadow system, and how it performs under pressure.

Also, for fun and to make the timelapse more interesting, I had a big image in GraphicsGale I was adding to a bit to show some of my thoughts and add a little commentary.  That’s after the jump if anyone is interested (and can see this post through the deluge of submission posts 😉 ).  I think this kind of thing would have been a bit more use if I had a drawing tablet with me, instead of just mousing.

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It may not be Giga, but it has Pocky for backup.

Surprisingly I didn’t end up spending the entire LD trying to solve a problem  of doing something well (that generally isn’t something really needed anyway).  There’s about 10 hours to go, and I’ve run out of fiddling to do with it…  now I guess maybe I could use it in some game or something? I’m kind of inexperienced in getting to this part.

What’s I’ve managed to get going is a top down view, with shadows and a ‘sightline’ sort of effect.  Example of it here: http://filebox.me/view/rp56gmvej WASD moves, hold mouse button to look in a direction, and tap sapce a few times initially to drop in some random pillars.  I’d be interested in feedback on how many entites people can go up to before the FPS starts to suffer, if you’ve got the time to drop a comment below.

Foodum Dare is about to start! Who’s excited??

I love that 100 yen stores are open 24 hours.  After running into too many walls, and realizing that javascript canvas just seemed to slow without doing lots of tricky things (which I don’t know) I decided to look at flashpunk.  And it it is pretty much exactly the structure I’ve been looking for and partially made over the last week (albeit in flash rather than javascript, but that just means at least some hardware acceleration(including my lappy with the last flash update)).

I visited the 100 yen store around the corner again and grabbed some supplies to last me through the night, while I go through the tutorials on the flashpunk site and try to get something out in the next 9 hours and 39 minutes.  It’s for these reasons that I normally go easy on the caffeine, so that when I want to use it, it actually has an effect.

So I went for a walk to go get some taiyaki and think about what to do.  I’ve ended up spending so much time getting the basic useful classes I’ve been wanting for working with the canvas sorted that I totally don’t have time left to make what I was originally intending.  So while munching the aforementioned taiyaki (pictured below), I decided on the best course to take now.  I do like the game plan I had in mind and would like to keep pushing at it after the compo, but I also want to finish something for this, so the logical option: Branch the project.

Now it’s a matter of taking these last 13 or so hours, working with what I’ve made so far and making something fun, slightly flashy and not too tricky to code.  Not too much of an ask there.. right?

Nom'd off fish face

Dang, one night down and hardly anything to show for it.  It’s annoying that I most of the code I wrote yesterday is all stuff that I’m sure others have written in the past, all just things to make stuff work.  I really wish that I’d found a Javascript library that did the things I wanted it to and not had to spend so much time trying to work out how to make it do those things myself, rather than just spend that time actually making game code.

Ah well, 2 hours to go until the half way point.  What I’ve got running is next to nothing, just random map generation that’s not in the final shape I want, along with some other classes sorted.  I’m going to sprint through as much code as I can over the next 2 hours, just throwing in a bunch of pseudo code of how things should work, and slowly fill that in.

Also, spagetti with pre-made sauce from last night (now I’m actually having more banana toast).

There’s an idea in here somewhere, but as usual I’m geting bogged down trying to the language I’m using (this time Javascript and the HTML5 canvas) to do what I want it to.  I need to stop messing around and just get something controlable moving around on screen.  But first to grab some festival food.

It’s a good thing I can’t embed this motivational poster, it might give people seizures (waring: might give you seizures). Click though to see the awesome Distractionness. P.S. it’s all HTML, Javascript and CSS, the CSS to make the layout took a while yesterday as I suck at CSS.

On theme related news, I started as a hater, thinking it’s just a ‘game mechanic’ rather than a ‘theme’. But really you can still interpret it in other ways, just think of the definitions and interpretations of ‘enemies’ and ‘weapons’. If one complains that they can’t make an arty game from this, then you’re too stuck on what those words normally mean when applied to a game. Think outside the screen.

Also, 3 hours gone already ohmy.

Hrm, hard to think of this theme in a non-mechanic way.  In the meantime, FOODUM DARE!

Banana is supposed to be good for the brain or something right?

BANANA TOAST!

Also, snacks are esential.  These are from the nearby 100 yen store.  <3 100 yen stores.

Cookies and something with a tanuki on it!

Time to throw in a post before everything starts, with the obligatory environment-I’ll-be -sitting-while-coding photo.  Note the drink at the ready to the left of the lappy and the notebooks to the right.  All I’m missing now is snacks, which shall be amended with a trip to the 100 yen store around the corner in a moment.

As for tools:

• I plan to use Javascript and canvas for code, so the result will be playable online.
• Most code writing will go down in Notepad++.
• GraphicsGale for graphics, possibly with a bit of dash Gimp.
• DrPetter for anything sound, if I get around to it.  Err, sfxr and musagi that is.
• If appropriate, though I have no ideas for it, I might go grab some audio from the festival going on this weekend at the nearby park.

Finally, I might take advantage of the fact I’m working on a tiny laptop and take it out and about to code for a bit.  Change of scenery and all that.

Haven’t played too many of the games yet, partly because of being stuck playing Hempuli’s Paradise Fort and having too much fun.

Anyway, the tower:

Note the damaged sections where it was HIT BY METEORS!!!

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So Fishing didn’t make it.  However, that does not mean it is dead!  The original idea that spawned Fishing to be added to the themes list was the amusing idea of having a fishing mini-game in another game, so that is my challenge to you!  No matter how mini, or how small, try to put a fishing mini-game in your game.

If you’re thinking making one game is hard enough, here’s simple fishing game logic for you (which I’ll probably use):

• 3 sprite image – one with pole normal, one with pole being tugged, one with fish pulled up
• choose random time to have pole pulled down for 0.5 sec and change sprite
• check for some key press, if pressed while pole is down change to fish pulled up sprite for some 1 sec

Fishing For Life!