Ludum Dare

About SmallDeadGuy (twitter: @xSmallDeadGuyx)

I'm a fairly experienced programmer. Only 17, but been doing game creation for a fair few years. Used Game Maker initially (embarrasingly), but recently have been playing around with slick in java. I've done some minecraft modding, making things like elemental creepers, tf2 halloween mobs, allocator patch and stuff. Mostly things that I find useful, all my ideas come from what I need at the time. Allocator patch came from me needing faster allocators and allocators that moved multiple things.

Entries

Ten Second Days Ludum Dare 27	They Don't Stop Coming Ludum Dare 26	We Drive Unto The Fortress Ludum Dare 25	Nano Commander Ludum Dare 23
Debug Ludum Dare 22

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MSquirrel's Seal of Approval

Awarded by Msquirrel
on December 18, 2012

SmallDeadGuy's Archive

Same as usual, C# using monogame since I may have a couple little plans this weekend in preparation for uni. I have become much, much better at C/C++ during the 6 weeks I’ve worked at ARM so far, but I’m just gonna stick to something simpler that I can write code in faster. Music will be some horrible mash-up using TS404 and musagi, probably. I dunno, I’m never good with the audio stuff.

Oh, and on another super awesome note: My game which came 21st overall last time, They Don’t Stop Coming, has been featured in the latest PCGamer issue which arrived today for subscribers like me! Here’s a really bad quality photo (taken with 3DS camera):

That’s the caption for a new level, made in my game’s new map editor! Also added another level after that, changed level order for better difficulty scaling, removed a broken level, updated music, updated options, etc.

POTATO

I decided against streaming and everything, I doubt people would have enjoyed it and I spent quite a lot of time mostly idle (on the computer that is, busy writing and drawing IRL). So far the concept for the game is this: you are a green square and you need to get to the yellow square, simple right? Some might say… minimalist. Anyway, there are of course obstacles to stop you. The first of which are Red Blocks. These are annoying as hell if you can’t tell what they’re thinking. Every time you take a step, they take a step too. Towards you. Or rather, towards where you were because of previous actions. It’s some basic A* to do it, and combining multiple Red Blocks in situations gets interesting. Add some pushable Blue Blocks, some tiles that Blue Blocks can’t be pushed on that you and Red Blocks can go over, and some tiles only you go over, and you get some pretty complex puzzles.

You can download the game so far from here: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/30361085/TDSC.zip

In terms of polish, some preliminary music has been done and a very nice minimal menu system. I’ve implemented proper options too this time, with a volume control and keybindings as I know that is a very nice polish feature for those without WASD keyboards or who would prefer not to use arrow keys. Here is a series of screenshots of my game:

The green square is the highlight when the mouse hovers over it

Options menu, fancy huh?

Level 1, nice and easy

Level 2, still pretty simple but it introduces the Red Block concept

Movement if very smooth

Multiple Red Blocks get interesting

Blue crates

The most complicated level I have so far (actually pretty damn hard without breakpoints in the code to tell me the pathing :P)

Annoyingly late I’m in post considering how long I’ve been planning to be in and how long I’ve been chatting in #ludumdare, but hey.

My plan has been to get more and more hardcore each ludum dare, started with Java, then C#, and now C++. My libraries will be SFML along with a publicly released open-source mini-library I made on my github (like I do every LD): https://github.com/xSmallDeadGuyx/Cpp-Game-Library

I haven’t spent enough time preparing though, and I only realized last night that while I’ve been learning C++ and SFML, I never set up a Windows development environment. This is what I’ll be doing today, most likely using cmake since I’m not amazing with normal make.

EDIT: I’m going back to C#! I’ve only been doing C++ for a week and while I’m pretty confident in it, I’d rather just do MonoGame since I know from LD25 that I will definitely be able to write 2000-3000+ lines of code fast. I don’t think I can reach anywhere near that in C++.

Still using C# but this time I’m trying out MonoGame! Had a little play with it and the only problem I’ve really found is that semi-transparencies in pngs didn’t work. Turns out I needed premultiplied alphas. This is where my next tool change comes in! Using PixelFormer (http://www.qualibyte.com/pixelformer/) instead of GIMP (for the most part) will allow me to straight away export with premultiplied alphas and so far the editor seems perfect for my pixel art needs. Haven’t decided on music yet but I’ll probably do some magic combination of TS404, SFXR, and Musagi as per my usual. Visual Studio is my development environment and after game has been complete in Windows I shall be compiling for Linux.

In terms of libraries, I’ve already stated the use of MonoGame. I’ll probably end up using a modified version of my A* and maze generation stuff at https://github.com/xSmallDeadGuyx/C-AStar if required (e.g. RTS, top-down shooters etc). Probably gonna try for something less gutsy like a platformer, since my RTS at LD23 turned out absolutely HORRIBLY. The worst part is, that RTS was also part of a school project and I may have failed it 😛

Good Luck everyone, feel free to nick stuff from my github, and have fun!

I’ll be using C#. I have a few ideas for RTS’s which I’d love to try using my pathfinding library (https://github.com/xSmallDeadGuyx/C-Astar) and it would fit a good few themes Hoping to see some really great games, good luck to you all

Here is the first “complete” version of my game. Basically, the first version I would be happy to enter into the actual competition. My livestream stopped around 1/3 of the way through day 2 because it was causing lag in my game that I first suspected was my pathfinding and kept me from adding new features for a good hour or so. Anyway, it’s java so it can be run on anything as long as you have the natives for it (lwjgl). It has windows, mac and linux natives with it so it’ll be fine unless you use solaris (you’ll need to overwrite the linux ones).

Download: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/30361085/debuggame.zip

Also, here are a few screenshots:
Title Menu
Introduction - part 1
Playing 1

I didn’t want to reveal too much, so you only get a look at the basics from those pics 😛

So far I have basic enemies, controls, collision checking, pathfinding for the enemies, random level generation, simple gun upgrades, health packs, dying, health, dashing, a menu and a few good particles. Calling it a night so I can get a fresh start tomorrow! It’s java so can be run on anything that supports lwjgl, basically 😀

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/30361085/debuggame.zip

As it’s java, you can run on any platform 😀

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/30361085/debuggame.zip

http://www.livestream.com/smalldeadguy

I will be using gimp, eclipse and some other tools for various things. Watch my stream! 😛

Just releasing a quick library I plan to use in Ludum Dare, consisting of a maze generator and an implementation of A* in java.

https://github.com/xSmallDeadGuyx/SimpleAStar

I should be able to enter, provided my laptop is fixed by then and I have no outstanding work to do. Also if my parents will let me stay awake constantly for 48 hours. If not I’ll have to sneak on my laptop when I go to bed.

About SmallDeadGuy (twitter: @xSmallDeadGuyx)

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SmallDeadGuy's Archive

I’m in (but I doubt I can be as awesome as last time)!

Can’t enter LD26 without a Potato!

First Day is over, progress is good!

I’m in!

I’m in!

I’m in!

First “complete” version

Last Update before I go to sleep.

Progress after 16 hours

Livestreaming now!

Java Pathfinding Library

I’m in!