Thanks for the awesome jam good LD friends! 😀 Thanks for voting and the cool chats and feedback and votes!

Had a wonderful #LDJAM this time around, I felt much better about this one than my previous one, both during and after the jam. And that definitely showed in the score

So now that I’ve done four LDs (sorry #30, I couldn’t get to you), I can put some kind of data together and see if I can make sense of my performance. And to be honest, it’s baffling.

LD32 vs LD33

First, comparing this one to the previous shows a definite improvement, and that I’m really happy about. The previous one was really quite uninspired and rushed, and I’m glad that my approach to this one (not pre-determining what to make before the jam) has yielded far more creative and interesting results.

LD 31 vs LD33

In comparison to my best LD so far, I couldn’t beat it. But hey, that’s really not a major issue. But that feels like an anomaly to me… my LD31 was a purely multiplayer game which meant it was impossible to test, with no Audio to speak of so it scored 0 there, and it was a platformer which was like 80% of other games. Why did it do so well?? Was it genuinely a great game, and I really should work on that one further, or was it an anomaly? WHICH IS IT?? D:

Theme?

PokEscape placing 437th on theme makes me feel kinda sad, because the very first line of the description said “You are the (Poke)Monster!”, which I thought was a great fit for the theme. Which meant that 90% of people who rated the game either missed that line or never read it, or didn’t agree with it. Sigh.

Comment count

I went through my games and roughly counted up how many comments I had on each game, and this last one was a lot higher than the rest by about 50%, which is possibly significant. Was it because this game referenced Pokemon? Or was it due to other factors? I really would like to know how many ratings my past games has. Don’t know where to find that. Sigh.

Adios LD!

It’s been a rad Ludum Dare as usual 😀 After this analysis I think I’ve decided that data analysis is not useful without a sample size of a billion So just keep jamming and having fun, making cool shit is the best you can do! Until next time amigos!

pokemen

Skyfish checking in. I only have 28 more minutes to do move animations and I have none yet! (time slotting) So I will make this brief. Here is a fake screenshots. the colours mess up because it’s png, so IDK what you can do. It works in the game anyway. Pokemen is coming along nicely, it’s playable and I found no bugs. Now we need to implement the menu and put the assets in the actual game. I will make a making of post sometime after i think. I only have today to finish everything since I work tomorrow. Oh dear! bye bye Ludum see you soon.

Game mechanics are finally coming together, plus I’ve cleaned up a lot of the interface.  Still haven’t really worked much on actual content though   Let me run through real quick and list off everything that is currently working…

Start a new game, travel around the map, initiate battle, use attacks, flee, deal and receive damage, move use counters being limited and depleting properly for you and enemies, kill/die, win/lose battles, gain item drops based on drop rates, use items from inventory, view inventory…

What are the key things still missing, mechanics-wise?  Switching active Evomemes in battle, Save/load game, attack accuracy/evasion, exp gain if it’s not item-based… that’s all I’m coming up with.  We’ll see how much I can get done with ~3 hours remaining.  A lot of stuff I could try to show you, but… no screenshot for now.  Sorry!

Well, today got off to a rough start.  Low energy, lots of distractions… Still, I’m making progress.  I’ve got the core combat mechanics done with, and I’ve finally gotten my damage formula tweak’d to something that seems right to me.  Needs a lot of messages to the player so s/he can know what’s going on, but the functions themselves are working.

Next up, exp gain, item drops, and the whole inventory system!  Eek!  That’s a lot for roughly 7 hours.  GO GO GO!

Also, have a screenshot of a functioning battle:

I can feel myself slipping away as I type these words, but I am sticking to my plan and posting a screenshot before I pass out.  I’m about half-way done with combat… still need the actual damage calculations worked out… might do it half-way for now, and come back and implement elements/weaknesses/whatever later, if time permits.

But actually, first thing’s first.  Screenshot and sleep.  I’ll have about 12 hours left tomorrow, plus or minus… who knows how much content I’ll get to add… not nearly so much as I’d hoped, but… ah well!  Good night, LD Crew, and good luck!

So, we’re half way there already, huh?  Alright, I can live with that.  I got hung up for a while and didn’t make much progress for since the last update.  I’ve got the transition into battle ready.  I generate the enemy’s evomemes and deal with pre- and post-battle dialog.  Battle itself should be hard to implement… it’s mostly some numbers games, right?  Anyway, I’m gonna try to get a couple more hours’ work done tonight in case I’m interrupted tomorrow.  I still wanna get all the main mechanics done tonight if possible.  We’ll see what happens.  I’ll try to put out one more update before I go to bed if I can manage not to suddenly crash.

Also, next time I’ll have a screenshot, I promise!

Another short update – Making slow but steady-ish progress.  I’ve got the very basics of displaying and moving between rooms working.  I would post screenshots, but… it’s a text based game!  I figure there’s only so much of that sort of thing anyone can handle, so I’ll wait until I have a lot to show until I use up your patience.  Next step is to allow for rooms to add context-based commands to the prompt, such as talking to a person in the room, or battling something, or… whatever?  After that, it’ll be time to tackle actually creating the ‘mons and building the inventory, status, and battle systems!  Eek!

Just wanted to throw up a quick post with my amazing first screenshot from my text-based game, Dawkemon.  Look upon my works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Gooood morning, Ludum Dare!!!~

So, my first act of last night, after the unveiling of the theme, was to go to sleep.  Sign of being old?  Perhaps.  Nonetheless, I’m awake now and the juices of creativity are percolating up into my brains.

For those just tuning in, my self-made restriction for this LD is to use a base install of Python and NOTHING ELSE!  I’ll be sticking with very simple programming techniques as well.  The idea behind this is to show my students that you can make a fun game with only a couple weeks of programming know-how.  I guess that means my game better be fun!

So what am I making then?  Well, text-based, for sure.  Evolution, hmm?

Well, my first idea, and the one I’m sticking with, is something at least loosely based off of Pokemon.  I know from a quick scan of other people’s posts that this is by no means a unique idea, nor would I expect it to be… but it’s something I think my kids can relate to even in text form.

Now… how to translate the traveling, and collecting of ‘mon into a non-tedious text game?  We’ll see… I’ve gotta start somewhere though!