Taking a quick break for food, I’ve made some progress with player movement and basic level layout(with placeholder graphics), next I just need to implement some game mechanics.

We’ve been at since a little after 11 this morning. A vet appointment (which happened last LDjam, but at the tail end) bumped our start time till we got home.

1. Planning

The first thing we did is eat donuts. Special occasion and all. While we fueled on delicious sugar and coffee, we discussed what we wanted in a game with such an open theme (our interpretation). We wanted something peaceful, something where we weren’t killing enemies. We played around with ideas of growing items, collecting items, much like some games we’ve prototyped in the past. The Pim character, which is a recurring staple to our lives, came up as our main character. Then we weren’t going to have a main character. Then we were going to collect hamburgers. Then we were going to give the burgers to a ghost. Then then then…

“Keep it simple, stupid.” Or silly, if you don’t want to offend. We can get so carried away with what we think we can do and how grandiose to make this game. We stopped, simplified, and came up with some simple game play. The premise will be to clear a game board each round. Ghosts will be floating around the place, each of a different colour. Direct it to a skull, and it will reanimate to a zombie. That zombie will need some magic (that needs to match the color of the soul) to fully bond the body and the soul (which was the ghost.) Once alive and fully aware, the Pim will make it’s way to it’s colour portal and transport away. That clears a board, and a new round with more ghosts will start.

2. Pixel Pim

Ever the fan of pixel art but never the master of such, we thought we weren’t giving ourselves enough of a challenge by creating a game in (hopefully) 48 hours (72 is the back-up). We’re working hard on the pixel versions of Pims, their ghosts, their skulls, and their magical balls (haha). And we’re animating them. Because it’s fun! So MUCH FUN. ::throws mouse across room::

Originally it was going to be just me with the graphics, but we both wanted in on this. This is great, because life happens, and already I’m freaking out about not finishing. To have another person just to bounce ideas off is fantastic, and to have the ability to rely on them is… even more fantastic? It’s great. I’m not alone in making graphics right now, and this is great!

As a note, when thinking about the game play, we were concerned about the use of color. Using color as an important attribute for the game can mean that some people won’t be able to play well. Right now, it’s a concern, and we want to make it so that there is some way colour-blind people could play. We haven’t tested the colours we’re using yet, but we’re still concerned. For the time limit, we’ll see how far we get and if we can address this issue.

3. Next Steps

We’ll be finishing the spritesheets we’ve been working on, and move on to our respective other tasks. We listen to SoundCloud a lot to get inspiration for the music. I’ll start the coding by not coding at all; I like to plan out as much logic and organisation on paper as possible.

It’s awesome to see what other people have accomplished, and we are twitter-stalking as many of you as possible. Keep it up, everyone!

Off to bed… but managed to cause quite a bit of damage tonight.

The Good.

The game fits in with the minimalism theme very well, while still being somewhat complex and interesting (at least by  my standards).  Game is feature complete.  I’m very happy with it’s state this far in.  All of the gameplay features are in, level control and difficulty are implemented, and even the menu states are complete.   Spent a bit of time on audio this evening, and while it’s rough… it’s more ambitious than anything i’ve tried in a Ludum Dare before and i believe with a little polish, it will be quite the little go-getter (or a massive failure).

The Bad.

The game runs in two difficulty modes currently.  Really frickin easy, and “Oh for the love of everything that is good, please make it stop” hard.  I see this screen a little more than I’d like

The Plan For Tommorow

• The combination of the bullets firing, and cells exploding creates chords.  The sound files need to be just right for this to work, and they are not right now.  It’s not BAD, it’s just not good.   This will hopefully be a quick fix tommorow
•  I want the game to be difficult… but the kind of difficult that can be appreciated by the person that is playing the game for 30 seconds before they rate it.  Currently we’re at the “rage quit and send death threats to the developer’s family” level of difficulty.  The balance hammer needs to come out.

BREAK ALL THE POTS!

New Version online, now with an extra portion pot smashing!

Check it out: http://shdev.de/wasabi 

After screwing around with color palettes for WAAAAAY too long, I finally have something visible.

I have a wonderful idea, but I have no clue if I can make it work.

I may end up submitting to the jam because I really don’t have much time this weekend.

OH WELL…

FIRST SCREENSHOT!

Now I just have to make it more of a game…