Hello LD’ers!

So. Ludum Dare this weekend.

And my girlfriend decides to debut her new band on Sunday. On a town two hours away by train!

So I’m looking at a 4 hour downtime in the commute… In order to not waste this time completely, I was thinking that maybe I could work on the art of my game while on the train.

So any suggestions for a pixel art or sprite editor that works well on an Android Tablet?

(Any other suggestions on LD-related things I could do while stuck on a train for 4 hours welcome!)

Thanks!

Here is the final mini-ld #6 version of Monorail for windows.

STORY:

You are the Hero trying to reach the head of a runaway train to get to the locomotive.  You start at the caboose and work your way along fighting off the bad guys who have taken the train over. You have to be careful not to fall off the train cars or get swept off the left side of the screen with a disconnecting train car.  Also, don’t get shot!  You can get hit 3 times before you die.

CONTROLS:

Use left/right/up arrow keys to move and jump, spacebar to shoot

Use Gamepad stick and button 1 to jump, button 2 to shoot.

BUGS / FEEDBACK:

I’d love to hear any bug reports or feedback as I’ll be developing this game for a while longer still.  I listen to all suggestions and do work on these projects long after the compo deadline.  I will likely post an updated version before too long that is post-compo.

THOUGHTS:

This was my 3rd attempt at the 48hr competition format.  I think I am fairly pleased with the results.  I love how these competitions really let you bootstrap a concept in a really short amount of time.  I spent 35hrs of the past 48hrs working on this game!  While some people might not ever get why anyone would want to ‘work’ so hard on their weekend– it is SO worth it!  😉

Well.. my working title is evolving a little from “Monochrome Train”.   Anyway, here is the update:

I have been working like mad during this miniLD#6.  I worked 12 hours on Friday, 17 hours yesterday, and now I have a little over 5hours left to at least wrap up the gameplay.  At this point I’m going into triage mode again like many LD format competitions force us.  In a last minute rabid attempt to cram and adjust all the critical features that will turn a project from a demo into a  game.  This being my third LD type event I have yet to feel that I’ve suceeded within the timeframe.  Not sure this time will be any different yet but at least a big difference is that this time I have been able to play my game a LOT more during creation.  Probably to the detriment of the timeline a little.  I guess that is a good sign though.  Anyway, 8am EST is almost here and that is when my crunch time begins.  I have made a critical todo list to accomplish during this time and we’ll see how it goes!

CRUNCH LIST:

• score file handling to support matrins compo requirements
• detecting most primitive form of ‘you win’ condition when reaching locomotive at head of train
• enemies – spawning, moving, fighting, dieing, dodging (of some type)
• simple player / enemy animations for the logic I have coded so far (right now there is no animation)
• simple event sounds
• tiny train like soundtrack loop (update: DONE @ 9am)
• how to page?  I am confused on this because due to the matrin framework requirement– I was planning on using his idea of the 400×400 image in his framework to provide how tos… but I also want people to be able to know how to play if they just download this level from the blog without the loading framework.. so there is the connundrum of sorts.
• animations for train wheels and locomotive parts and steam cloud

Current screen shot above and current windows build here.  Use arrow keys (left/right/up) to move or gamepad stick with button 1 to jump.

Seeya all on the other side! 😉

If you look closely.. you see the hero of the monochrome train!

I have now added three train car types of various heights.  You can now fall off or in between cars and die.  The train cars detach from the train when they hit the left side of the screen.  The velocity of the car is transfered to the hero so he drifts with them correctly.  He can now jump between all the cars with the jump from lowest car to highest being possible but tricky.  The game is over if you fall off and die or if you get swept off to the left of the screen.   You are supposed to advance to the head of the train but there are no enemies yet or win condition.  Only death…. and that is not handled gracefully.. if you ‘die’ the game ends abruptly.

For the brave, here is the current windows build exe.

Use arrow keys to move left, right, and jump! ESC to quit.

I just finished implementing parallax scrolling background objects for my game.  There is currently a nice cloud layer, a far plateau layer, and a near plateau layer all that move by in different speeds based on their distance.  I’m really quite happy with it so far.

I find I am not making much gameplay progress because it has been so relaxing for me to watch the train and dessert go by.  I have to start implementing some game play now!

Here is the latest test exe if any windows users wanna check it out! Left and Right arrow keys move viewport.  ESC to quit.

Well, things are getting off to a slow start this morning as I have been dealing / fighting with 20%+ packet loss on my cable modem…. *sigh*   Anyway– after a few hours it has cleared up for now.

On the monochrome train front, I have been sorta zoning out watching my current tech test demo.  There is no gameplay yet, but I like how it sets the stage for the coding yet to come.

I currently have a wide world of train landscape with cactuses, rocks and tracks.  Populated with a boxcar only ghost train right now.  The train chugs along to the right and will run for approximately 2-3 minutes (not locked down yet) before crashing.

The player (yet to be drawn / coded) has that amount of time to race from the caboose to the train engine to hit the brakes!  There will be obstacles of various types along the way (yet to be drawn / coded).

In this demo, you can press the left and right arrow keys to move the viewport back and forth.  When you stop, it keeps its slow advance.  My current idea is that the viewport moves just *slightly* faster than the train so that if you don’t creep along with it you will also get swept off the back of the screen and fail that way too.

Here is a win exe if anyone wants to see my monochrome train test.

I’ve been laying down the code since my last post and I already have a screenshot to post.  Basically the traincars currently come flying out of the left and head to the right past the various cactus, rocks and other western detritus that I will hopefully add for ambience.  I’m really liking the look of it so far.

Now, I have to code a player cam to track the train cars through the world coords.. fun fun!

I have picked ‘Trains’ as my secondary theme for this Mini LD #6.  “Monochrome” is the primary required theme of the contest.  Instead of making a full game for this competition Matrin has tasked us with a limit to make the game a single-level.  Everyone who submits a game will have their game be one of the levels in a game “wrapper” that will join them all together.  The common theme being monochrome.

I want to create a game that will be of limited scope yet still fun and not too small.  I am trying to work out what size the level should be of my monochrome train game.

My current idea is a kind of 2d platformer that takes place running along a moving train.  You will have to watch out for tunnels and obstacles that would sweep you off the train if you are on top of a train car.  You will have to move quick enough that you aren’t on train cars that will become disconnected and drift backwards after a time.  I’m going to impose a time limit through the fact that if you don’t reach the train engine in time to stop it you will die due to train crash.  You will start at the end of the train on the caboose and have to work your way along.  I may make it old west themed as well.  You will have to fight off bandits on your way to pull the brake at the front of the train.  Perhaps I’ll have a minimap at the top that will show the trains progress on the level so you can know how close you are till the end instead of just time limit.

I’ll be using Ruby / Gosu gamedev library again for this competition.

Here is initial mockup: