 |  | |
|
I present to you, SnowBot! So called because the only things I have made for it so far are some snow and a robot.
It is the ugliest game ever made, but it works – the robot chases your cursor while you hold the mouse button, and decelerates when you release it. Obviously with 48 hours to make something, you start to look at what really takes time, and the answer is invariably ‘tweaking’. So I made a pact with myself: no tweaking till the game is virtually done: of graphics, movement, controls, anything. I’m allowed to change things once or twice to get them functional, then they’re set in stone until the rest of the thing is in place. I have two days, so my plan is to make the game in one. That way I can spend the second day making it good, or making up for how badly I failed to meet this ridiculous deadline on the first. My game is going to be crude and ugly no matter what, so I’m happy to make it even cruder and uglier to give myself some time to balance it and make it more fun. In my head, this meant getting a character moving around the world in the morning, then making content in the afternoon. Turns out the first part only really took an hour, two with all the faffing with all the blogging and setting up screen captures for the time-lapse video I’m hoping to make of this process. So next up is putting an enemy in the world, and letting the two shoot each other. Video games.
More Ludum Dare
| ||
 |  |
Nonomu198: Umm... what happened to your other game project?
| ||||
 |  |
| | |
|
It’s 6am, it’s freezing cold, it’s pitch dark, England is caked in snow and the theme of Ludum Dare 19 is Discovery. Discovery is what I was hoping for. I think one of the close runners up, Containment, would probably have led to a more interesting selection of games, but I had a clearer idea of what I’d do for Discovery. I knew if this one ended up being picked, I would have to make something involving randomised content. That’s what makes Spelunky so exciting to play, and that’s probably the greatest game about discovery I’ve ever played. Unfortunately I’m not Derek Yu, and I only have 42 hours, and I’m wasting time writing a blog. So my game will be a little less ambitious. To fit the theme, I feel like the pleasure of the game has to have something to do with the discovering. And the only thing gamers truly and instinctively care about is stuff that benefits them in the game. So not only does it have to be the content rather than just the scenery that is randomised, the unique elements of that content have to feed back into character progression in some way. My plan currently is for something top down, where you direct your character – probably a robot – around a large landscape with the mouse, encountering enemies with randomised stats. Destroying them will let you salvage some of their traits, so a very tough enemy would boost your hitpoints when you destroy it. Someone on the Ludum Dare site joked that everyone should not only have to stick to the chosen theme, but also combine it with Christmas. So if I can draw it in any meaningful way, I’ll set my game in the snow.
More Ludum Dare
| ||
| |
| ||||
| |
| | |
|
I’m going to enter Ludum Dare this weekend. It’s a competition where you have to make a game in 48 hours, based around a theme. Right now the theme voting is still going on, and will only be announced when the competition starts in four hours. I’m exhausted so I’ll be asleep by then, ready for an early start tomorrow. I’ll be using Game Maker, Paint.net and an amazing program I only just discovered while reading the Ludum Dare rules: sfxr. It generates sound effects according to some sliders you set, and you only have to click the preset buttons a few times to realise this or something similar is where all Spelunky’s sounds must have come from. When you enter Ludum Dare, you can decide to go for the competition, or the jam. In the compo, everything must be your own work and the theme is not optional. Those games are rated by participants in various categories. In the jam, you can work in teams, take an extra day over it, and the rules are pretty loose – you just won’t be judged. Unless the theme is awful, I’ll be going for the competition. Right now it looks like the forerunners for theme are Discovery, Depth and Containment, which I like a little, not much, and a lot, respectively. I thought I’d be okay with any theme, but some of the finalists are stuff like “Text input action game”, “Game based on a year” and, no kidding, “Don’t die”. If it’s any of those, I will almost entirely ignore them and maybe just go in for the jam. I’ll probably blog my progress, and try to do a time lapse video. I may end up with nothing – I’m not fast, experienced, or good at judging scope yet, and I plan to eat, sleep and take breaks. My God have mercy on my soul.
More Ludum Dare
| ||
| |
Phydaux: Good luck! I did a couple of these sort of code challenges back in the old days of QBasic. Good fun and full of stress as you rip your hair out trying to fix that last-minute game-breaking bug.
| ||||
| |
Fallout Girl
Open World Games: The Good Stuff
Exploded
First Night, Second Life
Murder Inc.
I Played Through Ep2 Holding A Goddamn Gnome
A Life In Questions
Invincibles
Subscribe to all posts