January 21, 2012

The results from Ludum Dare 22 are in! I made the game Sat-E for the 48 hour competition and I was quite happy with it.

#24 Community 3.71
This one was really surprising, but welcome. I did post a cute picture of a korean k-pop star so I guess that's why.

#40 Fun 3.38
Fun is always great! I'm so happy ^^

#49 Theme 3.69
I thought my theme choice (Wall-E in space) was good, seems like other thought that too.

#65 Overall 3.42
This is supposedly the "best" category to do well in so I'm glad. I did a lot better than I thought I would...

#95 Humor 2.82
Damned blast I should've focus more on the funny one-liners.

#167 Mood 2.92
If I make a better version of the game this is probably the one thing I would focus on. But that is a thought for another time.

#247 Innovation 2.69
Not very innovating I agree.

#338 Audio 2.23
No music = shit.

#340 Graphics 2.62
I guess I'm not that good of an artist, but tell me something I don't know!§

#376 Coolness 35%
The coolness factor = amount of games rated. I wasn't motivated at all sadly... I'm a game developer but I don't play much games? I'm so strange.

December 19, 2011

Ludum Dare 22 Timelapse

Here's the timelapse for my entry to Ludum Dare 22, Sat-E.

This time I managed to record one screen every minute, which is very suboptimal to say the least but I slowed it down a bit so you can at least see something being done there.

December 19, 2011

Sat-E

So I entered Ludum Dare 22 this weekend as a preamble for tomorrow's linear algebra exam. The theme this time around was Alone and the game I came up with is about a lonely satellite in space, kinda like Wall-E.

Sat-E

Download
Windows (2.1 MB)
Linux 64bit (4.7 MB)

Instructions
Collect junk and other items for you to buy upgrades, and finally, your friend to finish the game. Be careful not to run out of battery, you need to return home to base for a recharge between runs.

Controls
Arrow Keys - Move around
Space/Return - Choose item in docking mode
F1 - Developer console

Timelapse
It's on youtube and it's embedded here.

Source
https://github.com/treeman/Sat-E

Built using my fast prototyping framework
https://github.com/treeman/7days

December 14, 2011

Ludum Dare 22 Here I Come

The time has finally come. After more than three hours of exam writing, and almost double spent on studying for it, I am now ready to declare my entry into Ludum Dare 22! I've been away far too long, with my entries for the 17th and the 20th dare being almost a century away, the ancient game making creature will once again move into action. We'll just hope the game won't be ancient as well...

Leaving that behind us I can now focus on what to actually use. I wanted to try some new language and some new environment but that seems lika a really bad idea. So I will stick to what I know:

My fast prototyping library consisting of old C++ on top of the nice SFML engine. sfxr, or maybe the newer bfxr for sound effects. It's seriously great, give it a try! Probably mtpaint for some nice pixelated graphics. I would like to try out inkscape for some vector based graphics but I might skip it this time. LMMS for music making. This I tried to use a long time ago... And failed miserably. It'll be a fun, fun weekend! And finally my little timelapse recording hack for linux. Be careful if you want to try it, it will most likely blow up in your face and take your computer down with it. Handle with care.

And of course here's where I'll be spending most of my waking hours:

I'm planning on getting some new food during all this, but I'm not entirely sure yet.

December 12, 2011

On The Decline of FPS Games

Mr. Eriksson just sent me this link as a fitting video on my post on The Decline of FPS Games.

Oh How true!

November 20, 2011

The Decline of FPS Games

I read an article about the decline of FPS games and it made me think a bit. When was the last time I actually enjoyed an FPS game? I installed old Deus Ex a while ago but it's what 12 years old? Team Fortress was okay, the one or two times I tried it, but I can't say I truly enjoyed it, hell I never even played it apart from trying it at a friends pc. Well I bought Duke Nukem Forever but I haven't even completed it, it's best server collecting dust at the bookshelf now. No the truly last FPS I enjoyed was CSS. How is this possible?

CSS: my one favorite FPS game.

I am not a big FPS fan and I get sick of modern FPS almost directly. It feels like they are all the same, I don't even want to try them anymore. The biggest upset was actually Duke Nukem Forever lately. It had totally linear levels, you could only use two weapons at a time and it just felt boring and uninspiring. Why is it that FPS games are considered good if the graphics is good? Or have an advanced physics engine? It's good of course but there has to be more to a game than that. Games feel so shallow nowadays.

But I never did think about FPS games when I read the article no I thought about RTS and construction games. The main point the article wanted to put forward is that game designers today, especially big ones, don't want to take big risks so they do the same thing as everyone else. This is what happened a decade or go or something when we got a bunch of very similar RTS games. I remember that there were a lot of very similar construtor games before that too. But where are they now? I don't want a million similar titles, but the basic ideas behind those games were great - and I miss them.

Where is Evil Genius 2 for example? It's one of the best games ever but there's nothing similar, only a bunch of similar games trying to steal the popularity of other, probably better, games in the same style.

We need to stop imitating and start innovating, but we also need to bring back the ideas of the classics.

Anno 1602, one of many classic constructor games. But where are they now?

October 19, 2011

Grand Thief Arto

Here's me and Li's game for our school course. The game isn't tweaked too much but it's a game with some fairly cool ideas.

Grand Thief Arto

Download
Java runtime including source (0.2 MB)

Instructions
Your goal is to collect loot until you can escape through the entry point when you've collected enough to complete the level.

There are touchpads and lasers you need to shutdown by walking next to a computer or an electric board and shut them down from there. Otherwise you need to open doors and then just run around and collect.

You can either play by launching the bash script "play" directly in the folder or launch the game with:

java base.GameFrame
or
java -Xss2048k -Xms64m -Xmx1024m base.GameFrame

Or whatever your preferred way of launching java apps is. You obviously need the java runtime, otherwise you might fetch it from here.

You might need to create the binary files for it. Use the bash script "create" or do:

javac base.GameFrame

But it might not be necessary.

Controls
Arrow keys - Walk around
Space - Do action
Esc - Menu

September 12, 2011

10 Games in 10 Languages

For school we have this programming course for Java. It isn't anything special really and it would be really boring if I don't like to program, it almost is anyway, if it weren't for the fact that we're to create a game! Just any game will do and we're in a group of two and we have about a month to complete it. Mmh I like.

Me and Li, my conspiring friend, have a pretty decent idea of something we can make. The only minor thing is that neither he nor I know anything about Java. Turns out I've done some gamemaking in mostly C++ and it's really not different so we'll see how the game finishes.

Now this game me a bit of an idea, or rather it resurfaces and older idea, namely to make a few games in a couple of different languages. I like to explore different languages and I like to make games so why not combine them?

I'll try to make 10 different games with 10 different languages, starting with this Java game. I won't make this one alone but that hardly matters I guess, there's plenty of time to code in solitude later.

These are some I had in mind:

1. Java
   This one is slated for release in the middle of October

2. C++
   I'm not sure if this one is considered cheating? I mean I've made a few already.

3. C
   I haven't done much pure C, and this looks like a nice time as any.

4. Lua
   I've used you to change values without compiling before, but do you have more to offer me?

5. Clojure
   I do love lisp and as it runs on the JVM it shouldn't be too different from Java.

6. Scala
   Scala is one of those languages you just got to try someday. Also a JVM, piece of cake right?

7. Perl
   Perhaps my current favorite language, it's just so fun to write you know?

8. Python
   When you're gonna do the Ludum Dare many are recommending you to use Python with PyGame, it's time to find out why.

9. Coffee-script + html 5
   One of the more hyped up web technologies right now and I haven't used them? Shame on me.

10. Haskell
    Oh Haskell, I've tried to get you down the last two summers but you won't quite let me. Enough is enough, you're going down!

I might change one or two later on if I find something better to try out (C++ is a bit lazy to include) and I certainly won't do them in this order. There's a big chance I won't do them once a month either, but that's the general goal I'm setting up.

Now it's time to do some other, more boring, school work...

May 2, 2011

Ludum Dare 20 Timelapse

So this time I managed to compose a timelapse of my weekend and the making of My Minions. Sadly I lost the first few hours as I forgot to turn it on...

Anyway here's the result:

May 2, 2011

My Minions

So I think I made it! It became a pretty different game from what I set out to create, but I'm glad with how it turned out.

My Minions

Download
Windows (2 MB)
Linux, Slackware 64 build (3.4 MB)

Instructions
Build a pathway and then place objects or release minions on it, everything must be on a path. Place musical objects or make the minions turn or split to make sound and create some music. Or you can create a digital circuit and make it do something fun.

Controls
Mouse Left - Place an object
1 - Toggle up through objects
2 - Toggle down through objects
Space - Release a minion
K - Kill all minions

P - Pause
Left Shift - Increase speed
Left Ctrl - Decrease speed

L - Load map
S - Save map

F1 - Console, nothin fun :(
F10 - Exit the game

Now beware, I didn't have the time or energy to create a full blown level saving, so it will always use "level.dat" in bin as it's save file. It will overwrite and it will do so without asking.

Source
https://github.com/treeman/My-Minions

If you want to build it yourself it depends on: lua, boost and sfml.

May 2, 2011

I Made It!

It's been over a year, but I haven't lost (most) my touch yet! For the second time I've completed a Ludum Dare! Not an easy feat and yet there are tons of games that look absolutely wonderful. I'm not there yet but now I have at least gotten back into game making again, long overdue.

I will make a formal post and all that jaz when I wake up tomorrow, or maybe I'll sleep the whole day... Nah not really, but at least a while.

Here's my entry btw, didn't turn out the way I wanted it to but in the end I'm quite satisfied. There are a ton of possibilities for it though.

Oh well. Nap time!

September 19, 2010

The great Hochstapler

Hey there. A lot has happened lately since my last update and my last game here.

I'm now a pretty happy student at Linköpings university and I'm reading something similar to Computer Science or Computer engineering, but I guess it'll become whatever you make it to be. For starters we're reading a bit math and a bit common lisp, which is fun but hopefully this is just the beginning.

Me and Veronica are now living in a fairly nice apartment and I think I've increased my cooking skills a few magnitudes since I got here. Admittedly that's not a too big of an accomplishment...

I haven't had any time, or energy, to focus on game development. There are a few things I'd like to do but we'll see what happens. My friend on the other hand has been productive and he has just finished one of his big game projects: Hochstapler.

Hochstapler, the epic production from Gridlock Games

It's a really fun game with some inspiration from the old commodore and I really recommend you to give it a try. The only downside is of course that I just can't beat his highscore!

June 6, 2010

Where's Teddy?

So I did this course Game Design and what's a course on Game Design without a game? Well, here it is. Made in about seven days (more likely eight) and I thought it became quite cool.

Where's Teddy?

Download
Where's Teddy? (6.2 MB)

How to Play
Your mission is to find teddy and his teddybear friends. The problem is that it's dark and it's really hard to find them if you can't see where you're going but thankfully you have a candle with you and if you're lucky you can stumble on more candles to keep you from going completely dark.

Controls
Move with Arrow Keys
Switch and light candles with Space
Next Level: N
Previous Level: P
Reset Level: R
Console: F1

Credits
Sound effects: Random from freesound
Music: Joshua Holtz - Sounds of Insects
Rest: Me

Source
http://github.com/treeman/A-Game

May 18, 2010

Competition Feedback

The voting is over and I got a few ratings I want to comment on. You can view all ratings and comments here.

They're all from 1 to 5.

Innovation: 3.75
This is by far the most positive of the bunch and the one button timing combination worked great!

Fun: 3.29
Again a good grade and I thought the game was fun although it became really frustrating.

Theme: 3.17
The islands wasn't very prominent in the game and the game could've been about anything really, but again I'm more than happy with the grade.

Graphics: 2.54
Very simple and with some more effort it would've been better. But I'm happy, programmer graphics ftw!

Audio: 2.14
I only had two click sounds but still got fairly high. Many decided not to vote on it and I wouldn't either. They were just last minutes add-ons but good to see someone liked it.

Humor: 2.54
I didn't focus on this at all but got some decent grades from it anyway. Not sure if my graphics are that ugly.

Overall: 3.13
The most prestigious grade and it's okay. I'm absolutely happy with it, especially since my desperate hope was to get something playable out of this.

Community: 1.64
The community rating is for posts and stuff over at the Ludum Dare homepage. Sadly I didn't spend time there, almost at all, so I can't really say anything about this.

Overall I'm really happy with everything and I'm really happy with my relatively good grades.

I will do my very best to make my next game even better, but atm I can't seem to decide which idea I want to work with (I have like 4-5 serious ideas I'd want to explore).

April 26, 2010

Beebop The Island Hopper

It's here! The stuff of dreams, an entry for the epic Ludum Dare 17 has been made! For those who don't know it's a 48 hour game making competition which actually is pretty silly. Even more silly is my two hours of commitment yesterday but late this night at about 03:05 I am now, finally, writing this post! The theme was islands and this is what I came up with:

Beebop The Island Hopper

Download
Beebop The Island Hopper (0.6 MB)

Controls
Any Key.

Credits
Sound effects: Random from freesound
Random Coolness: Ludum Dare
Rest: Me

Source
http://github.com/treeman/ludumdare17

February 28, 2010

A Geek Valentine

Yes! I made it! It's 22:22 on the very last day of February and I've been programming virtually non-stop for the past two days, my brain feels like mashed potatoes...

A Geek Valentine

Download
A_Geek_Valentine.zip (4.1 MB)

Controls
Steer with the arrow keys.

Use spacebar to:
1. Build the time machine
2. Buy and place traps (Just face an empty square and choose a trop on the top right)
3. Sell traps (Face and click)

Story
Well it's Valentine's Day and as the geek you are this is the worst day ever. Luckily you havean almost complete time machine hidden here in the grass and if you could complete it you'll be safe for now! But beware... The girls are searching for you! Place traps and run away!

About
This game, as usual, was made for The Experimental Gameplay Project. This time they asked for a short explanation on how the theme would fit together so here it is:

Rejection + Valentine's day = feelings hurt

And you're the one hurting all the girls' feelings. Enjoy.

Credits
Music: Nighttime Falls, I'll be Waiting for Her - ilocan18
Sound effects: Random from freesound
Rest: Me

Source
http://github.com/treeman/Rejection

January 24, 2010

Why is my file so huge?

My latest game was absolutely huge! And I'm not talking about the music (which was pretty huge too - roughly 20mb) but the little .exe file.

It was 14,6mb!!

Now every way you look at it, that's incredibly huge. It's like comparing an ant to a human. Normally the little ant is the exe file which should be small, except that it's not.

Incredible I thought, what the heck did I do wrong? I mean my code isn't really good but I never knew it was this horrible. So today I was determined to find the cause of this obscene mutant ant.

I started out chopping off everything regarding exceptions, cause all c++ resources I've read say exceptions will take space like a mutant gremlin. Okay I thought and chopped away everything - but nothing happened.

Now that's weird, what happens if I scrap this.. and this.. It ended with me beginning a big revamp of my whole "engine", or rather collection of stuff - nothing inherently wrong as it was badly needed - but nothing happened with my exe file! It was still almost 2mb big with basically only a hello world...

Then it struck me! I had been using -g with gcc and without any optimizing at all. When I turned on size and speed optimizations and scrapped the debugging the change was quite extraordinary.

The mutant 14 637 kb was magically transformed to a more fitting ant size of 856 kb. I couldn't save much of the total file size (23 254 kb -> 20 768 kb) so while I apologize for hogging your bandwidth, time and harddrive space I'm hoping you won't be too mad at me.

January 16, 2010

The Chronicles of Bim: The 100 Fake Afros

Aaah feels good having a game ready after the last month's failure! This time it's a small shooter.

The Chronicles of Bim: The 100 Fake Afros

Bullet masher - can you keep up with 100 enemies at the screen? Try it!

Download
afro.zip (19.8 MB)

Instructions
W: up
A: left
S: down
D: right
mouse: shoot
space: leap into the sky!

Credits
Music: The Last Prophecy - Matthew Le Blanc (SynthR)
Sound effects: Random from freesound
Rest: Me

Source
http://github.com/treeman/100-things

November 25, 2009

Jonas IceCream Stand

Ahoy there! This time I'll take you along for a ride with an arty Tycoon game.

Jonas IceCream Stand

Get wild and become a Crazy Dealer of IceCream!

Download
jonasicecreamstand.zip (12.8 MB)

Instructions
It should be pretty self-explanatory, it's a very simply tycoon game.

Credits
Music:
All Around Us - Eric Maskol
I Will Always Look up to You - Steve Chatterton

Sound effects: Random from freesound
Rest: Me

October 13, 2009

MenuCity

This game is called MenuCity and it's a numbers game. Well that's the theme anyway. The game pretty much held to what I planned for - except that it deviated from the theme -again- a bit.

My game is very reminiscent of the old calculator classic Block Dude made by Brandon Sterner. If you like that game, or any puzzle game for that matter, you're gonna love this one.

MenuCity

Download
menucity.zip (7.4 MB)

Instructions
Left/Right arrows - Move
Up arrow - Climb
Down arrow - Pick up/Put down
f1 - Secret dev console

If you're stuck this might help: Walkthrough Level 0

Credits
Music: The Year Before The War - Eric Maskol
Sound effects: Random from freesound
Rest: Me

September 28, 2009

Why make games

Why did I start making games? Because I like to play them of course. Think of all the fantastic games; Super Mario, Lemmings, Tetris, GTA, The Sims, Counterstrike, Theme Hospital, SimCity and Rollercoaster Tycoon... Damn - when you count them like this you'll see how many great games there are out there. And I can honestly say each and every one of them has inspired me and made me wanna create something similar. No - something even better!

I also like to program, that's almost a must if you should make a working game from scratch, so I figured why not use it to make something productive and hopefully something fun?

September 20, 2009

Bugger

Ahhh... Finally another game! Theme of this beauty is Failure and your mission here is to avoid the bugs. As a programmer the fight with those nasty bugs are a daily occurrence and now I've brought you a chance to kill those nasties too!

The gameplay wasn't what I was planning on - yet again - but I'm actually quite content with the game. It's able to grab your attention for at least a few minutes before loosing you and it's absolutely the prettiest one I've ever made! Enjoy! ^^

Bugger

Download
bugger.zip (7.9 MB)
Update: 21 sept - small bug fix.

Instructions
Type the text on the bugs to make them disappear, that's all folks!

Credits
Music: Dare to Breathe - Tom Fahy
Sound effects: Random from freesound
Rest: Me

August 20, 2009

Black and White

Here it is at last! Boasting a unoriginal name, themed Bare Minimum. My thoughts where to create a game where graphics where included into the gameplay but sadly it didn't come out nearly as good as I expected it too.

Yes I know there are a lot of things bad and wrong with this game, but this is a competition with myself to create a game in only seven days and you can't always polish the games like your heart tells you to do.

Black and White

Download
BlackWhite.zip (11.2 MB)

Instructions
Move left and right with the arrows, jump with space and change the blocks with enter. Esc into the menu and there you can enter a highly advanced (not) level editor to change the levels however you want with left and right mouse.

Credits
Music: What we take to the grave - Tom Fahy
Sound effects: Random from freesound
Rest: Me

August 1, 2009

Balls

Here's my first ever experimental game! The theme was Addictive Gaming. My first thought was oh god I'll be making another tetris clone but the end result turned out a bit different. I'm not sure it's very addictive but it's actually okay! =D

Balls is a game about... balls. Well it's all in 2D so maybe Circles would be a better description but I don't think that captures the attention enough.

I didn't think this was possible but here it is! My very first jewel =)

Balls

Download
Balls.zip (7.1 MB)

Instructions
Well... There's nothing to it really. Move the mouse over the balls to make them shrink, survive until the top is filled with balls.

Credits
Music: Markovich/A.M.P. - Twisted in flight
Sound effects: Random from freesound
Rest: Me