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 28, 2011

Postmortem: Sat-E

This is my postmortem for my Ludum Dare 22 entry, Sat-E. You can find the timelapse over here.

The Good

Motivation
I was really motivated for this dare and it showed in the game and outside it. It's super hard to make a game in only 48 hours but this time it went pretty well. My previous attempts went okay, but there were always something lacking. This time the game feels a little bit more finished so I'm going in the right direction.

After the game the programming motivation continued and with it I've been improving my small fast prototyping framework I use when making games. I got a lot of ideas on improvements during the weekend so that's great.

The feedback
I was moderately happy with how the game turned out, it didn't contain everything I had envisioned after all, but I got a ton of positive feedback anyway which is wonderful! It seems like some thinks that my game is good and there's nothing better for your game making confidence than a bunch of flattering words. I'm even considering developing the game more, maybe spending a couple of days here and there on it during a couple of months when I have the time?

I learned a lot!
The best way to learn something is just to do and it's still true. I've found a bunch of ways to improve and shorten my code, I've made an "infinite" space constructed by individual chunks and that game physics != real physics. Awesome.

Game design is a pretty fascinating creature. Sometimes you give it your best but the resulting game isn't funny, other times you think your game is shit but then you get comments on your "amazing" game! This time I was certain the game was crap, a neat idea wrapped behind a boring gameplay but turns out it maybe wasn't that boring after all?

I got this comment:
"Also the fact that when that happened the game didn't simply reset, I lost my money but not my items, literally stopped me from rage quitting. Bravo"

My thougts? Wait that's a bug! Hmm...

My girlfriend
Of course as I live together with someone it's quite hard to devote an entire weekend, plus the extra time before and after, with my computer. Veronica handled it wonderfully well and she was very supportive which means a lot to me and it helped a ton.

The Bad

The music
There's no music but I had grand plans for making music for the first time ever! It failed hard though. Which brings me to the next point...

Not familiar with the tools
I used my own framework for the game, which is fine, but my last game with it was in May 2011! Which is a looong time ago. I was a bit (a lot) out of practice with this whole pixel arts thing. And of course I had never used LMMS to make music and that didn't happen. I was short of time and it was too big of a deal to start it with the last minute.

Not enough time
Even though I had the whole weekend planned for the dare and I skipped practice on Sunday I was still short on time. I'm not really sure why though. I made a pretty simple game, not a lot of art and I generated sound with bfxr which took no time at all... The reasons really must be:

1. Not enough practice.
2. Unfamiliarity with the tools. Correlates closely to #1.
3. I'm bad and LD is hard.

When I see all these amazing games I'm reminded on how much better other game makers are. I need more practice and I need to make more games. I should enter the next dare, enter the experimental gameplay project and just make more games.

And let's face it: Making a game in 48 hours is frickin hard.

The Ugly

The art
Oh god... I suck at making art. Let's just leave it at that.

The code
There's a lot of bad and wrong in there, it works but it's not pretty. In fact, it's ugly.

The gameplay
This is a tricky one. I thought about placing this in the bad section as I didn't find the game very pleasing at all. The beginning was too slow, the ending too long and there wasn't enough incentive to continue flying through endless space I thought. But I got a lot of positive comments and reactions which is wonderful! I don't fully understand why yet so I'm tagging the gameplay as ugly. After all the gameplay wasn't like in my dream...

Ending thoughts

Before entering the competition I'm always nervous but high spirited. That feeling is always crushed during the weekend and when I finally get the game done and uploaded I think it's the worst game ever. Luckily I'm greeted with positive feedback and that was the case this time again. Maybe they are okay, not super of course, but simply okay.

This time the dare came at a time where I felt I haven't done anything meaningful for a long time, it's just school, little programming and no game making. Now after my spirits are high and I can face a new year with many more games to come!

Until next time, cheers!

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.

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!

April 28, 2011

Making a Game Again?

I've gotta do a lab today at school, tomorrow I need to do the exam I missed when I had my glasses-missing headaches and I'm going to Ikea and some other shops for, you guessed it, shopping! Sure it's fun and sure I need to do these things but the only thing on my mind now is making a new game. This weekend Ludum Dare is on again and I would really, really like to enter it! It's been over a year since my last Ludum Dare and almost 11 months since my last game.

I want to make games again..

I can't promise a new game this weekend but I think I might have the time for some game creation on friday, saturday and sunday evening/night so I just might. The last time I even had a massage course the whole day on sunday/saturday so I should be fine.

This time I also think I can come up with some more sound and music compared to the last time (where I only had two thuds!). I got LMMS, a free music creation program. I really suck at making music though lol.

I haven't made a game since I switched to Slackware either, luckily SFML is cross platform. I've also got my old 7days library, my collection of old game creating codebase which I was pretty proud of for a while.

For graphics I think I'm aiming for some pixelated cool stuff with mtPaint. Pixelated stuff looks awesome, if you're good at it, and I'd like to make something similar.. At least a little similar.

Unreleased fun pixel graphics

So for a quick recap, if I'm going to make a game again this is what I'm going to use:

1. LMMS for music
2. SFML as the core game library (graphics, sound and input)
3. 7days library for useful stuff
4. mtPaint for pixel graphics

As usual it'll be made in C++ (I might do something else another time) and I'll probably listen to Raubtier, Sarah Brightman, Hans Zimmer and some classical composers (Mozart, Bach, Vivaldi etc).

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

Postmortem: Beebop The Island Hopper

So I participated in the Ludum Dare for the first time and this is a postmortem of my game Beebop The Island Hopper for the theme Islands.

About Ludum Dare

Ludum Dare is a competition which runs maybe two times a year and the competition is 24 hours long with a specific theme. After the 48 hours are over everyone who submitted a game can rate the other games in different categories such as graphics, fun, theme and overall. More info here.

The other entries

View all 205 Ludum Dare 17 entries

Holy hell they look absolutely fantastic! Taking part in a competition like this is so humbling, I can't even begin to compare myself to the best games out there. But that's good, I have games and creators to look up to and so I know how I can improve. Which by the way I can do with everything.

Stats

This time I didn't log my hours and so I don't have a good enough graph to show you. Thinking back I worked about 8 hours during this 48 hour challenge, two of them on Saturday and the remaining six late on Sunday. I didn't work many hours on this game but the hours I did work were really productive.

Pressure

Once again I think I've proven that pressure is the best motivator. The game feels as finished as any other game I've made. Sure it's not the biggest game and it has very limited features but it was made in less than a third of the time. Actually even less if you count the hours and not the days!

The Game

Even despite it being extremely simple it did suck up a bit of my time when I tried to beat it (which will take you a minute or two). I kinda liked playing it.

The graphics are pretty good, I have a pretty special style and I personally think it's not half-bad and hopefully you like it too. The music and sound are... well there is no music and I have like three sound effects in total - two of them are different kinds of clicks!

Overall I like it, but it's nothing really special. If I would try to give it an unbiased score (we all think our children are fantastic after all) it would probably be a 3 of 5.

Conclusion

The pressure of a deadline is a powerful motivator and now I've found that no more than a week, or even a weekend, is enough to make a game. And it might even end up being enjoyable.

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

April 24, 2010

Ludum Dare 17 - an hour or two into it

I decided to participate in the Ludum Dare this time, even though I've spent the whole day on a massage course (which by the way was pretty darn good), and about halfway there this is what I've done:

Chockingly... ugly

All is not what meets the eye though, I've got the basics done with fully scriptable islands and actually the very basic gameplay too. Now it's just the blows and whistles left (meaning it's about 90% left).