Where They Once Were post-compo version
That didn’t take long! I added another ending and sounds (courtesy of Freesound.org, see the Credits.txt for details), and I think the game feels much much better atmosphere-wise now.
Archive for the ‘Ludum Dare’ Category.
Ludum Dare #31
It was Ludum Dare time again! The theme (Entire Game On One Screen) garnered rather high amounts of criticism, and I’ve got to admit that initially I found it a tough one due to it not fitting any of the ideas I had before the compo began. However, whereas usually if I’m not inspired right when the compo begins I tend not to be able to gather motivation later on either, this time I got an idea after ditching all my original ones and it stuck.
Usually my LD games tend to be heavy on content and light on visuals, but this time that was different, too – the game’s all about atmosphere and while there’s very little to do, I think it works on some level. I had to leave out some stuff I originally planned to do, but I’m considering possibly making an ‘extended’ version for the 72-hour jam. Sound effects would be a wonderful bonus!
My game’s called Where They Once Were (I dislike the title but I didn’t have time to change it!!) It’s a survivalish horrorish thing where you control an anonymous woman taking refuge in a weird abandoned cottage in the middle of nowhere. There are 3 endings, although 2 of them are more like variations of a game over screen. There’re some light puzzle elements, but I think the game can be enjoyed without caring about them.
Visit the game’s LD page!
Here’s also the timelapse video (full playthrough at the end:)
…Actual LD30 results
The voting phase of Ludum Dare #30 ended last weekend, and my game fared pretty well considering that I entered it in the ‘jam’ category with teams allowed and generally more lax rulings. In the end, I ranked
9th in category “Fun”
11th in category “Mood”
57th in category “Audio” (The song in the game was made by Cotton-in-law, so this is very much his achievement!)
70th in category “humour”
…and 10th overall!
I was really surprised at how much people liked the game! Maybe I should keep working on it…?
Anyway, the download link is in the post below, here’s a timelapse/gameplay video:
LD30 results
My weekend was pretty busy so I didn’t make it in time for the compo, but I wanted to get out some kind of a version of the game so I made something at the last minute for the Jam (less strict rules, one extra day, teams allowed). I’m pretty happy with the result and will probably combine what I made now with some engine things I’ve experimented with to get a really smooth base game! :) A person called Cotton-in-law was inspired by the game’s visuals and made a song for me. Thanks a lot! Here’s his SoundCloud page: https://soundcloud.com/cotton-in-law
GET THE GAME
Ludum Dare #30!
Taking a short break from ESA to work on an LD game. Yay! Theme: Connected Worlds.
Ludum Dare results!
The voting ended last sunday, but I’ve forgotten to post the results! I think the game might’ve fared better had I had more time to test other people’s games, but still, I’m pretty happy! The results are:
89th overall
27th in Innovation
29th in Humor
86th in Fun
172th in Graphics
(Placing in the rest of the categories is over 200, so I wont paste them here!)
Considering that there were 2497 entries overall, being in the top 100 in three categories isn’t too bad, I’d say! :) I’m really amazed that so many rated every single game, that must have taken a lot of time even if they gave every entry just the barest of a glance before rating…
Link to the game
Ludum Dare #29 is over
…and I actually finished a game! Didn’t really think I’d make it but here we are. Yay!
My game is called BactoCo and in it you play as a disease. Your objective is to get the CEO of a company ill (I’ve no idea why). You inhabit one host at a time, and have to cause symptoms to them in order to manipulate their movement and get closer to the CEO. The game’s entirely mouse-driven and I also managed to port it to flash! Huge thanks to Adam “Sketchy” Hawker for creating an A* pathfinding tutorial for MMF 2!
Preview and play the game on the Ludum Dare site!
Screenshots:
Also check out this weird glitter thing I made for ESA:
What is happening
Just to show that I have some other stuff under development, have a couple pics:
I really like smooth snake-like movement so I felt the need to try to make one myself. Maybe this’ll become something? Who knows!
Despite the long silence, I’ve lately also implemented new stuff to Officer Alfred! The box functionality has been very hard to get working properly but I’m very happy about it right now! :) Note also the super-cool independently moving box platform; I think that’ll allow for some pretty neat puzzles.
As for ESA I finished the first phase of the final boss; also I decided that I want to fill up all the existing holes in the game map; I’ll add them to the “big secret” of the game so that visiting them gives hints on how to find other stuff. Hopefully that’ll be fun! At least it’s not a huge job. To be honest, most of the stuff left to do is related to either the secrets in the game or the in-game dialogue, the latter of which I’m kind of afraid to start working on because I’m really not confident in my ability to convey the things I want to in English!
Oh, and Ludum Dare #29 will be held this weekend! I haven’t participated in a long, long time due to general lack of motivation and/or inspiration. However, the theme voting is open so I’m on the lookout for an inspiring one; maybe it’s time to make another 48-hour game? We’ll see!
(Whoa, suddenly my whole life is about game development again. This has been a weird Spring!)
ESA mentioned at Kotaku, and stuff
I thought I posted this yesterday, but it appears that I didn’t!
So yeah, ESA got a really nice and positive mention at Kotaku.com, and as a result the game’s twitter followers doubled. Pretty cool!
Also LD24 was a total disaster from my part – I didn’t finish anything and the theme (evolution) left me completely uninspired. Boo! During the final hours of the event, I did work on something, but it was hardly worth submitting – I’ve been wanting to make a java roguelike for my cellphone to pass time with. Turns out it eats battery charge really fast so I can’t really use even the bare-bones RL I created, but I had fun working on it! Some screenshots:
A painting! Also Ludum Dare
Yeah, it’s a painting. Tried some new techniques here, though the result is kind of simplistic and ‘bare’.
Ludum Dare #24 is upon us! The final round of voting started today. There are a couple interesting ones (“Break the Rules”, “Don’t Go Outside”), but as usual the general opinion seems to favour the more ambiguous themes (“Abandoned” appears to be a favourite). I have a couple ideas, but we’ll see whether I have time and/or inspiration to finish anything (I probably will!)