Ludum Game 32 Post Mortem

It is done!

After 48 hours of hard work I am finally done with my game.

It can be found here: http://dkit.no/ld-32 (WEB) or download here (Zipped runnable JAR, requiers Java/JRE)

So what have I learned during these 48 hours?

1) Sleep is overrated
2) You get fuzzy in the head after 18 hours in front of a computer
3) SFXR and jcgmusic are great tool for indie game developers with no sound skills
4) Gimp and Inkscape have a lot of bugs but are great tools when they work
5) Box2D is quirky when doing physics on a small scale, especially in GWT
6) It is amazing how much you can get done in a short amount of time if you put your mind to it!

The biggest problems:

Bugs! And lack of time. I did not have time to do everything I wanted so had to cut a lot of features, like weapon upgrades and different types of weapons. But that is probably a good thing...

The greatest wins:


(To be continued....)

Try my game Slick Licker here: http://dkit.no/ld32 Give your enemies a lickin' and save your children!

Game is feature complete. Now for the polish!

After some horrible problems with Box2D and rope joints the problems now finally seem to be resolved. Time to start polishing my ugly ugly placeholder graphics!

Disaster!

Argh! My harddisk where I kept the screen captures just died! That is the second hard drive of that type that has died in 1 month!
Good thing it was not my main drive where I keep all code and assets! Phew!

Back from sleep!
6:40 is enough for everyone, right?

Taking stock of my supplies:

I think this should last me the day! :-)

17 hours to go!

Today I have to start on the design so the thing does not look like crap, and also start thinking about music and sounds... 

Taking the easy way out...
Instead of creating a character that I have to rotate to sit on every surface I'm taking a shortcut and creating a blob. Halfway through now and I really have to get started on some goals for the game now even though the engine starts to look half decent.
Also, I have to add some sound and music!

I am THIS close to giving up on creating a web compatible version.
GWT is a nightmare to debug, and the Box2D support in GWT-jbox2d is really bad - If I create more than a handful of joints at once the engine breaks... Aaaaargh!

My guy now has an unconventional weapon! :-)

2 hours in, and I've gotten the basic map down, and the main hero is also soon ready for action!

Also, deployment of the 'game' (not really a game at this time) works - and will be periodically be uploaded to this location: http://dkit.no/ld-32 if you want to follow the progress.

Stay tuned!

6 AM - time to get to work!

I've thought about the theme 'An Unconventional Weapon' and I have to say I am quite pleased with it.

Browsing the net for 'unconventional weapon' yields weapons of MD, chemical and biological weapons etc but I don't want to go that way - thinking back I remember games like Bubble Bobble, Rainbow Islands, Dig Dug and Solomon's Key - I will probably make something along those lines.

First, coffee and chocolate, then I'll get on with some drawing!

Home made pizza: Check

Coca cola, coffee and chocolate: Check

Computer up and running: Check

Getting ready for my first Ludum Dare! http://ludumdare.com/compo/

Getting ready for Ludum Dare 32!

My first ludum this year! 

Tools of choice: 

 sfxr/Audacity for sound, jcgmusic for music, Gimp for graphics. I'm going to use Java and LibGDX and good ol' trusty IntelliJ IDEA for my programming.

I am currently working on open sourcing a game engine I have made for ludum: ludum-engine (demo)

I won't be able to provide much support for the code during the compo, but if you want to take this engine for a spin you are welcome to!

Look at the game demos in the video stream to the right to show some of the engine capabilities!