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[Hangedman]

Hope all is well in TO, Droqen. Been sounding like a trainwreck from here.

[droqen]

It was a few days of cold power outage but everything's been great since I got back :D

Lots of people I know have their power back too

[eyeliner]

Boss fight in a spaceship.

Had to crunch this one, so it could be WAY better, but heck, I'm advancing. I'm surprised I'm not lagging on this one(?). I'm not even sure.

Here.



ONWARDS!!!!

[arrogant.gamer]

Wow. OK so 5 days in and basically nothing done. No not true: I've learned some stuff.

My first game (which is almost done, I promise) is a completely simple, no brainer, nothing to do idle game in which you grow a cult. The title is Idol Games and I can describe it to you in detail:

 - there is a graph of towns
 - you can start cults in each town
 - cults give you soulfire, which increases monotonically
 - if your cults get too big they may be investigated, which decreases their yield/growth rate
 - there are actions you can take to stop investigations, but they cost soulfire

Here are some icons from the game:



The goal for me was to practice doing UI in Quintus, and to make an idle game about cults. I'm almost done: just need to implement the actions, and here are the two lessons I'm taking away from this.

HTML5/CSS is a good UI Layer

My feeling at the outset was: use HTML5/CSS3 to prototype the layout, and then switch to Quintus' built in UI module. I did this, and am now 75% of the opinion that it was a bad idea. Not because Quintus has a poor UI module: I think it is probably fine! What I realized, though, is: I'm making HTML5 games, not "canvas" games or "Quintus" games. HTML/CSS is an extremely powerful presentation layer, with decades of work put into every aspect. It comes free with 3d transforms baked right in, and is incredibly flexible and extensible. It is also immediately familiar, and easy to manipulate. Why would I forsake that for some UI layer someone built, that isn't as specialized or developed?

In the future, I will use Quintus to present sprites and calculate changes, and HTML/CSS for all labels, text, heart-bars, etc... except where I judge Quintus will actually be easier (e.g. heart-bars). This game, in particular, doesn't even really need a canvas instance at all: it is all labels.

Separation of Concerns

This part is design/psychology. I'm pretty good at programming, and in particular I'm pretty good at designing and re-factoring. So why don't I do those things when I am jamming? I don't write setters/getters for my variables, preferring instead to refer to them straight up; I don't pull common functionality out into components or create calculated properties; I don't write very good code! And I end up regretting it. This time, separation of concerns bit me in the ass again and again (this -- and Christmas -- is why its been days). I kept putting presentation code in the model objects: somehow I thought, "yeah the 'Town' object should keep track of its own 'Demographics Label' because yeah." Again and again, I encountered problems where I would be seeing ghost labels or duplicate badges popping in and out everywhere, and in every instance it came down to separation of concerns. The TownButton object should be keeping track of the labels, not the Town object! Normally this would be a no-brainer, so why do I make these mistakes in jams? Its psychological. I have to treat this more like it is my job, and less like I'm dicking around.

Not in a bad way! Wow that sounded dour: I love my job! Sometimes I can't wait for the weekend to end!

P.S. When this is done, probably tomorrow, I will start working on an infinite runner. I may call it "Sunrise [infinite]" in homage to my favourite infinite runner.

[CNIAngel]

I see a triangle in there somewhere so I bet I'm going to love it.

[CNIAngel]

GAME 4



MOVE: Arrow Keys
QUIT: Esc
RESTART: R

POSSIBLE GOAL: Gather all the treasure chests and then go to the exit (it's a hole)
POSSIBLE GOAL #2: Wander around as you please.

Desktop .jar (JJJAAAAVVVAAA)


NOTES: This was an excuse to try out cellular automation for genning cave systems. It takes a moment to gen in the beginning so that's why their is a delay.

[DantronLesotho]

ffffffuuuuu, something has come up and now I won't be able to make a bunch of games after the first of the year. I'll only be able to make one or two. But I'll do my best!

[droqen]

GAMES

Dantron!!! ): It's ok! Make games and deal with somethings that have come up!

[CNIAngel]

GAMES

Dantron!!! ): It's ok! Make games and deal with somethings that have come up!

the link is broken. just put in http://dl.droqbox.com/2013isdying/ after the =

[cigumo]

I abandoned game 3 (the gank) because it was going way out of proportion.
It was about the ganking mechanic in Dota 2. The thing is that to make it work I had to code a lot of AI rules and the circular layout I chose made things extremely difcult.



Yesterday I started working on game 4 (spacelunky) and I have something working now, but it is still to bland.
The level is procedurally generated in every direction, so if you go back you will find a different layout.
I want to add enemies that chase you and pickups, but hey... I need to work on game 5. I think I will stop here... dammit.


Download here (requires löve 0.9): https://www.dropbox.com/s/2agxdn6cnnflm4h/4-spacelunky.love

[arrogant.gamer]

Finished Game #1: Idol Games.

link: http://evening-beach-2704.herokuapp.com/

When I added the two actions, I sat down to play test it and... well maybe this says something about me and how smart I'm not, but, I played for like 20 min! It is literally JUST a counter, and yet my brain is compelled to try to increase it.

Next Game!

[droqen]

GAMES

Dantron!!! ): It's ok! Make games and deal with somethings that have come up!

the link is broken. just put in http://dl.droqbox.com/2013isdying/ after the =

THANK YOU IT IS FIX

[CNIAngel]

I really liked droqen's use of having a webpage with links to his games so I'm doing that as well http://cniangel.net/megajam/ and I still need to make game 5. Kinda got side-tracked by life nonsense.

[eyeliner]

Game 5:
Mars Taxi kinda thing.


Pickup the parcels and get them to the arrows. After picking it up, you have 5 seconds to get there. Try to deliver 10/10.

Link.



Gotta hustle!

[melos]

i've been A Failure with respect to this jam. well i sat and thought for an hour but couldn't figure how to realize what i wanted to do as small game.

I did work on this for a few hours (and finished it kinda) though.

http://www.bo-en.info/URL.html

[cigumo]

Ok, this is 4 hours into game 5 (wards, in Lich's voice, of course).

• Your blue friends spawn black stuff if they have light nearby, and the lights you place also cost black stuff.
• The stuff dies if you don't pick it up before they get into the dark (lights shrink).
• The blue friends also die if the light goes off, kinda.

I'm not gonna abandon this one so I'll work some more tomorrow.
I really like the micro management mechanic and I have a few ideas to try...

[eyeliner]

Here we go!
Left - Right arrow keys to move, space to fire.


Just like Pang!, but with physics. Single level, because crunch time only allowed me to do this, but hell, this one has been ridiculously fun to make.

Only downpoint, there is no death, and your objective is to clear the balls in the least time possible. I might come back to it later and expand it.

[arrogant.gamer]

~8 hours into my second game, which is a runner. I did animation by hand of a pair of running legs, just to test the whole "animation" thing. They look good if you watch the feet, but if you watch the ensemble it just looks like Big Dog (the robot). Lots left to do! I think I will make it harder, in terms of the size and frequency of the gaps, but then also provide double jump. That's a classic runner move!

I used "red blocks" to stand in for the player falling to their doom. However, it looks like the city is submerged in lava... and I think I might stick with that premise! Or not. I might also switch from buildings completely and find something more unique to run across, because buildings are so over-done.
 ^o^//

video:



EDIT: watching the video, and other videos of low-frame running animation, makes me think... the brain is marvellous! Slow down the frame rate, and those legs look like complete shit. Watching the top of the legs vs watching the feet makes a difference to the animation quality. Add a torso with arms moving back and forth, suddenly the legs don't look half bad. There is so much you can do without ever touching the legs... to trick the brain into thinking this is continuous action. Marvellous!

[Hangedman]

Makin' progress again!

Solved three different edge cases in my generator today, two with one fix.

So I guess my record for the days so far is:

22: Added proper floor exit generation to level generator
23: Fixed edge case #1 (Out of array+), refined results
24: Fixed edge case #2, did some room modeling
25: All the christmasing
26: Recovery. Bit of dabbling, bit of Borderlands 2
27: Out having fun, in having fun
28: Fixed edge cases #3,4,5 (Out of array-, overlapping double-size rooms, floor 1 redraw)

And my aim from here:

29: Code up room exit generation
30: Fix inevitable edge cases
31: Model some different rooms, fix more edge cases (if necessary), party down

[jah2488]

So a slight change of pace for me. I currently have 5 games down and I'm really happy with what I've made. I see no reason to stress myself and produce some shitty 'games' just to get everything finished by the first, so I'll probably keep going into the first week of January until I get my full 9. I'm really happy with this Jam so far, time restriction + no repeating genres has really helped me try new ideas.