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[freank]

Good luck guys !!!

[PetterBergmar]

Haven't been able to work for so long but this is what I have so far:

[VDZ]

I'm giving up. At my current pace the game wouldn't be remotely finished by the end of the compo, and with my declining motivation the pace is only going to decrease. If through some miracle the game could be finished by the end of the compo, it would still look like complete ass and suffer from massive balancing issues.

My idea was to make a deckbuilding game where the players are ancient civilizations, and cards need to be unlocked on the players' tech trees before they can be bought. Resources to unlock techs and buy cards come from territory cards which players fight over (the cards in deck are mainly military units and special effect cards).

A simple enough concept, but it required significant user interface work (not just in interaction, but more so in presentation). I figured that since Unity already has a lot of the features I need, it would be much quicker to do in Unity. This was easily my biggest mistake this LD, if not my biggest mistake in any LD. I found myself working less with Unity and more against Unity, and after a long struggle I got it to render the cards in hand, the deck and the cards in play...for one player. (Well, technically not even that, because I still haven't got the text to stop clipping through the cards.) Just getting the game to play properly would probably take all of LD, not taking into account content creation, AI, etc.

Overall my motivation seems to be declining over LDs, though. Every time I make the same basic things again I get more demotivated. (This was part of the reason for the switch to Unity, to shake things up a bit.) Maybe I've been making too many games, or maybe my full-time programming job is draining my motivation. This is my second failed LD in a row; I'm not sure if I'll even bother trying next LD.

[JWK5]

That looks awesome, PetterBergmar! I love the sand raining down off the edges, it is a real nice touch!



Hang in there, VDZ.

Don't make it pretty just make it functional, even if it is just functional on the most basic level (save the bulk of the presentation work for after LD). If Unity is not working for you throw it all together in something you're more comfortable working in.

I already have the demons going in my head "I don't like this! I don't like that! This looks like crap! That's not good enough!" and there is plenty of shit not working the way I want it to (Spine and GM:Studio's conflicts set me back a good few hours as I tried to figure out what the problem was). I've attempted and failed a lot more LDs than two.

I just have to keep reminding myself not to focus on making a finished game (in which I can succeed or fail) but to focus on seeing what I can do in 48 hours (in which success and failure are not really factors). I'm treating it like an endurance test.

Besides, maybe if you don't have something finished for the 48 hour solo compo you might end up with enough finished that you can pull some people in for the 72 group jam and finish it for that.

[Bricabrac]

I started late because I was on holiday, but now I have BADLY HAND-DRAWN GRAPHICS and GREEN ALIENS and WORDS IN ALL-CAPS.


I'm using Rpgmaker because it's the only tool I'm able to use, but it's not really suited for game jams << gotta start using Game Maker/Stencyl/SOMETHING sooner or later.

[Tselmek]

It took us a long while to search for a cool idea, in vain. So we went for a good ol' classic platformer for now and we'll see how it goes. Here's our progress so far.

[oahda]

Oooh, even more nice games coming along!

I'm about to give in and go to bed now. Our first day has had work kind of separated so far.

Morten has been programming without any graphical assets:



I've been working on those assets by animating a character without any character designs, just animating the rig and club:



Marte has been trooping along despite feeling ill, designing some of these characters, explaining why my animations look a bit weird (getting up really fast after falling; floaty feet): they've got hover boots!



The idea is to make them very JRPG because our deal is to try and mix JRPG stereotypes with sport game stereotypes in a wonky way...

[Alec S.]

My game's been coming along pretty well.  I'm using my code-base, so this has been something of a test of how quickly I can rapid-prototype something using it. 

The basic premise is that you're exploring an ancient facility on an alien world, and in order to progress, you have to power up parts of the facility, which both lets you open the doors but also activates the security systems.

[ProgramGamer]

I made a thing that I hope looks okay.

[Silkworm]

Progress report for "Touch the Monolith".
When I started I had no idea where it was going but it became.. something. It's kinda like WarioWare but without the pressure. I think I'm done for the most part. I usually like to spend the last day just polishing. Music is left too. Ok, time for bed. Night everybody and good luck!

[Jordgubben]

I'm probably out this round. Although seeing all the cool stuff posted in this thread makes me think maybe I should still go at it.

Overall my motivation seems to be declining over LDs, though. Every time I make the same basic things again I get more demotivated. (This was part of the reason for the switch to Unity, to shake things up a bit.) Maybe I've been making too many games, or maybe my full-time programming job is draining my motivation. This is my second failed LD in a row; I'm not sure if I'll even bother trying next LD.

Tool switching is a double edged sword. What you gain in potential productivity, you lose in accumulated experience. Perhaps Unity is the wrong tool for you, perhaps you just need more experience with it.

Anyway. I can really identify with the whole daytime-programmer vs. sparetime-programmer problem. Maybe build a physic card game next time? Your game concept sure sounded cool.

LD should be done for amusement. If you're not enjoining it, then stop and figure out why you're not having fun. Hope to see you in the next one.

(edit: proper grammar, just a little bit)

[Silkworm]

Submitted! Try it here:

http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-36/?action=preview&uid=47199

[Bricabrac]

Submitted! Try it here:

https://silkworm-sweatshop.itch.io/touch-the-monolith-ld36

Played and rated it, really good!
My only (really minor) gripe was the dark turn it took during the last rooms - it makes sense from a narrative standpoint, but I felt the serious themes clashed a bit with the overall silly gameplay.
I'd love to see the concept expanded.

[PetterBergmar]

Progress report for "Touch the Monolith".
When I started I had no idea where it was going but it became.. something. It's kinda like WarioWare but without the pressure. I think I'm done for the most part. I usually like to spend the last day just polishing. Music is left too. Ok, time for bed. Night everybody and good luck!

Man that is the best one so far!!

[oahda]

Jam goes on and we're at a bit of a boring midpoint where a lot of stuff is about to happen but an update right now wouldn't be very interesting to look at. We've got more than 24 hours left and we're intent on using those to the fullest, so I'll be back later. c:

Nice to see all these submissions cropping up so far! Looking forward to having a proper peek when I'm not rushing to finish my own.

[Silkworm]

My only (really minor) gripe was the dark turn it took during the last rooms - it makes by a narrative standpoint, but I felt the serious themes clashed a bit with the overall silly gameplay. I'd love to see the concept expanded.

I hear you. I wasn't really sure how to best end it. My original idea was to go much further in time but I decided to just narrow it down to the Dawn of man in fitting with the theme but also because it would have been too much work to get it properly paced. I do think a dark turn could be pretty powerful but I think it might require some more pacing as well. I see how it can feel a bit tacked on right now.

Man that is the best one so far!!

Not for long, I'm sure (but thank you!).   

[ProgramGamer]

I did a thing

I didn't finish it though

[oahda]

I didn't finish it though

You've still got another full day if you make it a jam entry instead.

[ProgramGamer]

I unfortunately work tomorrow, so I can't. And believe me, I considered it!

Edit: I'll def keep working on it though, the idea I had for it is cool and I want to see it happen.

[oahda]

Aww. I actually have a day job this time, but I took the day off.