If you haven’t yet here is my JAM game for you now consideration

{DUNGEON DAN}

What went well:  

• Making the “engine”. Most of it was just remaking my old LD16 but better, so there weren’t very many problems there. But my Makeshift FoV/LoS did cause some problems. I originally was checking if there was a wall to the right of the character, then tiles to the right of the character would be black. The problem here is that if there’s a hallway to the right of you but it ends, you’d still see past that wall at the end of the hallway. So I eventually ended up having to learn how GameMaker’s Collision_Line function works without internet access. Which was actually a ton of fun, and got the job done. 

• Art and Music went swimmingly. As usual I managed to produce adequate graphics in a low amount of time, basically going along with my “draw shit and then decide what it does in the game later” strategy. And I spent the last hour of the Jam making the audio for the game. Which turned out really nice too IMHO. I used DrPetter’s {Musagi} for the main theme and {Bfxr} for the three(3) sound effects. I also put the main theme on soundcloud if anyone is interested: 
  http://soundcloud.com/mortar-1/dungeon-dan-main-theme

• Overall I just had a ton of fun and I’m super happy with the end result

What went not so well:

• TIME TIME TIME, TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE. I was off skiing  friday/saturday/sunday so that forced me into the jam with little time to work on it. Thus I only have one level in the game. But I’m fine with that. It might have been cool to explore the puzzle possibilities better but I’m content with what I got. I also didn’t have time for menus, win screens, help, etc. though the controls are simple enough to not really need instructions.

well it’s been a while since I posted something on here, so here’s my current project:

NAUTICUS (title not 100% chosen yet since NAUTICUS seems to be taken in many areas, though not as a game). This is the little stealth submarine game some of you might remember from Orca Jam. I’ve currently removed the stealth mechanic and I’m exploring some other possible mechanics. Anyways, here’s the latest screenshot:

There’s an exit, there’s some shoddy light from the tunnel you came out of. There are pillars in the bg. You can go the next level, etc. I also changed the firing. Whereas originally you fired out radar-projectile-things, now it’s just plain old boring torpedoes. The fire rate is fairly quick so you’ll be able to damage things.

Oh also I completely changed the color-scheme again, since before the obstacles didn’t stand out enough.

Since I added an attack, a problem emerged with the fact that the sub moves towards the mouse: You have to be moving towards something to shoot it. Since everything kills you in one shot (at least so far) this is problematic. So now you can strafe slowly with WASD/Arrow keys (while a key is held down the sub ignores the mouse, this also means that you can hold down Space Bar (or anything non WASD to coast along your route and then rush towards the cursor when you release it).

So yeah I’m trying to get something presentable for the Victoria Meet-up tomorrow so I can hopefully get some feedback. (yes that means I’m actually bringing my laptop for once). I’ve only got another hour for this until I venture forth into the forsaken land of Homework. I’ll probably crank out some levels or add an enemy.

These nefarious henchmen are out to get ES CAPÉ and will do all in their power to stand there and watch you go by. Nothing fancier than the spikes that have also been implemented, just allows to tell the story of ES CAPÉ a little better!

can’t see many new things, other than water, but progressing through levels works, you can die, etc. so yeah. just making all the levels now.

Current progress on my LD game, next step is implementing level progression!

Took some abstract art classes with my mum. This piece in particular is heavily inspired by a certain game’s certain map which may or may not involve a couple of forts (2 of them to be precise). Had to take this with my Iphone camera so it’s kinda fuzzy.

So I was in the midst of making the grey slime leave a trail of goo when it dawned on me; I’m fast headed towards the dangerous world of Feature Creep. The fact is the map is small and Dense already with Water, Blackwater, Moles, and Slimes, and ore, and you. if each of these does 50 things, that’s probably a little much. So here’s my new list of priorities:

• Get water working right. It’s better than in the initial release, but still does unexpected things, I need it to be polished down to the point you can expect what it’s going to do and work that into your strategy, instead of “oh god water avoid it at all costs because I have no idea how it’s going to work”. 
• Work on swimming. Right now swimming consists of jumping a little higher in water, which is good for standing in a pool 1 block thick. but is frustrating when under 5 to 6 blocks or more. If I do change it, it’ll probably be Mario style (jumping in the air as much as you want with lowered gravity). Or maybe something a little more realistic. Either way, I want water to be more of a tool to getting places (a dangerous one) than an unbreakable obstacle of almost instant death. 
• Audio variety. Pretty self explanatory.

My original idea was some huge game with tonnes of modes, customization, leveling up, boss battles, etc. But now I realize it doesn’t need any of that jazz. It’s fine as it is and more features would just clog it up. I’m also thinking maybe changing the name, the current one works really well. but is a little too generic (for example, ORE.com is taken; big surprise). If I can think of something else that fits the game as well but is original, I’ll use that. But if not I’ll just stick with :ORE:

I’m still going to fit in Quetzalcoatl somehow though… somehow

Some concept art for a boss in :ORE:; Quetzalcoatl. I’m thinking making them all Aztec gods, though it obviously won’t be quite so detailed (24x24 pixels at max). But the chance to sit down and draw something was definitely welcome! 

A while back I mentioned I wanted black water not to be insta-deadly, but instead it would lower your max O2 permanently. I set it all up (not very smooth right now, but it works). And I have to say it ruins Blackwater entirely. It’s actually less dangerous than water now, and you WANT to make it happen to have fun with the flashy purple poison bar. (yes, flashy purple bar). Here’s a screenshot of how it looks

You can also see the screen gets darker as you get more poisoned. But yeah, it just isn’t fun, so I’m putting it back to good ‘ole insta-kill goodness. Other than that I want to make moles going in blackwater become mutant-moles or something fun like that. And just flat out more enemy interactions. (I might bring back moles pushing ore around). And more enemies the game randomly chooses two from.

Another thing I want to add is a boss battle or something every 10 stages. (of course I’d have to reduce the difficulty greatly first, so it’s even humanely possible to reach 10 levels). They’ll probably be Aztec gods, chosen at random. Particularly Tlaloc and Quetzalcoatl. Other than that I need to polish it up, tweak water a bit, and look into “classes” (bridge building, demoman, ladderman, stuff like that) and more vanity stuff like char customization with costume parts earned via achievements. Anyways, that’s where I’m at!

So last night I declared my game for the 21st Dumb Dare “done”. It’s not really done per say, but it’s playable and pretty fun after a few minutes. It was my standard “make sprites and randomly make a game along the way” effort for game jams, and I’m pretty happy with the result. The game itself consists of glasses —containing various drinks— sliding down a bar. You move a robot hand (because drawing an actual hand would have taken the whole of the contest) up and down and try to avoid the drinks you don’t want.

If I learned anything at all it was something about automating the augmentation of variables (controlling the game’s difficulty) in a balanced manner. All sorts of fun stuff like

[global.charspeed = ((global.charspeed) + ((global.charspeed / 100) * (10)))]

Which gently increases the speed of your hand to make dodging easier as the game starts to resemble Battletoads’ Wind Tunnel.

It was also a great opportunity to sit back and make some game-design decisions, something I’m always too stressed to do in an LD. Things like tweaking drink colours to try and keep them distinguishable. 

Anyways I digress, here’s a screenshot and download link :P

Oh and by not done, I mean no menu or audio and little polish. There’s a really bozo read-me included.

Oh and there’s a really great icon for the game made in 2 seconds