Post-Mortem - Ludum Dare 25

Better late than never I suppose...

I participated in the Ludum Dare for the first time. Check out the site here: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/

And my entry is here: You are the Asteroid!

I did the competition, so I had 48 hrs to create a working game. The theme was "You are the Villain".

What went right:

• I FINISHED!!!. I was able to upload a playable game. That was awesome. My first ever.

• The effects. I enjoyed the imagery of my game. Going for over-the-top fx was fun. Maybe could have been pushed a little bit more.

• Coding - I brushed up on my unity scripting abilities, and had a blast doing it.

• The community - I really enjoyed the event, and following along with others as we all participated. It was extremely fun seeing all the entries.

What went wrong:

• I think the biggest thing that affected my performance was the fact that I started out with no direction. Halfway through I changed what I was going to do, and didn't even have a one-sheet for the design or purpose.

• Controls - Didn't get a lot of time to test them. They worked, but it seems many people found them confusing.

• No sound. Submitted at the last second, and had no time for even placeholder sound.

Overall, I had a great time. Pushed myself, as I am an animator, and never really did a whole game before, so this was intense. I learned a lot, and I am excited to continue participating in the Indie community. I love it here.

I would also like to thank everyone who commented and helped out. Once again, a great community. You all rock.

Game Development update

State of the game:

So far, the game is very playable, though there are quite a few elements missing or broken.

We have multiple enemy types, multiple weapons, multiple levels. We are building an upgrade system, as well as another enemy type. The first boss is almost complete, and the others only need a few tweaks.

We need sound.

The art is looking nice, though not sure what to do for textures. We are trying to differentiate the enemy types, as some of them look very similar. However, the weapon textures are looking awesome.

For example:

This was done by Corey Pullman. Very talented student at Utah Valley University.

The game is around 85% done. Trying to push hard the next week. We are trying to get cutscenes, the tutorial, and special effects done, as well as the level designs for the final two stages.

Stay tuned!

GUI and App Icon

Here we have our in game GUI, followed by a concept of the app icon.

Indie Game Night - November 15th 2012

This was a fun night. There was a presentation by Tom Beatty about Flash and Stage 3D. Very interesting stuff in the world of Flash. This was followed by a relaxed mingling of indie devs showing off games. I played a few, and they were very well done. Though unfortunately I did not write anything down, so I have no idea what the games were called or who made them. :(

However, we did take the opportunity to show off SPACE Episode 1: The Old Man and the Escape. I think people had a fantastic reaction to it, better than I hoped. Most played through a few levels, and seemed to adapt to the controls with ease. This was wonderful, and really drove home the point that we are making a game that people will enjoy. The best part was the fact that everyone related it to Smash TV, which was a direct inspiration source. Smash TV is one of my all-time favorite games, and we actually began by making an almost direct port. But, we are on a slightly different path that adds some more entertainment to the game, justified by the favorable reactions that SPACE Episode 1 received.

I would like to thank the University of Utah, their EAE (Electronic Arts & Engineering) department, and Greg Squire for putting this night together. It was fun, and I can't wait for the next one.

Update-

Here are some other write-ups of the event:

http://monkey-time.blogspot.com/2012/11/utah-indie-games-night-november-2012.html
http://rampantgames.com/blog/?p=5179

Game Changer

Been awhile.

We have been busy. The game is progressing. Some changes:

Thanks to some 3D software, we are now making this game 3D. A lot easier for us based on our skill sets.

We submitted to the Independent Games Festival!

We hope to finish this game someday. Ha ha ha. We grossly underestimated the amount of work that we had left, but things are getting done, and the game is fun.

Level 1 Concept

This will be the template for the first few levels you go through. Arena/dungeon-esque (is that even a word?) type of feel. Let us know what you think! Thanks everyone.

Concept Art

Here is some concept art for some of the characters in our first game. These were drawn by Clark Varner.