Whoa, it’s been a whole year since my last game jam, huh? Man, time flies when you’re playing ga-… I mean, graduating university. Yup, pretty hectic. Even so, I’m ready to flex my game making muscles once again, in my quest to make something really cool one day!
1 hour to go
Man, looking around the Ludum Dare website, a whole load of people seemed super psyched for the jam this time around. I mean, the site looks really classy now, so maybe that has something to do with it? Anyway, while we have some time to kill, here’s a quick look at the list of possible theme, and how I voted.
Quite a mixed bag, right? I’ll admit, I only “+1” the themes I can quickly come up with ideas for. If I get suck on brainstorming for too long, it can really get me down.
Also, I was kinda bummed out that I missed GBJam last week, so I really feel like making something with a Game Boy colour pallet. So, maybe expect lots of off-greens this LD.
0 hours in
Well, I’m pretty happy with that. I mean, I did vote for it, after all.
I did have a couple of ideas for this theme, but I’m gonna see if I have anything fresh and interesting now that I can set my mind to it. I’ve got a whole whiteboard, a bunch of new marker pens and half a packet of chilli nuts… Lets jam!
2 hours in
Well, after an hour or so of coming up with ideas, I’m finally set on something that should be fun to make, and not awful to play. Although, I did need to do a bit of research before I could really commit myself…
RPG-esque text boxes was something I could never figure in Game Maker, but I’ve often wished to have that “text is appearing as it’s spoken” effect. So, all credit to this really useful tutorial. Hopefully, that’ll save me a bunch of time and stress.
10 hours in
Grabbed about 6 hours of sleep, and now I’m up and ready to go!
I was messing around with colour pallets last night before I left, so I’ll try and get that nailed down, as well as the designs for most of the NPCs.
13 hours in
Man, that skeleton is so nice!
I think next up, I’ll be working on a sweet looking movement animation for the main character. I’d like to get a cool, fluid-y look to it, so it’ll look more like a slime creature, and less like a sweaty green ball.
16 hours in
I’ve spent the last 3 hours just tweaking bits and pieces, and generally trying to avoid doing background art,(which I think is going to be like, 75% of the screen…
Ah well, here’s a neat slime.
19 hours in
In the last 3 hours, I’ve eaten a whole bunch of barbecue food, had GIMP crash on me, and made a handful of background assets. Not too bad, by my standards. Here’s another snapshot of how it’s all looking.
Desk size is subject to change. As is mostly everything else.
…But those desks most of all.
24 hours in
Phew, what a day! I feel like I’ve had some decent progress in the last few hours, even if what I was working on wasn’t very flashy, or, as some people would say, useful in any way at all. At least all the skeleton workers are keeping busy.
I also knocked up a bunch of background junk, including posters to inspire my undead workforce!
That should help to motivate any lazy bones in that sorry looking bunch…
Heh, lazy bones. Get it?
26 hours in
Spent a while fiddling with room transition and navigation, but now I’m pretty tired. I’ll grab some sleep, but then I’ll dive straight back in, and turn this thing into an actual real game. Like, with goals and stuff.
34 hours in
I’m back, and totally ready to get this game done! Here’s a quick run-down of what I still have left to do;
- A couple of interact-able items need art
- A handful more background objects (so the rooms won’t all look the same)
- Layouts for 4/5 rooms
- Actual plot
- Maybe a title screen?
…Actually, that doesn’t seem like all that much. I’d better get cracking!
40 hours in
Eck. I got caught up trying to fix some weirdness with the inventory system, and time slipped away from me a bit. At least I managed to fix it. I also managed to do all my interact-able items, so now I can go ahead and make some office space.
46 hours in
As the end draws near, here’s a quick look at the almost finished game!
The background is still a like bare, but I think that’ll have to do. Now I just need to polish some stuff up, and think of a name.
48 hours in
Gah, the Ludum Dare curse strikes again! Just an hour short of the deadline, and I find a huge bug that totally breaks the “story”. The game is still playable, there just… isn’t really a point to it. I could have added an extra day’s worth of time and submitted it as a jam entry, I guess… But here it is regardless.
“My First Day in 6-5: Slime’s first day on the job as a baddie!”
I’ll fix the worst of the issues as soon as I can, hopefully before the judging starts. If not, it’s a rather charming romp around a castle-office.
