Ludum Dare #23 (April 2012)
Up until this point, I hadn't really pushed my self beyond what was offered on my course at University. It wasn't until one of my course mates pointed me in the direction of Ludum Dare that I realised that I could do more. So I decided I would take part in the jam.
Ludum Dare comprises of a 48 hour competition taking place over a weekend every 4 months. I realised quite soon that I might have placed myself at a slight disadvantage: I worked at a nightclub during the weekends.
In preparation for this jam, I planned out how I would manage to work it into the limited time I had available. The theme for the jam would be released at midnight on the Friday, so I wouldn't know the theme until I got back from work at about 3.30am. The theme turned out to be "Tiny world". Interesting, I thought. I slept on the thought hoping for some sort of inspiration through dreaming. I awoke later that day and decided to build a game based around cells and at that microscopic level. The next step for me was to create a framework for the game, while building on the game idea. I decided to use the Gosu 2D rendering engine as it's freeware and I had done some limited work using it before. I wasn't very confident in my coding abilities at this time but knew this jam would help highlight areas that I may wish to work on. I managed to get a basic sprite flying around the screen with animation before I had to run off to work my Saturday shift. I got back after a busy shift and the plan from then on was to simply code on until the submission time.
This actually wasn't as treacherous a task as it may sound, I found that my sleeping pattern was quite open to long stretches of limited sleep. There was a time during first year where I went an entire 5 day stretch with no sleep and in fact it was only the apparent threat of damaging my beloved metabolism that forced me to sleep.
So I went, creating my game. I used some Wikipedia searches to help subsidise my game. I decided to have the protagonist as a white blood cell, given their interesting role in the body and their iconic "boxer" image. I found from Wikipedia that there is a type of white blood cell called "Neutrophil". Perfect, I thought, I'll call him Phil. Wikipedia also helped me create the aim of the game, which is to destroy all the bacteria in the area (which was conveniently blocked off by a wall of cells). The two types I went with was Bacilli and Cocci. These had distinct appearances and allowed for interesting reproduction. If the bacteria isn't destroyed, it will replicate. The Bacilli grows at its ends (with a slight angle) and so creates these long sticks. Meanwhile, the Cocci are balls that grow in a hexagonal fashion. The Gosu engine doesn't provide sound but it does come with a basic library for sound. It's not great but it sufficed for me to get some sound in. I used text to speech software to create Phil's sounds where he utters catchy phrases such as "Booyah" and "Bacilli? More like Baconilli" as he hoovers through them. Poor humour, perhaps, but on next to no sleep, it was funny to me.
I was unbelievably worn out and the next day I did nothing. The only time I left my bed was to get the pizza I'd ordered.
Ludum Dare comprises of a 48 hour competition taking place over a weekend every 4 months. I realised quite soon that I might have placed myself at a slight disadvantage: I worked at a nightclub during the weekends.
In preparation for this jam, I planned out how I would manage to work it into the limited time I had available. The theme for the jam would be released at midnight on the Friday, so I wouldn't know the theme until I got back from work at about 3.30am. The theme turned out to be "Tiny world". Interesting, I thought. I slept on the thought hoping for some sort of inspiration through dreaming. I awoke later that day and decided to build a game based around cells and at that microscopic level. The next step for me was to create a framework for the game, while building on the game idea. I decided to use the Gosu 2D rendering engine as it's freeware and I had done some limited work using it before. I wasn't very confident in my coding abilities at this time but knew this jam would help highlight areas that I may wish to work on. I managed to get a basic sprite flying around the screen with animation before I had to run off to work my Saturday shift. I got back after a busy shift and the plan from then on was to simply code on until the submission time.
This actually wasn't as treacherous a task as it may sound, I found that my sleeping pattern was quite open to long stretches of limited sleep. There was a time during first year where I went an entire 5 day stretch with no sleep and in fact it was only the apparent threat of damaging my beloved metabolism that forced me to sleep.
So I went, creating my game. I used some Wikipedia searches to help subsidise my game. I decided to have the protagonist as a white blood cell, given their interesting role in the body and their iconic "boxer" image. I found from Wikipedia that there is a type of white blood cell called "Neutrophil". Perfect, I thought, I'll call him Phil. Wikipedia also helped me create the aim of the game, which is to destroy all the bacteria in the area (which was conveniently blocked off by a wall of cells). The two types I went with was Bacilli and Cocci. These had distinct appearances and allowed for interesting reproduction. If the bacteria isn't destroyed, it will replicate. The Bacilli grows at its ends (with a slight angle) and so creates these long sticks. Meanwhile, the Cocci are balls that grow in a hexagonal fashion. The Gosu engine doesn't provide sound but it does come with a basic library for sound. It's not great but it sufficed for me to get some sound in. I used text to speech software to create Phil's sounds where he utters catchy phrases such as "Booyah" and "Bacilli? More like Baconilli" as he hoovers through them. Poor humour, perhaps, but on next to no sleep, it was funny to me.
I was unbelievably worn out and the next day I did nothing. The only time I left my bed was to get the pizza I'd ordered.
|
On the right is a screen from the finished game.
The brown sticks are the Bacilli, the green balls the Cocci and the white guy in the middle is Phil the white blood cell. As mentioned, you have to destroy all the bacteria in the area. This is simply done by flying into them but you have to be quick because they replicate at an exponential rate. As time passes, Phil's health decreases. His health also decreases as he takes out bacteria and so the player has to make sure they're smart about how they tackle the bacteria. Feel free to check out the LD23 submission here. |
|
What Did I Actually Do?
My first game jam, I created a game in less than 48 hours using the Gosu 2D rendering engine.