The project was to create a simple game using OpenGL. At this moment, our skills in OpenGL were really limited. So we needed something as simple as possible as a game. And then, started to improve it! We got a week to develop this game. We were in a team but only 2 of us was able to program the game. The third one created the ship.

This project was launched in a week where we didn’t really get the time to develop such a game because of the end of the scholar year. We wanted to finish the year project before starting to develop this game and that is why I was not really sure if I will post something about this project. But the things were better than expected! We got a free day on Monday, therefore the weekend was pretty long and we were able to program a lot of things.

We chose to develop a game where the player is in a tunnel and has to avoid the obstacles. The tunnel was programmed to be a straight cylinder with the same radius all the time. The colors change with the Z position of the edge. We got something like a rainbow, and it was pretty funny because it was just a test to see the different portion. The obstacles were design to be white, with a gradient from the edge of the tunnel to the upper edge of the obstacle. The effect we got was an “ice” style. We added a spot light to illuminate the upper edges of the obstacles. Then, the ice effect was completed with a beautiful white on the top!
For the obstacles design, they are not an object we added to the tunnel, they were directly generated during the generation of the tunnel. Therefore, The tunnel is generated with holes and obstacles by a matrix which represents a portion of it.

HUD and Game

For the game, we adjust the speed of the player to be increased with a boost (Only the Z component). And we adjust the angular velocity with the Z speed to allow the player to success in every section of the tunnel he encounters on his way, whatever the speed he had. As I said earlier, we cut the tunnel in sections. A section is loaded with a matrix and a matrix can be design in a .txt file with your own skills. The limitation are 12 sides and a multiple of 20 for the length.

Now the ship: you can go left, right and boost. When you use the boost, the camera comes closer to the ship to simulate the propulsion of the ship. We added a camera shaking to improve this feeling. The higher your speed is, the closer to the cockpit you will be. For the score, we double it when you are boosting your ship. Elsewhere, it depends on the speed. Each 10 sections, the tunnel levels up and generates harder section. From this moment on, we got a beautiful game, very polished and programmed with a lot of love during an incredible weekend of 3 days! We added some sound effects and there it was.

I was really passionate during the development of this game because I really like OpenGL. It was a great experience. I think now I can start to make a new game using this technology. A goal for the future!
When this game was developed, I wanted to add some stuffs to it. But my project manager didn’t find it really interesting enough to be added. I will develop them here now because I forked the project to save my work on the new functionalities I did during this weekend. The first one is some curves for the tunnel and a variation of the radius. The curve were too straight to be added but the variation of the radius were perfect. But it was not the same game because these functionalities change the game a little bit too much. So, I will put both versions available to download at the end of this post. Another improvement was the following of the side by the ship. In the first version, the ship follows a circle around the center of the tunnel. In the modified version, the ship follows the form of the tunnel, so you can feel the ground of the tunnel. I like it, but as the ship flies, this is not really something my project manager wanted. :>

Release version : 1.0 TunnelGL (Windows)
Alternative version : (Coming a day when I will get the time to update it)
Github : https://github.com/Aomeas/tunnelGL

Ideas for the future :
* Generate a portion with a number of sides different.
* Make a real curve
* Propulsion effect on the ship
* Redesign the ship
* Create a real music

Titlescreen

After a full week of work, I am now able to start speaking about my entry to Ludum Dare 32 edition. This is my third participation, and as we say : Good things come in threes!
For the first time, the theme didn’t inspire me so much. I had some troubles to figure it in my game but I thought about it alot and I found a way to implement it. The game I wanted to create was a game where you need to stay in collide with a way until the end. That was the idea. I used some stuffs to help me during this LD like Trello, papers, good organization of my screens. My goal during this LD was to make a better game than the two others and to make a game which will need no tutorial (implicit tutorial was made o/ ).

For the weekend of April, 18-19, I was in my family house. So, I didn’t have my home computer but a laptop with only one screen. I brought my keyboard and mouse of course to help me a little bit with this exceptional disposition. I slept less than 6 hours, so 42h of programing + one extra hour for the release/debugging of my game.

Trello, used to keep my ideas and to follow my advancement.

For the first time, I was using EasyLD, my framework dedicated to LudumDare games. EasyLD is always in development and I changed/updated some stuffs in EasyLD during this LD. I need to commit them when I will be able to check them up. Also, I was using Drystal instead of Löve2D for the release and debugging of my game. The game works under Löve2D due to EasyLD but in a darker version. I need to check why in the following weeks but I think the error is due to the color buffer which is not free/reset. Anyway, it is not the place to figure it out. I got the time to use every functionality which were in EasyLD like MapEditor, Anim8Editor, SpriteAnimation, AreaAnimation and others! I earned a lot of time and that is why this game is the best of the three I made. But my thought is I lost a lot of time due to the no-inspiration of the theme. During the first 5 hours of the second day, I was just playing my game, thinking a little bit about it but not really passionate. Hopefully, after a shower, my mind was better and I was really motivated.

The first day, I was able to get in the first hour the spirit of my game (8 hours). I had the time to add some tweening and color effects and started to make some designs by the end of the day. The programing of the bottom path was a little bit boring (with the boss too) because of the theme. That was a good idea, and I love my sprite animations and the way to beat the boss. But the path with the tower (with the grass and the bonus) were not really an interesting idea and were just here to add a mood to my game. A story. Because I needed to have something between the beginning and the boss. Maybe a full boss fight will be better, but for this kind of game, just the upper part can make a really good game! The theme is important, that’s why.

The second day, I was starting to be bored. But thanks to the shower and my trello, I was able to do some stuffs anyway and to start to add a lot of levels (48 at the end + 1 for the boss). But the game design of some levels was a little bit repetitive. I hadn’t enough of time to program all the things I thought like a cursor for the player which throws a “boomerang” which helps you keep in collide with the path. The SFX and musics were added during this day. I was using audiotracker.py this time, with the classic SFXR. After that, I polished a little bit my game and added a titlescreen and an endscreen in the last minutes of the chrono. One thing was missing in my game : particles! I wanted to add some when you are grinding the path, with a sound. And some when the boss was dying or was hit! That could be funny! However, a lot of stuffs was made and I am really happy. The feedback are going well currently! We will see the result later.

Bonus, path (upper part) Path, tower… (bottom part)

But now, I need to focus on what I learned and what I need to focus on for the next LD.
Firstly, my graphics skills! Incredible. I never thought I will make some really nice graphics if I take the time to make it. That’s the best point I think during this LD. Thanks to AreaAnimation of EasyLD, I was able to animate easily my sprites without creating the sprite animations one by one.
Secondly, EasyLD was almost perfect! Just a bug with timer sometimes, but I solved it fast enough during the LD. Need a particles module and that will be perfect.
Thirdly, I programed more than the other LDs with at least 42h. Last time I wasn’t able due to exams. This allowed me to keep focused fully on my game o/ And had the time to play/polish it a lot.

Level Boss

Now the bad part, there are always some bad parts! And it’s better to figure them out now.
Firstly, EasyLD was almost perfect, as I said, but needed to be developed a lot yet. Some critical bugs appeared during the LD weekend. I fixed some of them, but I need to check them one by one now.
Secondly, the theme didn’t inspire me a lot. That was a problem. But I had an idea of a game. Therefore I linked the idea to the theme and this was great enough. Maybe thinking a lot on the potential theme before the LD will allow me to come up with a good idea instead of just linking the theme to the game idea I got.
Thirdly, because good things come in threes. To polish more, more and more would be better. But program a SIMPLE game. This one was a little bit too huge because of the boss part! I lost a lot of time on the bottom part of the screen. A game with just the upper screen would be better! I knew, and I tried to focus myself on one idea. I did it, almost, but because of the theme, I had two parts. So, it wasn’t a failure.

At last, I can say that a day I will be able to make a beautiful game with a beautiful game design and a beautiful story. Yes, something was missing during this LD, a Story. I need to put the spirit of the player in my game and play with it. I wasn’t able during this LD but this is my goal for my next entry (August, I will be here!).
The game is directly available on the web (Goutye.com) and my entry can be seen on the ludum dare website.
(The music disappears if you change your tab, Drystal/IFrame bug).
Just above of this paragraph, you can find the playthrough of my game and a little bit earlier, you can find the timelapse of the LD32 weekend. Hope you will like my game. Don’t hesitate to let a comment, I am always fond of advice!

Controls: Mouse (Best device, touchpad is really hard)
On the titlescreen : 1 2 3 or 4 to go directly to the world 1 2 3 or 4 if you are stuck and don’t want to try again.

It’s time to write a little Post-Mortem! The theme was pretty simple for this time. We were free enough so many people didn’t really like this theme. But it was fine for me. Let’s see how was this LD for this session!

My game was made in only 44h (not 48h, because of exams) and I slept during 6 hours. So, the final time was in only 38h. Not that bad to make a beautiful game. But this time, I failed again because of the difficulty to contain myself in only one goal.

At the beginning, I used the snowman theme to make an introduction against this theme. But it appeared that this part of the game was not really funny at all if you don’t understand what you need to do. The answer is just in the “Do you want to build a snowman” clip. A music from Frozen, a pretty popular Disney movie. During this phase, I sang this song until the construction of the snowman. I made this part in at least 10 hours, because of drawing some tiles, some sprites. Create some map and a fade-in fade-out option. But I was happy with this part. But the problem was this part is not my game, just an introduction. And 10 hours for just an introduction, this is really bad, mostly for the game part.

Then, I had 28h to make a game. The idea was a fight against the snowman. But not a simple fight. An infinity fight. The boss will improve himself each time you defeat him. He will have more HP, more Mana, and mainly more spells! That was the goal. I developed the tournament area, the arena mode and the boss for at least 15hours. The random was pretty good with 6 spells and those spells were different enough. But that was just some test spells. Then, I wanted to improve the UI. The snowman was just a pink square, and the weapon for the user were nothing at all. I spent 6 hours on random weapon for the player and 2 hours to finish the UI. At this time, it remained only 2 hours to had more powers, more weapons, or concentrate myself on Titlescreen, Endscreen and music/sfx. I chose to center myself on the second way. I made a random music for the fight against the boss and a music for the introduction. I created quickly the Endscreen and the Titlescreen.

Then, It only remains some minutes to test my game. And I was pretty disappointed about it. Just because I knew that my game will not be complete at time. The game was playable, ok. But not really from the way I wanted to be played. I wanted to add many powers and weapons. With that, the fight will really be amazing and not redundant. But the mainly part I skipped was the move of the boss. The boss remained static until the end of the game. I had no time to put this feature into the game. That’s why I was really disappointed. The remaining 4hours maybe would be sufficient to add this.

So, I like my game. But I have many ideas to improve it as well. Allow the boss to move is the main feature I want to add. Add more powers and weapons the second. And the other features are for the scenario. During the LudumDare, I wanted that the boss yells something like “Noooooooooo YOU DEFEATED ME. … … BWAHAHAH, THIS IS NOT THE END! Prepare yourself, little Anna, my powers become stronger than EVER!” and if he defeats you, he can laugh of you o/ With my voice of course. Another feature was the arena. I want to add other arenas, with pillars and fire or water to dodge certain type of attack. And finally, I wanted, during the LD, to add the explosion of the ground each time you defeated him. You fall one level lower than the previous, with a new arena type.

So, what can I advice? Many things again.
I need to contain myself on one goal and develop it until it is really funny and completed.
I also need to create a nice mood around my game. With better sprites/tiles. It’s possible only if I had more time. Maybe a 72h session or in a 48h with the first advice followed.
I was happy with my voice, musics, sprites and my passion during this LD. My goal is now to develop some tools to allow me to program faster than this LD!

Timelapse :

To play the game :
The Vindicite Snowman (LudumDare31)

The web version is not the game. It is an adaptation of this game. Many stuff don’t work currently. (TTF Font and Music and Popup) The game is playable, but your experience will not be acceptable (No text).
Web version

WorldWar of Connectidia

The 30th edition of Ludum Dare has ended! What’s up ? A lot of thing! Let’s write the recap’ of these previous 48h!

Let’s take a look at my last goals :

– No plateformer
– Music
– Some sprites
– Game Engine before midday Day one (10h)
– Last day : IA (Maps)

I managed to fulfill all of these goals with a huge success ! o/…

At the beginning, Suteben-sensei told me “Hey ça va être Connected World tu vas voir”. It was only 20h. I planned on sleeping before LD30 between 20h and 1h. But because of this guy, I wasn’t able to sleep until 21h45 at least… Why? Because I was thinking about a game on a theme like this one. What I was thinking was really ambitious and complied with the theme.

I woke up and took a shower. 1h30, Suteben-sensei was always here to wait with me for the theme revelation. The master Ao-sensei was here but only just in time to know what had been selected.

3h01, the theme poped! “CONNECTED WORLD”. My eyes sparkled! I took a pen and wrote all of my previous ideas (When I was sleeping, I had many concepts !) and started directly to write the engine !

Before 5-6hours, I’d a screen split horizontally and a player in each part of the screen ! The player was just a square. A beautiful square! I think, that’s the best choice I’ve ever made. Because, collision between squares is really easy! Then, in a matter of minute, my collision worked with both maps. The worlds were linked, and my game was really launched.

What’s my goal now ? Create a management/fight game! How is it working? You need to expand your territory. For that, you need to hire farmer to develop your inhabitants. The circle representing your available area will expand until you reach the portal! The portal is the key between both these worlds!
You’ll need to destroy it to break the links between both these worlds. But the portal will not let you destroy it easily. The portal will weaken with the passage of soldiers troop. Then you can destroy it with your weapon.

Portal discovered !

After ? Oh… Yeah, in 48h, I was just able to program these two phases. But in my real idea, I want to add the story of “Why there is a portal here between these worlds”. Actually, both these worlds were one world in an ancient time. But the emeralds, the enemy of this world, broke this world with their emerald magic. Then, the world split in two worlds representing the light and the darkness of the previous world. And that’s why these worlds are linked.
So, after we destroy the portal, we would have seen appearing the emerald world with its fortress. Our goal will be to destroy the fortress defended by a “Boss”, the warchief of Emerald People. They send their troop to your fortresses as your king did previously against the light or dark world. And so, you WIN ! Yeah, too ambitious. A little bit to long.

Let’s go back on what I actually done. I then programed all of this script but I thought I would run out of time. So, I stopped my first day when we reached Sunday (Midnight). I slept only 5 hours and returned to programing the remaining script. After midday, I had a game that worked. But my head thought this game was impossible to balance. Since the beginning, I had too many Bats during my test. but with a log(x)+sqrt(x), I found a good balance. But farmers, miners and lumberjacks were really hard to balance. I tried and succeeded a little bit. And when 15 h was there, I had a game that worked very well. Without music, Without SFX, Without menu, endscreen etc.

Many many… MANY Bats ! WARNING ! Troops are coming

I spent the remaining time on the tutorial (2 hours), the titlescreen and the endscreen until I had a good game interface. I spent also this time on a better looking User Interface. And after that, I created the ModeScreen.

What’s it ? A strange idea in my mind. It felt like my game was not really fun. Complicated to understand. But the second part of the game (after discovering the portal) was really interesting and funny. So, I created a second mode. “Legion mode”. This mode made me really happy. I like this part of the game and I really succeeded in creating an interesting mode. I added difficulty like “EASY” and “NORMAL” mode. They worked. But the “HARD” version was not tested. Too hard maybe, I don’t know!

So… I reached 22h30. 4h and half remained. What could I do now… OH… Holy sh*t. Music and SFX. I spent the last 2 hours in music and sound effect. I realized a nice menu music with cgMusic (Midi generator) and LMMS. And I tried the autotracker.py found by Kidanger-kun. Best guy ever known… Oh wait. After some generations, I felt happy. I liked the music quite a bit (except the menu music !).

… AND… The last hour arrived! That was, maybe, my really “funny hour”. I added the Kings interventions on the screen o/ I liked that and laughed a lot when I saw them yelling at you o/ “ATTACK!“.

And I sent my game :’) I was not really happy because I thought my game was not really fun. But really ambitious and a bit too long and repetitive. But the legion mode deserves to be played because it was funny for me.

Mode legion : SUCCES! o/

Then… What can I say about this LD30… My next goal for the next Ludum Dare.

I liked programing this game even though I had cramps in my fingers.
For the next Ludum dare, I need to focus on a short but funny game, more than a long and difficult game. Now that’s this game it’s done, I’m not afraid of my graphics skills anymore. Because Paint.net and my skill was really good during this LD. The titlescreen is beautiful and funny. The troop is well drawn and the fortress too.But I think my human sprite skills are pretty ugly. UGLY. :'( … No words can describe the pain on this poor player. :/

What’s next ? September is coming. May be a game project but I need to work on JAVA and C++. So, I may try to create a game in Java. But now, I want to catch up with my watching list…

So ! Enjoy my game !

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-30/?uid=37076

En prévision d’un futur LudumDare en JAM,  et ayant surtout raté les précédentes possibilités de LD JAM à cause de soucis d’emploi du temps souvent, nous avons décidé de nous réunir un weekend de Juin (Post Exam) histoire de tenter en 48h la réalisation d’un jeu sur un thème au hasard.

Un véritable LD Jam consisterait à avoir 72h. Nous avons donc fait une version courte qui correspond plutôt à l’horaire alloué aux réalisations solo d’un Ludum Dare habituel.

Pour ce premier LDShare, le rendez-vous était donné le weekend du 13 14 15 juin ! Le début était prévu pour 23h le 13, la fin donc à 23h le 15 !
Pour le choix du thème, nous avons généré plusieurs thèmes puis votés pour ceux qu’on souhaitait. On a ensuite gardé les deux meilleurs et on les a regroupé pour en faire le thème du LDShare :

Non linear three worlds

S’en est suivi donc 15 min de brainstorming ! Pour en venir à un concept de 2 mondes avec un monde de transition. Le côté non linear a été très difficile à imaginer et on a de suite vu que c’était peut être même beaucoup trop compliqué !

Time line du LD : #LDShare1

Goutye @Goutye  ·  13 juin

#LDShare1 On ne sait toujours pas si le héros aura un sexe ou non… L’important c’est qu’il subira de grands changements :X

Steven Le Rouzic @steven_lr  ·  14 juin

Ça tourne pas ? Pas grave on va dormir. #LDShare1

Ceci résume la première soirée ! 4 h de codage on va dire. Le début d’un plateformer apparaisse et ce sont sur des erreurs de collisions que nous nous sommes couchés ! Le concept est pas encore clair mais ça avance !

---

JOUR 2:

Levé 8h30 ! Goutye est ready mais pas tout le monde ! Il part en quête de réveiller le grand Suteben-kun ! Les deux autres avaient prévenus qu’ils dormiront un peu plus. Du coup, let’s go avancer à deux sur les bugs de collisions !

Steven Le Rouzic @steven_lr  ·  14 juin

Ça parle de slopes ! #LDShare1

Feature inévitable d’un plateformer, on aurait peut être jamais dû en parler ! Pour l’instant c’est que du blabla, mais la réalité deviendra bien plus tard assez triste !

12h29, Suteben part en live et s’improvise musicine : “I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THE FUCK I’M DOING” titre-t-il avec cette magnifique image.

Pendant ce temps, le sprite tout juste terminé vient tester les collisions alors que l’équipe part en direction d’un KFC histoire de se remplir le bide o/

Steven Le Rouzic @steven_lr  ·  14 juin

Chez KFC ils sont cons : le nombre de pièces dans un bucket 4 personnes n’est pas divisible par 4…

Steven Le Rouzic @steven_lr  ·  14 juin

En fait chez KFC ils aiment créer des disputes.

De retour du KFC, Goutye poste la feature “RPG”, la fameuse feuille du personnage !

Goutye se lance dans les gemmes, Suteben toujours côté musical et corrections de quelques lignes de codes voire même du mapping. Kidanger à fond sur les portails ainsi que le random et Ao côté tile et map !

20h44 : Le premier draft d’une musique qui sera côté World et Menu : Menu / World music loop

22h45 : Premier slopes apparaissent, le résultat est un peu vibrant mais ça semble correct mais pas assez pour que cela soit réellement enjoyable :/

Steven Le Rouzic @steven_lr  ·  14 juin

.@Goutye s’apprête à tester une feature critique et complexe… pray for us! #LDShare1

Mais bon, l’estomac va se remplir de lasagnes !

Goutye @Goutye  ·  14 juin

#LDShare1 Ce soir c’est lasagnes ! Avec des ladders des dango des boules de feu et compagnie o/

Steven Le Rouzic @steven_lr  ·  14 juin

Joli screenshot ! C’est bientôt miamtime. http://i.imgur.com/CP4ZWyx.png #LDShare1

Fond du monde intermédiaire.

3h46 : Suteben toujours présent, Goutye sur la corruption et les deux autres en Dodo histoire d’être en forme demain !

Steven Le Rouzic @steven_lr  ·  15 juin

Still alive, still alive, ah ah ah ah, still alive ! #LDShare1 Avec @Goutye pendant que les deux autres dorment. \o/

4h46 : Une heure après, Suteben nous sort l’alpha de l’arme du Héros :

Dans le même instant, Goutye poste le prototype de la corruption et se met à corriger les quelques bugs :

Skill points + Leveling + Corruption bar

Steven Le Rouzic @steven_lr  ·  15 juin

On a bien avancé, maintenant au lit ! #LDShare1

---

Jour 3 : Debout vers 10h 10h30, la team fait son petit kick-off pour aborder la fin des hostilités ! Le jeu étant fonctionnel, il faudrait maintenant le remplir de boss, de monstres, et de map !Voici donc un premier Dango

Pendant ce temps, Suteben était sur le menu ! Ao qui jonglait entre sprite, mapping et codage de l’épée et des fireballs en coopérations avec Suteben ! Kidanger se mordait la main sur  les Boss à implémenter et les IA des mobs !

Reprise direct sur de la musique ! Suteben nous sort maintenant à 16h45 son draft de musique de boss !

https://soundcloud.com/folds-project/ldshare1-boss-loop

Pendant ce temps, Aomeas s’acharnait sur les derniers sprites tandis que son départ commençait à se profiler ! Pas le choix :/ Les mobs et boss sortaient de l’usine l’un après l’autre ! Kidanger était à nouveau overbooké de nouvelles IA à coder en plus des précédents bugs ! Que dire à part qu’on sentait que la fin arrivait et que la panique arrivait aussi o/

18h10 : La story et ses effets lumières apparaissent !

21h30 : Plus qu’une petite heure et 30 minutes à nos braves garçons !

Goutye @Goutye  ·  15 juin

Sprint ! 1h30 left ! #LDShare1 Et découverte de bugs embêtants :X

Steven Le Rouzic @steven_lr  ·  15 juin

Plus que deux à trois maps à faire ! #LDShare1

Le nombre de tweet à grandement diminué, un boss pop avec une IA non testé ! Les spikes sont présents, les zombies aussi. Tout y est mais quelques bugs persistent !

Mais le temps est le temps et c’est à 23h qu’ils s’arrêtèrent !

Steven Le Rouzic @steven_lr  ·  15 juin

#LDShare1 c’est fini ! Maintenant il faut attendre trois mois pour revoir les Deuxième Rangs.

Goutye @Goutye  ·  15 juin

#LDShare1 DONE ! Brace yourself ! The release candidate version is coming.. o/ Thanks all o/ I learned many things during this one !

---

Title Screen

Pour moi l’expérience fut très enrichissante ! La motivation était sans limite et ai vu de suite mes points faibles !

Les slopes sont à travailler. Un peu de design ne ferait pas de mal et côté musical il faudrait que j’y touche un peu pour pouvoir assurer quelque chose au prochain LD !

L’essentiel est que la team a fait son job et pour du 48h laxiste, on a un bon jeu malgré la difficulté vraiment croissante !

Voici donc le lien : LDShare 1 – Release Candidate !

Et à un prochain LD !

Avec moins de DODO ! Plus de CODE ! Et certainement du SOLO ! Eh oui, le prochain est situé fin août, tout le monde ne sera pas encore de retour sur Caen !

Les logs de notre dossier GIT ! 272 commits, 58 merges !
LDShare1 Logs !