A Bunch Of Indies - Part Two

A Bunch of Indies - Part One

Here’s to my second completed title! ♥

REVOLVENGARDE is an action game about reflecting arbitrary objects. Created in 36 hours for the Ludum Dare 48 Hour Challenge.

(Download)

Go and rate it on the Ludum Dare page!

This was my very first Ludum Dare and I’m actually very happy with what I produced. It’s actually a lot of fun and is my most polished game (of all my unreleased prototypes).

Special thanks to Andy Sum (@JigxorAndy) and Tom Lattimore who play-tested and gave feedback. They have both helped me add the finishing touches to REVOLVENGARDE that have made all the difference.

Looking forward to playing everyone else’s entries! I definitely see myself as being a regular Ludum Dare participator. :)

Ludum Dare 26 is next week and I’m very excited!

Here’s a simple arena Streets-Of-Rage shooter I created in 48hrs (actual work on it was considerably less). Figured this was fun enough to post on my blog. 

(Download)

Might be another concept I end up returning to! :D

Woops. Unfortunately I didn’t make it in time for March’s challenge. Here’s a screenshot of it in its unfinished state.

I set out to create a small zelda-like with some rogue elements. I originally had a concept which involved your reflection in the water, but that didn’t turn out so well so I abandoned it. I implemented a kinda-fancy HUD (reminiscent of Dark Souls), a few enemies (which moved randomly), some particle effects, as well as sword-swinging and shield-blocking enemies and projectiles. Also dashing (which left a trail of particles behind you). And a pressure plate trap. And some bare-bones camera controls. I kept adding things to it :P.

Unfortunately I also ran into a wall with random generation. It’s quite a tricky and complicated beast. Looking online gave me complicated algorithms I did not understand and examples that weren’t exactly what I was looking for.

Also school decided to become slightly more prominent throughout the month and has stolen my attention and energy (study study study >_<).

There’ll probably be an extension on the challenge, I know, but I’ll be defeatist and just say this game won’t get done on time. I feel bad about it :( I’ll look into finishing it while I’m on break from school.

However, Ludum Dare is on in April and I’m excited to participate in that! It’ll be my first Ludum Dare and should be a hell of a lot of fun! Whatever I make then will be my game for April #1GAM.

Overall, this was a good learning experience and I’m getting better at this programming business. All the feedback from Melodisle has been very, very encouraging. Maybe this is my calling.

I humbly present my first game - Melodisle. A small puzzle platformer about singing and melody created as part of the One Game A Month (#1GAM) challenge.

(Download)

I figured #1GAM was the perfect opportunity for me to actually start making my own games.

What Went Right

- Unique mechanic. I honestly haven’t seen a game like this before and when I first got down to implementing and play-testing, it turned out to be a lot of fun just playing different notes (like a piano). Continuing on to create objects that responded to the notes I played felt pretty amazing. I feel like I’ve stumbled on a good idea here, it seems to have a lot of potential. I might just return to this and flesh it out a bit more, once I’ve got a few more games under my belt. :) Right now it’s pretty unrefined, but that’s the best I can do for the moment!

- Play-testing. I’ve gathered incredibly useful information from showing off builds to a few friends, finding out where my game went wrong and where I could improve. I think it’s important to do this as often as you can when starting out, especially if you’re creating something that hasn’t been done before.

What Went Wrong

- Juggling other projects. It doesn’t work.

- Over-ambitiousness.  Well, this isn’t entirely true, but setting out to create 8 unique puzzles for my first game in a matter of weeks while managing all other aspects of the game is quite the task which created unnecessary stress. I honestly don’t regret doing it (it was good experience!), but I certainly would not be able to keep it up for the rest of the year. Just a reminder to go smaller next time.

Conclusion

Making Melodisle was a lot of fun, even during the stressful parts (crunching to get it done on time!). I’m seriously looking forward to next month’s challenge. :D

But for now, sleep.

Melodisle has been featured on IndieGames.com, RockPaperShotgun, IndieStatik, JayIsGames, FreeIndieGames, and IndieCombo. Holy crap!