#LD38 #FamiliarForever devlog - A Giant's Life (part III)

Is this a post-mortem? Kind of! I'd like to keep on working on the project, so I can say this is a post-mortem of the compo version :)

This has been my first Ludum Dare Compo and it's been TOUGH. My main problems have been two:

• It was my first time trying to make a game with this engine... and it was also the first time in a while coding in C
• I didn't really have a gameplay concept

I just wanted to implement collisions, animations, etc. I was stuck in many stupid problems and I just couldn't manage all the tasks in time. I came with this short little demo that, at least, works :D You can give the code a look in this GitHub repo. Please remember that I'm not a coder, so any advice will be more than welcome!

It's a shame that I didn't find the time to make any audio for this :(

I want to find the time to think about the project and make a simple finished game!

My previous experience in Super Princess' 2092 EXODUS was very different, because Zalo was doing all the code stuff and I just had to make graphics, animations, music and sound effects.

BTW I organized a little local site in my city, Sevilla. We only had a special rule: everyone had to wear a hat!! The ambience was great and very enjoyable. The last time I was in a jam with less than 30 people was looong ago :) Thanks to everyone who shared the whole weekend with us!! You can check every game made in our local site in this link.

I'm willing to repeat the experience, but I think that the next jam will be Bit Bit Jam #4 this summer. Is anyone up for a local event? ;D

#LD38 #FamiliarForever devlog - A Giant's Life (part II)

Umph... this is a bit harder than expected. I'm having lots of difficulties with basic stuff of the engine. I guess I should have studied a bit more :D

I have two sprites linked with animations and the screen flow is working. I can instantiate enemies in the map... but I lack some kind of core mechanic! I should have all this ready before lunch time tomorrow, so I can work on the art later...

Art work left:

• walk cycle and jump
• extra tiles for the background
• enemies (these should be very simple as they have to be small)
• press start / game over / victory screens (this is crazy stuff)
• music and sound effects

Wow, I don't know if it's been a good idea to make my first game with a new engine in a jam, but I'm actually feeling great solving problems and mistakes, even if the long hours in front of the computer take their toll.

Oooh... wish me luck (even if I don't know if that'll be enough)

#LD38 #FamiliarForever devlog - A Giant's Life (part I)

I think this is my first English blog post ever, but as Ludum Dare is a worldwide event, it's a good idea to share this process in a more international way :)

We started our own Ludum Dare event a bit before the official kickstart because we wanted to enjoy the friday afternoon in our timezone. The procedure was simple: we made a virtual "theme selection", with local jammers voting the themes available in the final round. We've been lucky because the official theme and our theme match! It seems like we're a good statistical sample!

My goal is to make a little game using ZGB, a game boy engine based in GBDK made by my friend Zalo. I'm not very good at coding in C (or any language really), so it's going to be a real challenge! I'm reading a lot of code used in the other two games we made last year and I'm kind of learning :D

My idea is to make a classic platformer game, in which you control a giant. You're so big that you destroy everything around you! I need to think about the core mechanics to make it fun, but my plans by the moment are:

• controlling the position of a double 16x16 sprite (I've never done this before, but it's kind of working right now). I've had some problems defining the collider height, but now it's working properly.
• controlling the animations using player states wisely
• detecting collisions and triggering animations in the environment

To sum up: I'd like to have the "engine" today, so I can make all assets tomorrow. I'm quite fast at producing music, sound effects and graphics.

So that's all by the moment. Wish me luck!