Monday, August 22, 2011

The Collapse - A Ludum Dare Entry

I was participating at the Ludum Dare Game Compo this weekend.
I started on a basic prototype idea on Saturday afternoon, pondering about a concept. After a few lines of code i had a random generated maze out of differently sized cubes, and some enemy entities with a basic homing ai.

Very unspectacular
I kinda liked the physics based movent around the obstacles, but getting decently playable levels out of random generation is quite the effort, and i wasn't sure of success. So my decision was to develop an editor that is capable of designing custom levels.
While i was at it, ideas kept flowing in: different types of geometry properties like bouncyness or stickyness, moving platforms, and some more i didn't want to consider at that point. It is only an 48 hours compo after all.

So i started on the basics, having the ability to move and scale cubes to form a level, and advanced on editing features like rescaling or translating specific objects to not start over on a misplaced object.
Most of the work went into the editor, as the gameplay features were pretty simple and quick to implement.



In the end i am fairly satisfied with the result. I was able to implement all the features i planned for it, got a catchy tune, some ok'ish sound effects, and the graphic effects (apart some minor issues).

However there seem to be a few bugs in the engine, as i received some messages that it won't work, or crash on startup. I need to look into that.

Anyways, heres the gameplay video of the submitted version



While developing this i came to like the concept pretty much and i have a couple of ideas that can be implemented to have a more versatile gameplay; depending on the feedback i will consider making a full game out of it.

So yeah, thats all for now. If you  have questions, or if something doesn't work, please let me know in the comments or on twittor.

Download:
You can download the Ludum Dare release here.

I made a small fix that might cause a crash on startup depending on your systems localization. Also improving the Physics/game update, resulting in a better gameplay performance, and fixing the issue about not loading levels for some, also showing the goal model. I strongly suggest you download it instead the official ludum dare release!
Download the fixed version from Dropbox.

You need the .net 4.0 framework or better to run this.

1 comment:

  1. Really cool game. On my pc the "end-location" is not displayed :( But the rest of the game runs really smooth and is challenging ;)

    With a bit more graphical stuff, menu and so on i guess it could be way more than "only" a compo game :)

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