Hi there, we have a sweet new logo for our team! What do you think?

You can read all about it here.

First off, we joined up at Vasco’s place (our friendly musician for color fusion) for a private game jam. And what have we done there you ask? We have made a prototype game starring the first king of Portugal.

We wanted to do something different, so we started to go through portuguese history and legends for inspiration. Eventually, we went with the birth of our country, heavily inspired by this video. The actual result can be seen here.

After this little adventure, along came the molyjam. We packed our things and went to Lisbon for this awesome event! We did not know what to expect, especially with the wacky themes, but eventually it all worked out. We teamed up with a graphic artist and with a guy that went to the jam to learn how game making worked. In the end, this was the result.

The mechanics could have worked a little better, but at least we tried something different. All in all I think it was a great experience, especially the part of meeting new people that are also interested in making games.

Speaking of game jams, the 23rd Ludum Dare is right around the corner and we are looking forward to participate

In the meantime, we are working on the next color fusion update so, expect news soon

Two weeks have passed from the initial release of ColorFusion and some significant gameplay data is starting arrive (Thanks to our Russian Friends).

The collected data show us a drop in players in every level, which we think is normal. But in level 7 we see a bigger drop, and we also notice the average time to solve that same level rises a bit. On level 10 and 11 we experience a even bigger drop in players and even bigger rise in the average time.

This drastic changes should indicate that something is wrong in our level progression. Too many users are getting stuck in this levels and they won’t progress. This demands some action and we are working on it!

This is a simple example of what metrics you can get from your game and used them to improve the experience you deliver. You can use services like Google Analytics and Playtomic or you can build your own service. Tracking player actions in your game can help you improve your level progression, find out issues you never thought you had.

When taking these decisions, writing down our conclusions (or lack thereof) helps us, as the indie “jacks of all trades” we have to be, not to lose focus on our goals while we are doing  our tasks. It helps us in not having to re-think where we want to go with the visual effects after we are finished writing tutorial code. It helps us in not forgetting what aspects of gameplay we want to refine after we finish making adjustments in our level editor. Well, you get the idea.

In certain circumstances we may not even know the correct decision, but writing down the possibilities might be a great help. Doing this might even help us understand the problem better, and help us down the road when we are making play-testing or analyzing “real-world” data.

Of course, I also think that what is written should not be treated as something carved in stone but rather as a guide. Just because your current roadmap tells you to do something in a specific way, it doesn’t mean you cannot deviate from the initial plan if it fits or makes the game better. After all, your gut feeling and judgement capabilities are very important tools when making games.

It is available through the android market:

Have fun!

I’ll go ahead and say it out loud in the first place: the october challenge is over, and we failed. I do not know how other people here deal with this kind of thing, but in case it is not obvious, it is hard to say this. I do not mean to be discouraging or pessimistic, but I think admitting our failures and not just dismissing them, no matter how hard it is, is an important first step towards becoming better.

While my hopes were high on having something sellable within a month, I am aware that we are still very immature concerning game making, in almost every aspect. But even in not completing the challenge, we learned something. We tried to make something from scratch, and have at least improved our technical and (on a lesser degree) game designing skills. I hope that next time we can reach play testing, or who knows actually trying to market a game.

Our problem might have been not taking one of our incomplete projects and invest the time in it, it might have been not being able to do the first things first, or even not having a plan at all. And this is where I think we can learn from failure itself. After failing we analyze the past objectively…by thinking what went wrong we can create a path forward, a path of improvement that leads to the future!

So, best of luck to every game designer out there. And congratulations to those that actually cleared the challenge!

We aren’t ready to disclose yet any info about gameplay or the story, but we leave an initial screenshot.

The story starts a little before LD itself, while the theme was still being voted. I had an idea I really wanted to implement, and it could somewhat fit it with some of the final round’s themes, including Escape. It was a platformer centered around doors that could transport you to another place of the scenario, and change something while you traveled through them, your job while escaping would be to orient yourself on an intricate network of crazy doors.

So, once the theme was decided and it was time to start working, I imediately jumped on getting the basics for a platformer to work, and to implement the door mechanism. Everything was going smoothly until I realized I was stumped…Being so eager to get something working, I set for it without asking myself all the questions. So I now had a prototype but no idea how the gameplay would exactly be, how would travelling though doors be a challenge? What would the player have to do to progress, to reach the end of a level? I thought on some alternatives, but I simply wouldn’t have a good idea. The whole pre-idea proved to be more a curse than a blessing.

The failed prototype

After that, as I was trying to find some inspiration and clear my head a bit by playing around in garage band I played a tune I actually liked. So I took that and tried to put some effort to give it a beat. While listening to the song I thought “this would be great in a fast paced game, like running away from an avalanche or something”. And it was set, I still had 24h!

I started by making the background move, and off I was to program what I think is the most important part on this kind of game: the controls, and the feeling you get from playing. I spent some time tweaking how the board rotated, how it influenced speed and the overall feeling of sliding down a steep mountain.

Then I started to make what would give some adversity to the game, the oncoming trees. At this point the game was playable, but needed some diversity, I thought just trees would be somewhat boring to dodge. So I implemented the jump feature, but as it would be silly to jump over trees, I added rocks, and made them larger than trees, so that they were more easily jumped over than dodged.

The finished game

At this point I considered adding flag gates that would give boosts to the player, however, the clock was ticking and I still needed to add the thing that gives its name to the game, and determines success or falure: the avalanche!

I implementing the effect using a particle emitter that worked along an horizontal line behind the player. And started thinking how would I tell the player if the avalanche is close or far. I try to keep an ever incresing speed for the avalanche, and indicate how caught up the player is by moving the avalanche down as the difference in speed between player and avalanche gets lower. I also move the player down on the screen when its speed increases.

At this point time was starting to running out so I needed to start to finish it all up, so I added winning and losing screens, a menu screen, and messed around in cfxr to make the sound effects. At the end of the day, it was playable, and was not half-bad. But there was so much I wanted to have added/tweaked (Isn’t there always?). Looking back at the game these are my main points:

• I like how the controls turned out. And it was fun to implement it.
• I like how the music influenced the game
• I like how the avalanche effect turned out
• I like the general “speedy” feeling I could get on the game
• I don’t like the state of the obstacle warnings, they should appear much sooner, and give some visual cue about the distance they are at
• I don’t like the losing and winning conditions. The difference between loosing and playing perfectly may be too small.
• I don’t like not having an indicator of progress…oh well
• My main addition of boosters of some kind. Having only obstacles kind of sucks, and boosters could help the game feel more rewarding.
• I also think that the “coder’s art” state of the game does not help, but oh well, I might improve with time

Once again, LD has been a great learning experience, and I am looking forward to the next one! I am also amazed by the growth LD is having and I hope next time we can bring even more people with us!

See you next time!

Since I’m in Portugal, the theme is announced around 3AM. I wanted to wake up “early” and fresh so I left the theme disclosure for Saturday’s morning and took a good night of sleep(It really makes a difference). Next morning I woke up, fired the ld page, saw the theme, and prepared to go jam it! It was around 10 in the morning when I settled and started to get serious. I had already devised some plan in my head and in my sketchbook.

Like in the other LD’s I was participating with a friend, José Teixeira (each of us doing his own game of course). A week before LD we tried to see if anyone from our University was interested in participating. We had other guy showing up and joining us in this LD. Maybe next time we can get more peopled interested.

Idea

Sktechbook

The main idea consisted of the player waking up in a motel room from where he couldn’t escape. The only actions he could do was to sleep or to pickup objects that existed in the room.

Each time the player goes to sleep with a different object, he ends up in a different world with different powers.
To finish a level the player has to pickup a glowing golden triangle, which will be used to open the motel room door.
After getting all the golden triangles, the door can be opened and the player somehow escapes this strange room.

A couple of days before LD, I started to watch “The Lost Room” Short TV Series. (Which you should all watch by the way!) So I was totally pulled into using the strange essence of that room in my game.

I wanted to convey the mystery of the room and of the objects and I think I did it better in some aspects than in others.

Process

In the previous LD, my developing methodology was basically thinking the game as I was going on. In my first LD (LD#19) I was really proud of my graphics which by the way was where I started first. In the end I had not much of a game, but good graphics considering I never had done something like that.

In LD#20  I decided start coding instead of worrying with the graphics, but in the end, although it was more of a game than the previous entry, it had no plan. I really liked doing the sword movement and all but it lacked some game essence.

So for this LD, I decided I needed to plan the game. At least the big plot line, and have something with a start, middle and end.
After having the big plan, I started coding the base platformer using the usual coloured rectangles as characters and objects.
Once I had the character jumping and running I started to intercalate the graphics with the level development.
I worked in each level a time, doing the graphics used in it, coding the powers and the enemies, and then moving to the next level.

Placeholders

Actually there was one part of graphics I did earlier, while working in the level loading. The general game look. Since graphics aren’t really my main area of expertise, if I had to draw every stone in a decent looking level I really would never have a game. I’ve been wanting to try the graphics style for some time, specially after seeing deepnight’s wining LD#20 entry .
So I decided to give it a go and I believe it turned quite nice.

What went Right:

Having a plan

Spending more time planning the game instead of starting right away coding was good. In the end I had something I could call a game.

Smart time management (no Limit breaks please)

In the previous entries I went berserk in the first 24 hours and end up tiring my self up way before the deadline. Draining yourself in the first day, thinking you need to go through the night without sleeping is plain wrong. You’ll probably end up wanting the finish you game the fastest way possible which obviously it’s not good for its quality.

This time I tried to make some stops and get to walk away from the screen. And the most important, I had a decent night of sleep from Saturday to Sunday. That was the smartest move ever!

Graphics

That really neat trick of layering and small squared pattern over plain coloured world really comes out great. I also feel proud of the room objects. Those window drapes are every motel room owner’s dream.

Story

This combination of moving graphics (, almost no sound) and story came out right. I’m proud :’)

What went Not So Right or things to improve next time

Stuck on something

While implementing some parts of the levels, sometimes I got stuck doing something which wasn’t really that crucial. And it ended up consuming precious time which could have been used to implement something else.

If something you’ve been hammering for a lot of time isn’t coming out right, maybe you just need some perspective. Walk away, work in something else and then come back to it when you have more time.

Sound

The sound in the game were near none. I only used the beeping sound through out the game and it probably would only make sense if you completed the game. Maybe I could have used some sounds in the character movement, like to have the sound of steps in snow in the cave level, but I didn’t have time to do it.

The audio department can really help one to emerge in the experience of a game, but it isn’t a domain I feel comfortable. It’s one of the vertices of a game I don’t want to get wrong, or I could end up with a very annoying game to play and hear.

Character Mechanics

In the end I felt the character movement could be improved a lot. Some of the comments in my entry also suggested that the character moved too quickly.

The wall jump also had some quirks. That’s definitely an area I can improve specially with more practice.

Gameplay

One recurring critic in the comments is that the player didn’t really know what to do at first and they were about to give up. I imagine how many more really gave up :S
That is totally my fault. I could have introduced the player to the gameplay in each level, although it would really diminish the game mystery
That was an really great LudumDare. We even had server problems like every awesome project should have.
Thanks for the efforts of all the LD staff to keep the competition up and running.

Being able to participate in the LD is great and the support of community towards everyone in the community is even better.