I wasn’t able to finished the 7DRL challenge on time, but I’ve been really pleased with how my game is looking and feeling. I’ve decided to keep working on it. I feel as though many of the major problems with the project are behind me, and I can now push forward with getting the guts of the game in place. Watch this space!

Over the weekend I worked on a game for Ludumdare 22 on the theme of ‘Alone’.  The original upload had some critical bugs, but I’ve fixed that now and made it available on Mac and browser too. Play it here, or download it from the LD site.

Please let me know what you think!

I just finished day one of Ludumdare, on the theme of ‘Alone’. I decided to go for something modest, and so far I’m pleased with how it’s coming together. I’ll have to see which mechanics I can nail down early tomorrow, and fix a few bugs, so I’ve got some time for level design and dialogue.

Busy rigging up characters for Bugle. The characters are 3D models rendered with a fake 2D style.

Decided to change my approach to Bugle entirely, and I’ve basically ‘gone dark’ on updates. Based upon feedback, I’ve cancelled the original development diary, but instead I’ll do some regular in-progress gameplay videos and images. I won’t do film or voice footage.

Sorry for the lack of updates on this project! I’ve had a slew of tech problems recently, from software to hardware and it’s generally been slowing me down. I recorded a video blog, but it came out blurry, so I’ll have to try again soon!

I got the iPhone 4S last week! I really love it, I’m enjoying it much more than I realised. I was long overdue an iPhone upgrade, and getting my new project on here was pretty exciting.

I thought of an idea for a puzzle game this morning, and I was able to do an implementation. I’m trying to decide how to design levels, as doing it manually is prone to errors, but automated systems are a bit out of my comfort zone.

It’s Saturday, so I’m mostly taking it easy and taking a break from ‘Project Bugle’. Today I’ve been playing Ico on the PS3. Ico is my favourite game of all time, for the record. However, it’s fun to play around with ideas and to get a working prototype like this going.

I spent much of this weekend playing around with Vectors. I had a lot of fun, and I’d like to bring this together.

I’ll be sharing a journey with everyone soon!

Today I shared some source code for the first time.

It’s very simple, and many  people I know could write something better in a few minutes, but I know that it’s something I would have found useful in the past. I remember chatting with Eskil Steenberg about the reasons to release code, and my come away was that that it makes you a better coder. It forces you to pay greater attention to your code style and how well designed something is.  He’s in a different league to me in terms of coding, but I respect the principles.

In the past I’ve said ‘this is too simple to be worth sharing’, but often simple code is the most useful. Larger chunks of other people’s code makes me nervous, whereas often a task can be tried out with something shared, and refined later on.

Do you share your source code or write tutorials? Have you ran into positive or negative experiences having done so?

We have another Tigjam UK! It’s at CB2 Bistro as ever, and it starts today! Are you coming along?

I’m away in Portsmouth today, but I’ll be there tomorrow. See you there!