Ludum Dare 24

[11:45 PM GMT]
Just 2 hours left before dare ends. Managed to complete the game, not exactly with the initial game design but pretty close i think.

You can play the game here http://keysgamestudios.com/LD/WebPlayer.html

And rate me here http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-24/?action=preview&uid=14244.

Will be writing a detailed postmortem of the game soon. Bye for now and thanks.

[11:00 AM GMT]
Introduced carnivores and made major tweaks of game design, still deciding on the final gameplay. Starting to look like a actual playable game :).
[12:30 AM GMT]
Most of the time is gone with modeliing and some silly errors with AI. Here is the updated vid.

Should Finish up UI and rest of gameplay by 12 Noon tommorow if i want to make a playable game :|.

Some creature blends :)

[DAY2]
[4:40 PM GMT]
Spent a little time on modelling and a lot of time on core AI. Here is the results

Right now the creatures are multiplying like crazy, have to tune the reproduce function :P

[12 PM GMT]:

Initial Camera and creature movement complete. Long way to go.
Talking short break from programming, moving to art :).

[9AM GMT] : Fnially decided on a game play.
Evolution NExtinction
1) Simple Creatures will be scattered on a flat world.They wander in search of food and water.
2) When a creature finds food, it eats it and we as a player gain evolution points.
3) We need to restock the food by speding some evolution points.
4) We can also choose to evolve a particular creature to NEXT level. We have a choice to choose its evolution path Strong or Smart or Fast.
5) Creatures reproduce if it is alive for a particular amount of time.
6) Higher level creatures can damage lower level creatures.
7) Natural calamities(Earthquake, fire, flood, cold etc) occur periodically which can endanger a particular species.
7) It is our task to make as many creatures survive by managing our world and saving creatures from natural calamities.

Such a monumental game play to do in 41hrs. But i can give it a try.

[8 AM GMT] - Woke up just now after a long sleep. Got some random ideas in head, trying to pickup something which is both fun and doable in next 42 hours.

[2 AM GMT] - Theme is Evolution. Just looked at the theme and i am strait off to bed, hoping my brain can churn up some ideas during the sleep :).
[DAY1]
All set for ludum dare 24, will be posting my journey for the rest of the 48hrs here. Wish me luck.

3 Weeks with 3D

 I was planning to try out 3D engines for a long time, finally found time to do that.  I was in lot of dilema to choose the engines which i will be spending my time with. Choose 2 of the top engines and spend 3 weeks on each of them, trying to write a basic platformer.

Picked up UDK & Unity3D.

UDK - My first choice was UDK, it was highly recomended if you are planning in to put lot of effort on game dev and looking forward to AAA development.
The Good:  Visuals, Lighting, Asset/Code Management,
The Bad: Steap Learning Curve, Community
Cost:  Free untill 50,000$ in profit, 25% after 50k$

1 Week with UDK: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fqz9P_o29hI&feature=share

Unity3D - has a mass following,
The Good: Easy to Use, Supports Multi langs(JavaScript,C#,Boo)
The Bad: Free version is very limited(no shadows, culling)
Cost: Pro version costs 1500$ a pop (+ 1500 for iOS/android/flash each)

3 Week with Unity : http://youtu.be/v-9f4pGvu7U

There are other great engines(Shiva3D, cryengine) out there which i havent tried out for now. But ill be sticking with Unity3D for a while and will be making my first 3D  game with unity.

To 3D or not to 3D

After playing some of the awesome 3D games out there on app store, i planned get my hand dirty on the 3D game dev.

The immediate question as always is to choose the engine to play around it. It may not be as easy as picking a 2D engine since most of the 2D engines are free and open source. In contrast 3D engines are mostly proprietary.

Lets look at the choices

Write Your Own Engine

Cocos3D

UDK

Unity

CryEngine3

Write Your Own Engine:

Seems to be the best way to understand the intricacies the nature of 3D and rendering. But the path ahead is hard and you may never reach your goal of creating the 3D game out of it. 

But if you can spare some time and going 3D to learn new stuff then its a winner. 

Cocos3D:

Its maintained by the same guys who developed Cocos2D and is free and open source. This is the best choice in arms of cost, but it is still at infancy stage and may require a year or two to mature. 

Go Ahead with Cocos3D if you are trying out 3D for the fun of it and you are familiar Cocos2D.

UDK: Properiatery AAA engine available for free.

Unity: Seems to be the darling of the Indie group.

CryEngine & Shiva3D- both of them are quiet popular but the community is not yet mature and it may pose problems while tackling the hard to figure out stuff.

Atom Ace 1.0

Atom Ace 1.0 is available on app store.
iTunes Link


Atom Ace is a brand new puzzle game with innovative gameplay mechanics.If you like playing brain teaser, here is a new app which will be both challenging and fun.You can play this game with eight colorful atoms.Each atom has specific symbols to it signifying the number of possible connections. Neutralize any Atom by making all possible connections. Your Goal is to neutralize all atoms.

Try out the game, its free for limited number of days.

Atom Ace after 3 months

Its been long since i updated on my blog, I have been working on a new game Atom Ace for the past 3 months, Since this being my second game, I have improvised on the results of the 'Juicy Fun'.

Here is a quick look in to the new game. Its a new type of puzzler.

Let me know what you think about the art style.