All Ways Down Anniversary Update

It’s been almost a year since the inception of All Ways Down during Ludum Dare 34, and to mark this occasion I would like to announce the release of the All Ways Down Anniversary update.

The update includes:

      • New Levels.
      • New Obstacles,
      • New Menu UI,
      • Level Selection,
      • End of game stats,
      • Improved performance,
      • Touch support,
      • And many more improvements and bug-fixes.

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The update is now live on its itch.io page and here on noddingTortoise. Further the game is also now available on GameJolt. So there really isn’t a reason not to check it out 😀

GameJolt page.

Last but not least, I’m currently working on the Android version of All Ways Down that I’ll hopefully have finished before Christmas.

Joe.

Decided to enter LudumDare 35

So I decided to enter Ludum Dare again, the result of which can be found here, over on the Ludum Dare site. I’ll probably write a post mortem sometime during the next week. However, in the meantime you can watch a gameplay video I put together of my entry ‘Court of Talis’ below or you can check it out via one of the links at the end of this post 😀

Links:
Game page
LudumDare entry page: http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-35/?action=preview&uid=63291

Itch.io Page:

Joe.

All Ways Down Post Ludum Dare Beta now Available

A little later than planned but All Ways Down Post Jam beta version is now available.

PostJam5

Changes include:

  • Various bug fixes,
  • Increase pellet size,
  • Faster player,
  • Input from left and right arrow keys,
  • 5 new levels,
  • New obstacle type – Zapper
  • And most importantly, Camera Shake!

The post jam version can be either downloaded or played in browser over on its itch.io page.

Or if you haven’t already, you can check out the jam version of All Ways Down on its entry page over here 🙂

Joe

Post Mortem – Reflection – All Ways Down

NTVerTitleAWD

So it’s almost been a week since I finished All Ways Down, and seeing as everyone else is doing one :-), I figured I’d do a bit of a postmortem of the game/experience, looking at what went right and what went wrong. Like many who entered, this was my first Ludum Dare, and whilst at times it was stressful( especially the last two hours), in the end it was an amazing 3 days and I had a lot of fun taking part. Overall, I’m very happy with how the game turned out, though there are plenty of things that I think could be improved (more on that at the end). The jam also meant I got to learn a bit about Unity webGL exporter, which up to now I had not really been following.

Postmortum

What went right:

  • The mechanic: The basic concept started quite simple, ‘a rolling ball that has to be a certain mass to finish a level, it does this by consuming objects and growing. Player can spin the world?’. From this I sketched out what I thought a level would look like with a simple storyboard for play and put some ideas for level hazards underneath. Thankfully I was able to implement this mechanic and it worked.
  • Thankfully most of the core development went quite smoothly(unless you count Unity crashing twice), with no major issues or bugs.
  • Sound: This is an area I generally find the hardest, but I’m quite happy with the end result, and have got some positive feedback on it.
  •   Unity webGL, a day before the jam I decided to update unity. In hindsight this could have ended up going very wrong but, in the end it meant I learnt more about unity’s WebGL exporter, deciding from the start that I would use WebGL as my target platform.

 

Post18

What went wrong:

  • Whilst not wrong per se, based on feedback the ball could be a bit heavier at the start of levels, so that it moves around the level a bit quicker.
  • Deciding to make 5 more levels 4 hours before the end of the jam, resulting in no playtesting of these levels.
  • The size of the web player. I would have liked the actual game screen to be the max size allowed on this site, but unfortunately as this was the first time I had used the WebGL exporter I didn’t realise that the export size set in Unity doesn’t include the custom Unity bottom bar, thus cutting off bits of the game screen when its embed size is set at the same size as export. Meanwhile exporting without the Unity bar means you need to provided the functionality that makes it go fullscreen. I really wish I had known all this before the jam, and not learnt it in the last two hours when I was trying to submit?

 

Post1

Whats next:

I think I’ll be developing this game further post comp. I’d like to make more levels, add in a couple of hazards and puzzle that didn’t make it due to time, along with polishing the graphics and adding more effects, maybe even a camera shake 🙂 . I’d also quite like to port it to mobile as I think its control mechanism is very well suited for the platform.

Overall I’m very happy with end result, and looking forward to working on it a bit more and making it even better ?

You can check out All Ways Down jam page here.

Joe

Ludum Dare Collection

TitleScreen

Here’s a collection of the various posts I made during the Ludum Dare jam. Originally I wanted to post these on both the Ludum Dare site and here on the noddingTortoise, but unfortunately I was a little pressed for time over that weekend and never got round to it. So I thought it would be nice to have them all in one post, acting a bit like a timeline, which could show the gradual development and progress made on the game All Ways Down during the Jam.

Joe

These were originally posted on the Ludum Dare website between 12/12 and 14/12.

Early Control Test

Started a little later than hoped. So far have tested simple two button control mechanic for a puzzle game where the player controls the direction of gravity by rotating the screen rather than controlling the player directly(the player is the ball).

controltestshort3

Posted 2015/12/12

Very Early Prototype

Very early prototype build of my entry, you can give it a test here, feedback welcomed 🙂

PrototypePlay2

Posted 2015/12/12

End of Day One

End of the first day, I think I’ve made some good progress. Since the prototype I’ve tightened the controls and tweaked the gravity and mass, making it slightly more responsive, along with scaling the play area down a tad so it all fits on screen. I also started making the levels, so far I’ve finished 6, though I’m not yet entirely sure how many I’m going to make in total  😀

In any case I think now it is time for some sleep 🙂

Posted 2015/12/12

A Quick Update

Finished the minimum number of levels for submission, decided 15 was a good number to aim for in the end. Which only took a few hours to design(paper and pencil ftw!) and build. If I have time tomorrow I might try and put a few more together but for now 15 will do. Now to find some sound.

Oh, and here’s a particle effect:

ParticleEffect2

Posted 2015/12/13

Submitted My First LDJam Game – ‘All Ways Down’

Finally finished submitting my entry ‘All Ways Down’. You can check it out here

It was a bit of a rush to submit in the end, I thought I gave myself plenty of time, I finished making the game about 2 and a bit hours before the submission period started. However, I ran into a couple of issues with the unity web player sizing. Thankfully I think I got it all sorted 🙂

Level15

Anyhow, the game.

I decided to try and tackle both the themes with my entry, with the game making use of just two button input, with elements of growing as well.

Level16

All Ways Down is a puzzle game where you must collect growth pellets in order to increase the size of the ball, which is needed to push a switch to progress to the next level. As the game progresses levels have more pellets(5 is the max), which in turn makes the ball harder to control. The ball is controlled by the player rotating the level either clockwise or anticlockwise, and then letting the always downward force of gravity do the rest, though some skill may be required :-p

The game has a total of 20 levels, I would have liked to have made more but unfortunate I ran out of time in the end.  In any case I had a lot of fun making it, and I learnt a few new things along the way.

All Ways Down can be played either on its entry page(best played full screen) or over on itch.io(link on entry page). It’s also available to download, though I haven’t had a chance to really test those builds yet.

Now for the voting… actually, I think now is time for sleep, it’s been a long weekend  😀

Best of luck everyone.

Posted 2015/12/14

 

Update: Loading jam, Itch, and LudumDare

It’s been a few weeks since my last post, a busy few weeks, so I thought I would do a quick update on a couple things.

LoadingJam:

First there was loading jam. This was a bit of a last minute decision to enter, though I’m glad I did. I didn’t hear about the jam until three days before it finished and even then didn’t decided to enter until the next day, which gave me less than 48 hours to make a game based around loading and possibly patents if possible, though totally optional.

PatentPusher2

You can check out my finished results over on my new itch.io account(pc, mac and linux) which probably deserves a post in itself.

I think the game turned out well, though there are a couple things I’d like to improve based on feedback, such as adding some tutorial text, stopping the mini games from going straight to the main game if you fail, and maybe build a web version.

LudumDare:

TitleScreen

This brings me to my second game jam of the week/two weeks, Ludum Dare. This was my first Ludum Dare so I decided to take it easy by entering the jam rather than the competition. I was slightly more prepared for this jam, though only slightly. The theme was two button controls and or growing(there was a tie, so two themes were chosen), which seemed somewhat familiar. It was an amazing three days, stressful at times, but still fun! You can check out my entry page for the jam here, or check out the game over on itch.io.

I’ll probably do a recap post, which will included ludum dare posts and screens from various stages during development. And eventually I might do a reflection post on the experience and the finished product(or not so finished???)

Finally, TaOvarg update:

Yes, I have been working on an update to TaOvarg. Unfortunately, progress on the update was slowed by an input bug, however, as soon as I’ve ironed it all out it will be ready for release, and will give TaOvarg full controller support, along with a couple other new things.
Joe