Ondrew's Ludum Dare Blog

Hi, this is my page dedicated to the Ludum Dare Contest 2004. I will post irregulary the progress of my work. Btw. sorry for my lame English.

First News

Thu 2004-4-15 9:16 GMT-8

This is my first post. I am preparing everything for the competition. I set up this site, freshly compiled Allegro and tested all features.

I switched my clock to GMT-8. It's kind of strange to have completely insane time.

Contest started

Sat 2004-4-17 7:10 GMT+1

The contest has started. The theme is infection. I have no idea yet, what to do, so I will play around with Photoshop, create some starting graphics, write the base code and wait for the idea to come :-).

I switched my clock back to GMT+1. The compiler kept complainig about libraries from future and I was too lazy to change dates of all files. Strange thing was, that Windows resized all fonts to the size 72. :-))). The whole desktop turned huge. I wonder what part of Windows is responsible of sizing fonts according to the time zone :-))).

First animation complete

Sat 2004-4-17 10:40 GMT+1

I finally got idea, what game to create. It will be a simple platform game, where you will be killing infected ants/rats (don't know yet).

I have finished the animations of the main character. It's kind of original, so I don't want to give it away now, but be prepared for something "gay" :-))).

In the meantime I have created the main screen, programmed the base code - initialization, animations loader, main game loop structure. Now I will program the input handler, score and some smaller stuff. I hope to have it ready by 12 o'clock. In the afternoon I want to create the enemies, AI.

I hate C strings

Sat 2004-4-17 12:30 GMT+1

I am still working on the input handler. I got stuck on room-loading routine. No matter what I did, the allegro load_bitmap function didn't load the background picture. I thought it has something to do with type conversion, so I retyped char *, const char, char[] ... Then I found out, I was passing wrong argument. :-))) Instead of img/roomnull.bmp, I was passing just roomnull.bmp, so I hate me and still love the C strings :-)))).

I have also jumping/kicking and diing animation of the main character ready. I will post some screenshots and maybe upload the first version in about an hour.

First version out

Sat 2004-4-17 15:15 GMT+1

Hurray, first version it out. Grab it here. There is only one thing to do, to go left :-)).

I am not entirely happy with the hand movement. If I have some time on Sunday, I will finish it.

I am totaly behind schedule. I forgot to allocate space for one of the dynamic arrays and I couldn't find the mistake for at least an hour. Now I'm back in action. Coding like crazy. I will concentrate on another movements (jumping, attacking, diing) - should take about an half hour. Than I will write alphamap loader, so that the hand can react to the environment. I won't probably have enough time to make the enemies today, so I will make it tomorrow.

I still don't have any name for the game. If you have any suggestions, write me - ondrew at quick dot cz

Complete movement

Sat 2004-4-17 18:07 GMT+1

I implemented all the movements I want the hand to have. Now it can walk both directions, jump, kick and die :-)). There is also a shot of the first virus. I want to have more viruses which will multiplicate, some power-ups - pills or antibiothycs (I hope that's English). I am also thinking about a boss at the end of the game. Some evil nurse hand or dirty hand or something like that.

It looks now, that I will finish main part of the game engine today and tomorrow I will create the game content.

But now I have to get some food, so it will rest for like half an hour.

I almost forgot, the second version is out. Grab it here

I hate malloc

Sat 2004-4-17 21:21 GMT+1

I lost about three hours on the malloc() function. I would never belive something like that is possible. I have a couple dynamic arrays of pointer to the allegro BITMAPS - frames of animation. I malloc one dynamic array. And load the bitmaps. I malloc second array, load the bitmaps .... But after fifth array I ran out of memory!!! Array of pointers and couple of integers!!! I googled, debugged and read in C/C++ books and after three hours I finally have the solution. I don't know what why, but first I have to malloc all memory for the dynamic arrays and than load the bitmaps. I suppose Allegro is calling some heap clearing functions. Grrrrrrrrrrrr.

So I made almost no progress from last post. I have to work faster. I will be up until 2-3 am and will try to catch up.

End of Day One

Sat 2004-4-18 00:37 GMT+1

The last version for today is here. I am quite tired. But I managed to finish the alphamap code, so the characters can fall, "interact" with background. To rest a little I wrote the highscores loading/saving/displaying routine.

Tomorrow I will start with AI, generating and multiplicating enemies, killing enemies. And in the afternoon I will create some levels, power-ups...

I am not quite satisfied with the progress of my work. I lost too much valuable time on such stupid problems as memory allocation and string handling. I hope there will be no such bugs tomorrow.

That's all for Day One, good night.

Day Two

Sat 2004-4-17 12:49 GMT+1

I got up really early today, so I was already coding at 6:30am. I made many improvements to the engine and now I am focusing on the content. I finished the first screen. Check it out here. Or simply look at the image below :-))).

I plan to spend about two-three hours on all levels of the game, than I will create some lame sound effect and after that I want to test it, add gui etc. etc. And if I have time at the end, I could think out some name. :-))))

End of Day Two

Sat 2004-4-18 00:32 GMT+1

The game is ready. I haven't posted today very much, but I had really much to do. I created leves, content, even one soundeffect. I also managed to create static intro in comics style. It's nothing hillarious, but it was fun to create it. I probably start writing some comics :-))

You can download the game here. And the source here. Wish me luck in the voting, vote for me :-) and see you next year.