This is the product of about two laptop battery charges (~2.5 hours), and one hour to polish, fix the odd bug and package .. so in total it’s about a ~6 hour game. It’s based on the garbage compactor scene from a particular space opera that had it’s heyday in the late 70’s and early 80’s. You could imagine it was one of the ideas that was considered, then discarded, before the early arcade developers went “Nah, we should do a 3D X-Wing game with vector graphics. That would be much cooler”.

You are the (inexplicably) green hero. You play with the arrow keys. You move bits of junk (grey) such that you can jam the compactor before it crushes you. Some bits of junk (white), are too large to move. There is only one level and no sound.

Play it here (Java applet, requires the Java plugin that you most likely already have installed).

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After my LD #11 ‘Minimalist’ entry was voted “most innovative” game, I’ve been trying to pride myself as “that guy that makes innovative games”. So I thought long and hard about the theme for LD #13, “Roads”, trying to come up with something innovative. But the creative juices just weren’t flowing, and it didn’t happen (I’d also just bought Shaun White Snowboarding: Road Trip for Wii, which was taking time away from ‘designing time’). After 12 hours, with no good ideas for a game I was actually enthused about making, I decided to make a simple Frogger clone – at least this way I could hone my Processing skills, and learn the ins-and-outs of Mobile Processing.

Some thoughts about developing for mobile devices

Turns out there is a whole “other world” of mobile development that I just hadn’t really thought all that hard about.

I’d assumed that the whole write-once-run-everywhere thing would have been done properly for Java on mobiles. J2ME (and by extension, Mobile Processing) would have some sort of smart abstraction layer that makes things behave gracefully across various phones … right ? Wrong. Not so. It has become clearer to me now why J2ME MIDIlet development can be a royal PITA: significant differences between devices – screen resolution and aspect probably being the most immediately troublesome. This will more than likely apply to Android powered devices too, which once they start arriving en mass with various random specifications next year. The Android SDK deals with heterogenous devices in a cleaner fashion, via seperate “resource files” (which looks like the J2ME Polish approach ??), but it still leaves the developer to make sure variations between devices are dealt with. The iPhone, despite having far less handsets out there in the wild compared with J2ME capable phones, has a distinct advantage for developers at the moment … you are essentially only targeting one device (okay, maybe two if you count the original non-3g iPhones, or three or four if you include iPod Touches). That said, no one would be silly enough to believe that future versions of the iPhone will have the same screen geometry and capabilities, so I think the problems have really just been ‘delayed’ for iPhone developers. It will be interesting to see how these problems are dealt with for something like, say, the iPhone Nano.

The Processing language for games

While Processing was designed as a language for coding visualizations, it has pretty much everything you need to make simple games; graphics (bitmap with transparency, vector graphics, even OpenGL 3D), mouse, keyboard and joystick input, and sound (samples, MIDI, basic synthesis, via the minim library, among others). Since it’s actually just a layer built on top of Java, you can also do some more advanced things by incorporating regular Java code, outside the scope of the simplified “Processing” language. Things like collision detection are missing “out of the box”, but rectangular collision detection isn’t tough to whip up yourself. The weakest link is probably the sound support, which seemed a little flaky for me – samples triggered via minim seemed to have some unavoidable lag (others have reported similar issue on the forums). Overall, I’d say its still a fair contender against something like Pygame for quickly mocking up little games. One advantage of Processing over Python programs is that stock-standard Processing IDE can produce executables for Linux, Windows, Mac OSX and a Java applet with about three mouse clicks, no matter which platform you are actually running it on. I searched but didn’t find a decent ‘game framework’ for Processing – someone (maybe me) should write one, since it could do with some convenience classes and functions.

Mobile Processing – what happened to my floats

Mobile Processing is very similar to the core Processing language, but it can export applications as J2ME MIDlets which can run on Java capable mobile phones. I started writing my game in Processing, then ported it over to Mobile Processing. One thing that is missing in Mobile Processing: the float data type. In my simple game, it wasn’t too hard to just change my floats to ints, and with a few tweaks to deal with rounding errors, everything worked okay. But if you need floating point calculations, there are some tricks to deal with arithmetic of fractional values. Mobile Processing is lagging slightly behind the recently released Processing version 1.0, but most of the function name changes are trival (eg, framerate() vs. frameRate() ).

The collision detection issue

A few people have commented that the collision detection in Badass Frog isn’t great. Well, that’s not a bug it’s a feature . No seriously, it started as a bug, but then I realized that it nicely gave the illusion of making the frog only vulnerable if it was run over by the wheels of the car. But, it probably doesn’t match the expectations of the player, and so feels buggy; lesson learned … cool ‘features’ (aka serendipitous bugs) may not be so cool if they don’t adhere to pre-estabilished conventions and just confuse/frustrate the player.

Conclusions

So, the game I’d produced after 48 hours was extremely basic, and probably not worth more that ~ 1 min of anyone’s time. I did deliberately tweak the difficultly so it ramped up quickly … I figured it was better to kill the player before they gave up out of boredom. As is always the case, I could have done a lot more with it (online high scores, the classic “river with logs” instead of just roads, bonuses ?), but instead got caught up in technical issues; playing with the sprite sizes / layout to get a version that could work on many screen sizes, and getting sound to work in the mobile version. The result was that I learnt a lot about the issues involved in developing for heterogenous mobile devices, but didn’t have much of a game after 48 hours. Summary: simple game, but learnt lots. I’m pretty happy with that.

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[youtube b56mNpfsMeY]

LD48 #13 : pansapiens timelapse

One screenshot every 5 mins, taken with the script (screenshot.sh):

#!/bin/sh
OUTDIR=/home/perry/timelapse
DISPLAY=:0.0
import -window root -display $DISPLAY $OUTDIR/$(date +%F_%R.%S).png >/dev/null 2>/dev/null


using the cronjob:

0,5,10,15,20,25,30,35,40,45,50,55 * * * * /home/perry/timelapse/screenshot.sh


And converted to a video by running the script (timelapse_convert.sh):

#!/bin/sh
# convert pngs to jpgs and scale down the size
mogrify -format jpg -scale 840x526 *.png
# convert jpgs to video
# will fail if there are any frames of different sizes (geometry)
# also, need to remove "blank" frames if the screensaver went off
mencoder "mf://*.jpg" -mf fps=4 -o timelapse.avi -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:vbitrate=800


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Bad Ass Frog Escapes from LA

The Hollywood-script-worthy Backstory

The year is 2010. You are the last Frog in LA. Your name is Kurt Russell, but you are no relation to the actor, and you’ve never met him.

Controls

Arrow keys to move.
Space to restart after the game ends.

The Game

This browser does not have a Java Plug-in (or you are using a stupid browser.
Get the latest Java Plug-in here.


(if it looks broken, you are probably using Internet Explorer. Try the applet here)

Downloads

Download standalone version of Badass Frog Escapes from LA for:

• Windows
• Linux
• Mac OSX
• Mobile Phone version (MIDP 2.0, largish screen phones, 240×291) … short link: http://is.gd/aDRQ
• Source code of the Applet version, ready to be loaded into Processing
• Source code of the mobile phone version, ready to be loaded into Mobile Processing

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Download: maximalist (maximalist_0.12_miniLD5.zip, 4.6 Mb, md5: 68ada72418f029f9d7f5e81ca4792863)

(see below for the README)

Gameplay video

[youtube i8gTYMhBjv8]

You may wonder why the fullscreen resolution seems strange (800×480). Well, if you owned an Asus EeePC 4G Surf (701), you may not wonder so much.

Libraries used:

• Pygame
• Rabbyt (including the pygame_font.py font rendering code)
• My (alpha) simplemenu library

Tools used:

• The Gimp
• Sfxr (DrPetter saves the day, yet again)
• Audacity
• oggenc

I used a scanner to ‘photograph’ various items around the house (including myself) to provide source images for further manipulation.

Assests:

• “Squealer” font by Ray Larabie
• A scan of my face
• A carved wooden ’skull’ box on my desk
• Some hand drawn sprites (exit and glowstick)
• Me screaming into the microphone

All in all, I had a fun, relaxed weekend making this game. I’ve got to remember to relax a little more during Ludum Dare competitions, it really seems to help.

The README

Installation, playing

On Windows, run maximalist.exe .

On Linux or other platforms, run:
$ python maximalist.py

Dependancies (Linux or other only):
Python (2.5 +) ( http://www.python.org .. you probably already have it)
Pygame 1.7.1 ( http://www.pygame.org )
Rabbyt 0.8.2 ( http://matthewmarshall.org/projects/rabbyt/ )

(hint for Debian/Ubuntu: $ sudo apt-get install python-pygame python-setuptools; sudo easy_install Rabbyt==0.8.2 )

Backstory

You are venturing into a dungeon or something. You think.
Actually, to be honest, you don’t know how you got here or
what you are doing here. All you do know is that there’s
something nasty lurking in the dark. The big bag of glowsticks
slung over you shoulder is your only friend.
All you want to do is Exit. And keep Exiting, until it’s safe.

Gameplay

There are 25 levels. Using a glowstick costs 5 points. Exiting a level gets you 10.
Getting your brains chomped by a nasty halves your score.
Try to get the highest score you can.

Controls

Move the mouse. Click the mouse buttons.

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simplemenu-alpha0.tar.bz2

Requires pygame and rabbyt. It’s under the MIT license. I’m regarding this as alpha, since it’s incomplete and poorly tested, (although I am using successfully it in a small game already).

simplemenu, as it’s unimaginative name suggests, is a simple set of classes to automatically lay out a vertical column of ‘buttons’ on the screen, with click and rollover effects. Like the about simplest sort of GUI you could imagine. I made it because I felt like I needed a quick and brainless way to make simple “Start”, “Options”, “Quit” menus at the title screen of games, and during a Ludum Dare 48 hour competition, you don’t want to have to mess around with the details of things like this.

There is nothing I’d call game logic in the classes. There is demo code under “if __name__ == ‘__main__’:” … again this is what I would call ‘functional documentation’, not useful game logic. It’s all still quite ugly.

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So, I’ve pretty much played all the games, and taken a long list of notes to guide my voting. Some amazing 48 hour entries this time around. Gotta get those votes in (3 days to go) !!

To make the whole process easier, I used Keeyai’s handy torrent of the games, which included a copy of his Compo Game Loader and gameinfo.xml files (most painfully constructed by Keeyai … thanks for saving me the time !!).

I like to play all the games before I vote on any … let’s face it, voting like this is often ‘all relative’, and is more like a ranking process. Scoring on individual elements of the entry (graphics, sound, innovation, fun, food photos, timeline etc) just helps place an entry in the overall ranking (reminds me of marking student assignments far too much … ). Bah … who really cares about the rankings anyhow … it’s about having fun, improving skills. Still, if I was a “professional” game developer and I won a highest ranking category in Ludum Dare … it would still be going on my CV

Still, it’s not over yet. I still have a few Linux games to play, and I’ve still need to physically enter my comments at the Ludum Dare site, watch timelapses and drool over some food photos before casting my final votes for each entry.

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I had various dramas throughout the 48 hour competition, namely two electricity outages … this is not the code I spent most of my time on, but I’m actually happy it all worked out the way it did.

The game is written using batari Basic v1.0. I learnt a lot by reading the included sample code, and the excellent batari Basic manual. I also used the online PlayerPal 2600 Sprite Editor to draw the sprites.

Ways to play:

• All platforms: Play the game on this page (below the fold) in the embedded JStella applet
• Window, Linux, Mac: download the ROM and run it in Stella ($ sudo apt-get install stella on Debian/Ubuntu).
• Windows, (maybe Linux): Download this zip archive which contains the windows version of Stella and The Siege of von Danken Tower ROM, which is compatible with Keeyai’s Compo Game Loader
• Atari 2600 VCS: For the definitive von Danken Tower experience, you should burn it onto an EEPROM and play it on your Atari 2600 VCS (YMMV. AtariAge may help).

You can also look at the ugly source code.

The Siege of von Danken Tower

Sorry, your browser doesn’t seem to support applets.
Maybe just run the rom using Stella instead ?

(this applet seems a little flaky on some platforms. Works for me on Windows Vista in IE7. Works without Reset button in Firefox 2).

Controls: Left and right arrows, space to fire.

Gameplay

Move your character between the pile of stone blocks on the right and the foundations of the von Danken Tower on the left to build the tower. If you are holding a block, you can throw it at the chariot of the Gods. Watch out for the bolts of light the Gods may throw down at you !

Once you have built the tower, you must destroy the chariot. It will become redder with every hit, before being destroyed. Once you destroy the chariot with a completed tower, you will advance to the next level.

You can sustain only three hits by a bolt of light before dying. Your health state is indicated by your colour.

In the tradition started by Yar’s Revenge … here is the cheezy back-story.

The Story

There are two stories surrounding the famous “Siege of von Danken Tower”. One an allegory for the other.

In ancient times, a warrior named Eric was tasked by the Gods to build a great tower. They hovered above him, and quoth “Build us a mighty Tower, in the name of von Danken”. Eric, unafraid, set about the task of hualing huge stone blocks across the plain to the site where the great Tower of von Danken was to be built. Eric, worked for days, but eventually, he stopped to rest. But the Gods were impatient andmalevolent Gods, and despite the Tower being their request, they made sport of Erics’ toil. They threw bolts of light at him, and ordered him to continue building. Eric, a proud warrior, would not stand for this kind of treatment, even from the Gods. He picked up the block beside him an threw it at their flying chariot. The war had begun.

Millenia later, in modern times, a programmer recieved a message from the aether. I simply stated, “Build a video game featuring ‘The Tower’. Quickly”. He did not know who was telling him to build “The Tower”, but a story from his childhood, buried deep, arose in his mind. He decided to tell the story of the von Danken Tower, a secret family tale passed down from his great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather, and until now never widely shared. But mysterious, inter-dimensional beings were not pleased at having their role in the development of human civilisation revealed. Electrical distrubances, power failures and other strange occurances plagued the project. Would the story of the great von Danken Tower ever be told ? Would the the Tower ever be completed, or would the aliens forces reign surpreme in their information war on the human race ? It is up to you to ensure they do not !

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My game Mondrian got the top score in both Theme and Innovation ! I was, and still am, completely stoked ! … I guess this means Mondrian is well worth investing some more time into, to polish up and release as a more complete game.

The first, second and third place “Overall” were StrongAI by mrfun, Trivial Escape for Minimalist Island by mjau and Still Pond by hamumu. All well deserved.

You can check out the full results at the Ludum Dare site.

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You can download it here [Mondrian_by_pansapiens_LD11.zip] (Windows and Linux compatible).

More details later. Right now, I have to sleeeeeeeep.

= Mondrian =
A game based on the visual art of Piet Mondrian.
Copyright Andrew Perry (pansapiens), 2008.
Licensed under the GPL version 3 (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html).

Created for Ludum Dare 11 – Minimalism (18 – 20th April, 2008).

= Installation =
Unzip the package, run mondrian.exe (Windows) or mondrian.py (Linux & other platforms).

Usage: mondrian.py [options]

Options:
-h, –help show this help message and exit
-r, –random Play a randomly generated level
-e, –editor Launch in level editing mode

Dependancies (only required on Linux, or when running from source):
Python (2.5), Pygame (1.8), Rabbyt (0.8.1), PyOpenGL.

= Gameplay =

Goal: Clear the play area (aka Mondrian painting) to achieve pure white minimalism.
Click on the black beams with the mouse pointer to make then vanish.
Coloured squares expand when not in contact with a beam.
Squares of the same colour vanish when they contact.
Square of opposite colour do not vanish when they come in contact.

= Controls (game mode) =

Click with the mouse pointer.
Press ‘r‘ to restart the current level.

= Controls (level editor) =
Objects are inserted at the current position of the mouse pointer. Otherwise, gameplay is the same.

Up/down key – insert vertical beam
Left/right key – insert horizontal beam
z – insert red square
x – insert yellow square
c – insert blue square
v – insert grey square
s – save level to file “saved.pickle” in the working directory
l – load level from file “saved.pickle”
backspace, del – clear all objects from the level

= Some legalese =

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify

it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by

the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the

GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program. If not, see .

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