Day three has ended, and I'm running late--more than a day beyond my schedule, by my reckoning. It's a good thing that I have those two buffer days at the end of the week! (I hope that it's enough...)

Late or not, I'm not entirely unhappy with the way that my game is shaping up. I made progress on s…

I'm rather tired as I write this, so my apologies if it's a little short, or a little fuzzy!

However, I finally settled on a concept!

My game--which is as yet untitled--is intended to be a near-top-down procedural shooter with perma-death. Each level is divided into a series of rooms, in which the pl…

Two points do not a pattern make, but both this theme and last year's have proven difficult for me!

For the past few hours I've been struggling to find an idea that satisfied me. I've had ideas--I posted some of them in my previous journal, I believe--but I've found problems with all: some didn't se…

So, the contest has begun, and the theme revealed: "Death is Useful".

An interesting theme, if not an easy one, I'm finding. Funnily enough, I believe that I saw a theme rather similar to it in a game-development challenge on another forum, years ago. (While I think that I recall the concept that I …

So, the competition draws nigh, less than two weeks hence! As suggested in the discussion thread, here are my thoughts, plans and feelings ahead of it...

Preparations:
Given that we're not to start coding until the official start of the competition, that the theme is being released only on the same d…

(Why an "exhumation"? Well, a post-mortem has already been done: this is me digging up the corpse to re-examine it in light of new evidence.)

So, what went so wrong? Having read the reports given by the judges, here are my thoughts on the worst of the game's issues:

Gameplay
Combat was never intended …

A post-mortem for Darkholm, as best I recall.

Only one week in which to make a game. Not much time at all: a short dash, top speed all the way, exhausting and exciting. It can be a competition concept at once intriguing, enthusing and intimidating.

Things started on a somewhat mixed note. On the surf…

And at last, it's done! It lacks both elements of polish and features that I'd hoped to include, and a few bugs and issues remain yet (the options menu is a bit of a mess, for one, and I left the frame-rate meter in) but it seems to work, and even has a (hacky) means to set resolution and toggle fu…

Day five!

I feel that I got a fair bit done today: I fixed my nascent enemy creature, then implemented two more; I implemented a (very, very basic) cutscene system (albeit that it's not yet fully tested, I fear); I found and began implementing music, and have put in place the skeleton of sound handl…

More progress, I do believe: I now have the basics of collectable items, good progress on weapons and attacks (not that there are many weapons available), the basics of the player's death, a loading screen (complete with fades to black), simple blob shadows, and a (buggy) first enemy.

It's none of i…