Posts

Crunching some pathfinding! 3

Wan • 5 years ago on 4th Kajam entry  Uncanny Ballet

A couple busy weeks put me a bit late with my 1v1 PvE platformer, but I'm back on track!

Throughout the month I have managed to complete all the basics & structure required to make the game playable, leaving this week-end to actually develop an interesting AI. All the iterations of that AI are actually going to be in-game as various levels. I hope to get at least 5 levels done:

  • Level 1 (DONE): Almost idle AI
  • Level 2 (DONE): Jumping around the map
  • Level 3 (DONE): State machine-powered objectives
  • Level 4 (IN PROGRESS DONE): Pathfinding
  • Level 5 (TODO DONE): Tactics (health management, human movement anticipation)

I'm currently hacking together a waypoint system… and hoping it won't be too hard to build movement on top of it, so that the robot can actually jump on platforms correctly.

EDIT: And the game is finished at last! One day early for once :)

I'll be joining once again! 3

Wan • 5 years ago on 4th Kajam entry  Uncanny Ballet

Hopefully today's not yet the day I will break my achievement of entering all Kajams. Here's a quick look at my previous entries:

1st Kajam 2nd Kajam 3rd Kajam
Theme: Game juice Theme: Sound Effects Theme: Story


Rat Park


Kommandant RNLF


Unknown Sender

For this new event I'm currently thinking of the following:

  • Pixel-art platformer on a unique, single-screen level
  • 1-on-1 fight against AI with a variety of items
  • Randomized weapon/heal/buff spawn

In short, something close to a simplified Super Crate Box with a nice opportunity to have fun with the AI. I don't think I'll do too much technical research on AI in general, I'll just have fun with a finite state machine.

EDIT: First progress gif (red is an AI jumping around randomly)

EDIT2: I have created a page for my work-in-progress entry as Robot Duels

Sword of Sight trailer 0

Wan • 6 years ago on 2nd Alakajam! entry  Sword of Sight

We went towards a pretty cinematic/atmospheric route for our Alakajam entry. The temptation was too strong, we had to make a trailer for the game! Here it is:

3rd Alakajam! will be on June 22-24 0

Wan • 6 years ago on 3rd Alakajam! 

The next full-scale Alakajam! competition will take place on the June 22-24 week-end. We will post the detailed schedule early on that month.

Book the date, and see you then!

(NB. to make sure not to miss the event, you can also follow us either on Twitter or Reddit)

Bonus day for unranked submissions 0

Wan • 6 years ago on 2nd Alakajam! 

Congratulations everyone for joining the jam :) We have beaten the record of the first event, with already 69 games to play!

Submissions are still open for unranked submissions: while those won't be officially ranked, they can expect as many people to play & comment on them. So, if you haven't finished your game in time, it's not too late to complete something! Game submissions will completely close Monday at 10pm UTC.

We will post more details about the voting phase tomorrow evening, but you can already go play & review games right now!

First look at "Sword of Sight" 1

Wan • 6 years ago on 2nd Alakajam! 

3D environments are hard! We're using Unity, and especially discovering ProBuilder for environments. Additional models are done with Blender.

We're also super late on schedule :D

Find a team for the jam! 0

Wan • 6 years ago on 2nd Alakajam! 

If you're interested in finding people to enter the jam with, now is the time to check our Crowdforge page! You can ask for help in either art, code or music aspects of game making.

Go there and create a team, or check the existing ones:

Find a team on

Manu & Wan are entering! 0

Wan • 6 years ago on 2nd Alakajam! 

Hi everyone,

I've been crazy enough to join the 1st Alakajam AND all three of the month-long Kajams that followed… And I won't end my streak now! (hopefully…)

The team:

  • @Thrainsa (code)
  • @wan (art, sound)
  • possibly more friends, to be confirmed

We'll be using Unity, with normally Reason (music) & Photoshop. If we go down the 3D route I'll consider using the ProBuilder plugin for Unity as a replacement for Blender.

4th Kajam to be held 29th March - 29th April 7

Wan • 6 years ago on 4th Kajam 

EDIT: some people have suggested we start the event a little earlier, to squeeze in one more weekend—so now the event is now going to start on March 29th. Sorry for the confusion!

Kajam competitions are month-long events in which people make a video game from scratch, focusing each time on a specific aspect of game making, as chosen by its host. They are perfect to learn, experiment and improve your gamedev skills! More details here.

The topic of the 4th Kajam will be announced by its host, in complete non-jokey seriousness, on April 1st March 29th.

Follow us on Twitter to stay updated!

3rd Kajam over. The next full Alakajam is coming! 0

Wan • 6 years ago on 3rd Kajam 

Congrats to the entrants of this small Storytelling-themed event!

The jam results are out, making me realize in the process that I shoud have advertised the voting phase more: due to a lack of ratings, only 2 of the games ended in the final rankings ( @bradur 's only had 1 vote).

Anyway, if you want to join a bigger, more competitive event, now is the right time to book the 23-25 week-end, on which the 2nd Alakajam will take place at last! More details to be announced tomorrow…