Yesterday we were really unsure where the game was going, due to it being vastly overscoped. Given what we had done yesterday, we started this morning by detailed thinking about the gameplay, and how to scope things down while keeping the game fun.

We now have a detailed task list, and despite the removal of combat we are think we can have something fun by the end of the jam. With the most tricky parts of the code already completed by @Thrainsa, we are now building various systems at light speed! Today has been super satisfying so far. Let's hope it stays so until the end :)

Not only we're clearly overscoping gameplay-wise, but I'm spending waaay too much time on art - which I usually procrastinate, but for some reason I'm having fun this time,

The game is about building a ships out of modular pieces by doing EVAs in space. The goal is to save as many people as you can and leave the galaxy before a race of ever-expanding Replicants consumes it. No pressure :)

Concept art/color palette

Characters

This Saturday, members of Alakajam! will join the One Hour Game Jam held at 8pm UTC! Let's join our neighbor community for a fun evening of jamming, and so we can sharpen our tools before the Alakajam.

Who's in

@wan
@laguna
@puarsliburf
@akselmo
@dollarone
@sebastianscaini
@aurel300
@kdrnic
@sorceress

Also in but not 100% sure because they have a life (reportedly)

@voxel
@toasty
@raindrinker
@timbeaudet
@thrainsa
@euske

You? Let me know in the comments!

How it works

No competition here, everyone is a winner for completing the crazy task of making a game in one hour-ish!

With @thrainsa we are going to join our forces once again! Here's our past Alakajam! entries:

We're going for Unity (C#) as usual. I'll be using, again as usual, Reason & Photoshop for music and art respectively, plus Blender if we end up making a 3D game.

Not sure what we'll want to make this time, but hopefully something not too ambitious so we can have enough time for contents & polish. Maybe an MMORPG.

After a full month of competition, the 1st AKJ Tournament is finally closed. Congratulations to @CMLSC for the well-deserved win! Nice job as well to @dollarone and @toasty who managed to get in the podium, and to all of the participants.

If you liked the event, know that we intend to make it a regular thing, the next occurrence being planned for the month of September. Some questions for next time:

• What do you think of the number of games? Was 8 a good number or would you have preferred less? More?
• Should we have prizes next time? (If so, it would be probably Steam games and/or Alakajam! goodies)
• Did you mind the games being mostly for Windows only?

Any other thought or suggestion is welcome.

As for the next event… The 3rd Alakajam is finally approaching! It will be hosted in th 22-24th June week-end, which means the detailed schedule will be published next Monday. See you then :)

Lollipop Ninja is probably the hardest game to post a score on, as it seems to take around 30' for most people to beat the first time. After finishing it twice I finally feel like I have the hang of it. So, a couple tips:

• The cooldown for Smoke bombs is super low, so use them A LOT. Since they can both be used on enemies and on yourself, you can basically advance through levels hiding behind smoke. The more confident you'll get, the less you'll have to use that.

• Going invisible is mostly useful to advance tricky sections with lots of jumps/wall jumps, until you can finally reach either a safe spot, or a flat place to hide behind smoke again. The cooldown is quite high here, so if you run into trouble try to hide in smoke waiting for the skill to ready. Again, with more confidence you'll realize some enemies can be passed without using the skill at all, by just rushing through.

• Sometimes it's hard to figure out where to go next, leading you to get lost a bit or end up in a hole. Some guy did a video speedrun of the game, so if you're getting too frustrated with the trial and error feel free to check that.

• The very final jump of the game requires a specific wall jump technique. It took me a lot of practice so just smoke the guy below the jump before each attempt and you'll be able to try for as long as you need. Basically the idea is to hold Left after the ninja has jumped, and then immediately switch to Right to reach the opposite wall. Again when at the right wall, keep holding Right when you jump, then immediately switch to Left. After a couple back and forths you'll be on that sweet lollipop.

EDIT: Some more tips courtesy of @Raindrinker

• You can walljump on top of a non-smoked enemy for a looong time because the sight line collides with the wall or something.
• Also vertical shafts are super safe, so waiting there for your invisibility cooldown to restore is quite useful.
• Going invisible resets your alert rate, so sometimes just running towards an enemy and pressing the skill in the last moment possible is enought to escape his gaze.

Bonus: On Disappainted, use white paint to leave a slightly visible mark on the canvas. It can help you put down the contour of your drawing before you fill it with actual paint.

The 1st AKJ Tournament has begun! For the whole month of May, you will get to prove not your gamedev skills, but your gaming skills :) More rules info here

You'll find below the final selection of 8 games made by Alakajam! members. From arcade games to hardcore platformers to UFOs, you'll have plenty of material to test your skills. Have fun playing them and try your best to climb the leaderboard! A quick warning though: some games are Windows only. We'll aim for a fully cross-platform event next time, promised ;)

May the best player win!

The time has come
To prove you are the best
To crush your enemies
To win the Tournament (*)

In May, Alakajam! is not hosting a gamedev event. Instead, there's something completely new in the works: we'll play and compete on game jam entries!

How it works

Throughout the month, everyone will get to play on a selection of 8 games (made in any past game jams) on which they'll try to make the highest scores/best times as possible. Using screenshots as proof, players will battle to enter (and remain in) the leaderboards.

Leaderboards points are awarded to all players that enter the top 10 of a game. At the end of the event, on May 31st, the player with the most points wins the tournament!

As usual, there's no prizes to be won other than bragging rights. We're just here to have fun!

Submit your game to the event

The list of 8 jam games to played is still in the works, and should be finalized on April 30th. If your game supports setting a high score or a best time, please submit it below!

Submit your game here

EDIT: List is locked down, and unveiled on Twitter

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 :)

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:

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