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My 48-hour videogame 'Disco? Very!' for Ludum Dare #19
(20 Dec 2010 at 01:58) |
This weekend I made another game all by myself, for the 48 hour game programming contest Ludum Dare:
Disco? Very! The way this works is they pick a theme on Friday night at 9pm, and then everybody makes a game for the weekend based on that theme. That theme this time, chosen by lowest common denominator vote, was discovery. Since I can't resist the 'misheard it' gag (deployed last time with islands → is lands?), my game this time is called Disco? Very!. You can play it right now in almost any web browser, because it's made in Flash. This is a dance platformer (I also like to invent a new genre) with moderately charming VGA-style graphics, lots of dance animations, a boss battle, and three new T7ES songs as its soundtrack. Plus this time there's actually something to do, and you can win the game, and it almost seems like it's on purpose! So best is to just play. I'm pretty happy with how this one turned out, and I was efficient throughout the weekend, though it is also sad all the stuff that got left on the cutting-room floor. For example the original intention was that when you die it plays the sound of a vinyl record scratching and the screen says: Disc over? Y! and when you win, it shows you pictured on a dancing magazine, and it's like Dis cover? Y!, etc.
I recorded a video of my screen throughout the weekend (only stopping it when I was leaving the house or sleeping), so you can see my nausea-inducing window-switching habits. It's kind of funny to see the graphics being drawn, at least. Its soundtrack is truncated versions of the game music. |
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| Very nice! I like the dance moves as platformer mechanics, and the boss fight was great. |
| I think I won? Is there anything I'm supposed to be able to do in that last room when I have shamed the disco king with my unbeatable dance moves? |
| Anyway it is a sweet game tom! Metroid metroid revolution. |
| Out of order indeed! Nice work. |
I was a little bit confused by the dance-off part, which is I suppose appropriate, but I otherwise greatly enjoyed the game!
I like how, when given the choice between the bathroom and the VIP lounge at the beginning of the game, I knew without a doubt which way I was supposed to go. |
| Also how do you do that screencasty thing where you record your screen. |
Thanks guys! I uploaded a new version for the jam that fixes a few cosmetic bugs.
Yes, once you're VIP then you've won. I'd love for that to just be the beginning, but seriously I just squeaked in under the deadline with the content (and bugs) you see there, so I did not get to realize all my dreams. The boss battle is more confusing than I'd like, as well. Imagine how confusing it would have been without the lightbulb screen and his 'embarrassed for you' animation, though? After I did those things, I prioritized other areas of the game that were lacking, and then I just ran out of time.
For screencasting I used a windows app written by a ludum darer, which is called "chronolapse". It was free and very simple and worked as advertised. I actually encoded the full 2560x1600 images as a video and then resampled it with virtualdub (plus added the music there) because the default compression level from chronolapse was too crap for my tastes and there were no settings. If you ever do Ludum Dare I recommend making a timelapse video. Not only is it a fun artifact, but it changed the way I behaved during the contest, like being aware of when I was slacking off (I knew someone would be watching me paging through Facebook or playing Team Fortress or something) or even doing something really boring and repetitive that should be scripted. Good to keep the pressure on! |
| This was fun. Maybe it's just me, but I get a message from this game - something about the shallowness of the club scene. After all the time you spend learning moves and defeating Elvis in a dance-off, the VIP room turns out to be... empty, with peeling paint, floor spikes, and slow, sad music playing. It's kinda surreal, even Kafkaesque in its lack of finality: I love how you can still wander around even though there's nothing more to do. Also, the dimming music as you walk away from the club is a nice touch. |
| How do I earn the "Pants Off Dance Off" achievement?? |
| How do I earn the "Master of the Macarena" achievement???? |
| One does not 'earn' achievements, one 'unlocks' them. |
| ?????? OK |
| What I'm trying to say is you need to find the ma"key"rena. |
| Can I get an mp3 of the sad VIP room music at the end? |
| Sure... I can post them when get back to Pittsburgh. |
| http://tom7misc.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/tom7misc/trunk/discovery/music/sewers.mp3?revision=1483 |
| Or you can get them from the source code :), but those are cropped for looping (as much as is possible in Flash) and untagged. |
| I did something I said I was going to do!! |
| :/ Really dude? The x dance was great and I was all like "this is the best game ever." And then it didn't even end. Lazy, ass. |
| Well, only 48 hours. :) I wish there was more time! That said, there is sort of a point to the ending. |
The point was shallow and really lackluster.
The path of glory leads but to the grave, blah blah blah.
You just end up in an empty broken down room.
You should spice it up some, maybe there are things in the Vip lounge, drugs, sex, wtf ever. Players does them then game over. i'm not saying it's a bad ending idea, just poorly executed. Upon reaching the end, it didn't even make me feel like the point was clear or poignant, it just felt like you gave up making the game. |
| Damn dude, harsh! I didn't give up on it... It was my singular focus for 48 straight hours. But the format of the contest requires you to submit by the deadline, so I had to stop. I'm sad you were disappointed, really, but others did specifically comment on liking the ending, and the fact that the game is winnable at all is well above par for the weekend, objectively speaking. |
Very well made (for a LD48 at least ;P), my only gripe was I wasn't sure how many dances there were in total so I thought I was doing something wrong at the boss fight when I only had 3. This may have been just because I was expecting it to be shorter (cause of the time limit)
The game had a fantastic creepy feeling considering the club was empty except for the boss (and the 3 people or so in the bathroom--haha!)
And I thought the ending was great as well |
| loved it. fundamentally it had everything a game is supposed to have which puts to shame quiet a few commercial titles |
| I would have loved to have been able to impale myself on the spike in the VIP room just for added hipster coolness. Lovely game! |
| i call this an awesome art game, i've had dreams like that |
| Very disco |
| flash player is gone and game wont work, sad. |
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