LD34

Didn't join LD33. Couldn't come up with any ideas. LD34 has two themes because they tied. "Two button control" and "Grow". You can use one or the other, or both.

I went with grow, since I kinda had an idea already. My first idea was a top down puzzle game where you had to try to exit this maze thing and there was this machine placed in some areas that would make you large and small. But then that would only work if the theme was "Shrink".

Their twitter page showed some plants growing, so I'll just do something with farming, Harvest Moon style.

LD #32 - Super Worm Fanning

Well it's been 24 hours. It seems done. I don't feel like working on it anymore.

http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-32/?action=preview&uid=37077

LD #32 - Unconventional Weapon

I didn't want to make another platformer, but it looks like I don't have too much of a choice. So. Weapon of choice: a frikin fan. I'm gonna kill some bugs with wind by blowing them off the center platform a la Super Smash Bros. Not the greatest idea, but whatevs g.

It's about 2 hours in now, and I'm gonna get some nap time.

This game is looking so aestheitcally pleasing.
But no seriously, I want to finish all of the core mechanics by tomorrow noon at most, and I'll spend the rest of the time on the art side.

UPDATE:
It's about 19 hours in now. I got bored working on the mechanics, so I did those and the art together.

And an upgrade system.
The point of the game is to last as long as possible. Timer is constantly ticking down and knocking worms off gives you a bit of extra time, depending on how fast you take them out.

I just got an awesome idea. I could have the background cloud things rotating, each one in alternating directions. That would look trippy son.

The supernado destroys everything in its path. Kinda makes that one upgrade useless though.

Should probably turn down the combo leniency. I'm getting combos too easily.

AR Suit - LD #30 game

Well that turned out better than expected. I had a lot more time to work with on this one.

You can try the game here.
http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-30/?action=preview&uid=37077

Oh snap.

	Coolness	100%
#6	Fun	4.19
#9	Overall	4.23
#43	Theme	4.06
#60	Audio	3.74
#92	Mood	3.68
#96	Graphics	4.02
#153	Innovation	3.75
#337	Humor	2.71

LD #30 Half way point

24 hours left. Theme is Connecting Worlds. I couldn't come up with any interesting ideas. The only thing that struck me was something similar to the one I made for the 29th LD.

Yep, another puzzle/skill platformer. This time, you're a dude who tests out new technology. You've been commissioned to do a field test on the new AR (Alternate Reality) Suit. Time to sharpen your reflexes.

Awesome video

I guess the second half should be spent on moar levels and audio. I don't plan on making a menu, or level select, or whatever.

UPDATE:

3 hours left. Hauling ass trying to finish the last couple of levels and get some musica going. I got my trusty custom tilemap editor (not that crappy one from the Dragon Tale tutorial). I'm going to try for a menu seeing as how I'll be finishing a little bit early and I can afford the time. And maybe a score screen, based on how many deaths you've acquired.

Google Play Developer Console

There were some things regarding how exactly the Developer Console submitting process that confused me. I'll try to describe my experiences here. Hopefully people can see this and not have to wonder what some stuff does, or how to do some things, like I did.

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- Google Play Game Services -
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GPGS is treated like an actual game. They really call it a game which I find confusing because to me it's, well, a service. So when they ask stuff like "Publish the Game?" when I save some stuff in GPGS, I get nervous that I'm publishing the same game twice or something.

Once you create your GPGS "game" you have to link it up to one or more actual games that you've made, including cross-platform which is pretty cool.

One of the slightly annoying things about making a GPGS for your game is that you need to create 5 achievements and a leaderboard, or else you can't publish it. Even if you aren't going to use those two, you still need them. Fine, whatever bro.

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- Alpha Testing -
-----------------
You upload your APK to either Alpha, Beta, or Production. If you upload to Alpha, you still have to publish a store listing, but it's not publicly viewable. You can't even search for it. Only people in your alpha testers group who have opted in for testing can visit the store listing and download the game.

Another thing I've never found out is when I'm uploading to Alpha, I have to keep incrementing the version number. What if I uploaded an APK to Production with the same version number as the Alpha APK? (This is automatic if you move your Alpha APK to Production) What if I uploaded an APK to Production with version 1 even though the Alpha APK is like version 100?

EDIT:
When you move an Alpha APK to Production, the store listing becomes public immediately, even though the Production APK isn't ready. Just watch out. For the first few hours, clicking on the install button will cause a "can't find item" error.
I have no idea what's the problem.

EDIT2:
I just uploaded a new APK straight to Production and it worked. If you know what's good for you, never move Alpha APKs to Production. Just upload a fresh copy to Production.

------------------------
- GPGS Development -
------------------------
You're going to need to download the GPGS libraries in the Android SDK Manager. Then you have to go to the Google sample apps and grab BaseGameUtils. Link up both of those to your Android project and you're set.

If you're getting tons of errors, in BaseGameUtils, it's probably outdated. I had a whole issue with this where I had the latest GPGS but the BaseGameUtils samples weren't updated yet, and I'd get hundreds of errors everywhere.

As for using the GPGS API in LibGDX, the most common method seems to be to have your LibGDX game in your core project communicate with the Android launcher in the Android project via some interface. Very awesome tutorial on how to do that here. Warning though, it's a little bit outdated. GPGS has changed their API quite a bit, but it shouldn't be too hard to figure out.

When in doubt, press Ctrl + Space. Yeah that just brings up the little Eclipse helper box thingy.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Anyway, those were just some of the few things I was unsure about. Hopefully other Android developers using the Google Play Store find this helpful.

Leaderboards and Achievements

Looky looky at what I have here.

Video

That's right. Leaderboards and Achievements. Also, I found out you can actually record your Android 4.4 (KitKat) screen using ADB. No root required. Kind of a bummer to people not using 4.4.

Anyway, I had to jump through a bunch of hoops just to get these working. Linking libraries, getting OAuth2 or something, achievement IDs, leaderboard IDs, Google Play Game Services API, alpha testing.

So far, the achievements aren't being unlocked. I wonder if it's because I didn't download the Plop apk from the Play Store, or if the leaderboards and stuff don't work on alpha release? I don't know. But I just submitted the (hopefully finished) game to alpha production. I really wish there won't be any more problems.

EDIT:
Ohhhh myyyy goooooooooooooooood. The achievements aren't being unlocked because I don't have the code for it! For some reason, my brain decided to blank out when writing the method for achievement unlocks. Here it is:

public void unlockAchievement(String achievementId) {
       
}

Yeah it's empty. I need to take a break. It's a good time to take a break anyway. It takes like 5 hours for Google Play store listing to update every time you upload a new apk.

Totally super amazing video of me getting the Lightning Reflex achievement