Hi folks,

LD30 was my first Ludum Dare, and I learnt a lot of important lessons very quickly. One of the things that struck me as a waste of the very limited amount of time one has in a game jam, is the creation of core, menu and basic UI elements, so I decided to make a template that has all of this kind of content in it.

Download the capx here [3.5MB, version r180].

Here's what it contains:

• A number of standard C2 plugins already loaded like keyboard, mouse, function, WebStorage, etc.
• A short fade in/out splash screen.
• A menu system that accepts keyboard, mouse or gamepad input.
• An options screen for disabling music and/or sound effects. This is stored in WS.
• Very basic navigation like exit screen, go to game screen, pause in-game (escape key), etc.
• Some simple audio for example purposes only.

It makes heavy use of reusable code, functions and families. This template is not suitable for beginners, but it's thoroughly commented. It may very well not be the most efficient or cleanest way to do a number of things, but it contains a few tricks that I've learnt over time and I think it will be a great help to anyone who wants to cut an hour or two off their development sessions.

Yes, you are permitted to use templates and code bases for Ludum Dare (and probably other game jams). However, you are required to declare and share anything of the sort. You must however remove the audio and graphics already in the project.

Please feel free to download, share, modify and otherwise use this template as you see fit. Just don't duplicate it and claim it as your own. You're free to use this template for any project, not just game jams, commercial or otherwise.

If you have any suggestions for additions (or you'd like to contribute directly), or bug reports, please share your ideas in this thread.

Nope, you need to have it on the layout that's currently in-use. Quick fix to your audio on spawn issue: run that event with the condition Sprite/family/etc: is on-screen.

Personally I'd like the option. From a gamer's point-of-view it's irritating to uninstall a game and then have to go hunting through obscure locations to clean out saved games, caches and other data. Being able to specify (a) "default folder" (b) "app folder" or (c) "My Docs\app name" for local storage would be a neat little feature, if it's not a massive hassle to implement. It'd certainly be a courtesy to players. Not sure how much control over this NW assumes and how much control we have on our side, though.

It should be almost instant due to how small the file is. Can you cancel it and try it again? It could have been a network glitch.

Thanks, but it's working now! Maybe my PC just needed a day to breathe

Even though this thread died years ago, it's good to see that there are a few of us here. I was only aware of two other SA-based C2 devs who frequent these forums!

IntelRobert

I'm trying out Intel XDK for publishing to Cordova iOS, and I'm stuck at the certification process before building. Specifically, I've downloaded the certificate from the Apple Developer Center as per the instructions, but when I upload the file ios_distribution.cer, the Intel XDK application just gets stuck at "Please wait while we upload your file.....". I've left it for hours but nothing happens. It's just a 2KB file.

I'm using the latest version of Intel XDK.

Could you offer any advice?

Hah, okay no problem. Let me know when you've got something going and I'll happily test it!

I'm very impressed with the functionality and ease-of-use of the new official plugin, so I'll gladly support any third-party plugin that's as efficient and straightforward.

What is the difference between your current plugin and the official one?

codah that's a neat idea, actually, I think I might adopt that practice.

I'm all in favour of requests that improve workflow, so I'll definitely throw in my +1 for this suggestion (and jayderyu 's, while we're at it). Functions should always be ready to go, anyway - having to create a "function object" has always seemed a little odd to me.

I'd go as far as to say that functions should have their own window, like bookmarks, for easy access and reference. I've suggested the same thing with global variables in the past, as I really do think these windows are a great way to keep track of important info.

Hah, I feel like an NPC in a text parser game

An illustration is probably easier:

[attachment=0:2w5tkya2][/attachment:2w5tkya2]

So, everything in there is an obstacle: the ground, some pillars, a box, etc. The red transparent objects are your "blockers"

Then what you do is create a "blocker" object that that fits around those obstacles. You only need to test collisions against that blocker object, instead of every individual object.

These blockers could be created at runtime through a series of events, or manually, depending on how your levels are built, but that bit's up to you

Ideally, you want families. Objects grouped into a family behave as one object for the purpose of events. That's a simplification of their functionality, but it'll work for your current needs.

For example: put your ground, pillars, obstacles, enemies and whatever else you want into a family, call it "obstacles" or something. Then create an event that says something like Dragon: On collision with Obstacles > System: Restart Layout. This will check if the dragon collides with any of the objects in the Obstacles family.

Families are only available in a purchased version of C2. Otherwise you'll have to either create multiple events, or use a collision detection object that wraps itself around all obstacles, and just check for collision with that single object.

Oooooooh, okay, that makes total sense now. The quotation marks in the beginning are plain text, hence the & to connect them.

Thanks for clearing that up!