I did some searching for designs and found a picture of a wood storage cart that looked quite nice at ShopNotes. The actual plans for the cart aren’t online so I improvised based on the photo and cutting diagram. I also adapted it to 6 feet as I have limited space in my garage and seldom work with anything larger than that. My ‘schematics’ (really just math to see how much wood to buy) are below:
design sketch
[Edit] Also found an underdocumented spreadsheet and a VCarve file I used to verify the measurements I came up with (though I ended up shifting the shelves down a bit so I’d have a 5th open-top compartment):
Time to go shopping:
Some build shots:
I probably went a little overboard with the screws and glue; the thing is built like a tank. Finished shots:
Finished cart (scrap bins)Finished cart (sheet side)Cart in use (2012)Cart in use (2015)
A 1..4 player local multiplayer game where cats (made out of slime) compete to grab snacks and get the best spot on the colored couches, strewn about in a lake of lava because why not.
Created for the Simple Jam in a weekend using Unreal Engine 4.12. Simple Jam aimed to keep things manageable by limiting the number of rules and assets to 5 each. Here is how I spent that budget:
Game rules:
Roll down the ramp
Transform to start flying
The floor is lava, so don’t touch it
Grab some snacks
Secure the best seat on the couch
Imported assets:
Chamfered cube
Sphere
Lake water setup (stretching the definition just a teensy bit)
Cat model [saved for later]
[saved for later]
Menu screenGameplay
Turns out learning Z-Brush in a few hours is not actually a thing, so there’s no cat model yet; use your imagination. I’m watching Z-brush tutorial videos now and will probably work on it a bit more post-jam as I had a lot of fun making this.
You can download and play it from itch.io (Windows only ATM).
Angry Duck Diver was created as part of the 2016 Train Jam (March 10th to March 12th).
It’s a bullet-heavy vertical scrolling shmup/STG which contains neither ducks nor diving. Instead you have to constantly balance your avarice and cowardice, building up bonuses and choosing the ideal moment to bank your points before you are destroyed.
The theme was maximum capacity and I interpreted that as a risk/reward mechanic where you increase your bonus gauge as you approach maximum capacity, but you also increase your hit box and risk destruction, losing all your unbanked points.
Train Jam The Train Jam was an amazing experience, both as a jam and as a journey. The scenery is gorgeous and inspiring, and jammer disciplines seemed much more diverse / evenly spread than I’m used to at local jams (which tend to skew heavily towards programmers). I’m certainly planning on doing it again next year. However, one downside was the venue for the theme announcement/team formation before boarding the train; it was narrow and loud so it was hard to hear pitches or mingle with different folks pre-jam, and so I didn’t form or join a team before we got on the train.
This was my first jam working solo, and while it let me stare out of the window at the scenery as much as I wanted, I wouldn’t recommend it. Coordination was easier (especially since there was no internet for most of the jam, avoiding having to sneakernet files back and forth), but polish and achievable scope definitely suffered by going it alone. I finished the game, built some neat bullet spawning tech (barely scratched the surface with the current enemies), and had enough time to get some enemy variety done, but ran out of time before I could tune the waves for progressive difficulty or implement a boss fight (just a few more hours…)
Controls
Move with WASD, ZQSD, or Arrow keys
Fire with Space or LMB
Bank with Shift or RMB
Escape to Quit
How to play
Enemies are made of delicious coins, so you should shoot them
They are very protective of those coins, so avoid touching them or getting shot by them
Eating coins increases your bonus gauge but makes you fat
Banking protects points at the cost of draining your bonus gauge
Aim to beat your own high score and improve your average bonus rating
Additional Credits
Used resources from several UE4 samples (allowed as part of UE4 EULA)
‘Music’ is ‘Kozoro, Ryzu, Unison & Evence – Ascend’ by Ninety9Lives (provided for use in jam, unknown license)
The scenery on the train ride
Download and Play The PC download and prereqs installer are available here
Unzip and run AngryDuckDiver.exe on Windows to play the game (you may need to download and run UE4PrereqSetup_x86.exe first if you haven’t run a UE4 game before)
About the name I used Fancy Game Namer to come up with ideas as usual, and thought up a salvage game where a duck dives off a boat and collects treasure onto their boat. The theme of Maximum Capacity gave it the same core risk/reward mechanic where you had to decide how much treasure to gather and when to head back into harbor or risk capsizing. By the time I’d boarded the train, I had already pivoted into a shmup due to the easier art requirements of an abstract shooter instead of having to find/make a duck, boat, and treasure, causing a slight name mismatch.
An intrepid grave looter accidentally disturbed the ritual of the groundhog and was cursed to never stop running. Trapped in an eternal hell, they fall back on old habits and decide to loot some graves.
Each grave you destroy will either provide delicious loot or disturb the dead.
Collect ingredients to perform rituals that cleanse the restless dead. When enough have been gathered, cross over the altars dotted thru the cemetery.
Use your shield amulet in a pinch, or gather more armor from the merciful angels.
