{"author_name":"Pabo","cat":"LD #26","comments":[],"epoch":1366845780,"likes":3,"metadata":{"p_key":"46714","p_author":"Pabo","p_authorkey":"22093","p_urlkey":"82376","p_title":"My first Ludum Dare \u2013 I\u2019m in!","p_cat":"LD #26","p_event":"LD26","p_time":"1366845780","p_likes":"3","p_comments":"0","p_status":"UPD5","us_key":"22093","us_name":"Pabo","us_username":"pabo","event_start":"1366934400","event_key":"16","event_name":"LD26"},"text":"<p>Hello everyone,<\/p>\n <p>after many Ludum Dares of just watching others creating great games, I&#8217;ve decided to try my luck as well. I won&#8217;t prepare for a specific theme; there are too many themes available, and that&#8217;s probably on purpose. I&#8217;m not very experienced in making games, nor really proficient in coding, so I&#8217;ll try to keep it simple this time. Maybe a simple platformer is what I&#8217;ll be going for (I know platformers are quite popular among Ludum Dare contestants), or a puzzle game. The 3D MMO will have to wait for now, it seems.<span id=\"more-228458\"><\/span><\/p>\n <p>My tools:<\/p>\n <ul>\n <li>Programming language: Java<\/li>\n <li>Art: GIMP (or plain Swing commands, if I can get away with it)<\/li>\n <li>Sound: Probably nothing, but might check out some programmes on the <a title=\"Tools\" href=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/tools\/\" target=\"_blank\">Tools<\/a> page<\/li>\n <li>Libraries: No libraries, I&#8217;m not familiar enough with external libraries, and I don&#8217;t really have a good private library<\/li>\n <li>Code hosting: Probably GitHub. Dropbox and GoogleDrive are alternatives<\/li>\n <\/ul>\n <p>What I won&#8217;t be able to do yet:<\/p>\n <ul>\n <li>Web play. This is something I regret not learning before, but right now I have no experience in making a game playable in a browser. Which is bad, because it&#8217;s really more convenient to just open a new tab to play the game.<\/li>\n <li>Sound. I&#8217;ve never programmed anything with sound in Java. I&#8217;m aware of some libraries that handle sound, but unless they&#8217;re easy to pick up, I won&#8217;t be able to add sound. This should detract much from the atmosphere.<\/li>\n <li>Elaborate graphics. This will all be pure programmer art. You have been warned.<\/li>\n <\/ul>\n <p>I&#8217;ll probably wait until the theme is announced and start brainstorming until a good idea crosses my mind. That is, after I wake up &#8211; it&#8217;ll be 3 a.m. in the UK when the compo begins, and I&#8217;m not planning on being awake this early (or this late, depending on your perspective). I&#8217;m planning to stick to the following timetable as much as possible:<\/p>\n <p><strong>Saturday:<\/strong><br \/>\n <em>8:00-9:00:<\/em> Wake up, have some breakfast, watch the keynote again, and get started!<br \/>\n <em>9:00-10:00:<\/em> Come up with a realistic game idea.<br \/>\n <em>10:00-11:00<\/em>: Design the programme. This should save me from quite some headache afterwards.<br \/>\n <em>11:00-14:00:<\/em> Get a prototype working. It seems like incremental development is the way to go in this competition.<br \/>\n <em>14:00-16:00<\/em>: Cook and eat lunch. I&#8217;m a slow cooker, and eat a lot, so 2 hours are justifiable.<br \/>\n <em>16:00-20:00:<\/em> Get the prototype closer to a &#8220;game&#8221; status. All core mechanics should be implemented.<br \/>\n <em>20:00-22:00:<\/em> Iron out as many bugs as possible, and compile a Todo-list with enhancements to be made.<br \/>\n <em>22:00-23:00:<\/em> Have dinner, and take a break by looking at what others are up to. Maybe already play some games.<br \/>\n <em>23:00:<\/em> Go to bed. By now I should have a properly working, unpolished game with placeholder art.<\/p>\n <p><strong>Sunday:<\/strong><br \/>\n <em>8:00-9:00:<\/em> Wake up, have breakfast, have a look at the Todo-list.<br \/>\n <em>9:00-12:00:<\/em> Three hours time to implement some extra features off the list.<br \/>\n <em>12:00-13:30:<\/em> Create original art. I&#8217;m no good as an artist anyway, so I&#8217;d better not spend a lot of time on that.<br \/>\n <em>13:30-15:30:<\/em> Cook and eat.<br \/>\n <em>15:30-16:00:<\/em> Import all created art into game.<br \/>\n <em>16:00-17:00:<\/em> Upload test version of the game. Might get some feedback, but more importantly I won&#8217;t be bothering with upload issues in the last minutes.<br \/>\n <em>17:00-18:00:<\/em> Add game start and ending. Because I guess I won&#8217;t have bothered with them till now.<br \/>\n <em>18:00-21:00:<\/em> Last timeframe to add new features.<br \/>\n <em>21:00-22:30:<\/em> Bug hunt.<br \/>\n <em>22:30-23:00:<\/em> Dinner. Most likely consisting of a bowl of cereals sitting next to the laptop while I continue looking for &#8220;<em>this last bug<\/em>&#8220;.<br \/>\n <em>23:00-24:00:<\/em> Last hour of polish to the game.<br \/>\n <em>24:00-1:00:<\/em> Submit the final version of the game.<br \/>\n <em>1:00-2:00:<\/em> Make sure the submitted version works, and go to bed. I&#8217;ll probably be too tired to play other games at that point.<\/p>\n <p>That&#8217;s my plan, I&#8217;m curious to see how good it turns out to be, and if I can follow it. The outcome is unknown, but it&#8217;ll surely be interesting, and I&#8217;m honored to be competing <del>against<\/del>, nah, rather together with so many talented individuals.<\/p>\n <p>Good luck everybody, have a nice Ludum Dare!<\/p>","time":"April 24th, 2013 6:23 pm","title":"My first Ludum Dare \u2013 I\u2019m in!"}