I’m planning on entering Ludum Dare 23.  I will be using ClojureScript, and developing using various HTML5 technologies.

Last year I enjoyed entering the competition immensely, but I made some mistakes which I intend to correct this time around.

1. Not releasing on the web (e.g. downloadable executable).
2. Not following the theme.
3. Not blogging/participating in the community…. really at all

I didn’t do number one because I didn’t really know any useful languages. I had been a paid javascript developer for several months at that point, but I was still fairly green in terms of how to make a game, and I hadn’t done visual effects in quite some time (never being particularly good at them :). I’m choosing ClojureScript this time, as it compiles to JavaScript and can run in the browser. It also allows me to enjoy a faster pace of development compared to actual JavaScript. I did a test run this last week to push it to its performance limits, and it performed admirably

Number two fell out of not being that good. Surprisingly, I’ve become a much better programmer between last December and now. Last time I was very focussed on making anything that worked. I was hoping to follow the alone criteria by naming my game “Alone Where?”, and having no other characters. Eventually I dropped the “Alone” from the title because it felt like I was trying too hard, and then the title became shortened further to just “W”. Regardless, I’m going to follow the theme at least somewhat more closely this time.

As far as the third is concerned…. I’m notoriously terrible at doing anything social online, especially when there is code to be written! I have no patience for social networks or blogs, but who knows…. I’m at least making an effort to not be as antisocial this time around by posting this :p, and I’ll see if I can post at least nightly status reports regarding my game next time.

I’m unsure as to whether I’ll enter the Competition proper or the Jam this time. I will likely only have time to do the Competition, but who knows, that ended up being a spur-of-the-moment decision last time anyway based on “whelp it ain’t good enough now, so Jam it is”. Either way, it’ll get released!

I can’t wait.

Edit:

Seems like typically people list their tools and such.

Tools:

• Code: ClojureScript HEAD, using Emacs for editing and lein/lein-cljsbuild for building.
• Art: Probably PixylEdit, Pixen, or something along those lines
• Sound: BFXR, though sound might not be supported cross-browser.