{"assets":[{"original":"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/cloudflare-logo1.png","local":"\/data\/posts\/2014\/10\/cafbd7ccf543fb0fd17b94e33cc13f6b.png"},{"original":"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/twitch24.png","local":"\/data\/posts\/2014\/10\/6f0d3df28dacf5ee554015ec1581cb02.png"},{"original":"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/LDtvLogoMock_sm.png","local":"\/data\/posts\/2014\/10\/a515e63cfff5542d3387b1e4b83fb5a0.png"},{"original":"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/cloudflare-logo1.png","local":"\/data\/posts\/2014\/10\/cafbd7ccf543fb0fd17b94e33cc13f6b.png"}],"author_link":"author\/pov\/","author_name":"PoV","cat":"October Challenge 2014","categories":["October Challenge 2014"],"comments":[],"epoch":1413252540,"event":"","likes":33,"metadata":{"p_key":"82031","p_author":"PoV","p_authorkey":"0","p_urlkey":"292763","p_title":"The Ludum Digest #1 (Sept 29-Oct 13th)","p_cat":"October Challenge 2014","p_event":"LD30","p_time":"1413252540","p_likes":"33","p_comments":"0","p_status":"WAYBACK","us_key":null,"us_name":null,"us_username":null,"event_start":"1408665600","event_key":"24","event_name":"LD30"},"source_url":"2014\/10\/14\/the-ludum-digest-1-sept-29-oct-13th\/","text":"

Hey folks! \ud83d\ude00 For those that don\u2019t follow me on Twitter<\/a>, I thought I\u2019d put together a list of changes, improvements, and things I\u2019ve been working on these past 2 weeks.<\/p>\n

Click for the headlines, or read for the nitty gritty details.<\/p>\n

Related<\/strong>: The Future of Ludum Dare Part 1<\/a>, Part 2<\/a>, and Part 3<\/a>. Suggestion Thread<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

\"cloudflare-logo1\"<\/a>Initial Cloudflare Setup<\/strong> \u2013 Cloudflare is popular (and free) CDN that speeds up websites by hosting static files closer to you, wherever you are in the world. It\u2019s now installed and working. This is just one of many things that will speed up the website for everyone, especially those outside North America. We\u2019re still bound by how fast the server can fullfill PHP requests, which is next on the list.<\/p>\n

Enabling Cloudflare is just the first step towards speeding up the website. Right now we are not optimized at all for CDN (well, not really). It handles those several megabyte animated GIFs people have been uploading great, but we\u2019re wasting a lot of time in PHP and SQL queries, especially on static dynamic stuff. So like I said, next will be speeding up the PHP (OpCache, APCu), and doing various optimizations and updates to better utilize the CDN.<\/p>\n

No more www in URLs<\/strong> \u2013 \u2018www\u2019 is so 1994. All www.ludumdare.com URLs will now resolve to their www-less counterparts. Hello ludumdare.com\/everything. \":)\"<\/p>\n

(PS: I\u2019m saving the migration from ludumdare.com\/compo\/ to ludumdare.com for later. If I was to just do it, it would break a lot of the internet (links). So LD in its current form (WordPress) will continue to live in the \/compo\/ folder. We\u2019ll be free once we\u2019ve obsoleted it)<\/p>\n

Fixes to the Donation Widget<\/strong> \u2013 The donation widget is some pretty old code. It\u2019s based on an abandoned WordPress plugin named Donate Plus, that I had to \u2018improve\u2019 some years ago. In a sense, it has almost never actually worked correctly. It was supposed to talk with Paypal and sync transactions back and forth, but that stopped working after a month. Fortunately there was a way to manually add donations, which I\u2019ve been doing ever since. No more! The plugin is now fixed. I still instinctively go to the control panel when I get donation e-mails, but now it\u2019s just to admire that it\u2019s done. Ahh the wonders of automation. \ud83d\ude00<\/p>\n

There were more bugs, such as only supporting dollar amounts without decimals, fixed. I\u2019m also now saving useful information like Paypal fees and actual Paypal e-mail addresses (wow).<\/p>\n

All that\u2019s left is making it correctly record who (what user account on ludumdare.com) donated. This is where I left off. I had made a fix, but it apparently does not work. I\u2019ve written a script to match e-mail addresses with user accounts, but it seems many folks have multiple e-mail addresses. I\u2019ll eventually add a way to claim a donation. <\/p>\n

Added \u201cPre-Donation Widget\u201d contributions<\/strong> \u2013 There were a few-dozen contributions to Ludum Dare before I set up the widget. These contributions are now part of the database. We now have a complete record of everyone that has ever contribution to Ludum Dare by Paypal. This will be useful. \ud83d\ude00<\/p>\n

Post Previews Bug<\/strong> \u2013 Apparently only me and the other admins ever saw this. Anyways, post previews (drafts) now work for everyone again.<\/p>\n

\"twitch24\"Updated Twitch Embed<\/strong> \u2013 Twitch finally updated their embed code from a Flash \u2018object\u2019 to an HTML \u2018iframe\u2019, and I\u2019ve made the change. This means that Mobile and Tablet browsers can watch Live Streams from the website too! <\/p>\n

The new embed also supports the Chromecast, which if you have one is pretty sweet.<\/p>\n

\"LDtvLogoMock_sm\"Broadcast Tracking (and hello LDtv)<\/strong> \u2013 LDtv<\/strong> you say? Well it is 2014 (soon to be 2015), and video is kind-of a thing. I want us to better support video throughout the website, and I don\u2019t just mean the Twitch widget. I mean all<\/strong> video. From lets plays<\/em> on YouTube, to alternative streaming services like Hitbox. I want video to become a bigger part of LD, so much, that I\u2019ve given this advocacy project a name: LDtv<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

As for broadcast tracking, this started when I noticed something kind-of amazing the other day.<\/p>\n

It was a Tuesday afternoon, just after Lunch, and there it was: The Twitch Widget, full of Live Streams. Again, this was a Tuesday afternoon<\/strong>. Aside from the October Challenge, there was no Game Jam going on. It wasn\u2019t even a weekend! It\u2019s a weekday, and there are 7 people streaming development to ~60 viewers!<\/p>\n

What!<\/p>\n

In the grand scheme of Live Streaming, yes that\u2019s a small number, but it tells me something: Game Dev Live Streaming is catching on. I always assumed streaming was going to be one of the ways LD would be relevant in the \u2018off season\u2019, but here it was, happening right before my eyes.<\/p>\n

I started asking questions: How long has this been going on? Why hadn\u2019t I noticed this? What can I do to help it thrive even more? And like most of my Twitter ramblings, I said what I had to say and moved on to the next thing.<\/p>\n

Are we at 24 hours of constant streaming yet?<\/p>\n

A couple days later I wrote a PHP script to start tracking this. A cron job, every 5 minutes, hit Twitch and see whose online. Left it overnight to see how that would go.<\/p>\n

And the scary thing: Yes<\/strong>, some days, we are<\/strong> at 24 hours of streaming!<\/p>\n

We are talking 1 person carrying the night shift, but it happened. The first night I started tracking the data, there it was. I\u2019ve also learned Sunday nights and Holiday nights have a lull where us Canadians and Americans sleep. But when I wake up tomorrow morning, there will be streaming, and it\u2019s great.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve put together a special page<\/a> where you can find additional live stream data. In a sense, this is the beginnings of the larger LDtv<\/strong> project. Generally, we need to start caring more about the video content people are creating, and in this case, the people putting a lot of hours in to streaming. Figuring out who those people are. I\u2019ll have more stats, charts and things to share soon.<\/p>\n

\"hitbox24\"Hitbox.tv Live Streaming Support (<\/strong>LDtv<\/strong> page only) \u2013 It\u2019s not yet available on the front-page Widget, but the stream tracking is also tracking Hitbox.tv streams. For those not in the know, Hitbox is a lot like Twitch, but they\u2019re not owned by Amazon (for better or worse). A number of folks have been asking for Hitbox support, and we now have it. Coming soon to a Widget near you!<\/p>\n

\"youtube24\"YouTube Live Streaming Support (<\/strong>LDtv<\/strong> page only) \u2013 Like Hitbox, this isn\u2019t available on the Widget yet. Long term, I want LDtv<\/strong> and the Website to do something with YouTube videos, so I began doing some research in to Google\u2019s APIs. One thing lead to another, and we now have YouTube Live Stream Support<\/strong>!<\/p>\n

YouTube streaming supports both Google+ style \u201cHangouts On Air\u201d and proper YouTube Live broadcasts. Curious about YouTube streaming? You may have to go to your YouTube account settings and enable it. To compare, Twitch and Hitbox work essentially the same, but YouTube has a built-in DVR. This means as a viewer, you can rewind and fast forward through a Live event, or hit the LIVE button to resume watching Live. It\u2019s pretty cool. That said, YouTube Live is a bit like an aircraft with lots of buttons and switches. Powerful, but complicated.<\/p>\n

Header and Sidebar Declutter<\/strong> \u2013 One of the ugliest parts of the website is the madness that goes on in the page header and the sidebar. I\u2019m often asked where to find things, many are right in the sidebar or header. Obviously, what we have isn\u2019t working, so I\u2019m going to try to fix it. The Mailing List, IRC, and Reddit now have big icons on the sidebar. I\u2019m told they act funny in some older browsers, so I\u2019ll continue to tweak the code. This is just the start. I plan to continue tweaking and improving the layout as we go.<\/p>\n

Steam Widget (Curator and Group)<\/strong> \u2013 Ludum Dare has a Steam<\/strong> presence. Originally we had a small Steam Group<\/strong> of 200-some members, and it was okay. But then Steam Curators<\/strong> happened, and with some effort, we managed to become a Top-50<\/strong> curator. Unfortunately we have slipped, down to the Top-60<\/strong>, but that\u2019s still good! That\u2019s nearly 2600<\/strong> people, LD\u2019ers and Gamers, that will now hear about your Ludum Dare games as they cross over in to PC\u2019s biggest game market. And the higher we go, the more people we can share your games with. \ud83d\ude00<\/p>\n

We also used to have a \u2018Featured Post-LD Games\u2019 list that, to be honest, in recent years was just a Steam Games list. There\u2019s just too much volume on iOS and Android, that I had to limit it to places with less volume. That said, of the 14 Ludum Dare games on Steam, 8 have come out this year, with the another coming next month, and 1 more scheduled for 2015. Steam is growing fast too thanks to Greenlight, and Valve has now made it easy for us to collect games.<\/p>\n

Rarely talked about, we\u2019ve had a Ludum Dare Steam Group for years too. A good 200 people found it organically, but now seems like a good time to open the floodgates.<\/p>\n

So I\u2019ve combined these 3 Steam things together in to a single custom Steam-like widget. Visit the website and scroll down; It\u2019s hard to miss. The Featured games list is now a random 3 Ludum Dare games available on Steam. Currently, the stats update ever 10 minutes (I may bump this). It still needs some work, but check it out! I\u2019m pleased with the results.<\/p>\n

Unfinished: Patreon and Donation Goals Widget<\/strong> \u2013 It figures. The important thing as I saw it going in to this Ludum Dare update plan was to highlight how much money we\u2019ve taken in, and how I\u2019m doing towards my goal. Some of the first code I wrote 2 nearly weeks ago was a parser for the CSV file that Patreon spits out. Alas, this got back-burnered, to hopefully pick up and finish today (Monday). Nope, but I did get close.<\/p>\n

To say I\u2019m rusty with PHP would be an understatement. I\u2019ve been spending a lot of time in recent months doing JavaScript gamedev, but unless I was going to rewrite the site with node.js, this doesn\u2019t do me a lot of good. Part of me wanted to take on some less-scary code first (i.e. not Money), and the other part wanted to do things that sounded fun (like reverse engineering Steam\u2019s website a bit to get curator data, data without APIs), which is how we got here. And now that my initial LDtv data gathering and Steam widget are working, I\u2019m ready to finish what I started.<\/p>\n

Wrap up<\/strong> \u2013 I think that covers all the big things. I\u2019ve been doing some general research on other Web APIs (Reddit (OMG EASY), Twitter, Facebook) as well as some work on the rewrite plan for next year (LD2015), mockups, and lots of note-taking.<\/p>\n

I have a video I may do this week, this time about something I\u2019d like to change (the hashtag). Stats always tell us that half of all participants in an Ludum Dare event haven\u2019t done one before, so the simpler we can make it, the better. And given that we\u2019re up to our 31st event, of 48 or 72 hours in length, #LD48 or specifically \u201c48\u201d is about as vague as you could get (I\u2019m thinking: #LDJAM or #LDjam). Anyways, this is a rabbit hole, so lets save this discussion for later.<\/p>\n

You made it to the end! I\u2019m finished my long ramble-rant! Hooray for you!<\/p>\n

FYI: I\u2019ll be kicking off our \u20185 week countdown\u2019 to Ludum Dare 31 with a bunch of stuff on October 31st. Theme Suggestions will open, but I\u2019ve got a extra special thing for the artists. Stay tuned! \":)\"<\/p>\n

That\u2019s it! We\u2019re done. Until next time!<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

PS: I thought about calling this the Ludum Daregest (Digest), which lead me to Ludum Daregeist, and to Ludum Der Geist, but that was too spooky. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>","time":"October 14th, 2014 2:09 am","title":"The Ludum Digest #1 (Sept 29-Oct 13th)","title_was_empty":false}