Hi folks!

More progress on the ZEngine! Now I get the physics working. I used the tokamak  physics engine to do the work. The main reasons why I used it are:

* Fast
* Little (Very little)
* Easy to use

A screenshot of the mandatory “rain of cubes” to complete the post:

A wise man learns by the mistakes of others, a fool by his own.

-Latin Proverb

You’re all in for a treat, because I have been working on a HUGE post over the past few days just for you guys! It’s basically a postmortem of all my experiences in game jamming, as a relative amateur, and what I’ve learned from them. I wanted to make this post for two reasons: to focus on how to make my own jamming skills better (I’m the fool!), and, as a secondary goal, to help other people with their jamming (that makes you wise!).

Of course, I’ve done a lot of failing, so the post is a little long to put here! So, instead, I’ve put in on my blog to trick you into giving me more hits- I mean, keep my post from taking so much space. With my luck, this will be off the front page in a few days (CURSE YOU FOLIS), but oh well.

Here’s the link, and an excerpt from the summary near the end:

So, here’s a summary of all the lessons learned, or, as I like to call them, THE THIRTEEN COMMANDMENTS.

1. Plan ahead.
2. Do something you’re comfortable with.
3. Let’s admit it, there are stupid questions, you just shouldn’t feel stupid about asking them.
4. Make someone play through the game.
5. Have all core features done by midnight on Saturday.
6. Don’t use libraries if you find they need “minor modification” before doing what you want. Code it from scratch, or find a library that does exactly what you need.
7. Don’t make a game without first knowing what you need to know to program it.
8. If you’re sure you have absolutely no idea how to program it, don’t try.
9. Don’t overestimate yourself. Make sure your design is small and well-polished and does what it can well.
10. Have a very clear idea of how the game will turn out in the beginning. Especially when you’re working with a team.
11. Know exactly what tools everyone is using. Seems obvious enough, but trust me, make sure you know them.
12. Don’t immediately take someone else’s solution for your bugs. Try and solve it yourself until all else fails.
13. Motivate yourself every second, before, during and long after the competition.

Tags: tips

Hey all,

I’m not sure if I’m doing this right, this is my first time writing a post here. Anyway, I wanted to participate in the upcoming LD jam with 2 friends but it seems that I will be the only one left to join this game development party. So I considered joining the compo. After some thinking I thought it would be better if I just make a game according to the rules of LD without actually uploading anything, since I’m still not sure about how all this works (for example, are blog-updates obligatory? Do I need to do anything special to join, I keep seeing all these “I’m in” blog posts?). This is going to be my first LD anyway so I doubt I will even be able to finish a game, I’m quite the perfectionist so progress on personal projects is usually slow. I also feel kind of intimidated because it feels like most of you people are professionals, while I’m merely a student that has never finished a game project. Maybe I will ‘officially’ participate next time if all goes relatively well this time, we’ll see 😉

So yeah.. good luck everyone and have fun doing what you love to do! 😉

Today was a very productive day for me!

Decals working! At this time the projector can be only a AABB, and I’m not cutting the decal area precisely, but IT WORKS. With alpha too.

Simple decal with alpha:

Farming simulation games are becoming increasingly popular and people from all around the world enjoy living a virtual life in a beautiful farm.

Farming simulation games are meant to simulate the experience of village life and make the players feel what it’s like to have their own farm – players can manage the farm from every little aspect and take care of every little detail.

The main actions players can take in these games are: harvesting, sowing, raising animals (which means feeding them, playing with them and more), milking cows, selling produce, make money and much more. Those games simulate farm life in such a great way that they engage players and make it hard for them to stop playing.

Here are some of the best farming simulation games that you can play on each of your mobile devices. Have fun!

Let’s Farm – This wonderful game is suitable for everyone, children and adults, and has very easy controls and an addictive game-play. In Let’s Farm you will be able to plant fresh crops, cook tasty food, feed your lovely pets, make friends with your neighbors, trade your produce with farmers from all over the world, design your farm and complete dozens of challenging and exciting missions. The game itself is free but there are in-app items that you can purchase with real money. However, if you’re not willing to spend real money on the game it is definitely not a must. Let’s Farm is a great game and I strongly recommend you check it out.

Farm Town – Another awesome game is Farm town, which perfectly simulates country life. It has gorgeous graphics and a very colorful setting and it will totally provide you with fun and entertainment. You will grow a variety of crops, hay, vegetables, fruits and berries; you will develop your farm, take care of the cute animals and meet your neighbors. The characters in the game are so cute and friendly that you will immediately feel connected to them. Farm Town is the perfect game if you’re looking for farm simulations games, so make sure to give it a try!

So, what are you waiting for? Download and play the games I mentioned above and I promise you won’t be disappointed. They will provide you with hours of fun and enjoyment, and will definitely teach you a lot about what it’s like to live and work in a farm!

The last Ludum Dare I was in, I was a complete noob at game development (not to mention the first time). In these couple of months I have evolved a heck of a lot as a game developer and hopefully, this time, my game might actually be decent! We’ll see.

TOOLS
IDE: vim, cmake and gdb (I’m hardcore)
Language and API: C++ and SDL
Audio: BFXR (Since I’m on Linux I can’t use SFXR )
Graphics: GIMP

What I have learned from my previous LD is to get the core features done as fast as possible then polish for the rest of the time. So, I’m probably going to do something really simple. Also, the graphics will be simple, since I can’t draw.

I wish you all good luck and I will see you on the 24th!

Kind of self-explanatory. I tried to take part in previous LD, but i seriously lacked experience. I hope that i’ll make a finished project this time 😛

Stuff i’m gonna use:

• C#/XNA
• Paint.net
• sfxr

Hi, all! I’m going to participate in LD.

My tools: HTML/JS with gamejs library, sfxr and lmms for sound, gimp for graphics.

I’m using emacs for coding.

Good luck for everyone.

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 12th, 2012 at 11:40 am and is filed under LD #24. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

It’s Theme Slaughtering Week!!

Our favorite sauce s0s went out of his way and set this up for us. Click the link below and help us bring over 6000 submitted themes down to a more reasonable 100.

–> http://sos.gd/themes/ <--

Go go!

[ Suggested Themes (all 6200’ish), Theme Suggestion Post ]

Hellooo game developers again, this is my second post ever, and I wanted to ask a question. Are we allowed to think of game ideas prior to the composition? For example, if someone was planning an action-puzzle game and started sketching out some gameplay elements- not that I was doing that..-would that be allowed? He would plan out some gameplay elements and use the plot and adapt some of the gameplay to fit the theme afterwards? Is that allowed? Not that I would want to know, it’s just that I have a friend named John Doe who is poor.. and homeless.. and has cancer… and has 7 children to feed.. And has 5 little puppies… That are orphans.. And have cancer..  that I think might need an answer REALLY quick.

EDIT: I also wanted to clarify that no coding would be done whatsoever until the compo.

This will be my third LD. First time I didn’t manage to finish my game, second time I was better prepared and I submitted a game but I run out of time and my game had no sound.

We will see how it goes this time. Currently I’m warming up and preparing.

My tools, just like last time are:

• Language: Java
• IDE: Eclipse
• Graphics: Paint.NET
• Sound: SFXR

Good luck to everyone, have fun and lets make over 2000 games this time!

This’ll be my second Ludum Dare participation and I’m really looking forward to it. I’ll be using Java with Eclipse, Paint.NET for graphics and sfxr for sounds. Last time my goal was to finish the game I was making and I succeeded. At least it was fun! Very fun!

Here, have this (Facebook) banner I made a few minutes ago. If you dare…

Edit: Here’s version better fitted for Facebook cover: http://i.imgur.com/cD65D.png 

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 12th, 2012 at 4:21 pm and is filed under LD #24. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Who knows!

If I’m able to participate this time, it would be my third LD. Though the other times I’ve participated, I was in high school, so they all are unfinished entries.

I’m currently more confident about my skills than before. I’m surely going to make the game in HTML5’s canvas + Javascript, as I have already written a simple game engine for that platform with which I’m quite comfortable: https://github.com/AirRider3/airEngine.js

Depending on the topic and my free time, I may also use Node.js to make a multiplayer game.

Cheers to all the participants! (^_^ )

Well, I have a question for you guys, I’m good modeller(if I have lots of time) and 2d artist, but in music I don’t go so far…

The question is: Do you know any good tutorials about music making, specifically for games? At this time I’m very comfortable with LMMS, then if you guys have anything specific for this program, I will like it.

Thanks in advance.

An ‘I’m in’ post:
I’ll be using Processing (i.e. Java) for coding, sfxr and possibly Mario Paint Composer for sound and Gimp for graphics.

I will participate for the first on Ludum Dare (as long as I don’t forget what day it is, like the last time I planned on participating).

My text editor is Emacs, and I will use GIMP for the graphics.

I am not yet sure if I will use C++&SDL, Vala&SDL or Lua&LÖVE to make the game. It will depend on what my idea is. Either way, it will be cross-platform game, since I use Linux and I love cross-platform software.

Though the team does not have an official name, we are in for the 72 hour Jam in LD24. My two previous entries were solo 48-hour efforts, so this team experience will be totally new to me.

As the time approaches, we will disclose more of the tools we intend to use. However what we can say for the time being is that we are planning to make:

• A 3-D Game
• Using Unity3D
• Written in C#

If you remember my last entry, you’ll remember it was pretty unconventional. This entry should likewise be highly unusual. My last game entry scored 3.48 in Innovation with a rank of #117. We think that the various potential gameplay ideas we’re ruminating over have a realistic shot of beating that score, so keep an eye on this space as we unfold our vision.

Tags: ld24

Hello!

I am excited to be part of an LD48 for the first time. I have seen tons of cool games come out of LD, and I feel fortunate to have the opportunity to be involved in any way with the LD community 😀

• IDE: FlashDevelop
• Base Code: AuxiPunk, a library built on top of FlashPunk
• Graphics: Aseprite primarily and then maybe Gimp and/or Xara
• Sound: BFXR primarily with maybe Ableton abusing and using IceCream
• If I end up doing any music it will be with Ableton, but I doubt I will have time

I still cant code worth toffies, but I would love to make some art assets.
Gonna train, perhaps a warm up on the 20th.
I think this should become a thing.

I’ve been looking forward to LD24 since, well, LD23. However, I have within the last week or so developed symptoms of RSI (likely to do with excessive crunching), so it’s looking unlikely that i’ll be in any shape to take part this year

Good luck to everyone who enters!