Hi everyone. I have no idea what I’ll use yet, so here’s the usual list of tools/languages I might use or not :

• FlashPunk
• Haxe / NME (have to try HaxePunk)
• Gimp
• Inkscape
• Pickle
• Bfxr
• Audacity

I’m ready for this LD #25 !

Excelsior JET devs are running a promo till December 31, you can get a Java-to-native compiler for pocket change:

http://www.excelsior-usa.com/jetcharity.html

Hi there,

well I’m around since a while now I think, following each LD with a lots of excitement without actually never participating ;(

So I have not yet prepared myself, and don’ t have any expectations, but at least this time I want to  be part of it

Coding: javascript/HTML5 (melonJS)

Graphics:  OGA / Photoshop or something

Music:  Garageband  ?

SFX:  SFXR/BFXR

Well that’s it for now, definitely looking forward for the final voting this friday, and good luck to everyone,

Let’s have fun!

Olivier.

Hi. As the title says. I want some quick theme suggestions for an over night practice!

I’ll start streaming 8:30-9(in about an hour) @ www.twitch.tv/skyllartor

Can’t think of a better title… :/

I’m in! Gonna be joining the compo this time. Haven’t made anything for the past few weeks because of switching computers and stuff so I gotta get ready and learn how to do things again… anyways, I’ll be using these things:

Engine: Unity (C#)
IDE: MonoDevelop
Audio: BFXR, Audacity, Sunvox?, WolframTones?, January?
Graphics: Ragepixel
Misc: BMFont, Chronolapse, CamStudio, VirtualDubMod, Dropbox

Tags: deskphoto

Hello! We are team of two: @devolonter and @AhNinniah. And we are very excited to take part in Ludum Dare 25!

What we will be using this time:

Graphics & Animation

— Inkscape

— GIMP

— Anime Studio Pro 9

Sounds & Music

— Guitar Pro

— sfxr

— Garage Band

— Audacity

Language

— Monkey (monkeycoder.co.nz)

Framework

— Flixel for Monkey (devolonter.github.com/flixel-monkey)

We took part in Warmup Weekend as well! Here is our small game, created in 36 hours —  view entry

We wish everyone good luck and to have fun!

Tags: deskphoto

With finals coming up, might not be the best game but maybe I’ll try

Most of my game dev experience is with iOS. Largely because I’d like to share my Ludum entry with all of y’all, I’ve been looking into using a cross-platform framework. Suggestions?

I’ve looked into Unity, Game Maker, Game Salad, Stencyl. Unity is the big dog in this area, but I find myself a little overwhelmed by it. That doesn’t mean I can’t tackle it, but so far, it hasn’t really clicked. I started looking Antares Universe, Playmaker and uScript for Unity, but haven’t gotten very far. I’m on a mac; and looks like GameMaker for mac is stuck a version behind windows, so I’ll probably skip that.

Any suggestions?

Thanks!

All right!  After totally dropping out of LD24 because of other stuff going on in my life, I’m back for LD25!  And I’ve got a friend with me this time 😀

Me (@ddrkirbyisq) and @angelinthe are planning on doing the jam this time around.

Tools:

-Either Flixel (which I used last time around), or FlashPunk (which I still haven’t tried).

-I wasn’t really too happy with DAME last time around, so hopefully I find a tile editor that I like more before LD starts, in case we decide to do something tile-based…

-FL Studio for music, or possibly FamiTracker, or both!

-Labchirp for sfx.

-GIMP for pixel art.

Since we’re doing the jam, it’s probably going to be a little harder to differentiate ourselves…but I’m still determined on making a game that:

-Has awesome music
-Is pretty polished up
-Has awesome music
-Is small but fun
-Did I mention awesome music?

Of course, I’m going to create the entire soundtrack myself during the 72 hours, just like I did for Gulliver.  Woo!

I’m coming into Ludum Dare 25 with rusty programming skills and limited knowledge. This post outlines what I’ve done in the distant past, how I fell out of programming for a while, and what I’ve been doing recently/where I am at now.

At the bottom is my bulleted list of where I stand (or think I do) in programming capabilities (in terms of hardware, software, and know-how). It kinda includes notes-to-self on things to try and figure out this week. Any suggestions/tips you guys might have on that would be much appreciated. xD

My Personal Programming History

A long time ago, when I was in high school, I started learning to program. I had already taught myself HTML, JavaScript, and some CSS — then in its early stages — in middle school and early high school. My school district offered vocational classes ranging from Auto Repair to Cosmology to Computer Science to all high school students at a location fairly centralized in the city. I signed up for the CompSci class, and spent the mornings of my senior year learning first A+ certification material and then programming, with C/C++ as the language of instruction.

I was set on making video games for a living. I didn’t choose my college very well, being a first generation college attendee influenced by unrequited love, but I lucked out and got into what I still feel was a good Computer Science program. However, as I started trying to keep up with news in and about the industry, I started seeing horror stories about how employees were treated, particularly at big companies. In decided to be prudent* and changed majors from Computer Science (which is, of course, useless if you’re not going to make video games) to Japanese Studies (which was and still is interesting, but also brings to mind the delightful opening song from Avenue Q, “What Do You Do with a BA in English?”).

And so it was that I just kinda stopped programming for a while. If we fast forward several years — like, eight — we come to last spring.

*Oh, the foolishness of youth.

Forget Prudent, I Love Games

It was the middle of my first year of teaching English in Japan via the JET Program, and I was already looking ahead towards the end of my tenure. I had already extended my contract to last until August 2013, but I had signed that contract extension about a week before the SOPA issue exploded and I found myself wondering if I should stay the maximum five years I’d originally planned on or go back to the USA and try my hand at activism. Eventually I realized that I would make a terrible activist, but aside from that, many of my English-teaching friends had chosen not to recontract, and several of them had been accepted to graduate school in the fall. I realized that I needed to figure out what I planned to do after JET. If I decided to do something that needed more higher education, I wasn’t going to make the same mistakes I made the first time around. Besides, graduate school applications have to be in really early.

So I soul searched and researched. Did I want to teach at the primary/secondary school level back in the States? No. At the university level? That would be awesome, but after a lot of consideration, I threw that one out, too. I considered a few other things but discarded them, too, before realizing that I really love games (not just video games), more than anything else, and that is where I should direct my efforts. In looking for ways to take all my years of Japanese studyies and put them to use in relation to gaming, I went through a process which can be summed up as follows:

• Consider video game translation.
• Research… Oh hey, game localization looks way more awesome than translation, and my programming experience should help.
• I have to have translation experience first? Hmm…
• Talk to translator I know: I have to have a second degree to be a translator?!
• If I’m gonna get a second degree, why not finish the computer science degree I already started?
• If I’m gonna do that, why not make video games like I originally planned?
• If I’m going to do that, why not teach myself to program again and just build a portfolio to try to get jobs with and/or be an indie?
• Alright, back to Plan A (from high school — making video games) it is, then.

And Now. . .

Now I’m working on the whole teaching myself to program thing. I’ve been learning Python and brushing up on my computational thinking with a little help from MOOCs. I’m starting to feel like I have a good platform to start working on more advanced things.

I learned about Ludum Dare, and by extension the existence of game jams, right before Ludum Dare 24 happened. I was unable to participate at the time due to complete inability to make anything. Now, my toolset is limited but extant, and in spite of my disadvantages (including the time difference pushing the end of Ludum Dare halfway into my workday on Monday), I am gonna do my damnedest to produce something. If I have to, it’ll be a text adventure which can only run in the Python IDLE, but by God, I will make something.

My Situation and Limitations, with Thoughts

My primary computer is a Mac laptop.

• I do own a Windows 7 laptop.
• However, I bought the Mac because the old laptop was severely in need of replacing and/or a Windows reinstall.
• Said reinstall hasn’t happened yet because I decided this was the perfect chance to learn to install and use Linux (dual-boot), but I’ve been busy with work, studying, League of Legends, and Borderlands 2.

The only programming language I’m really familiar with at the moment is Python.

• Thankfully, there are libraries out there designed for game development in Python, such as Pygame and Renpy. I need to look more into what they can do.
• Otherwise, the only graphical stuff I know how to do is scipy/numpy plots.
• If I didn’t think that would overly complicate things, I would try to do all my graphics as plots. It does sound fun.
• The games I’ve played that were made with Renpy were visual novels, but I read somewhere that it’s also designed for simulation games.
• I need to figure out how to compile in Python so I can distribute my game. xD

I don’t know how to make games in HTML 5 or Flash at all.

• Though a couple of nice people have already pledged to play the game in Python.
• This seems like a very supportive community. <3

I could theoretically use C/C++ even though I’m rusty, but I don’t really know how to use XCode.

• I don’t have a C/C++ compiler installed on the Windows laptop, either.
• I don’t have a personal library of code built up.

Well, this will be my first time entering Ludum Dare.  To be honest, I’ve never actually finished a game, so I’m not sure I’ll be able to do it in 2-3 days…  but I’m definitely gonna try.  I gotta say, I’m kind of excited.

The tools I’m going to be using:

Framework: libGDX
IDE: IntelliJ IDEA
Audio: Ableton Live
Graphics: Photoshop

This will be my first attempt.

Will be using:
Language/IDE: Java / NetBeans
Libraries: My own collection of classes I always use (can be found here and here) and depending on the theme, maybe LWJGL and JBox2D
Graphics: Inkscape and Paint.NET
Sound: sfxr, sound isn’t my favorite part while game development

Unfortunately I couldn’t enter #24, but I’m here to redeem myself for #25.

I’ve been rockin’ the C# for a while now so I’ll probably use that. I may also get scared and fall back to trusty old C/C++

The gimp will be preparing my art.

Sfxr, Audio Sauna and Audacity will do the sound.

If I stick with C#, I’ll use OpenTK, otherwise I’ll fall back to what I used last time, which is the Angel2D / C++ combo.

Angel2D is actually a pretty cool little engine that is specifically designed for game jams. It has Lua scripting, basic AI pathing and Box2D physics built in ready to go. For any C++ers out there that are not sure where to start, give it a look at http://code.google.com/p/angel-engine/

It supports Windows, Linux, OSX, iOS and has support Xbox360 controllers.

Anyway, good luck everyone, hope you all produce something you will be proud of.

Hello Everyone! I’m entering as a solo sadly, plus im still in school AND I am now in exam period so I am seriously thinking whether I will be able to finish it by time….

Anyway, I will be using the following tools for my compo 😀

Graphics

– PAINT/PAINT.NET (YES, I AM A REALLY SUCKY ARTIST)

Sounds

— There won’t be much.

Language

—  C#

Framework

— XNA Game Studio

Engine: Construct Classic
Audio: BFXR/SFXR
Graphics: Paint.NET, Photoshop, Gimp

Animation: Spriter

Hi there!

I’m in again and I hope to finish in time this time :-p

I’ll use :

• Stencyl
• Paint.NET
• Pickle
• sfxr
• FL studio
• Audacity

Good luck to all!

Well, since everyone else is writing about it, I guess I will too.

This time 2 of Ion Programming’s members will represent the team (of 3, lol) and enter LD25! Since our first entry didn’t go so well (didn’t finish level design…), we thought we would have another crack at a Ludum Dare jam.

We will enter the jam using:

• Java
• Eclipse IDE
• Paint.NET
• Ableton Live
• Multiple Free VST’s

We might live-stream parts of it at Twitch TV

Good luck all!!!

I’ve cleared the whole weekend, i’ve got my tools in place, and i’m raring to go.

As per usual, I will be using Javascript, and my tools will be Notepad++, Chrome and Gimp.

Tags: motivation

Still using C# but this time I’m trying out MonoGame! Had a little play with it and the only problem I’ve really found is that semi-transparencies in pngs didn’t work. Turns out I needed premultiplied alphas. This is where my next tool change comes in! Using PixelFormer (http://www.qualibyte.com/pixelformer/) instead of GIMP (for the most part) will allow me to straight away export with premultiplied alphas and so far the editor seems perfect for my pixel art needs. Haven’t decided on music yet but I’ll probably do some magic combination of TS404, SFXR, and Musagi as per my usual. Visual Studio is my development environment and after game has been complete in Windows I shall be compiling for Linux.

In terms of libraries, I’ve already stated the use of MonoGame. I’ll probably end up using a modified version of my A* and maze generation stuff at https://github.com/xSmallDeadGuyx/C-AStar if required (e.g. RTS, top-down shooters etc). Probably gonna try for something less gutsy like a platformer, since my RTS at LD23 turned out absolutely HORRIBLY. The worst part is, that RTS was also part of a school project and I may have failed it 😛

Good Luck everyone, feel free to nick stuff from my github, and have fun!