We will team up with gyhyom to do the 25th jam. We are really excited to deal with the beast. You can track the outsourced code we prepare at https://github.com/delahee/. Many of our libs are already open sourced in the Haxe environment.

Gyhyom is graphic designer and I am programmer, we both work at Motion-Twin.

See ya !

Another short update.

Finaly i’ve finished logo design (hate working on logos). I’m not fully happy with result but it will do for now. Comments appreciated!

Along side logo I’ve created microsite at anitower.eu with subscribe form (more will come).

In addition I’ve started working on main game menus (very minimalistic/lazy style):

What’s planned for upcoming week of work ?
I need to “code up” those screens. I’ve already finished writting simple UI page management. Nothing fancy but will make my life a little easier.

Also if time allows I would like to design simple tutorial page and inbetween map screen, showing score and gained skills/experience.

That’s all, see ya next week!

I’m back for another go.

Last time (LD24) I made the game “The Gift/Curse of Evolution”, which was okay, but didn’t recieve enough votes

This time, I will do a few things different:

1) Use my better basecode including GUI code. (Will upload after cleanup)
2) Post more updates as I go
3) Have more time because school will be over
4) Play more games to get better Coolness
5) Attempt to get some sound effects? (highly unlikely as I have never done it before
6) Make a game with more action (Roguelike movement is LAME)

I will be using:

Language Java
Libraries LWJGL, My Basecode
Tools Eclipse, Paint.NET, (bfxr?)
Food Whatever I can find

While slaughtering themes for a few minutes, I found a few of mine, and some interesting ones too:

(Mine)
Potatoes
Hats
Guardian
Warrior
Explosions

(Interesting)
Apocalypse Kittens (upvoted =D)
(Something else that I forgot but was quite funny)

This “I’m in” post will be the first of many. REMEMBER ME AS THE ONE WHO BEGAN THE AVALANCHE! (It would be really awkward if noone else put an I’m in post up. Really really awkward)

This entry was posted on Monday, December 3rd, 2012 at 1:54 am and is filed under LD #25. 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.

So, after a jam entry that wasn’t completed on time last time, for the 25th LD I’m doing the compo once more.

I hope my past experiences will help me scope my idea correctly this time, but we’ll see…

As for my weapons of choice, well, it’s basically the same as always :

-Python, along with Panda3D or Pyglet
-Blender, Gimp, …
-Various instruments for music (if I have time)

I’m trying to keep my head clear of ideas until the last friday, when I’m probably going to do the same as last time, and quickly jot down 3 ideas for each theme up for voting on friday. Just to have something to start from at the start of the compo.

Good luck everyone!

Hi all,

Not long to go now before LD25. No doubt you are planning what tech to use and making sure that you are well-versed in your chosen tools so you can hit the ground running next weekend.

Will and I have been working on PlayCanvas for the last two years and we think we’ve got a really great tool for making HTML5 games.

We want you to be able to use it to make your Ludum Dare games, so we’ve got 30 spots in the Closed Beta available for LDers who email support@playcanvas.com with “Ludum Dare” in the subject line.

PlayCanvas is a browser-based game development environment, so you can build 3D browser games, collaboratively and publish really quickly onto the web. Ideal for people who want to push HTML5 games that bit further but maybe don’t want to write the WebGL themselves. Will has done all the hard maths so we don’t have to

You can check out what was possible 6-12 months ago in our previous LD entries:

Tiny World – This one went pretty smoothly, we integrated Box2D and the extra day for the Jam gave us a chance to add a little extra polish. I spent the first day battling matrix maths though, which thanks to our new Entity library I (and you!) won’t have to this time.

Alone – Fittingly, I entered the solo contest for this one on my own. It was really early days with the Designer tool and pretty painful. Also, clearly, I’m no artist But still we learned a lot.

This time I hope to avoid all the “bit short” comments which both previous entries received.

So, if you are interested in making an HTML5 game, but you don’t want to do all the low-level stuff yourself, or you fancy having a functional 3D art pipeline for Blender, Maya or Max up and running in advance, or you want a level editor tool or you want the guy who wrote the library on email support over the weekend, or you just want to drop us an email and tell us what you think, get in touch!

Dave – PlayCanvas

After a long 4 months, the Hack-a-Jam is back, and starting in 4 days!

To join, you must create an account in the Posting section of the website, and then start posting! Note: All posts have been deleted since the last Hack-a-Jam, so that is why only I have posts there.

The Hack-a-Jam is a regular game development competition/jam where you must create a game within a set amount of time. However, it is not like any other gaming competition/jam. In the Hack-a-Jam, there is an infinite amount of winning categories, and no overall winner. While winners still must have superb games to win, there are no set winning categories, and there will always be multiple winners. Also, the theme will be voted on by the community, after they are submitted in the forums (Posting section) under the topic Theme Posting, in the Rules and Announcements forum.

To prove how unique the winning categories are, these are previous winning categories and other possible categories:

Most Psychedelic Visuals
Most Deaf People After Hearing The Game
Most Angry Bongos Involved
Most Rage-free
Most rage-induced
Most Suggestive Content Without Crossing The Line
Shortest Functional Game
Most Random and/or Annoying Sound When Picking Things Up
Most Things On Screen Without Lag or Crash

Like most game development competitions, there are rules, however, the rules here are more laid back and simple:

1. All game content must be created within the set time. Note: You can use other music, placeholder graphics, etc. as long as you are allowed to!
2. Your game is not required to follow the theme, but would greatly improve your chances of winning. Unless almost every other game is not following the theme, it is almost guaranteed that your game won’t win anything.
3. You must work alone, and you must create everything included in the game.
4. All game creation tools are permitted, such as GameMaker, Photoshop, Flash, Paint, etc.
5. All game extensions/DLLs are permitted. If you want to make it multiplayer (if you are using GameMaker), go ahead and use 39dll.

What do the winners get?

The winners will have the opportunity to post a message on the Hack-a-Jam website itself, whether it be something random and funny, like “I LOVE banana chicken pancakes”, or an advertisement such as “Play my new game TODAY!”. The winners will also get badges to show off to their friends and the gaming community.

The official 4th Hack-a-Jam starts in four days (on Friday), so ready up for a double game jam week (if you are joining to Ludum Dare too)!

Tags: boons, cogex games, Hack-A-Jam, HJ, Ludum Dare, terrified virus games

Hey folks. Since myself and Phil have started making our GDC plans, we thought it’d be a good idea to encourage you all to do the same. To get things started, you should let everyone know in the comments below if you’re planning to attend.

I know a bunch of us have become GDC regulars, so feel free to ask questions. When I have time, I’ll start assembling a mini-faq up here in the post.

We (Ludum Dare) are planning to have a gathering again this year. We haven’t reserved anything yet, but it will probably be GDC Monday GDC Wednesday, and probably at the same venue (Tad’s Steaks). I do regret Tad’s does not have a vegetarian menu, but the venue is just too perfect otherwise (food court style, come as you please, and a full large room we can reserve away from all the other customers).

GDC 2013 and San Francisco Mini FAQ

Q: What pass should I get?
A: The Independent Games Summit pass is certainly the best bargain, but quantities are limited. You should order it ASAP, ’cause it’s getting close to when they ran out last year. It gets you in to the Indie Game Summit on Monday and Tuesday, the Expo Hall, the GDC Play hall, as well as all Sponsored talks Wednesday to Friday. I want to highlight the last one. Sponsored sessions are your talks by NVidia, Autodesk, Unity, and whatnot. Depending on what you do, there may still be content for you after Tuesday.

If you miss the Indie pass, I actually recommend waiting a bit. Around Xmas, the GDConf people send out a coupon. That coupon is typically good for $50 off the Summits pass, or (I think) $100 of the main pass. Go sign up for their newsletter if you like saving money.

Q: Cheap travel?
A: Most of us are arriving by airplane. I don’t have much advice there, other than booking before your flight fills up.

Once you arrive in the airport (SFO), I highly recommend taking the Bart train.

http://www.bart.gov/stations/index.aspx

For about $9 (one way), you can take the train from the airport to Powell St, which is just a few blocks from Moscone.

Q: Food?
A: I’m a big fan of the Food Emporium on the bottom level of the Westfield Mall. It’s a food court, but an amazing one at that. You can eat pretty much anything for about $10, even Steak.

Something I discovered recently is The Food Trucks (another link). As the name suggests, a variety of trucks park themselves at various locations around San Francisco, and at least last year they had a great spot just a block from Moscone. You can find some really wild stuff here, such as a Korean Beef Burito (Koreto). And there’s different trucks each day. Also about $10.

Q: Hotel?
A: This is the main reason I started this post. I highly recommend splitting a hotel room with someone. Many hotels offer a “2 double beds” option for practically no more money. So with that, you can literally pay half price for your hotel if you share. Plus, you have someone to chat with in the evenings after all the chaos. The GDC website has been pretty good lately for hotel bookings.

Another alternative is the Hostel. Bunking with a bunch of other developers is a really cheap way to sleep. (hey can someone give me links and details for hostel(s?). I’ve never stayed there).

Oh and if you snore, there are these. Your fellow indie thanks you.

Hello chaps,

I will apologize in advance for the frequent articles on version updates, but that’s good right? New versions mean new features. New features  result in more power. More power let’s you win LudumDare.

Yes, I want you to use LevelUp in the next compo! And to make sure this tool gives you the most freedom possible and runs as stable as you’d expect, i need your feedback.

Let me know of any weird stuff, crashes, bugs, annoyances, missing features and everything that catches your attention!

Here’s today’s changelog:

• Interface overhaul
• Restructuring
• Skins
• Collapsable project and tool panels
• Variable tile size (at last)
• Autoreload tileset when it’s been modified

And this is what it looks like after the interface overhaul:

You can check the homepage for more details or download it directly.

Next version will provide a couple more tools, so look forward to that 😀

Enjoy the tinkering

wzl

Howdy, Ludum Dare people! I’m an indie developer and I’ve been working on an opensource 2D game engine for a few years now called The Frank Engine. After being in the industry for over 10 years and working on so called “triple a” games with crippling iteration times and garbage code I decided to build my own dream engine from scratch in C++. One of the biggest problems with mainstream games is they focus too much on the final result and not enough on whether development process itself is fun. I wrote my engine so I could have more fun developing games in my spare time while also making faster progress. My philosophy is that a clean system with fast iteration is the key to having a fun process, and if the process is fun then chances are final result will be too.

It has some cool features like an integrated level editor, streaming worlds, dynamic lighting, Box2d physics, sub frame interpolation, a debug console, ogg vorbis music etc. So far it has been used for 3 Ludum Dare comps and several other projects. Probably the biggest project so far is “Faster Blaster” a Metroid/Blaster Master mashup. I plan to use it for Ludum Dare 25 and you can too if you want. Feel free to copy parts of it an use them in your own engine like my half life style debug console, it’s all fully open source!   Here are some links where you can get more info and video…

• Frank Engine page on my website
• Download the Frank Engine Demo
• Frank Engine on SourceForge

Tags: deferred lighting, game engine, open source

It’s been a year since my first LD. And now I enter once more to show what I’ve learned!

I wasn’t coding for a while, so I don’t thing I’ll be able to make something great right now. So I’m going to take part in warmup and Hack-a-Jam.

Tools:

• Coding: PhYard builder
• Graphics: GIMP/Paint
• Mucis: Guitar Pro 6
• Timelapse: Chronolapse

I’m going to keep (maintain? lead?) a very detailed journal. Let’s see if I’ll do what I planned.

So after not being able to participate in last years compo, I am definitely in this year. I will also be attending a real life meet-up for the second time at the Shaker Launch House. Well here’s going to be my tools of the trade this year:

Language: C# or Java

IDE:  Eclipse if Java, MonoDevelop if C#

Engine/Library: Unity3d if C#, LWJGL if Java

Graphics: Photoshop CS3

Sound: Sfxr

Music: Pxtone

I will also be live streaming again this year at http://www.twitch.tv/thejeremystark so if any one wants to come check it out, I would love it!

Found out about Ludum earlier this year and I have finally decided to try my hand at it. I will be doing the Jam along with two of my roommates. Here is what we are going to try and use:

Language: C#

Engine/Library: XNA 4.0

Graphics: GIMP or Paint.net

Music: Pro Logic Studio

Roles will be broken down as such:

Me: Graphics and features coding

Roommate 1: Groundwork and features

Roommate 2: Sound, music, and possibly features. More than likely will also handle timelapse and other community things.

Really looking forward to next week. Its going to be a great way to end finals week!

Hey people, I am in desperate need of help. I really want to do the Ludum dare 25 game design challenge, first time also, but am only a game designer with lowly skills in regard to programing and artistry. Is there anyone who would team up with me to do this event if possible? As long as you speak English and can program/ do decent art work that is all i ask. This is for anyone, but most directed to people who are like me, in an area where no one really wants to do anything with making games, but You desire to pursue it as a career! please comment or hit me up any way possible and I shall respond in kind. I will check daily for any results thank you!

This will be my third ludumdare and i am really looking forward to it. I think i will go more casual this time and actually get some sleep. I’ll be using Unity!

Good luck everyone, and may the force be with you!

Hello everyone!

           We’re just announcing that we’re coming back for our third Ludum Game Jam. We are again returning as a team of two. We were really hoping that between the last jam and now we would be able to get some more practice in an open/cross platform language. It is likely that, we will stick with C# and XNA 4.0 again, as university kept us quite busy this semester.

Our Tools:

Programming: (Possibly) C# with XNA 4.0
Art: Paint.Net
Sound: Audacity, possibly wolfram tones.

We hope to continue improving for each competition, so let’s hope #3 can make it a pattern. Either way, we love the feedback we get every time, and are happy we have time to compete again.

As always, best of luck to everyone else for Ludum Dare 25.

Hopefully I’ll be able to jam with a buddy on twitter. But probably not. So. I was wondering if anybody who’s wanted to jam before would like to make a  Jam team with me?

I will be using:

Flixel (flashdevelop)

GrahpicsGale/Gimp

Sfxr(bfxr)

Fruity Loops

I really want to participate, but it’s going to be a tight fit to be able to jam in that weekend.

If I manage it, my tools are going to be:

Coding: Flashpunk (FlashDevelop)

Art: Good old paint.net

Music: Bfxr, or record the sound from my voice, that ought to be fun!

-Or at least have fun trying.

I need to be more active here! I look forward to every LD comp but only participated in 2 and completed only 1. Obviously I know what I want to be doing: making quick games that are fulfilling to play no matter what length of the game.

Regardless if I have work, I’m going to take some time out and participate. Experience only comes with practice!

ALSO, I’m moving onto mobile gaming. HTML5 and Javascript is more appealing to me everyday. Though my muse is C++ and Java, those are only one of many programming languages all with pros and cons. They’re just tools. The tools I need for quick game-making need to be quick! It’s a principal! 

Rounds of confidence boosting are on me: YOU’RE ALL BEAUTIFUL AND SMART.

For those who have even more insecurities: GOD YOU’RE AWESOME I WISH I COULD BE LIKE YOU.

Now get out there and start warming up. Times a tickin’!

Taking a break from working on rendering extremely large worlds and ready for the jam!

We’re going to be a team roaming around San Francisco in various locations, consisting of mostly programmers. Any artists who want to join in, please leave a comment in this post.

Looking forward,

Florian