Tags: motivation

Okay, so like I said in my previosu post, I wanted to post a link to the “framework” that I’ll be using this weekend.  So without further ado, I present: the Ghetto Game Engine. This has just been my attempt to get a general purpose “engine” together, but since I haven’t exactly been winning to the fight in search of free time, this hasn’t progressed too terribly far.  That said, I plan on using it this weekend, and I’ve posted the source for all who want to see and possibly attempt to use it this weekend.  Warning: it’s very terse right now.

Speaking of what I’ll be using this weekend, I figured while everyone else is doing it, I’ll post my own list of tools and tech!  Everybody loves lists, right?

TECH SIDE

Language: Python (version 2.6)
Libraries: Right now just pyglet 1.1.3, might look into pulling Rabbyt in as well
Platform: I’m working on my Macbook, but since it’s Python, I’m hoping to easily put it on Windows as well.  I just need to figure out how to use py2exe and py2app
Version Control: Subversion.

ARTSY SIDE

Graphic Software: Photoshop CS4 w/ Wacom Intuos tablet (there is no WAY I’m going to try to draw things with a track pad or mouse)
Sound Software: I’ve got VMWare loaded on my Macbook for the sole purpose of running Sound Forge for mashing up sound effects.  If need be, I can go out with my field recorder and take some samples, then contort the crap out of them in Sound Forge.  That said, I might be wanting to check out this sfxr program people keep talking about.
Music Software: If I’m actually lucky to get to a point where I can try and make some music, I think I’m just going to hook up a Casio keyboard the recorder and mash something cheesy out.  I have a copy of Cubase from when I took digital music classes back in college that I can use for sequencing, but I want to make sure I have some gameplay done before worrying about the music (and sound for that matter).

Yeah, aside from all that, I really got nothing.  Looking forward to the competition, and best of luck to all that do participate!

Hey competitioneers I’m going to PARTICIPATE.

I’ll most likely be using Flash (using either APE or Flixel + Flan depending on the game idea), although there are a couple themes where I’d want 3D and would choose Unity. Going with those because they’re cross-platform and web-based which means GOOD TIMES FOR MORE PEOPLE.  I’ll be using Milkytracker to make my sounds and music.  Photoshop for the artsing.  This is my first time laughing in the face of God.

Also I love every one of you.

Tags: skelethulu announces participation in ludum dare

Woot, another compo…

I’ve just finished building a small framework, derived from my last one…

Amazing features:

– D3D9 initialization
– 2d graphics system (sprites and camera system)
– Texture manager (for resource cleanup, etc)
– 3d system (FFP based, lights, meshes, camera)
– 3ds reader (in case I want to go 3d this time, since I model much better than I draw)
– Application/Screen document model

And that’s it, I think…

You can download it and use it at will: http://clientes.netvisao.pt/~dandrade/Framework_LD15.rar

Going to use the same tools as always: VC2008, D3D9, sfxr, Photoshop, 3d Studio, Chronolapse for the timelapse video… Still don’t know what I’ll use for the music, but I’ll think of something…

Hope the theme is a bit better than “Advancing Wall of Doom”… They seem better this time, actually… except for zombies, which I kind of think limits what you can do… at least in 48 hours…

Anyway, good luck everyone, have fun and catch you in some hours!

I’m so excited!

Tags: motivation

This is my first Ludum Dare, but I’ve competed in smaller ones before.

Main language will be Ruby, since it’s just so sweet. OpenGL  2D gfx with Gosu (http://libgosu.org).

Gosu is available for Ruby and C++. Good stuff.

On top of that I’ve worked on my own framework this summer called Chingu ( http://github.com/ippa/chingu/tree/master ) which builds on Gosu.

Chingu adds game states, easier input handling, animation, text and particle classes and a bunch of other useful stuff.

Graphics: Inkscape and probably TileStudio ( http://tilestudio.sourceforge.net ) for pixelart / animations.
Music: Reaper ( http://www.reaper.fm ) – amazing DAW. And a bunch of VSTs on top of that.
Soundeffects: most likely http://www.freesound.org/

I have no idea why I got doublespaces between some words. Tried editing with both latest firefox and latest IE and it behaved the same way :p.

Hey! I just found out about this today, and I figure ‘why not?’

So I’ll be entering with Löve as the engine, and misc programs like the gimp for visual content.. I can probably play with audacity to make some brutal sound effects as I need them.

Since I hear we’re allowed to use some existing content as long as we share it beforehand and it contains no gamelogic, here’s my generalized poorly written GUI setup made in Love.

EDIT: won’t let me upload to the post for no reason.. I’ll upload it elsewhere and link to it I guess http://www.mediafire.com/file/yez1mluwykt/GUI.zip

EDIT 8/22/10: Updating slightly

I’ll likely be using a global leaderboard with my Flash game entry like last Ludum Dare because it can be really fun to encourage competition with fellow LDers on your game. I remember a few Flash devs being curious about the process so I wanted to post a brief step by step tutorial for those of you who want to take the plunge this weekend. If you are using AS3 I’ll also be hanging in the IRC channel and am happy to answer any tech issues you may have if you choose to implement these.

Without further ado — 10 Steps to Global Leaderboards:

1. Login or create a new account over at MochiMedia.
2. Once you are logged into your ‘Dashboard’ click the tab called ‘Add Game’.
3. Fill out the ‘title’ and the ‘dimensions’ of your game. For the purposes of LD15 you don’t have to worry about using ‘Live Updates’ (their distributed version control system) so you can leave it on ‘No’ if you’d like. Click the submit button.
4. At the next screen you can totally skip all these settings and hit the ‘Done’ button at the bottom if you’d like. Why? Well that is because all the settings on this page are related to using advertisements in your game which you probably don’t want to do for the purposes of LD15. Ads aren’t required at all to use their global leaderboards.
5. Once you’ve clicked done you will see your game’s title in the game list on this screen. It should have a little ‘pause’ icon next to it. Don’t worry, this doesn’t matter. Click on the title of your game.
6. Once you’ve clicked on the title of your game click the ‘Scores’ option to setup your highscores.
7. You will see a little info about the leaderboards but the important part is to click the ‘Create Leaderboard’ button at the bottom.
8. On the ‘Create Leaderboard’ screen enter the title for your leaderboard (ex: “Highscores” etc), optional description, and then any scoring format/sort data. Fairly self explanatory. If you are using a traditional ‘high scores = better’ then the defaults will probably be fine for you. One thing you may want to mess with is the color / transparent and formatting options near the bottom as that will let you configure the leaderboard widget to match your game’s color theme. I often do ‘transparent’ so that my game background will show through when this is displayed. You can edit this later as well. Click ‘Create Leaderboard’ again at the bottom to generate yours. (NOTE: I always click transparent and it resets to background.. you have to re-edit again and hit transparent and re-save for that option to stick.)
9. Your leaderboard should be created now and you will be looking at a screen displaying it. The link now that you want to click on is called ‘actionscript code’. A bunch of fields will appear along with 2 radio buttons. One for AS2 and one for AS3. Pick the appropriate technology for your game. Also note your ‘game ID’ and ‘leaderboard ID’ as you will need these later.
10. You can use these provided code snippets in tabs labeled ‘submit score’, ‘submit score and name’ and ‘show leaderboard’ to get the relevant editable code snippets to drop in that will connect your game to your leaderboards.

Can’t wait for the theme!

Tags: as2, as3, competition, flash, highscores, leaderboards, mochimedia, tutorial

Tags: motivation

Ladies and gentlemen, girls and boys, this — is Ludum Dare 15.  The big one-five.  And talk about big.

We have many many new things to share with you today, so read this post carefully.

New website look and Avatars

You’re seeing it right now.  A shiny new theme to compliment the shiny new version of WordPress.  And after some web hackery, we also have Avatars (i.e. gravitars).

To set your little picture, you need to sign up at www.gravatar.com.  Gravatars follow you around on all the wordpress blogs you post on, by hashing your e-mail address.  So all you should need to do is sign up at both sites (ludumdare.com/compo, and gravatar.com) using the same e-mail address.  Easy.

New Submission System

We have a brand new submission system.  Gone are the days of “Final” tags and confusing image upload problems (that I usually end up fixing).  Now we have a lovely brand new streamlined entry submission system put together by everyone’s favorite philhassey, Mr. Phil Hassey.  When you’re ready to submit your entry, hit this page.

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-15/

Again, that’s no more final tags!  Hooray!

NOTE: The submission system hosts images, but not downloads.  If you need help hosting your entry, ask in IRC or make a comment/post requesting help.

NOTE2: Please only create an entry once you have a download ready.  You are not required to declare your intent to enter.  Just show up, sign up, and submit once you’re done.

Keynote Address

That’s right.  What better way to say Ludum Dare 15 is a big deal than to say it in recorded digital video.  So without further ado, check out the Ludum Dare 15 keynote address with Mike Hommel (hamumu).

Voting Categories

We’ve gone ahead and refined the voting categories for the competition.  They are as follows.

Innovation – How interesting, original or unique an entry is.
Fun – Unique yes, but is it actually enjoyable?
Theme – Good, clever, or interesting uses of the theme.
Graphics – Is it pretty?
Audio – Does it sound nice?
Humor – Does the game amuse you. The concept, the presentation, etc.
Overall – Do you love it?
Community – Journaling, sharing workspace photos, meal photos, motivational posters, recorded a timelapse video, etc.  How well did they tastefully go above and beyond to participate, as well as tell and show you what they did?

Coolness (i.e. Voting) – This isn’t actually a category you’re voted on.  Rather, it reflects how well you voted on entries during the voting phase.  People that play and vote for 25%, 50%, and 75%+ of the entries get awarded bronze, silver and gold icon medals in the coolness category.

More Stuff

You can join us in IRC.  #ludumdare on irc.afternet.org.  You should be able to find more than a few people to answer your questions there throughout the weekend.

We have some common tags for types of posts. deskphoto for pictures of where you work. foodphoto for pictures of your meals. motivation for silly motivational posters you decide to make. timelapse for timelapse videos. Try to use those so people can more easily browse them.

Seth (mrfun) fixed the World Map (*cough*… that I broke).  You can  see where people around the world are entering from, and add yourself.  In addition, we collect humorous quotes from IRC throughout competitions and the off time.  We’re adults, so some of the things said may not be suitable for minors.  Those you can check out here.

We do mini Ludum Dare competitions in the off months.  Veterans take a month, pick a weekend, and provide a theme.  Check back regularly to catch the latest Mini LD.

And if you’d like to stay informed of future events, we have a mailing list.

From all of us at Ludum Dare, good luck!

– Mike Kasprzak (PoV)

Tags: keynote

So long as I don’t get called in to work over the weekend (big work project currently in the submission process…), and as long as the theme isn’t Evolution (lol, I’ve been voting that one down for years, still don’t have any half-decent ideas for it!), then it looks like I’m in

Just got a shiny new PC upgrade, too – a Geforce 275, an SSD, running the Win7 RC…  so expect some brute-force GPU abuse – I think I’m mostly set up ready for some gamedev…  got a reasonable supply of caffiene and snacks…

Planning to use the same little DX9 base code that I used for my last LD entry – no fancy 3D model support, but it handles all the initialisation stuff, texture loading, 2D blitting/fonts, vector/matrix classes (which I had fun discovering a few arkward bugs in during my last LD48…), and very basic shader loading

Ahoy! It’s my first official Ludum Dare and I hope to try and make something exciting for this!

Depending on the theme I fancy doing some homebrew development for the Nintendo DS. I spent today re-reading the libnds documentation (I haven’t used it in about a year, it’s changed a bit), building Lua for the ARM and putting together a special makefile to auto-generate a NitroFS folder. You can download it here.

Good luck everyone!

dont forget to check on this one !!

http://www.ludumdare.com/wiki/purity

wow this should be part of the profile LOL 😛

This is the first time I will join the competition. My personal arsenal for this battle includes:

• Unity3d – The game engine.
• Blender – For 3d modeling and animation.
• Gimp – For image processing.
• Inkscape – To create vetorial graphics.
• Wave Raiser ( or sfxr ) – To create sound effects.
• Melody Raiser ( or musagi? ) – To make midi melodies.
• CamStudio – For screen recording.
• AudaCity – Sound Editor.
• A Genius G-Pen 4500 to draw.
• A cam to take real photos.
• A mic to whatever.

I don’t know yet what’s the theme for this ludum dare, the ludum dare 15, but I’m looking forward to know. My next post on my blog will be about my experiences with this competition and, I hope, I will show the game I developed.

Genius G-Pen 4500

Tags: tools

This entry was posted on Friday, August 28th, 2009 at 5:56 pm and is filed under LD #15 - Caverns - 2009. 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, I’ll be participating this weekend, and I’ll be using a new library/framework I’ve been working on during the summer called dokidoki. It’s a collection of lua modules which provide utilities useful for game development, and some native C modules which interface with glfw, opengl, portaudio, etc. The idea is that you have a binary which runs init.lua in the current directory, which implements the game.

Source code for the binary parts

Compiled version for linux x86 (includes the lua parts of dokidoki)

Some examples (copy them into the binary directory and rename any of them to init.lua):

The windows binary isn’t ready to release yet, but I’ll be working on that sometime this weekend (or more likely Monday).

First of all, get on IRC to chat during the compo! Great for wasting time and panicking! Our channel is at irc://irc.afternet.org/ludumdare (#ludumdare on afternet.org).

Second of all, it’s a tradition to make a timelapse of you building your game. For this process, (If you’re on windows) I’d strongly suggest Chronolapse, built by community member Keeyai, available at: http://keeyai.com/projects-and-releases/chronolapse/

Timelapses are fun and cool. You want to be fun and cool too!

This is my first LD and I must say I am quite excited about it.

Tools:

Game Creation: Either LÖVE or Novashell (just found LÖVE today and it looks very interesting)

Graphics: GIMP, Paint .NET, Inkscape

Sound: sfxr and Audacity

Here’s my last minute framework code addition.  Oh, and I’m in for this compo!  If I can, I’m going to do an iPhone game in 48 hours.  If not, maybe I’ll fallback to pygame or something.  But I’ll hopefully have a win32 release of my iPhone game for people to check out, since the iPhone version won’t be available for like 2 weeks after the compo.

-Phil – www.galcon.com

This entry was posted on Friday, August 28th, 2009 at 6:33 pm and is filed under LD #15 - Caverns - 2009. 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.

This is how the office looks in my new apartment, and this will serve as my workspace this weekend. Look, there’s even a plant! (although, I gotta admit, it’s plastic)

Tags: deskphoto, workspace

Here’s my super late declaration of entry! 😛 Count me in! I’m sure you guys remember my fail project for the Roads theme last year, with Chuck Norris knocking cars off the road. Right? Right?… I guess not! Well, hopefully we can get a theme voted for where I won’t have to go with a cliche, run-into-the-ground joke. Wishing you all luck, and I will *try* to document food intake 😛