Hi, I’m new.

I basically have no gamedev experience except opening Unity a couple of times. I rely on my C# skills (I’m a TA in a basic C# course) and Google (hopefully they have all the answers). My tactic is to “keep it simple”. I will probably start with squares and circles…

Beverage of choice will be coffee.

I have been really busy lately and turns out I do have time for a Ludum dare.  I can’t wait till it starts here, I feel like a giddy schoolkid.

I may participate if I’m able over the weekend.

Am not sure what engine/library/framework I’ll be using – I’ll decide that as the theme is announced. Unity probably if I end up making something 3D. Any of a number of various libraries and languages if 2D.

Blender for 3D models if I end up making them. Aseprite for sprites and graphics. BFXR for sound effects. I’m not sure about music. That’s an area where I’m weak and I imagine anything I make will not have it, but I’ll try if possible.

At work we’ll release our new game on Monday 29th… But there is still a lot of stuff to be done and fixed and it’s gonna be super tight.
Tomorrow is the last day we can work on it and make it ready for the release.

If too much stuff goes to sh*t, it might meen that I have to work during the weekend :<

Grr I hope for the best, sicen I can’t wait to participate again, especially now I’m in my new home all settled and ready for a new challenge.

Lets hope we can have fun!

Tags: im in

Custom game engine, Reason and/or Renoise and/or ModPlug and/or Ableton, Aseprite, Tiled, Pyxel

Assuming the theme’s ‘aight

Hi guys!

A week ago I started to design the game. So, can I take part in Ludum Dare Jam with a game that I started creating before the Jam starts? Is it fair to the other participants?

I’m in

Hi everyone!

This will be my first LD. I will be using Unity as an engine and paint.net for art.

Good luck everyone and don’t forget to HAVE FUN!

Hey ! 😀

I’m Mehdi, a french developper and I’m 16. This is my first LD. To start, I’m gonna try the Jam. ^^

I’ll use C++ with SFML.

Good luck to everybody.

Is this thing on? I hope I’m doing this right…

I’m Steve Wilder Blumenthal, I’m a composer! After talking to a couple of friends in the gaming world, it seems that Ludum Dare is a good first step. This will be my first Ludum Dare. I’m looking for a team to join and would love to write music for your game!

https://soundcloud.com/wilderbluemusic/sets/ludum-dare-music-reel-2016

Please feel free to reach me at steveblumusic@gmail.com

First jam. Gonna be using Unity, Blender, Gimp, bxfr and LMMS…

I’m about to participate to my first Ludum Dare.

My Weapons of Choice : C++, SDL2/Opengl, Inkscape/Gimp, bfxr

Can’t wait to see what will everyone come up with

Hey gang!
I’m gonna’ give this one a shot, so let’s see what happens!

Tentatively planning to use Unity, Maya, and whatever else I can get my hands on, but we’ll see where things go!

I’m in for my second time!

Tools I’ll be using:

  Engine: Unity3D
  Graphics: Photoshop
  Music: Bosca Ceoil
  SFX: BXFR

I hope this time i will make my game more polished! Good luck all!
 

Woooooooo

Unity 5

C#

Zbrush

Substance Painter

Garageband

Lightwave

An irresponsible amount of unity extensions.

I am a programmer, a visual artist and a sound designer. I mainly work in 2D engines, but I can also work in Unity if I have to. This time round, I wouldn’t mind working in a team. Just let me know if you want to work with me.

Tags: compo, LD36, Ludum Dare

Once again, after much back and forth, it has been decided: The 006 Cooperative shall participate in the mind-melting crunch once more!

As per usual, Unity for the engine, Blender for modelling, The GIMP and Inkscape for any textures, and a mix of tools for music and audio.  I might shake things up this time, using some Ableton Live alongside Caustic 3 for music.

If “A different kind of combat” or “Don’t kill anything” win the final rounds, I’m liable to grumble a lot, and make something really sarcastic; expect to see me making fun of Undertale and the likes.

We missed the last one back in April, but are ready to go this weekend! Yippee!!

Pretty nervous. I wish everyone luck!

This is my first time participating in the jam, and i am ready for action!

My gear:

• Engine: Unity3D
• Art: Paint.NET
• Music: Bosca Ceoil
• SFX: Bfxr

Good luck to everyone!

Hi,

This is going to be my first Game Jam.

I will be using GameMaker: Studio, Pyxel Edit, BFXR, and AudioTool.

Good luck all!

A free week-end, a Ludum Dare, why not a Compo?

Tools: Flash / Photoshop / sfxr / Bosca Ceoil

I’m in for the Compo for the first time! My weapons of choice are:

• Godot Engine for the overall sorcery
• Inkscape and Krita for graphics
• LMMS and Audacity for music and stuff
• Xmind for designing the whole thing

I”ll be streamming the whole thing at beam.pro come and stalk me 😀

Hey guys! Quick post saying im on and that i will be using. Unity3D and paint. Not paint.net. Paint. Juuuuust paint.

Guess whos taking last place.

Well, no long post since im on phone.

PS: Im twelve, ill do my best

Tags: ldjam

Hi there!

So im Mindrage, i stream programming occationally in the Twitch Creative section.

I’ve tried to participated a bit before in different platforms. but stuff always came in the way for me to finish.
This time i will try to use what is more in my comfort zones instead.

I will be using these tools
SDL2/OpenGL
LodePNG/PicoPNG for loading images.
C++, visual studio 2015
SFXR
PyxelEdit

Wish me luck!

I will be streaming this as well, same name in twitch if someone is interested.

This here is my attempt at making a wallpaper for Ludum Dare 36. The design is based on the cover to the Yes album, Close to the Edge, which I recommend you listen to right now. If you have a computer not at the resolution of this wallpaper, too bad.

I hope you all enjoy!

Me and my pal FredTheDino are entering the jam! We have much less time though because of time-zone problems with school. This is our first Ludum Dare.

• Engine: JamPieEngine (our own, created with C++, SDL2, GLEW, OpenAL, Box2D and lodepng)
• IDE: Visual Studio Community 2015
• Art: Paint.NET
• Music: FL Studio
• SFX: Bfxr

Super ready for LD36

Using C2 and anything else I can find this time

So this is my first ever Ludum Dare!

I’m hoping this will motivate me to finally get a game done.

What I’m planning on using:

• libGDX
• bfxr
• gimp

Hello!

Finally learned JavaScript! Time to test out what I have learned.

JavaScript/HTML5

With Art/Audio to be created by

@Efren_07

Yeyyy, not my first LD but this one I will take it super seriously.

Tools:

• 3D Library: ThreeJS;
• IDE: Atom Editor using TS as coding language;
• Artwork: Blender and Gimp;
• Sound: Don’t know yet :S

Best of luck to all.

First time participating and I am excited!!

Will be using Unity, Maya, Photoshop, and a few audio programs for this weekend!!

Best of luck to all and can not wait to play all of the games here soon!!

using godot, renoise, gimp, and krita! let’s jam!

I’m in! Just <24 hours to go! I am very excited to have a clear schedule for participation this time around, and I am hoping to give it a good shot and have lots of fun.

Given my lack of preparation and experience developing game engines from scratch, I will likely use Unity or GameMaker for development. (Depending on the game idea!)

Tools I enjoy and will likely use includes:

Visual Studio / Atom for code

brfx for sound effects

Photoshop CS6 for sprites / art / ect

GitHub for a repository

I’m not sure what to use for creating music for the game, so I will have to do some research into that before everything kicks off.

Take care of yourselves this weekend, food, sleep, water, movement, ect~ and most of all, HAVE FUN~

24 hours until start …

I’m so freaking nervous, don’t know why … maybe it has to with the fact that I’m completely unprepared. I planned to do the minild, but I have bad habit of playing games instead of creating them.

But I guess that’s what Ludum Dare is about, daring to create a game on a weekend even if you think you couldn’t do it in a year.
So I will do it this time, even if my game ends up being as simple as pong, as ugly as my avatar, as fun as being waterboarded by the CIA,
I will create a game.

I’m in

Looking forward to my second LD, using PICO-8 again for all aspects since I haven’t brushed up on any other tools in the interim.

What is different this time is that I’ll be livestreaming my progress. I’m taking this opportunity to turn it into a charity event to gather donations for the American Red Cross disaster recovery fund to aid those in southern Louisiana, my home state, hit by the massive flooding. You can check out the campaign here.

Good luck, everyone!

<3,
Roe

Pic taken from Gravity Falls

Got an awesome team to work with this year. Looking forward to what we’re going to produce!

This is my second LD, unfortunately, I was sick in during my first one, so I didn’t get much done. Anywho, I’ve been looking forward to this since the end of the last LD! 😀

I’ll be using:

Python

Pygame

MS Paint (ew)

Possibly GIMP depending on the theme.

SFXR

And whatever stuff I can find to do Foley! XD

Excited to try the Jam again and make a game with my kids.  I plan on using this as an opportunity to learn Game Maker Studio and Pyxel Edit and Bfxr, and hopefully have some fun along the way.  

Coding: Java

Graphics: GIMP

Audio: Direct recording + Piano + sfxr

Strategy: Put real effort into designing the concept, and keep it simple!

Last LD I failed because I hated the concept I was working towards and I spent too much time getting an unimportant detail right.  This time I’m gonna stick to things that won’t require so much time to get right, and find an idea I love before getting started.

I thought I’d check the LD website for when the next one is so I can prepare, and it turns out it’s very soon!

The only problem is I haven’t chosen any engine/framework to use. I think I’ll use XNA since I’m most familiar with C#, however I’d love some suggestions! I’m experienced in C# and Java, but I’d like to use something which is able to be published to HTML5/web. If you’re wanting to evangelise your choice, I’d love to hear it

Thanks!

Here we are one more time. Here I am one more time rather, because like last summer I’m facing this Ludum Dare alone. Not a big deal but game will be way less fancy than if I did it with my usual partner ;(. Poorly made sprites and no music will be features of this entry (if I make it).

Negativities aside, I’ll be using the usual equipment. Unity, Gimp and cfxr gonna be there for sure, and maybe something new :).

Oh, before I forget, my partner made a little game for android phones and tablets, check it out!

I’m back for more

Tools will be the same as last time, since I didn’t have time to test a warmup project in that Unity thing. But SURELY next time.

• Haxeflixel for library stuff
• Pixen for spritey stuff
• Bosca Ceoil for musicy stuff
• BFXR for soundy stuff
• IntelliJ IDEA for IDEy stuff
• Red Bull, trail mix, and turkey jerky for snacky stuff

Ludum Dare is super important to me and I’m so happy it’s still happening. Thanks community! (and thanks PoV of course, for continuing to make Ludum Dare better!)

Hello!

This Ludum Dare will be different than any other that I have done before, originaly I was planning on have a fluid 48 hour compo experience. Unfortunately, some plans have arisen and now I’ll be losing most of Saturday to a family “trip” but I am optimistic that I’ll be able to finish the compo, although if I don’t I’ll be finishing the jam and that’s no question!

Tools that I will be using are as follows:

• Unity3D for game engine.
• Visual Studio 2015 Community for IDE.
• Blender (if I do 3D) for 3D art.
• Photoshop CC for advanced 2D art.
• Paint.NET for simple 2D tasks.
• Abundant Music (http://abundant-music.com/) for music generation.
• Bosca Ceoil for music creation.
• BFXR/SFXR for sound effects.
• Voice for sound effects.

And as always I’ll be streaming the whole process live at: http://twitch.tv/galacticglum/ as usual!

Goodluck everyone!

Can’t wait to get started, especially after seeing the final round themes – there really is a lot of good-looking stuff in there this time around. I’m particularly curious to see what Level Changes While Your Playing or especially Plan Then Execute may bring to the table.

Oh, and as for my tools of the trade:

Game Engine: Unity3D
Coding Language / IDE: C# / Visual Studio
Graphics Tools: Paint.NET, Gimp, Inkscape
Audio Tools: Beepbox, Chiptone

That said, good luck to everybody – looking forwards to seeing what the weekend brings!

Tags: im in, LD36, tools

I’ve been in almost every Ludum Dare since 2012.

Rarely finished though. Not because I couldn’t, I’ve just achieved what I wanted with the weekend.

I doubt this time will be no different. My goal is to take a deep dive into Unreal Engine, since come next year we’ll be (maybe) changing Unity to UE at the office for future projects.

So my tools will be:

• Unreal Enging (for learning to use it)
• MagicaVoxel (Since I can’t really model, but I can draw)
• Photoshop
• FamiTracker (or some other program. Depends on the game)
• Excel <3 (Designer’s best friend. I’ll find use for it somehow)
• Anything else that I might need

Here’s a barrel I made. The very first thing I’ve ever created with magicaVoxel, and it’s pretty shit. Plenty of time to learn stuff. Have fun everyone.

I’m in last min post.

Tech I will be using:

Engine: Unity 3D 5

IDE: Visual Studio 2015

Image Editing: Photoshop CC

Audio: Audition/Audacity

Build Script: Cake

CI Server: Team City

Various free tools off this site :).

Base code: https://github.com/wiltaylor/UnityStandardProjectPackage – This is just skeletons for menus, credits etc. I will also put my build scripts in here too later on tonight too.

Other Libs:

This time I am going to play around with 2 extra libs that look interesting.

• Unity3D.IncrementalCompiler – This will let me write unity code in C# 6 which means I get all the nice syntax sugar from Visual Studios 2015.
• Zenject Dependency Injection IOC – This is a IOC container built with Unity in mind. In my day job I am a big fan of Autofac so will see how this goes.

Tags: LD36

We are in, looking forwards to it.  Using a similar custom JS framework from last time, I tweaked and improved the SFX code a little bit.  Strongly contemplating using that component as much as possible (especially until I see how efficient I can make the draw code).

http://gwbloom.com/dev/games/FDZvers/FDZmini-0.7.zip

I just copied this post from last time and edited it.

chrome – debugging and running the javascript game

200 ok – the web server

notepad++ – the editor, would use atom but it keeps on freezing for some reason

inkscape and paint.net – graphics, inkscape for gui and paint.net for actual graphics

musescore, audacity, chiptone – music and sounds

phaser – the game library

canvg – svg gui

javascript-state-machine – might be useful

basejs – error handling, asset loading, modules and a loading screen

pencil and paper – planning and time management

some base code – will become useful for a basis of my code

also, my code will be hosted at https://github.com/aucguy/Ludum-Dare-36 and the final game will (probably) be hosted at https://aucguy.github.io/projects/LD36/view.html, although the warmup is posted there now for testing.

By this point I’ve stayed up too late getting things in order considering I have to get up early tomorrow, so good night.

https://s15.postimg.org/44yy4epdn/ld36wallpaper1.jpg

Me and my mate are from Straya and this is going to be our first game jam!

• Engine/IDE: Gamemaker
• Photoshop CS5 for 2D art.
• Guitar Pro for music creation.
• BFXR for sound effects.
• Voice for sound effects.

Good luck guys! Looking forward to seeing what everyone does. <3

hi! i’m in for a 48 hour compo!

I’ll be using the following:

• code: GameMaker Studio (with Android export)
• music: BFXR (to generate samples) and Schism Tracker (to compose)
• sound: BFXR
• art: Paint Tool SAI and GameMaker Studio’s built-in sprite editor

I’ll be building for Android (and testing using an Android phone) during the competition, and then I’ll port it to Windows after I submit an .apk.

I’ll use GameJolt for distribution.

I am using a codebase for UI purposes. It adds virtual joysticks to a touchscreen device. Here is a link (opens in GameMaker Studio) https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/40870733/mobilestuffs.gmz

alexmugford and I are in for the jam! 😀  This will be our first Ludum Dare!

We’ll be using our own custom C# engine called Dryad that runs on MonoGame and SMEd for level design.

Best of luck to everyone!  Excited to see what everyone comes up with!

This will be our first time taking part in the Ludum Dare. Our tool of choice:

Engines: Gamemaker, Unity

Graphics: Manga Studio 5/ Clip Studio Paint, Pixen, TvPaint, Blender, Crazy Bump

Sound: Milky Tracker, BFXR

I’m going to participate with more 2 or 3 colleagues

We using Unity as engine, Photoshop to asset creation, Audition to sound edition

This is our first jam so, good luck to us! ^^

Tags: #gamedev #ludumdare #gamejam

I use Gamemaker Studio, and I specialize in art.

I’ll be using Gamemaker for programming, Gamemaker’s image editor for art, and Bfxr for sound effects.

This is my first Ludum Dare and I know a lot of people ask if there are some tips and hints but most of what I see involve trying to keep your energy lol. I was more so interested in tips and hints, or small things that improve your games greatly. I’ve been making games for about 5 years and I’m 14. I appreciate your time in reading this and hope to get some responses!

Hey guys, I’ve gathered that this is a contest of sorts for creating games. But I can’t workout where to find the rules! lol..  I read on a different site that you’re supposed to make everything yourself.  does that mean every sound, every model, every animation, etc?    where do I get more information?  all the discussions feel like everybody knows something I don’t and it’s important haha… is there an official rules page?

Hi ,  i’m game designer student and its gonna be my first Game Jam.

I use unity / Adb.audition / LayOut / Xmind ….

Good luck for this 36 Ludum Dare

Hey guys, this will be my third LD Compo. I’m very excited about that. I want to learn some new things. My main goal is to make the original game, which was not done before. Enjoy your time and I look forward to your great ideas. I will use:

Unity
PaintNet
Insolence
possible Blender

My semester just started and I have no homework. This weekend will be great

Greetings everyone,

Just letting you all know, I will be entering a small game this weekend. It will be my first time entering Ludum Dare, so let the fun begin…

Second time!!

As always excited and cant stop think about some nice features.

Best luck and concentration for everyone!!!

Hi from France, I’m in for my fifth Ludum Dare.

I plan to use:
– My SurfaceBook
– Unity 3D 5.4 WebGL
– C# with Visual Studio community 2015
– Blender 3D
– Inkscape with the help of 2dgameartguru.com
– Bfxr + Audacity

Happy weekend to all 😉

Mayday! Mayday!

Something went wrong with my videocard, because it draws weird horizontal lines everywhere on my screen. Some of the best “family pc -doctors” agreed that something might be wrong with the video memory..

Not the best timing, but it wont stop me 😉

Just have to borrow one of my friends gpu for the weekend. Why got the film: Gone in 60 seconds in my mind? 😀 oh Eleanor… we’re gonna have smooth and easy ride… 😀

The title says everything.

I will maybe use:

Engine: Game Maker (I have it installed)
Graphics: GIMP or some other free thing to do pixel art
Sound: Audacity or have no idea!?

Tags: im in, Ludum Dare

First ever LD. It’s going to be fun. Wish me luck!

Hi, everybody,

This is my first Ludum Dare. Looking forward towards the weekend. Let the creative juice flowing!!!

My first Ludum Dare!

I’m so excited and scared at the same time.
But I’m sure it’ll be a great experience for me anyway.

• Unity 5
• Notepad++
• Paint .Net
• 3d Max (maybe)

Good luck everyone!

Will be attending the compo, as usual.
Unity, Visual Studio, Photoshop, Ableton, Audacity, MagicaVoxel, Blender.

i’m in, but i don’t think i will finish the game since i feel horrible.

but its worth a shot.

tools:

• game maker
• bfxr for sound
• game maker has an inbuilt sprite editor that i will use.

so good luck and have fun!

i’m in, but i don’t think i will finish the game since i feel horrible.

but its worth a shot.

tools:

• game maker
• bfxr for sound
• game maker has an inbuilt sprite editor that i will use.

so good luck and have fun!

Time to make a game.
This is my 14th overall and 8th consecutive time entering.
Shame about the lack of ratings but I’m sure we’ll manage without them.

Using Game Maker: Studio, Paint.net, SFXR and anything else that looks convenient.

Good luck, have fun.

really excited for my first LD just like many others haha good luck evryone

My first ever Ludum Dare, very excited!

So I’m in! Entering the jam because I’m moving out on the Sunday so I will lose some hours in the day… Details below:

Art: Paint.net

Audio: I’ll figure it out

Programming Language: C++

Library: SFML (With a little codebase I’ve set up for myself)

Good luck all!

(My voting, you can complain if you wish)

And it’s Unreal. The engine I’m using that is. Also, really hoping for the Alchemy theme.

Have fun daring!

This is misson20000, in for the Ludum Dare 36 compo.

Here’s a demo of my engine, please tell me if it doesn’t work.

My first ludum dare. Don’t know if I will even finish game but really looking forward to try. 😀

Using GameMaker: Studio, Aseprite/Paint.NET, Rytmik/Bfxr/Audacity.

Good luck to everyone and have a nice coding weekend. 😉

Hello Ludumknights! This will be my third attempt at Ludum Dare, though I’ve yet to actually finish one game..but luckily I’ve taken those half-completed games and turned them into full fledged games that I’ve released on Google Play.  Hopefully this being my third attempt I’ll be able to finish the game in time! :p

My Significant Other will be teaming up with me, to not only keep me on schedule and help me finish the game on time, but to also help with writing the story-line and script, record voice work and do concept art and designs of the game, enemies and main characters.

Programs I’ll be using:

• AGK Version II ( programming – OpenGL )
• Truespace 7.6 ( 3d modeler )
• Gimp 2.0 ( 2d art, texture work )
• Wings 3D ( UV unwrapping )
• Blender 2.77 ( normal , AO baking )
• Audacity ( sound recording , mixing )
• WriteMonkey ( story-line, script development )
• Wunderlist ( scheduling, to-do list )

..and here we go! 😛

I made this app for myself to make it easier to stream Ludum Dare Games once the voting begins.  I had a few people ask if they could use it, so I’ve spent the weekend rebuilding it into a more user-friendly version.

How does it work?

The app is fairly straightforward: Upon opening it, you’ll be asked to login to your Twitch account, so it can connect to your channel’s chat.  It will then start reading chat.  Anytime a viewer posts a link to a LD game, it will automatically add it to the queue on the right.  You can drag and drop to move the entries around if you’d like.  The player controls at the bottom allow you to cycle through the games.  The “Play” button will automatically open the current game in your default web browser.

Download

You can download the app for PC, Mac, or Linux here.  Please read the “Other things” section before using.  Thank you for helping me improve the app!

• PC Download
• Mac Download
• Linux Download

Other things

• The bottom “controls” section is not to be shown on stream.  The app resolution is 3:2, but if you only include the top section, it should fit a 16:9 resolution perfectly.
• The green boxes are to be keyed out. The most common streaming applications (OBS, XSplit) have chroma key options that will allow you to easily remove the green, and show the game/camera layer behind it.
• The small green box in the lower right is for a webcam, but it can be hidden in the “settings” panel.
• The app, by default, is set to only accept and open LD36 games.  However, you can easily change this in the “settings” panel.
• The app has only been tested on PC.  Please let me know if you’re able to test it on Mac or Linux.

Feedback

If you try using the app, I would really appreciate your feedback. What features would you like to see added? Is the interface easy to use? What can I improve on?

Also, I did my best to fix all the bugs I could find, but you know how it is… if you find any bugs, please let me know.

Contact

You can contact me on this post, or by email (infernoarchon@gmail.com) with any questions, feedback, or bug reports.  Thanks again for your help! I hope you find the app useful.

Hi guys, Ryan here. The themes for this LD are soooo fresh and original! *mutters* Not like last LD… Shapeshifting? Really?

Anyways, I’m extremely excited to see what games we can create. This time, I’m making my games as a gift to all my friends and a really special girl called Eileen *wink wink*. Here are my voting choices for the themes.

With the preparation of any upcoming event or task comes some anxiety. It is a natural part of our brain’s ability to cope with change and adapt for the future. The problem is our brains often don’t help us distinguish the good anxiety from the bad – it all generally feels the same. Sweaty palms. Lack of focus. Stammered speech. Nerves and anxiety distract us from the reality we’re facing as a means of getting us to recognize the impending thing that we’re anxious about. Nevertheless, this feeling usually brings on more anxiety. Anxiety over being anxious.

In the case of production, anxiety can leave us at a standstill. This creative anxiety, as I call it, is the number one killer for developers participating in Ludum Dare. You can be super prepared and still find that your creative juices aren’t flowing when that theme drops. It may feel different to each of us, and come upon us in different ways – but it is the same mental blockade that our mammalian brain creates. The simple beauty of instinct can often bite us in the ass!

Can we actually overcome this anxiety? I argue that it isn’t about overcoming, so much as it is about channeling it. When we can sit back and try to be cognizant of our anxiety we can gain control over it. Whether it’s the fear of failure, feeling like there’s not enough time, or just feeling unprepared for chaos – these things are meant to give us a certain clairvoyance. The physiological aspect of anxiety is often what bogs us down. The mental aspect can be used as a powerful tool.

I wish it were a simple thing to just channel it. It’s not. Some of us are more prone to anxiety than others and, as mentioned previously, are affected by it in different ways. Now for the motivational part of this blog.

An event like Ludum Dare is daunting. I’m on my 9th Ludum Dare and I wouldn’t even think of telling you any different. This shit is nuts. It’s absolute masochism to put your brain through such a test. That’s the kicker – just putting your mental fortitude through the ringer will embolden you. There is no trick, no life hack to get you through Ludum Dare. Like our good friend Shia LaBeouf says you just have to “Do it.”

Now, not everyone has perseverance, you say? This is true. Some of us crack under the pressure – I’ve done so 4 out of the last 8 times I’ve done this. But I keep coming back for more. The same must be true for you in the small sense. Keep coming back for more. Don’t stop. Keep grinding. You may not finish. You may feel like you failed. In the words of a fortune cookie I so coincidentally received yesterday:

Failure is the tuition you pay for success.

Failure is not an end – it is a beginning. It is how we learn and adapt. Is that not what anxiety is for, as well? Does anxiety not teach us about failure? Anxiety often emphasizes failure and for all the right reasons. We, in a society that thrives on success both individual and collective, have done ourselves a disservice by linking failure with meritocratic grading systems and negative connotations. Failure is learning.

Your Ludum Dare experience – even if you get it done – will be filled with micro-failures. You will hit walls. You will feel like you’re coming up short. Just keep these things in mind and you can and will persevere:

1. Your time is finite
2. Your task, whilst seemingly insurmountable, is actually quite simple – only you will allow your anxiety to complicate it
3. This contest is about mental fortitude – not perfection, not popularity
4. Fail fast, learn faster
5. Fail some more
6. Have fun!

The last thing that is worth noting is managing all this in some sort of process, right? Outside of trying to mobilize your mind around acceptance and flexibility, there are procedures that can help. They won’t work for everyone – and often don’t work for me. Some of us have a hard time staying on top of things without notes, lists, and so on. If this is you – leverage these things. But bear in mind that you don’t want to resort to micro-managing. At this level, anxiety is dictating you. Every last detail is not important and trying to account for all of them will push your mind to deeper anxiety, an anxiety you can’t channel.

If you can take away one thing, let it be this: we are defined by our success, but our success is defined by our failures. Do not be afraid to have to settle for less – this is a good failure that promotes a higher level of reasoning with the tasks you have in front of you. Do not convince yourself that the art, the code, or the music is not ‘perfect’ or even ‘ideal’ – and by whose standards? Your task with Ludum Dare is to make a game in 48 or 72 hours – just make the game!

Good luck to all the participants! Only 9 hours until we get this puppy rolling!

Tags: anxiety, creative process, motivation

Tried to compete in the jam for LD35 but never even got far enough to submit anything.

I’m sure I’ll be biting off more than I can chew, but I am entering the compo this time. Will be doing everything from scratch in Javascript.

Graphics will be done in Paint.NET. Sounds and music (if I even get to that point) will probably be nothing more than me making noises with my voice and recording it on my phone or some ancient microphone I got with my first Soundblaster card.

Let the good times roll!

God, I’m so tired, I’ll take this weekend to res… Wait, what? LD is today? Well… Sleep is for the weak anyway, I guess….

Once again I’ve been too busy to try to learn new things for this LD, so I guess I’ll just freestyle this time!

I’ve been working on an engine for LD for a little while but unfortunately it won’t be done by the start of LD so it looks like I’ll be using MonoGame as always 😀

Good luck everyone

Tags: LD #36

Hey! I’ll be entering again for LD36. It’s a long weekend in the UK and I’ve got a few plans already .. so may end up submitting to the Jam rather than the Compo.. let’s see.

Here’s what I’m planning to use:

• Language: Java
• Game Framework: Katsu (my personal 2D tile-based game framework based on LibGDX)
• Level editing: Tiled
• GFX: The GIMP
• SFX/Music: Ableton Live, OpenMPT, Audacity, SFXR, Yamaha DGX640C

Good luck everyone and have fun!

Hoping for Inconvenient super powers to be voted most.

College has begun again, and between juggling a part-time job and full-time college while volunteering on a student games project, I haven’t had the time to prepare with Phaser as intended. On top of that, I’ll be having family over this weekend to visit, so the weekend won’t be free.

I likely won’t participate this time, but I’m determined to catch the next one. Meanwhile, I’ll put the time to continue working on a micro HTML5 engine for the js13kGames jam.

Good luck everyone, and have fun!

I am in for this ludum dare, I will be using unity as my game engine programming in C#.  I have been doing ludum dare since ludum dare since ludum dare #34 and I love it!

Looking forward to the grand theme reveal!

This time I’ll be participating in a small team as an artist and use, well, a wacom, MediBang Paint Pro (to which I’m so attached) and Gimp. No high and lofty ambitions, just aiming to have fun and putting something small (and hopefully playable) out there!

Love and hugs to everyone,

Millefey

Tags: LD #36

I plan to use:

– BABYLON.js
– Blender
– Photoshop
– LMMS + midi keyboard (music)
– Audacity + mic (sounds)

Just a very short post to see if I still remembered how to write a post on LD.

This is hopefully my 3rd LD now! I wanted to do LD last August too, but this place got too hot. Hopefully this place wont get too hot tomorrow, and I have prepared lots of iced water bottles just in case…

Anyway, my tools will probably be (depends on the theme too):

• notepad++ (writing code)
• javascript
• gimp (images)
• irfanview (for post editing images)
• (maybe) autotracker
• and (maybe) some soundfx tool i haven’t found yet.

I’m really looking forward to do this LD!

PS. If your game needs some plays then you can find me on IRC after the LD jam has finished.

Last minute, but I’m able to make it!

Aaaaaaannnd: We are in!

In contrast to my solo entry in April, this time I will start with a team of friends. I will be accompanied by @Thunraz and xXBloodyOrange. For even more fun, I invited @KayZGames, but he will work on his own entry.

The tools:

HaxeFlixel
FlashDevelop
Aseprite
Cubase

This will be an awesome LD (I really like the themes in the final round) and I am looking forward to play and ‘feedback-friend’ your games after the event! Good luck to everyone!

Laguna

My body is ready….

Super excited for this Ludum Dare! There are lot’s of pretty good themes to vote on, so fingers crossed.

I’ll be going at this one solo for the compo this time around. Last time around we did a small team and made a game called IGEO, which we’ve been working on getting ready for an Early Access release in September. You can play the current LD35 version at: https://thoughtreactor.itch.io/igeo.

For this LD, I’m going to use the following tools:

• Unity3D or Construct 2 (depends on the idea and whether I want to do 2D or 3D)
• Photoshop CC
• FL Studio 12
• Bfxr
• OBS for recording timelapse

I’m working on a cool motivational blog for my website, but I’ll share it here as well once I have it done. Until then, good luck to my fellow jammers! Get HYPE.

Myself and my two daughters are in for the jam. I participated in the compos for LD30, LD31, and LD32, but this time they begged to be part of it

We’ll be using Unity.

Open Source projects we will most likely use:
Planet Unity
PUMarkdown
PUTMPro
laurette

PAST COMPO ENTRIES
LD32: The Fast and the Frankfurter
http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-32/?action=preview&uid=39742
LD31: MAN vs TWITCH
http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-31/?action=preview&uid=39742
LD30: Schizm
http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-30/?action=preview&uid=39742

I am in!

This is my second Ludum Dare and i am really excited~

~Tools~

Unity with c#

Paint.net

LMMS