I’ve finished my LD22 entry: I Want To Be Alone
I’ve uploaded a windows binary and a python source package, unfortunatley I don’t have a Mac so mac users will have to wrestle with OSX’s built in python interperter, which I hear has some problems.
Anyways, my game’s page is here:
http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-22/?action=preview&uid=7106
Go here to play the game!
I had every intention of submitting something for LD22, but as often works out I’m usually busy on weekends and this one was no different. So I’m bowing out. I might get something done for the jam, but we’ll see.
I got done almost everything I wanted, except for music. I had to leave out a few items, but it doesn’t matter
Check it out: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-22/?action=rate&uid=3733
I’ll post a timelapse and postmortem sometime later.
Tags: easter-egg, kitten-challenge
Well, it could have been better but all things considered it came out alright. I had issues today that really set me back so there isn’t any sound. Oh well, I learned a lot this weekend and thats good enough for me.
I’ve finished my game. Its called the necropolis and you can play it here: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-22/?action=preview&uid=4963 . I’ve had a hard time thinking of how to make the theme work with the mechanic since the theme can almost be justified by all games out there. Its not as polished as I want it to be and I took off a lot of features that could balance the game out(personally I think that its too hard). I’m just crossing my fingers right now hoping that the game plays and that there are not too many bugs.
Yeah, it’s done.
Enjoy the 5 or so minutes of ambiant, semi-randomized gameplay here : http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-22/?action=preview&uid=1561
Let me know what you think ^-^
Because what would a game be without a shotgun?
My game has been finished, and the above is its title. Sadly, my entry post got rid of the spaces so the title looks really ugly…oh well. Learned a lot and had fun. Check out my game: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-22/?action=preview&uid=7245
The theme was Kittens, right? No? It was alone?
Thats ok. This is the quest for one kitten to be left alone, from all the people who hate kittens.
This is KITTENS the great.
It’s a RPG/board game. A bit on the simple side. I didn’t add as much flair (such as rolling dice, animated battles) as I wanted, but it’s OK I guess.
My Game is Finished. It’s sort of an adventure game with moody music. It’s about a village of people being murdered. Fun right? Let me know what you think.
Go play it here: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-22/?action=preview&uid=7269
I finally finished the game, after my third attempt. This one only took me about 10 hours but i feel really great about it! Here is the Entry page. Now i can relax and look through other games.
Looks like my game will be more appropriate for that whole Jam thing. It’s been a great experience so far.
I’ve just submitted Super Square Zombie Killer as my entry.
Super Square is spawned into a very strange and dangerous world. There are no other sentient squares, only square eating zombies! Thankfully Square comes packing heat!
It was probably about 24 hours work altogether, spread evenly over Saturday and Sunday. I tried to get plenty of sleep but stayed up a bit later than I had planned on Saturday.
Development went smoothly but there are some features I would have liked to put in the game, but due to lack of time I decided to leave them out. Zombies just mindlessly try to move towards the player when they’re within a certain distance or have been alerted. It would be better if they would only start attacking when there is a line of sight between a zombie and the player. Another thing I thought might be add to the game is a fog of war type thing, where you can only see a certain distance around the player and you cannot see through walls.
Lua was great for quick programming and hacking in unplanned features. This was my second time using the love library. It’s pretty good for this type of development, but it’s a bit buggy and its version of Box2D is quite outdated now. Overall I’m pleased with it.
Here’s a list of the tech I used:
Lonely Tower A game about leaving behind A young man is captured in a tower. Seeing the door is shut, he decides to climb the tower to the top, in hope to find the switch. On his journey he gets helped by some young girls who are also captured in this gigantic tower. Lonely Tower is not only about being alone. It's about leaving behind, and the consequences of that. ____________________________________________________ Hi everyone! I started saturday 7:30 with my game, and at 1:00 am monday I was done. I've only slept 7 hours between those times, wich isn't really special or something, but just to let you guys know. The first half hour I was looking for an idea, and I'm not sure how I got this idea, but I was thinking about working together, where you have to leave someone behind. Yes, there are bugs in this game. Some big bugs. But there just wasn't enough time. I learned a lot of this Ludum Dare. A lot about programming, about planning. I really enjoyed the community and was talking on the IRC chat half of the time. People there gave me the motivation to go on, when I was about to quit. The most important things I wanted to improve were the level features, and the amount of levels. Right now the game isn't really long, but I hope it can amuse you for 5 minutes or longer. For everyone who has found the secret kitten: Awesome! Please send me a message or write a comment about that you found it. But please don't spoil where you found it! Thanks. Everyone: Thanks for playing this, thanks for reading this, thanks for making Ludum Dare such a great community. I love you guys. Greetings, Daniel Haazen / Sheep
Tell me your order
http://dumplinginn.menutoeat.com/
Live stream at
http://www.livestream.com/dormousedev
Game alpha at
http://thomasle.info/ld22/
I think I have to admit my defeat.
My goal was to learn node.js, write an asynchronous multiplayer game server and html5 client all in under 48 hours, including sleep, partying and eating.
So with 90 minutes left on the deadline I have a user/session/login mechanism that sort of doesn’t work, it seems to have a few bugs that I couldn’t track down yet.
My game made you strand on an island. Every player is alone on his island, but they are in the same ocean and can see each other on the map. The map worked, placing the islands worked too.
Then you can send an exploding “bomb in a bottle” in some direction and hopefully make a boom on the island of a neighbour. Except for the exposion part this also worked. I had a basic synchronisation mechanism going so the server would update the bottles every second and push them out to the client, the client would then try and keep up to date in beween the server messages. That worked quite nicely. But I am running into difficulties with having more than one user. I have no idea how to dig into these bugs so I decided to give up – 90 Minutes is not enough to squash at least 10 really show-stopping bugs and setup a live deployment of a web framework I have never deployed yet.
Maybe next time it will work better. Maybe I will write an HTML5 game without a server component. Node.js is really fascinating, and javascript is quite nice for asynchronous stuff.
Until next time… Bye 😉
Done! It is 1:30 Am here in Berlin and it is time to get the bed!
frank is here and it is lost!
Well, I finished. 😀 EpiCat is submitted.
You can play it here, now with sounds (but no music)! http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-22/?action=preview&uid=5267
That’s right, no music. Maybe in the “Super Special Gold Platinum Diamond Plutonium Director’s Cut” edition 😉
So I left coding the game’s “undo” stuff until the very last minute, which was probably a pretty horrible idea, and the game will SUCK without being able to undo… Gonna see if I can squeeze it out in time!
Just submitted my entry to the compo challenge! Was a rough time the last hours, and I had to cut out some features to get it done in time. Still, I’m pretty happy with the result being my first timer and all! I managed to squeeze in a lot of pixels and some sound as well! The game needs something more to get it’s fun factor up, but I can’t change that now, it’s a game nevertheless! 
Anyway, here’s a screen shot of the title screen to round off this edition of LD48 for my part!
http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-22/?action=preview&uid=8409
Final entry:
http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-22/?action=preview&uid=8618Thanks for the event.
http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-22/?action=preview&uid=7112
Or just go straight to the game if you want http://ld22-ashton.heroku.com/
This is the most complete game I’ve ever worked on, and sure – it has wrinkles around the edges, but it is my game – I made it and I’m dead chuffed with how far I managed to push it.
It has MUSIC, it has SOUNDS, it has GRAPHICS, it has a PLOT, it has a KITTEN.
The Kitten holds the key, will you find the kitten?
Time-lapse coming soon, just as soon as I work out how to make it.
Time lapse here!
Ah, finished! Well, as much as I can. The graphics are…extremely lacking, there are no cutscene animations, but I figured those were things I could let go, so it’s okay.
Explanation of story
Anyways, the story of the game. It’s kind of ridiculous – Duke is this guy, a super Davement fan – so he goes back to 1990 to snag their demos, but gets stuck. He also has an anxiety disorder so needs to stay on meds at all times (12 second intervals, actually). The whole anxiety thing came from a dream. Personally, I’d be anxious/distraught at first if I was stuck in 1990…I’ve asked other friends how they’d feel, answers range from “I’d be okay.” to “Whatever.”
So I guess that’s the premise of “alone”. Sort of forced, admittedly, but hey. Made for an element of being rushed, and it was something I could manage to do in 48 hours, so I’m fine.
Anyways, he decides to go beat up the members of Davement by breaking into their houses at night while they’re sleeping, and force them to join *his* band. And during the day, Duke runs around his house (which always changes…), collecting notes, which, uh, for some reason, makes Davement’s future hit singles!
Right…
design
The basis of the game ended up being racing against the clock, eh, overdone, but doable for now. I didn’t really have time to code other special types of tiles (in fact I had to code the coordinates of the collectibles by hand…oops, going to learn how to avoid doing that…).
The “anxiety meter” fills, as it fills more, a out-of-tune..tune…starts to play, the screen darkens, until you fail (in which an undone “you lose!” screen pops up, and you turn into a black rectangle), or you get an anxiety medication – which fixes everything!…for 12 seconds.
Right, so there’s that – on the note-collecting stages, since my resources were limited…I tried to make an element (at least on the last two stages) of trade-offs in time/difficulty – players can go for all the notes, but it takes longer time, so losing has a greater penalty in that respect – and of course there is less room for error (although admittedly the game isn’t very hard.)
And the cutscenes, well, they devolve, I could not particularly get in the mood to make them very witty or whatever. The ending doesn’t even have music! It’s a screen! That’s it…I added some variance on the ending dialogue based on how you did, from the “Ditchpork” review society…but that’s not even very funny. But, ah, that’s okay.
Graphics
…more or less, the spriting was a disaster, as the tiling. Never realized how long it takes to tile a good map, once you get the tileset drawn! Definitely something that should be simpler and still look okay next time…
There is no animation in the musical notes, and they look like crap. The pills “rotate” albeit at 6 FPS, and look terrible. The animation of the character is embarrassing, but, ah, that’s okay.
I’m satisfied with the background, though! Those are fun to draw.
Music
I ended up not writing as much music as I though for this. Just this cutscene bossa nova thing (which is basically the most cliched chord progression, with a tacked on melody), and this…chill triangle-wave stage theme. I wanted of course, an ending theme, different stage themes, but I am too tired! Ah. So i guess I’m okay with the music. Making the note sounds was fun (did it in pxtone, cut up into 5 mp3s). As is the “ambiance” for when you grow close to losing!
Challenges?
Well, time management, for one. And drawing. have to practice more at that.
As far as programming…everything ended up sort of straightforward. As much as I dislike coding in windows, the Flashdevelop IDE really is quite useful and much faster than what I was using this time (vim on ubuntu). I also had a crappy debugger for linux (just trace statements, oops), which became a pain in the ass every now and then where I’d leave a string set to null or something.
I guess the tough thing with programming is, of course, organization…i.e., setting up the attributes of certain objects, etc. Flixel is nice, but everything really *does* seem to end up global. Ah. I suppose I “copped out” with the programming aspect, in terms of challenging things to code! But I wanted to play it relatively safe for my first time, so, yes.
———
All in all, I’m glad to have done this, and have some sort of finished product!
so…I’m done with the art.
Trying to make some music and sound in the remaining time. oh god
http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-22/?action=preview&uid=4313
I feel so good
This is my first ever attempt at LD and I actually finished. Even though I wanted to do a lot more, I feel incredibly accomplished I got to submit anything at all. Especially because this was my 2nd game Ive ever made and my only game Ive ever finished!!
Namrog84
I figured out why I wasn’t getting sound from Firefox, it’s because I was missing the MIME type on my Nginx server. Got that straightened and found out that the game works great in Internet Explorer 9 also. So I went ahead and coded sound compatibility for all the major browsers. IE9 uses MP3 files for the audio and Chrome, Firefox, and Opera are all using the OGG files. Hopefully, I can get the game cleaned up even more over the holidays. But for now I think it’s great.
As I expected, this was a total catastrophe. I wasted 40+ hours in making multiple prototypes but didn’t get anywhere. My motivation was lost and I had no real ideas left. So I made (after doublechecking the rules) a masturbation game. Yepp masturbation game, and a bad one too. But no real loss. I’ll return next time for a real attempt on a more serious game.
Yap out.
http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-22/?action=preview&uid=7497
It’s not going to get finished in an hour.
This is not, however, the normal “Truck didn’t get it done” crap.
I got quite a bit accomplished; I actually CAN finish this into a game, and will be doing so in the coming days. Now, true, tommorrow I have the show, but after that I probably will get into this and work on it more.
I have accomplished a math thing that I had previously not done. In fact, it’s – well, the most complex math I’ve ever done. The last time I did something like this, it was in perl, 10+ years ago, and it took far longer.
I have fixed some issues with my work area. He**, I _have_ a work area now. I really do.
I probably ate better this weekend than I usally do. (I had breakfasts and fruit. That’s not normal.)
I didn’t have a beer, tho I had 20. This confirms that, even though I may have wanted one, I still have the ability to say “no, not now.” This means I do not have a serious drinking issue. I just have to watch myself, and I still can.
I have a clear layout of things to do, and much documentation.
I know what to work on next – or, well, I know what I probably will work on next. It’s client/server interface stuff. And maybe I’ll do some stuff with the canvas tag (:
This has been a _really_ good thing to do, and I’ve also seen some really cool stuff others have worked on. I’ve learned a lot. It’s good to be coding on stuff again.
I might even have managed to do a bit of defeating of the traditional “oh I just spent 8 hours daydreaming about the project and stuff surrounding it and now I have to sleep and I haven’t done anything” and I managed to spend limited time on irc, despite having the internet.
And, I think I’ll use ‘drone’ as the background music in future when doing coding, it works well. I’ll switch back to scenesat in a few minutes.
There are some things I should fix in the workflow – but I _can_ now that I have synergy working! W007.
◊ so I’m happy. I’m not FINISHED. But I will be.
Thanks, Ludum Dare (:
Next round, I’ll finish (: Or I’ll jam, we’ll see (:
Hi guys,
This is my fourth LD48… and I finished!!!!
In the Ruins of R’lyeh
This is my first time using Lua+Love2D
My entry is here
Regarding the theme. When I think of “Alone” + Video games and inmediately think about “Alone in the Dark” (the original one not the new one), an incredible horror video game. Alone in the Dark is based in HP Lovecraft’s mythos so I decided to make a video game about Cthulhu (One of the most important gods of the mythos) who is trapped in the ruins of the underwater city of R’lyeh. I can’t imagine someone more alone
Good luck to all participants.
My entry. That’s it. I’m out.
My theme interpretation is a bit flimsy, but you are alone in a city full of zombies. If you manage to escape, you won’t be alone anymore. That’s it. Give it a go, it’s fun at first then it gets a bit boring. I estimate an 1 hour long game on average. If you do get lost consider using the map I provided in the entry notes.
There’s also the soundtrack with 3 half minute to minute long tracks. Feel free to do whatever you want with it.
I just submitted my totally unfinished text adventure. I just simply ran out of time to implement the story I had planned out. Bit of a pity.
I’m currently working on the windows port.
Tags: link, submitted, unfinished
Remember, boys and girls; bugs can be fun!
Sigh, this time I’m probably in the worst shape in any game compo I’ve attended. Yeah, I got working old school dungeon, with monsters, doors, buttons, crates and teleports… but I kinda don’t have time to do any levels (also sound is completely missing)…
I’ll probably finish it tomorrow and put it as a jam entry, there’s probably no point uploading it as it is :/
Wasn’t sure if I was going to make it, but Abandoned was completed in time. Feels pretty good to get this game wrapped up and submitted!
Alone. On an abandoned space station. No where to go.
You play as a little guy stuck on an abandoned space station, with a grappling hook as your only companion. You can give it a play over on the submission page!
16This entry was posted on Sunday, December 18th, 2011 at 10:58 pm and is filed under LD #22. 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.
Tags: timelapse
So, we haven’t come that far in our Ludum Dare entry. But we still have a whole day to try and finish it, as we are entering the Jam which lasts 72 hours. There is actually a lot of programming still to be done, and all the core features of the game aren’t yet implemented. But we won’t cut stuff out of the design; we will attempt to get it done by tomorrow, and if we fail – well, we got something useful out of Ludum Dare. A game design. And we can continue working on it and polishing it, then release it as a proper game.
NOTE: The screenshot above is stretched by WordPress or the LD site. It isn’t actually like that.
David,
Timster Studios – Director of Development.
First off I’d like to say hi; I never really made a post saying ‘I’m in’. This is my first LD.
Well, I’ve finished. There are still a few things that I would prefer to sort more thorougly, but that would take more time than what I’ve got left. I have to say that my art skills really let me down here – but I suppose that’s to be expected in 48 hours.
Another thing that irked me was that I couldn’t figure out how to distribute the game; something which completely slipped my mind when preparing for it. Instead all I’ve managed to do is package up the source code and an XNA disributable. Still, t’s been fun to do, even if I hardly had any clue what I was doing. Looking forward to seeing what everyone else has done.
I failed… I am out.
What was my idea?
Quite simple it was suppose to be a turn based RPG, about this guy who has a long weekend and wants to spend it by himself, a series of events happen where his alone time gets interrupted. He then goes out on a quest to find a nice quite spot where no one will talk to him. The turn based battle system is turn based conversation where when you randomly encounter people who want to talk to you, you have attacks like “witty retort”, “blank stare”, and “random fact”. Your heath is measured in Will to Live, and your opponents have interest meters. When they lose interest they walk away. You can also run from the conversation but some people can block that like Police Officers, Jehovah’s Witness, Homeless Guy. I had a simple campaign mapped out that should have taken the user about 30 minutes to beat.
What I got done?
A complete sprite, a map system, and input manager, no battle system. Less than half of the code I needed and less than 20% of the graphics needed, 0% of the sounds, and about 50% of the text I needed (flavor text for attacks, and the basic dialog not finalized).
So what did I learn from this?
Make sure you have to software you plan to use installed on your computer, I recently did a reinstall of my OS and I didn’t actually install a lot of the software I thought I did, for instance I had C# 2010 installed instead of C++ 2010, so there is one hour gone installing and updating.
Make sure your alarm clock is set to work properly, I slept too long on Friday night, bye bye 9 hours.
Make sure you are familiar with the libraries you are using, I ran into this last time to, last time I thought it would be great to learn SDL only to learn I hate SDL but I trudged through it finished my game mostly. This time I went back to what I know GLUT I used freeGLUT just for the sake of Open Source but still nothing new to learn but new features if I feel the need. The problem is that this time I had to use some other library to use load textures, something I didn’t look-up before the time started. After a few searches I found devIL which seemed promising because of how similar the syntax is to openGL and the ability to load a file directly into openGL without having to write a helper function. The problem is these functions kept giving me a texture name of zero, I even rewrote the function using simple syntax, I still kept getting the same error codes “extension not found”, file could not be opened. ~2-3 hours of searching later I found out I linked the Unicode version of the library instead of the ANSI. After that I got a good 5 hours of programming in and managed to display a partial test map for my game.
Make sure you don’t have anything else planned for the same time as this compo, I had planned to celebrate both my Dad’s return to the country and his birthday, so all the family was in town so it was an unavoidable yet lovely time sink. 5 hours gone there.
Then for the next 4 hours before sleep I got everything drawing and updating properly with my key press manager in place, also got some simple tile sheets working. Got to bed at a reasonably late time, and work up at a manageable 8am.Had myself a great breakfast eggs, toast, and sausage. Sat at my computer and immediately realize how much work I had to get done in the next 14 hours, after putting in about 2 hours of work I realize that I was not as productive as I needed to be to complete this so I got distracted 12 hours in.
First thought I would think of a simpler idea that I could use my code with, I drew a blank. I had a few ideas that made me to mental gymnastics to fit with the theme. Single player pong, asteroids clones where you had to shoot all asteroids except for pink heart shaped ones. Just plain bad ideas! So I admitted defeat, gave up and watch the new episode of Chuck that aired one hour in to the contest. 6 hours later I wrote this post.
I don’t know if this last part could be a message for me not to lose focus, but ultimately if I had been prepared I would never have been to the point where I felt like I ran out of time, family obligations or otherwise.
But in good news I convinced one of my friends to compete as well and he is on his way to get a game posted in time.
I’ll get you next time Ludum Dare… next time
I finally submitted my project for all to cringe at… Barring any major flaws, that’s the final version.
I’m embarrassed. I was new to java, and came across a few large roadblocks. I consider it a success in that there’s some nifty stuff going on in the background, but I doubt the final product is particularly fun to play.
Let me know if it is, however!
Quick edits and now Brains!!! got a windows icon and an executable icon.
http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-22/?action=preview&uid=8754 <- check it out!
Yay!
I’ve finished 13 levels, including the rather epic end boss battle.
Download it here: click me.
Also, I have included kittens! But I won’t tell you how to summon them; that is up to you to find out. =3
I’ll probably do some extra playtesting and all, but other than that, I am ready to submit!
Could use all the extra eyes on it I can get!
Well considering I started real coding when there was only 12-15hrs left I’ve done plenty of stuff:
– GLSL shaders
– main avatar
– physics
I’ve made up a couple of ideas and I will complete at least one in a couple of days. Here’s a little teaser of graphics:
OK. My first game jam, my first Ludum Dare. I got something finished, even if it’s not really a game. But it’s kind of fun and I learned a lot.
Some things I’ll do differently next time:
Now looking forward to play some of your games!
Not Alone have now hit the submitted zone.
It’s 2am here so I’m a bit tired. Tired but happy. Even if I haven’t done what I’ve planned, I’m submitting a full game.
There is a simple plot, there is character, there is pussy and kitty, and lot of bad guys.
I hope you’ll like it. I’ve loved to do it.
Even these crappy game over screen.
ps: I’m proud of these crappy game over screen. Be proud of your games, of your silly mechanics, of your dumb graphics, of you storyless plot. That’s what you have done, and other may have not.
Tags: postmortem
Whoohoo! After some play testing and adding a few bonuses I’m done and the game is posted.
It kind of looks like a real game. I’m proud of that. I did do stuff I would never normally do when programming, but finishing is more important than pretty code.
If people leave me some good feedback I might continue working on the game outside of the competition. But for now, I drink!
I’m pretty pleased with what I achieved in 2 days, but I’ve decided to abandon ship and give the game a bit more polish to release later, since I don’t have time to both finish and test it. The best thing is that in using DAME for this I’ve got a lot of ideas for how to improve the editor in the future.
Having thrown out all of my code and started from scratch, then rushing to finish in just one day, I barely managed it. The result is a game even worse than my last LD offering, but a game none the less. It’s currently only available on Linux, but a Windows port is forthcoming, and I would appreciate it greatly if anyone with a Mac and Allegro would produce an OSX build for me, since I don’t have access to a Mac development machine.
I hop you enjoy my meagre offering at least a little bit, and that it doesn’t distract you too much from the real show.
See you in April!
Yay, like my fourth time competing in a Ludum Dare and I actually submitted something this time. I had more plans I couldn’t act on, but at least I got something done this time. So, what did I learn from all of this?
Still, I am happy to have gotten something running and submitted, and do plan on adding the rest of the features I didn’t have time for and cleaning up the code so I am not ashamed of it anymore in the upcoming days after the deadline is up. And hopefully by LD23 I will know what exactly what all I need to bring to the table.
Tags: journal, LD22, post-mortem, postmortem
My entry: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-22/?action=preview&uid=5063
Gahh… pretty stressed last hours. Especially since it’s so late here.
Uh-oh:
Somehow I managed to make a game in under 6 hours. Somehow. Its really more of under 4 as it me a few hours to figure out how to properly deal with strings. My this feels so good.
http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-22/?action=preview&uid=5551
Right, I got something done after all. And it feels good. Both the result and the process, that is.
Been quite a rollercoaster again. A highly recommended experience. I’ll write a more detailed analysis after I get some sleep.
May contain kittens. But much more too.
Tags: kitten-challenge, vidya games
Finally done my first Ludum Dare game. Didn’t get off too the best start, I hated the theme and couldn’t think of any ideas, then I came down with a terrible fever, so I’m happy to have finished anything at all.
http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-22/?action=preview&uid=7362
Looking forward to the next competion, hopefully I won’t be so under the weather.
Tags: easter-egg, kitten-challenge, LD22
Well, it’s been a few good days but unfortunately the fatigue got to me. The basic framework and mechanic had been set for my gravity-less space platformer, “Nothing But Stars,” and all it needed was some content to add variety and difficulty. I had planned to do that today, but my body had other plans. With what little time I was left with after awaking, I fixed up the last bit of code, added a “sorry!” message at the end, and got the game in with 45 minutes to spare.
Here’s the game in all its glory: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-22/?action=preview&uid=5193
I’m not happy I didn’t finish, it feels like a bit of a failure. I am, however, pretty proud of what I did come up with. I decided to push myself as a game dev with this one, and I think my game is fairly technically impressive. It just doesn’t have all the gameplay to it I’d hoped it would. I was also able to crank out some music last night with my brand new M-Audio Oxygen 49 keyboard, something I’ve never done for a game before.
All in all, this LD leaves me bitter-sweet. I had fun and learned a lot though, and that’s what really counts.
Until next time…
Lone wolf, a game about finding your way back to your lost cub, can be found here.
Software used:
I had to cut my time a bit short, much less levels than I was planning on, but it’s done!!!
http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-22/?action=preview&uid=7401
I ended up going with a bit of a puzzle platformer, where the only way to pass is to be alone!
This was a ton of fun and I can’t wait for the next one!!!
Yey! I finished my first ludum dare entry! Phew!
Here it is: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-22/?action=preview&uid=8588
Or use the direct link: http://lorancou.free.fr/bulk/lonekitty/
The ending is GREAT you should check it out 😉
I compiled a little list of stuff to gather before the ludum dare next time. Bad thing to discover that browser support for audio s*cks, just 3 hours before the compo ends. Now I just hope the game will run well with most browsers. If it doesn’t with yours, let me know!
I tried to create multiplayer game in 48 hours. Even less. because my first idea was very shitty
and after 1/3 of whole time I had to give it up. This game is shitty too, but it has multiplayer :)
The game is like symbiosis of Binding Of Isaac and "4 Minutes and 33 Seconds of Uniqueness"
http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-22/?action=preview&uid=5729
Nothing like an external deadline to make yourself productive.
Sometimes you just need to get off your ass.
Idunnow if I’ll be able to finish this game by tomorrow for the game jam category, but it’s something I will.
Oft-times the problem with making games is coming up with an interesting idea. I have mine which I’ve borrowed and am trying to remix. The interesting day is that inspiration is is arriving in bits and pieces that will hopefully make this thing an interesting one.
I think I have something to say and I hope you guys enjoy when it’s done. Congratulations to all who finished.
*off to lunch*
So…tried to add enemies, and gave them movement and such…
Turns out, they leak memory. Or at least, somewhere I have too much memory (Probably the background), and it’ll die out. Could just be the reuse of tweens I do are causing it, but eh, this is good enough for me. I’m happy with how the code is done.
Dunno why the leak though, and that’s a problem, so I just disabled the enemies all together in the final copy.
Source:
http://www.sfu.ca/~ajr12/LudumDare22/Final/LudumDare/Final/Source/
Final Game Version:
http://www.sfu.ca/~ajr12/LudumDare22/Final/LudumDare/Source/LoneShadowAlpha.html
So yeah – right now, essentially you can walk around and jump around, and gravity can affect you if you try to hover in the air, but yeah.
Might do a de-brief later if I have time, but not much else to add.
Yeap.
Enjoy!
Previous post here.
My entry for LD22 has been completed and uploaded. Tomorrow I’ll make a full Post Mortem containing a Game Design Document, and my thoughts on what went right, wrong and what could have been done to improve it further. For now, all I can say is the following:
As I said before, a Post Mortem will arrive soon, in which I will explain how I have arrived to this current gameplay mechanics, what I had to scrap and why. Till then, I’ll leave you guys with today’s Timelapse, and a bunch of screenshoots.
Download Cyber Shield.
Tags: Cyber Shield, Progress Report, screenshots, Zapaman
Got my windows build submitted.
I think I’m going to try and finish my game properly tomorrow for the jam. I’d really like to see it rounded off.
Tags: windows build
Well, I have my shmup done! It’s about a ghost who wants to be alone so he can rest in peace.
It’s over here if you want to play it: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-22/?action=preview&uid=2976
Here’s a timelapse video of me making it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4Z0gd7cpig
Well…. that was interesting.
Very little sleep and came out with something nowhere near what the original idea was.
The end was just trying to make things work and cutting out feature after feature after feature!
ah well I guess thats the name of the game. At least I got something finished.
Now ive gotta try sort out the time lapse … think it broke down a bit :'(
Totally done and submitted! So excited to have participated in my first Ludum Dare. Thanks to the LD staff and everyone in the community. Hope your projects went well and can’t wait to start playing them all.
Here’s a link to my entry. Hope you love it!
http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-22/?action=preview&uid=8729
Any resemblance to Solar Jetman is purely taken as a compliment.
I submitted my game, finally.
I am amazed at how much I was able to get done despite slacking on this competition, spending much less than 24 hours and indulging on sleep throughout the process. That’s a testament to the power of the Unity engine.
My game is “complete”, with some weird non-show stopping physics bugs, bland graphics, using GUI text instructions as a crutch for not having a more discoverable game, etc. But it still has an objective and obstacles that must be overcome. And it’s a sliver of the feeling of Solar Jetman, one of my favorite games for the NES.
Jisus christ. I did not expect to be done this late. Even though this is my first ever LD I thought I would be more effective 😛
I finished the game “The Lost Viking” a bit different than first planned. Since I don’t have any prior experience with this I had no idea which parts of the development would take the longest. I know that now. The god damn graphics.
It ended up being a top-down survival shooter. Unfortunately I didn’t have time to polish and balance the different weapons, and I didn’t get to add any powerups, but what the hell. It’s done so I’m happy.
Thanks for the ride guys!
Tools:
My first crack at the LD48 and I have….Dead Party!
Dead Party was originally going to be a dungeon crawler, where you play the sole survivor of a raid gone wrong, but during playtesting I found that NPCs that followed you did so in an amusing manner, and I though “I should make a game around that” so I did. And there’s lots of cats.
I describe it as “Ico meets Diablo meets SmashTV” but with none of the quality.
quick post mortem
what went right
During the warmup weekend I had tried to learn more about Love2D, and while I managed to make half of a game it didn’t sit well with me. A friend of mine suggested I stuck with what I knew, which was AS3 and Flixel. It turned out to be right, I spent nearly the entire period making stuff rather than trying to wrangle technical issues or learn a new library. I also used Flixel Power Tools, which made several things, including bullet managment and aiming, exceptionally easy. Flixel is great at taking care of a lot of game related things, and the Power Tools made things even easier. I’m used to code structure more than I am with other scripting langauges, so I could structure (or not structure) things to work.
Originally the game was going to be and RPG, complete with an overworld and a dungeon level, plus a battle system. Then that just went to an overworld system. I was also going to have multiple weapons, plus melee weapons, each with different characteristics. Needless to say, it didn’t turn out that way. I had to cut 2 levels and a few more features near the end too.
Probably the biggest help is the DAME level editor. Normally I would have to hand-code where certain things are, or have to create my own level editor, or make my own CSV for things. This time I was able to build and design levels with ease and get them into the game quickly. Granted the workflow process was really weird (I’ll get to that later) but I was able to make non-super-ugly maps quickly.
After 3am I hit a brick wall when it comes to productivity, and continuing on doesn’t make sense. A friend of mine said that I wouldn’t win if I slept, but I beg to differ. The last 5 hours were the worst, and I began to make simple mistakes while fatiuged, had those happened earlier on it would have made the rest of the dev process much harder.
With 24 hours to go I was still working on the dungeon crawler, but I felt really crappy about it since I felt it wasn’t a very good game. All I had was a level loading at that point and it was just shooting enemies. And then I thought “It may be crap, but I basically made a Smash TV clone in under 24 hours, so be a little proud”
WHAT WENT WRONG
Oh God. I mentioned this in an earlier blog post, but to make a level and put it into the game, I had to do a 7-8 step process. I had to make a new .dam file for each level, re-import all the sprites and tiles, draw the map, rename the groups, export it, fix certain .as files, and make a whole new playstate for the level. If I had made a saner structure and had just 1 playstate for all the levels, I could have simplified things and made more levels. I was mainly interested in making things work, rather than make things easy, and in the end it was probably 5x more work to import the levels the way I went about it. It also meant that I had to cut off features at a point, because i would have to add them all to the seperate playstate files and test them induvidually. Real smart, me.
I had trouble with the theme, since I could only think of sad things, and I was so concerned with starting I didn’t really take time to consider another idea, just “start coding right now OMG” and, maybe if I went with something else, I could have skipped a lot of headache and felt better about going with the stated theme.
Well, that’s it for now. I’m really tired so, I’ll probably go to bed *before* 3am. ha!
Tags: finished, ld48, postmortem
48 Hours! LD48 has draws to a close in minutes but there are 24 more hours left to the LD72 Jam. If the Jam had the same schedule as the comp, then we would still have a game but with less content and polish than we would like. At this point we are in the polishing stage. The game is feature complete, but still has some rough edges. It will be interesting to see how far we can get in the last leg. Unfortunately we won’t have as much time as during the past 48 hours.
Congrats to all the LD48 participants! You survived.
Other jammers, let’s keep this train rolling!
http://bltlb.tumblr.com/
Wrote up my experience on my blog. It’s late and I’m tired so it’s kind of a stream of consciousness but … yay! I did it!
My game, Left Behind, is done! I’m very happy with it, though it’s buggy as hell:
http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-22/?action=preview&uid=3643
It’s been an amazing time, and though I was suffering from a lack of sleep on day 1, the end result is pretty close to what I had planned.
One thing I can recommend massively is doing Ludum Dare with others, as we did in the Cape Town jam. It was fantastic, and great to have a bunch of like-minded chaps around.
Sleep now, postmortem later.
I… I didn’t make it. The game is buggy and unfinished. I don’t want to submit this wreck.
Instead, I’ll be participating in the jam (the shame!). Here’s a demo of what I have now, though:
I wanted to add so much more, but it’s finished. I’m trying to submit as I type, but the connection is terrible at the moment. Had fun!
Submission Link: Linkly
Tags: al own alone with a lone Maverick Programmer Gosu Ruby short game comical
I just submitted my game:
http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-22/?action=rate&uid=7264
I’ve spent about 22 hours in front of my pc making it. I started learning Unity3d a couple months ago, i didn’t know everything about it and i think completing the game was a good job, trough it may not a beautiful game. Now it’s 3am in Italy, my alarm clock will ring at 5am, so it’s time for me to get those two hours of sleep.
Here ends the second day of the Ludum Dare jam, at least for us. We’re pretty happy (or, depending on who you ask, amazed) with how much we’ve been able to accomplish so far, thanks in no small part to Adam Atomic’s awesome Flixel v2.55 game engine. 😀
But given that we both have to go back to work at our real jobs tomorrow, we’re not too confident that we can finish this game to our satisfaction in time for the Ludum Dare jam deadline.
Most of what happened today was on the graphical side of things, along with all the little fixes and tweaks to the simulation that are hard to describe or notice unless you’re looking for them. As you can see, we have a bunch of new tiles in the game – it actually looks like a school now!
Since we didn’t want to try learning any new tools, like DAME for making tilemaps, I had a fun time enhancing Flixel’s basic image-to-tilemap conversion to support multiple colors for different tiles, and not only that but also autotiling at the same time. Fancy!
Here you can see the image that is interpreted as the tilemap for the game. All the pretty colored pixels are for the goodies on the walls like lockers and doors and such.
I’m looking forward to sharing my clean, beautiful tilemap code with all you other Flixel devs out there. Soon, soon! 😉
My entry, Blue Moon, is now submitted! Sorry for the lack of updates, but due to illness I’ve had to devote all my energy to getting something finished.
See it HERE!
See submission: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-22/?action=preview&uid=8080
HOW TO PLAY
You are a small guy who needs to escape from this place he is in (Great story, huh?). Lasers are set around the map and there is a portal somewhere that allows you get out. The portal must be powered for you to leave.
Using the WSAD keys you need to move around and discover where to go. When coming across a laser you need to either point it (use ARROW keys to direct laser) at the portal to activate it or direct it to another laser turret to power that and get to the portal that way. You will most likely need to direct lasers at multiple light turrets around the level to create a chain that can reach the portal.
Select the level from the drop down list at the top and click Play – you will be launched into the astonishing world that is SOLITUDE.
LEVEL DESIGNER
One of the features of this project is the custom level designer. While it does not include a GUI for creating your own, you can easily add data to the “levels” directory and create your own!
Create a new folder inside “levels” that is a number (yeah sorry – don’t know why I did that). Inside that folder you need 3 files:
# data.png
# bg.png
# level.txt
data.png – this image is purely black and white. White pixels define the space where the player and lasers can move in, black pixels define boundaries and inaccessible space for both the player and the laser.
bg.png – this image is the background display for the level. This needs to be the same size as data.png. It should show the boundaries and well as pretty background colours. For an example see the levels 0, 1, or 2.
level.txt – this text file is parsed when the game starts and allows you to define where all the laser turrets are (as well as exit portal and player starting position). Note that the levels 0, 1, and 2 do not have this as they are programmed into the game. You can, however, view an example test file in level 3.
The format for level.txt is as follows:
# this is a comment
# coordinates start at 0,0 from the bottom left corner
# all coordinates are pixel values
# the first coordinate is ALWAYS the portal that is the exit
740 300
# the second is the PLAYERS STARTING POSITION
75 75
# the next coordinates are a list of all the light turrets in the map
50 550
380 500
400 150
750 550
# any turret with a boolean value of ‘true’ after it means it is a source turret and is ALWAYS lit
50 50 true
# any turret with a string of ‘pulse’ next to it means it is a pulsing turret (one second on – one second off)
700 50 pulse
# yes – you can have a source light that pulses
300 50 true pulse
# and the last bit can be reversed
400 50 pulse true
Once you have created all those files and put them in a numbered directory in the directory “levels/” it should appear when you start the game!
Have fun creating 😉
ABOUT
Created for the Ludum Dare Compo #22
http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/
By xandrew
http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/author/xandrew/
With this being my first Ludum Dare – I was thinking I’ll just use this as a learning experience to discover what I need to do BEFORE the next one. And it has been a VERY big learning experience. Also might enter the Jam next time and get a few people in and make a party of it. Because my lack of creativity and ideas started to show about halfway though.
Can obtain the source here:
https://github.com/andrew-smith/Solitude-Ludum-Dare
(Yes I know – my menu design is terrible)
I’m going to go for a Jam entry instead for the extra time, but I don’t know if that will be enough.
I spent far too long trying to get my idea into something workable, and I think it’s simply too much to implement. Hopefully I will produce something good at the end.
Tags: jam
My submission is here >> A Realization (in 13 acts)
And of course, a timelapse! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PfuZIczH7A&feature=youtube_gdata
According to the irc bot my upload was finished with a whopping 9 seconds to spare, which must be my closest LD entry to date.
I’m gonna take a break for a bit to recharge my brain and then put the actual post with links, images etc. up.
Congratulations to everyone who finished!
Another completed LD48, and it feels good. I was pulled in several different directions this weekend and so didn’t get to spend as much time as I would have liked, but I think it came out OK for what it was. The really fun part was doing the 3D models in Blender. Anyhow, if you’re interested, here’s the link to my entry page:
My first LD and I finished! Was absolutely awesome to work in the Cape Town group. And I learnt a load…
Anyway, I didn’t post any continual updates through out. I had to attend a wedding last night which cut into my time, among other things. So apologies for that. But, I cannot believe everything I achieved in 48 hours. Everyone around me made truly awesome games.
Speed to Freedom is a tunnel racer where you need to achieve maximum speed for as long as possible (acceleration is automatic) in order to deliver freedom from the war. You are ALONE in this mission (the theme drives the story).
Obstacles in the way will hamper your progress, and watch out for flying overhead!!
Just a quick post to show you what I gave birth to over the last 48 hours (seriously feels like it ;)).
“The Invention of Colour” follows “Alrion” on his journey to find “shimmers”. I love creating stuff with a distinct atmosphere, so that’s once again what I was aiming for. It’s not a real game as such but should much more be viewed as modern interactive storytelling, but hey nothing wrong with that 😛
Inspired by the likes of “Bastion” I added some narration to the game. I like it – though it seems I’ll have to add subtitles to the thing. Either way, make sure you have a good audio source (headphones preferably) around when playing it.
Click through here to get to the entry. Would love for you guys to check it out!
I’m planning on full post mortem once things have settled a bit. Meanwhile.. I’m off to check out everyone’s games!!
Tags: kitten-challenge
My game The Snubbing of the Squid is a simple Minelike.
Here is a timelapse video of me making it:
A timelapse video of me making the game
So this was my first Ludum Dare and I managed to finish which is nice
Introducing to the world: Starlighter!
A 2D space shooter esque game with a depressing story 😛
As much as I didn’t want kittens, I would have preferred it to this theme. Ugh.
Also, between my internet speed and this website, my game took way too long to get online.
didnt get around to adding the story elements, or player animations. but it will get done i may pick this up as my main projects i like it alot
As my first Ludum Dare draws to a close, I am quite pleased with what I came up with.
City of One is a game about the lone survivor of zombie apocalypse. You must explore the randomly generated city and kill all the zombies while keeping stocked up on food and ammo. Along the way, you can upgrade your skills and find new guns for your shooting pleasure. The game is quite difficult but can be mastered if you have good time management, memory, and reflexes, much like many older arcade games. The game also features a high score tracker – let me know what high scores you achieve (you get doubled score for finishing the game! )
I made all the graphics and sounds, of course, in a style similar to older games. I think this adds a lot to the game. I hope you all enjoy it!
Download it here. It’s made in XNA, so you might need to use the installer, but otherwise I think the .exe will work.
Safe, for now...
So, my original plan (documented in a recent post) was abandoned as soon as the theme was announced. The theme suggested to me a mood/story based game, as opposed to a mechanic oriented game (which themes like self replication would lend themselves to). So, sadly, I haven’t commented my game making process at all (as writing a story based game in a short time seems, to me at least, to be a challenge bound to end in poor code as there is not time to create an editor for your game’s resources). In fact, there is one line of code which, to me, stands out as the single worst line of code in the whole game:
//play music memset(stream, 0, len);
Yes – the time constraint defeated me on at least one account :-(.
Anyway, the game I made:
You are a member of a crew on a space ship when you wake up to find the lights aren’t functioning. You have your camera with you to use for light if necessary (I forgot to update the dialogue to reflect this >.<).
About the game-
The levels are randomly generated
When you use a light source (flare or camera flash) it takes a moment for your eyes to accustom themselves to the dark once more.
The monster will be stunned if you use the flash on him (I don’t think my dialogue makes this explicit enough – the game would just be repeatedly dying to the monster without this information).
Hopefully it will be fun :-). The only line of code I can think of which I haven’t tested is the displaying of the victory splash screen at the end of the game^_^! Hopefully people will test that for themselves.
LINK: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/19102639/LD22.zip
Now for two weeks of playing and judging everyone else’s games =D!
And of course 30 minutes before compo ends I discover I was using the Java3D version of vector classes. Have to quickly change to lwjgl-util version.. Annoying!
Tags: final
Though I competed in last year’s Global Game jame, this was my first Ludum Dare, and therefore my first solo attempt at making something complete in a short span of time. As such, I learned quite a few lessons, including:
-Sleep is for the weak. If you’re going to nap, set at least ten alarms. If you only set one alarm, your body may manage to turn it off before your mind realizes that it should be coding.
-Appropriate breaks from creating the game are things like going to the bathroom, getting some food, or going for a walk. Happy hour and beer pong are much less appropriate, since they inhibit your ability to code for quite a large chunk of time.
-Keep things simple. You can’t remake Zelda in 48 hours. Your design doc shouldn’t outline a billion assets and fifty individually scripted events, even if you can fit it all on one piece of paper.
-Don’t get down on yourself. You can’t let yourself be your own worst enemy, you’ve got to keep being your own best friend. When you’re solo in the trenches, you’ve got no one to tell you everything’s going to work out and be okay, so remember to tell it to yourself.
-Code efficiently, and don’t worry about making your code efficient. In a time-limited event such as this, programmer-time is infinitely more important than program time. Unless, of course, you have a giant memory leak that seeks to consume the internet. Then we have a problem that can only be solved by Hollywood hackers.
I’m sure there are more smaller lessons that I learned that aren’t on the list, but those are my big ones. Glad I participated, and see you all next time!
Sort of. Didn’t think I would cut it so fine but I worked right up until the last hour, then ran into scary server problems trying to upload the thing! Thankfully the upload deadline was extended and I managed to get it uploaded.
This is the first LD I’ve properly taken part in, and it was definitely an experience. I’m no game programmer so this was pretty tough, and I have learned a lot about how I will prepare for the next LD (program architecture, knowing the libraries, making sure you can build an executable etc )
I was surprised how fluid my game design was throughout the 2 days (by fluid, i mean I kept dropping features)
and I think it was a mistake to try and write particle/entity/level renderer/collision all in 2 days. I quite like the game I came up with in the end but sadly the code is so terrible that if I wanted to expand the game i’d probably have to rewrite the whole thing!
The game is called “Fernands War” – it’s a pixel art-ish thrust like thing with a bit of a story. If you play it, try to discover the story bits as i think it adds something to the game.
anyway, well done to all the fools who took part in this, even if you didn’t finish it’s good experience for the next time! 😀
nick
Alright, I just submitted my game, which I’ve entitled Uncorrupted. For more info, check out the submission page. I’ll also be posting a post-mortem, timelapse, and walkthrough sometime in the near future.
