I’m in for the first time, with only one year of C/C++ coding experience! I hope, I can make something cool!

• Language: C++
• Libs: SDL (with some plugins), GLEW, OpenGL
• IDE: Code::Blocks
• Graphics: Paint.NET
• Sound: sfxr, Audacity

Also I’m going to use my own small engine as a base.

Hello everyone.

At previous LD many people were complaining about OpenGL 4.3 that was required to play my game; they was asking for version for lower OpenGL, like 3.3.

Well, I didn’t used fancy shaders that rely on modern features, so I quickly ported it to 3.3. But I may use modern features in future projects.

I thought 4.3 runs on almost every card with modern drivers, except integrated Intel ones.

So, I’m wondering:

Is OpenGL 4.3 hardware actually not that common as I think?

Or some guys are just too lazy to update their drivers? 😀

This blog is not a place for quotes, but I like this one so much. I think it should be here.

Yeah, I finally made it. It was like a code marathon, 27 hours long. With one big break for sleep.

You can try my game here.

Hello!

I’m not going to write a long post mortem here, just a quick report with few pictures.

It was my second LD. I haven’t made any games between of them, but my gamedev skill still somehow improved. 😀

I think, graphics is a lot better this time. I haven’t paid much attention to it, I just did it as always, but it’s better than before. (Looks like it’s the only way to emprove yourself – to make as many games as you can. :D) Just look at it:

Sound feels better, but it’s still not that good as I want it to be. (It’s sfxr, making good sounds with it is hard.)

Gameplay is better and easier, there are more checkpoints, but it’s still too hard for some players.

But it’s a plaformer again. And it uses same (slightly improved) engine as my previous entry. Art is better, content is nicer, but it’s still a simple plaformer with few unique features.

I’m not sure, maybe I should make something completely different next time, not a platformer, without this old engine. Maybe even 3D. (When you make 3D yourself, on pure GL4.3, it’s not that easy. :D)

Anyway, things that I should certainly do next time:

• If it will be 2D again, I should add particles, maybe screen-shaking effects. Probably some fancy GLSL shaders.

• Make more interesting gameplay, longer and better story. After all, it’s the most important part.

I am satisfied with my game. What I’m not satisfied with is the fact that I haven’t made any games except the jam ones since Apr 2014. It’s 6 monts! I need to do something about it and quickly.

Also, it’s my last chance to advertise my game. You can try it here. 😀

Thanks for reading.

Hello!

I’ve got an idea how to easily make good music for Compo and I want to know is it against the rules or not.

Can I manually copy sheet music (like this) into music sequencer (LMMS, for example), add some effects and custom oscillator and use the result as music for my entry?

Hello everyone!

I’m 16 year old guy from Russia, with almost 2 years of C/C++ and 1.5 years of OpenGL experience.

I just want to say that I’m going to participate again, for the third time.

And I want to say that I’m happy with my results! 😛

Not too much, but I’m proud of them, it feels good to see the improvement.

Also, to continue the tradition of “I’m in!” posts, here is a list of programs that i’m going to use, in nontraditional form of a screenshot:

Funny enough, my coding font becomes smaller and smaller – notice the difference. I make these fonts myself, and if this tendency persists, my code will  😀

The game will be written in C++, with SDL, OpenGL, OpenAL and GLEW, with my own game engine.
For previous two times I used same simple engine. It used OpenGL 4.3, but had no single fancy 4.3 feature. And people complained about too high GL version.

For this time I’ve prepared a new one, which is based on OpenGL 3.3 for portablity and uses OpenAL for fancy physically-correct PEW-PEWs, instead of crappy SDL_mixer which I used before.

Also, it’s easier to use custom shaders on it, so graphics should be a lot better this time.

I wanted to make this post when the engine is finished, but sound system is not ready yet and I’m running out of time. I hope I’ll have enough time to finish it.
But I decided to make this post now.

Regardless of the engine status, a code of what I will use will be here before the start.

Good luck to all who is bold enough to participate!

P.S. If someone with pixel-perfect sight wants to use this font, here it is: .fon .png Encoding is Windows-1251, with cyrillic support.

Many of us use Dropbox as file storage for our games.

If someone wants to download it, but he doesn’t have a Dropbox account, he needs to click “No, I don’t want to register” button every time to download something, and then “Download” button itself.
So, 2 clicks to download your game.

Moreover, sometimes there is no “No, I don’t want to register” button, so one can’t download your game without making an account at all.

Solution:

Your links look like `https://dropbox.com/blahblah?dl=0`. Replace `?dl=0` at the end with `?dl=1`.

Not only there will be no annoying “Please register” popup, download will start instantly after one clicks on your link, without any additional clicks.

I have one last chance to advertise my short puzzle game, so why not use it?

Play

So, hello again, dear developers!

And again, I’m going to participate in the LD, for the 4th time in the lifetime of this universe.

I’m a 16 year old hobby developer from Russia, with something like 2.5 years of C++ experience. (I start to forget when I started to do it. :D)

And I just want to say hello to those people who have enough skills and enough courage to partipate in the event this time.

As I said, it will be my fourth time. I’m really happy about it. I have no idea how I can make money with my skills at this point, so only thing that I can make with them is to partipate in various events and contests. (And sometimes I make small utility programs.) And Ludum Dare is the biggest of them. I thint that it’s one of the main reasons why I continue to develop my programming, drawing and music-making skills. Funny thing is: I didn’t learn anything super big for some time already, I just made games and used some new libraries. But my skills are still somehow improving! Just look at these results (which I’m very proud of):

And I’m going to try again. I’m going to do something with this shameful ‘humor’ regression, but beating other results can be hard. Especially that cool ‘Overall: #42’. But I’m still going to try at best of my abilities and improve all or at least most of them!

And there is one more interesting thing: My life changed a lot since previous LD. I’m now in different city and some things have changed. I feel more happy about my life at this moment. And I’m very interested in looking at how these changes in my mind will change the way how I make games.

But there is one disadvantage in being in another city: I have not took my workstation with me! D: So now, while I writing this post now, I’m sitting in a small and not so clean room in front of slightly crappy laptop with tiny 1366×768 screen, using old vacuum cleaner as a chair. 😀

I left my physical tools behind, by my virtual tools are still with me:

• CodeBlocks – Just because it’s best free C++ IDE I know.
• MinGW-w64 (GCC 5.1) – A C++ compiler. Because it’s best C++ compiler, in my opinion.
• Winamp – Old, but still very good music player.
• Paint.NET – Last version of it slightly suck, but it’s still my favourite graphics editor.
• Fony – I don’t think I’m going to use it, but who knows. It’s a pixel font editor, and I have a lot of handmade fonts already. (BTW, I’m very happy about it: I make almost all fonts that I use for my games and even for code in my IDE by myself!)
• Notepad++ – A very nice text editor, for those cases when IDE is too bulky.
• Sfxr – Small but nice sound effects generator.
• LabChirp – Also sound effects generator, but more complicated. You need to know how sound waves work to make something with it.
• LMMS – Music editor. Too complicated for me at this moment, but maybe I will use it a little.
• Audacity – Sound editor. It’s hard to make something new with it, but it’s very good for editing existing sounds.
• Sunvox – Nice music editor! I bet you have not heard about it before, but it’s easy to use and have interesting effects. And it have one killer feature: Very good echo and reverb. And as you know, every junk sounds good if apply enough echo and reverb. 😀
• ShaderSandbox – It’s not on the screenshot. Basically, it’s just an offline Shadetoy, which can save images generated with your GLSL sahders to files. I made it myself! You can read more about it here.

And I want to say a few words about my engine. I don’t use those frameworks, when you have everything done for you. I use my own handmade engine, ‘L8’, which I’m very proud of. (3300 lines of code.) It’s written on top of SDL, OpenGL (GLEW) and OpenAL. No other libraries. It have some support for both 2D and 3D graphics and 3D sound effects. And it even works on android! (But at this moment without sound.) See it here.

I’ve recently added support for old OpenGL 2, so you will no longer have any problems with old PCs! So, if some of you have tried to play some of my games and got an error message about too old OpenGL version, please write a comment about it and will port that game for the new engine version when I will have some time.

That’s all that I wanted to say.

I’m eagerly waiting for the event to start.

Good luck to every one of you who is brave enough to participate in this LD!

Tired of all these crappy games with graphics made in Microsoft Paint?
(Just joking! :D)

TRY THIS: The Truth

This game features epic story about a soldier with treachery, mysterious old man, kills and lots of jumping and shooting!

Hello, dear developers!

So, I have one last chance to advertise my small platformer with interesting plot,
`The Truth`.

Try it HERE if you want.

One gif intead of a thousand words:

At first, I wanted to write a long fancy “I’m in” post, but who needs those posts anyway? 😀

It will be 5th time for me.

So, I’m in!
And so is my new slightly unfinished game engine, written in C++ with SDL/OpenGL/GLEW/OpenAL/zlib.

Title says it all.

Thanks for the great time guys, see you next time!

Hello, fellow developers!

I’m looking forward to participate the next LD, but I’m also a bit worried.

This time we got 1910 entries, 1910 amasing games! But at the previous LD we had 2711.

It means we had ~30% less entries this time. It is a significant amount.

I’m not going to say that the decision to disable ratings was good or bad, but it definitely significantly decreased our audience (or maybe it was because PoV said that there will be no LD?).

PoV said that he takes the break for one LD only. The last one. I assume now we he’s going to return and ratings will be back, right?

Now I just want to be sure that the next will go properly. Properly = with ratings, at least with some kind of them.

IMO the audience decrease that we got this time clearly shows that the ratings are important. Maybe we could change the system to make it less abusable or something.

If PoV or someone from the LD team is reading this, I just want to say that it would be very nice if you’d tell us what’s the plan for the next LD.

Edit: Got just enough, thanks everyone.

Hello! It's my 8th Ludum Dare, and I messed up this time. Life got distracting, and now I don't have enough votes right now. In fact, I only have 5 votes out of needed 20. ;_; I'm trying hard to play as many games as I can this weekend.
Your help would be much appreciated.

~~If you play my game and leave a comment, I'll play your game in return.~~ You're too late. :P

Link

Here's a gif for your viewing pleasure:

~~Is this mysterious enough? :P~~

How about a somewhat retro puzzle platformer?

Play

I’m certain I can speak for everybody on that: PoV, we want notifications on the new site! >.<

Woo!