This will be my first Ludum Dare if I can get my weekend all clear!

I’ll be using:

-Unity Personal Edition

-GIMP or Pixen for art

-Famitracker and/or GarageBand for sound effects

-Not sure what I’ll use for planning, probably just sketch everything out in Sketchbook Pro

Should be a good time as long as I don’t have anything I have to do that weekend! I’ll definitely be checking out others’ submissions even if I end up not being able to make my own.

So I posted a while ago that I might not be able to participate but never mind! I’m in for the jam and its mah first time. I’ll be using Unity, Gimp and/or Sketchbook Pro, and Famitracker/GarageBand for music. Hope it goes well and I’m super stoked that my theme “2 colors” passed the slaughter!

Best wishes to everyone else and their games!

So I’m going for kind of a hand-drawn look with this, here’s my character. It also transforms into other shapes and I’m figuring out some level design and ideas now for other mechanics

My alarm didn’t go off so now I woke up 3 hours after I meant to.

The game is going well. Still not really sure what I’ll call it, but I have pretty much finished all but one of the mechanics as well as all but one of the SFX. I just need to add a sort of story and a bunch more levels!

So here’s a sprite sheet of my enemies:

As you can see, they are very blobby and drippy and also the sound effect that plays when one sees you has a distorted sound clip of me making a slurpy noise in it. So that’s fun.

I was originally gonna do a live action/animated cutscene when you finish the game but then I realized how long it would take just for importing and exporting all those frames and such. Plus I’m having some major issues with Unity’s movie textures right now so I’m going to have to resort to a still image as the congratulatory screen instead of a cutscene.

I’m working on a menu now, might add some finishing touches tomorrow since I’m submitting this for the jam

Im pretty much done with my game, called “I drew this because I was bored.”  I just have some bugs to work out and some things to polish and then I can submit it… Except that I’m at school so I can’t do any work until 3:30 or so. I better have enough time to finish this or I’m gonna pissed that the 26+ hours I spent on this went to waste because of school.

I finally fixed up all the little bugs I had and here it is! For Windows/Mac! Have a good time and play till the end of the game so you can rate it accurately please!

Ludum Dare 35

You can also find the soundtrack on Bandcamp:

https://dragonzbw.bandcamp.com/album/i-drew-this-because-i-was-bored-ost

Im back for another round in the jam. Will be using the following tools:

Sketchbook Pro for planning

Blender for 3D modeling

Photoshop or Pixen for texturing (depending on the style I go for)

GarageBand and/or FamiTracker for music and sound effects

Unity, probably 3D, and MonoDevelop (C#)

I used Unity 2D last time but I’ve been working on a 3D space game recently so I think I’ll probably do a 3D game this time.

Practicing my Blender skills with the low-poly style I will most likely be employing for this LD. Here’s:

A LD thing, use it as a wallpaper if you want

A spaceship

A green dude

Just a regular ol’ gun

And a sword in a stone

Haven’t gotten any more programming practice in yet, but working on some FamiTracker stuff to get up to speed with that again.

EDIT: Gonna be using BFXR as well

Probably my last practice project. Just made a little thing that’s like an endless fall, and there are some obstacles. You’ve probably seen something like it before. Added some fun Doppler effect wind swooshing when you fly past an obstacle.

Not much else to explain. It’s pretty simple.

This might be my last practice project, unless I do one right before the LD starts; I did that last time and it went pretty well, I’ll probably do it again just to get my creativity flowing on Friday.

I know I said the last  practice project I did would probably be the last… BUT I MEANT PROBABLY BECAUSE I GOT BORED AND DECIDED TO MAKE A LITTLE THING THAT I HAVE HAD IN MY HEAD FOR QUITE SOME TIME NOW BUT NEVER GOT AROUND TO EXECUTING.

Basically you can walk around like normal, and when you hold down left click you have the ability to use the mouse to swing your sword around. The mouse rotates it and you use it to slay enemies. Of course, this mechanic could be greatly expanded upon to involve more  stuff like damaging an enemy based on how hard you swung the sword, doing something Fruit Ninja-like, or other stuff. And things. And stuff. Anyway, here are the highlights, in image form.

Your sword will usually be at your side, but when you are clicking, it floats in front and you can swing it around with the mouse.

There are a bunch of creepy box dudes who follow you around. They are fast. I managed to reuse the code from my first practice project since all they do is float and fly around you and toward you.

When you hit them with your sword, they explode. Very satisfying.  You have to be clicking in order for the sword to kill them. Otherwise they will keep coming towards you and kill you, and you will respawn.

It’s hard to tell, but I made a small particle effect that plays whenever you start holding down left click to show you that you can now swing your sword. It also plays a little sound effect.

And last but not least (well it’s kind of the least I guess), I made it so you can jump pretty high. Not high enough to jump over walls, but high enough to jump over the enemies.

So… this was fun to do. I’ve always kind of wanted to do something where you have complete control over a weapon, instead of just clicking and playing an animation. It also plays really nicely; being able to jump over the enemies is especially useful and fun. The particle effects and sound make it very satisfying to use the sword, and it is also challenging. Enemies will keep spawning in the corners of the arena forever, so it is a good idea to come to them before they come to you in order to keep them at bay. You can also use the walls in the middle of the arena to hide. I’m pretty satisfied with this. It’s definitely the most fun of all the little mini-projects I’ve done.

I may do more of these or improve upon the ones I’ve already made if I have any more ideas. I feel like I’m cluttering the Ludum Dare page with the mini-Post-Mortems that I’ve been doing, though. Maybe I’ll wait until I know for sure that I’m not doing any more practice and then post about all of my mini-projects at once. WHO KNOWS? Tomorrow will be kinda iffy for me; I’ve got two trial lessons with some private cello teachers ’cause my old one moved away and that’s a thing that I do. So that’s a thing. Two things, in fact. Two things that will restrict my ability to practice game design. Of course, it’s tomorrow and then the LD starts on Friday, so idk if I’ll want to do much practicing or just try and sleep 😐

That’s it from me tonight! Going to bed kinda early… I’m eager to see what theme wins!

Sooooo… here’s this thing I’m writing I guess. My game is called “The Awakening of the Golem,” which sounds super serious, right? It’s not. Here’s the link if you wanna check it out: http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-36/?action=preview&uid=85560

AAAAANYWAY, here’s my PM on my game, based upon:

The Theme:

• I was honestly really disappointed that the theme was Ancient Technology, but I had thought beforehand that that would probably be the theme, so I had time to brainstorm a little bit for the days before LD.
• Even though I wasn’t a fan of the theme this time around, I think I was able to come up with something at least decently good (or at least decently fun, if not good.)
• I’m actually enjoying most of the other people’s games, which is good. Last time the games were a little less interesting I think but I’ve found at least a few this time which were really intriguing and fun, although most of the ones I’ve liked have had a veeeery stretched connection to the theme.

The Experience:

• This LD was a lot more of a friendly fun experience for me than the last one, since I was in a Skype call with my friend (Corinator, you should check out his game Dungeon Runes, I actually made most of the sound effects for it) pretty much the whole time I was working. It was good to be able to have someone to help me stay sane, and I was able to help him with a lot of the coding as well. We’ll probably work together next LD (as long as it’s on a vacation because school is a suck).
• My process was also pretty different this time. I did much more animation first than I did last time. In fact, I spent the whole first night and beginning of the next day only working on animation. THEN I got around to making some controls and basic AIs.
• I had some major issues, mostly with AI. I’m not the best when it comes to stuff like that. I tried to make tanks as enemies but ended up going with the red-shirted psychos instead because every which way I tried to get the tank’s script to work, it would either float aimlessly into the sky, glitch out of control and bounce around the map, or the turret would be rotated wrong EVEN THOUGH I TRIED ROTATION AND LOCALROTATION BLARGH! I actually got pretty down on myself when the tanks didn’t work since I didn’t think it would be interesting to just have more humans. I wanted something that took more than one hit to destroy. But I ended up taking the super-non-serious route and just making humans that can kill you with one hit from a knife, kinda as a joke.
• The game ended up much more humorous than I originally intended, which is why the intro seems a lot more serious than the game itself. I realized about halfway through that it takes a lot more effort to make a good serious game than a fun silly game, so I went with the latter. I made a serious game last LD anyway, so I feel okay with taking a different path.
• I have never made a 3D game with this many Rigidbodies in it before, and let me tell you. My computer is very old and doesn’t even shut down properly. Sooooo… It doesn’t like running games with a lot of physics objects very much. However, it definitely provided a reason for me to learn how to optimize my game, which I did some of (combining meshes was an easy one, increasing the pixel error on the terrain, cutting down on unnecessary Updates and FixedUpdates, etc.).

The Feedback:

• I felt pretty bad about my game when I first finished it, but a little while after I played it some more and felt pretty proud. I think it’s not bad for my first real 3D game. Sure, it would’ve been nice to have harder enemies or better controls, but I’m still a beginner and you can’t always have everything you want when you do the Dare.
• The feedback so far has been fairly positive. A lot of people have had problems with some of the minor control stuff (sliding, stopping when punching, etc). Most of these things are things that were worse when I started making the game, so at least it’s improved from its original state.
• A few people wish that the golem didn’t die in one hit from fire or knives. I see why, but that was mostly for comedic effect and not because I wanted the game to be super hard or because I didn’t have time to program health into the game. I suppose it’s a little unfair, but the game isn’t that hard. The real problem with the one-hit deaths is that the laser doesn’t get charged, and that’s something I could’ve (and should’ve) easily fixed. I should’ve made the laser only take 5 kills to charge instead of 10.

SO YEP! THAT’S ABOUT IT! I’m pretty satisfied with what I’ve done. It could’ve been better but at least I didn’t have to rush the end of it like I did last time. I’ll probably do another 2D game next time… who knows though. 3D is fun, too, it’s just harder to make levels in a 3D world since you have SO MANY DIRECTIONS the player can go… But anyway, I’m not gonna reinstate my satisfaction with this LD any more times. That’s it, and if you haven’t played my game yet, I’d love it if you’d give it a play (there is an end game, please try and get to it) and give me some more feedback! THIS POST IS SUPER LONG SO I’M GONNA END IT NOW.

I didn’t even realize there was an LD coming up until yesterday, so… yeah. But I’m in anyway! I’ll be using my usual tools of Unity, GarageBand &/or famitracker, Sketchbook Pro, Blender?, BFXR, maybe some other stuff. I have a brunch to go to Sunday, so I’ll have to work quickly this time! Hoping to make something better than last time; tbh I was a little disappointed with last LD but the themes seem much better this time around! Will be doing some warmup stuff today and the days following. Good luck to everyone! Glad to see PoV is back at the wheel as well; hopefully everything will go well with the new site!

I’ll probably be working with a partner this time! Hoping for small world theme

6 solid hours and not much to show… I just kinda made some models and almost finished a character controller. Still much more to do before this game is finished. Maybe I’ll post some screenshots in the morning (lol, it is morning)

So a friend of mine came up with the idea for this one: You’re a mouse, and you have to kinda parkour your way through a child’s bedroom to get to your beloved, who lives in a hole in the wall. Here’s some stuff of the level design so far

I also added a glitchy dust-bunny. I think I like it like this.

Here are some things I added, in picture form!

Treacherous fans!

What a pleasant view.

Are these blocks an odd color?

There are multiple things wrong with this diary entry. See if you can spot them all!c

This animation looks pretty. …Pretty horrible :\

And here’s the scene view currently. There’s also a side area that’s not visible here.

As far as progress goes, I’ve made a fair amount of it today. Honestly, I don’t have that much left to do other than adding a couple extra routes to throw the player off where they’re supposed to go to make it a little harder. Other than that, I still have to do a few sound effects, music (maybe) and some polishing of the style. Currently I’ve got some edge detection going on, which looks pretty nice, especially alongside the hand-drawn paws that I added. I also have got to make some cute little cutscenes at the beginning and end that kind of frame the gameplay within a story. To be honest, this Ludum Dare is going a little better than 36 did for me (as far as making a good, fun game), but I feel like I’m feeling less into it. Maybe I’m just getting used to doing the Dare (after all, this is only my 3rd one) but it could also be that the concept for this game just didn’t have enough to expand upon. I do like the concept quite a bit, but it probably belongs in a game that gets developed over a few months, not 3 days. If there was more time I could have the chance to come up with some more gameplay ideas, but since I don’t, it’s pretty much just mouse parkour with one barely-even-a-puzzle puzzle. I’ll add some more challenging aspects to it tomorrow (today). This is an odd case where I’m having more fun play-testing than coming up with the art and ideas and figuring out how to implement them. ANYWAY this is a long post, so goodnight and good luck everyone. I’m looking forward to seeing the games of others and ~the return of judging~ (yay!).

P.S. I also have a side note regarding the theme. While not as restrictive (imo) as last LD, I still feel like the theme this time around doesn’t give enough room for ideas that are based majorly on that theme. Of course, I’m sure people will come up with a wide variety of games, but I don’t think that all of them will be super closely-tied to the theme. Mine isn’t. Sure, it takes place in one room, but the game is not about that one room, per se. It’s about a lovestruck mouse held captive by a small human boy.  I’m sure there will be a few games that stick out from the rest that are actually ~about~ one room in specific rather than taking place ~in~ one room, but it takes time to come up with an interesting idea that revolves around something so mundane as a single room (perhaps something about a preppie bunker?). Basically, what I’m saying is that I wish people would vote for the themes that give the most freedom while still allowing people to come up with ideas that actually revolve around that theme and aren’t just loosely tied to it. Whoever is reading this, I hope you take those words to heart next LD.

P.P.S. I’m not tryna be a jerk or anything, just so you know. It’s hard to communicate tone through text, so I have to put it here. I am not salty about the theme choice. I am enjoying this Ludum Dare just as I have the previous two that I participated in. My tone in the previous paragraph was meant to be sincere. I just want people to know that (at least I think) it’s better to have a theme that has many interesting possibilities that are closely tied to it than a theme that has even more possibilities that are very loosely tied to it.

My game is doooone! I came up with a name for it: Sneaking and Squeaking (not really a stealth game, but you are kind of sneaking around the room…?). Try it out here (you’ll have to download from itch.io):

Ludum Dare 37

I’m fairly pleased with it, but there are some things I wish I could’ve added, but I ended up just putting in some bonus material that you have to unlock. I’ll probably do a more in-depth post-mortem on this game tomorrow.