To get the programming juices flowing I decided to make a simple space shooter. I have little experience with java so a bit practice will certainly come in handy next weekend. While the game doesn’t have scoring or a win- (or lose-) situation it did help me get into java again.

You can find the game here. You control to ship with the left and right arrow keys and you can shoot with spacebar. The objective is simply to destroy the enemy ships. Please let me know if you encounter any problems.

Now for the actual Ludum dare next weekend. While I’m very excited to participate again, this being my second time, it’s going to leave me a wreck. I have to catch a plane the day before at 7 am, pickup at 4am. I’ll be home at around noon with Ludum starting 3 am the next night. I will do my best to make a nice little game.

Oh and for the people who didn’t see my game last time, you can find it here:

Oh Dear, I’ve Lost My Hat

I ended 12th in Graphics but I don’t think I’ll get that again.

After giving up a few hours ago I’m very happy I did making, even though it’s not as polished as I would like it to be. My first 24 hours were spent on a too ambitious idea. Together with Java not cooperating and going nowhere fast this lead me to starting from scratch with a new idea just 18 hours before the dead-line.

RIVE is a simple simulation of survival of the fittest, you start alone in a cold world where you have to survive by avoiding big rocks hurtling towards you. You can however split yourself anytime you want. Your new offspring will be a slightly mutated version of yourself. You will then have to control both version simultaneously. It is up to you to decide which one you focus on and let prosper and which you ignore and condemn to a quick but cruel death.

Try it here

So I finished my game in record time. It’s a race against the clock!

• Join the irc
• type: ‘tenseconds: start’
• ten seconds later
• type: ‘tenseconds: stop’

If you stopped at exactly ten seconds you win!

Now for making a ‘real’ game….

I will be using Three.js made by Mr.doob. It’s a wrapper for webgl written in javascript and I’ve been using it for quite some time with great pleasure. On top of Three.js I will be using my own game engine: Road which I made last week in preperation for the Ludum Dare. It contains some basic functionality for things like keyboard and mouse handling so I won’t be wasting time during the LD.

To give so more motivation (or stress) while developing your Ludum Dare game I made a simple plugin for Sublime Text (2 and 3) which shows the time left in the Ludum Dare!

A sublime text plugin to show a countdown for the Ludum Dare

In the bottom left corner you’ll see a countdown which show the time until the Ludum Dare starts. But more importantly, it shows how much time you have left!

Check it on https://github.com/FakeYou/sublimetext-LudumDareCountdown

(The package isn’t available in the wbond repository yet so you’ll have to manually download and install it for now)

Feel free to leave any and all feedback and bugs you encounter.

Snake Charmer

I had to make a lot of compromises but I got a fun and (more importantly) working little game! Check it out in your browser or mobile.

Double AA