This is my first Ludum Dare. Less than a half hour to go, and I’m stoked! I’ve participated in game jams before, but most were much longer.

48 hours is going to be intense, but I’ve stocked up on the essentials: Junk food, caffeine, and beer. My goal is to make something tremendously dumb that’s hopefully also fun to play… but mostly dumb. I’m going to be working in Unity with my trusty old standby from the asset store: 2D Toolkit. I’m kind of on the fence about also using AutoTileGen, it seems cool, but it’s also horribly broken in some crucial ways. I guess we’ll see what the theme inspires.

Anyway, enough rambling….

Went to bed at 2am, got up at the crack of 9am.

The theme is “beneath the surface”, so my game is going to be about a psychopath who has to go about his daily chores while killing certain people he feels compelled to go after, and hiding their bodies.

You will be able to kill people by using a knife, and then you will have to drag their corpses to hiding spots. There’s still a lot to flesh out, so I’m hoping some it comes to me while coding.

I’m starting to get some things actually happening. I’ve got a very basic dragging mechanics in now. I’ve got the start of a minimap, if I have time, I’ll have it render different visuals to make it easier to follow. Going to try and make it a little better, and then make some dynamic dialog messages.

So today’s running to an end. I could go burning the midnight oil again, but I think I should rest up to finish tomorrow off strong. There’s one major bit of functionality left to go, and a few minor things to make the game actually a… well, game.

Things done:

• Basic play controls
• Some art assets (environment stuff, characters, and miscellaneous junk)
• Dragging things (objects and dead bodies)
• Dropping things
• Disposing things (drop next to specific game objects)
• Killing NPCs
• NPCs that wander between waypoints
• Dialog windows for inanimate objects to talk to you
• A very simple quest objective system
• Some basic UI
• A VERY rough start on a couple music tracks
• A win condition (complete all quest objectives for the level)

Things I HAVE to do:

• Basic cop AI (see player dragging dead person using a vision cone, shooting player dead)
• Player death, level restart
• Level management
• Multiple levels
• Some sort of game intro, and payoff for winning all levels
• Screen effects to make up for the lack of animation (screen going red during a kill, fading to black during disposal, etc..)
• Some sound effects (will also help make up for lack of animations)

Things I might do:

• More general art (characters, environment, objects)
• Clean up the music tracks to not suck as much
• Minimap improvements (make it render different assets)

I’m probably forgetting stuff… It always happens. Next time I do one of these, I’m definitely going to aim for a lower scope of game. I’m probably not going to have something solid by the end, but I hope it’s something I can expand on after the competition.

A couple progress shots:

My submission is now out in the wild!
http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-29/?action=preview&uid=36263

There are issues, but nothing game breaking. I really didn’t think I’d manage to get this far over the competition. I’m definitely going to make submissions for future Ludum Dares!

For the vast majority of games, this isn’t an issue. But some people have put downloads for desktop versions of their games down as web games. Mislabeled games make for a frustrating experience. Even worse are the people who put web games as downloads! Host it somewhere! There are TONS of free sites you can host your web games on!

It doesn’t stop me from playing the game, but it does add frustration.

I’m probably not going to find out the results of the Ludum Dare until tomorrow. I spent the long weekend (Victoria Day in Canada) hiking in the woods, and I’m going to crash soon.

I want to say before it’s all said and done that everyone did a fantastic job! I played and rated 350 games, and there were so many outstanding games that I lost count. I hope one of those wins this thing!

As for my game (Kill or Kill ), as I’ve said before I’m making it into a full proper release. The end result probably won’t resemble the Dare game too much, I’m taking the core ideas behind them and putting them into a more solid package. I’m proud of what I made, but it definitely couldn’t work as a complete game that I could sell. I hope to have something new to show in the near future.

This has been an amazing experience, and I really hope that everyone who participated got what they wanted from the experience!

So this will be my second Ludum Dare. I’m stoked! I’ve been in a rut and hope this will help (I’m actually following a list I made to keep me motivated a while back: http://greatbigjerk.com/2015/02/21/staying-motivated-for-side-projects/).

Since there’s no scoring or anything, I’ll be doing the jam this time around. I’ll still be mostly following the rules of the compo, but having some extra time will be nice.

My game will be titled: “Get me out of here!”, and it will be a Vive VR room escape game. Instead of hugely involved set of puzzles to escape the room, I’m going to rely on physical interactions with the environment and the pressure of a time limit.

In this game you will wake up in a room with a voice blaring over a loudspeaker telling you that you must escape the room before a bomb goes off. From there you will have to take in your surroundings and formulate a plan to escape. There will be objects like boarded up windows and locked doors. You will then have to search the room for items that will help you. Maybe if you scrounge through boxes, you’ll find a key, or maybe you’ll find a pipe or other object to smash through the boards barring the window.

After you find your way out and escape, you will encounter a new room with a new challenge, and the game will continue until you fail.

So what does this have to do with the theme of ancient technology? Well, if you get through enough rooms, you might find out (assuming that I finish the last bit)!