I love couch multiplayer games, but I’ve never made one for Ludum Dare before since it seems like most people don’t have another person on-hand when they’re playing.  This time, though, I had such a good idea I couldn’t pass it up – and I’ve been having a blast playing it with people, so I’m glad I didn’t!

Here are a few postmortem thoughts:

• The Emscripten port of Box2D to Javascript is good. This weekend was my first time ever using it (though I’ve used C++ Box2D), and I didn’t have any problems except for figuring out how to implement a contact listener.  I’m definitely going to use Box2D more for jams – it’s not hard to implement, and it gives you so many options you’d never consider for a jam gam otherwise (like particles with physics).
• Re-using code really paid off in this one.  I was able to make three different game modes and a neat main menu, predominantly because they all pivot around the same Balloon code, with a few small toggles to tweak the behavior in each.
• When I have sound effects, I usually use sfxr. This time around I recorded sounds using Audacity. It was quite fast and almost as easy as sfxr. All I needed was a balloon, my wastepaper basket, and my voice (at 190% speed).  I still need to find a good tool and workflow for making fast music for jams, though.

I hope you can find a friend to play the game with, it’s totally worth it!  If not, there is an AI available.

Porcupine Dogfight