Team VersatileVelociraptors participated in the game jam for a second time during Ludum Dare 36.

When we competed in Ludum Dare 32, we were just a group of 4 high school students: 3 juniors (11th grade) and 1 senior (12th grade). None of us had ever really made a computer game before. After 72 hours, we released a simple 2D game called Velocicopter. It was unpolished and named after the strange behavior that the velociraptor enemies have when they reach the player and then rotate, but it was still a fun and loveable game.

All of us are now in college and we had the crazy idea to participate again. One of our original team members had other obligations but we were able to pick up another team member who is a sophomore majoring in computer science. Our team for this Ludum Dare was made of 2 freshmen and 2 sophomores and our members attend the University of Houston, Rice University and the University of Texas at Dallas. For some of us, it was our first weekend of college.

Our biggest challenge was time. We couldn’t always spend the entire day working on the game and of course, we also had classes on Monday. Two of our members stayed awake working on the game for the about the first 30 hours of the jam and one of those members still had to pull an all-nighter on Sunday to finish the game. Unlike our first Ludum Dare game, we created all the assets that are used in the game and did not use any public domain graphics or audio.

In the end, we submitted Raptroid Prime, a small platformer in which you play as a robot that was built by velociraptors. The robot can interact with and change the level by flipping levers and “shifting dimensions.”

We hope you enjoy our game and as always, feedback is appreciated.

— LoadingPleaseWait (C. Michael Murphey), Member of VersatileVelociraptors