I have watched the complete 2nd season of Downton Abbey out of block and what not, so even including the third “Game Jam” day I haven’t produced anything playable. I learned a lot about 2D collision detection though and about the versatile Chipmunk 2D physics library. It seems I’m using LD more and more for my typical dabblings into new tech – exactly contrarian to what the “Game Jam Survival Guide” tells us to do.

I  put too much time into trying to solve the problem of having the first Heroine (of many) climb up the evil (player controlled, red-as-hell laser emitting, quakes inducing ruby on top of the) mountain. I also wanted to do everything with SDL/directFB and just today switched over to cocos2d (which btw kind of sucks if you use it the way every tutorial tells you how to do it – you should use it as a View layer only – View as in MVC). So anyways nothing to show other than a screen and some sounds for making the vision a little bit tangible.

So what can I take away from this for next time:

– stick to the tools you already know

– preferably don’t try to do anything too far up from your current level (in my case the slope collision detection)

– don’t watch downloadable tv shows (in a row!)- they suck the life out of you even more so than facebook or twitter do – especially when doing a compo!

– also exercise your “art” skills like drawing (with pixels) and music

Thanks, it was still worth it! I’m looking forward to be inspired for next time by playing all those awesome games by all of the finishers!

I <3 Ludum Dare.

Imagine being afraid of the righteous heroines & heroes coming up from the valleys trying to kill you, while being afraid of your own powerful evil self.

THE MOUNTAIN – BGM 1

THE MOUNTAIN – BGM 2

THE MOUNTAIN – BGM 3