Hey everyone! I’m excited to announce that Core is a sponsor for Ludum Dare 49!

• :newspaper: Press Release

Core is a free online game platform and a game creation system, powered by Unreal Engine. It's one of the fastest ways to create and share multiplayer games and experiences. Out of the box you get:

• An easy to use editor built on top of Unreal
• Online multiplayer and chat. No need to write netcode!
• Built in 3D art tools and a terrain editor
• A library of over 20k modifiable assets, all available for free. Music, sounds, artwork, models, and more. Everything you need to make a game.
• Automatic lighting! No need to wait ~25 minutes for a render
• "One-click" publishing
• Player avatars (optional)
• A hungry playerbase looking for things to play
• An enthusiastic community of developers and artists
• Monetization (once you meet some requirements)

If you’ve never made a game before, you can start with one of their many templates for genres like Deathmatch Shooter or RPG. The templates come in different perspectives too: Third person, first person, or top down. More experienced developers can heavily customize those templates, or build something from scratch using Lua.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1eGFmAa_1E

To learn more, visit coregames.com.

Seriously, check out that documentation

No joke, I was really impressed by Core’s documentation, so let’s start there.

https://docs.coregames.com/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rIbd612sUM

Besides Lua guides and API documentation, some of the first articles you come across are how to use Core in game jams, and how to use Core if you’re familiar with Unity.

https://docs.coregames.com/references/globalgamejam/

https://docs.coregames.com/other_platforms/unity/

Sharing your game is a simple matter of clicking Publish. Enter some details about your game, then it works a lot like Unity in that you pick what scenes to include. After that you’re given a link you can share, perfect for submitting your game to Ludum Dare.

https://docs.coregames.com/getting_started/publishing/

Next is what really impressed me: their best practices articles on making backups, collaborating, and using Core with GitHub.

https://docs.coregames.com/getting_started/backups/

https://docs.coregames.com/references/collaboration/

https://docs.coregames.com/tutorials/github/

Git is a serious developers tool for backing up and sharing your code. It’s not something I would have expected in an accessible game creation tool’s documentation, but Git and GitHub really are some of the best tools for backups, no matter what you make games with.

Finally, if you want to know how monetization works, check out their perks program.

https://docs.coregames.com/references/perks/program/

Several folks have already found big success using Core. Check out some success stories here:

https://medium.com/core-games/creators-on-core-see-financial-success-4a75f169e06f

That about sums up what Core development looks like.

I highly recommend setting aside a few hours to familiarize yourself with Core, and see if it’s right for you. It really surprised me, which is why I’m excited to share it. If your game concept would benefit from online multiplayer, avatars, or one of their genre templates, I think it’s seriously worth considering. There’s a great many tutorials, extensive documentation, and a full suite of online courses you can take, all for free.

https://learn.coregames.com/

How do you make art and assets?

This is one of the unique parts of Core: Everything you use to make games in Core is built inside Core. You’re not importing 3D models, but rather you’re using assets provided by Core, assets provided by the Community Content library, or creating them yourself out of primitives. I would have called it “compound objects”, but Core calls it “kitbashing”, which is an amusing yet appropriate term I’d not heard before.

I highly recommend reading this article from Dan Fessler, art director on Core, on why they went this direction.

https://medium.com/core-games/art-directing-the-multiverse-manticore-games-41bc02804010

So sure, you might not have Blender or 3DS Max at your disposal, but folks have created some really impressive things with Core. Here are some examples:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqf07TSOz0w

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVmWbcka9Mk

You can see more skillful “kitbashing” in Core’s recent collaboration with deadmau5. Together they challenged the community to create dystopian worlds. The winning world will be featured in deadmau5’s upcoming music video.

https://medium.com/core-games/deadmau5-x-core-collab-jam-best-dystopian-worlds-505fc073183a

To learn more about creating art in Core, check out the art reference article. I also like this tutorial on modelling basics that teaches you how to make a syrupy stack of pancakes. :yum: :pancakes:

https://docs.coregames.com/references/art/

https://docs.coregames.com/tutorials/modeling_basics/

Compo, Graphics, and Audio ratings

Core is a unique tool that helps you make games faster by not requiring you to make art assets. That said, Ludum Dare has a history of encouraging you to “make everything from scratch”, so when making and submitting your Core game, you should keep these in mind:

• When submitting, select the “Jam”, not the “Compo”. The Compo is our “hardcore solo everything from scratch” category. Core doesn’t let you work entirely from scratch in a way that is fair to other Compo participants, but the “Jam” category is open to everyone.

• When submitting, you should opt-out of both the Graphics and the Audio categories. Again, Core limits what you can do from scratch. While it is possible to create original art assets by combining primitives (kitbashing), one of the big advantages of Core is that you have this massive library of content available to you. Make the most of it!

Wrap-up

That about sums things up. A big thanks to Core for sponsoring Ludum Dare.

To get started, grab Core for free from the Epic Game Store.

https://www.epicgames.com/store/en-US/p/core