Some of you guys know my record of finishing things.  Right now I’m working on a Sonic the Hedgehog style platformer.  Now it might take 6 – 12 months to get this thing done, so it might not be until October Challenge 2013 that I get anything to sell for a buck.  I have a good chance of at least getting first playable by the end of this October, and I might could even possibly squeeze an alpha in by then, so I have a challenge for you Ludum-darians — I’m going to bet you $1 that I can get up to alpha version of my game by the end of October.  If I manage this, you send me $1 via paypal, and if I don’t I send YOU $1 via paypal.   So basically I get an incentive to get off my butt and get a game done sooner than I might normally.   I get a finished playable/sellable game.  I get your respect (well maybe — I just mean if I finish something you guys might have a little more respect for me).  If I win I get a buck and win the October challenge.  YOU get someone participating in LD’s October Challenge, you get a great game that’s actually finished, and if I don’t get to alpha stage, YOU get a whole dollar (US, and paypal only).  So no matter what happens it’s a win/win!  And to sweeten the pot everyone who bets gets a copy of the finished game, no matter if you win or I win.  (What it will mean is if I win you get a great game for a buck, if you win you will get a great game for free and you will get a buck

So what do you say?

P.S.

Some people suggested they might bet a dollar if I came up with a list of items to complete for this alpha to be completed.

Well let’s see —

full game map created with layout graphics (meaning triangles and boxes and stuff to layout the places Flash can run)

Collision including walking up and down slopes and using momentum to go around loops.

Enemies

Enemy attacks

Powerups

Logical map flipping

Boss round/level

bonus levels

I think that about does it, no sound effects or music, and only the basic of graphics — just enough to get the point across.

pps.  If you want to take the “bet” please leave a comment below to make it “official”

ppps. To clarify — Whether or not I win or lose you still get a copy of the full version of the game, and any updates from alpha to release!

I missed the last LD due to being stuck in a field in Wales, but I’m definitely up for the challenge.

I attempted the first October Challenge back in 2010 and failed miserably, mainly due to not having a well enough defined idea which left me with no game to sell. This time around, I’ve already got a game ready to go, so I get to focus on the scary business stuff and deal with my terrible fear of actually executing anything…

So here’s what I’ll be polishing up for release – Lagertron : 1664. The basic concept could best be described as “Robotron goes to the pub”

The initial plan is to get the Android version out, with PC/Mac/Linux releases following if I have the time.

Anything you want to know stands here.

I’m gonna make a game from scratch, and it’s gonna be simplistic.
Perhaps Android.

Also check out my Twitter! 😀

– Folis

Hello Ludum Dare, I’m somewhat active in the IRC, but not so much in the competitions or on the site. For those of you who don’t know who I am, I’m Bret Hudson, an indie game developer from Minnesota. I run indie(Function);, an indie game development media and education group. indie(Function); primarily consists of a radio show, and a currently dead magazine.

indie(Function); is low on members right now, consisting of myself, the co-founder Ian “Halfrican” Jones, and Mike LeRoy. We’d like to revive indie(Magazine);, but in order to do so, we need a designer and possibly a few more writers since Mike and I have a hard time putting together 20-30 pages of content by ourselves. However, with the proper team, I’m sure indie(Magazine); can come back to it’s old self and possibly beat the records we currently have placed (most viewed magazine has 1,100 views as of typing this up).

Here’s a list of different positions that are available:

• Magazine designer
• Magazine writer(s)
• Social Media Helper (Post updates to our Facebook, Twitter, forum topics, RSS feed, etc)
• “Gatherer” (Finds topics to talk about, thinks up interesting topics, etc)
• Recruiter (Finds both new members for the team, as well as contacts people for interviews)

None of the above positions are pay-jobs, we currently have no income. The team in the past has always been friendly, and I can imagine it will continue to be with any new members we receive. The positions are great for experience and offer opportunities to talk to some bigger developers (past interviews have included Edmund McMillen, Alec Holowka, Chevy Ray Johnston).

If you want to preview the magazine to know what a common issue consists of, click the following link to be brought to a list of issues: http://www.indieFunction.com/magazine

Thank you for your time, and I hope to have some of you join us in bringing the indie gaming community indie(Radio); and indie(Magazine);.
-Bret Hudson ~ indie(Function); CEO/Editor in Chief

So I’m in guys!

Mostly starting from scratch only armed with my cocos2d-x experience and a rough idea. You can follow (or not) the progress on my kind of a blog.

Oh I forget to mention that beside having 0 lines of code my game already has a name:

PowerUp!

Ready for some PowerUp gathering madness?

So, I’m new here.  My name is Alex, and I’ve been trying to make games for quite some time with no real luck or success.  I currently don’t have any particular game projects I’m working on, unless interactive art and music count as games.

I use MMF Pro and Game Maker primarily.  I don’t really know any code, so the visual creation option really suits me.  I do have Unity, but I’ve not really tried to make anything with it.

I’m posting here because I wanted to share something.  I’m offering my music for use in amateur games.  I wont be requiring any payment or anything really, I just want to build my portfolio.  So, if you have a cool project you’re working on and you need help creating sound effects or a score, hit me up.  I’d be happy and more than willing to help you on your project.

You can see a short demo of some of my pieces at my website.  www.crashbangzebra.com.   My email address is available there so you can contact me.

I look forward to working with you.  Thanks.
-Alex Ragsdale

I’ve been wanting to do this for a bit, but haven’t had a chance.

Here’s the soundtrack for my Ludum Dare 24 entry, hope you like/ liked it!

This month I will be participating in the October Challenge.

I plan to port my game Untitled to HTML5 and place in on a web game portal.

While I plan to do a port of the game, I would also like to add and revise the game as needed to work best on html5. I plan to keep both versions, but I don’t think that the game is served very well by being an exe download. The gameplay is simple and fast, a very casual game. By porting it to html5 I hope to find an audience for the game that is currently lacking.

I’m usually the worst at starting a project and not finishing it, so I’m going to try to use the October Challenge to finally get something out the door. That something is a game I’ve been working on and off on called Tumble Tooth.

In Tumble Tooth, you need to direct a tooth out of a sewer. The catch is that you don’t have any control over the tooth itself. Instead, you need to rotate the entire world, challenging you to avoid obstacles and most importantly, keep your sense of direction.

The plan is to release both a web Flash version and an Android version. So far, I’ve been pretty good about making a mobile build as up to date as the web build, sometimes even putting it as the preferred version, but there’s still so much work I’d like to do, I’m not sure if I’ll be able to keep up. The tasks I’d like to get in before the end of the month include:

• Re-skinned, scaling UI.
• Content. Always need more content for a puzzle game. I can add more later, but I need a decent amount at launch.
• Sound and music. Not quite sure what I’ll do for these, but I’ll figure something out.
• Analytics. Maybe it’s because I work on Facebook games for a living, but the idea of launching a game without analytics seems crazy to me. I’ll probably go with something simple like tracking when a mission is played, failed, and won so I can get a rudimentary idea of where drop off happens and keep an idea of how often people play.
• Another pass at art.

Any extra time will be spent on content and puzzle mechanics.

Tonight, I spent some time just going back through the source code to re familiarize myself with everything. The real important gain was that I finished working on an trigger-event system to toggle visibility and collision on parts of the level. This essentially allows part of the sewers to go “behind” other parts, and really opens up what I can do with level design.

You can follow my progress at mcb.ee and @mscottmcbee, both of which are pretty empty at the moment. mcb.ee will be reposts of updates I make here for now, but I’ll try to keep it up to date after October

Devmania hobby game developer meeting & overnight gamejam contest. Here you can show your current indie game and you can participate on the nights gamejam.

The Devmania (former Dusmania) is held every year since 1998 in Frankfurt/Main & later since 2009 Mainz Germany.

The contest: Develop a game overnight from 14pm – 9am.

http://www.devmania.org/

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 2nd, 2012 at 3:43 am and is filed under October Challenge 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

October Challenge: Knight Souls

We’ve been working on our game Knight Souls for some time now and we should be able to release it this week or so. This is going to be our biggest launch ever. Were going to release for iPhone, Android, XBLIG, Windows Phone, PC, Mac and Linux. Previously we have only released to Windows Phone, so it’s going to be exciting to see what happens when we release to these other platforms.

Post Production Checklist

If you haven’t launched a game before, here are a couple of things to keep in mind:

Making a Trailer

1. Gather Footage (screen capture program is likely needed)
2. Learn the basics of a video editing program (if you don’t know how already)
3. Edit the footage
4. Make a Youtube account and post it

Here’s our Trailer.

Marketplace Requirements

Here are some of the things you are usually required to have:

• Buying an account: Most marketplaces require you to purchase an annual membership. iPhone for example costs 99$ a year.

• Tiles and/or Boxart: These are easy to forget despite how important they are. Each marketplace has there own specific dimensions that you MUST meet. Here is our XBLIG Box Art for Knight Souls.

• Description: Provide a good description of your game so a potential player will know what your game is and why they should buy it. If your not providing a free trial this is even more important, as the player only has this information to go off of.
• Keywords: Think of some great keywords so people can find your game easily.
• Screenshot: Most marketplaces require at least one screenshot. These usually have specific dimensions that you must follow.
• Category: Pick an appropriate category to place your game in. Here are some potential choices: action + adventure, platformer, puzzle, role playing, shooter, etc.
• Bank Account and/or PayPal: That 1$ needs to go somewhere after all.
• Platform Requirements: Each platform will have there own set of requirements you must follow. For example, Windows Phone requires a support button.

Releasing the game

Here are some things to expect when releasing the game:

• Submission period: It can take anywhere from 1 day to 2 weeks from the the day you submit, till the time it hits the marketplace. In my experience it has taken about 5 business days.
• Rejected: Your game can end up being rejected if it has bugs or if you do not meet some of the platforms requirements.

Well it’s 2:00 in the morning, I think this list will do for now. Feel free to add more to the list in the comments if I’m missing anything here.

I’d love to know how many Australian Ludum Dares happening for this October challenge?? And especially anyone in Canberra? Being a sole developer gets a bit lonely, so it would be cool to crack a beer with a fellow bleary eyed Ludum Darium at some stage during the comp and share progress and maybe even have a play of your game…

Flick me a tweet or leave a comment here.

Just finished up on my proof of concept tech demo thingy(mostly so I could reacquaint myself with unity’s component structure) – portfolio page is here or direct webplayer link is here.

So I’ve proven that I’m not entirely incompetent as far as brightly coloured simple physics are concerned. Now comes the first of what I’m sure are going to be many hard bits, the game-play.

I’m just going over all my initial idea’s to try and make a simple coherent starting point for coding, does anyone know of any good articles about getting your ideas together into a simple design doc?

also still can’t decide between Accession or Astromancer for the name …hmmm

Edit: forgot to add a pic

Now LIVESTREAMING.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 2nd, 2012 at 6:36 am and is filed under October Challenge 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

I spent a couple of hours adding some more geometry to check frame rate and I thought I’d add a lens flare to the sun for a bit of sizzle. It’s all still running smooth!

Enjoy!

www.zombietales.net

Actually, I’ve already started. I really have no idea where I’m going with this, but I’ve got an isometric game engine thing going.

So we’ll see where it goes.

So, what is this? Well, this is my participation for the october challenge : A blocky, moody super-meat-boyesque platformer . There is even an level editor in it ! There is actually 2 levels.

But I don’t really feel the need to make money, though (I’m only 14) . So, I’ll have to misinterpret the rules, I guess .

Tags: im in, october challenge

Well after days of scrambling my brain over what kind of game this will be, I finally figured it out! This:

Never Distant End is going to be a –randomly generated text adventure game–. When creating your character you can chose between classes, gender, race(elves, dwarves, etc) and belief. After that, you go to the next screen and “roll” your stats, depending on your class, gender, etc. you get a bonus in certain attributes. Once your character is made your story scrolls across the screen, there will be certain things said in the dialogue that will add to your inventory, if it says: “He was a Wealthy man, and a hobby Sword Smith.” you can easily understand that you’ll have money in your pocket and you’ll start with a basic sword.

After you create your character you go to towns and villages and dungeons and fortresses in search for adventure. If you die its game over.

All of that is only a rough idea of Never Distant End. I hope to show gameplay sometime this week. but until then, have a good day.

So, I’m working on the web based game which should combine generated visuals, generated music and gameplay. I worked on the music part for some days now, creating a framework that allows me to compose, manipulate and generate music in the browser (actually just in Chrome, using the Web Audio API). I borrowed a lot of concepts from the SuperCollider language but left more possibilities open, which I will need when I integrate the music into the gameplay. Still a lot to fix and refine though …

• Here is a demo for Chrome Users
• Here is a rendering of the demo on Soundcloud. The sound was generated in Google Chrome.

The Kick and Snare drums are samples, everything else is synthesized. I hope my GPU gets fixed soon so I can dive into WebGL.