Logging in to Steam Greenlight today I found this…

The comments said the problem was with the visuals. I agree. But visuals aren’t everything. I mean my game had more animation and gameplay options then Receiver (by Wolfire games) and that was one of the very first games to be Greenlit. The problem is people just look at the graphics. They just look at the “original” parts of a game, and even though I spent 300+ hours on complicated animation matrices, coding, and AI development, the visuals weren’t enough for people to take interest.

You know it bothers me when games with screenshots like this:

Get more votes then games with screenshots like this:

I picked a random game to compare with mine. While the random game had somewhat impressive backgrounds and an interesting character design, they showed 30 seconds of repetitive walking gameplay. Looked like they had about 3 animations. And then they showed off some of their models and called it a game. And yet people are 300x more excited for it because their design is similar to that of popular mmos. Their game probably won’t have complicated animation matrices, AI systems with multiple states, and stealth scenarios that put you crawling inches from enemies. Their game probably doesn’t even have any complete levels. Now which game sounds more promising to you?

A lot of comments said “You shouldn’t have put this game out in Alpha. You should’ve waited until Beta.” Well take a look at the game above. 30 seconds of walking gameplay, remember? Yet people weren’t even bothered by the fact that their systems weren’t developed at all and all they could show off was a walk-through demo. This has started to make me think… Do people base development progress on visuals? Because it doesn’t make any sense for people to just skim over mine because the graphics didn’t look so good. Did people even see what my game was about?

Now call me a baby for complaining like this, but Greenlight is a flawed system. Personally I’d like to see how much work was actually put in to some of these entries. And by how much work I mean how many hours did they spend working on art and how many hours did they spend on actual gameplay. Sure the two go hand in hand, but people only look at the art, so what’s the point in working hard on the other part?

I took the game down from Greenlight. Sorry, but the results have just proven too horrible for now. I don’t want to just trash 300+ hours of work, yet I see no other option. Sure, I could increase the visuals of the game. But that’s something I’ve always been bad at and it’ll probably take another 100 hours or something to properly do. By that point who knows what people will think. They probably still won’t like the graphics, and by then they’ll start worrying about the gameplay or something. Overall it’s just too risky for me to put any more time into this game. There’s a chance it could be accepted after an aesthetics overhaul, but that’s a chance I don’t know if I want to take. Now that I know what people are looking for, it shouldn’t be hard to develop a new game, it’ll just take a really long time…

What do you think I should do?

Happy gaming!

Tags: game, postmortem, screenshot, unity, unity3d, update

I’m determined to make a game! I’m hoping that I’ll be able to make it in HTML using the applet code… Hope it works!

• IDE: Eclipse (Maybe NetBeans if I change my mind about Eclipse)
• Language: Java
• Framework: Java (Duh?)
• Graphics: Paint.NET, and maybe MSPaint (EDIT:) Almost forgot Pyxel Editor! Might use, it looks interesting (:D)
• Sound: SFXR, Maybe Audicity if I need it, and not sure about music yet.
• Environment: Anything that can run java (I think)

This’ll be my very first Ludum Dare. I’m just starting to learn java, but I know some C# and Unity which runs with java, so this should work out great.

Wish the best of luck to the others!

Language: GML/D&D(Drag and Drop)

Text Editor: Notepad++

Engine: Game Maker

Edible Things: My Fridge(Not Literally just the food.)

Drink: Cola, Lemonade, Dandelion & Burdock, Water and Any other that apply!(Plenty of Caffeine! )

Paint Editor: Paint.net(Love the transparency!)

Sound: Windows Sound Recorder(Its cool!)

OS: Windows 7(Pro)

Wish Everybody luck and have a great day!

Hi there! I’m very exited to take part of the 27th Ludum Dare, this will be my third LD.

Language : Java

IDE : Eclipse

Other tools : Paint.net, SFXR, Chronolapse, other things I forgot

Good luck all

We’re in for the Jam.  Previous entries were submitted under AngryBearCrossup, and from here on we’ve decided to make a group account for future entries.

We’ll be using Unity3D for the engine.
GIMP and Photoshop for 2D graphics and textures.
Blender and ZBrush for 3D graphics.

Unknown currently for music.
SFXR for sound.

So this year I got my first job (note, I’m only sixteen years old). And as long as I don’t have work on the day I will go and do the Ludum Dare. And maybe this time I will fully finish my project

Anyways, here is what I will be using

Language: Java

Library: LWJGL(OpenGL)

Image Editor: Paint dot net

Sound: No Idea

Other: Ogmo Editor

Good luck to all, and have a fantastic Ludum Dare Jam!

Hi! After absent from two LDs, I’m back! 😀
This time I’ll be using a 2D library that I coded months ago for Unity. I plan to release it as open source later. For now check the videos below

My Tools:
– Language/Engine: C# with Unity and my 2D library Video 1, Video 2.
– Graphics: Photoshop Elements 10, GraphicsGale, Blender, Sketchup, GIMP, TexturePacker.
– Music/Audio: Finale Notepad 2012, Synthfont, BFXR, Audacity.
– Timelapse: Chronolapse.
–  Base Code: I’ll post later.

Yeah, I’ll also be using the same tools as the past two Ludum Dares, more or less. Whether my music is synthesized or played live depends on how I’m feeling. LD #24 and #26 were both synthesized for me, while I did some weird recorder playing for #25. It worked out well, so maybe I’ll pull out a few more instruments this time around.

This time around, if theme permits, I’d love to make a level editor so I can make maps that are a little bit more robust.

Tools:

• Language: Lua 5.1 / LuaJIT 2.0
• Framework: LÖVE 0.8.0
• Code Editor: Sublime Text 3
• Music Writing: MuseScore 1.3
• Audio Editing: Adobe Audition CC
• Image Editing: Adobe Photoshop CC

Existing Code:

• Ussuri Engine

I don’t know if anyone has done this before, but I just had this idea of making a game using the Windows File Explorer (or any file management software). Much like in a text-based adventure game, you would be able to explore a world and do things and have an inventory, but everything would be done using folders and files and shortcuts. Of course, there can’t be as many features if you’re not able to use variables and conditions and stuff, but I find it funner to navigate through folders and files than to write commands and read everything. And of course, it would be easy to cheat.

Anyway, I tried it out and made a very small “game” using this technique. Unfortunately, it’s not cross-platform, because I had to use windows commands to make the shortcuts work. If you want to try it out, here it is.

If you have seen this done before, or you have any kind of feedback, I’d be happy to hear from you.
Sorry for bad english. Me no naytif.

Sadly I have some real life things to take care of the weekend of LD27, so my chances of participating 100% are slim to none. That said, I will try to make something – even if it’s dinky and ultra-quick.

If it happens, I will be making the game the same way as my last efforts: in JavaScript (including libraries for jQuery and Raphael), HTML, and CSS.

 Likely Tools: Notepad++, Chrome, Photoshop, Bfxr, and Pickle

Good luck to everyone! Let’s hope for a good theme!

Hello everyone,

I guess it is the right time to say ‘I’m in’ for the second time! But this time I’m going to use Flashpunk instead of Javascript and HTML5.

Generally, I am working alone, so I would probably submit under compo rules, but I will consider taking one extra day and submiting for jam if the theme will be really inspiring.

Good luck everyone!

Love ya guys. I plan on using HTML5 this time instead of unity3d. I’ll make a post about which tools I’m going to use as soon as I know.

Probably will be doing a Jam though.

This will be my first ever ludum dare as I missed the last one for personal reasons. I’m 14 years old and for the past 2 months have been learning as much java as I can. I hope that I will be able to make a game from start to finish. This is what I will be using.

Language: Java

Framework: None, Just Pure Java.

IDE: Eclipse

Graphics: Paint.NET or Photoshop

Music: FL Studio?

Sound Effects: FL Studio?

Wow, time for another LD. How fast the time goes. I’m getting excited as usual. So many talented people (left and right brain thinkers) getting together in one (virtual) place. Let’s blow the (virtual) doors off this (virtual) place this time!

Anyways, this will be at least my 10th LD (lost count actually) and I’m as excited as ever to create, create, create. That’s what this is all about to me in the end; I just love to create things.

This time I’m going to build an old fashioned graphic adventure like Sierra’s Mystery House, which happened to be the first graphic adventure ever created.

I’m going to go take photos with my new camera and use those as the source of the art I create. Should be a ton of fun. Like a wild goose chase but instead of chasing a goose, I’ll be running around trying to find the shots I need for the game. I’ve gotten pretty good with Photoshop too lately, so I think I’m ready.

In the last LD, I created my own javascript interactive fiction engine, but I think it’s too specific to reuse without serious changes. Since I don’t want to spend the time on technical issues this time, I’m planning to use a nice IF engine called ChoiceScript which looks a little better than Twine and seems to have the features I will need.

The key for my entry to be any good is I have to come up with a good story, so I’m trying to read as much as possible to get my mind in the right mental shape. Garbage in, garbage out, as they say.

Good luck to all who enter the contest and have fun!

I am 12 years old and I will be entering my first ever ludum dare. I have been a java programmer for a year or 2 now and I hope I can at least finish my first ever game

Last time I made this: http://hallmonitor.ca/justice-ludum-dare-26

Now I’m working on a full version. LD27 will be a bit of a break from that. I may well wind up doing the same sort of thing, because it plays to my strengths. Or something completely different. We shall see.

Engine: Either Unity or Gamemaker

Art: Paint.net

Sound: My guitar and the internet

Inspiration: Top Gear

So I’ve been working on my Mini Ludum Dare 44 7dRTS entry Power Grab and finally have it to a level that I wanted to be for the actual competition.  I got some great feedback and incorporated most of it and feel that the gameplay itself is now pretty polished.  Here’s some of the changes:

• The nasty random crashing bug is fixed.  It was actually a floating point arithmatic error and took forever to track down…
• Accuracy of your attacking units is increased.  So much so that you now can actually hit individual things!
• Win and loss conditions implemented (destroy all opponent’s power stations and lose all yours respectively)
• Multiple playable levels
• AI got some work and no longer randomly gets stuck.  Also, added different difficulties
• Quick (really quick and ugly) menu system for setting up a game.
• Animations polished
• Camrea scrolls instead of jumping, making it much easier to understand what is happening.
• A “fire every unit here” button

Still left to do is implement keyboard shortcuts and make the buttons appear near the selected units, but after that my basic feature list is complete.

So now that I’m nearly through my feedback list and I have a fairly polished game I’m actually wondering…

Is it any fun?

I mean, I enjoy it, but I made it so a portion (maybe a large portion) of my enjoyment comes from that.  I have ideas for additional units and gameplay options, but I’m not sure it is worth it.  Anyway, if you play it and enjoy it and can think of any additional features or cool unit ideas let me know. 

If you want to give it a shot, the post compo version (Java JAR file) is here: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/103108185/PowerGrab/PowerGrabPostCompo.jar

Compo version here for comparison: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/103108185/PowerGrab/PowerGrab.jar

Hi. I’m 17 years old, and I am a java programmer, and I’m French. I’ve already made some games in Java, and I love this language <3 !

So I’ll use :

Language: Java

Framework: libGDX

IDE: Eclipse

Graphics: Paint.NET

I hope I’ll be able to finish my game, and I wish you good luck !

Good day, everyone!

I’m making this post to announce that I will be participating in my first LD event later this month (LD #27).  I’m very excited to be able to contribute to someone else’s game and make the experience of playing that game a very enriching and rewarding one.

Here’s the catch:  my main specialty is audio.  My goal is to provide incredible music and sound effects for your game.  I’ve done a small amount of “think tank” tasks (such as coming up with ideas for how the game should go) in the last game jam that I participated in, but my main focus will be audio.  If you have a game that needs some good music and sound effects, please let me know.  (To make it fair for everyone, I’ll work with you on your project on a “first-come-first-serve” basis since I’m not sure how many responses I’ll get for this.)  Check out my works so far at www.jmcmillenmusic.com.

I’m currently using Logic Express and various sound fonts to make my music.

I live in Austin, so I’m not sure if anyone is getting together in Austin for LD #27.  (I’m waiting to hear back from some friends of mine who go to UT to see if they’re getting together for this.)  If so, I’d like to work with you in person.  Let me know where we’re going to be, and I’m good to go.

Good luck to everyone who’s participating in LD #27!

Sincerely,

Jeff McMillen

Well, I’m in like last time. Hopefully this time I’ll actually make something I’m happy with. C++, OpenGL, GLFW and SOIL. Each of my previous entries have gotten progressively better, hopefully this trend continues.