My first game jam is under wraps and I’m pretty happy with the results. Did a lot of graphic work too, and I think they turned out pretty good for a programmer. Was also the first time I’ve ever drawn my own animated characters! More game details are all on my submission page.

Web version is up, which I assume will work for most people. I’ll try to get a Windows and OS X version uploaded soon. I’d love to hear your feedback!

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-27/?action=preview&uid=25089

I had a ton of fun doing this, and will most likely put up a postmortem / blog post when I’ve had some rest

What a weekend! How did everyone else do?

While I LOVED everything I got done this weekend, I’m glad I can relax and rest!

I got MUCH more added into my game this LD over last time, but there were still things I wanted to add.
I went with a shmup because I really enjoy them, I just need to get better at making them!

I used Samsara, the circle of life, death, and rebirth, as the title and inspiration for my game. You have a ship that “reincarnates” a version of you from 10 seconds ago. But don’t worry about the reincarnation dying, every 10 seconds your ship will try to reincarnate a new version of you if you don’t have a reincarnation already!

Go have some fun with Samsara!

Title screen

ingame screenshot

Hours of sleep: Around 8.

Lines of code: 2621.

Curious bugs: Innumerable.

Things I did wrong: Almost all of them.

However, I suppose that I did the most important thing correctly, making and submitting “10 seconds for Cactusman” within the 48 hour period.

Looking back upon my development process, I realize that the most blaring mistake I made was made before I began the competition, I failed to write much of an engine, even a rudimentary engine, before the theme was released, and thus spent most of the first and second days writing collision code and various other theme unrelated tasks.

The other mistakes that I made were less damaging. Ignoring the theme until the final ten seconds of development, writing a terrible level-saving format, and finally not correcting bad bugs, but spending hours fixing the most minor of issues, probably set me back a bit, but I honestly don’t know how fatally they’ve crippled “10 seconds for Cactusman” overall.

Anyway, that’s it for my first postmortem, and my first LD.

Hopefully I’ll be able to implement something cooler next time.

P.s. How do you rate games?

Whether the game is, is another story entirely!

My entry for Ludum Dare #27 Jam is Hijack Humans Hastily, an spiritual successor to one of my previous games, Fry Fleshlings Fast.

You can play it online, or watch the video below (warning: I forgot I was recording all my audio input, so it has some music being played by mistake).

Overall it was an OK game for me to make. It’s nothing super but it’s more well round than my previous entries, I think. More on a post-mortem soon.

I know this is a dumb question, but how do you rate a game? Do you just comment on it?

Tags: help

Submission complete! Play it behind the click!

I’m reasonably happy this time. I managed to finish the core functionality despite a somewhat “eventful” weekend, but there were many things left behind (features, bugs, sound,…). I’ll probably write a more detailed post-mortem tomorrow.

Good luck to everyone!

Finally, I’m (pretty much) done with my game. After changing the idea of the game 4 hours before the competition ended, I still got it to work somehow. The game only has 3 levels, and the third one is impossible I think, but I threw those together in the last half hour of the compo, so that was to be expected.

I couldn’t include any sound in my game, not only because I didn’t have the time but also because I couldn’t find a way in HaxePunk to play any sound at all. Got to look into that soon…

Otherwise, I still had great fun making something for my first Ludum Dare, and I’m looking forward to rating all the good stuff you all have come up with.

Have fun rating and good Luck!

– Xera

Another masterpiece by ‘Radnen’ Andrew Helenius

My game can be seen here: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-27/?action=preview&uid=26346

I did everything, the graphics, the code, and the mapping. I wish I could add music and sounds but that was too much to handle (and I suck at making music). I hope the graphics and comedic elements are great.

My first LD compo!!!

A shoutout to DaVince (vincent) here: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-27/?action=preview&uid=25741

And to FlyingJester here: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/author/flying-jester/ (I don’t know if he made it?)

I am proud to present Clockwork Dragons, a planned-action game influenced by Robo Rally in which you try to loot the countryside faster than your AI opponent.  Clockwork Dragons is playable, winnable, and remarkably unbuggy, based on my past experience at game jams.  It hasn’t been playtested, though, so if you find anything, please let me know!

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-27/?action=preview&uid=25740

Finishing any game jam successfully is a big rush, but I’m particularly proud of this one.  I love being part of a team, but there’s something astonishing about looking at a project and thinking, “I did that – every single part of it.”

When I look at the results page, I see there are 1,386 games submitted (and counting!), which astonishes me as well.  That’s a breathtaking amount of sheer creative force (and skill, and passion, and enthusiasm!)  My sincere congratulations to everyone else who ran this marathon beside me today, with an extra dose of appreciation for the people on Twitter who kept me company.

Now I want to eat for a week.  And sleep.  Wait, maybe I want to sleep for a week, then eat.  Maybe I can eat in my sleep….

Well, it’s 3 am here, so I’m about to fall unconscious but I managed to finish my game.

The artwork is a little less than I was hoping for, I thought I had all day to work on the art, but then I wasted more time on the graphics for the title screen/endings than I really should have. I kind of like the ending, but I should have put more priority on the level graphics… anyway, it all works, and you can check it out here: Link!

Huzzah!

It’s a horror explory game, you must evade the ghost of Emily as you explore an abandoned school looking for items that can help you escape. If she touches you, you die. She gives you a 10 second head start though, so it’s not all bad.

I’ll probably have a timelapse up sometime in the next few days if everything worked fine.

My primitive line drawings turned into a game. Nibbles/Tron light cycle game, with 10 seconds to live, and food, and poop.

That was exhausting. Time to crash.

So I managed to actually finish my game for my first ludum dare, if I could have done anything better it would have been the graphics but I’m no artist. The game is definetly interesting and I got in all the features I wanted. I’ve been up so long now and I can hear my bed calling me, it’s been a very long haul.

You can see my game here: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-27/?action=preview&uid=25874

The first ever LD was a 24 hour event. I did not participate in that but I played every game.

I participated in the first 48 hour LD and my entry was average. The theme was defend or guardian.
Since that time I have followed every LD and wanted to enter but did not.
Anyways after more than 10 years I have participated in LD 27 and I am disappointed with myself but and entry is better than none.

Hey,

my game is finished, the controlls are still a bit weird so.

fiddling with physics. 😉

you can find it here:

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-27/?action=preview&uid=3751

Today went more smooth than yesterday, though I didn’t put as much effort in today as yesterday.

I got the first steps of my “10 seconds” theme going with the AI and introduced some player side stuff; HUD for the health and ammo, as well as reload animation and magazines that spawn and drop when the player reloads. Tomorrow will be making the level and some final testing to make sure none of the AI is too buggy.

Like yesterday, I put together a time lapse of today’s work:

Tags: #27, day two, udk

My second Ludum Dare, done.

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-27/?action=preview&uid=20442

Once again, it was a huge kick to finish something and see it all come together on the second day. Very late on the second day, too. Once again, there were tons of concrete points I wanted to tackle but which I just couldn’t due to the time constraints. I believe I prioritized right, though.

More on what I experienced later, right now it’s 4 AM and I’m dead tired, proud and happy. Ludum Dare is great!

Tags: Ren'Py, succes!, Visual Novel

Finally I can sleep.

What an experience this has been! I’ve learned quite a bit. Most of all, I CAN create a video game from scratch in 48 hours! This I am the proudest of.

It was only after 5 hours until I realized how hasty I had been with my planning. There was plenty of time to code, but it was just too late to start all over again. The game took form via trial and error. The end result became nothing like planned. I wish I had put more effort into gameplay and mechanics. Unfortunately the game became over-simplified and lacking in features.

Well, that’s just LD48 for you!

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-27/?action=preview&uid=24026

I always made action games, so this time I decided to make a puzzle.

The result is really challenging for the players.

Just click in the image to go to the page.

Just added Android native port

Maybe I will do Linux/Windows/OSX tomorrow tho I don’t see much point since it runs in browser anyway.

YEAAAH!!

It’s 5.15AM and school starts at 10.15AM.

….

Anyways, here’s my game, WVVW!

WVVW / Ludum Dare #27

It has a built-in editor too if you like to make your own maps