Hey,

So the calendar pictures are DUE!  Here’s the deal, we need 12 people to make the calendar, so I want everyone going to join to post here.  You should probably get your initial pictures taken ASAP.  Once we have 12 people committed, we’ll work out the final details of photo editing so we can wrap this up!

Cheers!
-Phil

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 11th, 2009 at 5:19 pm and is filed under MiniLD #14. 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.

Well the results are in. We polled 150 people, and well… I think “wow” about sums up the results. Lets have a look!

Availability wise, we're split down the middle.

Well, you can’t really ask for much more of an even split here. No matter which weekend we choose, 72% of those surveyed are available to enter. Yikes!

On to the next chart.

Preferences are... also the same

As far as preferences go, the 18th slips by the 11th by a mere single vote. Double yikes!

So what do these charts tell us? Well, they say we can pretty much choose either weekend for Ludum Dare #16.

As for the for the voting.

A majority want 3 weeks

Well if we do the 11th, 59% want more voting time (3 weeks+). If we do the 18th, only 47% do. Personally I’m still leaning towards 3 weeks myself, but it’s good to know.

So when will Ludum Dare #16 happen? We’ll get back to you. The charts are split down the middle, so us moderators will have to debate OTHER reasons to pick one weekend over the other.

We’ll let you know our decision in the next couple days.

– Mike Kasprzak (PoV)

This month’s Mini LD is this weekend and the theme will announced this Friday. If you haven’t seen the post yet, it’s a team competition – to take part, you’ll need to find someone to collaborate with.

If you want to participate and haven’t found a partner yet, leave a personal ad in the comments! Let people know what you can do, and how much time you’ve got free this weekend

Bah – it’s basically Friday, isn’t it?

Like the last TIGSource contest, this contest has a dual theme. You and you teammates can choose to use either theme, or both.

The themes are Comedy and Tragedy.

Unlike other Ludum Dares, this time you are required to collaborate! (If you haven’t found a partner yet, see the post below this one.) If your team decides to use both themes, each member should take creative responsibility of one theme each and ensure it finds a place in the game.

You can make the game at any stage this weekend that suits you. And don’t worry if you can’t start for a few days or if the project goes a little beyond the usual 48 hours – I have a very loose definition of weekends that includes Wednesdays.

Whenever you’re ready, you can submit your game here!

So..

First screenshot:  http://ippa.se/ghost.PNG

Rubyc0de @ http://github.com/ippa/ghost

You just died, floating above your cross… such a tragedy..

I need to collaborate, so the potential quality of my work could (Maybe it won’t, but with younger siblings helping…) go down, but, I should be able to get more done, making a better overall game. Now to get collaborating and brainstorming, maybe my Mom or my siblings or friends can help.

Tags: foodphoto, motivation

Hello game developers!

My new friend Doches and I are teaming up to bring you some Greek drama. A double feature of it, in fact!

Doches has been most kind in sharing his encyclopedic knowledge of the classic dramatic form with me, and we’ve also talked a bit of game design. An epic email thread, currently 20 communications in length, sits even now in my gmail repository, where it shall remain for eternity (or until Google gets shut down by the DOJ, whichever comes first).

Our plan is to bring you two games that play in parallel, one by Doches and one by me. Two very different games, developed in separate vacuum chambers, which toward the end of the weekend shall be suddenly smacked together into an amalgamation of some kind. Our primary goal (or mine, at least) is to end up with something jarring and weird.

We have a really exciting plan for connecting the two games, and have spelled out in detail the exact set of 6 functions that each game must expose. I believe this is what real programmers call an INTERFACE! This is some serious OOP we’re doing here, my friends. Bjarne would be proud. As I put it, somewhere deep within our epic thread:

It’ll be like painting a beautiful work of art, then duct taping a light socket to one end and screwing it into somebody else’s painting. It’ll be like overlaying a corporate management structure onto an artistic endeavor. It’ll be like making the most of a bento box.

We look forward to it.

Yours sincerely,

Doches + Hamburger == Dochburger

Hello! Is anybody here? We’ve got something real good for you here!

It’s called Slapstick!

Play it in your browser here, or download a Windows executable here. Make sure you click in the game window after it loads up, otherwise it won’t receive any of your keystrokes.

Doches and I had a great time making this. This game is our take on Greek theater. You will be playing two games at the same time. The hero’s on top, the chorus is on the bottom. I made the hero, and Doches made the chorus. These are two separate games, guys. Two Ludum Dares in one pot.

WSAD = control the top game. Arrows = control the bottom game. Both games have a progression, and you win the whole conglomeration if you win either game. You cannot lose, but you will find yourself in trouble if you neglect either of the games.

This was a crazy experience for us. Lots of fun. Okay, it’s buggy and it’s rough! But that was part of the plan! These two games didn’t meet each other until a couple of short hours ago, and they are still getting to know each other!

I hope this variety of blindfolded parallel game development can be expanded into some larger events in the future, because it’s been a pleasure. We hope you will have as much fun trying to wrap your head around it as we did wrapping our arms around it.

Doches + Hamburger == Dochburger

Tags: comedy, dochburger, final, greek theater, parallel games, slapstick, tragedy

Hello,

Here in France, it is 2:40 AM. I’m hungry and so does my partner Tenoch (or at least so did he. Now, he’s eating bread with pieces of butter. I guess. Given that he’s in Finland I can only imagine). We have almost finished our game (well, he has almost finished, since I’m writing weird things to post on the blog), whom name is quite easy to remember : SMOTSBOTJOACDG. Nice, isn’t it ?

Ok, actually we just call it SMOTS. This name comes from a messy story of jealous girls… Jealous muses, exactly. It takes place on a greek drama stage, and there is an incredible love story . But you’ll also find a coat stand, a cactus, cerberus and a whale. And several very cute girls. Tenoch-approved.

Well, I don’t want to spoil the whole thing.

Just wanted to say this was my first LD. Anyway it was very impressive ! I lost my partner on satudray night (he took the longest break of his life), so I coded alone from saturday to sunday 2:00 PM in a language I discovered on… friday. About 6 PM, I think. Finally it was OK, Tenoch is a nice geek and his code is well documented

Well, that was nice. And fun. Next time I may play the game in solo ! But first I’ll have to finish my presentation for tomorrow 8:00 AM, and eat, and… ah, maybe sleep a little. Just a little. Or not. Wait and see.

I hope you’ll enjoy smotsing.

Striking mess on the stage indeed...

A MiniLD #14 entry by Tût-tûûût  & Tenoch

(a.k.a. smots)

Get it here. (Available for GNU/Linux, Mac OS X and Windows)

Sources are inside the .love file, which is a renamed zip. You can also find there the music/graphic files, if you want to listen/watch them out of the game.

Might follow a postmortem post, once we both get some sleep to compensate the week-end. And yay for including wednesdays in week-ends.

Here is a copy of the README file, which contains instructions for the game:

An divine love story

Hello, I’m Dionysos. I hope you’ll be able to help me.

You see, I think that two women are in love with me. This wouldn’t be a big problem if only these two women were not… goddesses. Yes: they are Thalia, the Muse of comedy, and Melpomene, the Muse of tragedy…

Out of jealousy, they try to destruct the art of each other: while a tragedy is being played somewhere on the world, Thalia messes up the mind of the actors and makes them play a comedy! So does Melpomene in comedies, of course.

I can’t make a choice between them: they are equally important for the human kind. And, as you will see, they are equally… cute.

I borrowed a few thunderbolts from Zeus and I strike the one that shouldn’t be on the stage. I hope this will calm down their anger…

The game

You’ll be randomly Thalia or Melpomene (you don’t need to know their names in fact). As a consequece, you’ll be either Comedy or Tragedy, represented respectively by pink and blue.

You must turn all the actors from your rival into actors of your Art. Easy game, isn’t it?

However, there are not only actors on stage: there is scenery, too! You’ll win when all the props on the stage are in your color. There is a bar on the left to let you know the repartition of the objects. You can’t interact with props. Only actors can. But you can inspire them…

Oh, and there is the other Muse on the stage, too. Otherwise it would be much more boring, you see. She can do the same things as you: turn your actors to her side.

Control

Move your Muse with the arrows of your keyboard.

“Switch” an actor with the spacebar.

Push escape to… escape.

Licensing

Source code is copyright Agnès Haasser & Noé Falzon, released under the
GNU GPL v3.

All music is copyright Noé Falzon, released under cc-by-nc-sa.

All graphical assets are copyright Agnès Haasser, released under
cc-by-nc-sa.

Tags: screenshot

Here’s my entry for Mini LD #14.  It’s a game about Don Quixote.  This is my first entry to LD and my first time using Flixel.  Let me know what you think.

http://pixelverse.org/portfolio/quixote/

Quixote Screenshot

The Helix Community unveils its long awaited submission to the series of Miniature Ludum Dare Competitions. Built upon many of the classic staples of modern and old-school gaming, while bringing a new and unique twist, Click The Clown: The Ultimate Collection: Director’s Cut Edition is certain to please gamers of all creeds.

As you’d expect, being a collaboration between all of the top minds behind your favourite video games, CTC:TUC:DCE stands at the top of its field as a rare example of the perfect game. Get ready for a non-stop action-packed rollercoaster ride of intense gameplay, beautiful graphics, and epic storytelling, backed by one of the most masterfully composed soundtracks in recent memory… and that’s just on the menu screen. CTC:TUC:DCE will keep you glued to your computer from start to finish and leave you begging for more when it’s over.

To miss this is to make the biggest mistake of your life.

“This is, perhaps, the deepest game I’ve played in my whole career as a gamer. A truly astonishing experience.” ~ LFF, co-creator of CTC:TUC:DCE
“I agree.” ~ chuchino, producer of CTC:TUC:DCE
“Stunning… simply stunning. Easily the best indie game released this year.” ~ theindiegamereviewers.com
“Play CTC, and you’ll never want to go to any other game ever again. It worked with me several times.” ~ Acium Radd, age 13
” 一度幸せな星に “は来た; CLOWN 望まれただれ世界を変えたか彼は生命および愛を持って来たそして全体的なしかし中心のチッカーのまわりの子供へ笑うことはカチカチ音をたてることを止めた 彼のとして”を受け取った; CLICK そして悲しさは消えた. 10/10/10/10” ~ Famitsu
“I heard it has clowns. Can’t go wrong with clowns.” ~ quakster, creator of Megaman sprite comic B.O.L.D.
“Awesomely cool…” ~ Roger Ebert

Download now!

So, here’s my first ever finished entry into any game development competition.

It’s a two-player co-op game, where the two players see the world from wildly different perspectives. One funny (the two players are clowns in a world made of gift-boxes, throwing pies at walking piñatas), the other tragic (you play as soldiers mindlessly killing innocent civilians).

The compo version (about 48 hours) can be found here (Windows) and here (Linux/source).

An updated version (added health packs/candy, a score meter, changed the screen-size, added a full-screen option, and made the game a bit more difficult, to keep the players together) can be found here (Windows) and here (Linux/source).

I recommend against eating them. Wholly unmodified photography by myself and hamumu. Really! Maybe!

Tags: mints, towlr

Hi everybody,

I just wanted to let you guys know I’m going to be a little busy over the next few weeks. I’ll be around to make sure the compo starts and all that great stuff, but you may or may not see me much in IRC. Crunch time about sums up what’s going on.

You’ll be able to follow along on my blog, as I’m keeping semi-regular updates going there (though expect a delay on the next one), but it’s nose to the grindstone time for me. My schedule for Smiles PC puts me shooting for a release candidate by the middle of December. Distribution plans to follow.

Following that, there’s something else I want to sneak in between now and GDC (March 9th-13th). That’s a little more than 3 months from now. And no, it’s not Towlr for iPhone (though that’d be awesome). So, time is tight.

As always, if there’s a site maintenance emergency, and if Phil’s not around, fire me an e-mail. mike at sykhronics dot com. Alternatively, you can message me on twitter, mikekasprzak. Both will get my attention relatively quickly.

Thanks, and I look forward to showing you what’s up.

Mike Kasprzak (PoV)

Here is the game Andy Wolff and I made.
It’s a game about a small boy in a large sewer. It’s your job to get him to interact with his surroundings in the hope to find the five different endings. I’d like to think of this as a complicated love story with the raw emotions of humans really showing. It brings up the complexity of how people deal with relationships and ultimately what they do to keep them alive. It’s very deep.

download (windows)

Tags: MiniLD #14

Hi all! My name’s Jordan, I currently live in Korea, and like Vede, this is my first ever LD entry. If you’d like to know a bit more about me, I’ve got a little bio over at my website. I’ve been out of game creation for a long time, but am excited to be back into it, and I had a lot of fun with this mini LD. I collaborated with a friend in the States via Skype, who contributed  ideas, and created the graphics. We kind of mucked about most of Saturday trying to fix on an idea, but then spent Sunday through Wednesday working hard. We completed and posted the game yesterday, just making it in under the “Wednesday weekend” radar, but I was too tired to post anything else at the time :).

Anyway, the game is sort of a platform rts, kind of, with rabbits. You can get it from the LD entry page, or via direct download link (Windows exe).

Tools: Game Maker 7, Photoshop.

If you’d like to know a bit more about the game and the creation process, and how the heck it fits with the theme, just hit the break (you may want to try playing the game first, as it’s a bit spoilery):

So basically, we decided to go pretty literal with the tragedy theme, and try to make a game about exploitation, racism, and genocide. Wow, that’s a mouthful. We also wanted to try to work in the humor angle somehow (crazy, I know), which is one of the reasons we went with cute bunnies exploding. There’s nothing about the game that’s “haha” funny, but there is kind of a black humor there, I think.

The idea was to make a game that started out looking like a basic resource management/rts kind of thing (and cute, to boot), but then gradually became more and more sinister, ending with the player complicit in genocide. I’ve wanted to do something like this for a long time because genocide, racism, oppression of minorities are very real problems in places I’ve lived, and I want to see games that speak to issues like these. I’ve also always thought that something like this would work well as a game, because so many games are actually already about genocide, but the games are abstracted enough that players don’t really consider that what they’re being asked to do is wipe out another race of people, or robots, or whatever. So in a way, the game is a critique of gaming, and game playing. No so much saying that games like StarCraft or Total Annihilation are bad (two of my favorite games of all time, actually), but just asking people to think. I also wanted to get away from the classic idea of “balancing the sides,” by pitting the player against a game where the sides were clearly unbalanced. I think a two player game where one player played the aggressor and the other played the victim would be great.

Anyway, this is all mostly theoretical mumbo jumbo, and I’m certainly not claiming to have accomplished any grand goals with the game we managed to produce in five days.

About that. Here’s a little timeline:

As the game stands right now, a lot of necessary coding work is in place to make something decent, I think, but a lot needs to be polished up, and balanced out, etc. etc. We had very little time, at the end of the process to make the actual levels for the game, which would have ideally had more time set aside for them. There’s a lot to be done! But I would love to get any feedback anyone is willing to give.

I think that’s about all I have to say at the moment. It’s been fun, and I am looking forward to playing the other entries!

Ok, I think that weekend’s over

Congrats to everyone who took part! It looks like we had 13 participating teams, which is a lot more than I expected given the complications with the rules this time – you can view all the entries here. Let’s have a playing party in irc sometime this weekend

Next month is THE REAL Ludum Dare, with proper deadlines and everything! Find out more here.

Thanks again to everyone who took part, and congratulations!

(Don’t vote for this one.  We totally know that we’re past the deadline.  We actually finished 95% in 48 hrs, but had trouble publishing… mostly just want feedback on our first group effort).

Here is our entry for Mini Ludum Dare 14

You play the role of the mustachioed newspaper editor who is trying to maintain a balanced coverage of world events.

When the game loads, press any key to begin and then use the up/down arrow keys to catch incoming headlines.

Some are tragic… some are comic… your balance-o-meter will tell you fair and balanced you are being in your headline gobbling.

Headline sources include realtime Google News Feeds and Onion. Comedy? Tragedy? I dunno.

• Windows Download
• Linux Download
• Mac OS X Download

Well we’re always looking to try something new, so here’s a voting round for the participants of MiniLD #14, the team competition.

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/minild-14/

I plan to leave it up for about a week, so act now. If you entered MiniLD #14, please give your fellow entries a spin. We need a majority of you to vote on everything to get some decent statistics.

Good luck!

EDIT: Aaaaand switched off. See link above for results.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 23rd, 2009 at 4:10 am and is filed under MiniLD #14. 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.

That took forever to compile and get online ok, anyhoo, its a timelapse of both me and Logan making ‘Delusional’

Tags: timelapse

This entry was posted on Monday, November 23rd, 2009 at 4:35 am and is filed under MiniLD #14. 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.

My college has finally released its grip on my spare time. I have very few assignments to complete, and most of them are from a professor who is very laid-back about due dates. (She’s good with herding cats)

I have two exams, one is effectively open-book, and the other is a UNIX/Linux exam where we can use the man/info pages as much as we want. Which may as well be open-book.

I’m looking forward to this coming LD.

—-

My plans for the compo are still up in the air, but I’ve decided on the following for sure:

• I’m using C++ and SDL
• I’m building with make
• I’m using GIMP to make the sprites
• I will use a plain file-hosting service, because making new GoogleCode pages just feels dumb.
• I will use SFXR again, because it’s awesome

I liked my idea of holding myself to multiple themes last time around, so I’m going to do that again.

I have some thoughts about what I’m going to do with my concept. I like the thought of a game about an animal hunting prey. It’s something that I haven’t seen done, and I think it’d be a fun game to play. Creating a fighting game would be fun if I could get the assets done in time. Casual games are an interesting idea, and would be a nice change of pace for me.

My favorite idea out of those is having an animal as a protagonist, which will definitely be a major idea in my game.

The idea of a virtual pet kinda appeals to me. It would be really tricky to do well, though, and I don’t think I’ll pursue it.

I dunno. I’ll probably post again once I have some certainty.

Peace,
Mr. Dude

I didn’t do caverns due to family obligations, but I’ve just realised what a dramatic increase in quality the competition eventually produced.

Terrifying!

Doing this one though, wild animals wouldn’t stop me. (Hey, theme idea.) Gonna need to serously up my game this time. . .

See you all in a week and a half. :O

Guess who’s back for another round of LD? That’s right, the one and only brandonman! So, i plan to be less unachievably ambitious this time around. The 3d cavern was just too ambitious to get done AND have AI in the time alotted. Maybe this time I could still stay 3D, but have no AI? We’ll see. Also, I’m going to put a bit more time into music. Maybe it can get me charting. Also, last game, the player moved WAAAAY too slowly. That wont happen this time. Woot Woot, competitions getting fierce with me here! xD

I’ve decided to do a “Warm-up” game this weekend.  The theme is Art Game À la Experimental Game Project I’ll be using the Flixel Flash Game Engine, my first foray into Flash.

Just thought I’d share in case anyone else wanted to join me.

Rules?  We don’t need no stinking rules.

Tags: warm-up

Like a broken record, my Java basecode for the Ludum Dare 48 Hour Game Programming Competition #16 is largely the same as the past two three four five competitions. I haven’t made any changes to it since the last compo, despite saying that I wanted to. Recently I have been dabbling with C++ again, though I don’t feel that I’d manage very well using it in a compo at this time.

Download it here.

• Goals are pretty much repeating what I said last time:
• Keep the same art style as last time.  I sketched things out on paper and scanned them in so I could colorize. Keeping with bold colors and gradients is probably what I’ll do.
• KISS – Keep It Simple, Stupid! Making something too complex is just a recipe for a headache at 1pm on Sunday afternoon.
• Make useful additions to the basecode that can be used in later competitions. The screenshot stuff is an example of something I did previously that helps out a lot.
• Finish most of the work by Saturday night so I can spend Sunday polishing.
• Don’t run into dumb problems that eat up eight hours.

Tools in use:

• Java 6 SDK (though last time I included a version for JDK 5)
• Eclipse IDE
• Photoshop, maybe some Illustrator
• DrPetter’s sfxr for sound effects
• Audition, if I can get it to play well with my sound card
• HP OfficeJet 6450 All-In-One for scanning doodles
• No Fear Energy Drink Sugar Free (Hopefully Boris Said and Carter Racing will run some Sprint Cup this year)
• Everlasting Gobstoppers
• mIRC for chattery
• Killer Game Programming in Java and the base code I mentioned above.

Can’t wait to see what the theme is.  Hope it’s a fun one!

Tags: basecode, ld48_16

So, I just now took a look at the LudumDare site, and see the counter…

7 days left!

Naturally, I flipped out and started to hyperventilate. I soon realized that it was the same weekend I had to leave on saturday to participate in a competition elsewhere.

I knew I should’ve looked sooner! I could’ve tied the vote! XD

Anyhow, despite these problems, I’ll still try and get something in. So, that’s all.

To prepare for LudumDare 16, I have made a TODO list.
1.) get back on IRC (it’s not LD without it)
2.) salvage some old code (I have a c++/SDL game framework lying around somewhere, just need to detach it from an older project)
3.) do some prep code, tools
I know exactly what kind of game mechanic I will be going for (probably not :P), so I’m going to try to do some tools, that might come handy. Of course, they will be available to everyone prior to the start of the competition, along with the framework (if I can find it, and patch it up).

Tags: prep

Lately, I’ve been mostly using Unity for my game development needs, but I’m kinda bugged about the various limitations the free version has, so I’m now looking at using the Ogre 3D rendering engine for my graphics. OIS for input, OpenAL for audio, Bullet for physics if I need any. Ogitor for a scene/level editor possibly. Does anybody have experiences with any of these? I suppose I am still missing some sort of unifying “game engine” part here, but I have to do some work, don’t I? 😉
In other news, I just went through some surgery on wednesday, so I’m not quite sure yet whether I’ll be fit to participate in LD16, but so far I’m feeling really good so I think I’ll be able to make something.

Tags: bullet, ld16, ogitor, ogre, openal, unity

Well, last contest I think I bit off more than I could chew.

I tried to use a new language Processing, which I wasn’t that familiar with. That’s extremely hard to do, even though the language is actually really easy to learn. It’s a simple language designed for creating graphics.

My goal in the last contest was to create a game that only used dynamically created graphics. I think the fact that I was unfamiliar with Processing hurt me in trying to do this. Also, dynamically created graphics requires algorithms that take a lot of trial and error. I ran out of time before I really got going.

I have been playing with the UDK and I’ve been considering using that to create something,  but I really am still lost because there is so much there. I think it just feels a little too much like work to mess around with for a fun contest. Playing with UDK has made me realize something: that it is all about content these days, and not so much about programming any more.

So with that I’ve decided I want to focus on “Eye-Candy” this year. Even though I’m not an artist, I think I’ve come up with a way to create great art of the year’s entry. For Christmas this year, I’m getting about a 3K digital camera setup which includes a Canon 7D, an amazing Tamron 60MM f2 Macro lens, a Canon Speedlite 580EX II flash and a ridiculously fast high-capacity CF card.

So Saturday morning, after I already have a game design, I’m going to spend half the day taking pictures for my game. All backgrounds and game objects will be real life objects. The macro lens will let me do close ups of things such as toy cars or tops as objects and water and sand and such for interesting effects and backgrounds. I might even dabble in trying to use the video since the 7d has an amazing 1920x1080x30 video mode.

The RAW pictures I’ll be taking will be a resolution of 5184 x 3456 and they will be extremely high resolution, sharp pictures, so I’m expecting to come up with some amazing graphics. I’ll use photoshop CS4 to process them and the Ez Mask plugin to extract any backgrounds from foreground objects I want in my game. Ultimately, I’ll probably downscale the graphics quite a bit and create JPGs out of the backgrounds and PNGs out of the objects. I still want the game to be hi-res, so I think I might aim at 1920×1080 resolution for the game. This will be interesting and fun, and I look forward to getting my camera next week to try out my ideas.

I want to spend more time on the content and less on the actual programming, so I’ve decided to use something simple, an easy 2d framework preferably. Yet I want high performance because this is going to be a high-resolution game with a ton of huge images. So I’ve decided to use the Community Framework of BlitzMax. I’ve got several game examples and it looks like this should be super easy to code, so I can focus more on the graphics and gameplay. Small amounts of code goes a long way in blitz.

I don’t know what the gameplay is going to be because I don’t know what the theme is, but all I know is I am going for super simple gameplay. Again I want to spend as much time as I can putting “eye-candy” in the game and not writing complex algorithms.

Well, let’s see how it goes this year. I’m sure there will be plenty of challenges as there always is, and things don’t end up as I plan. But it is always fun to try!

I’m probably going to make a game. I’ll probably use some kind of tool to do it, like a programming language or some game-creation program. My game will probably also have some gameplay in it.

This is our first time competing in LD48 (although not our first time competing in a short dev cycle contest). Hopefully, we’ve prepared enough; starting with a mostly-working engine instead of rolling one from scratch on contest day should help.

The obligatory stats:

Tools:

• compilation and linking: GNU toolchain
• graphics: GIMP 2.2
• sound: MilkyTracker, SFXR
• level: Mappy
• engine & framework: preexisting custom 2D
• helper libs: Allegro 4.2, DUMB, fBlend
• target platforms: Win32, x86 Linux, GP2X (maybe)

We’ll see how things go.

More about the internals:

In accordance with contest rules, here’s a note on how the framework and tile engine work.

The game is treated as a series of states – a state for the main menu, a state for gameplay, and so on. There is a state structure that looks like so:

typedef struct
{
unsigned which;
void (*init)(void);
void (*tick)(void);
void (*draw)(void);
void (*load)(void);
void (*unload)(void);
} GAMESTATE;

Before we start executing any game logic, there is an array of gamestate structs that gets populated with the functions from the various states. Each state reads input, advances counters, starts sounds, etc. in tick() and does all its painting in draw(), and these both get called at a regular rate. init() is called to reset any internal variables to their start values, and load() and unload() get or free assets from disk.

Tilemap internals

This is fairly straightforward – a level has several planes, each of which are an array of bytes that control things like what tile should be drawn where, what eyecandy should be applied to it, entity spawn points and the like.

Other

There are functions to do a few graphical tricks like waviness in water tiles, a circular wipe, full-screen blur, etc.

While at the same time studying for the exams :]

Hello! It’s my first time at LD, and I WON’T chicken out at the last moment like I did with the miniLD…

I’m just getting the feel of the posting system for now but my game engine is ready, keyboard cleaned of crumbs, screen polished to a shine and my damn DVD drive still not working.

Anyways, you got any tips for a LD beginner?

[EDIT] DAMN! My engine is still lacking sound and map loading, the keyboard still has crumbs in it and my screen has fingerprints all over it!! This is all going to hell! Well… at least the DVD drive is working…

[EDIT2] It’s  still not working!!

I probably will not know whether I am going to compete in this or not until the Theme is announced. I have an AI project I need to get done for school as it is due the week after the contest. If I get it done before hand or far enough along, I probably will.

If I do this will be the second LD I have entered. For LD15 this past August, I used C++/SDL as a platform. I may pull up that code from before and work with it some more, or I might actually use C#/XNA. I believe this is allowable by the rules? XNA is not open source, but is freely available. I will double check this.

At the moment, I am leaning towards C++/SDL as I would like to keep developing the 2D framework I started in the last LD. My goal with it is to create a game library that facilitates creating 2D games in as easy a manner as possible. I’m taking inspiration here from various other game libraries, Slick, XNA and even Ogre3D among others.  I am doing this in an effort to develop my object oriented design skills as well. I believe that entering the LD contests is a great way to do this development, as I can easily judge how easy it actually is to use.

Regardless if I enter or not, I can’t wait to play some of the games! Good luck everyone!

\m/ Casey

Yo!

I shall partake this time round. Lessons learned from previous attempts were crystal clear; I should stick to what I’m good at. Well, I’m a web developer by trade, so instead of futzing about incompetently with triangles, I shall instead endeavour to create a web game, if I can come up with an appropriate idea for the theme

Tools:

PHP, Javascript, Eclipse PDT, Apache, GD Library, An Image Editor which may begin with the letter P

Pre-existing custom-built libraries:

Simplified MVC framework for PHP, with a single entry point for normal requests, Ajax requests, and scheduled cron tasks. I’ll share the code once the Model portion is not an unreadable mess.

Javascript library for handling Ajax requests.

A few custom JS widgets:

– Debugging console

– Wrapper for Canvas functionality

– Various interface bits and bobs

If realtime multiplayer interaction is appropriate, I may incorporate a Javascript/Flash socket bridge as long-polling over Ajax is a painful misery.

Good luck, everyone 😀

Gonna be using as3/flixel/some of my own collision detection code.

Well will try to participate. Last time went experimenting with some ideas and was not able to finish a game in time. Rather ended up with some toy.

This time I am not shore how much time I will have and how creative my mood will be so probably if I will try making something it will be simple/small with intent to finish something.

As for tools as usual Flash AS3 + my code, probably will not be using any libs except for may be some Box2D in case theme and game idea will need some solid physics.

This is my second LD and I’m ready to throw down.  My goal is to place in a category, and sleep less.  Last compo I scored #6 in audio so this time around I will spend some extra time writing songs.  I also am planning on making a timelapse of my work.

I’ll be making my game with Blender 2.49 (go Blender!)

Other software I plan to use: Photoshop, Reason.

To get ready, I’ve been practicing on my midi keyboard and writing a python GUI class to help handle my interface objects in Blender (will post if i finish).

Ciao!

I was hoping to be able to participate in LD16, and I’ll still try to get something in. Since I’m in the middle of a move, though, it’ll probably be something fairly small. That might be a good thing in any case, though, since my LD15 entry was too ambitious by far and suffered badly for it.

In any case, if I am able to participate, tools will be the same as in LD15; ruby, gosu, pixen, mercurial, and (hopefully) sfxr.

At the moment my computer is in a box, however, so prospects are somewhat dim; I don’t plan to set up a development environment on my girlfriend’s laptop (where I’m typing this), that would be rude.

This is me, I have arrived.

Getting psyched about this competition. I’ve been playing with Unity, but I may also look into pygame. Other than that, I have no plan whatsoever.

Is there some place I need to sign up at? Or do I just start making a game when the timer gets to zero?

Good luck to everyone!

Ready to play.

Hey ludumites!! I’m here again, this if my fourth consecutive ludumdare! My first two attempts were pretty much a failure, but I succeeded last time with “Nice Cave”, and I’m very determined to make it come together this time!

– Unity + Textmate for code.
– Photoshop + 3D Studio Max for art.
– SFXR + GarageBand for sound and music.

See you guys on the battle field, where we’re all fighting against the common enemy: the deadline!   Come on everyone!  Give it your all!!

What’s up, all you game design suckaz and suckazettes out there?

I come from a land where the word ‘SUCKA’ is term of endearment, and things that are ‘RAD’ are of the utmost importance. Radical dudes with attitudes are constantly abound, swinging from the hip with the tip of their fingers on the pulse of this cutting-edge badassery known as LUDUM DARE. Prepare for the pinnacle of our programming ponderosa!

My name is SonnyBone and this will be my very first Ludum Dare competition. I’ll be hanging out in the IRC and posting some bloggage along the way, so I’m sure we’ll see a lot of one another. I want to find enough time to fit in at least one custom song for my game, but I feel as though I’m already becoming too ambitious. Rookie mistake on the horizon? Perhaps.

Either way, we’re gonna see some awesome games next week, and that makes me very happy.

LONG LIVE LUDUM DARE!

Well, after a successful LD15 ( I actually finished something! which wasn’t too bad either, if a bit brutally difficult and incomplete ) I feel up for another one.. lets see if I can not stuff up the submission this time 😉

I’ll have a bit more of a battle plan this time.. I shall be planning my time carefully rather than just barging ahead blindly.

Tools:
GIMP, GCC, CodeLite, MilkyTracker

Pre-Developed Code:
My engine… of which the source can be found here: http://svn2.xp-dev.com/svn/stuckie-SGZEngine/ most of which is hideous, hehe .. it’s also not been touched much since LD15

And that’s that! Looking forward to another Ludum Dare, and hopefully another finished game

Well, ludumdare 15 was my first and I think I did pretty well then, though I could’ve done better. I’m hoping to enter this time, hence the post, but I’m pretty sure I’m busy a lot of the weekend. I’ll just try to be quick I guess.

Love2D has worked alright for me in the past, so if I do get around to making anything, that’s what I’ll be using.

Good luck to everybody else as well; let’s break the record for number of entries again.

I plan on entering this again this time.   Hopefully I won’t get frustrated with other time commitments like the last few times…

I’m switching from my usual python / pygame joint to Ruby / Gosu and a home-brew library I’m calling Raspy.

Raspy’s pretty incomplete, and I’m planning on improving it over the compo, but the timer is pretty cool.  Hopefully I can get the Map and Viewport sections done by Friday. (Good luck)

Oh hey look a post.

Hey there, daring people. I’m Chronomaster, and this is my first LD, even my first game dev compo. I’ve been looking forward to this for some time now, and have been mentally prepping for Friday. My purpose for joining this competition was to improve my lousy record for doing/achieving anything whatsoever. I have a habit of finding myself with excuses that, while valid, seem to be holding me back. Hopefully, with the competition’s restrictions in place (a short dev period, one person teams only, all resources from scratch), I can get my heading straight and pull through with a respectable piece.

Not that any of that is helping with my prep time. :V

Best of luck to everyone, and cheers to a good show!

After participating in LD14 and sitting out LD15, I’ve decided to take a shot at it again. This will be my second compo – as usual I shall be working with XNA 3 and my lightweight add-on library “Booon”. I’ve been beavering away at improvements to the library, and will post the source before the compo begins.

Best wishes to everybody – oh, and *makes hypnotising movements* yoooou… muuuust… dooownlooooad… XNA… redistribuuuuuutables… 😉

Hi everyone! I’m 10Print, and this is my intro post. LD16 is going to be my first.

I’ve been coding ever since I signed out a BASIC book from the library at the age of 7. I mainly work in Python/Pygame, though I’m attempting to learn Lua and am strongly considering doing this competition in LÖVE.

I think the most challenging part for me is going to be having to create all the media myself. I have always relied on other members of a team (or online resources) for this. Perhaps I’ll take the easy route and make a roguelike (something I’ve always wanted to do), but for the sake of challenging myself I’m going to at least attempt making graphics and audio. Apologies in advance.

I’m going to be doing a timelapse video, as well as a ustream of the insanity that will be this weekend.

Tags: intro

Since the trend is to spam the compo blog, here’s my 5 cents.

I’ll probably be unable to enter (sadly) because of exam preparation. If I manage to work hard enough during the week I might do some LDing in the week end, but quite frankly, it’s highly unlikely…

I’m still gonna vote for themes, and hang out in IRC though.

G’luck everyone, and remember, laziness prevails!

HOW DO YOU SIGN UP ??? I’ve been using Game Maker for forever, so you people might want to watch out!

I’m originally from the MMGF, the best site ever, where game-programmers are born… So everyone, WATCH OUT !!!

Statement of intent.  I’ve been lazy with my ludumdaring recently.  But not this weeeekend.  Oh no.  I’m in this weekend.

Going to try and do something networked and in flash, I think.

I am in.

I had an awesome time last LD48.

I hope to dear god the theme is good though – I wouldn’t want to have to make a tasteless “anti-twilight fandom” game now…

Allo, I’ll be working on a game for LD this weekend. I’m currently working on final projects for school (ucsc computer game design program) and will be driving from santa cruz to socal on friday morning. I’ll probably be on the road when the theme is announced, thankfully there’s no laws against designing and driving. I’ll be visiting a friend from out of state during the compo also, so I’ll be keeping it simple.

I’ll use either game maker or vc++/allegro/same skeleton project i’ve used for past LDs. That project and my past LD entries are at www.originowl.com.

On a related note, my final project for my assembly programming class was a shmup which ran on a Motorola HC11 microkit, using a two line by 16 char lcd display, 8 leds, 8 switches, and an interrupt button. I’ll get a video of the game.

Ciao! Good luck all!

LETS GET NAKED!

I might do it with flixel. Oh, yeeaaaaaaaaaaah…Or else imma use my same thing imma use in spring, 2LDs ago: http://kittylambda.com/labyrinth (it’s hidden somewhere within the labyrinth…)

Also please watch my latest game dev video blog:

END OF SPAM.

Hello all,

I’m new to LD and have never done it before However I took part in the GGJ09 (and shall be taking part in GGJ10) I look forward to hoping this is a fun event. I have asda pizza (make your own pizza is way better than dominos!) lined up for all in my flat taking part, along with cookies and all sorts. Haven’t decided yet on what I’m going to make my game in, all I know is I’m going to regret having to go to work on the Monday as I’ll be shattered >.<

To be honest for theme I would love to do the greek mythology one, however there are a lot of awesome themes which I would equally enjoy to do.

Shall download an irc client tonight, looking forward to it 😀

I wish everyone yummy bad for you food and lots of game making.

Catherine.

Tags: motivation

Hello,

This is my first LD and gaming compatition ever…

But I have made many games/apps for the pc using GM and C#. I’m probably going to make the game in GM7 or 8. Also if anyone knows whether we can use  engines (rpg, platformer etc.) that we made before the compo for this compo. (awnser in comments)

 Well anyways good luck to all the people contending.

 X-Div (My Blog. Prob going to update there most of the time and here with importent stuff)

-Willy L

Tags: entry, Willx, x-div

Hi, I am Grayger, planing to participate LD16 this week. It will be my first time to show my game to public.

My P/L is python using pyglet or pygame for a game library. I will draw levels or images with inkscape. These days, I am interested in box2d. If the theme is not far from physics, I will use box2d.

I think i’ll partecipate if i’ll find the time, unfortunatly this week i’ve an interview and a
lot of stuff to do for my relocation.
Anyway, if i’ll manage to get somethink ready i think i’ll use bash, no special effects, but
maybe some sound.

CIAO and GOOD LUCK!

In an effort to force myself to do something via possible internet shame, I am declaring intent for this weekend.

It’s damned cold outside anyway. What else am I going to do.

After totally failing to submit anything the last time I joined, I’m definitely going to finish something this time, even if it’s totally unplayable.

AND I’ll be streaming the entire mess directly via livestream. 😀

My plan is that everyone else will be too busy watching the stream to actually make any games. Muoahah.

I’ve got some small commitments this weekend but I’d feel terrible if I missed a LD. Gonna do my best to be uber-efficient.

Oh and no shitty themes, plzkthx 😀

Well. I have company Christmas parties on Friday night and Saturday night, but hopefully I will have enough time to cobble something up.

Game Engine: Either Unity (gotta learn it first), Novashell or maybe even Love

Graphics: Gimp, Paint .NET

Audio: Audacity, sfxr

I have two concerts this weekend, but I hope to have time to make something.

I’d like to try out Flixel this time, but in case I get stuck or something, I’ll use my Haxe base code again.

Good luck everyone!

… already.

Instead of C++ and SDL I will use Java and its standard library. No pre-written frameworks, all from scratch.

I will also use Gimp and maybe Inkscape for graphics. Not sure about the sounds yet, might use DrPeter’s sfxr.

Tags: plans

I think I may have invented a word in the header, hm. In any case, I’m planning to participate as well. I hope!

I haven’t really settled on what tools to use yet, but I’m going with some form of Java – either LWJGL, Slick or just the standard API. On top of that, the usual set: Gimp, SFXR, MSPaint (yay!). If I feel inclined to do something in 3d, I’ll also use Wings3D. I sort of feel like doing something with shaders, but I expect a lot of people won’t be able to run it if I do :/

It is quite possible that I will attempt to make a game to fit both into the Ludumdare 48h and Java4k contests, and submit it to both.

Tags: java, ld16

Alas, finals + LD = sadness.  How many more times will real life interfere with LD?  Well, that strongly depends on how I do on my final on Tuesday.

So, with regard to not competing, the tools I will be using:
#2 Pencil
Several Sheets o’ Papers
Enormous Brain in my Head

Oh, what a drag. ;_;
Cheer me up and let some totally awful theme win, like “Rain” or something. 😉

Alright, I’m declaring that I intend to participate… this will be my first LD…

I will be using a work-in-progress custom engine/library, at the moment it’s pretty incomplete, and right now I’m hacking a copy of it into a simple physics wrapper, with some audio and stuff, so it’s more of a framework, so that I don’t have to write all the lower level stuff during the 48 hours…

My engine/library is made with C++ and uses Ogre3d, Nvidia PhysX, OpenAL, and if I have time to make it do something, perhaps some simple lua scripting as well.

I do declare, these declarations are driving me to didactic dexterity. Therefore I hereby do dutifully declare independence from these declarations. Let these daring declarations be destroyed!!

Tags: Declarations

COMPETITION APPROACHING

Take him down Fox!

Use your blasters!

Don’t screw this one up Fox.

It’s too powerful! It’s like it’s… invunerable to all our attacks!

Hint hint hint.

To follow the tradition for this Ludumdare:
“I’m declaring that I intend to participate for the first time”
maybe it turns to the good or maybe it turns to the very bad, we’ll see.

Well this is my first Ludumdare…      …well my first Competition for making games ever.
Furthermore i must go for maybe 2 hours to a party.
And I must help a friend in Photoshop.

But I still have plenty of hope that I have something playable in the end.
You know “While there’s life, there’s hope.”.

Because I played in last time with AS3 and Flixel, I will use that, Photoshop for concepts and the visual eyecandys and maybe Alchemy for inspirational use.

Tags: declaration, first compo

(I declare that) I may be a little screwed if the theme’s Twilight Fandom though – I’ve only got a vague idea of what Twilight’s about (for some reason I’ve got it stuck in my head that it’s about a vampire who beats his wife?  I always knew those vampires were no good…), and no idea what Twilight fans are like.

Anyway, I’ll most likely be coding in C++ using SDL/OpenGL and PortAudio plus libvorbis, and my template code which you can see here.  If not I may use flash, but I reckon I’ll work faster in C++.

I’ve got a 5-hour shift at work on the Saturday, so I’m aiming for a more minimal design than my previous 2 entries.  We’ll see how that goes.

Well, due to a surprise entry on the 4th round of voting, I came to a conclusion of what is inevitably going to be the topic of this Ludum Dare. Now, I don’t want to tip my hand just yet, but I figured, hey, I should go and get the box art out of the way, while I still had the idea in my head.

Hope you guys like it.

I’m so sorry.

Tags: ld48_16, motivation

So, about a week or so ago, I left my computer to go eat lunch. Computer enters screensaver, I eat lunch, and I come back down, just in time to see my monitor completely frozen, with random dots appearing and flashing about near the top of my screen. Nothing was responding, so I did a force-restart so I could log on again.

Then, I did the same thing. Same things happens, but every once in a while it would also flash the whole computer a random color, usually a primary color, or any other combination of the 3 (red, green, blue).

The issue hasn’t resolved itself, unfortunately. I found out that it also does it whenever I try and run a video on iTunes, or use Hammer, except it automatically resets after a few minutes.

This is quite frustrating, seeing as I was going to try and use Unity for my contest entry, and how Unity, along with the other mentioned programs, would require quite a bit of “hardcore” rendering (my screensaver was 3D pipes, so maybe it has to do with 3D rendering).

Of course, it could all be for the better: I suck at Javascript, and I’m only getting 24 hours to work on it, not including various interuptions like sleep, food, and life in general, so working with what I’m used to (GameMaker) would probably be a good idea.

Anyhow, maybe next time I’ll use Unity (and fail :P).

EDIT: Just realised this means no Garrysmod.

D****t.

I mean, I kind of like it, but...

Tags: motivation

I’m ready to make some guesses plans about my game.

I’m going to try to make a super-simple Roguelike. I will use Python so that I have access to Tkinter, and also so that development goes reasonably quickly.

The dungeon will be randomly created, as is typical with the genre. The AI will be really simple due to time restraints.

I’ll figure the rest out when the theme is announced.

I’m looking forward to this. It’ll be nice to be able to participate in another compo.

Oh, NiallM, you have no idea how right you were.

Tags: motivation

I’m up and running for the LD this weekend. I’m going to use HaXe with FlashDevelop. I might also use Flixel but I will decide that later.

Cloud Game warmup mostly done.   You shoot the clouds.   I didn’t really have an idea, I just started coding..

I was going to do something where you were the God of REAL Twilight fans, and you had to make clouds to shield your followers from the sunlight…. But it seemed a but too involved.

Tags: clouds, warmup, xna

So I think I’ll finally get around to “competing” in one of these fancy pants competition doodads, rather than just enjoying the fruits of it. I’ve had very little sleep during the past couple of days due to a caffeine-fuelled three day lan party, but I think I can sustain myself for another 48h with some power naps and the like.

I think I’ll try to make a Flash game using haxe. My only real experience with this kind of thing is a couple of classic game clones (e.g. tetris, space invaders) so I’ll try to keep things pretty basic. I have a bit of an idea in mind anyway, just kind of hope the theme fits it.

As for graphics and sounds. I have Photoshop and a guitar and I’m not afraid to use them. Though when I do other people seem to be afraid of me…

So yeah, I suggested 3 themes for LD16.  I ‘accidentally’ suggested POWER OUTAGE CALAMITY in a comment on the main news page. I don’t count that one, because I never actually added it to the Wiki myself. It just kind of ended up there somehow.  I suggested UNWANTED POWERS which came out on top in the first round, which is pretty rad.

However… my favorite suggestion didn’t make the cut, and I can only weep for what could’ve been.

RIP, best theme ever.

(doubles as my workspace photo post. so ha!)

Tags: deskphoto, intuos, starman, wacom

Gonna pygame it up a notch. Plan to try testing out a ‘pygame_distribute’ prototype… to make generating pygame executables much easier.  Apart from that, there’s definitely going to be some particles.

Particles for the win! (PFTW)

‘Gentlemen start your engines’

So I’ve finished the improvements to Booon, the add-on library/mini-engine I’ve been using (thin layer on top of XNA). This version adds state control, simple collision detection, and improved audio support (with easy positional audio). The full source and example program are available from my compo site.

http://sites.google.com/site/haitaka/ludumdare16

Tags: tools, xna

Gawker for the mac is a nice free app for recording timelapse videos. It will record screenshots every X seconds, and then compile them into a MOV file.  I’m doing a test over several hours at the moment, but I think it will be fine.

Hey all! I plan on taking part using Torque3D. This is the first Ludum Dare I will have taken part in so it will be fun trying to keep up with the pace.

I’ve been following Ludum Dare for a couple years I guess, and now I’ve finally gotten an opportunity to participate! No more exams means that this time of year is available to throw down a weekend.

I plan on either using XNA or Flixel. I’m pretty good at either. We shall see.

I would prefer to do it in XNA, I have the most experience in it, but I worry that people won’t have the desire to make their computer XNA playable. Am I worrying too much?

I would like to make a time lapse video, but I don’t know which software is the best for windows.
I am excited!

I cleaned up my workspace in preparations for LD. If you think It’s a mess, you should have seen it before. 😀

Actually I should have posted a before and after image. I guess now all I can do is post a pre-compo and post-compo image of the desk. Should a good enough shocker as well.

Tags: messy, workspace

This was engraved above an ancient game of tic-tac-toe.

You are challenged to continue the tradition!

Well I have everything ready. A large supply of freshly squeezed orange juice, hypercam (which hopefully won’t destroy my processor), a baseball cap with a number 1 on it and a comfy, spinny chair.

This is my first time entering and it’s so exciting! I’m going to use game maker (since I haven’t got enough skill in c++ to produce something remotely presentable in 48 hours)  and if I have enough time, I’ll be able to create some nice music for the game on my keyboard.

Good luck to everyone participating!

I’m terrible when it comes to game making. But that doesn’t hinder me to join up anyway!

So. Here we… wait for the theme.

Hi everyone, I’m Sebastian, from argentina and this is my first LD ever 😛

I’m going to program my game with python + pygame and try to make it work in windows with py2exe…

I really have no experience in game programming so lets hope for the best 😛 (and hope that the theme is not twilight fandom too :P)