I’ve compiled a table of every entry from this Ludum Dare. Click here or on the image to check it out.

Whohooo, I’m done…

This time, I went for Jam. Didn’t get enough time, I even went a bit over the limit on the deadline, and didn’t even get all I wanted. Ok, but it was fun 😉

FIRST DAY (Fri-Sat): Thinking about the theme

The first 24h was spent just thinking about the theme. I actually thought about the theme during the slaughter, so I had some idea about what I wanted to do. I wanted to jump into programming, but I had to attend an open-house the whole day for an art school.

After it got announced, I developed my first idea immediately. It was going to be “You only get one bullet”, and you have a girl escaping a prison. She knocks a guard, grab his gun. Afterwards, the tutorial shows you how to shoot… then you see the title: “You only get one bullet” (I love to frustrate players ;-D). Of course, if you know about it, you can skip the tutorial and try to hold on to your bullet. I was going to make it possible to finish the whole game without ever using any bullet (basically you can use the gun to draw the gun, and you press another key to shoot). Then I just kinda paused for a minute. First, I kinda realize how much AI scripting and level design I would have to produce, and that scared me. Then I also thought more about the theme, and thought “You only get one bullet” is not that uncommon. Not that it’s bad, but I just thought, why not try something a little different. I also thought: “You ONLY get one” means you kinda wish you had more. More bullet would mean more killing I guess. Then I started thinking about this whole side-quest started by McFunkyPants: “Make a game with #NOKILL, no violence”. I didn’t even plan to participate in that, unless by chance my game didn’t have any violence. This time, I actually got swayed by it.

So back to the drawing board.
– You ONLY have something, so you wish you had more of it.
– It should be a situation where you’re supposed get MORE, but you can’t.

I then thought a bit about my warcraft games, where I would play the game with just one unit (hero unit). That’s kinda fun, but I still don’t get out of the #NOKILL thingy. However, it help me to think about the final idea. Instead of an army, you get one soldier… or instead of a team, you get one player!

Done! I always wanted to make a soccer game, now’s my one chance!…

SECOND DAY (Sat-Sun): Programming

Texture + Round Mask = Ball effect

Ok, I finally get in front of the computer. I start with a mockup for doing things in semi-3D, then scrap that out and go for 2D top view. First goal is to make the ball. Thankfully, I learned some tricks from making a pool game previously for rolling a ball (it’s basically rotating a texture on a round circle with a mask).

 

 

 

DIST < R1 + R2

 

Next step was getting collision detection. That’s fine cause I’ve done this in several previous game. The idea is just to turn everything into a circle, then collision between two circles occurs when the distance between their center is less than the sum of the radius.

 

 

Next is the interaction between the player and the ball. The controls of the player and the ball had to feel good. I remember back in the day, there was 2 soccer games I tried on computer. One was FIFA, which was very popular at that time, but I didn’t like it much. Instead, I played this other game (I forgot the title). I just repeatedly have Rudy Voller run with the ball into the goal. I could definitely understand why it was not as popular. ( That game was way too easy.). I did enjoy the fact that the ball just sticks to the player until he/she gets tackled (which never happens with Voller cause you’re to fast!). Anyway, back to the game. I simply implement the equivalent to a magnet on the player, then have a repulsion magnet when we press [space]. As it turns out, if you just play the game pressing [space] continuously, it plays a bit like FIFA, which I actually prefer now.

Then I had to add players. I went back and forth between two ideas:
– Having fixed enemy players in the game, who try to hold position and approach the ball when it gets close.
– Having enemy players generated on the fly, coming in and out of the screen.
It turns out the second version makes no sense, but is more fun. So that’s what I chose.

The highlight of my sunday night was the real-world ludum dare meetup. I got to meet other jammers in person working on their game and presenting them. It adds a lot more to the game, when you hear someone talk about it, and see their face. It’s also nice to know others are Jam regulars, participating in other events like charity jam, 0h game jam, and putting their games on http://www.onegameamonth.com. It feels like you’re part of the community.

LAST DAY (Sun-Mon): Art, sounds, and headache

Until monday, I really got excited. I thought I would be able to achieve a lot, then I realize my head was getting a bit big, then I got a headache. I had to let go of so many nice idea, because I didn’t have time to squeeze them all within a Monday when I’m supposed to work. I did upgrade from the geometric shapes to actual sprites, so that was a plus. I also added ambient noise, but I’m not sure if this was a good idea. For some reason, I thought I would be able to have all the following before the jam deadline (which I had to let go):
– a referee!
– a complete intro showing the good coach (a bunny) getting harassed by the enemy coach (a horse), and the gorillas beating on the other cats
– a crowd, with hidden characters inside.
– replacement players (gorillas => rhinos => T-rex)
– an enemy goal-keeper

The last day was mostly disappointment, but now I realize I should have just kept it real. What I got at the end isn’t that bad for a weekend jam. I finally made my soccer game (achievement checked ✓), got to remind myself of Shaolin Soccer (a good chance to express how much Stephen Chow is an awesome actor), and got a kick out of writing a bunch of silly soccer player names.

I hope I get to improve this game, but I know the reality of things… I always end-up working on another new cool game instead, which is a good thing ;-D

“You only get one player”

Tags: #NOKILL, JackLeHamster, LD28, ld48, post-mortem, postmortem

I hope that posting this request for help here is not violating any  rules 😀

I am trying to export my sfml game using XCode to OSX. I followed the tutorial and also googled for at least 4+ hours and I managed to get it to work on my MBP. However, when I export it to a .app and  it can’t work on my friend’s MBP.  The error he get is EXC_BAD_ACCESS. The default template application provided by SFML can’t even work so I am guessing that I didn’t get the configuration set up properly. I am hoping some people here can help me.

It’s finally complete! Our first LD jam went quite smoothly although me and my friends have other activity to do these 3 days.

Check it out here: Bombevo

Bombevo is a strategic match 3 games where you must combine and upgrade your weapon to it’s maximum potential, and then attack the invading UFO!
You can only attack once before it retaliate and destroy earth. Make all move count! 😀

 

Check it out, and don’t forget to give us feedback and rate it!

I haven’t formally done one of these before, so…here we go!

Original goals:
– Make a roguelike in a weekend. [Success!]
– Score in top 100 in Audio. [Not going to happen this time.]
– Score in top 50% in all categories. [We’ll see…]

What went right:
– I tried to a do a random dungeon generator in a day a while back and failed, but the generator for ($SRCROOT)\dungeon was done in about 10 hours, with only some infrequent minor bugs that I’ve found so far.
– I did not spend more time on art assets than their end quality warranted, as I have before.
– Some very simple tweaks brought the style together at the end.

What went wrong:
– Ugh…The Javascript library I’ve been using/reworking for the past two years has gotten so messy. I have collision bugs that I can’t find, and I have to reinterpret the basic code every time I use it.
– No music. That was one of my main goals, yet I didn’t prioritize it and ran out of time.
– Like last time, the game’s too hard. Partially I just didn’t have the time to balance it properly, but partially I clung too tightly to some original design ideas.

What to do for LD 29:
– Change to a better engine. I have a solid one in the works in C++ and might use that, though running in browser is nice.
– If still using Javascript, find a good IDE for it (any suggestions?). I lost a significant amount of time to repeated syntax errors or incorrect variable names. I like Sublime Text, but…
– Actually do music. Heck, I might design the whole game around it.
– I should probably try harder to design my game to the theme next time.

If you like really hard roguelikes, you can give ($SRCROOT)\dungeon a try here. Thanks!

sry for late post , we’re done for sure , at least for now,  something unexpectd happned here, we were worrying about time so much, so we cancelled a few features, cut a few stages, but at least having 2 stages with normal difficulty is enough for now 😀
gooo guys play our game, ENJOY !

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-28/?action=preview&uid=16606

I got some complaints that my entry was too confusing and I didn’t make an in-game tutorial; so I made a guide page in the style of a PS1-era game manual. Thought it would help people, who hadn’t seen a game like it before. Click on the image for full (legible) size. And play my game; which is here.

 

After a game jam I’ve always wanted to continue developing the game, but this presents a few problems. Firstly, since my game jam code is haphazardly held together with metaphorical duct tape, things start to fall apart and I find myself needing to rewrite and refactor a great deal. Secondly, a game comp or jam has a deadline and so a clear finishing point. Despite my desire to continue adding to my game, I’ve decided to limit myself to music (which is something I always wanted the game to have) and a boss level. The boss level is done! Here is a gif showcasing the level as well as my flawless aim.

I’d like to write up a post-mortem at a later date, but for now I’m eager to try as many games as possible. Congratulations to everyone who made a game in LD28!

(Click the image to go to the timelapse)

You can play the game here

 

You can read the post-mortem here

 

Instance Gameplay Video

I had to start a bit late with Christmas things.  Still competed with rules and happy to share outside of the competition. Hope you like

About 10 hours of solid development in my first GameMaker: Studio project.  Link to download on Youtube.

Hello everyone! This year was productive to me and I got to interact with some really good game devs. Here are the projects I worked in:

Knife, Gun, Rose, Watch

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-28/?action=preview&uid=14337

 

Noir!

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-28/?action=preview&uid=30430

 

Replay

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-28/?action=preview&uid=18950

 

Really was starting to doubt my team would finish in time, but at 3am on tuesday morning we did it!

after a lot of team reshuffling we eventually got started saturday, coming up with a huge amount of ideas before settling on one that annoyed the least people, Something similar to binding of Isaac with you only get one chance/one gun/one bullet at a time/one weapon at a time etc.

I started coding it up in unity, others started on music and assets

By sunday night we were able to run about the clocktower, but had no enemies, UI or shooting. Although thanks to unity2D (which im new to) i was able to add particles, bloom, lighting effects etc within a few hours, from my previous experience(xna) that would of been at least a whole day by itself

Monday we went non stop, coding from 6am until 3am, and artists creating assets until the very last minute!

We ran into issues with the main player asset not looking 1armed, so we had to adapt the theme to meet the story instead. you only get one lord of the clocktower… when you win, you take over. This made a lot more sense when we thought the theme was “you can only HAVE one” as we read it wrong sometime on saturday 😛

 

Really happy with what we made, and I’m going to spend all week polishing it up, so that i can deploy it on iphone/itunes/android/google play this weekend.

play the game here;

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-28/?action=preview&uid=14588

 

Now that I’ve rested up again and my sanity has returned, I feel ready to write a postmortem for the game I made for LD28!  You can play my game here:

You only get one… WORLD!

I am a South African, so the competition started at 04h00 in the morning on Saturday, making it difficult for me to be there from the start!  It was my first Ludum Dare and it was loads of fun! Thanks to everyone who’s rated my game so far!  I will be sure to rate any commenters on my game!

What went right:

• I have a lot of experience with most of the tools I used (openfl, aseprite, audiotool), which made for quick progress across the board.
• My brainstorming session early on the Saturday morning went really well and I found an idea that I was pretty excited about in about 2 hours.  After that I could hit the ground running!
• I drew up a rough schedule the night before the competition and I stuck by it more or less!  It helped me keep my eye on the big picture!
• I used the pomodoro technique and it helped me to stay focused a lot!  It also helps you keep track of the time and keep  your eye on the ball!  I can vouch for its efficacy!
• I didn’t know beforehand how good my pixelart would be under pressure, but creating the art for the game went pretty smoothly and I am really happy with the final result!
• Audiotool was used to compose the music pretty quickly and I can highly recommend it!

What went wrong:

• I wasn’t able to get to bed early enough on the Friday evening and ended up sleeping until 07h00 instead of getting up at 04h00!
• I didn’t prepare for theme very well beforehand.  Next time, I will brainstorm the day before on each of the possible themes so that I have a few ideas once the theme is announced.
• The strategic view took me a lot longer than I planned!  Pixel art world maps are not easy!
• I didn’t have time do a lot of the stuff I was planning from the start, like a crowd of noisy observers to the debate, better balancing and a victory screen…  There was just too much to do!

That’s about it.  Overall it was a really positive experience, I think I had quite a bit of luck on my side!  I hope you will play/rate my game and leave a comment so that I can return the favor!

Greetings!
I would like to share our game and our experiences of creating this project.

“Greed, Curiosity, Glory, Shame. Behold the past was revealed. But the destiny can be changed” – Akh

The story about Akh
The game shows us a short story about a personality coming from a ancient people and you have the power to choose his and the people’s destiny.

Our goal:
-Simple mechanic
-Simple animation
-Create a short narrative
-Explore a different artistic concept (we searched about Egyptian mythology)
-Have fun!

What we want for next steps:
-Fix some bugs
-Change some arts and HUD elements
-Create our own music for the soundtrack
-Create more levels and challenges
-Have MORE fun!

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-28/?action=preview&uid=26722

Hope u like, enjoy! ^^

Well, this may be the first (almost) fully completed Ludum Dare I’ve done.

Besides a few bugs and issues that people have found, it has solid mechanics, decent art, extremely nice dynamic audio, and… three near impossible levels (four if you include the practice level). Link to game: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-28/?action=preview&uid=18421 or if you’d prefer to skip the LD page, it is hosted on GameJolt: http://gamejolt.com/games/arcade/zestboi-ice-racing/20213/

 

While the extreme difficulty was intentional, it probably would have been better to ease players into it rather than shove them down that path face first. But hey! It was a great Ludum Dare. And another one where I spent 1/3 of it on the road. (Only the gods know why I’m still awake).

 

Congratulations on great games everyone!

Hi!

I’m here to introduce the game we made during the jam. We had a hard time and couln’t add all what we wanted but, hey, it’s playable, it has a tutorial, a singleplayer mode, a coop mode(which is also fun for one player) and you can edit the rules to do crazy stuff!

Check it out

A super villain is trying to take over the world and a sidekick is the only one who can get in his way. But you are trapped in your lair and your nemesis is throwing fireballs at you. The worst part is that you only get one shield to deflect his attacks while you try to save the day. Being a hero(or a sidekick) is never easy.

Code & Design: @Ludipe   |   Art: @aquilicoco   |   Music: @franklinwebber

I have some experience in game creation, I used the Panda3D engine and made some shaders and nature scenes programming with pandas and birds. Then I made 4 games with Stencyl. This was my first project in Unity.

 

What went good :

• I could upload the game in time,
• I could make my game work.

What went bad :

• I discovered crucial bugs at the time of uploading, couldn’t solve them as I was tired,
• I was planning to add voices and typos effects during gameplay, couldn’t implement them in time,
• I made the 3 levels in the last hour, so I didn’t work on the fun, gameplay and replayability factor,
• I couldn’t make levels with a grid, so I can snap different terrains parts together,
• there is no music as well :/

What is the future :

• I plan to finish this game, polish it, make some fun levels and publish it on the google store for free of course.

Ludum Dare 28 marks our very first Ludum Dare entry! This simple clicking game was created under 48 hours by a team of 2, using haxeflixel. We originally wanted to make the game a little crazier than it currently is, but we had to settle for a simpler design due to time constraints and other commitments =(. That said, we had a lot of fun with this game jam. Can’t wait for the next jam!

 

Play it!

PowerTrip was a massive failure, but I learned a lot about programming in a hurry, this could potentially lead to finishing something like Ohjam never mind future Ludum Dares
What went wrong:
Everything, the 2 biggest being I realized it was this weekend with 10 hours to go, and my new computer did not support Pixel Shaders which I needed for LWJGL.

What went well:
An hour after it started, I was able to get my old computer running and start developing, and my familiarity with LWJGL and Slick2D made getting something running only take about an hour.

Lessons for next time:
Set an alarm for the one in spring so that I get reminded 10PM on friday that its happening.

My timelapse is bad but you can still watch it.

https://vimeo.com/82080504

 

YOGO Submarines Timelapse #ld28 Ludum Dare Jam 28 from Pierre Chevalier on Vimeo.