I’m excited to participate in my 3rd Ludum Dare!

I’ll post some base code in a little bit when I get a chance…

Hey guys, I’m really happy to be free this weekend! Last LD was not so successful, I was using Java+LWJGL and didn’t feel comfortable with the tools. Here are the tools I’ll be using this time:

IDE : Visual Studio 2013
Language : C# 5.0 in .Net 4.5 (Windows), Mono (Linux)
Graphics library : OpenTK + OpenTKUtil
Graphics : Paint.Net
Audio library : OpenAL
Audio : SFXR and FamiTracker
Streaming : XSplit

Good luck everyone, have fun 😀

PS : Let me know if you ever come across someone who would like to eventually do a real-life gathering in Quebec (CAN), I would certainly be part of the project.

Looks like i’m in for this weekend.  This is my first LD some i’m psyched about it.

Here’s what I plan to use.

IDE: Visual Studio 2012
Graphics Lib: XNA 4
Language: C#
Graphics: Paint.Net / Gimp / GraphicsGale
Audio: SFXR

Can’t wait to get started. 😀

I’m in, this will be my third ludum dare.

I will be using:

engine: flashpunk

ide: flashdevelop

language: as3

graphics: krita and gimp

sound: lmms, audacity, sfxr/bfxr

really excited to do this again.

I can still clearly remember, how many problem I had with making smooth-moving bodies  in my games back in the day, but I’ve improved a lot since, so I feel I have to share this knowledge.

The amazing fact that only midschool math needs for this stuff, so you are goddamn lucky, if you didn’t play Fruit Ninja or 2048 constantly during math classes. 😛

#1 the basic knowledge

Calculating the motion of any bodies needs to be able to calculate its positions in space. A coordinate-system is perfect for this, and you already get one all the time when you have a proper window on-screen. (my only experiences about it are Java and LÖVE2D, but I’m pretty sure it’s also true for every similar programming languages & environments)

In most cases, the (0,0) point on this is the upper left corner of that window.

#2 straight moving

So you have a window, and a body with some (x,y) coordinates. The texture that marks the body is displayed at (x,y) on the screen.

If you wanna move this body left, you have to substract a number (whatever you want) from X. To move right, you have to ADD a number  to X. Doing the same with Y makes the body move up (in case of substraction) or down (in case of addition).

It’s also the initial point of WASD moving in case of player characters: you have to give these commands to certain keys – giving special tasks for key-pressing actions vary on programming  languages & environments.

#3 straight moving, in any angles

Yeah, that’s fine yet, but if you want to move on a way that changes both X and Y, then you have to call the angles!

There’s a cool stuff that helps us called trigonometry. To use its rules, we need a triangle: the first one is (x,y), the second one is a random point that lies on that line your body will also lie while moving; the third one is that makes a right triangle from these points.

Let’s be more precise: make a body that follow the mouse cursor. Then you get (x,y) – the body – and (mouseX, mouseY) – the mouse. Two points CLEARLY defines a line; it’s gonna be the track of your body. To make it move, you have to know the slope of this line.

And THIS is where you need a triangle – the third point is (mouseX, y), and this with the line I mentioned forms a right triangle. And well, the slope of the line equals to the tangent of the angle at the body!

But hey, we have formulas to calculate it by division! It’s gonna be the Y distance between mouse and the body / the X distance between mouse and body. Okay, it’s a tangent value, but in the 21 century, you can easily calculate a tangent value back into degrees.

After that, moving the body on its track is not that hard – even understanding is kind of easy, but I suck at English, so I definitely wouldn’t try to explain it: add cos(slope) to body’s “x”, and also add sin(slope) to body’s “y” – I mention again, that the result of the division is NOT the slope itself, only its tangent. Theoretically, you can calculate sin and cos from tan without exchanging back into degrees, but I haven’t experimented with that.

TLDR; TO MOVE A BODY ALONGSIDE OF A CERTAIN LINE:

a) GET THE SLOPE
A number in degrees/radian (I guess it matters only in LOVE2D) that has the next tangent: (mouseY – y) /( mouseX – x), assuming that all of them are positive numbers.

b) IN ANY STEPS IN WHICH YOU WANT TO MOVE THE BODY AWAY:

add the cosine of slope to “x” (body’s x coordinate)
add the sine of slope to “y” (body’s x coordinate)

#4 wind, gravity, and other vectors

I quickly realised that even without serious knowledge of linear algebra, you can simply use vectors. They are used in physics to show the amount and the direction of forces. They have 3 properties: an “x”, an “y”, and a “length”. x and y shows, where it pushes stuffs away, while length (which is calculated from x and y) shows, how strong it does that. in fact, I didn’t use it, because direction was more important for me.

Yeah, right, that’s fine, but how to use them? Well, it depends on that what do you want? In case of linear moving, without acceleration, just simply add VectorX to BodyX and also add VectorY to BodyX.

Example use: wind (though in my test I used acceleration for this, just for fun… :P), where WindVector has an y=0, and some x, that you have to add to or substract from BodyX. You already know the difference.

In case of acceleration, you have to store the increasing…ehm…”speed”. Well, yes, you actually store the speed.

Example use: gravity, where GravityVector has and x=0, and some y, and in every frame you have to do the next:

GravityAmount = GravityAmount + GravityVectorY
BodyY = BodyY + Gravity ( + sin(slope) of course)

In this case, there are two forces on your body: one that makes it move algonside a certain line, and one that does it in a straight down direction. The result is a parabola track and a mathematically (I guess?) precise implementation of vertical or oblique projection.

#5 endnote

I may be wrong in many aspects; one thing is sure: this method works amazingly well for me. I even hope that I used the right words; sadly I’m not familiar with “mathematical English”. Also, thanks for reading and have a successfull Ludum-ing!

– Katamori

Tags: tutorial

I’m in! This will be my first Ludum Dare/Game Jam:D

There’s a 50%  chance I won’t even finish with something fully playable, but I decided to try my luck!

Tools I’ll Be Using:

Language: Java 8
Libraries: Slick2D, LWJGL
IDE: Eclipse Luna
Art: A mix of Illustrator for shapes, Photoshop for some basic editing of said shapes, and After Effects for cool effects on images (I’m such an Adobe Fanboy). I’ll be using Paint.NET to create the grids for Spritesheets if I need any, cause it has a pretty good tool for it 😛
SFX: sfxr
Streaming: OpenBroadcaster
Fuel: Mountain Dew

So I’m in for a second time I guess.

Stuff I’m planning to use:

• Engine: Löve 2d. Probably with rotLove (it’s going to be a roguelike!) and most certainly some other libs.
• Graphics: GIMP, Inkscape
• Sound/Music: Sunvox, sfxr, audacity

Greetings from the bay area

As far as I can tell, game jams are usually fairly self-contained within their community. It’s not like there are lots of random fans who would watch people stream themselves making games over a weekend, with very few notable exceptions (e.g. Notch). Or, at least to my understanding.

Am I correct in this thinking? I’m trying to decide whether or not it’s worth my time to stream, or to simply make a timelapse.

Try and stop me! Second attempt at the 48-hour competition. I’m going to be using Unity for the first time as my engine of choice. Graphics courtesy of Gimp and Inkscape, sound courtesy of Audacity and Anvil Studio. I’ll probably use Editpad to organize stuff and maybe write some things.

I originally posted this same question almost three years ago and got a lof of nice responses.

I’ve got some favourite albums kicking around for myself this time:

• Crystal Castles – Crystal Castles III
• Bag Raiders – Bag Raiders
• Birdy Nam Nam – Defiant Order
• Power Glove – Blood Dragon OST
• Vangelis – Blade Runner

With the possibility of the odd nursery rhyme if I’m trying to get my new son to sleep!

What’s your soundtrack this time around? Has it changed from previous years? Are there personal favourites that never leave the queue?

IS it ok if I use an opensource lib that I am coding myself (http://vogon101.github.io/VogonGame/)

Thanks

Vogon101

http://www.twitch.tv/vogon101

It’s been a while, but excuses to make games don’t get much better than this.

In fact, just to make sure I can’t worm my way out, I’m running a real world gathering. No escape! (Any of you in the Coventry area, be sure to hit up Warwick Game Design!)

Programming: Actionscript, extended with Flashpunk, all done in FlashDevelop. Flash will never die!

Sound: FL Studio will be my partner in composition, with maybe a bit of BFXR.

Art: A quick trip through Ludum Dare’s wonderful Tools page introduced me to Graphics Gale. Been working on a far simplified pixel art character style, so I don’t spend half the competition doing animations like last time.

Behold! Yes! A puppy!

Nourishment: I’ve booked myself in for supervising the meetup 1:00AM-1:00PM on both Saturday and Sunday, so copious amounts of pizza, pasta, sandwiches, and jelly should be packed.

Have I mentioned how simply incredible jelly is (Jell-o, for you people across the pond)? Cheap to buy, simple to make, easy to forget, easier to enjoy, and I have gotten over countless blocks by simply wobbling the jelly until I figure out how to solve a problem.

Simply mix one part flavoring, one part gelatin, five parts pure uncut therapy.

This should about cover it for me. Keep up the “I’m in” posts, everyone, and have a great competition!

• Krita, Gimp, Inkscape and a bunch of smaller tools for art, FBF animations and general design stuff.
• Spriter free for non FBF animation.
• LMMS with all of the free vst’s that you can imagine for music and SFX + Audacity if needed.
• Haxe + OpenFL + HaxeFlixel + FlashDevelop for coding and bugs forming.
• Probably look at, but not actually use pixel art tools, Synfig, Tiled, Ogmo, Unity 4.3, Blender, Sculptris and the list grows as we speak so I better stop writing this p…

Managed to free up the weekend for this. It will be my first LD, so I’m pretty excited.
I don’t have any fancy libraries to share, I’m just going to jump into Unity, hack something together, and hopefully have something fun at the end of it!

Excited and slightly nervous for my second LD48. My last game went pretty well (click here to read the post-mortem, complete with game and soundtrack links) and I learned a lot about scope and time management. I had so much fun on it I’m working on a spinoff, and plan on having a full release within the next couple years once I do some more prototyping!

Since the last Ludum Dare I’ve released several more games. LD hooked me on game jams so much I went on a bit of a “game jam binge,” participating in as many game jams as I could. I’ve made about six games since LD #28 (plus two more games for an Infectious Diseases class I was taking), many were with my partner Kristin Magann of RainbowSexyFish.

Anyway I will be reading over my post-mortem like crazy before starting this time so I won’t repeat any previous mistakes (we’ll see how that goes). Can’t wait for the theme, many of them are looking pretty interesting!

I will be using:

~ Stencyl most likely, but mayyybe Unity if the theme inspires something I know I can program (I just started using Unity recently, still learning the ropes). If I use Stencyl I may end up using some personal code libraries depending on the type of game I make.

~ Photoshop 5 for art

~ Guitar Pro 5 and VOPM for sound and music, possibly free domain stuff from Freesound or self-recorded sound effects. Audacity for any additional tweaks.

~ Pencil and paper for fleshing out concepts!

Good luck everyone and happy jamming!

Time for someone else to take the throne, or will I be able to defend it?

Tools

Language/Framework/Engine: LÖVE

Text-editor: Sublime Text

Art: Aseprite

Music: PixiTracker

Good luck everyone!

Whee! This’ll be my 6th Ludum Dare!

My goal this time is to not to sacrifice a concept in favour of art or other features. I say that because last LD48 I spent a little too much time on that, and not enough time on my concept.

What I’ll be using

• Code:
  • FlashDevelop
  • ActionScript 3.0
  • NO game engines 😉
  • Libraries: gskinner’s Rndm library, as3sxfr, and some simple colour utility libraries, ColourUtil.as and Colour.as
• Music/SFX:
  • Pixel’s ptCollage
  • Melody Assistant
  • Audacity
  • as3sfxr
• Graphics:
  • GIMP
  • Flash Pro CS6

I originally planned to go solo this time and do the compo instead of another collab. The problem now is that I’ll lose about 22 hours of the given time. And I have to work on Monday.

So I might end up making a totally unpolished mini game or joining another collab.
Might also depend on the themes (which do not look that promising to me so far)

Well, let’s see.

Tools

Construct 2 – this time I decided to go for C2 instead of Unity; for obvious reasons: I don’t have the time to code!
Photoshop – Pixels
GraphicsGale – moar pixels!
Bfxr – Sound
GitHub – guess why!
SKYPE – brainstorming lol

For me, one of the things that eat up an unnecessary amount of time during each LD is reinventing the wheel of all sorts of functionality. Things such as camera behaviour, tweening, timers, etc. I make games using the LÖVE framework, since I love Lua and the framework itself is great. However, it won’t give you all the same tools as Unity for example.

This is why I’ve been working on building my own framework on top of LÖVE to drive my LD entries, dubbed Conclavus (github). It integrates a lot of useful tools from the LÖVE community (such as a gui library, easy particle creation tools, file hotswapping and a browser debug interface), while adding a whole range of other game-agnostic functionality. It should fit within the LD compo rules, which is why I’m making this post. My framework can be forked by anyone who wants to mess around with it, though mind it has been mostly untested. I’ll probably spend some time during LD debugging my framework 😛

Yay 4 times in a row!!

Last time I entered the jam instead of the compo,  because I decided to use Unity, which was very new to me at the time. This time I’m going for the compo as I prefer to make stuff myself, plus you learn more from it

I will either be using Unity or XNA, depending on what type of game I’ll end up making. Currently I’m in the mood for a 2D game, and I haven’t really tried the 2D part of Unity yet.

I will be using Audacity for sounds, and if I end up doing 3D stuff in Unity I might (If it is allowed) use the UFPS asset.

Good luck to you all