We finished! We are both pretty happy with how it turned out. It took many hours of hard work, but here it is. One of us has work tomorrow, and the other class, so we are uploading tonight. Check it out if you have a chance! We appreciate any feedback.
http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-30/?action=preview&uid=28108
We are done! And the game is pretty good.
Drive a car and switch between two worlds to instantly change the geometry. It got very hard, then we made it harder! Can you beat it?!
This is: Glenn – A Driving Saga
http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-30/?action=preview&uid=7478
Actual Gameplay Footage
Woohoo! Submitted my second Ludum Dare game on-time 
Overall, I feel like this was a much more streamlined process that my original game, which I’ll elaborate on in my post-mortem. The confirmation that I’ve learned enough to do it better the second time is a nice feeling. I’ll have to wait for the scores to see how people like the game compared to the first.
Complete development timelapse:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bXQk3RG7ag
Copulus is a 2D God Game in which you have to help your subjects populate their little world. In order to achieve this you need to balance their need for social interaction (and copulation) with the need to survive. I decided to try and stream line the “god game” mechanics and let the player focus on only a few tasks, as opposed to regular god games where you have to manage many different needs (housing, hunger, peril, happiness, loyalty, security, etc). In order for your population to survive and expand you only need to make sure they are feed, safe and can interact with each other. I even took this approach a bit further and merged survival/peril with hunger satisfaction. Before I go into the, regular, What went Right, What went Wrong topic I would like to present my approach for this entry:
Limitations breed creativity
Before the theme was announced I already established how far I can stretch things. I know from previous experiences how hard it is to stay on track of the initial design and how many features end up being thrown away in order to finish “something” before the time runs out. So for this edition of Ludumdare, I’d like to say I came prepared. Here are my, self-imposed, limitations:
Three rules in total. Three rules that, once the theme was announced, helped me establish a clear goal. For example, the small resolution and tile-based approach helped me establish the art style, level and user interface design. Working on a 256×384 screen I could only fit 8 / 12 tiles (32×32) on the screen, or 16/24 tiles at 16×16 pixels each. The AI requirement weighted in favor of the strategy genre and, it’s subclass, the god game genre.
From here on, I went with the entire map being confined to a single screen (in order to have a good view of your population, and not have to hunt for them everywhere). This also affected my User Interface Design and Experience, since It had to take as little screen space as possible. Little screen space for UI implied having only a handful of buttons during game play which, combined with the god-game thematic, had me limit what tasks the player could focus on. A small amount of tasks for the player to perform required me to streamline the entire “god game” approach and make it as minimalistic as possible (the soul experience as I like to refer to it). You can see how things developed further on.
What went right
What went wrong
Conclusion
I feel that with each Ludumdare event I partake in I can quantify my progress as a Designer. My first entry required the player to quit the game in order to restart the level and featured only mechanics but no clear goal (also no Ui of any kind). In my last LD (7DRTS) attempt I finally had a entry with no missing UI options and a clear navigation path. You can see where I’m going with this. But all in all, I’m glad that with each submission I end up acquiring new knowledge. As far as limitations go I believe that it’s better to know what you should not do as opposed to not knowing what to do. Hopefully my next LD submission will blow this one out of the water.
You can play and rate the game here. Linux, Mac and, hopefully, Android coming tonight. I’ve also uploaded it to itch.io and, in the weekend, will release a post-compo version that has sound and the features that were cut off.
Tags: Copulus, god game, Limitations, weight lifting, Zapaman
This is so much better than my second game! I was able to complete most of the tasks I set for myself. I’m very, very happy and proud!
My Last LD was kind of disappointing for me, although i managed to finish my games, but was not happy with it (it was a depressing game). This time i decided to do a fun game (my first LD after i moved into my own indie studio. Monster Brain Games ). After sketching some complicated strategy puzzle game where you connect the worlds and share its resources, but felt it was too complex and less fun.
Hence with the same kind of idea and a simpler gameplay, i decided to make a game about connected planets and dragging them to avoid the incoming asteroids. And just before finishing up, giving it a heavy name ( a cheap ref to recent marvel movie ?). Was happy with the results i’ve managed to achieve. The below GIF (a little jerky) explains a bit about gameplay. Hope you enjoy it. (Try the Easy mode if you like)
(Comments, suggestions, criticisms are most welcome & is greatly appreciated – Monster Brain Games)
Woohoo!
New High Score for my game WARP of the WORLDS!
Think you can beat it?
http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-30/?action=preview&uid=39189
I need sleep ;.;
Windows build: Download
To understand this post, you should play the game first.
LSD/acid graphics seems to fit to this abstract game and seemed like a good idea to my melted brain (from tiredness, not acid).
The first idea was that there will be a fixed area and goblins would come in and want to destroy the object in the middle. The object in the middle at first was supposed to be a shoe. Just for fun, i’ve made a video after about 5 hours of work. The final game looks quite different, but the idea hasn’t changed. I wanted to make a bit of an emotional game. I also don’t know how to write stories or how to make graphics, so I’ve decided for the “abstract” look. Naming the game Abstrakt was just a matter of 5 minutes.
After about 36 hours, all the main features were finished. I devoted my time from that point to polish stuff. I was also a bit afraid, that people will try to play the game without even reading the text and that they’ll see some meaningless stuff going on and that they’ll post hate comments. That’s one of my worst nightmare. When I’ve started receiving first comments, it turned out that people quite understand it and like it 
(hurray!).
I knew that the graphics might hurt someone eyes, but while having only about 2 hours to deadline, redesigning about 100 sprites seemed to be a wrong idea. Besides, the graphics should correspond to the title, right?
There is a longer description on the game page, there are some instructions, story, etc..
Also I’ve made a full walkthrough video in case someone won’t understand the game, but still want to see the game in action.
I hope you are all satisfied with your entries Once again, you can play this game here.
http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-30/?action=preview&uid=20788
It’s a glorified Lunar Lander. Had to abandon original control scheme halfway through day 2, which was fun (!not), the final engine control is much more how I think the Apollo mission retro controls worked, setting power and time then firing a burn.
Of course you have to do it repeatedly for this, but it is a game…
I used Construct2 this. Also spent far more time than usual on look and feel, which I think was a good decision, though as a typical programming-first developer I do find it tough to admit that visual polish is important and the ‘brilliant’ idea will just vanish into the murk without it (not that this is an original idea ofc.) I found time spent was about 20% each for design, coding and testing/bug-fixing and 40% on graphics and polish.
All the planets are based on an iPhone photo I took of a weather windowsill tile out the back. Gimp filters ftw!
Built with Construct2, Gimp, BXFR, Audacity and a (small this time…) amount of piano playing.
Testing with 4 hours to go late last night (UK timezone) found a few minor things – and I realised that the harder levels were fine on Touch devices, but bad on with Mouse control… so added keyboard shortcuts, updated the help & other pipeline stuff… sigh. Three releases in final minutes, just one more thing Columbo.
As always thank you for the fun LD and see you next time!
My game did not like me towards the end of the comp. But I still submitted what I could do. Oh and for the people who can assess my source code there is a secrete somewhere in the file.
http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-30/?action=preview&uid=33944
Well, I can’t get my game to export properly, and it’s not finished.
I think this is where I call it. It sucks a lot that I can’t enter… especially when I put so much time into the project.
does anyone know why JarSplice doesn’t make Slick2D’s file referencing work properly? It keeps saying that it can’t find the image file referenced by the tilemap, when it obviously can in the regular .tmx.
actually maybe that’s the problem, it’s pointing at the wrong tileset in it’s original folder.
but schools starting for me tomorrow morning so I really don’t have time to deal with this.
I’m trying to get more votes so I thought I’d post a post-mortem on my entry: Portal Patrol.
Not a real ending, is it?
So no, I didn’t finish. I honestly didn’t think I’d finish all of my ideas in this game, but I did think I would’ve gotten further than I did. I spent so much time on making the game open-ended that I didn’t really incorporate any of the core mechanics of the game itself. Yes, this is interactive fiction, but to me it feels like less of a game and more of an introduction to a game. In fact, that’s exactly what it is. Right when the action is about to start, you get the “To Be Continued” screen above.
However, I am proud of what I came up with. My fear was that I would procrastinate and play Marvel Puzzle Quest or watch YouTube videos or lurk on reddit or maybe even hook up my PS3 and play games. I didn’t do any of that stuff, and I am proud and hopeful because of it.
My new fear is that I won’t continue development of this game. So many times I’ve made a prototype of a game and then thought “I don’t want to go back to that code”, or “I’ll come back to that… some day.” My driving force right now with this game is that it is truly incomplete, and I won’t really know if I want to complete it until I implement the core mechanics that I had originally planned for it. I don’t have the 48-hour deadline to light a fire under my behind anymore though…
I honestly don’t know how I could’ve improved my development before final submission. I feel like if I spent too much time pre-planning instead of agile development, I would’ve done more planning than actual development. I also feel like although limiting player-choice would’ve allowed me to speed-along faster, it wouldn’t have been the game that I want to make. So many times I was tempted to give a 1.2.3.4. or a)b)c)d) menu with specific branches, but I wanted the player input to feel more natural. Instead of “1) Enter portal”, the player can input “portal” or “enter portal” or “jump into the portal” or “dive into the portal”, etc.
I do feel like I bit off more than I could chew in regards to the 48-hour deadline. With so much focus on open player choices, there was no way I’d get anything close to a finished product done in time. I think I offset that with honesty, though. There is nothing on my entry that says “This game is complete” or “Experience all the action and thrills…!” An attentive player will know going in that the game is unfinished. I didn’t want to NOT submit anything just because it was unfinished. I may be wrong, but it is my opinion that it is better to submit something that at least gives a good idea of what to expect from the game than submit nothing at all.
I did give myself about an hour to play-test the game after my coding frenzy. I constantly iterated towards the beginning of development, but towards the end, there was a long stretch of time when I was just coding, saving, coding, saving without actually running the code. In that hour of play-testing, I came across a lot more bugs than I had expected (which should have been expected). I’m happy that I gave myself that time, though, or else the final submission wouldn’t have just been incomplete; it would have been completely unplayable.
The biggest thing I learned during development of Portal Patrol was how to implement binary serialization. Yes; Portal Patrol has persistence (which you would discover if you tried restarting the game without having died first). I felt like persistence adds to the overall play-ability of the game, and it would have been unacceptable to not at least try to add some sort of persistence. I spent my entire first night of what I thought would have been development solely on learning binary serialization. I wrapped my head around it, even though there were times where it felt like I wouldn’t. I think that has been my biggest immediate reward from this project.
In conclusion, I’m pleased and proud to have participated in my first Ludum Dare compo. I created something that I truly want to expand on, and I learned binary serialization, which will help me with game development in general in the long run. I still have a long way to go, but Ludum Dare 30, in it’s own ways has helped me move towards my life goal of becoming a professional game developer. Baby steps. Frantic baby steps. Thank you for reading my post-mortem (this is the first post-mortem I’ve ever written, by the way), and I hope you enjoy Portal Patrol!
These Cosmic Chains – Soundtrack
http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-30/?action=preview&uid=25844
I had an absolute blast with this Ludum Dare! Thank you to the organizers for continuing to host our crap.
@graveyardpolice
http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-30/?action=preview&uid=39421
Had so much fun making this. Wish I’d had more time!
It’s like an ant farm but in hyper space. And instead of a magnyfing glass you have an entire space ship at your disposal.
Fun time being a computer going berzerk.
Still under development: www.twitch.tv/zaubersee
Computer, open that door!
18 hours left of the Jam, and I still have nothing. I got a bit ambitious and ended up losing interest and confidence in the project five hours in. Since then, I’ve gone back to what I normally do with my free time; researching AI and neuroscience. Then it hit me… what if I create a game where you play as someone’s Prefrontal Cortex? Other parts of the brain send you vague messages and you need to make decisions solely based on that! Maybe I can finish it in time with this new idea. First though, I need to get to bed. It’s nearly 2 AM.
Please try the game and don’t forget to comment about *ANYTHING* you want
the game Is a mix between two genre (2d platfomer & 2d shooter) which it got mixed togetherall the time. When i started the design of this game i wanted to make sure that the player can easily see the transition between the two worlds, more details on my blog.
Thank you 😀 !!!
Hey, here is my game: ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-30/?action=preview&uid=26780
It has some mechanics of crafting & building and teleport system.
This LD was my 3rd one and as previous ones it was fun.
Random progress screenshots:
Thank you!
Tanner
