As some people are adding crazy constraints to the already constrained process of making a game on your own in 48 hours (like programming an entry in assembly language), I’m also adding a – more modest – constraint to the game I’ll be making:

I’ll make a ‘physics game’ using the built-in Unity3D’s physics engine for this one. This could make it more challenging, as this kind of physics are a lot harder to tune than custom physics.

For the compo entries I did in the past, and for most prototypes PreviewLabs developed, I programmed my own physics. This is often the fastest solution, as you can implement the simplest physics model needed and save a lot of time on tuning while having full control over the physics’ behavior.

If the theme makes it too hard to create a physics game, I’ll at least use some physics in the game (even if it’s for a background effect).

By the way, by ‘physics game’ I mean a game in which the core game mechanics are relying on the physics engine.

BoulderBridge Prototype

The screenshot above is from ‘BoulderBridge’, the first prototype we did with PreviewLabs. It’s a ‘physics game’ with a concept similar to bridge builder or world of goo. With quite a lot of physics settings, tuning them took quite a long time; about a day – which is a lot if you’re making a game in 48h.

The first iteration of the prototype for this game took a week to complete with three programmers and one artist (so 3x 40h of programming and 1x 40h of art).

A game was based on the prototype, and it will be released soon for the iPhone. More info on the game and some screenshots of the iPhone version can be found here, on the website of Crazy Monkey Studios.

I have a few scripts (some gathered and some created) that I plan on using that will help me with basic game functions in Unity. If you are interested, grab it here.

I’m looking for Parisians to gather to jam (or work solo in an ambiance of pure awesomness) for this Ludum Dare compo!
I dont’ have a place to gather people but if some are planning to gather I’d like to join.

Here are stats from round three:

The chart is viewable in google docs here.  (this file includes round one and two voting stats and charts)

Check http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/tag/stats/ for all statistics related posts!

Tags: stats

Hi everyone !

I’m happy to participate my first LD.

Programming: FlashDevelop.

Graphics: The Gimp, paint, FlashCS4.

Good luck all and have fun !!!

Ok, two years ago I started with LD. Since then I produced a bunch of crappy unfinished unawesome java / jMonkeyEngine games. Here some screenshots( in chronological order):

I have the feeling that it is time for a change. So this will be my setup:

Unity3d / blender / gimp /chronolapse

Now I have from the beginning that game-framework I usually code during LD-Time. More time to concentrate on the game itselfs. BUT still enough rules for me to break in order to let this LD be a desaster as the ones before 😀

Let’s see what will happen….until LD starts I will not stop saying to myself:”Keep it simple!Keep it simple!Keep it simple!…”

For the past few months I’ve been slowly working on a sweet game, and I just recently got the graphics engine code working properly. It’s a library for BlitzMax that makes it phenomenally easy to handle ASCII graphics coupled with a specialized paint program for the creation of ASCII “images” to use with the engine.

You can download it for yourself at http://rolep.webs.com/ASCII%20engine.rar

So to make my entry this time, I’m planning on using sfxr for sound effects, Famitracker for music, BlitzMax for programming, and my own engine and paint program for the graphics.

Ok I’m really, really looking forward to this. Probably to an unhealthy degree.

My “basecode” can be found on my google code dump. The “luddite” directory is the basecode but I might pull bits and pieces from past entries, too. Other stuff I might use:

• SDL/OpenGL regardless of 2D/3D.
• For a 3d game, either prmath or PVRT
• For 3D assets I’ve been learning Blender and will put it to use.
• For 2D arts, photoshop, pixen or pro-motion. Perhaps alchemy paint. Or maybe traditional materials.
• For sound I’m going to try doing the sound design on my ipad with stuff like reactable, argon synth, jasuto, etc.. but might fall back to SFXR if time is tight. Also I might try recording my own sounds.
• Music will be a mix of iPad apps (Korg iMS20, SoundPrism, StepPolyArp, DopplerPad, Argon, Hammerhead, ThumbJam, etc..), guitar stuff (incl. YouRock MIDI) and GarageBand. And I might borrow some toy instruments from my toddler because they sound cool.
• For map editing, Ogmo is the awesome sauce. If I need a “shape based” map editor I’ll use my game from the “Caverns” contest.

That’s it. I’ve been really getting into doing music for ld48 the last few times, even though I kind of suck at it. If you’re at all interested in electronic music, you owe it to yourself to get an iPad, the scene is so awesome right now, it’s like you can get all the cool stuff you always wanted but everything costs $5-$10 in app form instead of hundreds in hardware form. It’s weird, it feels like the only time I actually have time to play around with music stuff these days is during these contests, which is kind of back-asswards because I really should be pretty time constrained. But whatever.

Last time I wasn’t able to submit my game by the deadline. A last minute crash bug that only showed up in release mode derailed the project. Luckily the Jam gave me a safety net and I was able to submit my game, but I’m going to try and really put an emphasis on testing and do regular release builds. Learn from my mistake: Do release builds and test releases often, don’t wait until the last hour.

Last time I played it a bit safe and went for a traditional platformer with a few twists, so this time I’m likely to do something a little more out there, I’ve been itching to make an “art game” but I’ll wait and see what the theme inspires.

Greetings from Brazil o/

I’ll be joining this LD, just for the fun of trying, since i’ll probably fail meanly

My tools:
Programming: Scirra’s Construct
Graphics: Photoshop CS4
Sound: Fruity Loops 9, SFRX
Other: Chronolapse

I’ve been using Construct for 3 days now, but I’m already feeling familiar with it as I used MMF2 for a long time and they have a lot in common

Cya on my next post

Tags: motivation

• Programming: Game Maker 8 Pro
• Graphics: Paint.net 3.6
• Sound: SFRX, a small piano (?)
• Other: Chronolapse (for the timelapse)

And it’s all.

I’ll be entering. It will either be just the usual suspects for tools, or I may add Unity. I didn’t get a chance to become as comfortable with Unity over the past few months as I would have liked, but a 48 hour time crunch is a great time to learn new tools, right? 😉

So I should probably finish my shopping list and order everything off Amazon so I don’t have to leave the house this weekend.

Tags: declaration, ld48_19

Heyall,

had a lot of fun the last Ludumdare so hereby I announce that I will participate again.
This will be my second LD and I hope it will be even more fun and fruitful then the previous one.

Tool:
– AS 3.0 probably with Flixel
– Flashdevelop
– SFXR for soundeffects
– Paint.net or charmaker99 ( don’t ask :)) for graphics
– Some music generator for music or when I have lot of time left I’ll attempt to use my piano “skills” to make something myself

That should be all, now we just have to wait for the theme announcement :), g’day!

I’ll be trying my first ludum dare this weekend.  I’ve already made plans to go skiing for some of the day Saturday, but I’ll be devoting as much time as I can outside of that to the competition.  Other than a lot of coffee, I’m planning on using the following tools:

Hardware: Macbook Pro, Wacom Tablet

Game Engine, Languages, & Tools:  Unity 3D using C#, MonoDevelop IDE

Graphics & Art: Corel Painter 10, Pixelmator, Pixen, Blender 2.5

Music & Audio: sfxr, Wolfram Tones for music, GarageBand, possibly MilkyTracker

Libraries:  There are a lot of really useful libraries and tools over in the Unity showcase forums, as well as the newly released Asset Store.  I’d like to learn and use at least one of them over the weekend.  I really want to pick up and use SpriteManager 2 as I’ll probably use in other non-compo projects, but I don’t think I can submit my source code if its included so we’ll see.  If I really want to use it, maybe I’ll move over to the Jam side of things instead.  I’ll take a look at the older open-source SpriteManager 1 version as well to see if it will do enough for me.  If someone could comment on what the general rule of thumb is for using commercial libraries like this that disallow distribution in their license and how they’ve been used (or not used) in the past, that would help be super helpful.

Anyways, this will be my first super-constrained gamedev event, so we’ll see how it goes.  My goal is just to get a concept all the way through to a playable proof of concept.

Anyone else here thinking about streaming his/her efforts live? 😉

I’ll be on justin.tv! http://www.justin.tv/bgokarl (no content there yet).

I’ll also be recording the whole weekend with chronolapse – I hope that it works under linux, but tests looked promising.

Seriously I have wanted to do one of these Ludum Dare things for SO LONG it’s ridiculous. I just miss every single one of them.

Will be my first attempt at a competition like this but I’ve been failing at game development for years so I think I’m pretty well prepared.

I’ll probably be hacking it out in Python. Likely to use pygame or pyglet depending on what I decide to make, but I might also be tempted to use libtcod because I’ve been experimenting with it a lot lately. All depends on what works best with the theme I suppose ^^. I wish I were cool enough to do something all flash or ajaxy or whatever, but alas I know nothing of AS or JavaScript.

Anyways, I’m pretty excited and I might have the whole weekend wide open so we’ll see what happens. With any luck I will finish and release a game for the first time because of this ^^.

Tags: intro

The plan is to enter number 19, hopefully the comp, but I can always shoot for the jam if I run into problems. I’m going to be using Flashpunk for the first time >_> so its going to be a fun ride, not that I’m a totally newbie when it comes to programming, I know my fair share :D.

What, will I be using?

Flashpunk

Flashdevlop

Photoshop

Photofiltre

MS Paint

sfxr

Chronolaspe

Why now?

Well you see, I need to create a portfolio for a class at my school, mind you the class has nothing to do with what I’m interested in, so I need graphics and games of my own creation, so I figured this dare will motivate me to work, and hopefully produce a decent flash game that I can host on my portfolio and get a good grade. Just wondering, if I’m going to be timelaspeing for 48 hours, how often should it take a picture? One every minute seems like a lot :X.

I’m using Ubuntu, and I’d like to try and record the development of my entry as a video, but I’m finding it difficult to find a program to do it.

It looks like XVidCap is the best thing available, but it crashes a lot. I want something that will work without using lots of resources, but I’m not gonna pay for it.

Anyone have any suggestions what I should use?

Tomorrow, I will code my game in Haxe (Flash). For those who might be interested, here are the personnal libs I might use :

ZIP file

YAY!

If the theme is suitable, I may use LD19 as an opportunity to prototype out some tech and ideas related to a digging-collecting-building game I have had in mind for quite some time.

If I do enter, will likely roll my own GL code, using SDL. Copy and paste some basic code from a previous LD entry I did and go from there.

For once this compo falls on a date I can potentially take part! HUZZAH!!!!!

Nothing like a little friendly community and competition to get motivated into actually pleasure-coding again.

(wow, that sounds obscene. Especially in a low breathy voice…. pleasure coding…)