Now a new LD catchup is upon me so I turn to the Guardian theme.  I’ve decided to spend tonight sort of brainstorming.  I may draw some diagrams some temp-temp art and maybe a mini-design doc, or more like a design outline.  My idea for the Guardian thing may not be new at all.  In fact it’s a take on a well worn game genre, the space invaders type of game.  Well what could you guard in a space invaders game.  The player, “Duh”.  You know those little barriers from the original game that protected you briefly from the shots of the enemy.  Well this time you ARE the barrier and you’re going to protect the “player” which will be some sort of AI-thing.  This game should take approximately 30 hours give or take, but no more than 32 hours.

Tags: LD #01 - Guardian - 2002, LD Catch-up

Also, check out the PRIOR Post Mortem to see how the development of this thingamadoodle.

My entry for Ludum Dare 19 – PRIOR – has gotten some love post-compo, both in development and in release. After another 100+ hours of work (updates, tweaks… BUG FIXES! >_< ) I released it on FlashGameLicense and was sponsored by Armor Games.  Since then, the game has received a ton of plays on portals all over teh interwebz, and I’ve been blown away by the community’s reception to it.

PRIOR's "Box Art"

PRIOR also got nominated for the Canadian Videogame Awards – I didn’t see that coming, but it was a huge honor. Of course, this was after a few hundred hours worth of post-Compo updates, but this was mostly bugfixing and gameplay tuning. The game overall was largely still the same as at the end of the LD48 😉

Overall, I think Ludum Dare 19 was the most productive 48 hours of my life – it’s certainly paid off! Thanks again to the Ludum Dare folks for setting up an excellent Compo

Play PRIOR on Armor Games

And feel free to discuss the storyline. As the developer, my absolute favorite part of this game is watching people figure out what the hell is going on! 😉

Tags: discovery, flash, ld #19, PRIOR, sponsorship, SuccessStory

Would it be a better idea to do all the LD Catch-ups and just keep doing them until done (about a year and a half’s worth of work), or should I instead continue to work on a single game until it’s viable for release online?  I realize it means getting through all the LD themes in a much longer time span… say 5 years give or take.  (Let’s say I did one game every 3 months).  Would it be better to do 21+ complete games within 5-6 years, or 21+ prototypes in a year and a half?

What are your thoughts?

Tags: LD Catch-up