Only 24 more hours until the Jam finishes and 13 minutes until the Compo submition ends this is some scary stuff My developing for my first ludum dare is pretty good. You guys?

I wasn't able to work as much on my entry this weekend as I had hoped so I won't be entering the Compo this time.

However I did get a basic game concept working after experimenting with some ideas. It's the models, sound effects and UI that I will be working on completing before the end of the Jam.

I'll leave the explanation of the game idea I settled on till the Jam submission and I will decide on a name for it then too.

I worked hard... I had no time for blog posts! And alas, even with as hard as I worked, I couldn't get around to the music..... but nonetheless, instead of squares and lines I have an actual game this time! Please enjoy!

Dr. Artemus Blackcraft has made himself a giant. Play Dr. Blackcraft as he saves the world from various invaders and nefarious villains.
Download
Source
If someone wants to make a Mac port using their copy of Game Maker, it would be much appreciated. NOTE: The installer can install to a flash drive.

After many hours of work and fun I finally finished my first ludum dare! Play The Game

Well, sad to say, I don't have a full working game. I'll probably publish what I did under the Jam, but a game breaking bug appeared, and I didn't have time to track it down along with implement the remaining features required for the game to be an actual game.

That said, this LD did help me get to know SDL better, and will definitely be the foundation for future compos. Additionally I plan on continuing work on the game in order to create a game that actually works, as well as implement a few ideas I had that I threw out early on due to time constraints.

Update

Literally two hours before the Compo ended I still hadn't coded the death sequence, I had no icons, sprites, animation and the main mechanic still needed a little smoothing, I will need another day, just to make my game look presentable. Ultimately what really stopped me from delivering this game in 48 hours was my own lack of focus, I took too long to decide I would participate, took too long to decide what I would do and took to long to build the base of it, so now is the last 23 and something hours, better make it count

What went right:

Illustration -- Surprisingly, I got some not-awful art this time around (compared to last time). As I was creating the assets I thought “huh, maybe I should try doing some shading”. Turns out, shading is the 20% of effort that gets you 80% of the results. Happy surprise there!

What went wrong:

Time management -- Yeah...I didn't spend enough time working on the game to make it shine. There are still a handful of features I wish I could add – music being the biggest – but not enough for me to want to enter the jam instead of the compo.

My laptop -- On the flipside, a lot of the wasted time was due to my laptop being part-fossil. During the worst hours, it was overheating after 15 mintues of work and needing 30+ minutes to cool down. The only reason I had anything to submit was that my brother suggested I put ice under the hottest part – that kept it alive long enough to get the critical components implemented.

What I'll do differently next time:

Make a schedule! -- During the early hours of Day 1 (the morning after I got no sleep because I stayed up late not working on the game … okay, that's an exaggeration, I got sleep) I told myself “alright, let's get this core mechanic implemented by lunch time.” Then I went to lunch. Then I finished the mechanic. And went for a bike ride.

Here's a better idea: as soon as I have the idea figured out, write a schedule for all of the features. Include lots of break time, but make sure to get the important stuff on there. It doesn't matter if I tick every single box, I just need a motivating force telling me to get to work.

Closing thoughts

This LD was not a success for me, but it wasn't a total failure either. I learned about shading and procrastinating; I hope to use that when I (hopefully) come back for LD39. Happy gaming!

The game

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/$19528

"Focusing on gameplay served this game well." In my opinion, I've managed to pack insane amount of gameplay into this one. Chances are many people won't like it for the same reason many people don't like working with terminals. Since it's a console game I completely abandoned graphics and sounds and that gave me a lot of time to focus on what I wanted: atmosphere, gameplay and little bit of story. I have yet to finish it in non-cheaty way just because of sheer amount of content.

I will also have to work on Linux version, I had troubles making it work. Damn you .Net Core.

It's was hard to do it alone, I accomplished most of the things I wanted, but had no time to draw proper sprites :)

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this compo challenge too!

You can try my Game here

Have a great rest of the weekend!

Got a working game out. that's all I can ask for. Super stoked to play everyone's games!

Game Page: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/lonely-planets

First submission to Ludum Dare, went better than expected. https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/$15890

Game Link: http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/692391

Ludum Link: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/$21121

Currently working on getting some AI in there to fight:

Got to enjoy a good rumble right? Next up, health...

AI, even really basic exampes in a jam is not the easiest of jobs! Lesson learned :sweat_smile:

Created a submission and was able to access it from another computer, so I'm calling that a success! Think I'm just going to relax for the rest of the night and check back in on things tomorrow.

So proud to have finally participated along side you gamers in the last 48 hours of intense development. I look forward to checking out the submissions tomorrow evening after work to see the incredible things you all did with the time.

I have created my first video game ever! HOLYSHIT does that feel good. My body, however, does not feel so great and my brain isn't exactly working right. It was super stressful in the last hours, and I wasn't sure I was even going to be able to finish. I will definitely post some thoughts tomorrow after I have had some time to recover. Good job everyone, you guys are awesome and I can't wait to see what you've all created and play your games!!

With all the new submission changes, and confusion... I barely got the Compo in!

I'm really tired, and I still haven't figured out how to add pictures... there was a video somewhere... gotta check it out.

Good luck, everyone!

...if you work at ExtractCorp. https://notime4games.itch.io/extractcorp

Was a lot of fun. Could've done more for sure. It's probably super unbalanced and impossible to win :D

That was my first ever game jam and I did alright!

I survived and I went for an idea that could be done relatively easily. I had about 12 hours to spare so :)

:smile:

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/$16266

Click the image to go to the game!