Last time I participated in the end of 2012 as an Artist (LD#24 jam and LD#25jam), decided to try again this time because of Ludum dare's 15th Anniversary - could not miss such date :)

First Compo Ever + First Unity 2d Game Ever = Turtle Hero (Click to Play)

I haven't accomplished as much as I hoped to, but for 48 hours - it's still quite big.

Because I already participated before I knew how things are usually go wrong - when in a few minutes you become hours before and skyfall begins :)

I decided to make a simple plan and stick to it no matter what:

My Simple Plan:

1. Pick some scalable concept, so if you have time in the end - you can add more
2. Sketch and document everything you have in your mind during first two-three hours, go as deep as you can!
3. Pick concept you can or almost can do
4. Finish "Game Core" first, before any finish-end art/music

What Went Right

1. After picking an idea, I started writing formulas and thought about the content I want to put into game, so in the middle of stress when your brain is barely functional - your sketches/documents starting to pay you back!
2. Even when my first day was very very ineffective, I manage to make a game worth publishing (IMHO...) because I stick to my original plan.
3. I did "temporary" ugly graphics to finish making "Game Core" first, and only after that jumped into drawing things.
4. Even doing my first unity2d project and going through tutorials and how-tos - I was able to make it because I picked a right type of game for my skills (tactics, strategy) instead of something highly reliable to advanced physics for example...

What Went Wrong

1. I only started drawing high-end sprites when it was 4-5 hours left to submission, and wasn't able to replace all the sprites in the game. Maybe you should spend a little more on "temporary" art, so even if you don't have time to replace it - it's not ugly at least? :)
2. I probably still pick a too big idea to implement - It was like making an MMORPG in a week. So the chunk was quite big to chew, and I haven't even go to the music and effects... Next time I would probably choose smaller (but still scalable idea)
3. Start Game Submission process at least hour before Compo end, instead of doing it in 10 minutes. Because I said it was my first unity2d project - I picked wrong game resolution and in Web Browser my UI was messed up. I tried to fix as much as I could in 10 minutes and finally submit it (thanks for 49th additional hour given to submit it)...

Summary

I think it went quite OK overall, I learned so much new stuff and improved my skills as well.

Hope you also had fun during this Ludum Dare, have a great week!

https://www.scirra.com/arcade/action-games/meteor-mania-17211?action=updated

Not quite fast enough for the 48 hour thing, but it means I was able to put in better background music. Hope you guys like it, would love any feedback, this is my first 'real' game and my first Ludem Dare!

`` .-,--. ,-,---. .
|/ ,-. ,-. . . ,-. '|/ ,-. ,-. ,-. ,-,-. ,-. ,-. |- )| \ | | | | | | |-' ,| \ ,-| -. |-' | | | |-' | | | ' -' -|-^ -'-^---' -^-' -' ' ' '-' ' ' ' ,|
' .
_/ / \ / \ * _____________ ──/─────\── / Thanks so much for downloading \ \ - - / ──/ ROGUE BASEMENT! I hope you like it!!! | & \ - / & | -Steve / \───+───/ ____________/ | \─────────/ _\ /

===========================================================

Instructions

1. WHAT AM I LOOKING AT?

Your screen looks approximately like this:

+---------------+-----------------------+ | Stats | # | +---------------| # | | Health: 100 | # | |xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx| ------------ # | | Rocks: 0 | |v......*..| # | | Score: 0 | |..........| # | | | |.....@....+###### | | | |..........| | | | |w.......$.| | | | ------------ | | | | +---------------+-----------------------+

You are the @. That is you. It is "where you are at," so to speak.

You are in a room with walls and a door. Each . represents an empty floor tile. The straight bars are walls. The + is a door, which is closed. The # is a corridor you can walk down.

The v is a VERP. It's a kind of monster that tries to attack you close up.

The w is a WIBBLE. It throws rocks at you from a few tiles away.

The * is a rock. It is lying on the ground. If you walk over to it, you can pick it up by pressing g for "get." If you do that, the number of rocks in the sidebar will go up. Isn't that neat!

The $ is cash money. It represents your score and has no in-game value.

1. MOVEMENT

The 5 and . keys are 'wait'. This gives the monsters a turn without moving you.

7 8 9 y k u up \|/ \|/ | 4-5-6 h-.-l left-.-right /|\ /|\ | 7 8 9 n j b down

1. ITEMS: WHAT YOU CAN DO WITH THEM

When over a * or a $, press g to "get" them.

When there are rocks in your inventory, you can press t to "throw" them. The game will ask you for a direction, and then off it goes. You have to aim in one of your nine main directions.

1. DOORS

To open a door, just bump into it.

To close it, stand next to a door, press c, and then indicate the direction of the door.

1. OBJECTIVE

You are trying to reach "the end," signified by a >.

===========================================================

Happy adventuring!

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Thank you web developer man for making my internetz work :3

i just need to make the third level and a short ending for the game, and i will publish it!

So, all of the main characters are done!

...yep.

Bit late on this. Game to bee posted tomorrow.

I did not find the Ludum Dare theme trailer, this weekend. Where is it?

The new webpage looks great and easier to use! Let's start with the mandatory "we are in" post and let's go back to work =D

First Ludum Dare entry submitted! Had a total blast doing this and can't wait for the next one (I only found out about it Friday, had to scamper to get anything done.) :o) GL all!

TL;DR; Second compo and there's still so much more to learn! Also takeaways at the bottom!

So this is my second Compo and I've learned SOOO much this time around! My first one was a few years ago and I made the unfortunate mistake of trying to do everything myself; I was going to make a game using Java cause that's what I knew. Since then I've tried to be a little more serious about Unity and learning and and it's paid off!

Prior to this Compo I was start two Unity projects. One that didn't get far at all (just the camera moving down a hallway) and another, that I'm going to return to now, that I managed to get some basic character movement and multiplayer in place! The second game is one I want to make for my YouTube community so it's definately one to come back to!

Anywho in this Compo I knew time management would be a BIG issue because 1. I had been sick all week and still was, 2. I have a 3 year old and an 11 month old who is weaning and teething, and 3. My wife and kids JUST got sick Thursday and it got full blown Friday afternoon. Knowing that I knew I couldn't spend NEARLY as much time as I did the first time trying to come up with an idea. I figured that first night 1 hour to brainstorm and the rest of the night to get started, Saturday for mechanics and coding and whatnot, Sunday for Sprite and Title work (I forgot about sound and music till Saturday night around midnight O_O)

I knew I needed to keep the scope small and thought I had with my first game idea (it never got a name so i'm just gonna call it FGI in this post). I had it down and I was excited about it and got started coding maybe 1 hour and 15 minutes into the Compo.

After taking time to put the kiddos to sleep and all that I spent some time coding and got some prefabs set and all that. Spent Saturday trying to help my wife with the kids and trying to keep myself healthy....oh and trying to stay away because the night before when I was ready for bed my 11 mo old decided it was time to get up and stay up till 4 am.

Saturday I was up and at em at 9 and started my Gravitational Pull mechanic. When I finally finished it by 3 pm I knew I wouldn't be able to bring FGI into reality because I had to somehow perfectly Instantiate objects to represent a solar system and push them just right to keep them in orbit. Time to adjust with what I have and make something of it. I spent the rest of Saturday ironing out bugs, refining my Gravity mechanic, and refactoring code.

Sunday I wasn't able to get started till 2 pm (the Compo was ending at 8 PM so I knew I had to rush). My cold/flu/sick hit again full force so I was forced to stay in bed till later :( Anyway I was able to re-use some title stuff I had from and old project and knew I would spend a lot of time working on the music and sound (cause I never done that before). My hopes were it might go well and I could revist my mechanics to add some randomization, and "end state", and other important stuff.

That didn't happen...but I had SOMETHING to show for it this time around and it was ALMOST an entire game! I had a great back story and idea and am going to make sure I commit to finishing this game the way it was meant to be before I move on!

TL;DR;

Takeaways

• Really think SMALL SCOPE and be prepared to adjust along the way. Don't throw away what you have just because something won't fit...make what you have work with a new idea!
• The internet is REALLY good at helping with things and if you take time to really understand things and don't just fast-forward through the teaching videos you can really do good!
• Test, test, test, test, test!
• Be sure you save an hour before submission time to ensure that your build works as it does in the Editor. I ran into a weird but where my gamescript was running even though it was in the editor...it was weird
• MOST IMPORTANT TAKEAWAY! Don't let YOU get in the way of accomplishing your dream and doing something! It's going to be hard to learn it but when you do it feels SO GREAT! There were so many moments I thought, "I'm never going to figure this out and i'm going to waste so much time and not have anything to show for again." Eventually i'd find the answer and things just fell into place!
• Keep coding outside of these jams! Each time I step into a project or try to tackle a new aspect of game developing I never encountered I learn new things and then think back to past struggles and realize I could have done them better!

Best of luck to all of you in the Compo and still grinding out the Jam! Can't wait till I get another opportunity to enter the Compo! I'm hoping to have a few games under my belt by then ;)

"Go for your dreams and do what you love" -Me

Just finished all graphics, audio, music, and physics. Time to finish AI and optimize!

I finished my Jam entry King of Tiny Mountain. You can download it here: https://malec2b.itch.io/king-of-tiny-mountain

Hey folks, all done! It was one heck of a ride, and we had a blast. Can't wait to play everyone's games!

You are a small, unsatisfied planet in your galaxy. So you need to get out of your orbit to explore new worlds. :grinning:

:weary: :weary: :weary: Glad that's over.

I probably might make the deadline, though it's not going to be as what I've initially planned.

I've got the display working, but no images as of yet, just more back-end coding for now.

Sadly, failed to make the deadline. Had internet problems at the crucial moment of upload.

Well, at least I've got some experience for next time.