background for 2nd location

It's been over a year since my last Ludum Dare and none of that time was spent better preparing. Here is a recap of what went right (I'm sure something must have), wrong, and the lessons I may have learned along the way.

• Code: GameMaker Studio 1.4
• Pixels: Photoshop
• Sounds: Bxfr, Audacity

When the "A Small World" theme was announced, I was actually kind of surprised. It was one of the themes I actually voted for in the finals and yet I had no ideas pre-lined up. “I’ll do something involving a small planet that you run around.”, I had thought. Instead, I had an idea for an abbreviated version of Risk (or at least what I believe I remember as being Risk, since it's been a while); just played on a much smaller board. This idea later evolved into something that I’m not entirely sure how to label. In my mind, I think I was envisioning a simplified, turn-based, 1v1 MOBA-esque game. Each player attempts to control a board with a hero, defeating the opposing base as the end goal.

What went right:

Persistence/Changing Directions – It is hard to abandon something that you’ve invested time into. About 20 hours into the Dare, I was incredibly unhappy with my project. I had made good headway and encountered very few headaches. Unfortunately, my game was not working. And I don’t mean that in a technical sense. It wasn't fun to play. It felt pointless, so I felt pointless. I was ready to quit. I took a nice long walk, stretching my legs and my mind. I then came up with an idea for a direction that could use some of the work I had already created. The change provided new motivation. In the end, I still don’t think my game works, but I’m proud for not quitting.

Prioritization – Typically, I'll have a bug or design flaw that I know needs to be fixed. Something important like, you can't get to the game from the main menu. However, because I think it's something I can knock out quickly, I keep putting it off while I figure out how to animate individual blades of grass. Then suddenly it's 15 minutes before I need to post and my blades of grass are animating but you can’t get to the game from the menu. Or I gave up on the grass because I became distracted by some other creep and still no menu fix. This time around, I found myself scope creeping every now and then, but I consistently checked my punch list and if I was working on something that wasn’t on the list, I'd stop and re-prioritize.

Animation – I chose to do virtually no pixel animation this time around. Instead, I animated with code so that I could still add some "flair" but save hours of pixel work. Some of the code animations were more than sufficient, I think.

What went wrong:

My Health – I came into the weekend slightly under the weather, an injury to my hand, and due to not sleeping well, I was nice and tired. But I didn't care. I was so pumped for the Dare that my excitement was kind of curing my ailments. And by curing I just mean masking. As a result, I didn't proceed with my health as an utmost concern. I'm already feeling and will continue to feel the consequences of these actions for at least the rest of this week (and probably 3 more after that).

Music/Sound – I need to spend some time, post-jam, learning the necessary tools so that my learning curve isn’t eating into my schedule. As fun as it was playing with some of these tools, I have nothing that users wouldn't immediately mute. In the end, I just left it out of the game. I'm not really happy with the sound effects I chose to include either.

The Idea/Design – Coming into LD38, I had planned to spend the first night dedicated to design and planning. Really hash it out and have a good roadmap for the morning. About 6 hours after the theme was announced, I had created a mockup in Photoshop and had a basic working prototype – I even had a basic schedule for the next two days. I went to bed thinking, “Wow, I’m really moving. This is great.”. As I mentioned above, I didn’t feel the same 14 hours later. Not every game idea is going to be a winner; I just need to figure out how to recognize the duds a little sooner.

AI – My previous experiences had not prepared me for the type of AI necessary for the type of game I was trying to make. I ultimately made a judgement call to move on to other tasks and leave, what I am calling “Stupid AI” in place.

Closing thoughts

I’m really not happy with my final game. I have my “if I have time” list, but I don’t see myself continuing work on Small Kingdoms. Ultimately, this isn’t the type of game I want to play. I think if I take away anything this time around, it’s that I need to make what I like – something I’d have fun playing. Oh, and I don't like hex grids. It’s been a blast as always and I’m looking forward to the next Ludum Dare. I think I’m going to spend some time in between brushing up on my music and 3D skills. I really want to try something different next time.

I’ll be posting a time-lapse of the making of Small Kingdoms later this week. In the meantime, you can check out my entry here:

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/$15171

Every game has details that need to be tweaked to feel right, especially in the character controls of a realtime game. I always leave some time for this.

But this time I really set myself up with a vast multi-dimensional search space by having weird gravity, jetpacks, roller skates, rockets with explosions, and a ball.

Here is where I ended up:

Considering the level of risk I had Sunday when I woke up at noon to a couple of feedback emails saying the test build was not fun, I'm pretty happy with where I ended up.

Does everyone else have these experiences of going to bed Saturday thinking it's great and waking Sunday to a dawning horror that rewrites all priorities?

I did a lot of ripping and tearing of things in the name of finding the right feel. During the course of the compo my control set for the movement went down from 4 keys (WASD) to two keys (WS) to one key (W). Making the player automatically travel clockwise was an important choice, because it reduces the control complexity and hides a few warts with how it feels to teeter right on the lip of a sharp angle in the smooth terrain.

Eventually I had the control feeling good (to me at least!) but then the problem was "how do I force the player to have fun?" The ball is there to serve that purpose, but it was just not FUN. Hitting the ball with rockets was too hard, and the results of headbutts and splash knocks to the ball were wild and unpredictable, there was no sense of agency.

The key to unlocking Sunday in the final stretch was the realization that I was looking in the wrong place for the problem. I was tinkering with the rocket physics, and falling into the difficult hole of projectile velocity inheritance in fast-moving shooters, which is a known unsolvable problem. I was messing with the explosion knockback parameters, and had stubbed out a special code path for direct rocket hits. The list of things to investigate was getting LONGER not shorter, and I still had no screen transitions or sound.

But eventually I realized that most problems on my list were all coming from the same root cause: the ball was too bouncy! It was really that simple. You can go into the mode select screen in my game and try the "bouncy" mode, I left it in the game to gape at how random it feels when the ball is bouncing all over the place.

After I removed the bounciness, the ball settled into the nooks in the terrain, and made advancing the ball a more direct and predictable result of your actions. Suddenly the game component felt reasonable.

More tweaking could have produced a better result, but that baseline did the trick and from there I just whipped it into an actual GAME and synthesized a few sound effects.

I fixed one last bug with about 10 minutes to go, and put my pencil down.

In the end I doubt the game forces you to have the fun that is available, which is a shortcoming. But I'm happy enough that there is some fun to be had, and hopefully the game at least invites you to have it.

Biggest mistake: As soon as I played after release I realized matches going until 10 way totally wrong, and it should have been 4 or 5. I cannot believe I made that mistake, it's so obvious.

To be honest, i using particles for the first time at all. This LDare shows me new and new things. I'm so happy! :nerd:

Much of the progress I have been making was in code, but I do have a title screen

The light in the end of the tunnel is shining brighter than ever, our Game is on it's way to greet you guys. It feels like days have passed by since Rasmus told Isak "What about bacterias? Isn't that an great idea?" and Isak responded with "meh". Maybe because it was like two days ago but anyways. Everything that's missing are some sound effects, let's get to work.

Join us at Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/glaze96

Just wanted to show how the game evolved in just a few hours of having artwork :) Pre-Art

Regeneration

Added Creative

More gameplay. Those colored blocks (placeholder art) actually alter the attributes of the microbe you're inside, and changes propagate upward (to the parent, to the parent's parent, etc)! eg: Increasing microbe health increases their size, and the map itself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2khkCHcb1U

Oh, and you have to be smaller than the thing you try to inject... so you can also change your size!

Gah, so much left to do! No shleep for me. Only 11 hours until submission! Need moar arts! More bubbles! Ability to possess enemies and play as them! INFECT THEM WITH SO MANY BACTERIOPHAGE, THEY E'SPLODE!

And... a win condition! That's probably important.

I should probably also consume nutrients or something.

We have got a splash screen! Still polishing things here and there, it was the first LD for the three of us, I'm really happy with the results so far, we managed to move from scribbles on a notepad to something that is coming to life and making us laugh a lot :D Countless pizzas have been eaten in the process...well not by @Jabba, he's more into his Tokyo food :)

No time for gamedev this weekend, got work to do (and some rest too) :(

Will start working on a proper "full" game also, so I'm kinda with a lot of stuff in my hands. :P

Still, good luck for everyone taking part! :) Looking forward to play the games! :D

I'm seeing a lot of tiny planets and cool mechanics.. and here I am with a platformer about bees, larvae and giant chickens! Give it a try! https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/$17327

Best of luck to everybody who's still jamming!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_96HohardM

11 hours to go!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njtPdAwp1yA

Watch the development of the game live here: https://www.twitch.tv/pixel_maniacs

Hi everyone,

In Place Them All, you are a planet owner who must place 8 different tribes by assigning one field to each of them. Choose carefully if you want everyone to survive, because the different tribes will not go easy on each other.

You can find the game over here : https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/ld38-place-them-all

Have a lot of fun and thank you for your interest ! Good luck for all the entrants !!! :D

What if you could explore a world so tiny that quantum effects start to take place. In "Quantum Frustum", you can. You have the help of a beam of light, but your journey will be strange and disturbing.

You can now play on Windows, Linux and Osx, let me know what you think of the concept. https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/quantum-frustum/

I couldn't get the game done for the compo (rl stuff got into the way and didn't want to pull an all-nighter), but that didn't stop me from enjoying the weekend. Anyway, here is the game released as a Jam-candidate.

You can find my game here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/to-kill-a-planetingbird

Things I learned this LD: - Start from the core gameplay first, this way you have more time for finding out the actual fun in the game. - Spend some time learning the tools you are going to use, even though they look self explanatory at first glance. - Remember to eat & sleep

T'was fun!

I assume other people get this feeling as well. You've spent all weekend, and I mean all weekend (excluding a little time for sleep), working on a game. You get to the end and you feel both a feeling of motivation since you see how much you've improved and a feeling of distraught when looking at other's games. The quality of the games that come out in LD is astonishing, to say the least. I want to be able to make games at that level.

For me, LD gives me tons of conflicting emotions. This is part of the reason I love LD so much. It motivates me through both giving me a platform for practice and feedback while also letting me see how much farther I have to go as a game dev.

As for my game this time. Check it out here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/$16562

I don't know if I'll succeed in finishing my game. At least I have ants going out from the nest, gathering the food,going back home and a winning condition if you gathered enough food within the given time.

http://i.imgur.com/c71zOgr.gifv

This is already a huge accomplishment for me, but these are still missing:

• a start menu
• at least one soundtrack
• a lose condition
• the first tutorial level
• some levels or some random level generation
• itch.io submission

I don't know if I will be able to post the game to itch.io, if I don't have enough time I'll stick with the good ol' GitHub pages without any graphic apart from the game canvas.

P.S. seems like "I don't know" is my personal LD theme :sweat_smile:

• Wow, this weekend was insane.
• My first attempt with unity using 3D.
• My first attempt with MagicaVoxel.
• A lot of eathquakes (Chile had a earthquake swarm this weekend), which gave me some troubles to sleep.
• A lot of problems with Unity physics (as always)
• A lot of time lost, working into stupid things, which should be priority.
• Once again, I've changed my mind in the middle of development. Because of that, I had to go for Jam.

But I'm happy, even with all those things, I would say that this is one of my best games ever made for Jams. I'm really proud of me.

(I really need to start think small for the next one... hahahhahaa)

please, check it, and let me know what you think.

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/$15261

Nathan has been wanting to take part in a Game Jam for quite a while – so when we saw that the Ludum Dare game jam was about to take place – and they were celebrating their 15th year – we decided we would give it a go this time.

Amazingly, as we are busy most weekends, this particular weekend everyone cancelled on us and we had an entire weekend to ourselves – we took this as A Sign and resolved to definitely try to make a game in just one weekend. We have never done this before so we thought it would be a great challenge and possibly fun!

The first step was to vote on the possible themes on the LDJam website – these had already been posted by other users and game jam enthusiasts. The actual theme of the competition would be announced at 2am (UK time) on Friday night while we were sleeping. We were hoping that it would be “Keep it alive” as we’d thought of a really great idea for that – but when we stirred in the night and checked our phones we discovered that the actual theme was Small World.

We tried to go back to sleep and hoped we’d dream up a really good game idea before morning. We had a brainstorming session as soon as we woke and talked about what Small World could encompass:

there are already games out there already featuring small worlds that are fought over because they won’t fit everyone on

small world can also mean child-sized things

small world theory where everyone turns out to be connected to everyone else – could we make a game about that or would it just end up being too massive?

then, we had the brainwave that small world could also mean – microscopic!

That idea really got the cogs turning and we came up with superbugs – a game where you’re in a science lab and peer through a microscope at viruses in a petri dish. The aim of the game would be that you have to kill them off with combinations of drugs before they grow too big and become Superbugs – and resistant to ALL drugs. We’d start with a few simple levels , where you just have to kill one virus with a drug of the same colour. This would be scaled up to many viruses – some needing multiple drugs and others needing colour combinations to kill them off.

As Nathan, our developer, is halfway through his first course on Unity – we thought we’d make the game in that. It seemed like a good way of testing his understanding so far!

Our first prototype was one petri dish containing the viruses – but it wasn’t very interesting and did not need a lot of skill. Also it was difficult to animate the viruses and get them to interact with each other. Then Nathan came up with the idea of hexagonal cells – like a beehive – where each drug would affect the cells around the target one. This would make it into a proper puzzle game. It also allows for drug colours to be combined to make the other colours needed.

We didn’t have any access to sounds – so Nathan did the sound effects himself and recorded them to put them in the game.  I especially like the “pop” as each virus explodes as it is eliminated by the correct drug combos! One of the hardest parts of making the game so far is working out how to automate the production of each level to ensure that it is still solvable. They do it with Sudoku – so it must be possible!

Check back in a few hours for part two, where we’ll show how the game turned out and how you can play it!