Back in February, I took part in my first (mini) Ludum Dare. I created a game called “fishslap” which I was quite happy with. Simple, entertaining and fun… that was my philosophy.

Here’s a screenshot of the original version:

Here’s the link to the MiniLD-24 entry:

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/minild-24/?action=preview&uid=3007

I spent the next few months reworking an ActionScript3 version, then an ActionScript3 mobile version – but I found that when I compiled it to iPhone performance was not good! In the end, I came up with something “acceptable”, but every single line of code, every graphic, every effect had to be painfully scrutinised in order to get a reasonable frame-rate.

So I bit the bullet… purchased a cheap Mac, and got into Corona SDK. Corona SDK is highly recommended! The language, Lua, has a lot of similarities to ActionScript… and performance is BLITZING!

Just a couple of days ago my final, and by far best version, of fishslap was accepted into the (Apple) App Store! WOOHOOOO!

Check it out…. there is a FREE version and a cheap .99c version.

Here’s some screen shots:

Here’s a youtube link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAR3o9ia-qc

iTunes Link:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/fishslap/id454943320

My website Link:

http://www.pellenproductions.com/fishslap.html

I still find it amazing that this game originally appeared from 48 hours work, with such competition limitations as “2 colours”, “1 button”, “fishing” and “reverse”(?) . This made me think of fishing, but from the fishes point of view. It motivated me to save up for equipment and software and get into mobile development, which (early days) I’m loving!

Hoping to be a part of LD21

Thanks Ludumites!,

Cheers,

fishbrain

Tags: SuccessStory

I wanted to let all of my fellow LDers know about the turn-based strategy game for Windows Phone 7 that I developed recently, called Verterum. The game is designed to be easy to learn, but to have some interesting strategy too. Check it out, tell your friends! Here’s a screenshot of the game in action:

Simple interface, fun strategy

Developing the game with XNA and the other Windows Phone APIs was definitely a learning experience for me, as I had barely touched it before. Despite that, I’m happy to inform you that developing the game with XNA was very smooth. It’s geared very nicely toward getting started with some basic development, so it’s great for prototyping. Getting into more advanced graphics techniques gets a bit more complicated, but I can’t speak to that since I didn’t work with it much for this game. Overall, I had fun with it.

Also, if I have time, I might make something for the upcoming competition. I may have a few things going on over the weekend, but we’ll see. If I do, I’ll likely use my framework (OpenGL, SDL, C/C++), or possibly XNA. Go Ludum Dare!

Tags: games

This will be my 3rd Ludum Dare.  In previous LDs I made “Protractor” and “Light the Way”.  Here’s my plan:

• SDK: Frank Engine – My open source 2d game engine (integrated with Box2D DirectX)  This is a pretty solid engine if anyone else is interested it’s very easy to set up with Visual Studio Express.  The screenshot above is from the included sample game.  I recently released a fairly epic metroidvania style game using it called “Mother Lover”.
• GFX: Drawing stuff by hand and scanning it in, editing with GIMP
• SFX:  Making my own sound effects with stuff around the house
• Music: Rock band on IPAD and/or guitar.  There may be a kazoo involved.

I’m Tom 7. I plan to participate in #21. I’ve done it three times by myself with Is Lands?, Disco? Very!, and Priority Cats, plus a few times in jams (producing very weird but charming results). I will probably use Flash again (and my custom physics/bitmap graphics library) but you never know. I have no pre-conceived notions about this contest but I am pretty jazzed!!

First timer here. I’m planning on keeping it simple. The main goal is to get something done.

Language: Python

Libraries: Pygame

IDE: Geddit

GFX: Paint.net

SFX: sfxr

First LD and I will be stoked if I finish something. I will be using:

Flash/Flashpunk/FlashDevelop.

Is it odd that I am excited that I have no idea how to pull this off?

Tags: first-timer

This is my completely work-in-progress 2D SDL-based game engine. I might be using bits and pieces of it in the competition. So in case I decide to, I’m declaring it now. Vote for fishing! I may also use the following libraries: gbmath, SDL_Mixer, SDL_Mappy, SDL_gfx, Box2DLite depending on theme.

Because I got my wish. “I wish I could use X game I almost have done for Ludum Dare, it’s awesome.”

Then an hour ago my hard drive head decides it wants to commit suicide. So the good news is: I’ll likely be using X game. Bad news: … What isn’t bad? GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Looking forward to LD#21, though (as usual) I won’t have much time to spend this weekend, am going up north to the lake.

I was hoping Looping would win for the theme, now I’m leaning toward Immortality.

Tools:

Processing
ChucK
IanniX
Inkscape
Personal FOSS libraries (Piccolo2D, dishevelled.org, various Processing libraries)

Tags: ChucK, dishevelled.org, Iannix, inkscape, Piccolo2D, processing

I’ve done some work on a multi-threaded server in C# for various things. I plan on using it for my game in the compo. Included in this link is the .exe and the xml options file. It’s fairly simple to use, and it uses TCP for communication. You can set which port it uses, a “greet” message, the interval in milliseconds at which it sends received data to all connected clients, the maximum number of clients, and the maximum message size (in bytes). It expects all communications in byte form. Here it is!

Tags: CSharp, multiplayer, server

I should be spending time on other projects, but that can wait… I’m in!     Last time (LD19) my entry didn’t have audio, so this time around I will probably jump on that early on, once I’ve got something functioning.  I’ll be using Unity and probably a bit of 3D Coat as well.  I’m hoping that whatever I create causes seizures, panic attacks, anxiety or temporary states of hypnosis.

I’m in once more, and have gone to the trouble of rescheduling dental appointments in order to participate. I’ll be mixing things up a bit this time, using Flixel rather than my usual Processing. I’ve never made a game in Flash before, so this is gonna be exciting. Other tools include my usual sfxr (and possibly the various derivatives that have sprung up), PXTone and/or Famitracker, and possibly The GIMP if I make any actual art.

(I think)

It’s AClockWorkLemon here, and i might be back with an entry this compo! Can’t make any promises, what with schoolwork and such, but hey! Let’s see how it goes! If i end up making a game, i will be using one of the following:

• GameMaker 8 (Pro)
• ActionScript 3, with the amazing FlashPunk library
• Python 2.7, using the libTCOD library (if i go for this, the game will likely be very short and sweet. Obviously don’t have enough time for a full-scale Roguelike :3)

Plus, for SFX, ill be going for the omnipresent SFXR. Supposing i get time to make music, i … err … i’ll see what i can find ^_^

Well it is my second, but I didn’t finish the first one after some bugs with the BGE.

So really my first one! I really want to finish this one even though I can’t use the computer for all 48 hours, but I can stillt ry to make something simple.

Not sure what I’m using yet, but it will either be Corona SDK with Lua or Flash with the Flixel library (most likely this one).

Hope to see you there!

Yep that’s right, I’m in, this will be my 2nd  Ludum Dare! I’m a Unity user (abuser) so that’ll be my main tool

Looking forward to making something cool and good luck to all of you participating!

<slow motion speaking>IIIII…’mmmm…..     iiii…nnnn. </slow motion speaking>

So there.

It’s going to be a spectacular LD48.

Had thoughts of inventing a paper computer from scratch to make my entry in.  But making a computer from scratch is a little too hardcore non?  Instead I’ll do a python+pygame or javascript+canvas thingy.

#Fail is not an option.  This time I’m going to #win.  Well, maybe not win in the traditional understanding of the term… but win by at least submitting my entry this time.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 18th, 2011 at 7:42 am and is filed under LD #21. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Hi, I’m Kobra. My friend, Flyboy, has been demanding that I do ludum dare for a while. So here I go!

The tools I’m planning on using are:
C# (Visual Studio 2010)
Photoshop
either XNA or irrKlang + Ventosa (Open GL graphics library that my friend and I made.).
And Maya if I make a 3D game with models.

I can’t wait to see all of the amazing games that you guys can come up with, and I wish everyone the best of luck.

So here I am, and it seems I am also in (for the first time).

I am a 21 year old Portuguese guy who likes to write thousands of buggy lines of code for pure fun. I am attending a CS course on college, and I write since I was 12 years old. Also, I am a die hard Linux user and Opensource supporter.

I like playing games and I also like to make games. So I think this is my chance to shine (or fail). I have some “work” done that I would like to share with you. Note that this stuff is incomplete and are mostly experiments I made on my free time.

aMaze
The Thief (this was a final work for the multimedia content production subject. Had 18 out of 20)

See you all there =)

I’m also in! I’ll be joinin’ with LudumDare Kajaani group again and I managed to arrange a proper location with local university of applied sciences!

I’ll join the competition or the jam depending how many people prefer to do jamming for Ludumdare here.

If you’re from Finland and interested to join us check out the facebook event at:

https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=154739737937979

Nearly 20 people will be participating here and no entry fees! If you don’t have facebook you can contact me directly.

Hope to see some neat games soon!

Hi all, I (along with many others it seems) will be joining you for my first entry in Ludum Dare!

I will be using Javascript to create my game with the HTML5 Canvas element. As for libraries, I will be using jsfx for sound generation.

I can’t wait to see what you all come up with, good luck to you all!

Just thought that I would share an exporter I wrote for Blender with you all. The script exports your 3D mesh with uv-map to a .pde class-file that you are able to use in your processing software. Here’s an example of a model exported with the script:

(The model is made by Tommy Tallian and can be found here: http://tomtallian.com)

The script can be found here:
http://pastebin.com/GuGqMSNC

And you may use it as you like

Here is my collection of Unity scripts that I plan to use in the the compo. In accordance with the rules, and for the joy of all Unity users, I’m making them available to all.

Tags: unity, unity3d

AKA “I’m in.”

Contrary to the contract in the video, I’ll be using HTML5 canvas and Javascript, on top of a little basecode of my own for handling animation, text, and audio. As per them rules, my boilerplate can be seen here: http://vede.galacticgaming.net/LD21/

I probably won’t be using that font, and I definitely won’t be using the robot. It’s just there to demonstrate the animation.

To abide by the rules, I post here a little framework I had just started to create for GameMaker, it’ll help me skip forward pretty basic things like loading player settings and extend some GML functions.

It’s nothing major at the moment, what’ll help me the most is the extension I created to wrap the bass.dll in order to load and play OGG sound, as GameMaker itself cannot play that format.

*snip*

Tags: gamemaker

Here be the setup that I’ll be using for the competition:

Not long to go now!

Tags: deskphoto

Hi all,  in the run-up to LD, I decided I would share something else with you all.

Today I made an extension and library for interfacing between Inkscape and C++,

so now you can use inkscape as a level editor without having to face the nightmare of parsing the svg.

feel free to make any changes or modifications you like,  I’m really hoping someone uses it and makes something truly amazing with it.

It has some minor bugs and I didn’t get time to add support for groups and layers -yet but if you need this it would be really easy to add

example code and readme are included in the zip file.

to install the extension just drop both the inx and the py into the

Inkscape\share\extensions

folder, and you should have a new option on the save as dialogue next time you run inkscape.

Thanks again all,  have fun and play nice

Kindest regards -Anthony

Ant’s Inkscape Interface

After much humming and hawing, I’ve decided that I will participate in my first Ludum Dare! I had intentions of participating in the last one, but I ended up chickening out and sleeping early on Friday. This time I’m caught up on sleep and ready to go.

Tools:

• Either C++/OpenGL or Flash CS4 (depending on the theme)
• Paint.NET
• sfxr
• musagi or Fruityloops (if I have time for music)

Edit: If I go the C++/OpenGL route, I’ll be using some small base code I’ve written previously to create/manage windows and spawn a console for debugging purposes.

I’m a little afraid that my programmer-tier graphics ability will hinder my entry; I’m excited to find out for certain.

Tags: C++, flash

Hey everybody, My name is Seismo and im in for my first ludum dare!
Im going to use Java, Eclipse and the famous LWJGL for development.
Let’s see what i can create in 48 Hours 😀

Good luck everybody!

I’m going to try this out, mostly as a way to motivate myself to make a complete game. I suppose that I will enter the jam instead of the competition.

I’ve been playing with various game construction kits recently like Construct and Stencyl. I do a lot of my art with Blender. Don’t really have any sound and music making skills, so I’ll probably be looking for stuff that’s freely available.

New city, new stuff, yet same old Ludum Dare.

Goals: Finish a game.
Tools: Flashpunk, FlashDevelop, Photoshop, Audacity, the usual suspects.

One more LD is near and the sweet smelly of theme voting is the air.
This year me and jrrt are trying to arrange a gathering in our University of people interested in participating in the LD.

I’ll probably use flixel. I though to give a try with haxe, but I didn’t have a chance to try it before the weekend, and the LD isn’t the best environment to discover haxe for the first time.
Sfxr will be in charge of the sound.

Happy game dev everyone!

I’m springtangent and this is my first Ludum Dare. I’ll be using Javascript and WebGL to code the game and Inkscape, Paint.net, sfxr, and musagi for content.

I have a WIP framework (https://github.com/springtangent/LD21Framework) which I intend to use.

Good luck everyone!

Gday everyone!

I’m in this year, for the first time. Not sure I’ll have enough time to make anything even remotely fun, but I’ll at least have something.

Will be using C++/SFML.

-yumi_cheeseman

So, I’m going to take part this time too. I’m going to use FlashPunk, GraphicsGale, GIMP, MilkyTracker, SFXR and possibly Audacity.

Tags: flashpunk

Been paying attention to Ludum Dare for a few years but when the weekend came alone I almost always had other plans and couldn’t compete.  This time I look to be free so I’m going to give it a whirl.  I’ve written a bunch of games for Android but never this quickly so we’ll see how it goes.

Tools: Java with libgdx (Done some of my Android work with it and feel comfortable using it), Paint.NET, sfxr

Tags: java, libgdx

Well, this’ll be my first Ludum Dare, or digital games making jam/hack/competition ever actually. Very much looking forward to it, making sure I’ve stocked up on pizza and beer enough stuff to cook a good few meals inbetween having a breakdown making my game!

Tools: Gamemaker (probably), Photoshop and Word, most likely, I’m a writer at heart so I’ll probably end up making something text-y. Probably. ^^

I don’t think there is a single best method to do the Ludum Dare. I’m no expert and you may agree or disagree with my ideas but I’ve finished an entry for 9 different main LDs since LD #1. I’ve also failed many times and learned from those as well.

Get übermotivated

Making a game in 48 hours is hard. There will be times when you feel discouraged by your lack of progress, skills or inspiration. If you’re going to finish a game this weekend, you need to make that your #1 priority. Don’t start the LD without knowing that no matter what, you’ll make a game this weekend. Maybe a very shitty game if things don’t go your way, maybe an awesome game, but a game no matter what. Don’t have any doubt about it and it won’t be a problem.

The excitement here and on IRC before the compo is a great way to build up that motivation, but be careful that once the compo is started it can work against you when others seem to be advancing their game more quickly.

Be prepared

There won’t be that much time for installing new software and learning how to use it. Do that now and be prepared.

Make sure to test all your tools before the compo. At the very least verify that you can run your software. Do you know where you put that dongle or original CD? Did you make any hardware change that could cause a problem with software activation (that happened to me with ZBrush once, their customer support fixed the problem… the next Monday).

If possible make a mini test game. At the very least, test your pipeline. Can you get those sprites to load? Can you export your 3D character and load it in the engine?

If you’re making a game from scratch without an existing engine, I suggest writing a conversion tool or plugin that will convert files to an extremely simple format that can be loaded directly. No need to waste precious LD time writing an .obj loader or whatever.

Get the ball rolling

So you may expect that once the theme is announced you’ll sit in silent meditation for a while and get the most amazing idea. Well, if that happens good for you. But for me it has never been that easy.

So just get started anyway. What? Without an idea? That’s right. The longer you wait, the harder it is to come up with an idea that you will like.

Have a few generic ideas ready before the compo and get started on one. Or just create a sphere, apply physics to it and literally get the ball rolling 😉 Once you’re working on something it’s a lot easier to have ideas than if you just sit staring at a blank page. And if after a few hours you think of something different and have to restart again, that’s ok. It’s a lot better than doing nothing and still not have an idea. You can probably reuse a lot of the code and assets anyway.

Your final idea can also come much later. For LD #5 I started making a dungeon crawler type of game. 28 hours into the compo, I accidentally used a glRotate instead of a glTranslate. I thought the result looked cool and ended up making a racing game on a ring shaped track. I would never have had that idea without that happy accident.

LD #5 first prototype and final game

Get rid of the placeholder graphics

Nothing kills motivation like a game about rectangles colliding with triangles. Placeholders have their use but for the magic to happen, to feel like you’re really making a game you need graphics sooner than later.

Sometimes I like to start with a bunch of generic graphics that I will be able to use no matter what my game ends up being. You don’t need perfectly polished graphics, avoid that at all cost. You just get diminished returns quickly but you need enough for it to feel like a game. Then if you have extra time at the end (that won’t happen) you can go back and improve them. The main character, if that concept applies to your game, is vital. If you have it, everything else can be placeholders. At least, you’ll have some life on the screen.

Don’t sleep all day

Yes, you need sleep. The competition is 48 hours long so don’t even think about not sleeping. But be careful about turning off the alarm clock. It’s easy to sleep too much which not only wastes productive time that you will regret not having near the end of the 48 hours, but it can also make you sleepy and unproductive. Personally I think sleeping about 6-7 hours a night is best during the LD but you may be fine with less or need more.

Just don’t be lazy. You’re going to regret any time you waste on other things. For the weekend, make your game your absolute priority. You can watch your favorite tv series the next week but you’ll regret a long time not being able to add that one thing that would have made your game so much better.

Have fun!

In the end, win or lose, it’s just a game! The important thing is to enjoy the Ludum Dare and doing something you wouldn’t do normally: create a whole game in a weekend!

Tags: advice, tips

Quick update on my miniLD 28 entry, it’s gradually progressing…

You can play the Work In Progress Version on Kongregate

Tags: unity

I will be using Flashdevelop, Flashpunk, SFXr and Photo Impact 10.

Tags: flashdevelop

Battlestation ready. Now to acquire food.

Tags: deskphoto

I’m getting really antsy waiting for LD to start (even though it doesn’t star ’til tomorrow…), so I figured that I would post about my strategy.

All in all, I’m going to make the simplest game that could possibly work for the theme while still being fun. This means having only one or two major mechanics, and leaving it at that. This way, I’ll have something that I can actually do in 72 hours (I’m doing the jam, not the compo) and hopefully it will turn out well. Hopefully.

This idea was rekindled in my mind by, of all things, a blog gadget. I recently put a “fish pond” sort of widget on my blog, and have found myself playing with it quite a bit. This reminded me of some of my really simple games. I remembered how fun it is to make a game that only has a few features. The fun that comes from developing and playing something like that is like nothing else.

So that’s what I’ll do for the LD. As simple as possible.

Peace, love, and happy times,

— Henry

Hello, this’ll be my first Ludum Dare, I’ll be working with a friend for the Ludum Dare Jam. We will be using Unity, Photoshop, probably Blender and maybe Audacity. I hope to finish, but even if we don’t I hope to have a good time!

Tags: unity

This one’s real simple, it’s just a basic PAINT style interface that exports it’s content into a text file. It’s simple, but because of that it’s easily adaptable. Right now, there are a bunch of graphics and things loaded into it, I’ll change those sometime today.

https://sites.google.com/site/pvaiungame/MapEditor.zip

With only a day to go, it seemed prudent to tidy up my workspace.  After all, its easier to write clean code in a clean environment.

So here it is:

1. Monitors (x2)- kinda important.
2. Whiteboard – Great for prototyping at the speed of bad handwriting.
3. Reference library – pages upon pages of obsolete information.
4. Aztec calender – So I may easily keep track of upcoming LDs…  and  the arrival of OMETOTCHTLI.
5. Tardis – Don’t leave time and/or space without one.
6. Hundreds of note-cards, tools, pens, ect. – Useful for doing quick math or making reminders like “Eat Food”.
7. Tower – That thing? oh thats nothing important. Just some chaotic neutral tin can that does a little grunt work for me. Pay it no mind.
8. Security system – These guys are trained to attack, beware.

Well there you go. OH!  And as an addendum to my declaration, I might be using a free little library on my project called n-poly. Just a collision detection library. It all depends on the game I end up making.

– Happy Coding –

Tags: Blitz, deskphoto, OMETOTCHTLI, Tardis

Er, this is my first blog in like…ever 😀 I am in for this competition thingymajig. I am going to fix my coffee machine and stock up on dorito’s. Good luck everybody!

This is my first time doing this, literally just created this account an hour ago, but I’m in.  I hope some of you are familiar with the Ohrrpgce (a role-playing game creator)

Okay, my last post was about entering Mini Ludum Dare 28 – and that was it. I tried hard to think of a simple gameplay, but couldn’t come up with it. I also developed some strange reservations towards the theme (my conscience had problems with making “war” fun, with all the suffering peoples out there, right now …).

But Ludum Dare #21 now should be interesting, nearly all the themes sound doable, although I fear that something like “Dreams” could make the entries too diverse and thus lead the compo ad absurdum.

As usual, I probably will use Unity3D (with MonoDevelop), Photoshop Elements 9, bfxr, and every other tool that will help me. I looked at FlashPunk a while ago, and if I think that the gameplay would be better in 2D, I probably would use FlashDevelop.

Well, hopefully Ludum Dare #21 will be my first Ludum Dare in the Compo, as I put my last entry (for LD#20) into the Jam. Before that, I participated in the Mini Ludum Dare #23. This time, I’ll get famous!

Tags: photoshop, unity, unity3d

Hello everyone, this will be my third Ludum Dare. I will be sticking with the same tools I used last time, but hopefully the resulting game won’t be as difficult as Torch was. Good luck everyone!

Weapons of Choice:

Language: AS3/Flash

FlashDevelop – code editor

FlashPunk – general library

Paint.Net – graphics

bfxr – sound effects

Ogmo – if the project calls for it

I really want to. As usual I can’t spare the whole 48 hours, but maybe I can make an 8 hour game instead! We’ll see.

The themes are almost all excellent.

Hi guys, I’m an anglo-frenchie computer sciences student and electronic musician kinda.

It’s been a while I’ve wanted to Ludum Dare and now’s my chance, I hope.

I’ve never made a game, although I have scrapped quite a few projects, hopefully the pressure of finishing on time will help.

I’m currently staying at my sister and her boyfriend’s place for a few days, so I’ll be using her old (not that old) laptop for Windows work.

Good luck to all, and have fun!

Update :

Tools of the trade :

Borrowed DELL Studio 17 laptop running Windows 7 (Thank you ChibiNeko, my sister) and Visual Studio 2010 (thank you university freebies)

ASUS eeePC 1015 PEM Seashell running Crunchbang Debian Linux and gedit/gcc

Will be using the following software on both machines :

Renoise and GIMP for content creation

The SFML graphics library

I’m used to developing on Linux more than Windows, but since most gamers are hoping for a Windows playable, I’ll go with that, I’ll try and make it cross-platform though.

I’ll be streaming from http://www.livestream.com/drjarajski and tweeting from http://twitter.com/#!/DrJarajski

I hope I’ll be able to keep up the pace and put out something cool, I’ll spend tomorrow making sure my SFML knowledge is up to scratch, and I’ll have to check the rules about preparing some boilerplate game engine stuff. My screenname is Gaeel and DrJarajski depending on the weather.

Hi there, as I said before I’ll be writing a js-game and I’ll use this (aop gameloop hosted on my site) and jquery.

It’s something I hammered together for LD19 and didn’t do anything to it since then (ok, put some comments in there for people to look at if someone’s interested. But don’t be, there’s merely two classes and half an example ;)) .

My IDE will be WebStorm (I just found that today and it seems promising), Gimp or inkscape for graphics and sfxr and musagi for everything that may come out of your boxes someday 😉

Happy to be in!

Ahoy !

I haven’t had the chance to record something for the “I’m in” video but count me in anyway ! This will be my first Ludum Dare but I’ve already made a game in 48 hours for a competition two years ago ; I remember it was great fun and I hope I’ll be able to succeed again.

My weapons of choice will be FlashDevelop (IDE), HaXe (language), Bacchus (custom framework), George Kilian’s (beer), Photoshop (for teh artz) and Propellerhead’s Reason (for the bleeps and shrieks).

I’m in !

So yeah, yet another entrant. This’ll be my 5th LD; this time I’m feeling super hyped, like, even more than normal. I hope this is a good thing.

I’ve spent the past couple of evenings getting prepped. Updating my basecode, practising my weak spot (music), heck, I’ve even tidied my room; I just care that much.

I’m using Flex; GIMP; as3sfxr (or bfxr if I get my act together); FLStudio; Notepad++ and whatever else.

My base code is at http://jonathanwhiting.com/ld/21/base.zip. It does some basic entity, tile and sound management, and has the husk of a primitive front end system. If you wan’t a point of reference it’s probably pretty comparable to using FlashPunk of Flixel. If you’re not me it’ll be pretty terrible!

This’ll be my first LD and even my first game.

I’m using Javascript and wrote myself a little game engine for fun (source here), so this is an awesome opportunity to test it. Probably gonna use LMMS and sfxr for the sound.. if I have time to do sound (:
Let’s see what I can come up with…

Tags: javascript

Hello!

Couldn’t make it last time, but this time I’m in. Haven’t coded much lately, so we’ll see how it goes.

I’ll be using:

C# + XNA, Photoshop (maybe camera), Paint, FL-studio and sfxr.

Good luck and have fun everyone!!

While eventually I’m going to have to wake up and smell the money, game development has always been my greatest interest. Whenever I’m learning a new programming concept or language, my mind inevitably goes to, “How could I use that in a game?” I’d like to be naive and think that that will always be how I’ll learn.

Earlier this week, a post popped up on Reddit’s /r/gamedev. 48 hours of non-stop game development! I was intrigued, I’d heard the name from earlier competitions, but didn’t quite have the skills to enter. After a few side projects of my own though, I feel I could crank a game out in 48 hours. So there you have it, I’m in. Let’s get down to the details, shall we?

The Setup

As you can see below, there are 2 major components to my setup. You’ve got my desk:

Which is rocking my newly purchased second monitor, and will shortly be flooded with carbonated beverages and various microwavable meals. And you’ve got the whiteboard:

All the cool kids have whiteboards, so I needed one too.

The Tools

A bad blacksmith blames his tools, so let me get this out of the way. All of the following tools I’ll be using are bad:

• Microsoft’s XNA 4.0 (C#) or libgdx (Java)
• Paint.net
• Sfxr
• Drumcircle
• Audacity

XNA and libgdx are very similar game libraries that I’m somewhat familiar with. I’d say XNA is way more robust, but libgdx has easy Android porting options and is cross platform. Depending on the complexity of the game I dream up after we find out what the theme is, I’ll decide. I’d love to be able to take this 48 hour game and turn it in to a legitimate Android game, but even if I decide to do it in XNA, porting to Windows Phone 7 is an option. On the audio side of things, I’ve decided on Sfxr and Drumcircle. Sfxr was created by a Ludum Dare-er, for Ludum Dare-ers. It’s an awesome tool to crank out vintage style game sounds. Drumcircle is similar, but meant for game loops. I’ve never used Drumcircle before, but I’ve tinkered with it a bit and it seems like it’ll do the trick. Audacity will simply be used to touch up the audio if I need to.

Over the next few days, I’ll try to make a few blog posts on my website, as well as gripe on my newly created Twitter about the development process.

Thanks for reading, and good luck to everyone!

Hello world!

First time Ludum Dare’er, and hopefully first time game finisher!

I’ll be using AS3 with FlashDevelop, and haven’t quite figured out what to do about sounds / music yet.

Yep, I’m going to participate in this Ludum Dare! It will be my 2nd dare, so I hope I can do a better job this time around.

I’m going to be using a laptop on my bed.

Materials:
Game Maker 8.1 Lite
sfxr
Paint Tool SAI, possibly Paint.NET
Some music generation python script that someone posted for LD20
Schism Tracker
A loptop with Windows 7
Chronolapse

I’ll probably end up making a shooter no matter what the theme is; the key will be to make it interesting with unique gameplay and to make it fit the theme.

Missed last one, this time, nothing can keep me from entering.

I will probably go for something in flash, or HTML5 for painless deployment.

Will record the whole thing with chronolapse, so expect a youtube clip of that in the future.

Good luck and have fun!

Getting ready, I’m also wrapping up a Google Summer of Code project, so this is going to be a busy day…

I started hacking up a base framework thingy, so here’s my declaration of using it and a github link (it’s not really usable yet, and likely won’t be until just before the compo, but it’s open source and whatnot).

Also, here’s a snazzy workspace photo:

I’ll be doing most of the work in Linux with the machine on the right, while the laptop continuously pulls from git and builds in Windows (and runs IRC on the far left monitor).

I need more monitors, right?

Tags: deskphoto

Hey, Just wanted to let everyone know I’ll be doing a live stream of my work this weekend. You can find my channel at http://www.livestream.com/markrestart

That is all.

Yeah I think I will be here this weekend! I will be using Flixel or maybe just plain Flex.

I have officially decided that I will be using AS3 to make my game.

Programming Language/Library: AS3/Flashpunk
Sound: SFXR (and maybe Autotracker-C & Schism)
Art: MsPaint & Paint.NET & Game Maker 8
Timelapse: Chronolapse

This is my “base code”, and like LD20, it’s basically just a main class:

package
 {
 import flash.events.*;
 import net.flashpunk.Engine;
 import net.flashpunk.FP;
 
 public class Main extends Engine
 {
 //[Embed(source = 'FILENAME')]
 //public const VARIABLE:Class;
 
 private static var focused:Boolean;
 
 public function Main()
 {
 super(640, 480, 32, true);
 }
 
 private function mouseClick(e:Event):void
 {
 FP.stage.removeEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_DOWN, mouseClick);
 FP.stage.addEventListener(Event.ACTIVATE, focusGain);
 FP.stage.addEventListener(Event.DEACTIVATE, focusLost);
 focusGain();
 }
 
 private function focusGain(e:Event = null):void
 {
 focused = true;
 }
 
 private function focusLost(e:Event = null):void
 {
 focused = false;
 }
 
 public static function isFocused():Boolean
 {
 return focused;
 }
 
 override public function init():void
 {
 super.init();
 FP.stage.addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_DOWN, mouseClick);
 }
 }
 }

Tags: as3, flashpunk, SOS, Y DO U HATE ME

Here’s some motivation for ya. It is all about the fact that you can’t expect your first attempts to turn out as great as you dream. Keep at it, don’t give up, make a dozen games and eventually you will be amazing at what you love. I’m still learning this lesson: I remember my first couple games – how they turned out was OK even though I was sure they would be incredible. It was (and still is) a humbling experience. The key is to not get discouraged and don’t aim for perfection, especially at the beginning.

Tags: motivation

Just a post to say i’m in for another ludum dare.

Will be using XNA along with PhotoshopCS5 to create art assets etc.

Literally haven’t got a clue what sort of game I will be aiming for this time which is a bit strange. Can’t wait to see the theme!

Will probably dust off my twitter to post updates. Follow me @Faldo674

Peace

This is my first Ludum Dare. I already considered participating LD 19 and 20 but I didn’t really have the time back then.

I will code the game in C, using a custom library you can get here. It’s rather big and messy but of course no game logic included.
For the graphics I will use Paint.net and for the sounds sfxr. I also will record the weekend with chronolapse.

Good luck everyone and I hope you are not as nervous as I am.

A few freinds and I (Collectively, Eggplant Animation) have gotten together to participate in the Jam. This is our first time participating, but not our first game.

We’re not sure of the language yet, but it’s probably going to be either Java or Python. Graphics will be whatever we feel like.

Men, to your battlestations! It’s time to prepare for battle!

Like many others I’ve cleaned off my work area. I don’t know if it’ll result in clean code, but it’s a lot less distraction, and for someone as ADD as I am, it makes a big difference. That… and it’s just a good reason to actually clean the house up a bit.

Where the magic happens

Since last time I’ve got a new motherboard and processor, which ironically was not the issue when my computer blew up. Actually turned out to be my video card. Kinda had been looking to upgrade anyways and I had some RAM that fit it lying around… and I wasn’t going to drive it all the way back out to where I got it from. So I’ve got an older video card in here, but it’s suiting me just fine.

Where the wife's magic happens

And… just to my left… is a ridiculously colorful array of feather earrings. I make the little dreamcatcher parts for some of them, my wife does…. everything else. Lots of productivity in this house 😉

I plan on staying up tonight knocking out a few more features I want to have ready for tomorrow night. I need some more specific functions for scanning for objects and I’m trying to re-implement my 3d tile-based map stuff. Very exciting to actually take my engine for a test drive with this!

Tags: earrings, setup

This is my first ludum dare compo and im really nervous

code:  (if needed[gamemaker may have everything i need]) c++

art: paint.NET

music/sound: sfxr

ill use game maker 8.1 to put it all together

i still havent decided if i will do a timelapse yet.

cant wait i need theme already!!

Well, what can I say? It’smy first Ludum Dare!!!

I will be using my dear notebook, one extra monitor, GameMaker 8.1 Pro (game engine), sfxr (sounds), musagi (music, if there’s still time for it) and Paint.NET (if I need it, most of my time will be on GM graphics anyway…).

I still don’t know ANYTHING about what I will make, but I hope it’s a damn good thing! And if it’ not…well…at least I finished a game!

Hey, i live in Norway, and this is my third Ludum Dare.

Since the Compo starts at 03:00 in the “Morning”, makes me lose some hours sleeping the first 6-7 hours.

How does the Timezone’s act into the Ludum Dare, or do we just have an Dis-vantage  living in West-Europe?

Also, I’M IN.

I haven’t competed in Ludum Dare (or other accelerated game development competitions) before. But if all goes according to plan, I’ll be competing in LD21 in less than 24 hours. For my first event, I’m setting my goals appropriately: I just want to finish something before the deadline

As with all my recent projects, I’ll be using my unencumbered custom game engine based on C, SDL, OpenGL, and Lua (the Radius Engine) and my personal menu/layout/key-binding Lua code available here (of course, no game logic will be reused for the contest). Graphics will be created with The GIMP and sounds with sfxr (or FamiTracker if I can’t figure out sfxr).

Thanks to the Ludum Dare community for starting this great tradition. I’m looking forward to it!

Hey, all. Getting anxious for tomorrow! I was skimming through the rules one more time and was wondering exactly how we upload our games. Do we need to find an external site to play the game/download the executables, or is there something on the LD site?

Tags: upload help

Lock and Load:

• Unity3d
• XNA
• ExEn (Andrew Russell‘s cross-platform exapnsion of XNA)
• Visual Studio

Aim High!

Aim High

Tags: motivator

Hey all!  I’m a first time LD entrant and am feeling pretty excited about the whole thing.  I’ve been a lurker/watcher for a while, but never had the timing/motivation to join up.  So, I’m changing it this time with the goal in mind to FINISH A GAME. O_O  It’s been a major road block for me, and I’m hoping LD can help me jump that hurdle.

I’ll be using:

•  C#/XNA 4.0 w/ Visual Studio 2010
• sxfr
• Paint.NET
• Ogmo Editor if level design calls for it.
• And my personal 2D game library, TwoDee (no source available yet, but will be included in any finished product).  It just has ready to go input bindings, state machine, component based entities, etc.

Wow. This is my first time participating in a game creation contest of any type, but I’m hoping it’ll be what I need to actually drive myself towards actually completing a game.

I’ll most likely be using RenPy and Sketchbook Pro for a lot of the process, but also Polaris Office, .Pic Free, and SketchBook Express on my Android tablet. Hopefully, I’ll be able to finish a game AND port it to Android.

This is the first game programming competition I’ve entered, ever. I’m doing the Jam with a friend, we’re going to get together and program the whole weekend! I’ve been programming all summer anyway, so it’s nice to have an official excuse.
Nervous! 😀

We’re using XNA 4.0 in Visual Studio 2010, with a healthy dose of Paint.NET. See you at the end!

Tags: paint.net, visual studio, xna, xna 4

I going to be getting back to school, moving into the dorm the weekend of the LD, but I may try to enter despite that.  If so, it’ll probably be the Jam, and I’ll be using flixel.  Otherwise, I’ll just lurk around the compo.  In any case, good luck everyone!

Hey, just scrolled through a dozen pages of posts, collecting people on Twitter like Pokémon, and I noticed that a few had entered the entire Twitter URL into the field on their Ludum Dare profiles.

You only have to put your Twitter name in the field, with or without the @.

Not a huge deal, but makes it easier for folks keen to Follow you up

Tags: Inexplicable Combination, Pokeball, twitter

Finally managed to find out about a competition before it’s over. This will be my first Ludum Dare. Going to try my best not to get too crazy with my ideas and actually complete a game (although it would have been cooler with procedural generation and dynamic shadows).  My weapons of choice:

Code: FlashDevelop, AS3, Flixel

Graphics: Photoshop, GraphicsGale, Flash

Sounds: bfxr/sfxr

Level Editor: DAME

I am incapable of Music’ing, so there will be none of that. Haven’t used Flixel much before, but I have a lot of experience with AS3 so hopefully I won’t get stuck on anything.

I’m in!

I’m entering the jam with my brother quin. We are going to use the UDK editor and hopefully just make a fun game.

I started using the UDK editor about 6 months ago. I’m 15 years old and my brother quin has been programming for longer than I have been alive. I have never worked with him and I am glad to have someone to do the actual programming for me.

I’m real excited to get started!

Heyo Ludum Dare, looks like it’s that time again!

I’m likely to be jamming this time instead of entering the compo proper because I’m not quite ready to release the library I’ve been working on lately. The tools I’ll be using will include:

• Coding: C++0x, with NetBeans and homebrew Makefile magic.
• Libraries: Allegro 5 and its addons along with my private library.
• Art: MS Paint and Allegro Sprite Editor for pixel art, GIMP for fancy stuff.
• Sound: Sfxr for effects and Stockboy‘s music editor if I do any music.

I’ve got every thing ready for tomorrow night! Got my index cards, sharpies, notepads, and even got my wacom out (probably won’t use cause I always do pixel art).

this is a desk.

I’ve also set up my music playlist for the weekend. 20 hours of LD soundtrack

this is a music.

All that is left is I have to stock up on more food after I get home from work tomorrow.

Tags: deskphoto

Hello All

My name is Wilson Saunders (aka Hamster mk4). I make games with Unity3d, Blender and GIMP. This will be my second Ludum Dare. Last time I was able to finish a game with good graphics, mediocre game play, and a big game breaking bug. I tried to go for many random elements in the game play. But this made it harder to catch bugs, since it was hard to reproduce the error conditions. This time around I will try for a more scripted game.

Oh one more thing…

I’m in.

Hi everybody, this is my first time in LD I think I’m gonna try the competition mode. It will be the first time I try making the whole game by myself, maybe graphics and sounds will be very hard but… let’s do it. I’m gonna work using the following tools:

– Programming language: C#

– Framework: XNA

– Physics: Farseer Physics (only if I need physics)

– Graphics: Paint.NET

– Sound Effects and Music: SFXR and/or FamiTracker

I’m planning to use a simple library I created recently, in combination with some base classes for Animation2D , Sounds and Music. I’m gonna publish them on Assembla with the source code that I make for the competition.

This’ll be my first Ludum Dare and my first time Jamming solo. Here are my most likely tools:

Code: FlashBuilder 4, AS3, Flixel. Box2D if I end up needing physics

Graphics: GIMP for me

Music: cfxr most likely

Good luck, everyone!

Hey guys, I am IN!!

this is my first Ludum Dare, so I am very excited.

I will be using flixel (as3game library), flashdevelop (ide), gimp (graphics) and sfxr for soundeffects. I have never done any music and no idea which music program I am gonna use.

I feel quite confident with flixel, but to work out an original game idea in this timeframe is the hardest part for me I think. Anyway I hope I can get some super cool ideas and finish a fun game in 48 hour.

Good luck to all you crazy game devs!

As long as nothing else gets in the way this weekend, I plan to make something small and playable.

I will be using the following:

Framework: XNA (using Reach profile)

Engine: Afru

Physics (if needed): Box2DXNA

Other stuff: SFXR, FL Studio, Paint.NET/Photoshop CS3, the XNA samples (for things like bloom :D)

Good luck everyone!

ALSO: XNA users should ALL use Reach for their graphics profile, unless absolutely necessary to use HiDef…

This is my desk, minus all the rubbish that typically is piled up on it. There’s a dedicated linux system on the right and a Mac mini for maximum cross platform action.

Tags: deskphoto

Well I had 8 teeth extracted yesterday under the surgeons blade – in serious pain today. However, I don’t care! LUDUM DARE TIME!!!!!!!

I’m hoping the pain killers warping my brain help with bizarre game designs.

Bring it on!

This entry was posted on Friday, August 19th, 2011 at 4:05 am and is filed under LD #21. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Hullo, I’m Scio. Nice to meet you :bows:.

This is actually my third Ludum Dare, but so far I have been totally asocial and never even introduced myself, let alone post the games, of which there was only one that was even remotely playable. Don’t ask.

But motivated by the trivial coincidence of this being LD #21 and being 21 years old myself, I have finally braved an intro. I am quite proud of that.

Let’s see if I can make a game too; shouldn’t be too hard. No pressure…

I will be working with the following tools, depending on how far I manage to go of course:

• The ever lovely LÖVE, if making a desktop game. This’ll mean lua.
• The ever…scripty…Processing.js, if making a web game. This’ll make it sort of javascript, sort of Processing.
• Inkscape, GIMP, and Mypaint for graphics.
• Blender for CGI: I won’t be making a 3D game.
• Sfxr (yay) for sound effects, and possibly Neil if daring to make music.
• My snazzy, Compiz-y desktop running Ubuntu Lucid Lynx.
• Certain other non-computational implements.

I will, almost certainly, not be able to make the competition deadlines, so I’ll focus on Jam instead. And I will try to come up with something fitting the winning theme, but if I can’t…I’ll just choose another one I like and roll with it >.>

As for participation: I will silently stalk the IRC, and try to visit the Hangouts if my connection holds. I don’t have enough bandwidth (or courage) to livestream my work, but I will set up gLapse which was thoughtfully made for this very occasion!

Furthermore, I promise not to get too nervous and go into zen-procrastination-mode like I usually do during rushes.

[Also: Did I go overboard with the tags?]

Tags: blender, GIMP, gLapse, inkscape, introduction, javascript, linux, love2d, lua, mypaint, neil, processing, processingjs, sfxr, ubuntu

This is my first time.

I have no game dev experience. Just starting out, and I am going to use flixel (as3 framework) and lots of luck

and I’m probably using XNA.

because, you know, that’s the first thing to go in any blog. (probably)

Well, i figured that all things considered, that i should probably clean my desk, ready for the compo. And yes, my table is also my whiteboard. ujelly?

Before

After

Tags: deskphoto

Just a quick update: I now realise I have to declare my libraries, which will be: Processing (Also the language), and, depending on the theme, toxiclibs, controlp5, and boxwrap2d. See you then!

So for this Ludum Dare, I’m going to try out the social. And the screencasting. The video explains it a bit more.

Languages:

• Flash (Flex, code-only)
• Ruby (on Rails)

Libraries:

• Facebook API
• Box2DFlash
• Flashpunk
• Box2FP
• TweenMax
• Flint

Other Stuff

• sfxr

I’m going to have another shot (I failed last time) at Ludum Dare. Once again I’ll be using Love2D, except I won’t be using any framework with it this time; my framework crumpled with serious bugs last time.

Anyway, good luck to all developers!

.. NOT!

So, I have an idea that may be interesting to consider for those admins sitting on their lazy butts:

How about.. an “Pro-Tip”-Area?

This should be considered as helpful guide for beginners. You should ask every ‘veteran’ (Who has done 3 or more Main-LD’s and is active throughout the whole year[IRC!]) for one tip, they would give a new guy, to survive LD without going batsh*t.

Soo, nyah. nyah,nyah,nyah,nyah,nyah (x1000)

– Folis

Also: -1 Evolution. It’s the only right thing to do.

I’m prepared! Well, kinda, I’m still in need of energy drinks and ice cream. To the store!!

And here’s my almighty operations room, where all cool stuff are created. It’s missing my MIDI controller… *sigh* Damn you, Customs.

Of course it's the same of the last time, why would I change?!

Tags: deskphoto