So how about a small challenge: Three hours to attempt to double your coolness by rating more games.

Go go!  😀

Well, my game did pretty well, so I guess I’m happy.  There were a lot of cool games this time around.

My big lesson from LD22 is that I can make a game in 48 hours, seeing as even in the Jam I had pretty much wrapped up by the 48 hour deadline.  My second biggest lesson is that I can’t psychologically handle 72 straight hours of LD Jammin’.  I’m going to try the compo next time around.

And we are very happy with how we did! We did pretty well and even placed in a few categories. We are very pleased with this since this was our first LD and all. To everyone else who enetered, great job! The games that placed were amazing and many of the games that we played were great too, even though some of them didn’t place. We regret that we were unable to play all of the games, but we’re sure that they were great too!

Overall, we had a blast and look forward to the next LD that we are able to take part in. Hopefully, we’ll see everyone in April!

Wow! All I can say is that I’m amazed!  For those that don’t know, the voting for LD22 ended today, and I am shocked at the great feedback and votes I received!

I got #43 Overall out of almost 900 entries, which I wouldn’t consider to shabby for my first dare!

It was an amazing experience, and something I most certainly will be doing again! Really great atmosphere, and there were some really great games made!  Special thanks to everyone who participated and made it such a great time, and congrats to the other winners!  And a huge thanks to everyone who played and commented on my game, I really appreciated the feedback!!

Results
I cant be happier with the results, in the end my entry got a great tied-2nd place on Graphics category (along with superb Deepnight’s Last Breath) and 21st place on the overall results, wich is pretty freaking awesome if you consider the 717 entries that participated on the compo 😀

I wasnt actually expecting that much from my game, since there where many, many other great games to play, so i’m very happy with the results!

OMFG! Statistics!

On this ludum dare i did something just to please my own curiosity, i set up an automatic statistics grabber for my game, using an old method i set up for some of my older projects. The thing is pretty simple, just retrieves the current date, how far the player has gone into the game, number of lives and time played. The result was pretty neat; you can check it out on my website on the link below (or click on the iamge above):
http://invadergames.com.ar/ld22

Overall results arent that impressive trough, the game got played mostly after the compo ended, and then it dropped to a more constant rate of (about) 4 plays a day

So, rounding up; Thanks to everyone who played my game, and thanks to everyone for making of Ludum Dare an awesome experience, i really hope to be around next time!

So my first LD comes to an end, and a pretty tragic one at that.

After failing to secure a score above 2.5 in any category, I’m just not sure I’m cut out for this contest. Pouring a whole weekend of work into a game

which apparently sucked across the board has just been a pretty significant disappointment for me. The disappointment is coupled with the frustration of a glut of comments on the game

stating that it didn’t work at all when looking in the instructions provided with the game and reading my numerous description updates directing people to RTFM would have

shown people that they simply needed to install a VC redist which was also included with the game. I swear people just don’t read instructions any more.

Unfortunately comments can’t be removed and so the number of comments from people who failed to read the manual probably put off a number of people who skipped over the game.

Oh well, what it comes down to is the thoughts of the people who DID read the manual and play the game. Sadly they thought it sucked in pretty much every way. I’d have to agree.  Don’t think I’ll be entering next time. I don’t think I have what it takes to be honest.

Anyway, I had fun trying and I suppose that’s what counts. Maybe I’m being unjustly moapy, I’m just disappointed that the only positive comment my entry received was one thanking me for not cheating.

Thanks all who voted and competed along with me! It was fun and exciting to finally join Ludum Dare, and I can’t wait to join again for the 10 year anniversary!

Once again, I’m going to honest (and critical) and try to make this mega-post interesting! 😛

PLAY THE GAME HERE

My goals for Ludum Dare 22

• Before the competition started, I had some goals in mind that I wanted to make.

1. I wanted to make sure “Fun” was the best category, so that people could replay the game, and have a good time playing.
2. I wanted the gameplay to be smooth and the animations smoother.
3. I wanted to beat Notch in at least one category (knowing how hard that would be). 😛

What software I used

• Unity 3d Game Engine
• Blender 3D Modeling Software
• Pixlr Photo Editor
• Cfxr Sound Generator
• Unitron Script Editor
• Garageband Music Creator
• Text Edit Text Editor

How I made the game

• I quickly had come up with an idea for each of the most likely themes before LD22 started. My theme for “Alone” was a game where you would be sometimes alone, and then all of a sudden, you would be crowded with people.
• After the theme was announced, I decided that the game would be first person (the easiest of all the persons) and that you would have to fight your way through endless hordes of cubes (the easiest of default shapes). You could only see the cubes when your glasses were on, but if you weren’t in a shaded zone when your glasses were on, you’d start burning. This was a way to keep the player moving, and a way to make them constantly nervous.
• I worked on the player controls and LockCursor, etc. But the gameplay does not complete a game. I needed an enemy. One that would appear only if your glasses were on.
• I whipped up a cube model and texture and soon came up with this:

• Whoo Hoo! Now I have a cube!
• Next I worked on making the cube look at the player, and then having it disappear when the players “glasses” (A semi-transparent plane) were off.
• By now my Unity Scene looked like this:

• Soon I got Health implemented, and then it started to look like a Test level.
• I kept at it, knowing it would soon look like a game.
• The cube could soon move towards the player, and deal damage at close range.
• The first “Shaded Zone” was created, (using a Trigger) and the player would not take damage while inside it.
• I worked on making the zone a little prettier, and expanding the floor plane. I added a skybox, and changed the ambient light to near black.

• All along I had been slightly working on a music track, but now I decided I needed to finish it.

• The level was extended, the cube had a spawn code and could replicate itself, and the textures for walls and the floor was created in Pixlr.
• I created a variety of sound effects in CFXR like jumping and enemy death noises (my favorite).
• I worked on making an in-game tutorial, by timing when the music starts with the same time that it tells you that there is no one there.
• The menu was easy, all I had to do was come up with a name and choose the font, and soon my game looked legit. (Sorry for the lack of photos here)
• I asked my friend if he could play a test version on his computer (a windows) and I’m glad he did. The font I chose was bugging out on his computer, so I changed it to something else, and it worked fine.
• Now I knew my game was compatible on Windows AND Mac

• I created another music track for the menu, a helicopter to go to as the goal, and a stats screen so you could try to beat your own score.

Rating Other People’s Work

• I specifically rated the games that had the fewest ratings and tried to give most of them a fair, solid score.
• Mostly I gave 3.0s when I thought something was average.
• For a few people that put little effort into it, I had to give some 1.0s.
• I was sad that Notch had not really implemented the theme and pretty much made a different version of Minecraft. (Most likely this was just because he wanted to, or he felt like it.)

How people rated my game

• I can thank my friends, family, and Ludum Dare community for playing the game and enjoying it, especially DontBeNoobish‘s Gameplay Footage:

• I was proud with how my game turned out compared to most of the other entries.
• People mostly liked the audio and innovation of the game, but there were a few things I could’ve made better (More enemies, options, etc)

The Results!

• Coolness – 52% Bronze medal | At first I thought that the bronze medal meant third place, but then I realized Coolness didn’t have the same rating system. Oh well, it was still good to see that my playing of all those low effort games went to good use! 😛
• # 40 Community – 3.55 | Wow! Community? I didn’t realize I was that popular! 😛 I guess this rating makes sense because of all the excited posts I made with links to this game. I did a LOT outside of the game (Time-lapse, post mortem, gameplay video, tips)
• # 108 Innovation – 3.20 | Good, people liked my idea of the sunglasses and whatnot!
• # 113 Mood – 3.20 | I think the music accomplished the overall feel of the game.
• # 118 Audio – 3.00 | Once again, the music, but also the enemy death noises made this count.
• # 113 Theme – 3.33 | Well, you are sometimes alone…
• # 202 Humor – 2.29 | I wasn’t even going for this (other than the ReadMe) so I have no clue how it ended up higher than overall.
• # 323 Graphics – 2.67 | Although mine was one of the few 3D first person games, I guess people didn’t really like the low effort GUI and enemy textures.
• # 435 Overall – 2.50 | Oh no! Overall score seemed like an important one…
• # 487 Fun – 2.06 | Really? This was the category I was focusing on, but yet it got a 2.06! Yes, I guess I did better than almost half of everyone else, and I’m not complaining, but this ended up at the bottom of the list, when I had worked for it to be the top.

Comparison To Notch 😛

• My goal was to beat Notch in at least one category, and it turns out that was too easy:

• I ended up beating Notch in 7 different categories!
• A comment on the community rating: Last LD, Notch won third place (if I recall correctly) in the community category, but now he received a #49! And I received a #40! So after all the years Notch has spent on Ludum Dare and Minecraft, and the entire fan-base he collected from the Top Computer Game Of 2011, I was able to receive a better score than him from 3 weeks of posting on Ludum Dare!

I send out a huge thank you to all who rated my game (yes, even those of you that got me that horrible “Fun” score) and hope to join again for LD 23! Please remember Rob Productions again for next Ludum Dare, and you can expect a post-compo version coming in time!

Links:

TIPS ON MAKING A UNITY GAME

POST MORTEM

TIMELAPSE

THE GAME AGAIN

Tags: blender, comparison, LD22, Ludum Dare 22, notch, post-mortem, progress, results, screenshot, timelapse, unity3d

Hoorah!

Just a note to inform the general universe that ‘Fishslap’ (born from a mini LD) is now available for Android!

fishslap for android

Cheers,

It seems my little rant I went on about my results has generated some attention and I wanted to qualify it by saying it was never intended to appear as a rant of anger or rage. It was meant to be a rant of disappointment in myself that came off as a little aggressive. I stated that I may not participate in future events but I have in reality never considered giving up. I was simply feeling sorry for myself. I want to thank everyone for their kind words of encouragement even after I said some things that could have been taken as digs on reviewers. This was never my intention and I acted solely out of disappointment in my own performance. However I am glad the discussion happened in that I am sure there are other entrants who may be feeling disappointed whom I hope will be encouraged by the community’s positive and reassuring response to my post. I apologise once again for becoming emotional, I hope everyone understands that as a first timer I threw everything I had at this contest and perhaps I was unprepared for the high level of competition I would be up against, I’m sure we all know what it’s like to try your hardest and not succeed, however, what I didn’t consider during that time was that a sub par performance this time is a learning experience I am sure every newcomer goes through. I will be entering next time and hope my little rant has not damaged my reputation here. Thanks to the community for their support and kind words, as one commenter said, I am still a ninja in training, now I need to show that I can use my sword next contest

Thanks to everyone, for everything

James

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 11th, 2012 at 2:04 pm and is filed under LD #22. 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.

This LD was the first time I entered the Jam (http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-22/?action=preview&uid=1078) and I’m pretty happy with the results, especially the 3.21 for Fun (my best score in that category out of 4 LDs, and 19th out of the Jam entries). It’d be nice to be able to see the individual scores again – removing them does prevent some of the usual LD drama, but it’s nice to be able to look at each individual rating for a better idea of peoples reactions, because an average of 3 could mean a lot of 3s, or could mean a mix of 1s and 5s, and while comments are more useful, not everyone leaves one.

Anyway, taking the extra time instead of releasing something half finished seems to have paid off, though I still wish I’d been there at the start – I forgot about this LD and the LD Facebook group seems to have gone silent. My initial feeling about the game was that it wasn’t really anything special, but it was the most solid game I’d made, and I don’t normally feel much passion for making stuff like that yet I have a lot of respect for those who do, so if I can find myself being productive outside of LD time then I might turn this into something bigger and better.

So I have been ranting about this all day now on IRC. Building games together! This LD almost 900 games were submitted. If you think about it, the time and effort invested is mind-boggling. Roughly estimated when each participant invested maybe 30 hours in the weekend, that is about 30.000 hours of time invested in game creation in a weekend. But when the weekend ends many people walk away and don’t really look back until the next LD. I think this is a bit of a shame, because LD is the perfect opportunity to meet like-minded gamedevelopers.

So I am trying to figure out if it is possible for more people to collaborate on game creation, to meet more game developers and channel all this energy to create even more complete games. Because creating games is usually a team effort, and the more game developers you know, the higher the chance that individuals meet up that have fun together building games, or make the next big indie hit. I have even written a little word document that introduces the concept: Ludum Dare: Co-op:

Ludum Dare: Co-op

It is a rough concept at this point. The interesting thing is that many people on IRC like the idea very much, but are not sure on the execution. So discuss away! What would be the best way for you to collaborate with other developers, and together build something bigger than what we usually see in a LD?

Vic

Do Dungeon B11

Back into working on the Do Dungeons (With even more IRC people!) (Less sugar)

😉

-Cell

Stop Sopa Pipa Acta Game Jam

Submissions are now closed!

Let’s protest! Make anti SOPIPA games on January 18 and make the internet crawl with these!

It’s the best we can do, let’s abuse it and help the internet stay the awesome place it is now!

Follow #sopajam on Twitter!

EDIT:
SOPA is down already, but there’s still PIPA.

For those who doesn’t know – PIPA is SOPA with two major changes

• S is changed to P
• O is changed to I

The hashtag is quite popular by now, so I think it’d be best to just use it.
The fight is not over even with SOPA down!

Ciao!
I got past my first LD. It was fun making my game, it was fun playing games and there were lots of great games.
My target before entering LD was “reach top 100 overall”, i didn’t reach it, but i think #118 / 717 is still a good job for my first (and only) released Unity3D game.

My entry:
Space Mission

I got top 100 in 3 categories:
#50 Audio, i am the last in top 50 audio rating. Both the music and the audio effects were made during the 48H compo, but these were generated by automatic scripts, the only tweak i made was to better loop jetpack sound, so this rating’s credit goes to generators.
#62 in Fun rating is a satisfying result, i thought the game was too short and too easy, actually it was, but people still rated it fun and it’s my half victory: Fun is what games are about.
#78 in Humor rating. For some reason people found my game amusing, probably i should thank the starting angry cat or the first game over most player experienced.

Now the really bad ones (under top half):
#393 Innovation. I cloned game boy colors, made a platform/shooter game featuring a Jetpack, a Kitten and Slimes. Oh, there were deadly spikes too! Yay, lots of innovations there, I thought i was going to be over #700 on this rating
#439 Theme. In most single player games you are alone versus something, but you’re not so “alone” if there are monsters around. Most of the games i played followed “alone” theme better than me, and i feel my mediocre theme rating was fair.

For those who might still want to play it or to see my post mortem and timelapse, here’s links:

Space Mission | Post Mortem and Timelapse

So after the compo ended, I decided to reskin my entry, Starlighter, into something new. What resulted is a borderline obscene (yet inexplicably hilarious) new product fit VERY only for adults. Kids, stay away from this one!

I did this partly out of boredom and partly out of the desire to see how with a simple reskin and a crude sense of humor, a game with a depressing and drab storyline can become a game which had numerous people in the room rolling around on the floor in fits of laughter and disbelief. If the theme were “Crude and Borderline Obscene”, I like to think this would have won the humour category 😛

Seriously though, this is ONLY intended for adults (18+) to play. It’s not pornographic or anything and contains no real life nudity, but is just by it’s nature, pretty darned inappropriate.

It contains wanton use of cartoon *ahem* dongs and other related (cartoonized) bodily fluids.

Really, it’s just for fun, I intend no offence by linking to it, I just wanted to share the result of a reskin which had me and some friends in fits of laughter 😛

I can’t really provide any technical support for it other than if you get an error message about MSVCR100 missing, install the redist package included in the folder. Any other problems I can’t help :S I know there are some bugs with the engine for some users and if the original game didn’t work for you, this probably won’t either.

So, for your entertainment (and purely for laughs for over 18’s only), I present what may be the first reskin of a Ludum Dare entry:

Super Turbo Fertilizer Extreme 2: Gentleman’s Edition

Made using the Starlighter Engine

Download (Windows Only I’m afraid!): http://www.mediafire.com/?aw70coj4144i4da

Hi all, Just updated the online map editor app im developing. v0.3-beta:

- Fixed several UI bugs
- Added unit selector for tile size
- Added status pannel and tile info
- Added default tiles for demo use
http://www.callidusrex.com/mapper

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 14th, 2012 at 6:44 am and is filed under LD #22, LD - Misc, Uncategorized. 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.

Command-line tool that generates a single *.as file containing all the embeds of the folders passed.

An example of what this tool can make is found here.

This will help you if you, like me, like to store all your embed on a single “Resources.as” file. Every time I make a couple of assets I don’t want to add them by hand, so I run this application and it’s automatically done and embedded. It also handles *.tff (setting fontName and embedAsCFF=false as optional).

Usage

You can run resmaker -h to get the available list of parameters, but it’s really simple: you specify a bunch of folders where your assets resides (separated by comma), and where is the file Resources.as (will be created), and it will recursively iterate the folders. Remember to use always absolute paths.

For example, the sample I linked above was done using:

resmaker c:\Projects\LD22\assets -o c:\Projects\LD22\src\Resources.as

If you use it, let me know! It was originally made as a Python exercise, but as I found it very useful, I decided to share.

Download link here.

Tags: as3, python, tools

Hey all,

ImaginAudio is a Paris-based audio project, willing to work for credit (for now!).

Check us out at imaginaudio(dot)com and if you like what you hear, get in touch and we’ll see if we can help make your audio dream a reality! (not making any promises obviously ^^)

woo JSRF…

OK! So, two mini jams coming up! It’s time for the ULTIMATE JAM; learn a new language (Actionscript) and code a game with it in one day (for the SOPA/PIPA jam)! Is this a poor decision? Yes – and I doubt I’ll finish. Perhaps I can mix the S/P jam and the “Fear’ miniLD into one entry?

My idea for the S/P jam is to have your character running around sampling works of art (probably musical) and, once you have enough samples, remixing them and uploading them to the internet. However, your efforts are obstructed by the police for violating totalitarian laws. Stuff like that. Run/hide from cops, sample bands, keep your website running despite takedown demands… yes the scope of this is impossible to complete in one day, so the plan is to stick with just this flow of action:  Collect music samples for your awesome remix. The more samples you have, the higher your final piece will be. Don’t be seen by police while recording. Get back to your computer and upload the sample (I know this is not accurate to the effects of the bill at all – I just want to make a semi-related game within the time limit).

Now how to work fear into there…

The title says it all. Before starting my SOPA/PIPA protest game, I decided to release a new version of EpiCat.

Play it here: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/27464471/EpiCat/EpiCat-1.1.0.swf

It’s mostly art improvements, with some bug fixes, a new enemy, and gameplay balancing. Please let me know what you think!

Things still to do:

• Add music
• Add more enemies
• (Maybe) Add a better intro to tell the story

Tags: post-compo, update