I’ve done some very minor game development from my own little desk. It was several years ago since last I wrote a line of code for it (Subspace Battle) and that definitely took me more than 48 hours to throw together. But I’m really anxious to try something new, and Ludum Dare is the perfect chance!

Whatever it is I’m doing, it’s going to be using Free software-tools, for instance Vim, Blender and Gimp and I’ll be developing on GNU/Linux. I’m not sure about graphics/game engine, but I’m deciding between Ogre3D, Irrlicht or just SDL. My previous game was done in Irrlicht, and I really think that is what will convince me into using it again. Audio is probably handled either through the content generator I’ve seen people talk about here at Ludum Dare, or fiddling around in Ardour.

I have no idea how this will end, but it’s worth a try!

Or I’m going Psycho, I don’t know. I still haven’t set up my build environment, which I really wanted to have prepared in advance.

Language: C++

Graphics/game engine: Whatever the latest Irrlicht is.

Sound/Network: SDL

Editor: Vim

Build system: CMake

My question to all of you: Is it okay to take a “project framework/template” and build from that? I’m talking No Code, only pre-prepared make-files, etc. On another note: who will know/check it? That is actually another question: Even though I wouldn’t dream of it + it kind-of goes against the whole idea of the competition, but HOW could anybody check that I’m actually not using stuff that I’ve had lying around from before? Do I HAVE to have a live-feed of my desktop, or what?

I’d really appreciate some answers to these two questions =)

It’s been 10 hours since the LD22 started and I still haven’t started coding mechanics. I just decided on what “type of game” it will be, so finally I’m able to get cracking. I’m still basing my game on the framework from an old game, and I figured I’d take more stuff from that, than only cmake-files. Nothing much, just menu functionality and main loop. The rest I will start coding now!

I haven’t shared that code on this page, but it’s accessible at sourceforge, or more specifically https://subspacebattle.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/subspacebattle. I hope you’ll see that very little is taken from there, and that it’s ok.

It feels bad that I haven’t got anything up and running yet, but the basics is: top-down “shooter”, but hopefully with a twist. Time to get crackin’!

I’m joining LudumDare #24! Let’s get Evolution going! I started the competition by sleeping the first 6 hours of it, great start right?

Since I live in Sweden, the theme is announced at 3 in the morning, so I figured I’d get up at 8:30, and get cracking! Now I’m up, and I’m just getting started.

I’ll be using the same tools and libraries as the last time, namely:

• Vim
• Irrlicht
• SDL (if I get to sound and/or networking that is)
• CMake
• G++
• git

Good luck with your LudumDare, I look forward to see the progress for people! You can find my github repository at www.github.com/AzP/LudumDare24/

Here’s an inspirational picture to reflect the theme

Go back, we fucked everything up.

I was supposed to write a post-mortem post for LD22, but never really got around to do it. I failed miserably, or at least failed happily. It was a lot of fun to be a part of the competition, but my end result wasn’t even a technical prototype, just a box I could move around in a 3D space, with a couple of lights thrown in, in heavy fog.

My idea was to make a “avoid the guards”-game, where you would try to sneak through a courtyard in thick fog, with some sort of 18th-century feel, avoiding guards with lanterns. I was thinking of some sort of British feeling, like a thieving Sherlock Holmes sneaking into a castle to steal the crown jewels.

Oh well, I didn’t get that far anyway! I spent 16 hours trying to make the floor look nice. But I definitely learnt that I should move on, and do the touching up later!  😉

This is a screenshot of the result:

The finished result last time. Theme “Alone”.

The reason I’m writing this post now is that I’m participating in #LD24, so it’s time to move on! I will be using the same “framework” I used last time, but now slightly more prepared. Bust only slightly.

I’ve been doing some modelling in Blender so far, perhaps a little bit to much actually. Instead of doing game mechanics I’ve been doing the basic two models I need in the game, and spent just a tad bit too much time on them. But I’m moving on now! Going to import the models and do basic set up up my world, including the movement of player. Wish me good luck!

I think my food is a little bit different from most of the other LudumDarers

Some scrambled eggs with full-fat cream, a load of cottage cheese, a couple of cherry tomatoes and milk. Mmmgood!

Good morning! It’s 12:23 here in Stockholm, Sweden, and time is slowly running out…

I’ve slept 6 hours tonight, since I’m convinced there’s no way I’d get anything done today without at least 6 hours sleep. I’m feeling refreshed today! Sat up until 3:30 this morning and at that time I had been arguing with my camera rotation for 6 HOURS! It’s very depressing to get stuck on a thing like that. I finally got it solved my using the “prototype FPS camera” Irrlicht comes with, but it does feel a bit crappy to do that, even though it’s actually working great after I’ve added some extra rotational limits.

I am, however, still at the early “setup world stage”, and haven’t done any gameplay mechanics. I really hope I can get some more stuff into the finished result so there is at least one PLAY aspect

No need for sad faces though, I’m keeping my head down and powering through! There are still 14 hours left, lets do this!

Here’s a screenshot so far:

It’s moving along, now we need shadows and terrain!

… but still rather content with my end result! I did get some fairly nice “programmers art” in there at least, got a much better hang of how to do UV mapping and texture editing in Blender and Gimp, I felt like I got more of a hang on Irrlicht, etc.

Here’s a screen-shot, sadly I won’t be able to submit anything this time, just creating binaries and bundling the correct files would take me quite a while, especially if I’m supposed to bundle the graphics engine as well.

My end result for the LudumDare #24. I would probably have needed at least one more day to get (very simple) enemies and proper collision detection in there.

10 seconds?! What the hell am I supposed to do with that? The theme doesn’t really inspire any ideas for me, so I haven’t even figured out what kind of game to do (FPS? Space sim? platformer?) and we’re several hours in. Hmm, this  will be a tough one.

So far I’ve managed to fix my Gentoo boot process, so I can boot properly into Gnome 3.8 using systemd and an initramfs for mounting disks by UUID. Perhaps that could be converted into a game…

I’ve thought about the theme a lot now, and I think I’ve decided on an FPB game. A First Person Burglar game, that is. Now let’s get cracking, I’m already 8 hours behind!