Does anyone know the distribution of different OSs and versions in use by LD participants? Specifically, I’m wondering if it’s worth the extra hassle of me supporting DirectX 9 (compatible with Windows XP) or sticking with DX11 (Windows 7 and up), but I’d also be interested to see how popular each platform is.

Code: Visual Studio 2015, C# and Snap (my very early prototype game engine)

Graphics: Maya LT & GIMP

Audio: Audacity & Sfxr

Streaming: X-Split & Twitch

Hosting: Azure & GitHub

Yup – this is my…seventh(?) Ludum Dare, and after it worked out really well last time I’ll be using the latest version of my home-built engine, Snap – I’ll upload the binaries closer to the event, when I’ve finalised the version I’ll be using. So…

Engine: Snap (C# & DirectX11)

IDE: Visual Studio 2013

Graphics: Gimp, Maya LT

Audio: Audacity, Bfxr

Stream: Twitch, XSplit

The base library I’ll be using is my custom C#/DirectX game engine, Snap: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/74209405/Keeper.Snap.zip

Current concept for my game is that you have to use strange parts to build weapons for an army – e.g. a stick and an electric eel to make a taser – then let them loose and see what happens!

Or, at least, your game idea.

Think I’m dropping my original idea as the UI would be to complex, and I’m going to go for an Alan Wake-esque light-and-shadow mechanic; need to work on the lighting, and some different types of “weapon” (flares, torch, etcetera) then work out what the actual game objective is…

Oh, and you can follow along with my merry adventure at http://www.twitch.tv/facticiusvir/ – come say hello!

And I finally got the basic shadow/view occlusion working.That took way longer than it was supposed to…

^ This was the reply I got from Cortana when I typed in “I’m so in”, intending to look for a witty “I’m in” post title. Such sass…

Anyhow, I’m in! For my 8th time, and my third using my own engine. For this LD, my tools will be:

Code: Visual Studio 2015, C#, Snap (custom .NET/DirectX engine)

Graphics: GIMP, Maya LT, Substance Live

Audio: Sfxr, Sunvox, Audacity, Abundant Music

Streaming: XSplit, Twitch

During previous LD events, I’ve tried to plan my weekend around getting just enough sleep that I can finish the event, but spend as much time as I can working. I usually aim to get ~8 hours sleep, with the other 40 hours working, and split the compo into two “days” – Saturday runs from the event start (~2am over here) until some time Saturday evening, then Sunday is from whenever I wake up till ~5am Monday, when all the submission and early voting is done.

But instead of working two-ish days which are 20-30 hours long and difficult to plan around, why not split those 40 total working hours into a regular working week? By standard planning assumptions, you’ll have five days of eight hours with 75-80% velocity – so about 6 hours of useful work and 2 hours staring out a window or gurning at Facebook. I’ve sketched up a working schedule that I’ll try out this event:

At a guess, Day One is planning & prototyping, Day Two is core mechanics, Days Three-Four are content (graphics & audio) and additional features and Day Five is playtesting, polish & bug-fixing. Each break is a chance to stretch my legs, clear my head and check my progress, so hopefully I’ll have more time to spend on areas I usually skip (like audio) and not burn all my hours on one thing.

Has anyone else tried a work schedule like this?

The theme’s bull, the heat in London’s crippling and I’ve got a cough that hasn’t budged in two weeks. I can’t get enthusiastic because of the theme, can’t work quickly in the heat, and being ill is making me irritable about everything. I hate dropping out, especially for pissy little things, but sometimes it’s just not to be.

Good luck to everyone else!

This’ll be my ninth attempt at Ludum Dare, and this time I’ve convinced the missus to join in too.

Code: Visual Studio 2015, C#/DirectX, Snap (my custom engine)

Graphics: Gimp, Maya LT

Audio: Bfxr, Bosca Ceoil, Sunvox, Audacity

Streaming: Twitch, XSplit

Also, rather than indulge in my usual grumbling about the available themes, I’ve created a Ludum Dare Theme Generator to come up with some alternatives – let me know what you think, and if you find any good ones 😉

Another case of my first idea being too complicated – I got lots of great work done on my engine, but by the halfway point I’d found myself with lots of technical work done and very little actual game. Stepped away for a while, and came back with six hours to spare to do the simplest game I could think of (that fit both themes).

And so I present my remake of – Snake!

You only get two controls – turn left, or right – and every pellet you eat scores points but makes you grow longer and faster. This is probably the most basic game I’ve ever submitted, but I’m glad I came back and finished this after running adrift on Saturday. You can try the game here (Windows only, sorry folks)

Best of luck to everyone else, and I hope you had fun taking part!

So the new Vulkan API was finally published last month, and I’ll be experimenting with it for LD35 – and as my language of choice is C#, I’ve been working on .NET bindings for the API. It’s very much a work in progress, but if you’re also interested in trying Vulkan then take a look: SharpVk

...though I don't know if it'll be an actual game when I'm done. I'm hoping to get something working with Vulkan, but that means a lot of boiler-plate work before you can do any rendering - plus I'm flying from the US to the UK tomorrow.

Aiming to get a little animated/spinning planet, will see how much I get working graphically and then worry about gameplay.

Oh, and I'm using C#/Vulkan, with maybe some GIMP/bfxr/Abundant Music.