With my first Ludum Dare fast approaching, I was reading through the rules and noticed that source code MUST be shared for the compo. This doesn’t bother me, I just don’t know HOW to do that.
As I make my games in Unity, how does one share the source code?

Thanks.

P.S. I am aware this may be a silly question. 😛

Regardless, I’m in!
My first one and I am excited.
I just want to see what I can make and hopefully call a game in the tight timespan of 48 hours!
I’ll be using:

Unity3D (JavaScript)
Paint
Blender (Propbably not it takes me like two days to make a simple door. Hahahaha.)

Anyway, I can’t wait to play all of your games and I wish the best of luck to all of you!

Here is my menu screen:

Yogo the bear is ready to adventure!!!

Okay I have been working on the game for 9 hours straight, I think it’s time for a break. 😀
Here’s another screenshot for you all though. 😀

So I have accidentally designed an incredibly punishing game. Like, really punishing.
Like, you will get really really mad at my game. 😛
I guess that will happen when you have been working on it for over 12 hours straight.
Oh well, I’m following it through now, atleast it will be good for seperating the boys and men in the LD community. 😉

This is level 3. 😛

I’ve been going since the theme was announced, and boy am I tired.
I’m actually rather impressed with myself I got so much done and managed to persevere so strongly. 😛
So, I got *basically all the gameplay done and *basically all the graphics done.
At this stage it’s really just level design and then audio, but I can’t find any good free software to assist in that department, so i’ll save that for tomorrow.
Anyway, goodnight and goodluck everybody!

*I will probably decide I need to do more. 😛

So I decided to go with the first idea that came in my mind and started making it a reality, which for the most part I have succeeded in doing.
Unfortuantely I didn’t really think about how FUN the incredibly punishing game mechanics of only giving the player one chance at a level in which they can only use their incredibly essential powers once, as well as they can only die once.
Well, I hope you people are ready for a challenge! 😛

Although, I must may my favorite part of my game design is I am using a mysterious sign write character who places signs on the “Hero’s” path to taunt him, as well as a lot of breaking the fourth wall. 😀

Now that my first Ludum Dare entry has recieved some feedback, I thought I should do a post mortem post. 😀
It’s here to try if you wish: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-28/?action=preview&uid=28661

MY EXPECTATIONS:
Well this was my first LD so they were basically null. Haha. Seriously, I didn’t even think I would finish a playable prototype.
My original goal was just to try and finish something, other than that, no real goal as far as rankings go.

DURING THE COMPO:
I’m not going to lie, I made some rookie mistakes.
Well first of all, I have the advantage that the compo started at 1 P.M for me, so that was a nice time in the middle of the day for me.
The rookie mistake was that I was incredibly hung over. Haha.
Rookie mistake number 2, I invited friends over to get drunk on the second night. (Although I ended up letting them game and drink while I programmed and desgined levels. 😛 )

The largest problem I ran into, and what some people picked up on in the feedback, is that I had no way to produce sound.
I had no software for it, so I did dedicate a few hours to searching the internet for free one’s and trialling them, but nothing that was what I wanted. (I just want GarageBand to be honest )
So in the end due to time constraints and the lack of software, I opted out of adding sounds.

AFTER THE COMPO:
Wow!
So much positive feedback.
Seriously, I was absolutely blown away by all the nice comments about how funny it is etc.  I didn’t expect anything like it.
Next LD (Which I am 100% participating in.) I need to add sounds. That is my number one goal.
I would also like to figure out how to do animations. I feel like they add a lot of polish to a game.

CONCLUSION:
Thank you everyone who played my game and to the entire LD community to being incredibly nice and helpful through the entire process!
Bring on the next one! Woo!
Now, a message from Yogo bear!

Tags: final post mortem

For LD 28 I didn’t use any base code,  mainly because I didn’t know what is considered “base code”.
So I thought I should get myself informed for the next one! 😀
I use Unity, and I was wondering what exactly is considered “base code”.
If I created a first person player controller script, or a 2D platform player controller script, are these considered base code?
Thanks in advance. 😀

Stealth is fun!
So is AI!
And enemies in general!
Not only are these three things important in many games, they are all things I am attempting to learn how to do for the first time in this mini-LD!
I now have a working gun with pretty particle effect, enemies with a cone of vison who react to you, a “try and stay out of the light” system. So far so great!
Now let’s see how long it takes me to break everything. 😀

An old-fashioned stand off!

Yeah, my game won’t be finished. 😛
I decided to tackle relatively complex AI for my first time ever dealing with AI, which was a bit silly, but quite a learning experience.
Making a stealth game, there are a lot of things to consider, which I didnt consider at the start of development, which has lead to the game including MANY big bugs that are bein rather painful to deal with.
So, although i will have nothing for this mini LD to submit, thanks to the creator of the themes as I have started created something I love, and wish to keep working on now after this miniLD, and I will keep you all posted on a “post-compo” version. 😛

Anyway, spy man says goodbye, and hopes you all loved the games you created. 😀

What was that Candycrush? You got a registered trademark for the word “candy”?
Well that sure is going to make it difficult for my new game entitled “Candy candy candy”.
Ridiculously early screenshot:

Registering the trademark for a basic word. I say no.

Tags: candyjam

Hey everyone!
Can’t wait for my second Ludum Dare to be under way!
I was pretty happy with my first one, funnily enough it was probably the most complete game I’ve ever made.
But I definitely want this one to be better, more polished atleast.
I’ll be using Unity and C#.
My “art” for the lack of a better term will probably be done in Paint.net or Gimp.
Anyway, best of luck to everyone!

Hey everyone,

I already did my “I’m in” post, but I thought I would tell you guys about some challenges I am setting my self for my second LD. After a relatively successful first ever gamejam for the last LD, some things I am determined to put into my game for this jam are:

Sounds – Even if it’s just basic SFX, that will do. They have always been something I have avoided because I feel if they aren’t perfect they are just weird. So I am going to try my hardest on getting some good sounds in, probably using sfxr unless anyone has any good suggestions for a free good Windows knock off of GarageBand? 😀

Story/Character Dialog – This is something I have wanted to tackle in a game for ages, but most of my games so far have been relatively “arcade” with no real story or character devlopment or anything like that. So yeah, I would love to code up some really versatile dialog boxes and right myself up a story!

Beat my last game – Not a feature as such, but my major goal is to beat my other game with this one. I know that worrying about where you come in the rankings isn’t really in the spirit of the ludum dare, but I really want to know that I have improved since the last one. I think sound and story could help with that, if I get them right. 😛

Put more time into it than last time – Again, not a feature, but for the last jam, I slept a lot (8 hour nights) and was very distracted (Facebook). This could be because I was relatively on track the entire jam as far as time goes, but I could of used that wasted time for fine tuning and polishing.

ANYWAY, sorry for the long speel. It’s 2:30 AM here in Australia, and I can’t sleep because I am so excited thinking about the jam, and it’s still days away! Haha. Regardless of how I go, good luck to everyone else, and I hope you go well and above all of your expectations. 😀

Good luck!

My one and only goal this Ludum Dare.
Avoid making a game involving caves. 😛

So, my game is basically my interpretation of having depression or anxiety, or even just getting bullied.
I realised as I was making my game has way more interpretations then intended. My friends have thought the game was about very different subjects, which I thought was interesting.
Here is a screenshot of the title screen.

Here is a quick look that we are making for the jam.

It is is just one programmer, one muso, and an extra hand who doesn’t really specialise.

So far it is basically all voice acting, and for three guys who have never voice acted before, thats a challenge. Haha.

Oh boy, what a Ludum Dare that was. 😛
Firstly, the LD page is here: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-30/?action=preview&uid=28661
So, this is my third time participating in the Ludum Dare, but my first time being in the Jam, and being with a team!

My team was somewhat unorthodox, with me (Josh) being the programmer/designer/artist/writer, my friend Kelton doing the music (and he did an amazing job!) and last, but not least my friend Matt, who tagged along last second to basically fill the gaps and help out where he can (we gave him the title “Voice Acting Director” in the end. 😛 ).

The start of it all

We screwed up. Almost immediately.

BASICALLY, Connected Worlds is the one theme we did not want. It is so open-ended, and I didn’t want to take it literally and make a game about space or planets or anything like that.

So we spent the first fourteen hours developing a military side-scrolling shooter where the player is actually just a guy controlling the soldier, and at the end of the game the soldier kills the guy. It was meant to be this big “Woah, I didn’t see that coming!” moment, but as it ticked over to the fourteenth hour, I realised we won’t have time to actully implement the “Connected Worlds” part of the game.

So I made the hardest decision I’ve made in a jam so far. After fourteen hours of animating, art, programming and designing, we completely scrapped the idea.
A working functioning prototype tossed to the side. It was honestly painful.
Here is a quick screenshot of what could have been our LD entry:

So basically here we are, sitting in our rooms at 2 A.M trying to come up with a new idea after wasting our first day, and then the idea hits me.

THE CHANGE

We possiblt had the biggest change in game possible.
We went from a side-scrolling 2D linear military shooter TO a 3D fully voice acted non-violent game based around exploration.
Talk about a pivot. 😛

The above GIF was an early prototype of the game world and Orbs.

ORB

Orb was the game. We knew it. I pitched it as a game thats only job is to immerse the player so much that they believe they are interacting with this real living world, through their computer.
Then while discussing immersion I had the idea that will change First-Person games forver.
THE NODDING MECHANIC

I decided this game, that we are voice acting, needs to have the option to choose yes or no kind of answers, which result in different dialogs, but I didn’t want to break the immersion.
Thus the game’s main mechanic was born, nodding.
Giving the player the chance to respond to in-game NPC’s via nodding/shaking their head increased immersion so much!
Watching people play-test my game I could tell that the connection between them and these little floating orbs was so much stronger simply because they were there. The Orbs were there.

Final gameplay screenshot.

PROBLEMS

Well, having those first 14 hours back would have been nice, but as that seemed impossible, time very quickly became an issue.
You would think we had the foresight to realise making a huge fully voice-acted 3D exploration game in just 58 hours was stupid, but we thought “Screw it, we can handle this”.
The other issue was not having a real artist or 3D moddeler. This led to me doing any “Art” and I just used Unity for all 3D level design (I believe this is like the biggest Unity sin ever, but I was desperate).

OVERALL

I am so happy with what we achieved. Kelton smashed out some awesome music (Buy the album here: http://keltonhallomusic.bandcamp.com/), Matt did some awesome work editing the voice clips, and I showed myself what is possible when I push myself to my limits. 😛
Kelton also produced this cover photo for the game and its soundtrack:

WHATS NEXT?

Someone told me, if this was bigger project with more to explore and mor people to talk to etc, they would kickstart it. That is by far the best compliment I have recieved as a game developer, so I figured, seeing how I go in the near-future, I may take this and turn it into a much bigger project, with a small world to explore instead of a very small area.

Anyway, if you have read this far, you are awesome. Thanks to the LD community for being awesome as per usual, and I will see you all here for LD31!

Me and two friends went into this Game Jam with absolutely no idea what to expect and then BAM!
Out of 1045 entries into the “Jam” category we got:
#3 in the Audio category! (Holy shit, well done Kelton! and thanks Matt for helping edit the voice acting clips)
#27 in Humour! (People enjoyed our voice acting, thanks Kelton, Matt, and James)
#43 in Innovation! (I am so blown away right now.)
#60 in Mood! (Hot damn)

This is definitely my most succesful game jam, and I hope to make a newer and much bigger version of this game!
Thanks guys that worked on it with me, and thanks to all of you amazing LD’ers for being there along the way!
Hopefully you will hear more from a better and bigger version of O.R.B in future! 😀
If you haven’t already, check the LD page here: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-30/?action=preview&uid=28661

Here we go for 4th in a row! 😀

I’m not sure if I am in the Jam or the Compo yet, waiting on confirmation from my muso friend if he will be accompnaying me during the Jam. 😀
Regardless of that though, the software!
Engine: My weapon of choice is Unity, absolutely love Unity (might even use the pro trial if I find a good enough reason).
Audio: Ask my muso friend. 😛 Otherwise SFXR and GarageBand. 😛
Graphics: Probably Paint.Net or Gimp.
Streaming: Ill be streaming using Open Broadcast Software through Twitch. 😀

Man I am so pumped for this, best of luck everyone!
Remember, at the end of this, your prize is your product! 😀