So this is my first Ludum Dare after regretting not participating many times before. And so I’ve experienced my first setback, halfway through the dare.

Discussed this with some colleagues and I’ve decided not to move forward with my current idea. Not that I didn’t think it was a cool idea. I actually think it wash turning out awesome. But there are potential hassles if it gets released. No biggie right?  Isn’t the point to make something?!

So I’m going back to the drawing board. But first I’d like to post a screen of what I had going on.

So yeah, my idea had Dick Cheney armed with a shotgun. I had two playable characters a title screen, game over screen, story, and a character select.  Maybe someday I’ll get to put it up.

Until then back to square one!

After spending a good 8 hours on my first attempt, I spend a few hours last night making something I wasn’t too happy about.  It was more of an arcade shooter where you are on the face of a clock that you have to stop counting down to zero.  And you were being attacked by spiders.  Eh, it was fine I guess.

Slept on it and had another idea which I couldn’t wait to get started.  Coming along pretty well.  Let’s hope I finish it in time!  Here’s an in progress screen shot.

Submitted my first LD entry.  So stoked.  I scrapped what I was working on yesterday.  I even had an aborted attempt going last night at around 10:00 PM  So here’s my entry.

I’m calling it The Lost Fleet (Every Second Counts)  You have to help navigate your fleet of ships through hostile space.  You specify wait points (you have 10 seconds to spend)  And your ships will wait at those points for the number of seconds you specify.

So its a puzzle game.  I absolutely love puzzle games even though I’ve never worked on one before today.  After I got the basic mechanic working this morning I was struck with the panic that I had to make a few compelling puzzles that progressively got harder.  And most importantly were beatable.  I’m sure none of these are perfect, but I was able to get 5 different puzzle levels crammed in there.  I added another one at around 3:30 today.  I even was able to knock out a quick music track in GarageBand today at around 2:00.

Tired, but soooo glad I did the Dare this time.  Instead of saying next time.  Maybe next time I’ll work on one idea for the whole 48.

First of all, I’m so glad to being doing the dare again. I’m exhausted but this was a much needed jolt of creativity. Really digging the theme and it gave me the opportunity to explore one of my personal favorite genres, and borrow pretty heavily visually from probably my favorite game of all time Tempest.

Added a boss late last night and this little stage where I basically throw the kitchen sink at the player.

Off to write some new music!