I haven't participated in a Gamejam for a year or two, so I'm more than keen for the LD40 Compo! :smile:

Seeing a lot of people joining the Jam for the first time too, which is great to see. I've participated in 5 Gamejams before: 3 were Ludum Dares, 1 was a miniLD and 1 was a NASA GameJam. All with differing amounts of success, Gamejams are tricky beasts!

Its the perfect time for a GameJam as back in September I started a '100 Days of Game Development' challenge, where day 100 will be the final day of 2017. Today is the 69th successful consecutive day of that challenge and I've been spending a lot of time getting familiar with Unity and brushing up the game dev skills. So it will be good to spend a huge chunk of time over the weekend trying to make something fun!

If anyone is interested in seeing my 100 Days Challenge so far, the Full 100 Days of Game Dev Playlist here: YT Link

Otherwise see my profile here on LD if you'd like to follow me, my work and my ramblings on social media!

Tools:

-Unity (Game Engine)

-C# (Programming)

-Blender (If I go 3D)

-GIMP (2D/Textures)

-Audacity (Music/SFX)

-Bosca Ceoil (Music)

Also I'm thinking of writing another post, covering my 'GameJam Philosophy' before the LD gets going (if I can find time). I've picked up what I think are some good tips and approaches for GameJams, based on my past experiences. Since theres a lot of new jammers, it might be good to share!

-Alex

We're almost ready to get started and with so many new jammers I figure its worth sharing my philosophy when it comes to doing Gamejams.

As of 2017 Ive participated in (I think) ~5 game jams and Ive had varied levels of success. So Im by no means an expert on these things but I think theres some pretty solid approaches when it comes to a gamejam that can help a lot - all of which Ive learnt through my experiences doing gamejams like Ludum Dare.

My Approach/Philosophy:

1) Core Gameplay/Feature Focus

Focus on one single core feature for the game that will be fun. True for any game really, ie in Sonic the core feature of the game is him running really fast. The rest of the game is built around that (fun) mechanic. Or the portals in portal are another great example. It doesnt have to be complicated, but this is where you can focus on the fun/innovation categories of voting - not to mention putting together a solid game in general.

2) Game Foundations

Try to aim to get the foundations for the game done in the first 24 hours (and by that I mean main gameplay and controls, the win condition, lose condition, basic menu etc). Then the final 24 hours are polishing, adding more content, adding music and sfx etc. I dont think Ive every actually hit this goal, but its a good one to aim for as it means you focus more directly on that core feature and game states right from the start. You dont want to be implementing the lose and win conditions of the game in the final hour while half asleep and trying to build your final submission, trust me.

*3) Identify Weaknesses *

Be aware of your weaknesses/timesinks and be prepared to compromise. Easier said than done I know, but if you know something will slow you down try to be as aware of it as possible. If you notice during the jam youre spending too much time on a feature or area of work, compromise on it and wrap it up - get onto the next big of work asap. If you dont know what slows you down, reflect after the gamejam on areas you got stuck with.

4) Promotion & Accessibility

Ive struggled with this in the past, using the game engines Ive used in the past plugins were needed to run in-browser, or a download of the game has to be put up - which isnt the most accessible or motivating. I know Id rather just hit a link and get right into it. It doesnt clog up my PC with downloads either I dont have to unzip/manage/find files etc. Its lazy but its how things are when you want to play 100 games after a game jam. Im always extra keen to play a game if its one click away.

Promotion is a no brainer too, but super important. Through the gamejam I try to do a few posts and show off some nice gifs or video, it gets the game out there and people interested even before the jam is over. I also try to make a nice looking splash screen, because that will draw people in to test and play your game, which is crucial in the voting round. Making a game trailer after/during the jam is also a good way to show off the game along with doing post-mortums and posting timelapses of the whole thing.

5)Sleep!

...At least in the first 24 hours anyway. I always aim to get decent sleep in the first 24 hours, and then (if possible) pull an all nighter for the last 24 hours and push some serious game dev hours. Youve always got the next day to have a good sleep and recover, so optimise that time spent developing your game. I know theres a lot of different suggestions when it comes to this, but this is whats worked for me in the past.

The biggest successes in when it comes to gamejams is learning more about your strengths and weaknesses when it comes to game development and everything related to that. Its always a good exercise in self reflection.

I hope my tips help someone!

Goodluck to everyone for LD40!

The hours are racing by and now its 5am. I really need to get some sleep. The gamejam started off very slowly, I was struggling for many hours to get some momentum, seems to happen most jams. But Ive at least got some stuff going on now.

The game is called 'ACE Delta'! Its a scifi, ship combat type of game that takes place on a distant moon in the distant future with a character Ive had in mind for a few games for a while - so this is his debut.

This is ACE Delta's ship. Im thinking of calling it 'The Alpha' or something similar.

I found some neat shortcuts with Unity early on building this moon, for the 2nd iteration I could pretty much call the model final (and will probably have to). Need to sort out some nice looking atmosphere though. You can just barely see the launchpad with Ace's ship on the north pole. Its a big moon, but once I get around to making some moon-cities I feel like the scale of the moon is going to have to increase again, probably double.

So next up is improving the flight dynamics. Then I'll add enemy ships, cities, a very angry 'Planetary Defence Commander' to yell at you, possibly a ship AI or at least voice so Alpha can talk to you and hopefully some missions. Oh and attitude and cheesy phrases. Heaps of that.

Finally, heres how the main menu is currently looking, its only missing our main star at this point, and maybe some lens flares.

I'll post some gifs tomorrow at some point but now its time for some sleep.

14 hours to go, and Ive hit a few too many snags. Still hanging in there though, I want to make something playable.

This screen might not look like much, but its my latest milestone, Ive got the flight dynamics working ok, and gravity properly implemented for the moon. This screenshot was the first time I flew the ship from the north pole platform and landed on the south pole platform.

I've gotten stuck on a few things, like implementing a decent camera setup and getting the flight dynamics right took way too long too. So Im way behind where I want to be.

Ive also got a bunch of GUI stuff done including a decent pause menu that actually pauses everything. Physics, sound, everything. Amazing. Im still needing a proper HUD for some aircraft feedback though.

Ahhh, so much to do. I wont be sleeping tonight. :dizzy_face:

The best glitch Ive had all Gamejam: When your physics mess up so badly your ship involuntarily goes to Plaid.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBVqygvinzw

Side note: "My brains are going into my feet" is about how I currently feel.

I guess this is both my 'Im in' and a 'heres the game we made for the Jam' post - cause I havent done any posts at all for this LD!

This was my first time entering the Jam with a small team of friends - I've only ever done the solo Compo and the last time I even entered something by zero-hour was back in 2012. Since then Ive changed game engines to using Unity and I think Im finally competent enough with the engine to quickly prototype games without too many huge issues. So its great to have something this time thats worth submitting 😄

I'll do another more detailed post at some point, a post mortem would be interesting. But currently Ive been awake for 32 hours straight so its not the ideal time 😅

The game's page with more info is here - https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/ventureville/

Or you go directly to where I have it hosted to play - http://delta-edge.com/Ventureville

Look forward to playing some awesome games soon!

Thanks everyone for all the votes! We've got over 20 now, which is great to see. :smile:

But in the meantime we've been working on some of the features that didnt make it during the Jam along with a lot of tweaks and improvements overall for a post-jam release of Ventureville. Ive been taking note of feedback from friends and the LD community for the upcoming changes.

Ventureville v2.0 also has the much needed (and now properly implemented) farming features. With 'Tom' tomatoes and 'Benedict' cabbages able to be grown (among other things). I foresee a 'Benedict cabbage-patch' achievement in the future.

Also if youve ever wondered how cows and sheep come into the world, this gif reveals the secrets (it involves vegetables and punching) Gif here: https://i.imgur.com/wXMSIsq.gifv 😜

Building is also implemented, bandit AI greatly improved (erm... https://i.imgur.com/WcNs7VC.gifv) along with a small novel worth of other tweaks, fixes and improvements.

Will be posting soon (probably tomorrow)!

Our entry version of the game is at the following link, with WebGL available if youre still yet to check it out: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/ventureville

Until then, any other votes would be great to see! Its been a great Ludum Dare, looking forward to seeing everyone's results!

Well, with 1 day of voting left I'd like to post our updated version of Ventureville! In this, myself and the other coder (Joel) improved on a lot of the game and added in features we hoped to see in the Jam version of the game but didnt have time to implement.

In particular, this means building options and basic farming. The bandits also got an overhaul and tend to behave a lot better now.

If anything, the change-log below indicates the main issue with this game for the gamejam - the scope was waaaaay too large. All those interconnected features mean a mess of coding to manage, after a while they all compound on top of each other and the slightest changes or new features take a lot longer to implement. But sometimes, its fun to be ambitious!

v2.0 Change-log:

-Win/Lose conditions 
    Winning: (Defeat all bandits & find/destory their houses)
    Losing: Have your house destroyed & player killed 
-Player health/death & respawn (only punishment is a short delay)
-Resources (stone/wood) basic implementation finished, can get resources from punching trees and rocks
-Basic building, can now build:
    -House (acts as a respawn location & can only build 1 at a time)
    -Wall (strong, made of stone)
    -Fence (better for keeping animals in one spot)
    -Farm (generates crops)-Incoming Raid warning (look for the exclamation mark above the player)
-Greatly improved player movement (diagonal movement now possible), removed icy sliding effect
-Only 1 house at a time, and a house is required to respawn
-UI fixed (full-screen scaling wasnt originally working)
-UI improvements (build mode feedback, building costs, etc)
-Bandit spawning more balanced
-Bandit forces regenerate over time, depending on islands and houses
-Bandit physics improved (no more moonwalking, they at least try to use physics properly)
-Bandits attack/swarm player
-Bandits might run away when attacked, to fight another day
-Bandits wont raid until theres a decent amount of them
-Bandit houses can be destroyed which slows/stops them spawning
-Blood stays around longer and spawns on hits instead of just death (better hit feedback)
-Cooldown timer on game start (so a raid wont instantly happen) + random cooldown after raid has triggered
-Better collisions on punches & objects in general
-Some objects also drop resources when destroyed (but less than they cost to build)
-Better music management (calm theme continues playing after combat theme ends)
-Cows/Sheep generate coins over time (look for the exclamation mark above them)
-Farms now grow crops that can be harvested (ofc with punching)
-Farms also grow cows & sheep (yes you read that right!)
-Rare rocks spawn with gold in them, so theres natural sources of coins if you run out completely
-Lots of other little fixes Ive forgotten!

Ventureville v2.0 (post-jam) can be play tested here: http://www.delta-edge.com/Ventureville_v2/

And you can find the Original version of the game here (with 24 hours left to still vote!): https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/ventureville

Looking forward to seeing how everyone does in the results!

Had a blast with LD41 and LD40, so I've taken Monday off work to fully commit this time around (lost 10 hours last time and then had to work after pulling an all-nighter - not recommended!)

Will be once again using Unity.

I'll be tweeting a bunch during the weekend jam as per usual: Alex_ADEdge

Will happily follow back anyone else participating!

Past the half way point now, so having a look at what Ive achieved so far.

I started off pretty strong, and got some assets sorted and a prototype level mockup happening. I felt pretty good about the theme and had a solid game idea pretty quickly - probably the quickest Ive ever put together a concept out of any LD Ive participated in!

When it came down to it, I settled on making a western 'train chase', but with a cyberpunk twist.

But things started to slow down once I got into implementing game mechanics - a few issues arose and I messed around trying to setup physics for the train too long and then got stuck on a very frustrating bug for WAY too long! Not only that but Ive decided to come down with a cold right at the start of the gamejam, which has made things even more frustrating, as I cant focus as well as normal. Programming in a scatterbrained state of mind is not a fun experience...

With less than 20 hours remaining, I'm already cutting back features and looking at the bare minimum this game needs to be an interesting/fun experience.

And I still havent got a name for the game! Thinking something along the lines of 'Laser Rails' or 'Cyberway Rails'. If anyone has some suggestions I'm all ears!

Updates generally posted to my twitter: https://twitter.com/Alex_ADEdge

Finally settled on a name. And gave the player character a proper animated model!

'Laser Rails: Heist' is a cyberpunk western where you're a droid with a jetpack and a laser whip and youve got to chase down a train - while fending off its angry guards.

Lots to do, Ive got 10 hours to get the rest of the gameplay sorted.

Bring on the all-nighter!

https://twitter.com/Alex_ADEdge

Play as a robot cowboy with a jetpack, in this western-cyberpunk themed game!

*Game page: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/laser-rails-chase *

And on Newgrounds: https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/715450?updated=1534346164

Happy to announce that I finished my Compo entry, which is now up for voting and feedback! (Which Ive gotten some great feedback so far)

Features: - Play as a Jetpack-equipped cyberpunk-western-robot! - An infinite track/world with different zones! - A randomly generated train so every game is a bit different! - Evil robots with cannon-arms! - Laser turrets that scramble you and your jetpack! - Canyons and other hazards! - Like rocks that get in your way! - Poorly modelled cacti! - A good few bugs!

Ive continued working on the game since the weekend - and so today I've released the POSTJAM (version 1) of Laser Rails: Chase!

It includes a bunch of bug fixes, optimisations, tweaks and most importantly (and based on the feedback Ive had so far) I added a tutorial zone. My biggest regret was rushing the game mechanics at the end, and leaving almost no time to implement a tutorial. I just threw some basic instructions on the screen. In the Post-Jam version though, Ive fixed this by adding a small tutorial area that gives you the basic controls, gets you moving and slightly familiar with the controls and lets you use the jetpack - all under cover and while not being fired at relentlessly (my bad) D:

I'll do a full post-mortum soon, and might even put together the timelapse of the entire 48 hours. Stay tuned!!

Im up for LD43!

But first I'm going to do a quick (and very late) post-mortem of my LD42 game 'Laser Rails: Chase' to see what worked and what I need to change this time around, as I find reflecting on a previous challenge is the #1 way to make sure youre developing and improving!

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/laser-rails-chase

LD 42 in quick-review:

Pros - Had a game mechanic (the jetpack) which ended up being a lot more fun than expected, so it basically became the core mechanic

• Scrapped a lot of features and mechanics, but still ended up with a game, which wouldnt have been possible without feature planning at the start

• Didnt waste much time cooking. Lots of food prep and shopping done the day/night before the jam, which was a huge time saver! (also uber eats is nice for the occasional meal)

• Pivoted from the original character design very quickly (was going to make human characters), couldnt get the inspiration or design working quick enough so I came up with a fun robot design very quickly instead, which was the main cyberpunk element in the game and turned out well

• Endless terrain generation. Maybe spent too long on this, but it worked really well and I enjoyed how it turned out

Cons - Theme didnt apply very well. I had ideas for how it could, but didnt get around to executing them properly in time and rushed everything at the end - Should get the theme strongly present in the game asap

• Scope was too large, but at least easy to cut back - Need to avoid blowing out the scope in future

• Start area wasnt setup nicely, enemies attacking right away. Didnt give the player any chance to get to learn the controls and therefore the game was from the start not very intuitive - More planning and thought need to go into this, and perhaps a tutorial area (as I ended up making for the post-jam version)

• Got stuck (again) on a code/physics issues for far too long, ie with the train physics which in the end werent that important to the game. Always happens! - Need to learn to compromise faster or identify problem mechanics/features quickly and find ways to do it quicker

• Got sick. This was mainly from not looking after myself in the week lead up, didnt get enough sleep. Hit me hard on the first day of the jam which lead me to sleeping more than planned and feeling miserable for the first 24 hours, and pretty average for the 2nd day - Need to get more sleep in the leadup to a jam!

• Audio/sound, wasnt happy with this at all, I ended up opting out of the category because I had to throw in sounds and music that werent mine. Definitely the main category I need to improve on and put more time towards when it comes to game design.

• Food stuff: Could have snacked less, or had healthier snacks planned.

• Exercise: planned on doing some, but due to being sick I didnt do anything physical during the gamejam. Hard to avoid if youre sick, I feel like this point would have been ok otherwise.

One of my goals is to do a gamejam healthily, so this is something I’ll be working on in future jams!

And finally rough stats for LD42, always interesting to see where the time goes and what can be improved

Looking forward to some gamedev this weekend - goodluck everyone!

Quick progress update.

Love the theme! It didnt take long to settle on a game idea, which is similar to my attempted (but failed) game for Ludum Dare 40. But just like with any/all gamejams it seems, Ive run into some delays. I'll be doing the Jam for sure this time D:

The prototype scene didnt take long to get setup yesterday and currently Ive got a nice little modular ship that drops from a space station, goes through an orbital descent and levels out at a target altitude.

The ship has some nice shiny shields, theres some enemy ships to shoot at and Ive got some of the basics of combat working - hope to show that off in the next post when combat is a bit more interesting!

I post on twitter quite a bit during a jam, if youre interesting following (and seeing higher quality gifs): https://twitter.com/Alex_ADEdge

Orbital descent:

Shields up!

Im in for LD44!

Ive spent some time the past few days getting prepared for the challenge and Im feeling ready! (almost)

I'll be using the following:

• Unity (Game Engine)
• Blender (3D)
• Gimp/Photoshop (2D)
• C# (Programming)
• Audacity (Audio)
• VCV Rack (Music - but will likely do the JAM and see if someone else can help with the music side of things!)

So thats LD 44 ready to go, now a look back at what happened last JAM back in December:

What happened with Ludum Dare 43?

I didnt get around to doing a post-mortem after the last Ludum Dare but I wanted to at least go over what went wrong! It was meant to be a scifi shooter, where you ship drops down to the planet and fights its way through some baddies and checkpoints and then takes out an enemy base. But it fell way short and I didnt managed to complete anything worth submitting!

In the lead up to LD44 Ive done some reflection on that challenge and Ive come up with the following issues (and the improvements on my approach Ill be trying/reinforcing this jam):

• 1) Didnt focus on core feature/mechanic. The flight system took way too long to setup and was far too complicated (which caused a lot of delays). Looking back on my most recent successful gamejam (LD 42) I see how important it is to focus on that core feature as early as possible. Get it established asap and then work on content after.

• 2) Pivot when needed and EARLY! Following on from the issues I got stuck on, identifying these issues and pivoting away from them (or finding compromises for features/mechanics/bugs that are troublesome and taking too much time) is crucial and something I really need to get better at. Its definitely something Ive improved on a bit lately, but tripped up with last jam.

• 3) Aim for minimal features (MVP) - this is really something I continuously mess up. Its one thing to be ambitious, its another to have the entire game rely on a bunch of features and then only end up with half of them implemented (and therefore no real game). Feature-creep and unrealistic scope are the worst!

• 4) Get the gameplay sorted in the first 24 hours! - One of my #1 gamejam philosophy rules (see below) but one I always struggle with. In generally I think its best to have the win/lose case and basic gameplay within the first 24 hours. Then the rest of the jam is just building upon that. But... easier said than done of course.

Finally Ive restructured my desktop layout again. I generally timelapse the entire gamejam, so the screen setup I use has evolved over the years. Ive kept the clock in the bottom right, added a proper countdown timer (so I dont need to manually change the countdown every hour like I used to) and Ive added a task timer as well which will let me be more aware of how long Im spending on a given feature, so things dont slip away from me as they sometimes do!

I'll be posting most updates on twitter as per usual!

https://twitter.com/Alex_ADEdge

And as per usual, heres my game jam philosophy which I wrote it a while ago with the intent of helping others with gamejams! I'll have to re-write this up again in the near future when I get my website properly running but for now its basically what I follow:

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/$55374/my-gamejam-philosophy

Best of luck to everyone in the battle ahead :smile:

The first leg of LD44 is done. I had a fitting game idea pretty quickly and got some decent work done towards some features and elements of the game.

The thing Im most happy with is the dragging mechanic (even if it took way too long to get working). But hey, objects can be moved around, their mass determines how well/if you can even move it and you can drag the boat into the water to get going, its pretty neat!

Looking forward to getting some sailing mechanics going tomorrow, as well as some narrative elements to the game but starting to feel like Im going to need to pivot and change my game idea a bit so I can finish an actual game in time.

How I imagine I'll be feeling by the end of this gamejam:

Lots more development/progress pictures and gifs on my twitter, Ive been posting throughout the day and will continue into the rest of the gamejam!

https://twitter.com/Alex_ADEdge

Was meant to do this update weeks ago! My LD44 JAM game Autumn Shores got a hotfix right after the LD finished that sorted out some game breaking bugs and made it more playable. I also spent some time taking better pictures of the game itself!

So if you like sailing (more like rowing atm) and exploring distant islands, this could be a game to check out!

Not much to say other than that, I'll do a post mortem soon and was thinking of doing a technical post about an element of the game I really enjoyed, but for now heres the link to the game page:

Im well under 20 votes atm so I appreciate anyone whos got the time to play! HTML browser version available for quick access.

(Im going to play a bunch more games over this weekend to get that coolness rating up as well!)

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/autumn-shores

Gearing up for this weekend's gamejam!

Its a 3 day weekend and Ive got all 3 days clear, so unsure at this point if I'll aim for the Compo or Jam. Feeling like Id prefer to do the Compo if possible to have a day to relax, but as per usual Ill see how Im going towards the end of the compo.

From LD44:

Theres a few things Id like to improve on after LD44, mainly the issue I always have of 'scope creep'. Something I really need to wrangle under control. I need to keep games as simple as possible and focus on key features and a core mechanic. Last time with LD44 I made Autumn Shores, and got so bogged down in certain features (like dragging objects) that I didnt get key features (like sailing) working as well as I wanted. So time management and scope management are big on my radar this time around. Id also like to for once get the game prototype down in the first 24 hours, leaving the second 24 hours for asset creation and polishing - thats the dream!

Likewise last LD I was lazy and spent the whole thing indoors. This time around I want to make sure to get out for some exercise and a mental break, at least once...

Self Improvements:

Also tonight I decided to put together a chart of all my past successful Ludum Dare's and results which is proving good for self reflection. I think this time around when I start brainstorming the game I'll take down notes as to how the game should fufil each catagory. Hoping that keeps me on track, because I find sometimes categories go forgotten.

Notes on themes in no particular order:

Theme: One I generally do badly with - when all it takes is a bit of effort to convey the theme better or work it into a core feature.

Humor: A tricky one, because I dont think every game needs humor thrown in your face at all times, if at all. Its always been a controversal catagory and tbh I wouldnt miss it if it was gone.

Fun: I struggle with this for some reason! Which is a shame, because I want to make games which are fun. Something to work on.

Graphics: Im generally happy with, an area I like to put some solid time into, so hoping to keep that at a decent level.

Follow me!

As usual Ill be on the lookout for fellow jammers, follow me on twitter to follow my progress, and send me feedback/questions/memes at any time! I'll happily follow other jammers!

https://twitter.com/Alex_ADEdge

See you at the LDJam :)

Super keen for LD 46 in ~1 week.

I'll be using my usual tools in my ongoing efforts to upskill and prototype new game demos and ideas:

Game Engine: Unity Language: C# 2D: Photoshop/GIMP Audio Editing: Audacity Music: Bosca Ceoil (And maybe VCV Rack)

And what happened with LD45?? I didnt even do an update post after the initial 'Im in' post last LD so here we go.

Overall a bit of a trainwreck, I had the idea of making a old-school-Doom style of game, ie a floor-drifting first-person-shooter. A few things ended up going ok, I got some ok movement and character controls setup, a neat little door script that made placing doors all around the scene super easy and ran purely from script (ie no need for any animation or animation controllers at all), and even had the basics of combat going - along with a basic decal system for blood splatters that worked pretty well (half the time anyway)

Splatter Decals & combat:

Custom character controller:

Level Design was also something I got pretty far with, having 3 different buildings you could fight through and some outdoor areas.

They also ended up looking like quite a mess once combat was over!

Music was something else I got into about half way through the jam, and unexpectantly it actually went alright. I started out by just remaking the main Doom theme (linked below) and from there I used that as a basis to make my own tune, which is unfinished.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3s_O3cXDmI

But what went wrong: I think it comes down to 1 main element - Scope. It really seem to be my achilles heel in gamejams, I often find myself aiming for projects or ideas that are too ambitious or too difficult. ie for this Doom-like game, I should have gone for the most simplistic character control setup I possibly could, instead I built it from the ground up and fell into the trap of problematic physics and code.

Likewise the art style fell behind very quickly, and Ive found that in order to stay properly interested/motivated in a game I need the art style to at least show some direction and potential early on, which sometimes means adding polish to graphics super early, or at least getting the style up to spec early on. A bit of a no-no in terms of game development, but something Ive just had to accept and work with.

So coming out of LD45 and looking forward at LD46, what do I want to focus on doing better?

1) Lessening scope and complexity I really need to cut back and focus on simpler games, along with identifying scope blow-out and issues, as early on as possible (should really be handled during the initial idea brainstorming)

2) Graphics! It goes against various 'guidelines' to focus on graphics and polish early on in game development or during a gamejam, but I really feel like my most successful gamejam entries focused heavily on graphics early on, and it really drives my motivation, so its something I need to accept in my workflow rather than fight against.

3) Playable demo in 24 hours I always say this yet I rarely do it, I really feel like having that end-to-end game in the first 24 hours is key. That means a win condition, and a lose condition, and the main/core 'feature' of the game at least implemented and working in one way or another.

Onwards to LD46!

Its time for some sleep! I always try to sleep a decent 6-8 hours on the first night, it preps you nicely for the upcoming all-nighter towards the end of Ludum Dare D:

But here we are with a quick progress update, Ive been working on bringing my own (built from the ground-up) C64 editor into this game since its the core 'thing' the game is built around.

Here it is in action:

All that text is interactable, just like a real C64 running BASIC. Im trying to get the setup as close to a C64 as possible, without spending the entire jam working on a text console! ie its not going to be exactly the same - ideally Id like to have 2 modes, a retro 'just like a C64' editing mode and then a more modern mode like notepad, but that would take far too much time.

So its pretty simple right now, the only command it recognises is 'RUN' which of course doesnt do anything yet. But the functionality for reading input is there and thats what took a bunch of work. Theres also a syntax error thats thrown for anything the compiler doesnt understand, which is basically everything else right now. Tomorrow I'll be getting some more BASIC commands working, so you can write your own scripts and provide some logic :)

The rough idea of the game is that some silly AI bots (which Im most of the way through creating their dialogue system) accidentally produced an army of tanks with Commodore 64 chips for brains... a slight issue considering the tanks are about to be needed! They're employing you (and antagonizing you a bit) to write custom code for their tanks - to keep them alive!

A couple of final shots, the UI and game prototype/blocked area right at the start of the jam, after 1-2 hours work:

And here is the UI after a bit more work earlier tonight:

I certainly feel like Ive once again bitten off more than I can chew with this idea. The text editor has a lot of tricky things going on, which took some time to work out, and I cant say Im very familiar with Unity's text system.. until now anyway! So yeh, its very much looking like the remaining 1 day and 9 hours of the COMPO wont cut it... so Im very likely going to go for the JAM instead of the COMPO. But Im having fun and Im enjoying the challeges of this little game, its a lot different to anything ive worked on in the past, so lets see where it goes over the coming days!

Additional stuff for day 1: I made sure to get out today and get some fresh air and exercise! And eat some good food :)

Thats it for this update, I need some sleep!

As always, best place to follow my work is on twitter: