This will be my first Ludum Dare, first game jam/compo, and if I finish <fingers crossed>, my first game! (Not counting that Flappy Bird clone I made once and the countless hours of started projects that never came to fruition). I’m excited! I’ve sat and watched from the stands for many years; enjoying so many of the entries. This year, I take the plunge with the ultimate goal of completing something. Can’t wait to see what everyone comes up with. Let’s have fun!

Tags: im in

I had a whole plan of how I would be better prepared for my next LD. Yeah, that didn’t happen. Still can’t wait. I guess we will see if I learned from all of my rookie mistakes last time. Can’t wait to see what everyone comes up with.

Will probably go with GameMaker again.

Tags: im in, ld34, no sophomore slump

It can still use a lot of polish, but I made a plan to keep my scope small, stick to a rough schedule and here I am. This is a great feeling. Can’t wait to see what everyone else has been up to.

Tags: compo, progress, screenshot

I told myself I’d be more involved after submitting this time, but I let the Holidays get the better of me. I guess I still have a little bit of time to get a postmortem in. As always, I’m blown away at the creativity and ingenuity of everyone’s submissions. There are always more to play then I ever find time to get around to.

So this was my second Ludum Dare and I am, for the most part, pleased with how I’ve progressed since last time. We will start with the…

PROS:

• Was happy to experiment with music this time. I didn’t get to practice as much as I had hoped between Ludums, but I made a push before the compo started to learn the basics of MilyTracker and was able to produce a loop that I hope wasn’t too annoying.
• Made a time table this time and did pretty well sticking to it. Taking time up front to plan out and schedule makes a huge difference.
• Liked the look of my art (much more than last time). I think I made some simple choices that allowed me to get a look that I liked in a short amount of time.
• Actually finished in time to enter the Compo!

CON – I’m only going with one, because I was happy with everything else:

• My game mechanic/loop.

I tried to stay away from “snake/nibble” games as I figured they would be in abundance. When I started on Friday, I created a prototype for a procedural side-scrolling runner that involved using one button to grow the player and another to grow the world (shrinking the player). The problem was the procedural world was either too difficult or didn’t work well in the puzzle aspect I wanted. Once I realized I was designing levels, I didn’t want to fall into the same trap as last time. So I went to bed, that idea scrapped and no new idea.

When I awoke I had an idea for a much simpler mechanic of a guy that that could either a) turn a crank to charge a battery/light or b) shine the light. The light would in turn keep the monsters surrounding our player at bay. The goal was to see if you could manage the two tasks and see how long you could survive as the resolve of the monsters would increase. I proceeded to code the prototype for this idea.

While designing visuals for the prototype, I somehow let the idea become warped and started messing around with the mechanic. I never really took the time to evaluate the whole picture/project as I kept making tweaks and changes. This was my ultimate mistake. In the end, the final game mechanic feels very muddied and confusing.

I look forward to April and entering my third LudumDare, where I hope to expand on what I’ve learned through these past two weekends. Thanks to everyone that has already tried and commented and Happy New Year.

If you haven’t had a chance, you can try out ‘The Cube of Zanigriv’ here.

Tags: ld34 Postmortem

I don't have much left in the tank to put together anything cohesive. So I'm just going to post some screen caps and maybe do a little write up in the morning.

It's been over a year since my last Ludum Dare and none of that time was spent better preparing. Here is a recap of what went right (I'm sure something must have), wrong, and the lessons I may have learned along the way.

• Code: GameMaker Studio 1.4
• Pixels: Photoshop
• Sounds: Bxfr, Audacity

When the "A Small World" theme was announced, I was actually kind of surprised. It was one of the themes I actually voted for in the finals and yet I had no ideas pre-lined up. “I’ll do something involving a small planet that you run around.”, I had thought. Instead, I had an idea for an abbreviated version of Risk (or at least what I believe I remember as being Risk, since it's been a while); just played on a much smaller board. This idea later evolved into something that I’m not entirely sure how to label. In my mind, I think I was envisioning a simplified, turn-based, 1v1 MOBA-esque game. Each player attempts to control a board with a hero, defeating the opposing base as the end goal.

What went right:

Persistence/Changing Directions – It is hard to abandon something that you’ve invested time into. About 20 hours into the Dare, I was incredibly unhappy with my project. I had made good headway and encountered very few headaches. Unfortunately, my game was not working. And I don’t mean that in a technical sense. It wasn't fun to play. It felt pointless, so I felt pointless. I was ready to quit. I took a nice long walk, stretching my legs and my mind. I then came up with an idea for a direction that could use some of the work I had already created. The change provided new motivation. In the end, I still don’t think my game works, but I’m proud for not quitting.

Prioritization – Typically, I'll have a bug or design flaw that I know needs to be fixed. Something important like, you can't get to the game from the main menu. However, because I think it's something I can knock out quickly, I keep putting it off while I figure out how to animate individual blades of grass. Then suddenly it's 15 minutes before I need to post and my blades of grass are animating but you can’t get to the game from the menu. Or I gave up on the grass because I became distracted by some other creep and still no menu fix. This time around, I found myself scope creeping every now and then, but I consistently checked my punch list and if I was working on something that wasn’t on the list, I'd stop and re-prioritize.

Animation – I chose to do virtually no pixel animation this time around. Instead, I animated with code so that I could still add some "flair" but save hours of pixel work. Some of the code animations were more than sufficient, I think.

What went wrong:

My Health – I came into the weekend slightly under the weather, an injury to my hand, and due to not sleeping well, I was nice and tired. But I didn't care. I was so pumped for the Dare that my excitement was kind of curing my ailments. And by curing I just mean masking. As a result, I didn't proceed with my health as an utmost concern. I'm already feeling and will continue to feel the consequences of these actions for at least the rest of this week (and probably 3 more after that).

Music/Sound – I need to spend some time, post-jam, learning the necessary tools so that my learning curve isn’t eating into my schedule. As fun as it was playing with some of these tools, I have nothing that users wouldn't immediately mute. In the end, I just left it out of the game. I'm not really happy with the sound effects I chose to include either.

The Idea/Design – Coming into LD38, I had planned to spend the first night dedicated to design and planning. Really hash it out and have a good roadmap for the morning. About 6 hours after the theme was announced, I had created a mockup in Photoshop and had a basic working prototype – I even had a basic schedule for the next two days. I went to bed thinking, “Wow, I’m really moving. This is great.”. As I mentioned above, I didn’t feel the same 14 hours later. Not every game idea is going to be a winner; I just need to figure out how to recognize the duds a little sooner.

AI – My previous experiences had not prepared me for the type of AI necessary for the type of game I was trying to make. I ultimately made a judgement call to move on to other tasks and leave, what I am calling “Stupid AI” in place.

Closing thoughts

I’m really not happy with my final game. I have my “if I have time” list, but I don’t see myself continuing work on Small Kingdoms. Ultimately, this isn’t the type of game I want to play. I think if I take away anything this time around, it’s that I need to make what I like – something I’d have fun playing. Oh, and I don't like hex grids. It’s been a blast as always and I’m looking forward to the next Ludum Dare. I think I’m going to spend some time in between brushing up on my music and 3D skills. I really want to try something different next time.

I’ll be posting a time-lapse of the making of Small Kingdoms later this week. In the meantime, you can check out my entry here:

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/$15171

Finally finished and uploaded my timelapse for Small Kingdoms. I kind of like the delay before the judging. Gave me and opportunity to right myself after the weekend and finish up this video without taking away from playing the other submissions. Now I'll go into the weekend fresh and ready to game!

If you're interested in trying out Small Kingdoms, you can check out my game page here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/$15171

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRM7cSgAt-w

I was able to compile a working HTML version for my entry. It hasn't under gone intensive testing, but seems to work as well as the Windows build.

Small Kingdoms is a (very) simple, turn-based strategy game that plays on only a 5x3 grid. Your goal is the destroy/capture your opponents base using your race's hero.

If interested, you can find more here.