Hello! I love coffee and games, so this is just made for me.

I have no idea what I’ll do this in, but I’m looking forward to seeing the final theme!

Hey world! This’ll be my second Dare, and potentially the first one I finish. I’ve bought a fresh bag of coffee, and readied a Unity3D trial. I’ll be either using my own HTML5 engine or Unity, depending on the theme! Got all sorts of juicy pretentious indie ideas floating about. I’ll be twittering away into the night, say hi! @tomkail

It’s 9.30 here in Britain, time to get started!

Spent most of the morning making the engine, now we’re getting places! It’s called Ego, and its about relationships and power.

After a false start (spent the whole day on the engine for a game which didn’t work out), I’ve got a new idea and a new uber-minimal style! Its about interpreting 3D geometry in 2D space.

Tags: xyz

Whoa, I might even finish this time! Just got to fit a few more levels in and I’m done!

Play it here!
http://tomkail.com/xyz/

I finished Ludum Dare for the first time, and came out the other side with XYZ, and I’m damned proud of it. It goes without saying that I’d do it again in a heartbeat, but I didn’t expect to be saying those words yesterday. When time is running out and you don’t know what to do, its amazing how erratic you can become.

Day 1

I woke up at 8.30 (UK time), checked the theme and made some breakfast. My idea came to me nearly instantly. It was to be a game about the link between power and human relationships, and it was going to be mindblowing. The narrative and gameplay meshed together beautifully in my head, and I immediately started coding. Mistake 1: Don’t attempt to create an HTML5 engine from scratch. By 5pm I had my engine at a reasonable level (I’m still damned proud of that engine), and I quickly built up the mechanics of the game. Except they didn’t work. It was a game built upon 3 simple rules; 1. People seek power, 2. People gain power by taking it from others, and 3. The powerful need more power to sustain their egos; but I couldn’t balance my AI. Power, it seems, is a freight train. The 1% effect. I learned a valuable lesson about mankind, and lost 12 hours of coding. Mistake 2: Prototype everything, even your prototypes. What now? I spent the rest of the night trying to salvage my beautiful engine, attempting to justify using it at any cost. Every 15 minutes I would alternate between a new idea and attempting to fix the original game, swinging from delight to depression like a pendulum. Mistake 3: Cut your losses. By 3am I had finally given up. I sank a couple of beers and went to bed.

All I have to show for 24 hours work.

Day 2

I woke at a more reasonable 11am, and rose feeling defeated. Bitter. Game designer ego does not take well to defeat. I couldn’t resist taking one last crack at the contest. This time, it would be different. It would be simple, concise and different. I chose Unity, my trusty silent compadre, and took a very small and underdeveloped part of a concept I had floating around my mind. Understanding 1: Work with what you know. It was to be the puzzle side of the fast paced racer which had been long ago silently converted into a fast paced racer with no puzzles (shameless plug – you can totally play the alpha of that game here). I cut everything from the idea that didn’t support the core, and carved out the perspective tricks brought forward by the excellent Fez. Understanding 2: If it can be cut, cut it; especially when the theme is minimalism. I started with a test level to make sure the concept worked. It worked. Satisfied, I started work on some essential middleware tools I would need to save time down the line. Creating and saving meshes from within Unity, that sort of thing. If you don’t know it Unity Answers is a beautiful place. This wasn’t fast, but it was worth it – I could create shapes and levels rapidly. I worked up the first 6 levels in an hour. I had 8 left, but I wanted a finished game as soon as possible. Understanding 3: Polish is 90% of your game’s appeal. I created a simple menu and a few more levels. With 6 hours left, I could spend plenty of time on sound and visuals. The style was born from effective of a single Unity filter, mimicking the beautiful world of Echochrome. I am not a sound designer, but FruityLoops makes it insanely easy to create quality sound in a short space of time (and skill). Despite all this, I submitted just 10 minutes before the deadline. I narrowly avoided the greatest mistake I could have made: Understanding 4: Allow an hour for submission. Screenshots within the Ludum Dare submission page lose their splendour and be aware that people pick games based on how they look, not the quirky name or genuinely original mechanic. Exporting and uploading too, takes time. I’m sure some Dare’ers missed the submission date by seconds, and they will have learnt this lesson the hard way.

Keeping it simple in every way but the puzzles.

That was my Ludum Dare. It had highs and lows, but there’s nothing quite like the feeling of finishing something you’re truly proud of, even if it isn’t objectively very good. But it’s not my place to argue whether I made a good game, it’s yours. You can play and rate XYZ here – I’d love to know what you think.

Tags: minimalism, post-mortem, postmortem, xyz

This entry was posted on Monday, April 29th, 2013 at 11:24 am and is filed under LD #26. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Are you playing Ludum Dare games? Are you drinking? Could you be drinking? (whether you should be is another story)
Either way, consider this as a metagame with the added incentive of alcohol! Happy boozing!

Please don’t take this as an offence, it’s intended only as a lighthearted parody. If you’re interested in remixing or adding to the rules, the PSD can be found here!

The newly formed Bournemouth Game Development Society in the south of England will be getting together for the Ludum weekend! If anyone is around the area and interested in joining in, ping me an email at tkail92@gmail.com. See you there!

My 4th attempt starts tomorrow morning! I’ll be using Unity.

Just woke up and saw the theme. It’s quite abstract and open, which is a double edged sword. I find that the best LD games tend to have simple unique mechanics and focus on allowing time for content creation and polish, so I might work with that in mind. On the other hand, I’ve got a first person skiing game in my head, and I’d like to see if it works!