I’m in. 2nd time. Although it will have to be a part time entry, as I have a 2 week old baby.

I’ll be using:

Engine: Unity
Graphics: Photoshop
3D: 3dsmax
Music: Garage Band
Sound Effects: Haven’t Decided Yet.

Just under 12 hours in.

I have the terrain/level design where I want it.

Now to make a game out of it.

To play the current terrain only build check out my blog

Hi All,

12 hours left, nearly midnight here in Sydney. I don’t think i’ll have the game complete to where i would of liked it. Base gameplay is working, just haven’t implemented the evolution concept that well yet.

Feel free to check out a playable build on my blog: http://atlantianinteractive.blogspot.com.au/2012/08/ld24-12-hours-left.html The width is restricted and the GUI works better on the full size screen.

Whats left: Implementing spending the evolution points and adding audio.

I’ll be joining in this time after having to miss out the last two. I’ll be using:

Hardware: Macbook Pro

Engine: Unity

Graphics: Photoshop/Maya

Music: Garage Band

Sfx : Probably record my own, or sfxr if I’m short of time.

Well time to get to it. I’ve been out so far all day and just got home.

I wasn’t an initial fan of the theme. Seemed to be too many easy ways out. But have come up with an idea. Not sure how much i’ll get done, only have around 12-18hours available for the rest.

I’ll be using Unity, 3dsmax, photoshop primarily, I’ll find something for audio.

This will be my 4th Ludum Dare over the last 3 years. I meant to start the last 2 but family work commitments took over and I didn’t get a chance to write a line of code.

This time, I have taken holidays with work and made plans to be free to take part.

My tools

• Unity
• C#
• Visual Studio 2013
• 3dsmax
• Photoshop
• LMMS
• Yahoo Games Network (if I decide to do multiplayer)

Some tips:

• Sleep: you will be much more productive with sleep than without. Solution to bugs seem to become obvious after even 20min sleep. Don’t exhaust yourself.
• Eat semi-healthy. Unless you eat it normally, your body won’t cope with 48 hours of only junk food. Keep your regular diet.
• Drink water: Yeah drink your energy drinks and coffee, but keep drinking water to keep your hydration up. Your brain functions much better when you are hydrated. Better functioning brain means better game means more fun for me when I play it.
• Have fun: No one is making you enter. If you aren’t having fun have a think about why not, what can you change to make it fun for you.
• Plan: Once the theme is announced and you come up with an idea (the idea itself can take some time, don’t stress if it doesn’t come quickly) plan out your time for the remainder of the game jam. Plan what you should be doing at what time( art, coding, music, polishing, etc). This way you will know if you are falling behind and need to cut features or if you are ahead and can spend some extra time polishing your game. Don’t stress if you end up falling behind or changing the plan, it’s just a guide. If you FAIL to PLAN you PLAN to FAIL.

These are some tips that help me. Your milage may vary.

I still can’t really believe I pulled it off. Although more could be done with it. I managed to get most of the core systems in.

The Good

Mental Preparation: I had long planned entering this ludum dare. I decided that i was going to give it a go no matter what the theme. Once this was decided and i was prepared, everything seemed to go a lot smoother than previous dares.

Theme: I felt the theme was a great theme this time. It allowed all different sorts of games to be made and I have really enjoyed playing through a fair few of them.

Construct 2: I intended (even in my I’m in post) to use unity, c# and 3D for my game this time. While reading other’s I’m in posts, I kept checking out the engines people were using. I saw someone mention Construct 2 and I hadn’t heard of it so i checked it out. It looked powerful for a game creator. I know you’re really not supposed to use ludum dare to try new tools but I thought i’d give it a go. I felt a little bad using a creator and not coding it myself, however what it allowed me to do so quickly far outweighed my inner desire to prove that I am a programmer (I code in c# everyday for my job). It’s in built systems such as path-finding saved hours of manual coding.

Art: I felt I got on top of the artwork quite quickly. I was dreading creating a tileset but it turned out quite nicely.

Systems: I managed to create a leveling system which increased the XP required to level each time. It also increased the monster difficulty each level while also making the leveling feel as if the hero was getting more powerful each time.

My Wife: My wife totally supported me during the dare, looking after my 3 young girls completely and freeing me up to work the entire weekend on it.

The Bad

Limiting myself: From the outset when i decided that i was going to attempt a top down action rpg, I decided i was going to have levels, 2 or more enemies that increase in difficulty and some form of scoring. I wanted to add an inventory system with loot, but decided that I wouldn’t attempt in due to the time restrictions. As it happened i had some spare time at the end but wasn’t prepared enough to add it in. Also I mentally limited the different types of enemies to 2 and could of added more.

Too much caffiene: I had too much caffiene that when i eventually went to bed the first night, I couldn’t sleep and only ended up having 2 hours. This meant I needed more caffiene the next day which kind of continued the cycle.

General

I enjoyed this ludum dare and was surprised with the amount that ended up in the game by the end of the weekend.

Feel free to give it a go if you haven’t yet:

Beneath The Mountain

I’ll be in, this will be my 5th Ludum Dare.

Tools: Unity, VS2013, 3ds max, photoshop.

Maybe I’ll try the Unreal engine.

What are your thoughts on using Open Source Map data and displaying that creatively in game? Would that data qualify as existing content and thus make the game ineligible for compo?

A friend (@nacho-hon) and I are working together to build a Synthwave loop generator for the Jam. The idea is that as you edit the music tracks, the environment will change. Let's hope we can get it done. Here is a WIP of the graphics component. https://youtu.be/yoq0juPX5Ew