This is just in Inkscape, no code yet. My idea is that the screen will be full of swans grabbing coloured food items, each having a different ‘powerup’ effect, some good, some bad! Simple controls, just click/touch a position to whoosh there.
I use MonkeyX for coding, Inkscape/Gimp graphics. Probably sfxr for sounds.
I’ll use pixel style gfx just for simplicity (+ I can’t draw birds). This is my first ld48 so don’t expect a miracle 😉
baz.
I have a swan on the screen, and it moves! Ok, yeah, not that much progress. I sense a busy day tomorrow. Screenshot shows html5 output from MonkeyX. I use my own Congo framework, but MonkeyX has a few good frameworks to choose from.
baz
The swans cross the screen from random edges. You click/touch to move your swan to any point (it eases/tweens to that location). My plans for fancy powerups etc will prob be cut for v1.0 , but I want to add combos since that would introduce more gameplay tactics. Its v simple 😛
By about 6:30 pm my Todo list was empty, and I could then do final tests on a range of browsers. Luckily, no awful bugs appeared so far (touch wood!). It runs fairly smoothly, but I don’t really optimise for browsers much.
I’ll admit I aimed fairly low for my first LD48, but saying that I think it was a good simple project to do; I didn’t have any new tech to learn, or new algorithms to work out. I could just enjoy watching it take shape. It has a single ‘level’ (randomised enemies), and 1 core game mechanic. Rather than try to draw realistic birds, water etc, I went for the ol’ retro look, but with some glowy filters on top (Inkscape). I did plan for more bird sprite animation frames, but I just went for the simplest approach.
I actually spent a lot of Saturday on graphics, whilst formulating the gameplay ideas, 90% of the coding happened on Sunday. I went for a long walk on Saturday and changed some key ideas before writing any (wasted) code.
Originally I mentioned wanting lots of different power-ups (hence the different food colours), but I soon changed to just a ‘score dash’ type game for v1. Power-ups could be fun to add later.
I was pretty ‘lazy’ with sound effects, just a few clicks in cfxr and tweaks in Audacity, it suits the retro style I think. Music… didn’t happen this time.
The final game is ~400 lines of MonkeyX code. My Congo framework saves me a little time (available via my site + github).
PS my top score is 800… 😉
Unity, ~300 lines of code.
Other tools: Inkscape, GIMP, Sfxr.
What went right:
For my 2nd Ludum Dare I wanted to be more adventurous, thinking harder about the theme interpretation than I did for LD 29 (where I just made an arcade game which vaguely used the theme). I did not use my first few ideas, or rush into it. I went away from my desk to think. Finally, I decided on a genre new to me; a slower-paced puzzle/adventure based on dreams, with some narrative elements and a real ending.
Overall, I’m fairly happy with the end result, and I enjoyed working in a different genre. I think the game successfully conveys what I was aiming for, and uses the ‘connected worlds’ theme in multiple ways. I took some inspiration from games like Journey and Dear Esther (walking simulators..?), and even the ‘P.T.’ teaser — all those repeating doors and riddles!
The controls are simple, no complications there. The graphics took a long time to make, but I was aiming for a dream-like style. However, some of the filters are used to simply hide my dodgy drawing 
. I did not attempt 3d models this time (next time!).
There were no major problems in Unity, except my general lack of experience and a few crashes. The scope of the game was correct for the time available, I didn’t feel too rushed on the 2nd day. I only wasted a bit of time on mechanics that didn’t make it into the final game.
I created just 2 sound effects, but I thought it was enough (less is more??). Bad music would just detract from the game.
What went wrong:
I originally planned to use a range of interactions, e.g. having the player’s controls transfer to the other people/items in the scene. However, my initial attempts just didn’t look or work right, so I had to re-think it all on day 2, which is never the best idea.
The creation of the graphics was both good and bad; its not quite as nice as I would like, but it has a mostly cohesive style. The colors and shapes could’ve been stronger. The game doesn’t really use full 3d, all the graphics are flat sprites in the 3d scene.
Didn’t get a chance to get much feedback from players before submitting the final game.
Finally, I slept really badly on Saturday night (ironically enough), so I wasn’t exactly feeling 100%.
Play it here: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-30/?action=preview&uid=36950
** SPOILERS!! Play game before reading! ** The stages in the game are of course a metaphor for sleep stages and trying to wake up. The other figures are memories of friends etc in your dream, or perhaps other dreamers. You cannot trigger the final stages by passing through the windows/portals alone, you must enter just after another figure has passed through from the other side, i.e. whilst you are both still glowing (‘connected worlds’ again). Who knows, maybe this process helps you sort out your memories, then finally conclude your dream… 
Slow progress, but added enemy copters, fixed bugs in rope. May require coding miracle tomorrow. #LDJAM pic.twitter.com/rXpz5F2eUG
— Barry (@GoodReactions) December 6, 2014
Fought with some weird Unity issues, and generally wasn’t very productive I think.
Slightly concerned I’ll need to cut this game so much it just won’t be what I imagined
Gonna sleep on it.
Decided to push onward, and hope for a productive day. Had a couple of ideas overnight, but I need to do things in a sensible order in case I run out of time.
Also changed the name to ‘Release the Yeti’, since thats what happens (plan is to start him in a crate). ie you avenge your captors. I recall reading a good article saying that your game’s name *is* your story, however small. ie even ‘Space Invaders’ tells you exactly the story.
Good luck everyone!
After a slightly dodgy first day, had a super-productive 2nd day and got everything done in time. Game plays pretty much as I’d planned. I added the ‘movie screen’ theme for some extra silliness. Even had time for an intro scene where he escapes from the crate. Did more with audio than previous jams; made some vaguely decent sounds in cfxr, plus mixed together a music track.
I will write a post-mortem tomorrow – I’m gonna get some sleep now.
Play/rate it here: http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-31/?action=preview&uid=36950
Good luck all.
Theme/idea: Ok, so I totally expected ‘Snowman’ to win and had a few ideas relating to that (mountain climbing, sled racing…). I struggled with ideas for the actual theme. So many games are already ‘one screen’, so I really admire devs who found clever innovations using this.
Anyway, I looked through the other final-round themes; ☃ + Death is Useful + Everything Falls Apart + You Are Not Supposed To Be Here + Chaos + You Can’t Stop, and combined them all!
The cinema overlay idea came on Day 2. Not super-original I know, but adds the theme again.
Day 1 summary:
Was a tough start, trying to get my ideas together. Prototyped the rope swinging and did a few graphics. Wrote almost no code, just used the Unity editor. Wasted time on a Unity line rendering issue. Very slow progress; thought about packing it in, but slept on it…
Day 2 summary:
Up early. Needed to be super-productive all day, and was! Got working on enemy code. Game seemed fun. No major coding headaches. Added the movie theatre theme, changed name to ‘Release the Yeti’. I knew by early afternoon that I could deliver the game. Uploaded it around 10pm.
Original sketch and finished game. Close enough.
What worked:
I’ve made a few Unity games, so fairly confident with it. No new tech to learn, aside from the physics joint stuff.
Day 2 was amazingly productive, felt good.
Rope physics seems to work well enough.
Scope was about right, more ambitious than my previous LD games, but didn’t cut anything major out.
Had time for some extra touches, like the intro scene, and crate escape scene.
Fairly happy with the graphics/style; didn’t spend ages on it, or become too annoyed with my drawing skills.
What didn’t:
After Day 1 the game seemed waaay off from anything complete. A little more progress would’ve kept me more positive.
Use of theme? I did kinda use the theme in 2 ways, but ideally I’d try something more innovative.
Audio is still a low priority, i.e. I’m just glad of a few noises from Sfxr, and a short music loop.
Could’ve done with some level progression and goals? (players pointed this out).
Controls aren’t perfect, partly due to physics.
As usual, should get more user feedback early on. So easy to miss this, but important!
Plans: I have a list of fixes and improvements based on feedback. Maybe will do a mobile version. Will replace all audio, I expect.
Tools used: Unity, Inkscape, Gimp, Audacity, Sfxr.
*** Check out Jupi Plays Indie Games: Ludum Dare 31 [Part 2]!! ***
[click to view anim gif]
Will write a proper post-mortem tomorrow, but having given up on the jam yesterday I woke up with a new idea! Had to be basic, but I’m pretty happy with how the game mechanic turned out.
All the best to those still working hard,
baz
Day 1 summary:
I do like the theme, yet still struggled a bit with ideas. Finally decided to make a ‘Rube Goldberg’ style puzzler where you deliver a nasty substance onto a victim’s head. I started prototyping. Problem 1: liquids are hard to simulate (I have no ‘base code’ for it). Problem 2: good puzzles are even harder to design. Got nowhere, gave up. Assumed this was the end of my LD32… #Fail.
Day 2 summary:
Back in the game! As often happens, I woke up with a new idea that might just be doable in a day. Worked super-hard in the morning to prototype it. Hmm, it’s kinda fun! Most of the work was in the Unity editor, with only ~150 lines of code. Relies a lot on physics + randomised levels.
What worked:
New game idea was simple enough to do in <12 hours without cutting corners.
Focused on 1 core game mechanic. Got it up and running quickly, established it was fun. This really boosts your confidence.
Didn't require complex level design or a lot of content (randomised levels).
Graphics all easy to draw.
What didn’t go so well:
Everything on day 1. Need to prototype or design on paper asap, and be realistic.
Wasn’t up to speed on Unity5 changes, ie new particle systems, UI/canvas stuff.
Not as adventurous as I could’ve been, fairly similar to my other games.
Plans: Might put it out on mobile after improving and tweaking a few things, + after seeing feedback.
Tools used: Unity5, Inkscape, GIMP, Sfxr, Audacity.
Thanks for playing! I’ve just rated my first 50 games, there are some really great ones, very imaginative.
Eventually came up with an idea: Space shooter meets Golf. Pretty easy to get up and running in Unity. I'm thinking a blast radius around the laser shots, to move the balls toward the hole. Dunno, will see how well it works, maybe they really are incompatible 😒 👽
Submitted. Well, I think it is. Been a while since I did an LDJAM, forgotten the process :D
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/alien-holes
Pretty happy with Day 2. Wanted to add more courses, but soon became apparent it was better to polish/fix what I had. Same goes for music, and better sfx.
Looking forward to playing everyone's entries, seems like this theme has resulted in lots of crazy ideas!
Laterz.
Rogue Ball https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/rogue-ball by @ctran13 👊
Can't let you people have all the fun.
Abandoned my first Compo idea, and had to be out most of saturday anyway, but then realised I could finally make a maths/puzzler idea I've wanted to do for ages. Will have to be Jam entry though. I didn't see too many other puzzlers(?).
Doesn't look much yet, but it will when I've added some sci-fi stuff :smile: Game basically works - roll the 3 'dice' then use maths to claim a space on the grid - until you 'run out of space'. Prime numbers will score a bonus. AI code took a while, but brute-forced it (3 numbers x 4 maths operations = not that many checks).
Prime Planets?
Summing Out of Space?
BIDMAS Effect?
Phew, made it! 2 solid days of coding, and it turned out so much cooler than I'd even hoped :smile: Entering the jam made it a little easier to focus on the game code, and grab some art/sfx assets elsewhere. I doubt its 100% bug-free -- due to maths and spaghetti code -- but fingers-crossed.
If the LD servers haven't melted, it can be downloaded from here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/prime-planets
Here we go..! Better late than never.
TOOLS USED: Unity, Inkscape, GIMP, Audacity.
Play the game here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/prime-planets
THEME ANNOUNCEMENT:
I liked the new 11am (BST) start time since I could (in theory) come up with some amazing idea and sleep on it. Alternatively, it could make my brain not sleep. It did that.
I expected 'Fragile', 'Decay' or 'One minute' to win, and had some ideas for those, which were of course now useless. My initial thought was (as usual...) to imagine some 3d physics craziness in Unity, maybe using a swarm of nav agents chasing / being chased.
I vowed this time to not enter Ludum Dare unless its a game idea I really really want to make. Either the mechanics or use of theme had to really grab me.
SATURDAY
Prototyped the physics/nav agent thing. I thought the swarm of nav agent blobs could later be cats. I was going out all afternoon, but anyway, I had some blobs navigating a super-simple maze, with walls to block them. I added some jump code to see if they'd pile on top of eachother and get over the walls, but I soon discover that mixing nav agents and physics is pretty awkward. I later added some boxes, thinking the player could move these into place, as the room shrunk perhaps. Kinda worked, but very glitchy. Moveover, wouldn't every level be the same? ie move boxes into place, wait for cat glitching to occur.
As mentioned above, this didn't seem to be a game I really wanted to make, or one that would even be playable. Went out on my trip, kinda giving up on the original idea and jam altogether. In the evening I browsed the site, seeing many fantastic games well underway.
SUNDAY
A thought occured to me: I could make a maths game (note - I'm a maths & computing teacher). I get to see various maths resources over the years. Dice/number games are some of the most common, so I don't claim a lot of originality, but I did my best to add my spin on everything. A space theme would work really well, and you 'run out of space' in many board/puzzle games as the board fills up.
From this point, I was really productive. The requirements of the game code are very clear, and theres no major stumbling blocks to making a 2d puzzle game like this.
-- Early progress getting the board set up.
The hardest bit was the computer AI, which in the end is a brute-force checking of all combinations of numbers and operations.
It wasnt realistic to hit the Compo deadline, so for the first time I entered the Jam. It did have the advantage of allowing me to grab some graphics and audio from elsewhere.
WHAT WENT WELL
Completed the game fully, nothing major got cut though proper help/menus would've been nice. I could also add a 'hint' option, that would be cool. As would difficulty levels. But overall, scope was just about perfect for 2 days. By entering the Jam I could spend most of my time on coding. Creating audio is never my strong point, but I think the sounds combine quite well.
The AI took ~50% of the time to code, and many bugs were squashed. It was challenging but never frustrating to code.
WHAT DIDN'T GO SO WELL
Struggling on Fri/Sat, brainstorming ideas. Not just re-treading my usual go-to ideas. Need to be better at 'thinking outside of the box'. Hence, started too late for the Compo.
Very little time for testing, resulted in a bunch of bugs, which early testers spotted. One major bug let the AI cheat, so I did patch that one asap.
-- One of many bugs, now fixed...
Technically, JS/HTML5 would've been fine for this game (and its output usually plays well on iPad), but I'm very rusty with that tech (e.g. Phaser), so went with Unity.
Overall, I enjoyed being so productive and making a game that turned out well (imo), and I find fun to play myself.
A look back at my ldjam entries. The ratings are vaguely comparable since the number of entries hasn't changed that much since LD31 (for the Compo anyway. Jam entries gone up more, I think). I'm consistent if nothing else. Thanks for all the ratings + supportive comments!
I'm happy, of course, with my LD42 result, nearly matching my LD31, which was a much more actiony/humorous arcade game. Wider appeal + quick/fun gameplay + decent use of theme = success?
For LD30 I made a really weird moody game. Scored well for mood, but was barely a game ;)
LD42 Prime Planets [JAM] Overall: 298 Best category: Innovation 114
LD41 Alien Holes [COMPO] Overall: 543 Best category: Innovation 331
bit of a gap...
LD32 Sticky Bomber [COMPO] Overall 590 Best category: Fun 360
LD31 Release the Yeti [COMPO] Overall: 240 Best category: Humour 45 (& Fun 59)
LD30 Escape the Dream [COMPO] Overall: 565 Best category: Mood 30 (yes, 30).
LD29 Stroppy Swan [COMPO] Overall: 388 Best category: Fun 248
We all moan about the themes, but I then realise how hard it is to come up with open, original themes...
I went with:
o You find a map...
o It's Alive!
o Back to where it started