I haven't participated in a Ludum Dare in a long while - last time was still on the old website, where I did three of them. My username there was 222464 - I made a few games, my personal favorite being "Hero Must Die".

I'm a bit rusty when it comes to game dev, but I felt like participating once again.

This time, I am making a CTF game (capture the flag). There will be a special mechanic (not visible in the image) involving reinforcement learning (which in turn ties it to the theme).

The "graphics" are horrible, I know. It's probably the ugliest looking game I have ever made, actually. I will try to improve them a bit if there is time left after implementing the "special mechanic". I am taking this LD pretty slow, so this will be a Jam entry.

No idea if the mechanic will work out yet, I hope it will be fun to play. Will see soon enough!

So, I "finished" my game (Dopamine Drip), with which I spent most of the time developing a reward system for. I could not find a good enough one in time, so I uploaded the first one that worked. I will probably make a post-jam version with the latest reward system that works way better, and results in much more interesting behavior than just "I collect flags faster than you". Well, I guess the AI's fit the theme a bit too much!

Right now it is very easy to win by just stealing your own flag and hiding in a corner. I feel like with a bit more effort this could be fun, but right now it kind of sucks.

Anyway, if you want to try it, here is the link.

Hi,

I have participated in Ludum Dare on and off for (10)? years. On the old LD website my username was 222464 I believe. My gimmick is that my games use some sort of AI/Machine Learning. I'm not really a game dev anymore, I research machine learning, but I like to make ML-based games here from time to time. I always find a way to make the theme work with ML. My best rated game so far was "Hero Must Die" for LD 25, where the AI plays the game and you need to make the levels impossible for it to beat.

Things I have used in the past: - SDL - SFML - C++ - OpenGL - Web Assembly - Gimp

What I will probably use this time: - SFML - C++ - OpenGL - neovim - Gimp (2D) - Blender (3D) - My AI software, AOgmaNeo

If there is an artist out there who wants to team up for this event, let me know!

Hi, I'm a bit late on the start, but I have got some things done worth sharing I think.

I decided I wanted to make a game where you go deeper and deeper into a weird facility, where you face increasingly powerful reinforcement-learning-controlled monsters.

So far I have basically no gameplay at all, but I do have some graphics going. I am using a dynamic light/shadows system I developed a long time ago called Let There Be Light 2 (LTBL2, for SFML), along with LDtk to create a map. The marine character is made in Gimp.

The hardest part will be the AI I think, since I need to set up Box2D physics for it to learn on. The gameplay will hopefully be physics-based AI-controlled monsters that have "weak spots" of certain types that you need to shoot at.

I will probably need the extra time provided by a Jam entry to get something worth playing.

Anyways here is a screenshot!

Since my previous post, I have added randomly generated creatures with Box2D physics. They do not learn to attack you yet, that comes tomorrow!

Hi,

I created 3 different "biomes" for my game, with 2 levels in each. The game is usually super easy, unless you get unlucky and an impossible creature spawns.

The AI works, but the creature generation is a bit lacking. It often spawns creatures that are basically just blobs that cannot be moved at a reasonable pace, no matter how good the AI. The generator also doesn't really get more difficult as levels progress, despite increasing the probabilities of a larger generation for each "biome". Not sure why yet.

Well, I have 10 more hours to get it to work or upload the failed attempt!

Image of the final biome:

Hi,

I have done several Ludum Dares in the past (I think the first I did was LD23), most were using quickly hacked together 2D engines. This time I want to use my old 3D engine that I made several years ago and see if I can make a fun game with it. As usual, my game will use some sort of AI (with reinforcement learning).

Tools: - neovim (editor) - PGE (parallel game engine, the old 3D engine I made) - AOgmaNeo (super fast online/incremental learning AI software) - Audacity (audio) - Gimp (textures) - Blender (3D modeling) - OS: BTW (linux, will compile a windows version as well though)

My engine is currently ready for horror-type games, so depending on the theme it might be pretty moody looking. I don't really develop games anymore, I research AI, but I find it nice to take a weekend to make a game from time to time - especially if I can justify it by using the AI!

Spooky!

Here's another screenshot for the day - something's coming!

So I am making a simple game where you must assist a robot (controlled by an AI) to deliver something across the map. The graphics are horrendous, but there is still some time to improve it (going for the Jam).

I tried making a 3D game in Godot first, but various engine limitations prevented me from using my AI (can't run faster than real-time is a big one). So, I switched to a 2D WebAssembly game, which took a while to get all the libraries (especially Box2D) working with emscripten. So I basically wasted most of the development time. Well, let's see if I can get something playable at least!

Hi,

So I created my game and zipped it with index.html in the root folder. However, it says it cannot find it (404). I don't know where else to ask for assistance on this, so here is a blog post.

Started with a random creature generator. They are pre-rendered to sprites, so I can render thousands of them.