First Ludum Dare for me, after i joined on short notice only hours before the start. Had problems to find a useable idea for the theme “You are the Monster!” and came up with “You are the Monster(creator)!”, meaning i wanted to make an spore like monster creator tool. Give a few body part as standard and let the people creater their own. Well… let´s say i really realized how low my experience with javascript and other parts are. No wonder, most of my works until now were only sites who needed to look nice, with no or only very little effects. Didn´t work with canvas before either. My plan is now down to “let the people draw!” and perhaps an option to save it as image only, you that you can compare yourself with others.  At least i managed to create a canvas, where you can draw (continous) lines, rects and arcs, either stroked or filled. Ah, yes, you can select a color too. Firefox and Chrome give you an color-picker, in internet explorer you have to type the color in the box Btw, that´s the link to the project.

And that´s that for today, let´s see how much i can finish tomorrow.

I still can´t believe it, 3-4 days ago i wasn´t sure if i really should join and now i did it. Well, it´s not really great, i had a lot of problems and you can´t even call it a game, i think. But i didn´t pull out and next time i will make it better!

Just glad i managed to made the last few things. Today was really horrible, normal workday, on the way back home i entered the wrong subway and after that a wrong bus too! Could only start 4 hours ago. But i don´t want complain, i am hust happy i did manage to finish…something… Erm, well, i think i go sleeping now^^

Hi everybody,

first, for all who tested and rated my entry, thank you! If you haven´t until now, please do me the favor and do it

Now, to the real post-mortem:

That was the first ludumdare i ever joined. I did know only little bit of it thanks to a working collague, but was already so fascinated that i wanted to join. Well, i made the decision only hours before the LD33 startet with no real plan or anything else.

When the theme was announced i was a bit disappointet. It sounded so much like a monster-rpg or jump and run, which i wasn´t really eager to program. But after quite some time i had an different idea: What about a…monster creator tool? You know, like Spore back than, you have a basic body and can form it as you want. Until you have your dream monster. I pictured it really cool in my head. 3D- graphic, free movement of the body, different body part you can change as you want, background-images… Sound great, doesn´t it? Well, who ever already tried out my creator-tool know already the difference beetween the idea and the finished product…

So, how did my weekend run?

On saturday i lost much time to find the “right” idea for me. After that i needed even more time to figure out how to do it. I tried severals things with 3D-Canvas cause i am an junior-web developer (so other languages were out of questions for me), but realized soon that a real 3d tool is way to much which my low experience. So i changed back to 2d.  Then i tried to add a basic body and different body part. But i sucked at drawing so nothing really useable came out. So i reduced my idea even further: let the other create the part, just give them the right tool for it. Finally i did the basics, namely the drawing options.

Sunday was a short day, you could say. For one, there was the formula one race i had to watch. And i absoluty can´t watch and do something else at the same time. Secondly, i lost again much time, this time because i had to find the error which prevented succesful uploads of the images. Ah, yes, i didn´t mention it until now, but the users should have the options to upload there monster to compare them with the one from others. Eventually it was only a permission-error…. There was nothing really more on this day, i lost focus way to easy several times…

Originally i wanted to take part in the compo, because i had to work on monday. But my tool was still too imperfect and unfinished, so i changed it to the jam to have a bit more time on monday evening. Well…should i tell you, that i absoluty had to take the wrong subway on my way back home this day? And i left on the wrong station after that too….dont ask, i dont know myself what was wrong with me… Finally, i arrived around 10pm at home and immedietly start working on it. There were still a few bugs. And colors were missing too. Around 2:30am, the next morning basically, i submittet my work. Somehow disappointed of the leftover of my originally idea, somehow glad i joined the LD and finished something. And tired as hell. Of course i had work the next day too, argh…

From then to now i had only little time to rate other games, so i have not that much rates myself too. But i am glad that my idea seemed to be liked. Even if almost everyone say that controls are a bit difficult. It´s true and i asked myself afterwards to why i made it that way. But oh well, i´ve done it and it´s not really a bug, so no changing it. But i am really glad that people seem to like my idea There also some (really) cool monster in the gallery. I do wonder, who did “angry snail blob thing”, “E monster” or “Nisco”. I fucking love these 3. Should have added an input field for the name of the monster creator…

That how my first LD went. And i surely will join the next one again! Hopefully with a better entry than this one.

See you again!

PS: please rate my game^^ i will rate your´s too 😉