I’ve been a longtime lurker of Ludum Dare, since around the second year, watching people go through its trials and tribulations. It’s been something that, until now, I’ve been frankly afraid to try.

Until now. I’ve made only a handful of completed games in the past, mostly niche things that were more to see if I could do it rather than show the world. My self-confidence in programming games hasn’t exactly been what you would call high.

But now I’m throwing my hat in and going to try it. I’m not hoping to win Ludum Dare 30. I’m only hoping I finish this time around and possibly make a game that at least one complete stranger on the Internet out there likes.

So what will I use? My main tools that I’ve come to like as dependable, quick, and easy are:

• Python
• Pygame
• pytmx
• py2exe
• Tiled
• sfxr
• GIMP
• Notepad++

From what I’ve seen, the LD community is very supportive. I’m glad to be entering such a large group of likeminded individuals and groups.

It’s been a tough last 24 hours for me. Tough enough that I reached a level of frustration where quitting seemed like a viable option.

Then I walked away for a little bit and calmed down some. Every time I’d hit a problem, it wouldn’t just break code, it would break it spectacularly, introducing a wave of more bugs.

Getting pep talks from my wife helped. She is an athlete, whereas I’m not. Which is why I loved the idea of Ludum Dare. I could see this as a competition with others, but to me I’m really competing with myself. So after many hours of trying to solve what should have been an utterly trivial problem, banging of head on the wall, and going out for a milkshake, I think the biggest and worst problems are behind me. I hope I don’t fall down that rabbit hole again. At this point I’m going to go with submitting what I have as part of the Jam instead of the compo. It’s not that I don’t think I can, but having those extra hours to make up for slipping on the ice will really help. That and I’m using public domain art since I can’t draw worth spit. And here’s where I am now. Doesn’t look like a lot, but it’s finally working!

The first working screenshot. No name yet.

The first level, or at least the framework of it in Tiled.

Still working on mine for the Jam. After switching tilesets and going to a camera clamping system, everything just started working. Now I can have maps of variable sizes that can stay centered on the player, something of a holy grail for me. While that other tileset was nice, it just had way too many problems and I didn’t have the time to try and fix them.

A few things I’ve learned so far:

1. Make sure something works first. Add the pretty effects and animation later.
2. If something simply isn’t working and you’ve burned hours on it trying to make it work, put it aside and come back to it later if there’s time.
3. Never underestimate the power of walking away for a few.
4. Sleep is good. Your subconscious can sometimes solve problems for you while you sleep.
5. Don’t upgrade anything when you’re in the middle of work. Something will invariably break.

Even if I can’t submit by the Jam’s deadline, I’m already calling this a personal success. The number of technical problems I’ve solved has made this all worth it.

Using a new tileset made a big difference.

You know things are going good when you’re spending more time in your level editor than the codebase because it. just. works.

That’s a beautiful thing. The base mechanics of the game are pretty much finished. It was a little tricky to get it right because I’d never done anything with interconnecting maps and portals before. By leaving it very generic and letting the data from the level editor speak to the engine, it became almost academic.

Now it looks like there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. I just might get this finished and packaged up before the Jam ends. No matter what though I came out of this with a good game engine that I didn’t have only 2 days prior.

Now here’s some more screenshots. I finally locked in an objective based on my own interpretation of the theme. Connected Worlds, almost immediately to me, went in reverse and I thought: okay, so two worlds are already connected. How do I disconnect them?

With bombs of course. The objective is to go through all of the portals to the other side, get a bomb, plug it into the computer port for that portal, and get back through before it blows.

Somebody set us up the bomb!

Plug the bomb into the computer port that controls that portal.

Get out of there!

At this point it’s a straightforward platform puzzler (platzler? pluzzler?) You could play it as-is and probably even have some fun. I’d like to add some enemies that can provide further obstacles and a reason you have a health meter, along with ammo crates.

Mixing multiple tilesets from different sources seems to be working well so far. I had to scale up and sprite the bomb and the computer port though (they’re both animated).

And I still don’t have a name for it yet. Any ideas? I’m open to suggestions.

I had lifts in there about a day ago, then took them out temporarily. Since reworking it, I found they provide a nice extra mechanic in the levels, especially if you have to rely on them to get to certain areas of said level.

Elelator go down the hooooooole…

Now with lifts! And they go up and down.