Hi, I’m Dock, and I’m new to Ludum Dare!

I’m going to enter LD for the first time this weekend, so this week will be spent mentally preparing.  I’m fairly new to this sort of thing, and I only completed my first game, Tumbledrop, a couple of months ago.  I’m more of an artist than a coder, but I’m working hard to improve my coding skills and something like this seems like it should be a lot of fun no matter what.

I’ll be using Unity for the contest, and I’m hoping to do something in 3D, though beyond that I’m not sure. I’ll find out on saturday once I receive the theme!

Until then, I’ll be sure to read Sol’s LD survival guide, stock up on food, and get some coding practice in.

Quick question for any Mac users.

Is there any software that can take a desktop screenshot at regular intervals (once per minute?) and save it to a folder?  I would like to do a timelapse, but recording a video file over two days seems a bit too risky.

Tags: mac, osx

Got up at 6am, and learned that the ludumdare theme was ‘Roads’!
Thankfully this was one that I have an idea for!
So, with bleary eyes, I cooked myself breakfast. Omnomnom!

Now I am ready! o_o

Best of luck to everyone!

Tags: food

I have a game mock-up! You drive a steamroller through a forest and build a lovely new road!

This is starting to take shape, and I’m fairly happy with the way the roads happen. I have some z-sorting problems that I might design around, and the road markings ‘stretch’ which I’m tempted to pass off as a ‘feature’ :p   I’m pretty happy though, and I think I’ve earned a pot noodle for lunch!

Here’s my desktop, in all its dusty glory.  I usually keep an a4 graphics tablet on here, but it’s staying off the desk until tomorrow, so I can focus on coding.  The laptop is running Windows, which is why I need it there.

And in the spirit of things, here is my lunch! Neither impressive nor especially healthy, but it keeps me at my desk! Omnomnom!

Tags: desktop, foodphoto

Spent a lot of time playing around with this game and trying to settle on some gameplay, and I think I now have it.  I also completely re-did the controls, and they have changed from ‘bad’ to ‘good’, haha. The biggest addition is a ‘bridge’ move that works like a jump, but you will have to recharge it. It means that you can avoid crashing into your existing roads and also jump over streams.

This will probably be a small single-life scoreboard based game. I’m pretty excited about how this plays now… lots of work to do this evening though!

And here’s an older picture with some trees, to prove I still have trees in my game! XD

Many thanks to my girlfriend for cooking a baked potato for me! Omnomnom!

I have a follow-camera working in my game now, and it’s starting to feel much more like a real game. I need to start working on implementing the rules now.

Tags: foodphoto

Tags: foodphoto

I managed to get water streams working in the game. Don’t worry, they don’t be so straight in the final game, these are placeholders. So right now the gameplay is starting to take shape, and the player dies once they hit the road. Bridges work properly now too, and in general it doesn’t feel too bad. I’m going to work as fast as I can to nail the rules of the game. I really hope I can get it finished to some state today! D:

coffee will keep me going! D:

Tags: foodphoto

Things are still looking pretty bleak for my game, but I’m going to give it a last ditch attempt. I’ve decided to for with a snow theme, and I’m going to see what I can do to jazz this up and give it some level design and something of a goal!

This update is brought to you by Domino’s pizza

Tags: foodphoto

My game won’t be done on time unfortunately, so I’m pulling out of LD13. Who dares… loses, as it were.  I might try to give the next one a shot, and this time I’ll try something a bit more realistic! I knew 3D was a bad idea! Haha.  I’m going to see if I can keep working on my game though and see if I can finish it off over the next seven days or so.

I thought about doing a quick 2-3 hour game to be able to still contribute, but I’m already pretty tired so I decided against it. I did get as far as making a screen mock-up though, haha.

Sorry to be on the unsuccessful side of the participants. It was a really fun weekend nevertheless!

Tags: unfinished

Here’s a playable version of my game ‘Emergency Bypass’. It’s very unfinished, but you can get some idea as to what I was trying for. You basically have to smash down the trees and avoid running into your own road trail. You can ‘jump’ over streams and road by pressing space. WASD or arrows to move.

Windows EXE (6.1MB zipped)

Browser Based (requires Unity plugin, Windows + Mac only).

edit: browser link fixed!

Tags: final

Okay, so I have my 2500 still files ready to make a timelapse video, but I’m not sure how to splice them together.  Any software I should use? I have a mac, but I also have Windows XP, so anything but linux should be okay.

Also, I have seperate captures for screen 1 and screen 2. Is there any way to splice the two videos together horizontally after I convert them?

When I click on the voting page for LD13 it gives me a list of entrants, each with a number in brackets next to their name. What does this number mean?

Also, with regards to trophies, do I get to award just one trophy (out of all the games) or can I award several?

HERE is a youtube link for my timelapse video (including a regular video at the end of it).  It’s 2:30 long!

This was pretty tricky to get converted into a video, but I think it was worth the effort. I hope you enjoy it! ^_^

Tags: timelapse

I am looking forward to doing Ludumdare this weekend, and I’m intending to do a timelapse of my progress again. Is there any software or scripts that I can use on the Mac to capture two screens simultaneously, ideally stitched together as one long image?

Tags: timelapse

This is my second Ludumdare, after entering the bulldozer tree destruction game for LD13. I didn’t really finish last time, so this time I’m determined to do better. I don’t really have many ideas figured out so far, but I guess I’ll wait for the theme and roll with it from there!

Stuff I’ll be using:
– Unity (game engine)
– Textmate (text editor)
– Photoshop
– 3D Studio MAX (yes, I am determined to do 3D again! D: )
– GarageBand (for music!)

See you on the battlefield tomorrow morning! Just five and a half hours until the kick off, I should probably get an early night!

Advancing Wall of Doom huh? I don’t have any ideas for this at all, so instead I made a big sandwich for breakfast. I hope I think of something soon!  Good luck everyone!

Tags: food

Tags: motivation