Hi everyone!

I’ve been following Ludum Dare for a while now and have been wanting to get in on one. Finally the timing is right for me to join, so I’ll be entering in the LD29 Compo.

I’ve been using GameMaker as a hobbyist for over 10 years now and recently have decided to push myself to get more serious about game development. I’ll be developing in GameMaker: Studio, making sounds with SFXR, music in Reason 4, and graphics with a combination of photoshop, and GameMaker’s sprite editor.

I await the theme announcement excitedly! Good luck everyone!

Okay! Time for a debriefing. This was my first Ludum Dare and it was great! I coded. I pixeled. I spilled food on stuff. I drank a LOT of faygo Rock n Rye. Good experience all around. Here’s my 48 hour compo submission~

Proudly Presenting:

(Click that for the entry page)
Divernaut is about exploring, and underwater caves, and dangerous sea creatures, and seaweed, and air bubbles, and explosions! Also spaceships. Don’t worry. It’ll all make sense soon.

WHAT WENT RIGHT
I was a little drunk at the beginning of the event. This turned out to be a good thing, because when the theme was announced, it made it way easier to grab a notebook and just puke out like 10 pages nonsense inspired by “Beneath the Surface”. I while later, I went back and read it all, then picked out all the not stupid parts and formed my concept from them. I also had a production schedule that I put together based on reading past LD post-mortems. That production schedule is likely the main reason I actually finished anything. Having deadlines within a deadline is a very effect time management trick for goal oriented people such as myself. “Yes I have 48 hours to finish this, but I only have ONE HOUR LEFT TO FINISH MY TEMP GRAPHICS D: *panic panic panic*”

WHAT WENT WRONG
Friday afternoon, I was getting ready for the event when SURPRISE! Apparently there was going to be a party at my house that night. There ended up being a two or three hour overlap with the party and Ludum Dare, which was fairly distracting. Lesson Learned: Don’t just plan for the event. Plan for your life around the event as well. The bright side was that this party resulted in the “a little drunk” detail mentioned in the previous section. My other big woulda-coulda-shoulda involves that production schedule I had. I did not follow it as strictly as I should have. Once I reached the mapping/level planning phase, I started finding bugs. This is normal. Unfortunately, with most of the bugs I’d think “Oh this is tiny, I’ll just fix it right now and then get back to mapping.”. That was a bad idea and it ended up costing me my game’s music, and some graphical polish (it’s easy to mistake the green fish for missiles). None of the things were game breaking bugs, so I should have just noted them, and taken care of as many as possible during my debug phase. This would have let me stay on schedule and give the game a soundtrack.

ADVICE FOR NEXT TIME (for myself, and newcomers)
Have a plan. If you’re like me and already had a plan, have a better plan. If I hadn’t stuck to my production schedule, I probably wouldn’t have even finished at all. I got side-tracked just a little bit, and paid for it with a soundtrack. Don’t make my same mistake.

FINAL WORDS
This was my first Ludum Dare, and it was a fantastic experience. I like making games, and this even was incredibly revitalizing to my creative drive. I’ll be doing my best to join every future Ludum Dare.

Wanna find me on Twitter?
http://twitter.com/DustoutGames

Did you like Divernaut? Are you interested in more games by Dustout? Check out the
Dustout Games website.

Tags: success story

I made a video! This is a trailer for Divernaut so showcase a bit of gameplay, and also to show off the music that would have been in my entry if I’d a bit more time. Should have slept less.

Here it is! (click for youtube)

If you haven’t tried Divernaut yet, give it a shot! I’d love to hear your feedback since I plan to make a full version of this.

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-29/?action=preview&uid=33993

I’ve avoided showing content for Divernaut made outside the development window for fear of not letting go of the project. I know lots of entries have a post-compo version posted right on the page, and that’s awesome! I love those! I personally try not to do that because I’ll get in an infinite “just one more thing” loop and will never ever finish.

That being said, I did really really want to share the music I had originally planned for the game, but didn’t get a chance to finish enough to actually implement in the compo version. To showcase the music, and also have a little fun playing Divernaut myself, I put together a game trailer. Enjoy!

I had such a great time with Divernaut that I’m going to be remaking it from the ground up with new graphics, new content, and new coolness. I’ll be posting occasional progress updates on Twitter, Facebook, and Dustout Games’ Website so if you want to follow progress, those are the places to do so.

Remember “Beneath the Surface”? Remember Divernaut? Well I’ve been working on turning my Ludum Dare entry into the game I feel it deserves to be. Introducing: SUPER DIVERNAUT! (the hype is real) Super Divernaut is the same concept and general mechanics from the original being remade as a roguelite. You’ve crash-landed and are at the bottom of the ocean. Find your crashed ship so you can send a distress signal and get rescued. What? There’s a wall blocking your path and your suit’s pressurization won’t let you swim up to get over it? Better go beneath the surface into and underwater cave beneath the wall, place some explosives (you found them, okay?) and take that wall down. Rinse and repeat through a series of procedurally generated levels and areas, throw in an army of scary sea monsters and critters (and a few friendly ocean dwellers to help you out), gameplay mechanic switching (play the original, you’ll understand), and add a gang of bosses and you’ve a long road ahead to safety.

As mentioned, it’s very work-in-progress, but I’m far enough along that I had to share with the wonderful event community I built this game for in the first place. We’ll have a playable concept demo soon. Stay tuned!

Super Divernaut

Dustout Games
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I’m in for the 48 hour compo!

-Development environtment: GameMaker Studio
-Sound: SFXR and Reason or Famitracker depending on how chippy I want my tunes.
-Graphics: GameMaker’s built in pixel editor supplemented by Photoshop CS5.

Happy voting, everyone!

I’m in for the 48 hour compo, pending a work-related function on Sunday that will hopefully be short.

As usual, I’ll be using GameMaker studio for the making of the game. Graphics will be from Photoshop and a bit of GM’s built in editor. Sound from SFXR, and music will be made in Reason.

So Excite!

Can You Reach the Sun?

Pictured: A good memory.

Can You Reach the Sun? is a metroid-kite-vania about a boy and his kite and a warm summer day and a lot of good memories. Explore your little world to learn new kite abilities, fight dangerous wild animals with your kite (what an unconventional weapon, AMIRITE?), run around with your kite, listen to soothing music with your kite, fly with your kite, and kite with your kite.

Kite. (kite, kite.)

The more abilities you discover, the more places you can explore. Enemies can be tough, but every new ability you find will save your progress. Have fun exploring, but don’t forget to let your exploring guide you to answer the question: Can You Reach the Sun?

As LD33 approaches, why not take a look at a past LD project that’s in current development as a full release? Super Divernaut was originally made under the title “Divernaut” for the LD48 themed “Beneath the Surface”. It’s been a blast to keep working on the base built from the compo, and I wanted to share with everyone the progress made so far. Check out the game’s page on IndieDB where you can download the Alpha Demo. Give it a play and let us know what you think!

Hi everyone!

In the spirit of the October challenge, I wanted to share the Steam Greenlight page for a game of mine that started right here as a LD48 entry for Ludum Dare 29: Beneath the Surface!

Introducing: Super Divernaut!

Check out Super Divernaut’s IndieDB page here

And go vote for Super Divernaut on Steam Greenlight!

I’m in for the compo. I will be using GameMaker Studio supported by photoshop for graphics, sfxr for sounds, and if anyone has good suggestions for a free audio tracker, I’d appreciate it. My old version of Reason doesn’t work for me anymore.

First of all, here it is!

Credit to Killswitch423 for the great video

This LD has probably been my best learning experience so far. I made it my personal mission to utilize everything I learned from this video about “juiciness” in games. My previous entries have been more focused on engagement and depth of content than on feel and tactility. With Bubblegum Uppercut, I wanted to make something that was more about making something that just feels good.

First up was the character

This thing is my most basic, no frills character yet in terms of the pixel art itself, but the one I put the most thought into how it would move and animate. Rather than detail in the art, I was going for creating a feeling of elasticity and energy. Also the gin helped. I did a bunch of stuff with squashing and stretching that I’ve never done with a character sprite in a game before and I think it paid off, but give it a try yourself and let me know what you think :]

Next was the set piece. I may have taken the “give everything eyes” tip from the juice video a little more literally than intended, but what would this game be without the 20/20 rose and the panic-stricken falling rose petals? I had originally planned 3 different levels each with its own theme (rose vine, volcano, skyscraper) but time constraints forced me to cut out the other 2. That’s definitely the next thing I’ll work on if I continue on Bubblegum Uppercut. What do you think? Would you play more if you could escape an erupting volcano or climb a skyscraper?

Probably the best thing I learned from this Ludum Dare is how great an experience it can be to work with another person in an event like this. The super talented Gregg Wright of PageWright Media created the epic music for the game. I can’t even begin to tell you how useful it is to have someone to talk about ideas with. It give you a chance to not only get feedback on the fly for thoughts and concepts, but it give new perspectives on ideas. Maybe you have the greatest idea in the world. That’s cool. Share it with someone, and they may have a different angle on it that could make it even better.

And finally, I learn this a little bit more every time I participate, but DON’T OVERWORK YOURSELF! My day job and general life situation currently are a lot more stressful than they have been for past events, so I decided to give myself that extra day by entering the Jam instead of the Compo, and I’m glad I did. Not only did it give me the time to take care of myself (eat, sleep, breathe, etc.), but it allowed me to enjoy the process a lot more. If you want to challenge yourself, and do the compo all alone in 48 hours, by all means, do so! It’s a great experience. But don’t think you have anything to prove by doing so. Be honest with yourself, and really put the thought into deciding if it’s the best choice for you at the moment.

Well, there it is. I hope you enjoy Bubblegum Uppercut!, and I hope some of you found this write-up interesting :] Keep exploring and playing those LD games. There are some really unique entries this time around.

Thanks for playing!

Dustout Games
Find Dustout on Twitter

If I can pull myself away from Enter the Gungeon for long enough, I’m in for the Compo.

I’ll be using GameMaker:Studio, photoshop, SFXR, and Audacity.

Last time was a hoot, and I made one of my favorite entries. I also learned a ton about feel and feedback. Let’s make this time even better! (woo!)