Fenmar

LD20

My first LD: I’m IN!

Okay, I’ll join the competition. It’s my first Ludum Dare but I’m looking forward to finish a game :)

I’ll use:

Technology: Javascript / HTML5

Graphics: Adobe Photoshop

Sound: sfxr, Audacity

Music: Anvil Studio, maybe musagi

Timelapse: Chronolapse

 

Even though I don’t plan to, I might use the jQuery framework. I hope we all have a wonderful weekend and end up with a lot of awesome games.

setup done, now going to sleep

So here’s my setup. Since LD starts at 4am local time, I’m going to sleep now.

 

Magic Bird of Awesome

You are a bird, having a machine gun 😀 ’nuff said

Engine is mostly done, including map loading, collision and damage.

Nomnom… Pizza

It’s such a beautiful weather out here and all I do is sitting inside, eating pizza, drinking icetea and and producing code… Well, on the other hand my game now has some kind of menu, health bars, multiple levels and some performance issues fixed.

 

Cute little birdy

Got the menu-graphics and story ready. Oh – and animated character sprites 😀 (I never did any animation before so I’m quite happy I finished one which looks good – YAY) All text is hand-written because standard fonts are just too boring. Game Engine is also finished so far – time to create some interesting levels.

It's dangerous indeed

How to dodge 50 bullets per second

Stupid helicopters chasing my little birdy. Well… I don’t have a helicopter sprite yet, so there are these nice humans instead. Oh – and I named the little bird Ludum (for no obvious reasons 8) ). So it’s now “Ludum – the magic bird of AWESOME” 😀 Next is: helicopter sprites XD, keys to unlock doors and triggers to do events (like spawn even more bullets)

demo playable

Hey guys – have been coding for more than 22 hours in a row now (not counting eating, etc.), so it’s time for some sleep. What I’ve done so far is here: may contain blood – depending on your skills 😉

Oh – and if anyone could beat level 4 – let me know. Because it was too hard for me XD

Tomorrow I will add trigger to do events, possibly more enemies (bigger ones), more levels and sound. Good night @ all

Comments

tnelsond
30. Apr 2011 · 23:58 UTC
On my computer it sorta works, I really have to mash the wasd buttons and click to get the screen to update to where I can see the bird moving. And I keep dying when I fly to the right. Is this all because I’m using suckless’ surf web browser?
Alan Lynn
01. May 2011 · 00:18 UTC
Here are some suggestions I think would improve the game significantly:

-Shoot on mouse down, not mouse up. (More immediate response)

-Hold the mouse button down to shoot repeatedly. (Much less clicking)

-Don’t let an enemy shoot at you unless you can see it. (Less “unfair”)

-Make early enemies bigger and/or slower and/or non-attacking. (More gradual learning curve)
Fenmar
01. May 2011 · 05:23 UTC
thank you – it’s much appreciated

lunchtime

My roommate just brought me some delicious flammkuchen. Isn’t he kind? My plans for today: coding is done, so I’ll do some graphics, new enemies, sound, more levels and balancing.

Comments

kurtwaldowski
01. May 2011 · 10:14 UTC
“coding is done, so I’ll do some graphics, new enemies, sound, more levels and balancing.”
Blodyavenger
01. May 2011 · 10:17 UTC
Yumi! ^^

I finally made it

Wow… after nearly 40 hours of coding, designing, editing and writing I finally finished my first Ludum Dare game. Actually it’s the first game (or other personal project) I ever finished. That’s what I wanted to do and I made it and HECK – IT FEELS SO GOOD 😀

You can find my competition entry here: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-20/?action=preview&uid=3866

I had a wonderful weekend, learned a lot and can’t wait to play all the wonderful games you guys made.

Comments

SonnyBone
01. May 2011 · 20:37 UTC
THAT’S GREAT TO HEAR!

LD21

Time to make something

Of course I am IN for my second LD. My goals for this weekend: Finish a game (of course) and somehow see some progress. So it should be better than my last game. That being said, I am looking forward to an awesome weekend with a lot of coding and designing, some stressful and desperate moments and too little sleep.

This time I will use:

Technology: Javascript
Graphics: Photoshop
Sound: sfxr, musagi
Framework: some personal basecode

Let’s make some great games!

Just one last thing

Okay, let’s see the checklist

something to eat and drink – check
environment set up – check
nothing to do this weekend – check
game ideas for the top themes – check
tool chain – check
personal base code – check (find it here)
motivation – check

sleep – …

Well, that’s what I’m going to do now. Since the competition will start at 4am here, I probably should get some sleep before it starts. Maybe I’ll wake up with some good ideas 😀

DEMO!!

Hey guys,

I just wanted to share my progress so far. There is a demo available here (move with a,d or arrow keys, jump with space – hint: you can double jump).

Escape the evil boxes of doom

Some progress update

Okay, some more progress. It feels like this is getting somewhere.

Pretty cheap programmer art, ’cause I want to get the engine running. Also I need to think about a name for the game. Check out the latest demo here: clicky

It’s done – a short recap

my entry: Forever Running

This morning I finished my LD entry. It’s the second time I participated, so I somehow knew what to expect. Here are my experiences:

What went well

  • personal basecode: At first I wanted to use an existing framework, but then I realized that I would learn more if I write one myself. It has very limited functionality but I know every single line of code. This helped a lot to speed things up.
  • preparation: Before the competition started I had ideas for the top 4 themes (self replication, dreams, escape, adaption). Even though I prefered self replication, I could start coding early. Beside that I tweaked my sleep schedule, so I was awake soon after the competition started (4am).
  • visuals: I’m not a great artist, but I’m happy with what I produced. It’s so much better than what I used to do four months ago. (Yes, I’m a bit proud of it)
  • goals: I aimed low. It’s not a very original game idea but I was pretty sure I could do it in the given time. I was right.
  • release often: I released two indev versions of the game.
  • code first: At the end of the first day, I finished all core game mechanics so I could spent the entire second day on content.

 

What I should do better

  • sound: I was unable to produce music or sound good enough to include in the game. I certainly need a) more practice and/or b) better tools
  • got up too early: The competition starts 4am here. I got up at 4am and started coding. Soon I realized that I was too tired to produce quality code. After sleeping 3 more hours, things got better instantly.
  • focus: After I finished the game mechanics I somehow lost the focus. I thought about other game elements to add, watched some TV, tried to create some music. This way I lost some hours. I went to bed early to clear my mind and was full of energy for the second day.
  • timelapse: I tried to create a timelapse with CamStudio, but somehow all files are corrupted :( I need to find another tool.

All in all I had a very productive weekend, learned a lot, spent time with an awesome community and had a lot of fun. Now I’m going to play all the games you made 😀

Thanks for this fantastic event!

Tags: postmortem

Comments

22. Aug 2011 · 13:19 UTC
I had the same problem with CamStudio : (

LD22

I’m in!

Third LD for me. As usual I will be making a game with Javascript. But this time I try to write the game from scratch without any external libraries or personal basecode. This is going to be an intense and fun weekend. I am looking forward to see at least 1000 games after the event 😉

LD23

One year ago…

… I entered my first LD. I came back for every main event and now I’m going to do my fourth LD. I certainly learned a lot in this year and I’m super excited to learn even more this weekend. So I’m IN! My goal for this time: Of course finish a game and have a more innovative game concept than the last times.

So here is my list of tools:

  • Technology: HTML5 + Javascript
  • Framework: three.js
  • Graphics: GIMP (maybe Graphicsgale or Tiled, depending on theme and game concept)
  • Sound: sfxr, inudge, Audacity
  • IDE: eclipse
  • version control: GIT

Let’s make games!

another demo

Okay, here is my progress so far: fenmar.de/LD23/demo2 I will probably keep this style so I can make it playable in a console 😀