I started this Ludum Dare just for fun and needless to say it has been a rollercoaster ride thus far. I woke up and checked my phone for Ludum Dare theme and as soon as I read it, my phone ran "out of power". So, that was going to be my game. Prevent discharging/overcharging phone. This is my current progress. Tomorrow, I will work on adding levels and making this game enjoyable https://vgy.me/xsMp3G.gif

Finally fixed the errors with web build of my game, now you can check out the web version from:

http://ld39.itsrishi.me

Enjoy

Hi, I am FreedomIsSlavery and this was my first ever game jam or you may say first ever serious game. This is my review of my Ludum Dare experience.

Making the game

Coming up with an idea

So, it's early in the morning, I wake up and check my phone for the Ludum Dare theme, and see "Running Out of Power". At once, ideas about a dictator and some sort of vendetta started propping up in my mind. I spent quite some time thinking over it. Finally, I came to the conclusion that with my limited skillsets, it would not be possible to make such a game. I was frustrated with lack of ideas, and just then my phone discharged and I knew what I was going to do- A charging simulator.

Day 1

Since, I had never effectively made a complete game from scratch before, I chose humble 2D vector graphics for my game. I thought of adding various fancy stuff, but later decided against it. So, there I was making graphics for my game, when I realised that I had spent my entire day just on getting the graphics done. So I quickly switched to code and wrote all the basic rendering code and battery charge-discharge cycle(no gameplay yet). And then, I went to sleep frustrated that my game would be unfinished or boring if finished.

Day 2

Sleep really helped me, as, new morning game me new ideas. I had elaborate concepts for adding levels, customers coming at your phone charging shop. And I opened Inkscape to make customers and I made two or three of them. Then, reality dawned on me. It was simply not possible to make all this stuff. So, I left all of it and just went on to make the basic game loop and by afternoon, I had some gameplay. Then I decided to work on animations and transitions. But, my lack of experience manifested itself. I wasted two hours and could not get a basic screen transition right. I gave up on it and started fixing bugs and improving the overall gameplay. Initially, I had thought that you have to balance the charge (neither overcharge nor discharge) the phones forever, but I quickly realised, it was not going to work out. So, I started working on phones getting fully charged and submitting. Then, I added the hand and charger plugging, unplugging sound and movement. I had all this by evening and everything was working properly, BUT the gameplay was simply not up to the mark. It was horrible. I started tweaking values like a crazy person, and broke some of the alignment stuff (It's still broken). Finally, with 10 hours to go, I thought my game was complete and I submitted it.

Analysis

What went bad (or I overlooked)

• Did not add music
• Forgot to add phone blasting when phones were kept on charge for long time (I had it in earlier builds)
• Should have worked on making the chargers color coded to make them more obvious
• In-game-instructions should have been less vague
• Should have spent an hour more and added game modes like easy, medium and hard.
• Should have uploaded Web(HTML5) build from the beginning
• Wrote the phone full charge code when I wasn't half asleep (It's a pure disaster, look it up on GitHub)

What went good( or better than expected)

• The gameplay turned out much better than I had anticipated
• The sound for phone vibration, plugging, etc. are quite good (me being a first time Audacity user)
• The ratings have been overwhelmingly positive compared to the naivety of the game

So, basically, I just became complacent with my goals and did not push my limits. Moreover, I had college on Monday with loads of assignments in the backlog. But then again, there will always be bugs and that one feature that would have made it work out.

PS: This is the link to my game: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/39/battery-low

I know the website is still "pre-alpha", but it would be great if you add features like lists say for favorites, humor which are public or private. If your game is featured in any public list, you get sth like a notifiation. Moreover notifs by mentions would also be great. Hope you can do it all before LD 41 or 42. And the homescreen could be made cleaner by adding categories for posts, like self-promotion, new-version / new-build, community, etc.

Ok I may be quite a bit late in making this, but anyways, here is the first Android app to notify you of any new ratings and comments that your LD entry receives. Just enter your entry's URL and the app will check in background for new comments/ ratings and notify you.

Download

https://github.com/RishiRaj22/LD-Notify-App/releases

Don't forget to share it and feel free to contribute.

Background

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/39/battery-low/android-app-to-notify-for-new-ratings-and-comments-on-your-ld-entry

I made a completely free, open source app to check and notify(background) for new ratings and comments on your LD entry. It lacked many features and polish and was available for download only through Github. Announcing it's update, which eliminates almost all its limitations.

New features:

• Available through Play Store
• Added much needed markdown support
• See the name of the commenter along with their about.
• Tap on name of commenter to open their LD page
• Comment time shows in human readable form

Screenshots:

About text | Markdown Support :------------------------------------:|:-------------------------: |

Download:

Alternatively you can get it from Github, if you prefer it: https://github.com/RishiRaj22/LD-Notify-App/releases

Contributing:

Feel free to contribute to the Github repo and maybe leave some stars :wink: : https://github.com/RishiRaj22/LD-Notify-App

PS : If you want to contact me, or ask for feature request comment on this thread, or raise an issue on Github, or even send me an e-mail.

Now get push notifications for new ratings and comments on your LD entry. I made this open source Android app during last Ludum Dare However, due to large number of posts on LD website at that time, I think many of you might not have seen it.

Features:

• Get push notifications on new ratings and comments
• Supports markdown in comments
• See the name of the commenter along with their about section.
• Tap on name of commenter to open their LD page
• See the time of the comment

Screenshots:

About text | Markdown Support :------------------------------------:|:-------------------------: |

Download:

Alternatively you can get it from Github, if you prefer it: https://github.com/RishiRaj22/LD-Notify-App/releases

Contributing:

Feel free to contribute to the Github repo and maybe leave some stars :wink: : https://github.com/RishiRaj22/LD-Notify-App

PS : If you want to contact me, or ask for feature request, drop me an e-mail, or raise an issue in the repo.

Now that Ludum Dare is done, want to respond to the comments you receive on your game quickly? Download https://github.com/RishiRaj22/LD-Notify-App , an Android app to get notified as soon as you receive new comments and ratings.

Now that Ludum Dare is done, want to respond to the comments you receive on your game quickly? Download https://github.com/RishiRaj22/LD-Notify-App , an Android app to get notified as soon as you receive new comments and ratings.

Get push notifications for new ratings and comments on your LD entry. With change in LD API, this app had stopped working, but thanks to JakobWonisch 's awesome work, it's working again.**

Features:

• Get push notifications on new ratings and comments
• Supports markdown in comments
• See the name of the commenter along with their about section.
• Tap on name of commenter to open their LD page
• See the time of the comment

Screenshots:

About text | Markdown Support :------------------------------------:|:-------------------------: |

Download:

Contributing:

Feel free to contribute to the Github repo and maybe leave some stars :wink: : https://github.com/RishiRaj22/LD-Notify-App

PS : If you want to contact me, or ask for feature request, drop me an e-mail, or raise an issue in the repo.