Hey, planning to participate the first time too. Never made anything this fast before so not sure how it will turn out, but I would be happy if I have atleast something together in the end. Also depends what the theme is going to be and if I can get any simple enough ideas from it…

Programming: I will use Java and LWJGL to make the game, I have done some work on them before so I might use stuff like texture loader and sprite class from my previous projects.

Graphics: Ehm well GIMP and Paint come to mind…

Sound & music: Not sure if I will have these.. If I get really inspired I might use Guitar Pro for some MIDI goodness.

Here is where I will be coding: (its my Netherlands base camp, my better computer is back in Finland)

The starting time is at 3am here (in 40 mins). I am planning to stay up until the theme is revealed and then go to sleep, and hope an idea comes to me in a dream…

LD19 has been running for 10 hours now, so 38 hours time left and I am just beginning. Last night after the theme was announced I stayed up for few hours thinking about the game idea. The first thing that came to mind from “Discovery” was explorers sailing the seas to find new lands.. So I am thinking a sailing game…

But first things first, I need to set up a LWJGL applet so people can more easily play the game. Better get crackin’

Status update: I got the LWJGL applet and the basic framework together. Then I started to work on the water and waves for the ocean.. Thats about it. Then I got bit tired and took a nap, shouldnt have stayed up so late last night. 😐 The plan is to work for few more hours today and then get some sleep and hopefully start early tomorrow.

The game idea is that you are a proud owner of a viking longship (well ok a yellow cylinder) and you have set sails to discover new lands to settle. Hopefully you will find some land before your supplies run out or your ship takes too much damage from the rough seas. The gameplay is that you try to steer the ship so that it goes over the waves as smoothly as possible and the same time try to navigate to the right direction.

So I started around noon today, not as early as I hoped. Today again I’ve spent most of time on graphics instead of gameplay which is the typical reason for slow progress.. I really should spent the remaining time on the gameplay and hopefully get something done in time. Still 11 more hours to go…

Well I’ve given up. Couldn’t get any kind of decent gameplay together so it turned out to be just a crappy looking opengl demo. 😐

Well atleast it was good practice. Maybe I’ll try again another time and be better prepared.

Yesterday I was totally giving up because I couldn’t figure out the any kind of reasonable gameplay, and the whole game idea seemed like a bad choice and time was running out for the compo, which was the original goal. Failure seemed unavoidable. Then today when I got out of school there was still about 10 hours of time left for the Jam and I decided that I will just make the simplest gameplay idea I can think of… After 8 hours of solid coding, 10 minutes before the deadline I finally submitted the finished version.

I am happy that I reached my goal of Gettin’ Something Done even though it wasn’t 48 but 72 hours. The game turned out OK as well. Now I may rest.