So my last LD didn’t work out so well. My game was terrible. I spent nearly all of my time making levels (37, in fact) but forgot to make the game fun. This time, however, I think I’m a little more prepared. My coding has improved a lot in the past four months, as well as my time management skills (which I learned the hard way last LD).

I will be using Flash with AS2, Paint.net for graphics, but I still have no idea what I will use for sound effects and and music. Right now, I am working on a physics engine for my game which, if I finish it in time, I will post about. Anyway, have fun everybody, I can’t wait to see your games 😀

Things aren’t looking so well for me. To continue my current game, I will have to re-write most of it. I don’t want to do that. Also, because I’m sick of getting angry at AS2, I’m switching to Javascript and html5. Problem is, I really need a refresher on those. I guess my goal for the competition will be to just get that working, and maybe have a game by the end of the jam.

Despite learning OpenGL since last LD, I think it would be best to keep things simple this time. That was my downfall last time, that ultimately resulted in me not being able to submit a working game. I will be using:

Javascript/HTML5 canvas

Graphics: Paint.net

Sound: sfxr

Music: Renoise maybe, but I’m not sure yet

For the past four hours I have been searching for a game breaking bug, in which causes units to teleport unexpectedly with a fancy effect that I neved actually put in the game. My computer is posessed, I swear. At this point I have concluded that it is unfixable and now have to cut some of the game’s main features.

This is my fourth LD. Normally I enter the compo, but since all of my other attempts have been largely failures I’m doing the Jam this time. I’m using Java, with Paint.net for graphics and maybe sfxr for sound (if I get around to that). Anyways, looking forward to it.

This was my fourth attempt at Ludum Dare, and my first time working in a team. How did things go? Well, play the game and you’ll see. Let’s just say that they didn’t go perfectly. While I think the concept was the game’s strong point, it was probably also a mistake. The thing about simulators is that you’re simulating one thing to a high level of detail, which in my case meant that 90% of the game was in a single file. This resulted in my teammate spending most of his time on reddit as there was only really one thing that could be worked on at a time. However, by far the biggest problem was the game’s performance. When I added a level for the worm to explore, 32×32 tiles, the game would run at 5 frames per second. This was my first time working with the Java 2D api, so I had basically no idea what to do at this point. I ended up having to use the Slick2D library for graphics, but I screwed up a bunch of stuff while adding that and I didn’t get the game back to where it was until Sunday afternoon. The end product was basically fun to screw around with, but nowhere nowhere close to being a game. However, we like the idea of this game and we think we’ll keep working on it.

This will be my 5th attempt, and hopefully my first LD success story.

Tools:

• C++ with OpenGL, because I’m a sadist
• Paint.net or Aseprite for artwork
• My slave teammate
• Coffee

I’ve just started work on a simple cross-platform game engine thing (2d graphics, collisions), which I’ll share here when I’ve finished.

Imagine a world with so many people that they sucked the atmosphere dry. Okay it's not a very realistic scenario but it's what my game's about.

ATMOS is (supposed to be) a game about building a civilization on your planet's moon so you can transfer people over to stabilize your home world's atmosphere. Everything, from the breathing of your citizens to the flight of your space ship would be simulated.

Sounds pretty cool right? HHHahahahhaha

Technically there's a meta-game of sorts happening on the main planet. There are farmers who tend to their farms, and foresters who tend to their forests. Everyone eats food, breathes in O2 and breathes out CO2. The version I uploaded is balanced to survive indefinitely, but if I had added one more person the CO2 levels would rise and everyone would eventually die. There is also a ship (of sorts) that is gravitationally attracted to the planet and its orbiting moon.

Here is the screenshot I uploaded with my submission:

(Yes that is an asteroid with an engine strapped onto it, just pretend it's a ship. Also please ignore all the other hideous graphics).

The ship can fly around and transfer orbits between the planet and its moon. The radar in the top right predicts the next 20 seconds of trajectories (the coolest part of the submission IMO).

There's a whole meta-game happening on the surface of the planet, with people eating, breathing and working (the fundamentals of life, you know?). The funny thing about this is that there is absolutely no indication that any of this is happening. There's just a bunch of workers, tractors and trees sitting motionless on the planet's surface. This was a design error on my part as the simulation is done entirely numerically, and as a result there is absolutely no visual engagement.

The biggest shortcoming however is that there is absolutely no way to interact with the meta-game happening on the planet. This was entirely because I ran out of time. So my end-result of LD38 is essentially 2 completely separate games thrown together mindlessly into the same package.

Anyway that's how it turned out. I do like the idea of the game, so I might keep working on it.