First Ludum Dare for me, and second GameJam.

I plan to use the following toolkit:

Programming: JavaScript + Phaser
Music: FL studio
Sound: Bfxr
Pixel art: Probably GIMP or Paint.NET

I’m looking forward to this, exciting!

Some thoughts on my Ludum Dare experience. First Ludum Dare for me. It was a highly intense and rewarding weekend for me. Starting three O’clock in the night to check the theme, and then working 6 to 23 both saturday and sunday.. Dead in the head monday/tuesday the week after. But it was worth it!

The idea came quickly to me (three O’clock in the night actually). I wanted to do a ‘story-driven’ typing/shooter game, where the player needed to use words to solve an internal problem.

Play ‘A Way Out’ on LudumDare.com

I worked in JavaScript and Phaser. I am not extremely experienced with Phaser (I have used it in one previous game jam), so I was surprised of how few hurdles I encountered on the way. I spent quite a bit of the time polishing small things (text/sprite fading and timings was the worst one!) I also got nice visual effects using simple filters in Gimp, together with various degrees of transparency in the game. Finally, sunday evening, I put the sound together with FL studio and my trusty mini-keyboard.

One of the most rewarding parts of the Ludum Dare, which I didn’t anticipate to be so engaging, is the reviewing of other players games as well as receiving valuable feedback on the game. During the giving and receiving of ratings and comments, I came to realise how important the details are for the playing experience. Could I have handled the power-weapon differently? Was the finish to abrupt? How does the navigation feel? The details came back when I played other games. I have enjoyed most of the games I played (many fantastic games out there!!). But what is it in some games that makes me tick in particular? A slight difference in responsiveness of the movement, or balancing of the difficulty makes a world of difference.

With all that said. If you enjoy frantic typing games, and/or enjoy story driven ambience in games, you should give my game, ‘A Way Out’ a spin. And, I am in particular grateful if you rate it and leave a line. I am attempting to play and rate all commenters games (that run on my old computer) in return.

Play ‘A Way Out’ on LudumDare.com

Jakob, LinkPact Games

LinkPact Games will participate as a group this time! (Or, at least two of us).

I will do the programming and the music, and I am planning to use the following tools:

ECMAScript6 + IntelliJ + transpilation using Babel

pixi.js + howler.js combined with a half-baked draft of a game engine, which I plan to frantically further develop during this Ludum Dare!

FL Studio 12

Looking forward to see where this end up. Compared to last time, we have optimized for learning rather than performance…

It is time again. Looking forward to it a lot. This time around, I will be responsible for the music. Toolset:

• Electric guitar, portable amplifier and audio interface
• Midi keyboard
• FL Studio

I will probably also do some of the programming. Weapon of choice:

• TypeScript in IntelliJ