Finally got round to entering LDJam, after watching Quill18 participate in the last few. Pretty happy with how my game turned out, as I couldn't devote the whole weekend to it and I only switched to Unity from Corona SDK a few months ago.

All the models are made within Unity using primitives and textures designed in Gimp or from photos of my house (got some strange looks trying to get our front door and windows in shot while trying to avoid reflections in the glass).

You can play the Web GL version here:

http://www.1888games.co.uk/Powerhouse/index.html

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/39/powerhouse

In case some of you are itching for another jam, this weekend is the 'Broken Engine Jam'. No theme, you just have to write a game in the most obscure/obsolete/broken engine you can think of.

If I get time I'm hoping to knock something up in C64 basic for the first time in 25 years. I did look into the possibility of building something for the prototype C65 but haven't been able to find a reliable emulator. I guess there's broken and then there's non-existent!

https://itch.io/jam/broken-engine-jam

Also please feel free to check out my LDJam game ;)

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/39/powerhouse

Thanks everyone, really pleased to finish so high in my first game jam, particularly as I only had about half the weekend to work on it. Can't wait for the next one!

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/39/powerhouse

Can't wait for next Friday, have been looking forward to this since LD39 finished. I actually landed a job in the game industry in between, and I think the experience gained in LD39 played a key part in that.

My LD40 project is all setup with a collection of free libraries that I might need and highly recommend (is there anything more exciting than File > New Project...?)

• Dot Tween
• InAudio
• JsonDotNet
• LeanTouch
• TMPro
• Thread Ninja
• More Effective Coroutines
• Unity UI Extensions
• Probuilder Basic

...as well as a few general utility scripts for Monobehaviour Singletons, Object Pooling, StringToInt.

I also own a number of excellent paid libraries but that kind of goes against the idea that someone can download your project from Github, play with and compile the thing, so I won't be using any of those.

Y'know, this Theme Slaughter round might not take fourteen hours if there was a way to automatically lose the 95% that are utter nonsense. "My Dog Has No Nose" and "The legend of El General Kaillensopoulos !" to name but two.

Not to mention those spelled incorrectly or in lower case, which are automatic rejections in my book....

Let's hope the cream still rises to the top, I accidentally voted down a few good ones as I was in a trance from clicking 'NO' :D

If like me, you're not an artist and you've never had the time nor inclination to drill the 36 million Blender keyboard shortcuts into your brain, you might find some tools that have been shipping with Windows 10 lately quite useful.

• 3D Builder
• Paint 3D

Both have different strengths depending on what sort of shape/design you're aiming for. Both can export in .obj format for use in Unity, complete with textures. I found Paint3D had more flexibility, allowing you to literally draw shapes and extrude them into 3D, then manipulate them. You can paint directly onto the object with a range of brushes. No custom textures, but that's where 3D builder comes in.

Paint3D doesn't tend to export right straight into Unity, so I exported in .3mf format, imported into 3D builder, added any textures I wanted and then exported to .obj format from there. As usual you'll need to set their scale to 100 or 1000.

Once you've exported more than one model into Unity their materials will tend to get jumbled up, so it's just a question of finding the right material in the folder and dragging it into the right slot in the materials list in the inspector. A bit of a pain but quicker than scrabbling around in Blender.

I made this little chap in about 5 minutes, which would have taken me several ice ages in Blender.

Well, it's been a rollercoaster ride. I think it's turned out ok considering I lost three hours this morning after deleting a key prefab, and then making it worse and worse as I fumble around in a sleepy haze trying to stop the entire scene not be quite so...pink.

I am most pleased with the brainwave about 11am this morning to have a PGA Golf-style mechanic for administering medicine!

The ability to restart the game or some on-screen instructions would have been nice, but there you go...

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/overdose-1

24 hours in, your head is spinning, nothing works and you never want to see another curly brace as long as you live. A few days later and you can't wait for the next one......

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/overdose-1

Proof you can get a good score on Overdosed!

Will be on a cruise during the jam, but determined to pull something together, encouraged that one of my favourite games of LD40 was made in just 8 hours.

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/briiik

I'll have from theme release at 3AM until breakfast on the 21st before heading off into Rome, then maybe an hour or two in the evenings before bed. This is the most I can get away with without my wife throwing the laptop over the side.....

Anyone seen the great films about the Donkey Kong world record saga? Today the holder Billy Mitchell was stripped of all his records, looks like he was playing on an emulator rather than the original PCB...

Need to be organised as I'm only going to have 6-10 hours this time around, so a skeleton Unity project is setup with my favourite free libraries that I may or may not need...

https://github.com/1888games/LD41

Tools:

• Unity 2017.3
• Paint3D
• Gimp
• Affinity Designer
• Logic Pro X
• Goldwave

Was gutted to miss LD41, was on a cruise and intended to work during the night with family duties during the day, but by 5am nothing was flowing and it wasn't fun working in the casino while they hoovered around me, so I had to bow out.

This time we're at a wedding today miles from home, so I'll have to work in the van on the way back tomorrow and then from 1pm it should be plain sailing.

Oh, until the first game of the season at 3pm and then the missus having a load of kitchen units delivered into my work space at 11am on Sunday......

Tools: Unity 2018 & VS, 3Dpaint, Affinity Designer, Gimp, Logic Pro X and Goldwave.

14 hours left and there's still no actual gameplay, just most of the graphics and control/camera systems.

Fingers crossed it all comes together but I don't know where I'm going to find time for music & sfx!

Just uploaded a gameplay video of my Compo entry Going Up.....quite satisfying once you get the hang of it!

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/going-up

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rt5RgUcYU3E

My wife wanted to play it so I made an Android version with a slightly larger UI, it works pretty well with touch controls!

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/going-up

• Tap lift to select it
• Tap guest to send them to open lift
• Use lift controls on right to program floors and open/close doors
• Tap icons on left to move camera to another floor

UI now adjusts on the newer ultra-wide phones....

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/going-up

Gutted to miss another LD, we're on a cruise ship and although I had set aside a sea day on Saturday to enter, no exciting ideas were forthcoming at all. In the end I had to sacrifice LD itself and spend extra time with my daughter instead.

Of course as soon as we got to Tenerife yesterday inspiration hit from every angle but there was too little time left to build what I wanted.

Roll on April, I am definitely not booking another holiday during that one!

I see a lot of posts saying people have written/are writing their own game engine for LD. While I hugely admire the technical skill involved, with so many free and polished engines out there (Unity, Unreal, Corona, Defold, Love2D, Lumberyard etc. etc.) it seems to me like reinventing the wheel, and time that could be spent just making better games. I can understand it for big AAA companies that build a targeted engine to make a specific type of game, but indies/hobbyists with limited spare time?

Is it just a case of 'because I can?'. I get that it would be fun and satisfying, but is it more fun and satisfying than making the actual game?

A parallel to me would be a composer who instead of buying instruments builds their own, or instead of using Logic or Cubase writes their own DAW.

Not attacking anyone, and probably just a little jealous, but interested in what the attraction is?

Will be working mainly in Unity 2018.3 on the MacBook Pro, but a Windows machine available if necessary. Ultra-wide monitor so loads of room to work.

Other software includes Gimp, Affinity Designer, Paint 3D, Logic Pro X, Texture Packer.

I have a nice comfortable office that I work from home in, but I always need a change of scenery for Ludum Dare to help me focus away from a screaming toddler and a screaming wife. Last time I worked in the office I had to extend into the jam and the game wasn't great.

So this time I've cleared out the shed, tackling several alarming-looking spiders along the way...

• Unity 2019.2
• VS 2019
• Gimp
• Texture Packer
• Affinity Designer
• Logic Pro X
• Paint3D - still not got the hang of Blender..