This will be my first Ludum Dare:
IDE: Eclipse
Language: Java
Images: I have been experimenting with my own image painter and file format so I will probably use that. (Not sure if that’s the best choice)
Sound: Not sure. I’m not that good with sound so…
Oh boy.
I’m all ready to go. The theme better be good.
I have my game idea. It’s mainly for the “Growing” theme but technically “Two Button Controls” works too since it requires the mouse. I’m not gonna say too much.
Anyways:
Your pet continuously tries eats an unhealthy food bowl. Each time the pet eats it, the pet grows. The goal is to make the pet not grow or else it will go kaboom.
Have fun everybody!
Your pet goes through the maze and will grow when it reaches the goal (aka food dish). Theres much more actually done, its just not visible (The engine, tower support, etc.) 
I got more of the engine done and added the first test of towers. The towers are healthy food bowls. They “shoot” at the pet to stop it from reaching the end and getting fat.
I’m starting to get bored of my own game, mainly because it’s unoriginal. Hopefully I’ll hang in there.
Enemy pathfinding AI is in but messy.
Todo:
Make better art (hopefully) and add effects
Up Next:
Prevent it from getting fat!
There’s not much more to show but I animated the possum, made it grow, and added sound effects. MUCH more to do but at least it feels like I accomplished something. I pretty much completed the engine so there’s not that much to do there, except for optimization. I’m probably 40% done, the todo list is still pretty long though.
Todo (In order of priority):
The Game Idea So Far:
It’s a tower defense game where the enemy is a possum (only one possum). When the possum reaches it’s goal (a food bowl), it grows and restarts the path with increased health, speed, money reward for killing, etc. If your healthy food bowl towers “kill” it, the possum restarts the path at the same health, speed, and money reward it had before. I’m thinking of having the food bowl towers eventually run out of food and you will have to replenish them with your cash. I’m also planning on having a “time survived” based scoring system.
How will I balance this so that the possum isn’t too powerful but that you won’t be playing for 30 minutes and the possum hasnt even grown once? Any ideas would be appreciated.
I got parts of the gui done last night and made towers work, run out of food, and decrease the possum’s health. The possum’s health also increases each time it grows. Things are going great.
Feed the possum healthy food from the towers so it doesn’t get to the unhealthy food and get big!
Towers (in order of strength (least to greatest)):
My to-do list is down to one item. Yay!
Of course the most important item is the one not done yet.
I finished. It’s a tower defense game where a possum grows after it reaches the end, which is unhealthy food. The possum is more deadly the bigger it is. The source code is terrible, mostly because I never usually make tower defense games and it was a whole new “structure” for the code. This was my first Ludum Dare and I had fun doing it and I will most likely do the next one.
Java, Eclipse, Custom Image Editor, SFXR
At first I thought it was the worst theme ever, but I got an idea right off the bat.
Anyways, time to immediately get some work done. I’ll start with loading textures.
My idea right now is that your character (a shape) must walk through a level and unlock new shapes. Each shape will have different abilities to help you get through the level.
Here you can see that I have basic tiles done and a pointless cardboard box in the corner:
The player now has the ability to shapeshift and change sizes. I also added a basic GUI and shooting. Squares shoot a single bullet, diamonds shoot a shotgun blast, and circles shoot huge rocket-like bullets.
Most content is in right now. All thats left is to add menus, levels, effects, and sound.
All the menus are in. Finally! Now all thats left is to make enemies, sound, and levels.
