I’ve gotten the basic ideas down. Main menu is basically done; could use a little bit of work. Player code is basically a skeleton that does nothing right now, but I will fix that tomorrow. Hopefully this little project turns out alright.
Not gonna say just yet what the game is… maybe that will come out tomorrow with some screenshots, if I feel that they are good enough for release.
-Eric
I am live! If you wanna let me know if anything is wrong or you just wanna watch me develop this game, visit http://www.twitch.tv/randomaccessminecraft
Ludum Dare 31: Just kinda hung around, didn’t do anything. -FAIL
Ludum Dare 32: Strove to make a game, but failed in the process, never finished it -FAIL
Ludum Dare 33: Finally time for me to clean up my act and actually get something done, even if it sucks
My weapons of choice:
Hopefully I don’t wuss out like I did the last time. I don’t plan on getting anywhere near top 200, but hey, nothing’s impossible. 
Good luck everyone, and happy coding!
So, got some stuff accomplished.
This is the one image that basically shows what I’ve done. 😛
(if it doesn’t show up, here’s the link)
Story pane with a smexy placeholder image.
Here’s one. Monster’s Inc.
Play as a monster scaring people for points.
Fake lighting; not glamourous, but it works. (If the image is broken click here!)
Lots to do though. Lemmie know what you think!
It’s almost done. I still have some work to do, and the music is all new.
Sorry for such the late post: I literally finished my game then took vacation to New York. Pardon that.
I finished my first successful Ludum Dare! Surprisingly, it fell into the Compo because I had all the stuff necessary for it, as I did all the work from scratch, and in the right amount of time. You can view the project here
I learned so much from the LD experience, some programming related, some not. Here’s a simple list of what I think I learned this LD.
That’s just a tiny list of what I learned. I hope everyone else has had a successful LD, and I will start rating games within a few hours, once I get myself situation from my holiday.
Cheers!
-Eric
If you’ve not seen my game, click here!
So, along with a lot of other things, I’ve learned a bunch from this experience. Though I tried ( very briefly ) to participate in LD32 I never did anything that made LD meaningful. So this is my post-LD report.
WHAT WENT WELL
I definitely had a positive experience this go around. Though in retrospect the game I made is very simple and could have done and meant so much more, for my first LD ever ( and the fact that I had to cramp it into the Compo ) I’m proud of it. I learned how to do animations, collisions, and basic graphics, which I’ve evolved into my own 8-bit style ( you can see my most recent character here ). I also tried my hand at music and story, and though they didn’t come out as good as I wanted, they were there and did make my game a little bit different than all the others.
WHAT WENT… NOT SO WELL
I don’t have any horror stories to report this time around. Everything went okay; the game came out and nothing was sacrificed due to time. It came out the way I made it and the way I wanted. The story was all over the place now that I look at it, and the music is a little off, but I guess it does the job. I could have put a little more effort into the graphics, and I went back and revised them for a post-LD version, but I don’t see it worth it. I’ve got bigger plans to work on ( hint hint ).
So overall I had a good LD! I’m certainly planning on returning in the future, and I hope to see you all there!
Again, if you’ve not played my game, click here.
So I’m happy. Not incredible but definitely better than what I wanted.
This is my second LD, and with last round scoring top 75 for mood, I’m hoping to do pretty well again.
Tools:
Graphics: Paint.NET, Aesprite
Engine: Love2D (lua language)
Audio: BFXR
Good luck to all that is joining!
So far it’s going fantastically!
Here’s a list of GIFs:
Early player movement and animation tests
Let me know what you think! The white square represents the character; it will be replaced with an animated character soon.
That’s 2 LDs in the books!
This LD was a lot more comfortable for me, since I had an idea for the theme and was sketching ideas for the levels within 10 minutes of the theme being released. Also, since this was my second LD, I kinda had a better idea of when to start working on which parts of the game and when to start pushing out demos to my friends. All in all, I think it came out very nicely!
You can view my entry here: http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-34/?action=preview&uid=52238
You can view a video of me playing a very slightly outdated version here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOGaQUrQE-E
You can check out my game here!
This is my second LD and I think I did pretty good with it. But, that’s for you to decide.
Some screenies:
Like puzzles?
Like platformers?
My Ludum Dare entry is right for you!
Introducing There’s No Going Back, my LD34 Compo entry.
The concept is simple: complete the level by only jumping and moving forward, unless acted upon by the launch blocks around the map. Collect all the coins before reaching the goal to complete the level and advance.
There are lots of hazardous spikes that you must look out for.
So far, the game has gotten fantastic reviews, and I have plans on developing it further. Hopefully you enjoy playing it as much as I did developing it!
Thanks!
-Eric
So this is the first time I’ve done a proper post-mortem. If you’ve not played my game yet, play it here.
What Went Right
Graphics
The graphics in TNGB came out much better than I expected. Though there were a few tidbits I wish I could have changed in the details (for instance, the wood texture doesn’t really fit in with everything else in my opinion), the rest of the graphics came out just as I wanted them too.
Audio
Sound effects were easy: a few BFXR sound-bytes was all. The music however was awesome. I had a couple of drafts and mostly-complete songs waiting to be finished that all had a similar genre and feel, and to me they sounded perfect to fit in with a puzzle game, so I finished them to a point where they could be used in the game, and voila!
Gameplay
I think that the gameplay went well. There are a few collision errors in stuff like the spikes; they collide with the size of a whole tile, not the size of the spike itself. However, player physics, boost-pads, and basically every other aspect of the game worked out very well.
What didn’t go so right
Level Creation
Though the end levels came out nicely, the process of doing so was very clunky and not easy. I have included the level editor with the game if you want to try it out.
I’ve worked on a new level editor and it is much better, more advanced, and easy to use, so that I can continue developing the game further.
Animation Creation
Another situation where the product came out alright, like the coin animations and the end-goal’s crystal hovering up and down, but the process to make the animations was very difficult, as I had not found the program I will use from now on (GraphicsGale). I had to manually save and edit and resize each frame in Paint.NET, which is a good program, but not for fine-tuning animations like that. Each time I edited an animation and wanted to see how it looked, I had to save it, an relaunch the game and find the animation to even judged if it looked good. With GraphicsGale, I get a live preview as I edit, making it much easier.
That’s all I have! Please, if you haven’t tried my game, I would very much appreciate if you did! This is my second Ludum Dare, both being Compo. I think this is the better of the two, and I’d love to see what you think!
Happy LD-ing!
Top 100.
Top 100.
Wat.
Top 8% for everything. 81 overall. Wow.
Thank you. Everyone. This elates me beyond words, especially since I improved around 500 places on average on each category.
I’ve been participating since Ludum Dare 33, and I made an Excel thing to compare the data.
In the placement chart, lower is better. In the score chart, higher is better.
EDIT: The picture looks stretched. CLICK HERE for the link to the image.
Thanks everyone who played my game, which you can find here.
Both are thanks to the new custom programmed level editor, which looks like this: (albeit a bit wonky on LD’s website)
Would love to hear what you think!
Hey all!
This is my third Ludum Dare competition. Last time, I placed 81st overall, and I’m hoping to do as well as I did that time. I wish everyone luck, and don’t forget to sleep and be awesome.
