Well, this is my first time doing a Ludum Dare, and it’s pretty intimidating. My language of choice this time is going to by Python and I’ll be taking the Pygame approach. I’m pretty under prepared for this, with my only two finished games being Tic-Tac-Toe and Worm clones (although I guess if all else fails, worm sort of fits the theme ;P ). Although chances that I’ll actually finish the Jam seem pretty low at the moment, I’ve got an inkling of an idea rolling around in my head, and I’m going to give it my best shot!

Good luck to all!

Well, I’ve been at it for about…two hours now, and things are going much better than expected! By this I mean I am actually heading somewhere in the proximity of where I want to be going. 😛 My game is going to be a tile-based digging game, where each tile of dirt can hold a unique item. Right now, I’ve got this:

It doesn’t look like much, but every time I press the space bar a new set of tiles is generated. The different colors represent what the tiles will contain (fossils, treasure, rocks, etc.) and eventually each tile will be replaced with a uniform texture, so the digger is unaware of what is underneath until they dig up the tile. I’m probably going to call it a night soon, but for now I’m having fun just mashing the space bar.

 (This is a gif, by the way!)

I woke up about an hour ago, and I’ve been focusing on getting the tile selection and digging mechanics working. Right now, the map is just placeholder color tiles, but they will (hopefully!) be better pictures soon. Here is an untouched generated map:

The box surrounded in white is the tile that the player’s mouse is over. When he/she clicks a tile, its health parameter goes down 1, with a lower limit of 0. (Tiles have varying strengths.)

For now, the only way to show a tile has been dug is its darker value, but once I eventually get some textures going it’ll give the illusion of depth better. Good luck everyone!

I’ve now implemented a system for assigning various items to be contained in each block of ground. There are 4 lists of items at the moment: common, uncommon, rare,  and very rare. When a new map is generated, each tile is assigned an item. Items in the “common” list have the highest chance of being picked, all the way down to “very rare”. If no item is picked, the tile is assigned “nothing”. I will absolutely need to tweak this, as in my last dig I dug up two holy grails. 😛

Now that I’ve got the framework laid out, off to learn how to create decent textures! Away!

Alright, after some hard work I’ve made a ton of progress!

I’ve replaced the temporary tiles that I had earlier with actual grass and dirt, created somewhat-randomized hole generation for when you are digging, and added a few possible things to dig up. This is my first time doing any pixel art, so most of it’s pretty rough.

Now I have to draw some more things to find and figure out how to turn this into an actually challenging game. Oh, and I should probably remember to blink as well.

This game jam thing is more work than I thought it would be.

Hello, all! I hope you’re having a good time coding in whatever time zone you’re in. I took a break for several hours this afternoon, but now I’m back, and I’ve added a new mechanic to my digging game: dirt piles! Exciting, huh? 😛

Now, when you dig holes, you now receive piles of dirt that you have to manage. They stack in piles of 3, but you can not access the tiles that they cover. You can also put dirt back into holes.

You can also rearrange treasures* that you dig up. This will come into play when I (hopefully) implement a bag to take items to the shop.

This new element of having to manage your space will make the game more tense when there is a time limit.

Good luck everyone!

I haven’t done a progress report in about a day, so here’s basically what I got done on day 2:

Firstly, I added 10 new things that you can dig up.

Secondly, I added a GUI at the bottom of the screen. It contains your bag, the time limit, and the ‘Run Away!’ button. Your bag can hold up to 5 things. It’s up to you to find and decide your five chosen items and run away before time runs out. If time runs out, you lose all your points. (My original story idea was you were an amateur archaeologist without the necessary permits to dig for artifacts, so you resort to digging up peoples’ backyards while they’re at work.)

Finally, I’ve added a scoring window. You get points based on the rarity of the items, how long the round took, if you had any yahtzee-like bonuses (3,4,5 of a kind, full house), and finally if you were “clean”. That means that you refilled every hole that you dug, leaving no evidence that you were there. (P.S. After some play testing, I’ve nerfed the clean bonus a smidge.) All these different bonuses mean that players have to plan their attack. They could hunt for one really rare item to get the basic points up and then find a four of a kind of something extremely common to get a big multiplier, or they could focus on getting out as fast as possible. I’ve been having a ton of fun building/playing it. I won’t have much work time tomorrow, but I hope to get in a title menu, some audio, and a how-to menu if I’m lucky.

Welp, that was exciting! I have never worked that hard without stopping for that amount of time before. I barely slept, but it was worth it. I learned not only some more efficient coding techniques, but I also learned how to plan and stick to an idea from start to finish. Although it’s not perfect, I’m really happy with how my game turned out. It’s been really cool to be a part of something so big, and I hope this is my first LD of many!

Play my game, Dig!, here:

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-29/?action=preview&uid=34427

Ludum Dare 29 was my first Jam. And it was awesome.

Life got in the way for LD30, but I’m back for 31. And I’m pumped.

This time I play on entering the Compo rather than the Jam, so that I can be content with a smaller scope and therefore spend less time as a jittery mess adding game mechanics Monday night and more time cleaning and making my game perdy. But we’ll see.

Coding: Python/Pygame

Graphics: I just got the free trial for Pickle, and I’ll play around with that. If all else fails, I can fall back on my old pal Gimp.

Sound: No plan yet! I guess I’ll just wing it.

I’ve got almost 16 hours worth of music lined up on Spotify, so I should only have to repeat the songs once or twice each. 😛

So much hype! Let’s do this!

Alright, I’m calling it a night somewhat early here so that I can wake up and seize the day fresh tomorrow! I’ve put about 3 hours of code into my game, and I’m fairly happy with the progress so far. I have a really strange idea, but I think it just might work! I don’t want to be to specific just yet because my idea will probably change a whole lot over the next two days, but I can say it’s going to be almost completely story-driven, which is the polar opposite of my last LD game, so this will be interesting. 😀

It’s that time again, and I can’t wait to participate in my THIRD Ludum Dare! This will also be my second time entering the compo. Hopefully I will be finishing in time for the compo deadline, but I will be gone for much of Sunday, so I might just have to enter into the jam. But that would be alright!

My main goals:

• Create a new style of game. The three games that I have finished (2 in LD, 1 in #1GAM) have all been point-and-click games. I’m very happy with them, but I’d like to try something NEW- a platformer or action game, perhaps?
• Continuing off the trend of trying something new, I’ve been playing around with Audiotool recently, and it’s really awesome. (You can listen to the first thing I’ve just made here. It’s kinda cool.) I’d really like to devote more time into audio for this game. Graphics too, if I have time.
• Finally, I don’t want to stress out about how well I place in the scoring. Last time I was blown away by how surprisingly well my Text (Message) Adventure game, SMS placed. Especially since I will be gone most of Sunday, I might not have the good fortune of creating as mind-blowing of a game. I want to try and remember that the prize is not in our score but in the products we create and the fun we have, and as long as we feel like we’ve gotten something out this competition, then we should be happy. Hoorah.

The themes will be announced in several minutes, oh man! I have good ideas for Unconventional Weapon and Companion, but really most of the themes seem pretty solid. Honestly, I’m surprised the theme I submitted, Harvest, made it into the final round. I also hope it doesn’t win. 😛

Happy jamming everyone!

Well, I’ve finished my 3rd Ludum Dare. It gets more fun every time! My entry for this compo is the game “Sophistication Annihilation.” It’s a typing game, but don’t let that fool you! “Sophistication” is very fast-paced and fun, and I’m really happy with how much I was able to finish! My only wish is that I could have added music and more animation, but I’m planning on releasing a more polished post-compo version later, so I can do that stuff then. Loving playing all your games!

Click the picture below to play my game!

I’ve participated in (and successfully completed) 3 Ludum Dares so far, and I’d really like to join again next weekend. The problem is, this time of year is incredibly busy for me, and I have to be away for all of Saturday. Do you think it’s worth trying to throw together a quick game on Sunday, or will whatever I make be so sloppy and unimpressive that it would be better to just skip this one?

It’s time for another Ludum Dare, and I’m excited! Unfortunately, I won’t be able to participate for all of Saturday, so that just leaves me with Sunday if I hope to enter the compo. Right now, my plan is to just scope smaller than I ever have and work on getting some sort of product by the end. If I run out of time, I’ll probably just submit whatever I have. Not everything has to be perfect!

Good luck!

Well, LD33 was the first Ludum Dare that I entered and wasn’t able to finish. I had a ton of prior commitment and work to get done over the weekend, so instead of stressing in the few hours of free time I had, I just played around with a little prototype instead and had some fun. I’m not going to submit what I’ve made as it hardly qualifies as a game, but overall I’m content with how things went. (Plus I really like the idea so I’m going to keep working on it in secret 😛 ) Hope everyone got what they wanted out of this compo!

See you in December! For real this time!