Not everyone likes PC builds, so I've added a web-playable build of Legend of Zoom, my Zelda + Car Combat mashup!

Entry is here if you're interested: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/legend-of-zoom

Here is the timelapse for my entry, asking "What if Link was a Car?"

https://youtu.be/XKKhhXyzUMM

Watching these timelapses of myself, I'm always surprised by the same thing: how long I spend making the art and how little writing code!

I wonder if that's a mistake, and I could streamline my art process to save time and ship more features...

What doesn't surprise me is how long I spend fiddling around with the feel.

The entry is here if you want to check it out: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/legend-of-zoom

Solo/compo.

Most likely the same toolchain: Unity, my starter kit code, Inkscape, Reaper+synthone->Audacity

Good luck to everyone, looking forward to seeing what happens and to trying your games.

It appears to be my game.

I started with something REALLY different than this, and I'm not sure how I ended up here. But I do like how it makes the reduction of cells in the map interesting to interact with at a basic movement level, so I think this is my game.

Weird to think it's so many times!

As usual I will use Unity and my now-fairly-refined starter kit codebase.

For art I'll probably use Inkscape again, and for audio Reaper+VSTi into Audacity, or maybe even some foley.

There's a small chance I'll take a big risk and try 3D, and that would mean Blender.

Good luck everyone, and have fun!

I'm going for a feeling of exploring in the dark, in danger, where you might get jumped suddenly.

I want to expand the player side to a party of humans, and, well, you probably won't all be making it out alive... at least that's the idea! Sad decisions of who in your party to sacrifice, and when/how, maybe could lead to a strategy/horror game, I hope.

Obviously a long way to go, but seems okay for the first evening. I have the movement, the darkness revealing as you go, and the monster that lurks and then springs into action when you reveal it.

I'm a little late, and a little tired, and a little not in the mood.

But I'll regret it if I don't go for it, so I'm in!

Unity, my starter kit codebase, inkscape, audacity.

Good luck everyone, and have fun.

Making me get off my train...

Just wanted to share this great experience from the LD scene.

There's one LD crew that makes their Jam games in an ongoing series called "Nuclear Arms". The games keep pushing the story along, and all star the same character, Craig Killbane. If you haven't checked these games out, you should! They're a ton of fun and they just keep getting better.

This team obviously has a really good time going over the top with their crazy games, so I have a little fun going over the top with the crazy reviews I leave for them.

After this last LD, one of them reached out and asked what my home address was...

And look what just arrived in the mail!

Thanks to the Nuclear Arms team for the great games and the very cool special delivery!! Logicon211 (@logicon211), Bodom4ever (@bodom4ever), volt450 (@volt450), yoshiwara (@yoshiwara), FTL_Sloth (@ftl-sloth), BaronB (@baronb), and Amanda Gallant (@amanda-gallant)

Looking forward to #8.

To anyone else curious about the games, there's a full list of all 7 of them, here: https://ldjam.com/users/logicon211

Six months is a long time, hope I haven't forgotten how to do this!

What I'm actually worried about is the dabbling I did in a few new tools. I'm not competent yet but they might tempt me. Dangerous.

Good luck everyone - have fun, stay healthy, and see you on the other side.

I'm in.

I've done 16 of these now. After this, I will have done more on the new site than on the old, which seems strange since that feels like just yesterday.

I've done all 16 compos in 2D, but this time I had a chance to practice with some Blender tutorials, and if the theme/idea allows, I'm going to shoot for a 3D entry.

Here's a screenshot of me testing my art pipeline:

I'm not worried about the 3D physics, but I am a little concerned about lighting, and things lining up at seams. I gave up completely on rigging after a quick test, maybe something for next time.

Tools I'll use include Unity with some of my own jamming base code, Blender, Aesprite or Inkscape for any 2D assets, and Reaper/VSTis/Audacity/microphone for sound.

Good luck everyone - have fun!

I assumed the problem jumping to 3D would be around lighting, snapping, or something about the meshes and graphics. I figured with all of my experience in 2D physics I wouldn't have much of a problem whipping up a cool character to control.

But as usual I dialed the complexity of creating (not of playing!) the main character up to 11. Chasing the feel of leaning your motorcycle over into a corner, I created a multi-object main character and ran head on into a bunch of weird rotation issues.

Turns out my gifs of the bugs are too large for LD, but they're kind of wild so I've uploaded them here: https://imgur.com/a/211MZYX

The bug going on in the second gif actually made my stomach lurch and reminded me of VR sickness.

Here's a smaller gif of it working:

Still doesn't quite recreate the feeling I love about riding a motorcycle, but it's now in a state that I can put iterative improvements on.

Put some ramp borders to keep the player from falling out of the arena:

They started being kind of fun to ride on, but they were too quick and jerky.

So I did the obvious thing and remade new ramps twenty times bigger:

I like the way this guy cruises around, but it could be a LOT better. My worry is that I could spend the whole remaining time just messing with the gamefeel, so I have to be careful...

I started with a walking FPS type character using the non-physics CharacterController with WASD/mouse. Stumbled through following fun into this motorcycle-inspired robot control, but when I got there it was a tangled mess and hard to polish. I don't usually take on a large refactor during jams, but I scrapped and rewrote nearly all of my code from about 3-7pm today.

Another half hour of tweaking the seams of various colliders to capture the smoothness and the player FINALLY feels good, and I can go from polish idea to implementation easily in my rewritten code. Using the real rigidbody physics gives much more satisfying feeling of momentum.

Good stuff, but costly - I am now behind where I would normally want to be going into the midpoint. I'm just now getting started on the major interaction of the game, which is ramming your high-speed robot into enemies arranged in packs. I'm dreaming of a combo system, but first I just need to make it FEEL GOOD to ram through several of these dorks in a row:

I guess I just love diving deep on weirdo character controllers... even if they risk up my jam I just can't say no!

I have not been keeping my skills fresh, so here's hoping I can shake off the rust that's built up since last LD!

But I'm in for the compo.

For tools I'll be using Unity w/ some base code, Audacity/Reaper, and some combination of Inkscape/Blender/Aseprite depending on art style.

I'm in again for the compo.

According to the stats I'm past my prime and on the decline, but who cares? I still have fun!

I'll use my usual engine, Unity, with some basic starter code that makes it a bit more convenient to play sounds and do scene transitions, or pull items at random from a list, and other things that seem to repeat in many jams.

I'll probably do pixel art with aseprite this time, though I consider inkscape vector art and blender in my arsenal.

The new tool I might use this time is FL Studio, I've practiced with it a little, and if I'm feeling in control I might attempt music as a stretch goal. Never done it before but recently I've been wanting to try.

For sound effects, I'll either synthesize some in one of the synths from FL studio, or else record foley and process in audacity.

Good luck to everyone, and have fun!

Apparently my game is that you have no arms and need to jump on top of a hyperactive jackhammer to smash blocks and avoid them getting too high.

This is the kind of thing that happens when you brainstorm for 2 hours, get no idea you're happy with, and just start building something.

This was horribly unfun when it was 9 tiles wide and the jackhammer jumped around randomly. Now that it follows you like a puppy and the space is much narrower, I'm starting to find some fun. One interesting tradeoff that I've noticed is it's easy to quickly eliminate blocks if you dig straight down, but if you go too deep it becomes difficult to get the jackhammer out and reposition it quickly to deal with the tall piles that risk hitting the game over line.

It's a very cool part of these jams that you can throw any pile of mechanics together and there is something hiding in there. You don't get to decide, you just have to roll with it.

My 21st LD. Still sticking to my "No beer while jamming" rule though.

I'll use Unity again. A while back I posted my base code on github as an importable package. The main things I use from it are the extension methods for Rigidbody2D, some sound-library management, and the FXTrigger thing which is is handy for cramming in screenshake and sound triggers in the final 30 minutes in a wild fury: https://github.com/pckenney/ScrambleKit

Good luck to everyone participating, and have fun. Looking forward to trying your games.

Had to work late and lost 6 hours already so not a great start. Also expecting some other interruptions, and I'm resolved to get decent sleep this time.

Let's see what I can do starting late and keeping the intensity to a sane level!