Mmm… Meat Space… Space Meat. Mmm… back in action w/ @laufman.

I’ll be around to help people with submission issues in a few hours. I’m trying to make this game above do more cool stuff. Tweet me with your Ludum Dare username if you’re having troubles logging in.

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 28th, 2013 at 2:34 pm and is filed under LD #26. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

The folks behind IndieCade got in touch with me to tell me they love what we’re doing here at Ludum Dare. So much, that they want to offer you a discount off the usual submission fee. To take advantage of the deal, do the following:

1. Visit indiecade.com/submissions/ and fill out the entry form.
2. Mention Ludum Dare in your description.
3. Use coupon code “dare13” in the payment section to receive 40% off.

Early submission deadline ends May 31st ($80), and the late deadline is June 30th ($110).

I was trying to think of a joke involving thousands of potatoes and Ludum Dare, but 2346 games is nothing to joke about. That’s incredible. I’m at lost for words. Lets just get to the results:

How did I do?

You can view your results here:

My Results: ludumdare.com/…/?action=me

The individual category results are just above your comments.

Top 100 Games

Check out winning competition and jam games here:

Compo Top 100: ludumdare.com/…/?action=top
Jam Top 100: ludumdare.com/…/?action=top&cat=Overall(Jam)

Winners are decided by the Overall category.

Congratulations to all the winners.

Categorical Top 25s

Here at Ludum Dare, being the best game isn’t the only way to win. Games are rated in 7 additional categories, with a special “Coolness” category highlighting people that went above and beyond to be sure you got a vote.

Categorical Top 25s: ludumdare.com/…/?more=1

*NOTE*: You can click on the titles of the categories for Top 100 style lists per category.

Ludum Dare 27 – August 2013

Whew! What a dare! You had a good time right? Great! We’re doing it again in August! We don’t have a specific date chosen yet, but stay tuned for that. Follow us on Twitter or join the mailing list to stay informed.

Suggestions

If you have any suggestions for us (website, observations, etc), we continue to collect them in the comments here:

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/2012/01/09/suggestion-post-2/

Thanks everyone for coming out and kicking off an amazing new year for Ludum Dare!

– Mike Kasprzak (PoV)

While Ludum Dare is typically an online event (make a game from the comfort of your home), many real world events happen around Ludum Dare. Here’s the list:

• Montpellier, France – Baptême du jeu
• Oakland, California – Museum of Art and Digital Entertainment (MADE)
• Medford, Oregon – The Rogue Hack Lab
• Manchester, UK – The Madlab
• Toronto, Ontario, Canada – Ryerson University/Game Makers Union
• Rogaland, Norway – Assembling a small Jam Team…
• Adelaide, Australia – Jamalaide!
• Oslo, Norway – Bitraf
• Aberdeen, Scotland – The Aberdeen University Computing Science Society at the University of Aberdeen (that’s a mouthful)
• Richmond, Virginia – RVA Game Jams
• Calgary, Alberta, Canada – Waves Coffee House (hmm!)
• Omsk, Russia – Omsk State University
• Treviso, Italy – Meme Coworking (venue info)
• Huntsville, Alabama – Makers Local 256
• Malmö, Sweden – Spelprogrammering A-Ö (limited space)
• Ithaca, New York – Ithaca Generator
• Bordeaux, France – Motion Twin (1 slot left!)
• Dallas, Texas – Dallas/Fort Worth Indie Developers (yee haw!)
• Saint-Petersburg, Russia – IT bar KLЮTCH
• Seattle, Washington – Post LD Show and Tell!

If you want your event on the list, post a comment letting me know where your event is. Be sure to include a link to further details (either here on the blog, or elsewhere).

Hey guess what? It’s Warmup Weekend time again!

Did you skip out on #7DFPS this week? Then between now and Ludum Dare 27′s start time, you should probably make sure that your tools work. Make some art, import it, and draw it on screen. Make some sounds, import them, and play them on cue. If you’re using a new development tool, figure out the development and testing cycle.

Bullet point summary:

• No rules or limits. This is practice.
• Learn your development tools! Write some code, run it.
• Make some art, get it on screen, make it move.
• Print some text to the screen. Print some text to a log (if applicable).
• Make some sound, get it in game, make it play.
• If you’re motivated enough, make your experiments in to a game!
• Make something that should take “hours”, not 2 days.
• Then package it up, put it online.
• No time or day limit. But if you have no other plans this weekend, why not?

If you like what you’ve done, feel free to share it.

[ Submit Here | View all Warmup Games ]

Lets go go go!

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 15th, 2013 at 9:15 pm and is filed under LD #27. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Hello! Yes we’re running a quick poll to see which weekend is better for Ludum Dare 28.

Click here:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/blahblah/viewform

Thanks!

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 31st, 2013 at 9:17 am and is filed under LD #28. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

It’s Slaughter Time!

All this week, help us reduce the thousands of themes submitted to a more manageable size using our patent pending (not really) Sosowski hot-or-not slaughtering technology. Also, my thanks again to Sorceress for helping out.

Theme Voting begins this weekend!

As another Ludum Dare looms, it’s time again for Warmup Weekend!

So! Did you somehow skip all the jams going on these past few weeks? Then between now and Ludum Dare 28′s start time, you should probably make sure that your tools work. Make some art, import it, and draw it on screen. Make some sounds, import them, and play them on cue. If you’re using a new development tool, figure out the development cycle. Learn how to make a release too!

Bullet point summary:

• No rules or limits. This is practice.
• Learn your development tools! Write some code, run it.
• Make some art, get it on screen, make it move.
• Print some text to the screen. Print some text to a log (if applicable).
• Make some sound, get it in game, make it play.
• If you’re motivated enough, make your experiments in to a game!
• Make something that should take “hours”, not 2 days.
• Then package it up, put it online.
• No time or day limit. But if you have no other plans this weekend, why not?

If you like what you’ve done, feel free to share it.

[ Submit Here | View all Warmup Games ]

Hey Folks,

To end the spam problem, I’ll be shutting down the current mailing list after this message goes out.

Please move any discussion to here:

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/2013/12/08/mailing-list-migration/

Soon after I’ll be setting up a new mailing list and adding everyone. Due to the number of requests, I haven’t unsubscribed anyone. If you wish to unsubscribe, instructions will be made available as the new list goes live.

Until then!

Good night gamecompo@sykhronics.com. It was a good 11 years.

I suppose this was overdue anyway. The mailing list was originally set up to be a common list for some of the older compo/jam events from a decade ago (Ludum Dare, 72HourGDC, PyWeek, etc). Ultimately though, the list was almost always about us.

I still think a mailing list is useful (and of the 3000 members, some of you might too). So I’ll be setting up a dedicated announcement list soon just for us. Only members of the Ludum Dare administration will be able to post.

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 8th, 2013 at 8:43 pm and is filed under LD #28. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Okay, not really, but the timing is awfully good. And he talks about making games. That’s probably as close as we’ll ever get.

Enjoy.

This afternoon I did battle with a large slab of Beef Tenderloin.

https://vine.co/v/h2bqUJVPHJn

We fought for over an hour, but the spoils made it worthwhile. More than a dozen thick super-tender steaks dropped as loot.

Cooking anything fancy this weekend? Share it! Use the “foodphoto” tag.

Tags: foodphoto

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 12th, 2013 at 3:29 pm and is filed under LD #28. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Well, it’s time to kick off Year 12 and do some scheduling!

See, I typically try doing this on Twitter, which is notoriously bad for being a stream that people miss. So for a change, I’ve decided to do something sensible: make a post about it here on the website. How novel?

Tentative Date: April 25th-28th Weekend

I like to schedule events as late as possible in the month, and best I can tell, there are two very good reasons to prefer the last weekend of April.

• April 4th-7th Weekend
• Really Early Sadface
• April 11-14 Weekend
• PAX East (Major Gaming Convention) – Boston, MA
• April 18-21 Weekend
• Revision (Demo Party, formerly BreakPoint) – Saarbrücken, Germany
• April 25-28 Weekend
• I LIKE THIS ONE

If I’ve missed any other major game industry related events, let me know in the comments.

Being a coder and C64 Geek, I’m a total DemoScene nerd. Between Revision and Assembly (Summer), there’s really not much left. I’d hate to miss watching the live streams (yet again).

PAX East, I’ve actually exhibited at. Boston is a lovely city, with a wonderful gamedev community. I’m not attending this year, but I’m sure I will attend again soon. Plus the locals would kill me.

So that’s my 2 cents. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments, or to let me know of other very important things happening certain weeks. Thanks!

While Ludum Dare is typically an online event (make a game from the comfort of your home), many real world events happen around Ludum Dare. Here’s the list:

• Portland, Oregon – Portland Indie Game Squad (pigsquad.com)
• Longmont, Colorado – Tinkermill (Tinkermill.org)
• Brazil – “Online” Ludum Dare Gogogo
• Paris, France – Ludum Dare Paris (Meetup.com)
• Lund, Sweden – at Sony sonymobile.com/hackathon (was Malmö, post)
• Calgary, Alberta – Meetup.com (hi!)
• San Francisco, California – The MADE
• Falmouth, UK – 8-bit Bar
• Minsk, Belarus – MZOR/Techspace
• Lausanne, Switzerland – FIXME Hackerspace
• Enschede, Netherlands – University of Twente **
• Richmond, Virgina – RVA Game Jams
• Aarhus, Denmark – Aarhus
• Mannheim, Germany – RaumZeitLabor
• Los Angeles, California – CrashSpace
• Omsk, Russia – Omsk Ludum Dare
• Knoxville, Tennessee – Technology Cooperative
• Adelaide, Australia – Jamalaide
• Hamburg, Germany – InnoGames HQ
• Johannesburg, South Africa – MakeGamesSA at Microsoft Campus
• Charlotte, North Carolina – IGDA Charlotte at Microsoft Campus
• Lexington, Kentucky – Super Soul
• Rochester, New York – Rochester Indies Anonymous at RedBottle Design
• Coventry, United Kingdom – Warwick Game Design at University of Warwick
• Bandung, Indonesia – Institut Teknologi Bandung
• Brisbane, Australia – Eastes
• Miðfjörður, Iceland – Isolation Game Jam
• Chicago, Illinois – Looseleaf Lounge
• Skopje, Macedonia – Hacklab KIKA
• Eugene, Oregon – FertiLab
• Oslo, Norway – Bitraf
• Tokyo, Japan – Pico Pico Cafe

If you want your event on the list, post a comment letting me know where your event is. Be sure to include a link to further details (either here on the blog, or elsewhere).

Hey folks! I’ve been asked several times about the GDC Gathering. Last year, there was a mixup at Tads, which I suspect had something to do with making the reservation as early as I did. Fortunately it did work out, but I’m hoping calling later is less confusing for them.

Tentatively, Confirmed, the gathering will be on GDC Tuesday (March 18th) at Tads Steakhouse, starting sometime after we get out of the summits at 6:30 PM. Feel free to stop by whenever (They kick us out somewhere between 10:30-11:00 PM). We’ll be in the upstairs area at the back. The reservation is under the name “Mike“, but feel free to just walk in, go to the back, and walk upstairs. If you see nerds, you win.

http://www.tadssteaks-sf.com/

Tads is an inexpensive ($10-$15), cafeteria-style Steakhouse. My apologies to the Vegetarians, but it is a very meaty menu. Feel free to eat elsewhere and join us after. We like it ’cause it’s private, close to Moscone, don’t charge us a dime to reserve, and they’re open past 8 PM (i.e. Westfield).

EDIT: The Mysterious Sony Talk

Hey Folks! Looks like Sony has scheduled a mysterious Extra Talk (announcement?) on GDC Tuesday, 5:45-6:45. Some of us (including me) may choose to attend, so we may be late. Just FYI!

Hey folks! Apologies for the frontpage spam. We’ve been running anti-spam plugins for several years now, and they’re still catching thousands of attempts, but there’s this really ugly onslaught going on now that none of them can stop. Anyone following the RSS would be wise to discontinue for the time being. We’re deleting the users manually as we see them, but regrettably these bots are way more persistent than us.

I definitely plan to resolve this, even if that means writing a custom anti-spam plugin. Alas I’m away at GDC this week, so I will not get a chance until I return. Soon though, soon.

Thank you for your patience.

More info: The main problem with whats been going on is that anti-spam plugins are for comments typically. It’s very rare to find plugins for stopping signups and bad posts. We have a catchpa, but lately I’ve started running a new plugin that is supposed to catch user post spam (CleanTalk), but you’ve seen the results. *sigh*, looks like we need to take more drastic measures.

If anyone decides to write a clever new anti-spam plugin while I’m away, please get in touch.

Deals! Here is this LD’s list of offers, bargains and other things.

Development

• AGK App Game Kit – Cross Platform Game Development Suite – FREE (reg $59.99) for Ludum Dare! Add to cart, and use coupon code AGKLUDUMDARE1. Offer valid April 19th to 28th! NOTE: Be sure to Apply the offer, by clicking the Apply button.
• CraftStudio – Cooperative Game Making Platform – Free Weekend for Ludum Dare! Get access to all the premium features April 24th to 29th.
• GameCreator – Drag and Drop Web Game Creator – Access to most features including full analytics during Ludum Dare weekend and the 3 weeks of voting. Use the promo code: Ludumdare29 after registration.
• PlayCanvas – 3D Collaborative HTML5 game dev platform – Get a 12 month Pro account, worth $180, for free if you submit a game to Ludum Dare using the PlayCanvas development platform. Email support@playcanvas.com with your username and a link to your finished game.
• Loom SDK Turbo – Real Time Game Development Suite – Create an Account on loomsdk.com, then send an e-mail to Ben and ask about the Ludum Dare Promo to get 12 Months of Turbo for FREE.
• Atanua – Circuit logic simulator – For reals! Long time veteran and moderator Sol_HSA is offering a free license to anyone that makes a Ludum Dare game with his logic simulator. And you thought you were hardcore making your LD games in C or assembly. Think again! Use this temp license to try it: 105A081C2E0841D4F1B73738300061A2253A5A69688D48B4C537A2686173452EF266
• Unity Pro – A 30 day trial of Unity Pro is available using code T3-NZ3Z-HEZ7-UQYW-N2PW-WNSH (in case yours is expired, or such). 600 Activations Available. More details here.

Content Creation

• Pixexix Pro – Projection Painting Tool – Get Pixexix Pro for 66% off ($10), through April.
• AutoTileGen Pro – 2D Terrain Tileset Generator – Get AutoTileGen Pro for 50% off ($10). Available until the end of Ludum Dare. Use this link.
• Pickle Editor – Sprite and Animation Editor – $10 off (Reg $24.99) with coupon code LD29. Click here to add to cart.
• Voxatron – Cool Game with built-in Voxel Editor and Exporter – Free copy to any LD’er that wants to make Voxel Graphics. More details here.

Unity Asset Store

• Voxwell – Voxel World Editor – Contact @DarkMeatGames and let ’em know you’re interested a Free Copy for Ludum Dare.
• Scaffolding View Framework – Menu Editor – Free for Ludum Dare 29.

If you’d like to submit your own deal, you can post details and a link in the comments below, or send me an e-mail. Keep in mind I don’t have a lot of time, but if you need a confirmation or just to ping me once it’s posted, go ahead and mail me. When I have a chance I’ll add it to the list.

Also it MUST be relevant to what we do here (i.e. make games).

ENDING SOON! GO SLAUGHTER NOW!

With over 3000 themes suggested by the community, how do we make that more manageable? With this!

It’s like hot-or-not for Ludum Dare themes. Click the graphic above, and keep clicking until you can click no more! Every click helps, and we’ve got a lot more to filter than last time, so click more and click often!

Next week we kick off Warmup Weekend (April 19th-20th), and begin main Theme Voting. So tune in for that. Things are getting real here. I hope you like the new purple look too (might require a refresh). This is our first major event of 2014, and our 12th year running Ludum Dare. Lets make it a good year!

Special thanks again to Sorceress for preparing the theme list for me.

Are you psyched for Ludum Dare 29? Yeah! Are you ready for Ludum Dare 29? No!?? Then between now and Ludum Dare 29′s start time, you’re encouraged to test your tools. We call it Warmup Weekend (but we don’t mind if you’re early or late). Make some art, import it, and draw it on screen. Make some sounds, import them, and play them on cue. If you’re using a new development tool, figure out the development cycle. Learn how to make a release too!

Bullet point summary:

• No rules or limits. This is practice.
• Learn your development tools! Write some code, run it.
• Make some art, get it on screen, make it move.
• Print some text to the screen. Print some text to a log (if applicable).
• Make some sound, get it in game, make it play.
• If you’re motivated enough, make your experiments in to a game!
• Make something that should take “hours”, not 2 days.
• Then package it up, put it online.
• No time or day limit. But if you have no other plans this weekend, why not?

If you like what you’ve done, feel free to share it.

[ Submit Here | View all Warmup Games ]

Hey! 2014! Year 12! It’s Ludum Dare time! Woo!

Final Round Theme Voting has begun! The highest rated themes from Rounds 1-4 have been collected here for the Final Grand Theme Battle! Who will be victorious? You decide!

[ FINAL ROUND ]

Yeah! Final Round!

Keynote

Keynoting Ludum Dare 29 is Eniko, telling her story of Ludum Dareness.

Watch for guest appearances by Crowbeak, Benn, and Sheepolution.

Dare I say: Have an amazing weekend everyone!

Tags: keynote

This entry was posted on Friday, April 25th, 2014 at 7:05 pm and is filed under LD #29. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.