Well, here we are again
Well, here we are again. Twice I entered the Ludum Dare, twice I failed. I first tried during the 20th edition (“It’s dangerous to go alone, take this”), but I wasn’t skilled enough, very slow and and couldn’t release a game before the deadline.I believe my second attempt was during the 23rd edition (“Tiny World”). I had joined the jam at the last minute, totally unprepared and with a WIP game engine, which prevented me to focus on the actual game. I left half-way through the competition.
But it’s not the disappointment of failure that I remember the most. To me, the Ludum Dare will always be an intense week-end during which anybody can free his or her creativity to make something awesome. Whether we succeed or not, that doesn’t really matter after all. There’ just so much to learn, so many people to discover, so many games to play. That’s why I’m here again.
I think I’m much better prepared now than ever:
- I’ll code with my Narro Engine, a 2D RPG engine built with love, Pygame and Python 3. And this time, I know it will fully work. I’ve been toying around with it for so long! No missing key feature to add, no more bugs to solve at the last minute. I can play music and sounds, design NPCs with complex behaviours, teleport the player to another map, write text, interact with the map. I’ll be able to focus on the contents. You can have a look at the source code on this GitHub repo (sorry, it’s written in French).
Note: there are no compiling instructions, no builds nor any example game for now. But I’ll make sure to fix that next week. - I’ll design maps with the most powerful and map editor in this world: Tiled. Seriously, if you’ve never tried your hand at it, take a few minutes to discover this incredible tool. It’s under active development, supported by a strong community and it has any feature you’ve ever dreamed of.
Note:I’ll have to convert the TMX files produced by Tiled to a custom format though. But I will soon a feature to load them directly into the Narro Engine.
- I’ll use Paint.NET to draw some pixel art. Beware, horribly childish graphics incoming.
- I’ll use Bfxr and PXTone, the music editing software written by Daisuke Amaya, the guy behind Cave Story. Don’t expect anything but random noise produced with my unexistent musical talent.
Seems good, I’m ready.
