Well, this is going to be my first Ludum Dare and I thought why not start on the 10th anniversary? I’m already working on my warmup game (Basic town simulator thing) and I’ll probably post that later today.

Here’s what I’m using:

Language: Java

Framework: LibGDX, along with my base code for input and rendering.

Sounds: I’ll probably figure this out 5 mins before the deadline. Might be sfxr or something completely different.

Graphics: Paint.NET

Timelapse: Chronolapse

Good luck to everybody entering this time around!

Hi Everyone,

I just finished my warmup game for LD23, and it’s called MayorVille. It’s a fairly basic town sim, where you have to balance unemployment, population growth and funds.

Check it out here.

The theme ‘Tiny World’ caught me off guard. I had spent some time looking over the possible theme winners and writing down some preliminary game ideas. I thought that Tiny World was unlikely to win (and I couldn’t think of anything) so I skipped that.

Anyway, when the theme was announced I was slightly shocked. I got started straight away and spent about 45mins brainstorming possible ideas before settling on one and making a small game concept. 5 and a bit hours later, and I have some progress.

The game is going to be about a couple of bacteria who are bored of their current asteroid, and decide to populate and control the universe while migrating from planet to planet. I won’t spoil too much yet.

Good luck to everybody else in Ludum Dare 23!

I’m making good progress now, so here’s a screenshot of the planet upgrading system:

Once I have more buildings, I’ll add an intro, other planets, (hopefully) basic AI and a number of other things. I can’t wait to see how this turns out!

Today has been quite productive (maybe I’m panicking?) and I’ve added a number of useful and essential features. Probably the most important of them is planet collision! Getting the planets to feel heavy really added a lot of fun to the game. You can also migrate planets and watch the bacteria fly through space to their next port of call.

Here’s a couple of screenshots:

I’d have to say that particles are the most satisfying feature to add to any game.

That was amazingly awesome. This is my first Ludum Dare, and it’s one I will never forget. Unfortunately I have school soon and I need to get some sleep, so I tried to wrap my game up. It did feel like a bit of a rush at the end.

Anyway, it’s called ‘Tiny Conflict’ and you can check it out here:

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-23/?action=preview&uid=7800

Hi everyone!  I’ve had time to recover since I submitted my game, Tiny Conflict, about 8 hours before the compo ended. It was extremely exhausting and I didn’t spend as much time balancing as I wanted to, but I am still very pleased with the result (especially this being my first Ludum Dare!)

I have posted a timelapse of the creation here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6Lo5_V1zCc

And you can play/rate Tiny Conflict here:

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-23/?action=preview&uid=7800

Final touches!

Now to go rate about 1000 other games!

>> Play Tiny Conflict <<

Hi everybody! Since I finished my game I’ve had time to look at feedback and think over the progress of making my game. This was my first Ludum Dare, and my second game that has reached a playable state (The first one being my LD warmup!) So here’s my post-mortem.

What went right:

• After about 40mins of brainstorming, I had a good idea of where I wanted to go with the game. I found that the easiest way to come up with ideas was to draw something (see point 2.)
• I started off with some concept art! This was very helpful and I would recommend this to anybody starting a game. It gives you assets to use, a goal to work towards and most importantly, motivation!
• The underlying gameplay is very solid. I don’t even know how I did it, but that the end result is very fun and enjoyable to play.
• The game looks nice! I very much enjoyed making all the planets, and by picking at the art (I would make some art, code it into the game  and repeat) I felt like I was making great progress.
• I managed to do well considering I had school on the final day of the compo, which cut about 9 hours off my total time.
• Physics and particles! The way that the planets bounce off of each other looks and feels very nice, and the particles which come from the collision are satisfying (see the quote from notch below.)
• I was very organised before the compo, with my base engine all sorted and ready to go. Honestly, if I didn’t do the warmup the weekend before I probably wouldn’t have made a game half as good as what I did.
• Music! I listened to tons of music as I was creating my game, and that helped somehow.

What didn’t go as well:

• The game severely lacked instructions. You were told in the beginning “Use WASD to move, and hover over planets for more information” but it never actually told you what the goal of the game was (oops!) or how to progress. If you did hover over the planets however, it would show “click to upgrade” or “click to migrate”, but that wasn’t nearly enough.
• I left a lot of things up to the last few (5) hours. I got to the final stretch, and I soon realised that I needed to rush to get it finished in time. This included the instructions, music, a bit more content (including art) and exporting and packaging my project. I somehow managed to do that all in 5 hours, but they were the parts of the game that fell short of the standard that I had set previously.
• The music was made with wolfram tones, and was pretty bad 😛 I removed it later because I wasn’t sure if WolframTones’ ToS allowed it to be used.
• Some people have trouble running the game, but I honestly have no idea why. Thankfully, it’s a minority group.

Here’s some advice from notch to anybody making games:

Game design protips: 1) More particles. 2) Shake the screen. 3) Flash anything that takes damage. 4) MORE PARTICLES!!! 5) PAAAARTIIICLEEES

Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed my game

Tags: postmortem

Hi everyone! I’m back for my second time in Ludum Dare. The first time was a lot of fun, so why not?

Ultimately I’ll be looking to improve on my previous ranking (#68), as well as focusing on a few areas I didn’t do so well at last time.

Here’s my setup:

Language: Java

Framework: LibGDX + Base Code

Sounds: We’ll see how we go with this one, no idea at the moment.

Graphics: Paint.NET (Possibly photoshop?)

Timelapse: Chronolapse

Some progress, hopefully I’ll get a bit further before I have to sleep.

It’s been a tough 24 hours, but I’ve made some good progress. I had about 6 hours sleep (not too bad) last night, and I’m feeling refreshed and ready to go today!

See that flag? It’s a checkpoint. I bet your game doesn’t have one.

Some of the art for the game.

I’m getting ever closer the end, I can feel it! I just need to make a boss fight. Shouldn’t be too hard.

Yeah.. lift those boxes!

Ludum is really fantastic, isn’t it? Well, I’m done for now. I have school in a few hours and I need some sleep

Check out my game ‘Lucid’ when you have a moment:

Click the image to play Lucid!

Hi everybody, here’s the timelapse I took while making my compo entry ‘Lucid’.

You can play the game here if you haven’t already.

I’ll be participating in the upcoming compo, this will be my third LD!

Here’s my setup:

Language: Java

Framework: LibGDX + Base Code

Sounds: bfxr

Graphics: Paint.NET

Timelapse: Chronolapse

Might be streaming as well later on.

Things are going quite well, I started about 1-2 hours late but I feel like I’m going along at a reasonable pace.

Not really sure where the game is headed yet, time will tell.

What? Why are we in the desert?

7 hours in (!), this is just about what I have to show.

Who knew hard coding an interface like this would be so fun?

Here’s another gif for you to look at:

Thank god for the submission hour.

The Quest for Unobtanium – Click to play