Good day, I’m Michael Krutzler and this is my first Ludum Dare. I’m nothing special; Just an old dude with too much time on his hands. I began creating video games as a hobby about three-and-a-half years ago and have had some success in actually completing projects and forcing the grandkids to play them. As my skills grew, so too did my ambitions and I now find myself spending uncountable hours laboring away on esoteric strategy titles the family could not be less interested in.

I have decided to throw myself face-first into the LD Compo in the hopes of recapturing the rush of making small, digital toys in a short time frame. While I don’t actually expect to be able to cross the finish line this first time out (I’ve fussed over a particle system for more than 48 hours! 😉 ), I am looking forward to the challenge of trying.

May fortune favor the foolish!

Ah, that bitter taste of despair when you realize your first go at the map generator just isn’t going to hack it…

So, Art, we meet again. Take that!

I will not stop until art appreciation is as dead as disco!

Alright, I expected the sloppy code, but won’t someone please think of the source control!

On the upside, it looks like I’m actually going to finish (a less-than-great and kinda buggy) game for my first Ludum Dare! Compo no less! Well, provided I can drag my aching fingers across these keys for another dozen hours or so…

Well, I honestly didn’t expect to make it here. While I’ve followed LD for quite a while, I never really thought I was the kind of person to be able to crank out a game from scratch in 48hrs. Heck, I even stacked the deck against myself by using a new engine, new genre, and a new art style (Yes, believe it or not, I had not made a game in 2D before and had never done a runner (Not really sure if I’ve made a runner yet, lol)).

I guess it just shows what even this ol’ dog can accomplish when you put prize money on the line.

Wait… What do you mean there’s no prize money?

You can play Runty Raptor’s Rock Roller here.

I managed to complete my first Dare, failed to finish the second, and am curious as to which side I’ll fall on this time out.

Godspeed gamejammers! May your minds be full of inspiration and your mugs full of caffeine!

I managed to complete my first Dare, failed to finish the second, and am curious as to which side I’ll fall on this time out.

Godspeed gamejammers! May your minds be full of inspiration and your mugs full of caffeine!

Here's one you'd never guess unless you had to do art:

Big, flat, realistic looking ant mandibles look wrong and stupid on a low poly model. Skinny, curved, pointy, cartoon style mandibles look great.

Go figure...

On a related note, I've spent far too many hours looking at ant faces close up tonight. Gonna have nightmares.

Thank you! I'll be here all week!

My game Antagonistic: Hamburger Hill is here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/$15634

So, after cleaning up all the scattered bits of LD games from all over my hard drive tonight, I figured I should probably see if I can get a browser-based version of my own game working. Since it only took a couple tweaks and seems to work okay with Chrome and Firefox, I got it posted and am happy to share it with everyone. I've added the link to my LD game page at https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/antagonistic-hamburger-hill

* Added 'bomber style' crosshair. * Spit travels farther and faster. * Acid spit that expires from being out of effective range disappears rather than explodes. * Acid AOE increased. * Don't eat the brown acid. * Repurposed particle grass for new skybox. * Tweaked lighting to match new skybox. * Ant commander moved further to the left and out of your way. * Wing flap speed now changes based on movement speed and, even at max, is 25% slower for less seizures. * Wings made more transparent.

Available for Windows, Linux, Max, and WebGL capable browsers. Check it out and tell me what's wrong now :wink: at https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/antagonistic-hamburger-hill Original downloadable version is, of course, still available for voting purists as well.

So, yesterday we had the 'Changes based on Ludum feedback' patch. Today, we have the 'Ludum's feedback made the player OP' patch. Kinda had a feeling this was going to happen while I was tweaking all the acid spitting goodness, but I didn't have a chance to playtest it. Wow, both these patches have done wonders for pacing! I really wish there was some way to get previous players back in for another round... Ah, well.

I was already super pleased with how Antagonistic: Hamburger Hill launched from Compo (The original version is, of course, still available for downloading as well). Implementing feedback based on just a handful of players has pushed this title to heights I certainly would not have imagined back on that despair filled Saturday evening when I was slashing features left and right while crying about what a crap game I had created.

Anyway, if you're burned out from pixel-art puzzle platformers, I made this experimental little 3D Shooter/RTS/Towerless Defense thing about ants invading beetles to capture a hamburger. I'd love to hear your feedback on it.

My game page is: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/antagonistic-hamburger-hill

Thanks a million! Love you folks!

The word cloud from the fine folks who left me feedback:

Thanks a million! If you sniff a bunch of rubber cement and squint really hard it kinda looks like Boba Fett!

Want to get in on all the "time beetles hamburger" and "good burger enemies"? How about if I throw in a title with, not one, but TWO puns in it? Click on over to https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/antagonistic-hamburger-hill

Sorry for posting this here, but I'm not really sure where else to go.

I've been using the Feedback Friends site to keep up with my @UserName call outs just in case someone needs something, but is there an operational feature to do that somewhere in this new site? I feel like I'm missing something obvious here.

Speaking of emergency @mentions, one of our LD brethren just wiped out his votes by accidentally opting out. Give him a hand over at https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/small-world-sim , would ya? I don't know him personally, but we've all been there. Curse you, fat fingers!

So... I don't make games; I make genres.

Yeah, it is a bit hyperbolic, but I think I'll stick with that as an opening line :wink:

It has always surprised me how tough it is to get someone to try something new these days. Gamers didn't used to be such sticks-in-the-mud. That's why I love Ludum Dare. You guys are the best! Always willing to take a chance on the crazy little oddball projects that the dreary ol' "Hardcore McGamer" crowd would turn their nose up at. Sure, they don't always work. Heck, some of them have probably already gotten too much dev time, but, man, is it great to see someone try something just balls-out wacky and borderline indescribable!

Here's to you, wacky game makers! Link me in the comments to your Sim Farm Shooter or Gopher Life RTS!

Oh, and if you're interested in my own latest twist on 'something different', I spliced a shooter with a tower-less defense game about ants. You can check it out here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/antagonistic-hamburger-hill

Oh, and leave some Hearts for those brave/foolish enough to have already given it a try. They deserve it!

These are some numbers I found about my entry. Some people like to compare e-peen scores, so there ya go. Whip out the ruler!

I kinda know what some of these are. I don't have a clue about others. That's okay. You know what I do know? There's only a couple days left before I gotta go back to bribing the grand-kids to play with my homemade digital toys. You folks have been great! No one even nagged me for a cookie! I hope I can finish again next Ludum Dare and trade games with everyone one more time.

Actually, there is one interesting thing those numbers do show. It is the fact that I always return feedback :wink:. I'll just leave a link to this little game I made down below.

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/antagonistic-hamburger-hill

Thanks again. Be excellent to each other.

Here's the deal: One of our fellow gamejammers, @ryan , has created Draw A Small World as his entry. It is an application that asks the user to drawn a number of things and creates a composite masterpiece. The tragedy is that the comments section is total devoid of user generated 'art'. It is up to us to fix this grievous oversight and see that this experiment reaches it's full potential!

Click it. You know you should. https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/draw-a-small-world

First off, not my game. Secondly, here's a workplace friendly (HTML5 canvas) Ludum Dare experience!

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/draw-a-small-world

One of our fellow gamejammers, @ryan , has created Draw A Small World as his entry. It is an application that asks the user to draw a number of things and creates a composite masterpiece. I put out a call for folks to post screenshots of their creations in the comments and the response was fantastic. Here's a bad collage of the results: