Hey we are in for Ludum Dare 38. Second time participating in team and third time for me in total. I am most excited for the weekend. :grin:

Our tools will be: - libGDX (Java Framework) - Pyxel Edit for graphics - abundant-music.com for generating music and LMMS for polishing it - bfxr for sound effects - other tools we'll notice we need :sweat_smile:

Basic game mechanics are up with nice debug lines. :D

Next up, after a short nap: first graphics, yay!

So on the second day we mainly added some graphics and an 'AI'. Also we implemented the upgrade system.

Next up: more graphics and levels, before we add more features.

Hi there,

we just published the source code for our entry "More Room!".

If you are interested in Java libGDX-games, feel free to take a look.

Game Page

Sourcecode

Hey there, I'm in for the fourth time. This time I'm alone and I will be using the tools most familiar to me again. These tools are:

• the Java framework libGDX
• IntelliJ IDEA as my IDE
• Pyxel Edit and GIMP for 2D graphics and Pixel Art
• LMMS for music
• Audacity for sound editing

I am looking forward to the weekend.

Day one is over now and I got the basic of the basic game mechanics ready. :sweat_smile:

At least the isometric rendering works pretty well.

Anyway, I think I need to develop a little faster the next days.

Click on images to see animated GIFs, can't seem to embed them here. :pensive:

I began the day with implementing simple patrol logics. After that, shutting down the enemy robots was the plan. Coming with this, I also implemented simple win and lose conditions. Now, the game could be called real game. :smile:

Next up I wasted some time making it simpler for me to create GIFs. Actually a bad idea. Well, it worked out somehow.

Now I gave the graphics some love and reworked some models. Also I implemented hiding places.

Originally I wanted to go to sleep now, but I thought some little animations would be nice. So I did those as well, makes the game a little bit more lively.

Today the plan is to implement the last features. After that I have to create the music and the sounds, as well as some levels.

In this moment, I am optimistic. :thumbsup:

Hi there,

I'm in for my fifth Ludum Dare. This time with a change of tools. Instead of Java and libGDX we're going to try Unity and C#. Let us see what happens, maybe even 3D :D

(Click image for animated gif)

First day is over. So far we have electricity, placing buildings and procedural map generation. I am quite happy so far, even though the lightning bolts are still a little bit ugly. :D

This is my post-mortem of Ludum Dare 40 and our game "Electrical Overload". It was my fifth Ludum Dare in total and I have to admit that this is my first post-mortem.

I wanted to summarize my thoughts on our game and the whole development process. First off, a short overview summarizing, what we managed to do and what we didn't manage to do:

What we managed to do

• building
• random procedural cave generation
• power supply and energy network system
• automatically mining drones

Parts important to me, we didn't manage to do

• balance the game reasonly
• polishing the game and fixing bugs
• tutorial
• music and/or ambient sound (at least you can do some music with the transmitters :D)

Some nice-to-haves that didn't get into the game:

• drones mining on their own without relying on a beacon (the initial intention of the beacon was only to force the drones to mine specific parts, so that you can make yourself a way through narrow parts)
• the above point would lead to more scattering of the drones, making the game more interesting - currently you have to concentrate on one corner
• rework the lightning effects (especially the power transmissions)
• add some idle effects to some of the machines (like the one of the generator)
• rework the UI, so it doesn't have the Unity look
• add post-processing effects

Known bugs in Jam version

• small black lines between the textures on cave walls
• sometimes energy generators/transmitters don't register newly placed drones
• drones sometimes mine a second time, even though they are already carrying something
• drone particles still playing while in warehouse
• drones can't fly over the energy generator

Theme Announcement

So it was 3am saturday morning and we were waiting for the theme. "The more you have, the worse it is". Well... not my favorite theme, but my teammate came up with an idea pretty fast. The problem with that idea was, that it was way to over-scoped. So we discussed the core features and thought that we can implement a narrowed down version in 72 hours.

The Idea

The idea was to have a procedural generated cave system in which you have to build different machines for harvesting materials. We narrowed the buildable machines down to an energy generator, a droneport, drones, energy transmitters and a diamond press (game goal).

Theme-wise we hoped that we get many drones flying around in the cave, with energy transmitters shooting energy around so you have to watch where you step. The more drones you get and the faster you mine resources, the worse it would get to walk around the cave without being grilled by the lightning bolts.

After we had our idea outlined and cut it down to todos, we started developing.

Developing in a new engine

Before, we developed our games in Java with the framework libGDX. We tried out Unity this time. I had a look at the core features of unity the week before. During the Ludum Dare I had a blast using Unity, many things are way easier and you have a nice workflow. In the future I am going to stick to fleshed out game engines instead of developing all the boilerplate code myself.

Additionally to the new engine, we also developed in a new dimension. Our previous jam games all were 2D, now we wanted to give 3D a shot.

Problems

Ohhh, there were a lot. First off, our game still was way over-scoped... especially for a new engine. I'm never going to take procedurally map generation into a game jam game again, except for the rare case that we can spare time in the end for it. But never again as a starter feature.

In the end the map generation worked quite well, but there are still performance issues (even out of memory errors, as I saw >.<). But we had many tiny problems with it, sending us on bug hunts for a good amount of time. I'd say that it took away round about half a day of our time, excluding the implementation itself. Random map generation is a cool thing to have, but in a game jam game, where most people will play the game one time and never again... it's just not worth the effort or rather not important enough to invest that much time.

Then there was the energy network. We highly under expected this feature. At one point we had to realise, that there needed to be some sort of priority system in place, so the transmitters transport the energy to the right places. Again.. took more time than planned.

Initially we planned that the drones search for ores themselves, but through the already lost time we decided to simplify the drone behaviour. That sadly destroyed the idea of having drones all around, so the game doesn't really fit the theme anymore.

We had several more problems sadly, stealing our time to polish and balance the game correctly.

Conclusion

Our main problem was, that our idea was still too big. We could have dismissed some unimportant features. This probably happened, because we didn't plan enough. After we got the idea, we started developing very soon after. The past game jams I took way more time to work an idea out. Turns out that wasn't lost time, but rather gained time in the end.

Through all the problems we encountered we lost the really important parts out of our sight. Those are polish and fixing bugs, balancing the game so the player has more to do, user experience in general.

I went out of this Ludum Dare with very mixed feelings. On the one hand, I am astonished of what we implemented in the short time, on the other hand... wow, is this an unfinished game experience. I sadly can't say, that I am proud of our result. In the end the overall user experience matters, not the features of the game itself.

I probably sound very negative and pessimistic about this Ludum Dare, but all around it was a very important and positive experience. Why? Because of all the faults we made. I realised again that the most important part of Ludum Dare is to have a well scoped plan. Nothing bugged me more than having to implement the core gameplay features until the end of the jam. The previous jams, we were done with core gameplay after the first or maybe the second day, leaving us enough time to polish and balance stuff. Additionally, we got to learn very much about Unity.

Even though I am not proud of our game, I am very happy with all the stuff I learned this time. Ludum Dare was fun like always! I am looking forward to the next game jam. Next time with a much smaller game idea and maybe it is better to stick to 2D again.

See you around.

Day 1 has passed and we implemented the core gameplay. Now doing some models to end the night.

(Click image for animated gif)

Second day passed. Maybe too much time was wasted on graphics. Let's see what the last day brings.

(Click image for animated gif.)

Was hell lot of a fun (except the desperation about the theme in the beginning) to create this game. I am quite proud of what we achieved.

Take a look, if you want: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/space-drifter-td

After skipping LD47 and thus breaking my streak, I am in again for LD48. Normally, I took monday and tuesday off to fully engage into jamming. This time I aim to only use Saturday and Sunday and maybe even submitting to the compo. Knowing me, this probably isn't going to happen and I will use the monday to finish the game and submit to the jam anyways.

Looking forward to the weekend with a smaller scoped game and less stress. :v:

Play here

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/mole-cart