I’m hardly a confident programmer, but I’ve been dabbling in programming for a good 3-4 years now.  Really cracking down on learning in the past few weeks.

I took a long break from programming for many reasons, but this is what’s going to spur me on! I’ll be participating in all LD challenges I can, especially during this period of unemployment, I can afford the messed up sleeping pattern =p

Language: Java

Tools: Paint.net  MilkyTracker Eclipse.

I want the beard category to win 😀

I finally submitted my project for all to cringe at… Barring any major flaws, that’s the final version.

I’m embarrassed. I was new to java, and came across a few large roadblocks. I consider it a success in that there’s some nifty stuff going on in the background, but I doubt the final product is particularly fun to play.

Let me know if it is, however!

Well, I had never even touched Java until the beginning of the last Ludum Dare, I hope I fare a little better in this one! I might be attending the Ludum Dare meetup in Manchester if a spot opens up

There’s also a chance I’ll have to halt development, my Wife is due on May 7th, so could give birth any time! (they say 2 weeks either end, which puts it at 22nd, but still)

What’ll I be using?
Well:

Language: Java again!
Art: Paint.net
 Music: Sfxr for sound effects, I’ve not decided for actual sound. Time to learn MilkyTracker I think!

I’ll be livestreaming, of course!
I’ll be recording my desktop too, so I can put up a timelapse on youtube when I’m done.

I made a platformer last time, and I looked to the code of Notch’s metagun when I got stuck (which was often). While it helped me learn a lot about java, and game development, I can’t help but feel like I took a shortcut.

Unless the theme is very specific, I want to stray away from a platforming game, if possible, really put myself out of my comfort zone, both genre-wise and mechanics-wise. Isn’t that what Ludum dare is about? For me, it’s certainly a learning experience.

I’m curious as to how well I do. I like to think my java skill has improved somewhat in the past 4 months (I’ve been coding pretty much non-stop in that time, being unemployed).

I wish all of you the best of luck in your endeavours!

So, I set out with a few goals. I wanted a randomly generated level, and I wanted to make all my art in code.

I succeeded with both those goals, so I call this a resounding success! I really didn’t want to do a platformer, as I think they’re quite over done (and a cop out), so I struggled quite a bit coming up with the gameplay.  I got something out though! It’s somewhat like Black and White meets Conway’s Game of life.

As far as hurdles are concerned, I had a few minor ones regarding Procedural Generation, mostly my own inexperience. I also tried porting to Android in the last few moments, but that didn’t work out well, mostly due to a fault in my Input/Camera class.

I’m actually really happy with what I accomplished!

I hope y’all had as much fun as I did! I’m going to edit my timelapse, and link it in a seperate post

See you all in ~4 months!

So surprisingly, despite having tons of fun at Manchester game lab, I’ve actually got some work done! It’s starting off as a top down-shooter where you and the enemies evolve as the gameplay increases!

There’s not much at the moment besides a spiffy lighting engine and rather stalker-ish enemies, but the evolving is being added in today.

The last LD was a disaster. My website went down, and the game looked and acted terrible. This time I aim to release the same quality as my other entries. I’ve done less preperation than usual, but I’m hoping a little sleep, and much more experience, will help me.

My tools:

Eclipse, Java, LibGDX, Box2DLights for the code.
Paint.net for the art.

No idea for the sound. I plan on having it in, for the first time ever, though.
I’m donating my whole weekend to this. I’m going to sleep now for a few hours, and wake up just before the theme announcement. Plan out some stuff, do some basic coding, then sleep a little more. Then code.

I’ll be chronolapsing, and livestreaming over here. I’ll release a youtube video when I’m done.

Here’s a few pictures of my work station

Here’s my idea.

Simple RTS. You play as a barbarian clan. Take over villages to gain your numbers, to take over the city.

Random world gen. You have to get resources by killing the villagers. You can’t get resources yourself.

When taking over a village, you can rape it, for more units, pillage it for more gold, or slaughter it for more meat.

It’s kinda dark. But isn’t that the point?

I have the world generating (and easily tweakable). I have the GUI pretty much done. I have it working on Android. I have my neat lighting engine dropped in. And I’ve started work on entities.
All that’s really left to do, is to create the different entities. Add in some rudimentary AI, and sound.

So just the gameplay 😛

In all seriousness, the gameplay left to put in, is a few hours work, granted. But it’s all AI stuff really, and I can work on it as much as I like, with it only getting better with time.

Here’s a download (java required)

Click on the icon on the left toolbar to select a unit to place (only one available at the moment).

If you deselect the unit, you can pan around, and zoom with the scroll-wheel.

Here’s a screenshot

I’ll post some pretty battlestation pics later.

This is my 6th LD! Can’t believe I’ve been doing it for 2 years.

I’m doing the jam this time. With an artist + sound guy, because I know when to stick to my strengths
So all that’s being used:
Eclipse
PC or Macbook.

I’m attending a local meetup. That’ll be cool, as always.
I’m writing some background code beforehand, that way I can focus on gameplay.

I have a lot to thank LD for.
When I started, I had a few years of dabbling with code under my belt, and barely any education (only UK highschool). I couldn’t find a job, even in the lowest paid industries. I applied for anything and everything, and I got nowhere.

LD made me focus more on programming. I knew I had it in me to be good, and I already knew a fair amount of Computer Science basics (like the concept of OO).

Cut to 2 years of 60 hour weeks later. I’m a fairly respected App + game developer. I’ve got a few indie games under my belt. Worked for 2 game studios, earn a comfortable living, and I’m almost completely swamped with contracts!

My life changed so much. So so much thanks to LD. I’m honestly getting teared up thinking about it.

Thank you.

Thank you all.

Good luck, and make games!

Gameplay

I’m nearly done with the main game, as you can see.
There’s multiplayer support, not shown in the video. You just need a second device, be it Android, Windows, Mac or Linux.
I’d make an iOS version too, but there’s no way of getting it on the store in time.

There’s going to be a second “game” if you will. With the same mechanics. I’ll only do that if I get the time.

Despite having no artist for most of the first day, I think the result is looking pretty awesome!

Streaming the last few hours of my game for those curious.

http://www.twitch.tv/sudorossy

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-27/?action=preview&uid=7905

I made this in 72 hours, with the help of a musician and artist.
All code is me. I also did some really minor changes to the art.

Honestly, i’m super proud of this. It’s available for Android as well as desktop, and that’s where it really shines. It’s a perfect game to be playing on the toilet or w/e.

The multiplayer was a little rushed (though I coded it with multiplayer in mind from the beginning). So I’m amazed it turned out as nice as it did. It sort of relies on the player not cheating. But it still works well. Gives a spaceteam vibe (which is what I was going for).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeHZP7NUgaQ
I did a sort of let’s play of it, showing off the single player video.

As far as a post-mortem goes. I honestly couldn’t be happier given the circumstances. Having an artist was touch-and-go for a while, which delayed implementing things (But did give me time to focus on design + backend code), and the musician basically didn’t turn up until the last minute. But this all comes with the territory of being a person. Everyone is busy at times.

My only regret is that I didn’t have anything to show at the game jam meetup I went to. And as much as I love it (and will always go), the 4 hours round-trip of travel does take out of potential dev time.

Lastly, I put the game on the play store. You can grab it from the Ludum Dare page, but if you want future updates, it’s gonna cost ya! A grand total of £0.50 ($0.80). I probably won’t update the free version from here on, but either way, I’ve found more than that behind the back of a couch. Go get it
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.omnomcom.joat

I might port/push to iOS too, if I get the chance.

Gonna be going to a local meetup too. But here’s a picture of my home setup:

Tools:
Code: C# Unity3D (Probably in 2D mode though)
Art: Pinta
Music: SFXR, probably no music.

I’ve got all my ideas and stuff written down for each theme (bar 2 I’m stuck on).
I won’t even open up Unity until the theme is announced.
This is my first time using Unity in a game jam, so I’m a bit nervous. I still don’t consider myself that experienced.

Computer specs:
Macbook Pro 13″ Retina October 2013
4GB RAM
2.4ghz Intel i5
128GB SSD

Macbook pro 13″ Late 2012
4GB RAM
2.4ghz Intel i5
120GB HDD

Acer W3-810 Windows tablet
1.8GHz Intel Atom
2GB RAM
16GB SSD

Custom PC
4ghz 8-core AMD CPU
Ati 7850 1GB GPU
12GB DDR3 RAM
2TB HDD

32GB Nexus 7
32GB HTC One
16GB iPhone 5S

Depending on the game, I might port to Ouya + GameStick as well. Low priority though.

On a more personal note:

Ludum Dare has always had a very special place in my heart. This marks the 2nd year of my taking part. In fact, I started Ludum Dare on the 16th of December 2011, the same day that this one ends.
I knew how to code before I entered LD, but I’d never put it into practice. That day, I decided I was going to make it my hobby.
2 years later, I’ve held a job in the games industry, I’ve worked on multiple apps. I started my own business and sold games of my own.
I’ve exhibited at conventions, with my own company.
I’ve made so many friends in the developer community. I found one of my best friends through streaming this LD.
To say that Ludum Dare has changed my life would be an understatement. At the time I first started back in 2011, I was on the verge of suicide.
Ludum Dare saved my life. It helped me to discover a large part of who I am. It introduced me to so many great people in the industry.
If it wasn’t for Ludum Dare, I’d be a completely different person.

2 years isn’t that much time to some people, but I find it hard to remember my life before I made games.

Thank you to the people that organised this event.
Thank you to everybody here that takes part.
Thank you to every one of my friends that have helped me through so much these past few  years.
And good luck. You’ll do great.

Never stop making games.

I threw something together for the compo. It’s a bit different to what I normally make

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-28/?action=preview&uid=7905

I’m in. I’m gonna code stuff. It’ll probably be my first public game I release in unity. I’ve been using it for work, but my project for work hasn’t been released yet.

I’m teamed with an amazing 3D artist, and a really awesome Musician, so we’ll make something great for the jam I think.

Battlestation photos? Sure.

Space is about as far away from “beneath the surface” as you can get really. Although one could argue that if you go really really really far below the surface, you sorta come out the other side and end up in space.
Regardless, this has bunker-busting nukes, they bury themselves under the surface of stuff and explode, it’s a different kind of explosion than surface nukes, in this case, not enough to break up a large asteroid, but enough to knock it off course.

So I made this game in a few days. I’m not an artist, nor a voice actor, so I’m entering the jam with some free NASA models, and the voice of some Canadian bloke called James Something. (No really)

The game itself is pretty simple in theory, but I aimed for those sortof awkward controls that are getting popular these days. The great thing is that controlling stuff in space is awkward anyway. You can control Pitch (or Patch, as I wrote at 5AM), Yaw, Roll as well as thrusting up/down, forward/back and sideways strafe. Of course being in effectively 0g environment means that momentum is a bit of a killer, and it takes just as long to slow down as it does to get to that speed.

Honestly it’s a difficult game, I think some people will get a bit frustrated, but it’s visually nice, and I’m quite happy with the physics of everything.

You can play it Here and view the Ludum Dare page Here

Ratings and feedback are much appreciated. Let me know if you manage to win too, because honestly It’d be quite an accomplishment!

I’ve tentatively added Oculus Rift support, though I don’t own a device, I need someone to test it out before I release to the public.

This Ludum Dare was my 8th time. I’ve come a long way since then.

This time round, I made “Looking Glass”. I’ve been rewatching the Stargate series for the god knows how manyth time, and it’s struck me as just how good the Stargate itself is as a games design device. You get this big circular thing as a barrier between worlds, a “home base”, plenty of room for exploration of mechanics, completely different level and terrain design, so much storytelling potential, it’s why it works so well as a device in the show as well.

I knew I was going to enter the jam from the start, there’s no way I could make the assets needed to in time, so I was either going to find publically available assets or find a 3D artist with time to spare. I didn’t find an artist in time, so I just used some assets I found that were free to use.
I spent the first day making the actual gate effect, it’s a complicated system to be honest, since then I’ve been thinking of ways to simplify it, probably using Rendertextures than the current method.
The basics of it are this –
A custom shader on a material, attached to a plane. This material fills the Z buffer.
A system of 4 cameras
Camera 1 – parented to the outgoing gate (though gates are bidirectional here this is important). Moves relative to the camera relative to the gate direction. Some funky Quaternion Maths going on. Clears to skybox Depth of -4
Camera 2 – same as Camera 1 although it doesn’t clear at all. Depth -2 (so it’d override Cam1)
Camera 3 – Player camera, clears to depth buffer Depth -1, ignores the custom materials
Camera 4 – Directly parented to player camera, Clears to depth, depth -3, culling mask ignores the incoming portal

So what happens is the cameras all move relative to the player, Cam 3+4 are directly, Cameras 1+2 move so they’re always offset by the portal position+rotation. The effect here is that Cameras 1+2 only get drawn onto that material (due to the clever depth shader), however there’s some overlapping with the incoming portal having 2 cameras draw on it, so camera 4 does some absolute magic to make the outgoing portals camera not draw on that. Honestly I can’t exactly explain how it works, I’m not a very good technical writer. We’re basically talking about a lack of something overlapping another lack of something so a something can draw on one lack of something rather than the other.

The effect, however, is rather amazing. We get an effect similar to the portal series of games.

View a video here.

Teleporting was rather easy. Attach a rather thin collider, make sure you grab the players rotation relative to the portal, and set the transform and rotation relative to the new portal. There’s still a rare glitch where the player will come out a bit too far back and be clipping through the portal, but it was a simple fix, I just didn’t have time.

As I spent day 2 and the morning of day 3 quite ill, I didn’t have much chance to implement any real gameplay. This was a real shame, I wanted to make the game about exploration, but with a bit more actual interactivity than I managed.

I made a bunch of different worlds, added an updating “database” with the new fancy Unity UI system, and plopped a few terminals in there to guide the player along a journey of different planets. I managed to add 2 hidden worlds too, dropping a few hints here and there as to their addresses. Someone’s already hacked the game to find them too!

Have some screenshots of the first 2 areas

And don’t forget to play  + rate! Any feedback is much appreciated!
Game link

This LD marks my third year. It’s been a hell of a time looking back. Learning to code properly has completely changed my life in some way or another.

I’m teaming up an awesome friend for this, and I’m quite happy we’ll do something amazing.
Code/Engine:  C#, Unity3D.

Musics: Logic Pro X. Audacity

Art: Whatever my friend uses.
I have a lot of snacks, energydrink, and time. So I really hope I do well this time. I’d like it if I got into the top 100 in some category, although with the ever increasing number of participants it gets harder and harder!

Good luck to every other participant, and make awesome games!

This will be my 12th entry to Ludum Dare and I haven’t missed one. 4 years! It’s a long time. When I started, I’d barely programmed at all beyond a few tweaks here and there, I’ve done freelance gamedev, worked in NFC payments and now making websites for an awesome local company.

I’m hosting a party of sorts at my house this weekend, gamedev, beer and pizza will be happening. I hope to enjoy myself and create something good! I’m not always pleased with what I make, but I always see Ludum Dare as a worthwhile venture, and I’ve always come out of it learning something new, be it about coding, art, project/team management and even myself.

I hope to never miss a single one, as sad as it sounds, it’s one of the most important things in my life.