Hi, this is going to be my first ludam dare! Here are my tools:

• Love2D/Lua
• Inkscape
• sfxr
• Notepad++
• Git

After being super busy almost all day and scrapping my 15th or so idea, I managed to nail the core mechanic down, coded it (mostly), created an image and a couple sound effects, and made my first Git commit. Still a bunch of stuff to do, but good progress has been on “Unthread”.

*Print Screen doesn’t show cursor for some reason

To Do:

• Finish Monster functionality
• Add win/lose states
• Add title screen
• Improve graphics

I am extremely elated and relieved at the same time. A post-mortem will be coming soon.

Here’s my entry:

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-30/?action=preview&uid=37406

This was first LD experience. I have had many game ideas in the past, but save for some little games, such as a Breakout clone, in high school I made, I’ve always had trouble starting AND finishing games. I participated in LD in part hoping to actually finish something for once.  It was a mix of fun, interesting, nerve-wracking, why-isn’t-working. Here is what I learned from this:

What Went Wrong

• LD30 was held right before the new semester and classes started. I did not plan ahead for this as thoroughly as I should have. As a result, my post-submission porting and support/maintenance has been lacking. Time-management for this project in general was kind of bad. The fact that I indicated this post-mortem would come up soon after I posted the game, and am only now getting to it shows how bad time management for this game was. Another example would be…
• I wanted to do something different from what all the other participants were going to do was probably going do. So many of my initial ideas were scrapped. I eventually settled on…maneuvering a love letter though space. Wait, that doesn’t sound like my game? That’s because I scrapped the idea I settled on Saturday afternoon! Even after I already made a graphic for it. So “development” of UnThread didn’t technically start until the night of Day 1. Speaking of art…
• While my game did not have that many assets (and those assets are incredibly unpolished), I was still coding and doing vector images at the same time. I was incredibly concerned with “game feel” when I should have gotten the system down it was supporting first.

What Went Right

• Once I figured out and nigh completed the core of game (“unthreading, or unwrapping the dimensional thread holding the gates together”), the rest of development the next day was mostly a breeze.
• There were very few nasty bugs during development. And those bugs did not consume a huge chunk of development time.

Overall, I ended up enjoying the experience and will probably participate again.  I wish I supported the game better after I posted it. I got several comments about bugs and issues that I need to attempt to fix now. I am proud of my work (though in hindsight I would make it the game little easier/clearer what’s going on). Though, it probably won’t rank high compared to other participants’ great games. Finishing the game felt amazing, and I’m glad I participated. Now I have bugs to fix, awesome LD games to play, and studying to do.

I have learned my lessons from my first outing and am definitely participating in the second ludum dare. My tool set is similar to last year, though it has expanded a little:

Code:

• Love2D – Game Engine
• Notepad++ – Code Editor
• Mercurial – Code Revision
• Bitbucket – Code Hosting

Graphics

• Inkscape – Art

Audio

• Audiotool – Music
• sfxr – Sound Effects
• Audacity – Audio Editing

After one successful and one failed Ludum Dare, and with the year ending and my time opening up, I’m back in the competition.

I will be using the following tools:

• Game Engine: Love2D
• Text Editor: Notepad++, Sublime Text 2
• Version Control: Git, Bitbucket
• Graphics Editor: Inkscape
• Music & Sound: sfxr/cfxr, LMMS
• Timelapse: Chronolapse

Due to my work schedule this weekend, I didn’t start coding until late in the afternoon. In spite of that, I made some progress with gameplay (though I don’t have anything incredibly significant to show yet), and then ended up getting sidetracked/bottlenecked with UI code. I think this is the first time I’ve ever realized how nasty, bug-ridden, and time-consuming basic UI features I take for granted is to implement. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to finish this Ludum Dare due to work and the last week of the semester, but I’ll try.

So I only found out a few minutes ago that Ludum Dare was happening this weekend, but luckily I actually sort of have time for once. I'm in. Technologies I will be using: - Love2D - HUMP library - Jumper library - EDIT: forgot to add tween.lua - sfxr - Inkscape - Notepad++ - Git and Github

I’m a programmer getting back into Ludam Dare after a lot of time away. - Engine: Love2D - Editor: Atom - VCS: Git & Github - Graphics: Inkscape, GIMP - Audio: Sfxr/Bfxr, LMMS

I settled on a simple idea: A space trading game. Buy low, sell high, and make choices on what goods to carry in your limited cargo space. I've started coding, which you can follow on Github.

As I started late today, I did not make that much progress other than creating the foundation for the project code. Tomorrow will be the bulk of the project w/ coding & graphics.

Real life stuff got in the way, as well as a lack of passion for game UI coding from scratch, but the trade screen is done. Also, i hate game UI coding from scratch with a burning passion.

I don't think I'll finish this game in the next 4 hours. I might switch to the jam if I am not near done a few hours from now.

The player can click a star to warp there. They can click the trade button to enter the trade screen and start deal-making with the trader on that planet.

- Warping to a new star now consumes 1 unit of fuel. - Jav'n is always the first star where players start the game. Players can purchase fuel at the station at Jav'n when they are running low. (stars restocking yet to be implemented).

- Each star restocks their goods every week in game.

It's not technically a 100% finished game (see: placeholder names), but it is playable.