Well, there’s a first time for everything, and I’m finally entering LD. Something I’ve been wanting to do for quite some time now.

I will also code my first game in C#/XNA, so it’s a double first time. Being an old flasher, and having experimented for a couple of days, I’m pretty hopeful though =)

Tools:

• Visual Studio 2010 Express
• Paint/Photoshop
• Sound:??? Probably as3 sfxr
• Frameworks: XNA, don’t know if I will need any other components…

Anyway, I’m really looking forward to this! See you there =)

Ok, I think I have the basic plot done. It’s time to start writing the engine.

This is my first time working in XNA, so I have no classes or libraries to fall back on. Should have started on something earlier, like spritemanager… yea yea. The whole idea of the competition is to start from scratch anyway =)

I’m gonna go with semi-isometric 3d (kind of like golden axe), and since I’m terrible at graphics I’m going to go with the rough Paint-style (which I find very charming). Early concept below. You won’t play as a Rabbit though =)

Hey everyone. I’m joining LD for the second time, hoping for a better result than last time when I didn’t manage to finish my entry.

I’m feeling a little bit unprepared. I have decided to go with PushButton Engine as game engine since I really like its component based setup, but I’ve only been reading up on it for about a week… =/

I’ve also noticed a few things I didn’t really like with it. It has no support for tilemaps and tiled backgrounds. And it relies on box2d for physics – which I really don’t like. Also, I have noticed that the framerate was a bit jerky.

So I have been modifying the engine a bit. The processManager uses a Timer instead of EnterFrame wich gave a much better impression. And I have been adding my own custom components for reading, rendering and scrolling a tilemap. Its not as perfect/polished/finished as I wish it would be, but its a hell of a start. So as the rules says: here is the modified library, with an example (built with FlashDevelop). Don’t hesitate to contact me (do it through comments on this post plz) if you have any questions about it.

http://www.salomonsson.se/ld21/PBE_modified.zip

Sorry for just making it a zip-file. When its a bit more reliable I’ll probably put it on GitHub.

Tools I plan to use:

IDE: FlashDevelop (miiiight use flash cs5 for animated cutscenes)

Library: My modified version of PushButton Engine (see the rant above)

GFX: Photoshop

Music/SFX: Don’t know. Probably nothing. If I do I might just sing a song (or whistle) in a microphone 😉

Here is a screenshot of my test-app. Animated dude and tiled background. Source code included in zip file above.

Short status report, then right back to work.

I seem to have most basic stuff working in my engine now. I was a bit unprepared, so I had to spend almost 4 hours on getting a really good collision detection, but thats finally done now.

So I have sprites with collision detection. I can create and load maps from a very simple level editor. Scrolling works correct. I have a spriteManager that spawns the correct objects at the correct place (the diamond).

Time to start on the game play =)

Just wanted to write a few notes about my submitted entry “Abandoned”, which participated in LD21 (escape).

You can try the game here:
http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-21/?action=preview&uid=2393

First of all, it feels really good to have been able to submit the entry within the deadline. I have to say I’m really pleased with the result.
I had a great time coming up with all the weird artwork (which IMHO looks really good considering that I’m not a particularly good designer/illustrator). I really wanted the game to be creepy… which it is

About the controls I think the basic movement is really good, however the attack is a bit tricky (a tip is to collect a lot of green chrystals to speed up the rotation of the eyeball and just use it as a shield). That specific attack is based on an attack from a game for the C64 (I don’t know the name, and haven’t seen it since about 1989, so its probably just a twisted memory).

I really wanted the game to be more of a bullet hell game, but I designed the level in the last 3 hours and was really tired. Just one more hour would have improved the game a huge lot. Tweaking the position of the enemies and the rate which they spawn their particles.

Anyway, it was a great weekend, and now I have a lot of games to browse.
My thanks to the LD-crew (who struggled with the servers) and all developers who kept inspiring through status updates on the blog and in the irc. I’ll see you again!
/Tommy Salomonsson

Hey guys and girls. I’m up for my third round of Ludum Dare compo, and I’m really looking forward to it!
My weapons of choice for the upcoming battle will be:

• Language: HaXe/NME
• IDE Code: FlashDevelop 4.2.1 (I wanted to use intellij, but FD actually seems to work really good with haxe)
• Graphics: paint.NET or something similar thats free
• Libraries: Apart from NME I’ll use my home-baked entity system I built a couple of months back, full source code on github
• Sound: Probably SFXR if I’ll use any at all… thats really not my strong side so I’ll try to focus on what is

Place:
I will join the meetup in Stockholm/Sweden over at the awesome guys at Goo Technologies, who arranged a public meetup.
Kudos to you guys, looking forward to meeting you!

PPL:
An extra shout out to my mates:

• Nilstastic, who’s going strong for his fifth time – and promises that his game will have a reload button this time!
• Boenah, who’s still a LD-virgin – but has very high expectations after his epic win in the coders vs project managers competition with haxepunk

I predic a heavy code-hangover on monday =)
/Tommislav

I will use my own haxe-based entity system – called Seagal – located here: https://github.com/Tommislav/seagal
It’s a bit more to be done before it’s of any real use to anyone, but check it out if you’re interested.

And make sure to up-vote the theme “Strange Power-ups“. It is a theme that goes nice with #kittens, #goats, #LDTD, #LDTO, #potato (and … ehm … #nopotato I guess…). The world does not have enougt strang power ups!!!

Good luck everyone!
/Tommislav

Time to shut down for today and try and get a few hours sleep.

The day started of really slow, but ended up at what might be my best Ludum-Dare-first-day ever. I’ve managed (from being completely unprepared) to make a fully functional game with four levels. And that fits the theme really well.

The art is still placeholder, the game does not have a name or a story, and you cannot die yet. But most of the game mechanics are in place, and it’s actually potentially fun.

The game is made with haXe and openFL, and is supposed to be run on mobile or tablet. Unfortunately both my Android and c++ targets crashes. So instead of troubleshooting I just export to flash.

See you tomorrow!

Ok, time to start the second day – and a quick status post.

First of all, I will be submitting this entry to the jam as I’m working together with a Friend who’s doing all the music and sfx for me (I suck at music, so without him it would be a very quiet game, now instead I get some awesome 8-bit oldschool tunes).

I’m working on an action 2d-platformer. Quite ambitious idea, so where I decided to scope down was the graphics (squares with eyes).
You start out quite weak, and then have to upgrade your character. And almost everything can be upgradeable. At least – that’s still the plan.
Here is page one of my design document.

Game Design Document

And here is an ingame screenshot. Doesn’t look very exciting yet as I still have a lot of polish to do.
Lucky for me it looks much better in action =)

Now back to the code!

I am a developer who prefers two dimensions. Two dimensions means safety for me.

But sometimes we need a challenge, and I decided beforehand that I would try to make something in 3d this time.
I have to say that I’m quite pleased, even though I ended up locking the movement to two axis anyway (so I guess you could call it 2.5 dimension), but I’m quite pleased with how you can play with depth to create a visually interesting maze like in the screenshot above.

Give it a try, my first game with > 2 dimension: http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-32/?action=preview&uid=2393

I finally managed to upload my timelapse from last weekend, my 2.5d platformer “Caffeine Rush” to Youtube.

Try the game here: http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-32/?action=preview&uid=2393

It’s true that collecting parts from fallen enemies will result in much greater firepower. But it will also make you more exposed to incoming fire.

Sometimes it’s nessecary to disassemble all your parts and go back to square one to save your life (do this by pressing both buttons at the same time).

Boss fight

I outgunned that little bugger with at least 100 to 1, but in this case my size became my disadvantage. And in the very last time I had to disassemble all the parts I’ve spent so much time collecting to get through that stream of incoming fire.

And at last I was victorious.

You can play my compo-entry Disassemble here. I hope you like it =D

http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-34/?action=preview&uid=2393

Two clashing genres, that really don't fit well together! My game will be called DEMEMTORY, and is an oldschool text based adventure game that you play right in your trusty old windows console, where you try to finish a game of memory. But you have dementia...

Trying to come up with the weirdest non-mixable genre possible I finally fell for the idea of crossing the sickness Dementia with the classic card game of Memory! What could possibly be a worse match? It also makes for a very surreal experience, and I am a sucker for anything surreal.

I got some very positive initial response, and got to work.

Turns out Dementia is anyting but a laughing matter. The story got a very dark. About aging and shame. Both my grandfather and grandmother had it so I based the story from that experience (and from a bit of quick research), but mind you that I'm in no way an expert on the subject.

So the tricky part: how do you make a good ending? Dementia isn't something that you just wake up from.

In the end, for not being a writer, I'm super proud of the final experience! I've gotten a lot of very positive feedback.

You can try the game here (so far windows only, but planning on porting to mac before end of rating period): https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/dememtory

So, it is common knowledge that any game gets about 1000% better when you add screen shake, right? But my game is a text based adventure game that you play right in your windows CMD-window, that means I'm screwed right?

WRONG!

Unfortunately, even though I did implement the functionality, I did not have the time to add it to the story. Maybe next game will... Even so, I hope you give it a shot. I'm super proud about how my entry turned out, and I really need more votes...

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/dememtory

I am really looking forward to joining again! Been way too long since last time! This will be my 9th time joining (you can see all my previous entires here http://www.salomonsson.se/tags/ludum-dare.html).

Like last time I will use C++, and the plan is to do it in the terminal as well (although, this time I'm using SDL to create a FAKE TERMINAL).

See you all on the other side!

Progress is looking good! A text game about a mad person who has lost everything, and is determined to take it all back again! No matter the cost!

...and a crazy person that will do anything to get it all back! Now with 100% more screen shake!