Evidently I’m supposed to post something so that my account is registered or something… Anyway, if I did it wrong I’m sorry. So on with the message: I’m in, and this is my first Ludum Dare. Can’t wait.

I plan to make a tower defence/exploration game. You don’t have to pay anything to build a tower, but when you fire you use up ammunition. You get new ammunition in the exploration stage.

I’ve ‘Kinda’ got an idea for how to tie this in with the theme–the ammunition you collect is poison gas that you harvest from mushrooms growing in a swamp. Maybe I’ll think of a better idea later.

Good luck everyone!

At least I got something done the first day.

215 lines of code and… This:

Very anticlimactic. If you look REAL closely you can see a sort of speck. If you click on it, you can tell it’s some sort of… thingy.

Making progress!

Amazing how much more motivated you are when there’s a deadline.

Nothing quite like clouds of noxious gas harvested from mushrooms.

I considered making my own music somehow, but I decided that since I’m doing the jam anyway it’d be better to just opt out for sound.

If anyone else is musically challenged, this website has some great creative-commons licensed music.

I wasted three hours trying to get the enemies to follow a path!

Towers now shoot by themselves.

(The enemies are placeholder art.)

Well, it’s hideous beyond a doubt, but here’s my programmer art tree.

Mushroom scavenging!

AAaahh! Only twenty three hours left! Aaahhh!

I’m pretty happy with my first Ludum Dare–a tower defence mixed with a resource gatherer. I wrote it on my own with Python and Pygame and entered it into the jam. If anyone wants to play/rate it, you can find it http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-32/?action=preview&uid=50396

What went right:

The theme. I was hoping for Among the Stars, but an Unconventional Weapon was a close second. This allowed me to come up with a game idea quickly.

Not making my own music. Yeah, it’s kind of against the spirit, but if I’d tried it would have been a mess.

The tower defence/resource gatherer mix. I wasn’t actually sure if it was a good idea, but based on the feedback I’ve had so far it’s a good idea.

What went wrong:

Putting the instructions off. I should have implemented instructions as I added features. As it is, I have a slapped together instructions wall of text. I’m going to release a post-jam version fixing this, but it’s still a problem.

Trying about a gajillion different methods of making the enemies follow the path. I eventually got it to work, but it took a long time.

Overall, I’m pretty happy with my game, and I’m glad I managed to finish. I hope you like Poison Mushrooms.

Let’s see if I can do a little better than last time.

Can’t wait for it to start. Hope I can do better than last year!

It’s Ludum Dare time!! Hopefully I do better than last year.

Most of the graphics are placeholder.

In my first day I’ve got movement, a parallax starfield, and some basic enemies.

Considering I’m entering the jam, I think I have enough time left to make a decent game.

Yes! The enemies now orbit around the player.

Well, I’m starting to replace the ugly placeholder art with ugly programmer art.