I’ve been a big fan of Ludum Dare for a few years, but this is only my 2nd time entering.  Here’s what I ended up with:

Play/Rate it

What went right:

• The Tool – I used Construct2, just like my first entry.  Both times, I considered using GameMaker/GML, but I wanted an easy way to post to the web, and more so, Construct2 lets you rapidly produce something that’s playable.
• The Story – I thought the “you are the villain” theme could really make an interesting story arc in the game.  I spent a good amount of time the first day just thinking of how to implement the theme into the story.  I’m happy with how it turned out.
• The Music – With only about 45 minutes left, I finally turned my attention to sounds/music.  There wasn’t enough time for me to create anything that wouldn’t have been boring or repetitive, so I turned to the Wolfram Tones to generate some background music for me.  Out of the 60 or so tracks I listened to, I had found 3 that I thought would add to the ambiance of the game.
• The Gameplay – It ended up being a simplified zelda dungeon.  You acquire 4 powers along the way, and use them to open doors to get farther into the dungeon.  The powers were fun to create, and worked reasonably well.  Unfortunately, there were also a number of problems with the gameplay (see what went wrong).
• The game felt complete – By “complete”, I  mean there is a definitive beginning and end, assuming you could make it to the end (see “bugs”).

What went wrong:

• I tried to do WAY too much – I chose a relatively complex game to make in 48 hours.  A number of  gameplay aspects suffered to have something complete by the deadline.  Also, virtually nothing felt polished, and there are a number of bugs.  Fortunately, there was only 1 bug that stopped the player from finishing the game, and that’s been fixed.
• The text speed – There are a few “cut scenes” in the game where all controls are suspended to show dialog important to the controls or story.  This wouldn’t be so bad, but I made this dialog unskippable, which left the player frustrated, having to wait for the dialog to finish before they could resume playing.  I had planned to add the ability to move through the dialog via a keyboard button, but ran out of time.
• Lack of planning – I had a conceptual idea, and just went with it, making many things up as I went along.  This ended up being a very poor choice.  If I had planned things out a bit more in the beginning, I would have had more time in the end to polish the game.

For next time:

• Plan as much as possible before creating.
• Start with a simple gameplay mechanic, and expand if there is time.
• Wrap it up with a definitive beginning and end.

See you all in LD26.

I just finished up and posted my LD26 warmup game (though it’s more like an app).  It’s a simple paint application that lets you share a drawing with other users, while being shown a stream of other users’ shared drawings:

Right now there are only the 10 drawings I created , but I’m hoping to get quite a few more so there’s a steady stream of images to keep users interested.  More details can be found on the game page.  I hope you enjoy.

Game Page       Play Paint Share

(Works best in Chrome, but it’s not required)

This is my 3rd Ludum Dare rodeo.   LD24…..246th place.   LD25…..167th place.  My goal for LD 26, aside from having fun and making a good game, is to place higher than last time.  Tools:

• IDE: Construct 2
• Graphics:  Paint.net, and possibly hexel
• Sound: BFXR, Microphone, Audacity
• Music: (Depending on how long I have to spend on music ) Wolfram Tones, Abundant-Music.com, NodeBeat, Garageband
• Food: If I do it like last time….48 hours of pretzel rods and seltzer

There are a few Construct 2 “Libraries” I’ve created in the past that I may use.  These include basic behaviors for screen fades, recording and playing back  data, dialog boxes, Login/Account creation system (in case I want online features), and data encoding (when passing data to my server).  All can be found here.

Also, if you have a minute, check out my LD26 Warmup Game, Paint Share.  Paint Share is a simple paint application.  What makes it special is that it’s constantly showing you drawing that other users have submitted, and you can submit a drawing of your own (requires creating an account…. feel free to make a bogus one).  Why not draw a potato:

Oh Come on…. it totally looks like a potato!

I can’t wait to get to the game making.  Best of luck everyone!

This entry was posted on Monday, April 22nd, 2013 at 4:21 pm and is filed under LD #26. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Finally, I have time to post about my game.  The theme and I didn’t get along for the first 30 hours, so I made the difficult decision to trash everything and start again.  I ended up making a physic game using only 3 colors.   I’m actually pretty happy with how it turned out (a first for ludum dare).

The goal is simple; get the circle to its home (the square with a circle cut out of it).   The levels are not particularly difficult (except for maybe one or two).  The real challenge is using as few shapes as possible.

A Simple Circle

Play it here

If you beat all 25 levels, you’ll see your total number of shapes used on the main screen.  My lowest score is 70.

I hope you enjoy it.  Long live Ludum Dare!

Another proverbial notch in my Ludum Dare belt.  I love this event.  I look forward to it for months.  I love playing all the games that are created.  The only time I despise Ludum Dare is the 48 hours between the theme announcement, and the compo ending.  Well… I don’t really hate Ludum Dare, I more so hate myself.  During that time, I often think:

• What was I thinking
• Why did I think I could do this
• This is the biggest piece of crap I’ve ever created

In the end, after I submit my entry, and the site is running like molasses, all the negative thoughts go away.  From that point, I’m eager to try everyone’s game, and start counting the days until the next compo begins.  Anyway, that’s enough blathering on.  If I want to post my thoughts on this event, I’ll make a port-mortem. This is what I really wanted to show you:

The Ones You Love is about reliving 10 second moments throughout the course of a day, and how your actions in the past can affect the future. Controls are simple. “M” toggles music on and off. The mouse does the rest. Click to interact with people and objects.

Please Note: The game requires a WebGL enabled browser (e.g. Firefox or Safari) to render correctly.  If you can’t swing that, the game page has downloads for Windows and OSX.

Play It

Rate It

If you have any feedback or thoughts on the game, I’d love to hear it.

I thought I’d do something a little different and make a video post mortem about my experiences in Ludum Dare 27 and creating my game, The Ones You Love.  Hopefully you find it entertaining and enjoyable.

Play The Ones You Love

Rate The Ones You Love

This will be my 5th LD event, and I’m as excited as ever.   As always, my goal is to improve upon my previous overall score.  However, it’s going to be a lot tougher since I did pretty well in the last event.  I’m ready to get down to business:

Tools:

• Engine: Most likely Construct 2, but there’s a small chance I’ll use GameMaker: Studio.
• Graphics: Gimp
• Music: Garage Band or Wolfram Tones (if I’m short on time).
• Sound: Hopefully Audacity and a Mic, but if I’m short on time, bfxr.
• Other tools I may use:  Inkscape, Tiled, Spriter, Hexel, Pickle, NodeBeat, inudge

Assuming I use C2, I’ll use my own starter file.  It contains:

• Default Project Settings.
• A couple simple functions I use in almost all my projects.
• 2 bitmap fonts I created.
• Splash Screen

Best of luck to everyone!  I assume once LD28 is complete, I’ll receive my 5 timers club jacket in the mail.

I couldn’t resist entering MiniLD 50 once I found out about the theme.  I ended up with Super Jump Man, a demake of Super Mario 64.  It contains a single, relatively large world, with 7 stars to collect.  It was fun recreating Mario 64 controls/movements in a 2D environment.  The game definitely has its flaws, but I’m quite happy with how it turned out.  Keyboard and Xbox controller are supported.  The Xbox controller is a far better experiences in my opinion.  If you know the move set for Mario 64 (triple/high/long jumps), you’ll pick the controls up easily.  I hope you enjoy!

Play the Game

After 5 main events, I’m still hooked on LD.  My goal, as always, is to improve upon last time… which is getting increasingly harder. 😀

Engine: Most likely Construct 2 with a small chance of HaxeFlixel.

Graphics: Pickle, Gimp, or Inkscape

Music: FL Studio, BescaCeoil, or cgMusic depending on how much time I have.

Sound: Labchirp, bfxr, or I’ll make my own if I have time.

Assuming I use C2, I’ll use my own “boilerplate” file .  It contains:

• Default Project Settings
• A few non-gameplay functions I use in almost all my projects
• An menu engine for creating a simple UI for changing game settings in-game
• 2 bitmap fonts
• Splash Screen

I can’t wait to play some LD games. Best of luck to everyone!

This will be 7 in a row.  I’ll most likely use Construct 2.  If so, I’ll use this boilerplate file.  Good luck to everyone!

I’be been counting down the days until I get to put my Ludum Dare hat* on for the 8th time.  There’s tons of tools I might use, but here’s what’s most likely:

• Engine – Construct 2 with the same boilerplate file from the last LD
• Graphics – Paint.net
• Sound – bfxr
• Audio – Bosca Ceoil or cgMusic if I run low on time (probably)

Let’s make some games!

*not an actual hat

After seeing the theme, I couldn’t help but pay homage to one of my favorite games growing up.

Interested into a battle of gloves… and wits?

Play/Rate Ring Retorter

4 years ago, I discovered Ludum Dare.

3 years ago I participated for the first time.

9 events in, and I’m amazed at how far I’ve come.

I’m proud to participate for the 10th time.

I’ve really enjoyed developing with the Pico-8 recently, so I may use that this time around.  However, my go-to Ludum Dare tool is Construct 2.   If I use C2, I’ll likely use this boilerplate file.

Other possible tools: Piskel, Gimp, AutoTileGen, Bosca Ceoil, cgMusic, Spriter, bfxr

I’d like to introduce my 10th LD game.

Play/Rate Earth Was a Bad Choice

Play as an alien who hoped to vacation on Earth, but quickly found out the inhabitants are hostile. Race back to your ship through 10 levels of pixelated explosions.  Can you make it?

I was fortunate to have enough time to add a proper ending to the game.  I hope you get to see it! For you competitive types, can you beat these high scores*:

• Biggest Combo – 30
• Longest Airtime – 21.9s

Edit: Within about 15 minutes of me posting this, someone already beat the originally posted scores.  The above scores have been updated.

This was the first Ludum Dare that I programmed in event tracking.  It wasn’t anything fancy, mostly just info about the device playing the game.  I also tracked whenever someone beat the game, and recorded the players highest combo and airtime.   I was hoping to add a high score system, but ran out of time.  Now that we’re near the end of LD33, I thought I’d post the high score here:

Highest Combo* – 32

Most Airtime* – 22.8s

Can you beat these scores?  Click Here to play Earth Was a Bad Choice.

I hadn’t posted the timelapse of me creating the game. Check it out: