Hello,

This was supposed to be my seventh time in a row participating in Ludum Dare, but I wasn’t able to find an idea for the theme, so I’m sad to say I’m out. I’ve had problems with ideas before, but this is the first time I wasn’t able to find anything. Oh well. I guess my streak comes to an end.

Anyway, good luck to everyone who’s still participating! I can’t wait to play your games!

Hello, fellow game devs!

I normally post my “I’m in” a few weeks before LD, but I forgot this time around. Better late than never, right?

Same tools as I used my last six times :

Engine : Unity (C#, MonoDevelop)

Art : Photoshop CS5

Sound / music : Not sure yet, depends on what kind of game I make.

Planning : Evernote, pen and paper, as usual.

Not hugely satisfied with the theme choices, but we’ll have to see.

Good luck to everyone, and have fun!

Hi, fellow devs!

I’m in again for my sixth time! This time, I plan on working on game design a whole lot more. Lack of proper planning was definitely a major flaw in my previous entries.

Tools

Game Engine : Unity, probably 2D along with A* Pathfinding by Aron Granberg, probably (http://arongranberg.com/astar/)

Graphics : Adobe Photoshop CS5

Music : Abundant Music Generator

Sound effects : Sfxr

Planning : Evernote, pen and paper

Good luck!

All right, I was able to submit my LD33 entry yesterday. To be honest, I wasn’t entirely sure if I would be able to finish it, but I did. However, the game I submitted, His Majesty’s Monster, wasn’t as good as I thought it would be.

Good things

• Skills -> I’ve been working on a game in Unity for the last few months, and this allowed me to get a lot of skills with Unity which I didn’t have before. This allowed me to make a game that, in my opinion, has a way better framework than my other Ludum Dare entries.
• Framework -> I love the way my grid system works. I was also able to write it the same evening the theme was announced, which helped me a lot for time management. Something that would have required 2-3 hours last time took me less than 1 hour this time around.
• Music -> I love Abundant Music. It’s such an amazing tool to generate soundtracks. I also added a mute checkbox for the music, a feature which I find is often absent from LD entries.

Bad things

• Lack of polish -> This game lacked a whole lot of polish. The code was awfully messy, the tutorial was awful and the UI was awful due to my attempts to support other aspect ratios.
• Lack of content -> The game lacks a lot of things. I was hoping to add traps and defenses, but I didn’t know exactly how long it would take me so I decided to scrap that idea.
• Bad graphics -> The graphics were horrible again. I really need to practice my graphics skills, because right now, the monsters look more like a ball of transparent gas than furry monsters and the enemies look like weird rune circles while they’re actually helmets.
• Bad tutorial -> The in-game tutorial I put it was 17 pages long, and most of them were absolutely useless. Due to the lack of time, the sentences probably lacked proper structure. I really need to write a tutorial system to practice the interface for them too, because this time around, the tutorial was awful.
• Annoying controls -> I was able to add in keybinding using the default Unity system right before submitting, but that’s pretty much the only good point about the controls. For instance, you can only build buildings using the number keys and the “Give orders” tool lacks a lot of functionality.

If you haven’t submitted yet, hurry up! Only one hour left!

If you just submitted your game, congrats! If this is your first Ludum Dare, you’re now part of the 48-hours-game-giving-club! Else, congrats on your new entry!

I already posted my I’m In post, but I just wanted to wish everyone good luck for this Ludum Dare!

Hello again, fellow Ludum Dare participants!

I’m in again! My previous Ludum Dare entries were lacking a lot of depth and complexity. This time, Il’ll try making them slightly more complex. I also took some time to familiarize myself with Unity even more, so that should help quite a bit.

Tools

»Engine : Unity

»3rd party libraries : probably A* Pathfinding by Aron Granberg (http://arongranberg.com/astar/)

»Art : Photoshop CS5

»Music : Abundant Music or Audiotool, if they release an HTML5 version before LD33 (#OccupyFlash!)

»Sound effects : Possibly SFXR or BFXR

»Planning : Pen, paper and possibly Trello. Probably also Evernote.

Good luck to everyone!

I’m in for my fourth Ludum Dare! It didn’t go so well last time, so I hope I can do better this time. I’d really like to get into the top 500 this time. Of course, Ludum Dare is such a good way to practice that I don’t really care about how I rank, but it’s always good to get a good score.

Tools I will be using :

Engine : Unity3D, (EDIT : Il’ll probably use A* pathfinding for Unity.)

Graphics : Photoshop CS5

Audio : A random music generator, probably Abundant Music as well as BFXR if I need sound effects

Planning : Evernote and the good ol’ pen and paper

Good luck to everyone who will be participating!

Hello everyone!

This game was really bad, so I had to do a post-mortem to point out all of the things I did wrong.

What I did well

Not much, really. The audio was quite good, but otherwise, the game was pretty bad.

What I did wrong

• Graphics The graphics on this game are really bad. Low-quality, stretched images, cubes representing the enemies and the player. Il’ll never be an artist, I’m a     programmer, so I wasn’t too suprised with how graphics turned out.
• Enemy Paths
• The enemies always did the exact same thing. They went in a straight line towards you, always starting from the exact same position. I should have made four spawn points and the core in the center of the screen, with some enemies aiming for the player, some of them aiming for the core and some of them shooting at both. In the first version of the game, the enemies were all going for the player, and I really didn’t find it fun to play. I found the boss to be a bit more difficult to defeat, but I should have made it a lot more complex.
• Target Size
• Some of the people on my entry page said that the targets were really small and that they were a pain to hit. After playing the game again, I noticed that they were right. I really should have made the basic enemies a bit bigger.

Why was it so bad?

1. I lost the whole first night and a bit of the first morning because of Unity. I was considering switching to another engine, which I never used before. I finally decided to go back to Unity, but I should definitely choose my tools more carefully next time.
2. I wasn’t motivated to make this thing. As soon as the theme was announced, I started panicking because I thought that it was really bad. I didn’t have fun making this game, which explains most of the problems, in my opinion.

What will happen to Dungeon?

I am probably going to make a free iOS version which fixes most of the issues, mainly to practice with SpriteKit. Honestly, I don’t think that Dungeon has any potential.

However, my studios and I are announcing a new game on our website on January the 14th, so if you’re interested, stay tuned to http://voblestudios.com and our blog.

Hello everyone!

I just got a first build of my game, Dungeon, out. At the moment, there are two waves, one weapon and a basic experience/health system. I seem to be having some problems with my aspect ratios, could anyone tell me how good it looks on their computer?

http://ludumdare.voblestudios.com/ld31/Build1/

Hello people,

I was thinking of using Unity3D, but with this theme and the idea that I have in mind for it, I might have to switch engines. The problem is that I don’t have a backup ready, so I might have to learn a whole new game engine by making my game. It might not be bad for practicing, however.

Hello!

This time of year has come again. This will be my 3rd time taking part in the compo. I did OK on the two last ones, and I am to do even better on this one.

Engine : Unity2D or 3D, unless I change my mind at the last minute, which is very possible.

Graphics : Photoshop CS5

3D Models (if I make a 3D game) : Blender

Audio : Bfxr

Music : A random music generator, not sure which one yet.

Good luck to all participants!

Hello everyone!

Here is my post-mortem of the game I made for LD30 which is a space colony builder type thing which is named Pocket. If you want to play it, here is the link : http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-30/?action=preview&uid=25153 .

Engine

For this Ludum Dare, I was considering switching to LibGDX but I didn’t have enough time to learn the engine so I had to keep using Unity. Sadly, the 2D tools in Unity are still quite buggy which created some unexpected bugs within my game.

Programming

For some reason, I thought that it would be a good idea to switch from using C# to using UnityScript. The problem is that I never tried UnityScript so I had to look at the documentation constantly to learn how to do stuff. From now on, Il’ll always test out and learn my tools before starting Ludum Dare because this slowed me down a lot.

Ideas

For last Ludum Dare, I came up with a list of ideas for each time. This time around, I didn’t do that which made me waste the whole of Friday night and Saturday morning from 6 to 8 trying to find ideas in connection with the theme. I finally stopped my decision on a space colony building game on Saturday morning but I should definitely come up with a list of ideas for each theme next time.

Time management

I actually managed my time quite well this time around so there won’t be a lot of stuff in this paragraph. But here’s an advice for new Ludum Dare participants : at the start of every day, make a list of things to do and give yourself a maximum time to do it so that you don’t run out of time.

Tools

There’s one thing I learnt from this Ludum Dare : always test your tools before the start of the competition. When I was about halfway through development, Untiy 4.6 crashed on me and it reset the scene so I had to put everything back in place. Photoshop also had a huge bug which made it crash before saving so I had to restart some graphics a few times. Also, don’t use betas for Ludum Dare. Seriously.

Graphics

I was actually quite proud with my graphics for Pocket. Using a few of the built-in Photoshop tools, I was able to create planets which looked quite nice.

The controls

If I continue this game post-compo, I really want to make it so that multiple controls can be used at the same time so that I can, for example, change my speed while also accelerating. Sadly, this wasn’t possible in the Ludum Dare version so I definitely want to change that.

I would love to continue working on this game. If I do, Il’ll probably switch over to LibGDX or another engine because Unity2D is really buggy. If I make this into a fully-fledged game, Il’ll also want to add a few more mechanics. I just want to wait until the end of the voting period to see everyone’s advice.

Hello everyone!

Ludum Dare has been on for almost a day on! Development is going a bit slower on this game due to some bugs and my Unity scene getting deleted, but apart from that, it’s going amazingly well! This game is also way more complex that my LD29 so yeah… I’m about to go watch Doctor Who and Il’ll continue developing after that.

Good luck everyone!

Hello!

This will be my second attempt at Ludum Dare (and at any game jam, actually). I am doing the compo once again. I actually did better than what I expected last time (1k ish position) but I hope to get in the top 500 this edition.

Computer : MacBook Pro 15″ Early-2011

Engine/programming : Unity3D or LibGDX(Java) with Eclipse

Art : Adobe Photoshop CS5

Audio : Sfxr, Audacity, possibly GarageBand and Sonic Pi 2 if my Pi arrives before the beginning of the competition

Modelling (if needed) : Blender

Planning : Pen, paper and Evernote

I don’t know if Il’ll be doing a 3D or 2D game yet; Il’ll choose once the theme has been announced.

Good luck everyone!

I tried participating in the jam a few times, but there were problems with my team so we weren’t able to finish it. For this edition, I will be trying the compo with the following tools :

• Engine: Unity3D
• Modelling: Blender
• Audio: Audacity
• Art: Photoshop

Most themes seem to be better as 2D games, so Il’ll probably be making one of those.