Onto my 8th LD. Last time I could not participate so I am thrilled to make a game for LD again. Here is a compilation of my past games. You can find all of them on my homepage

Screenshots of my past LD games

To be honest, I am a little nervous, because I really liked my last game and I hope to be even better this time, even if it’s going to be difficult…

I think I see a tendency…

So of course I am in for LD28.

Tools: Javascript, three.js, tween.js, Chrome, Firefox, maybe my xbox gamepad, tablet, sfxr, audacity, paint, gimp, photoshop – depending on the game I will make. I have not decided on an IDE yet. Maybe Eclipse and GIT, maybe my own code editor…

… now to the other 90%. Which are sounds, levels, menus and stuff. Have a demo: Demo

I decided to make a 3d first person puzzle game. I’m still in the phase of implementing puzzle mechanics, but I like the art style so far. Everything is procedurally textured Find a demo here: Demo

In for the… sixth time? Yeah, I guess that’s right. I really enjoyed working with three.js last time, so I will use it again. My usual toolchain: Eclipse with Aptana plugin, GIT, Chrome, Firefox, XBox gamepad (yeah, I plan to use the HTML5 gamepad api again), Wacom Bamboo tablet and all the tools I think will be useful (and allowed)… thinking of sfxr, paint, gimp, maybe blender (oh god no).

I will also be in a public google hangout, showing some of my progress and chatting with whoever wants to join me. I will post the link to the hangout on my twitter, so check @fenmarDE if you are interested.

Here is a screenshot of my battlefield for this weekend, complete with plush gazelle guarding my cookie supply:

A demo of my progress so far. The first time I do something with webGL for Ludum Dare. Also: It’s playable with a Gamepad (tested with xBox controller and chrome). Play it here: LINK

Yay! Ludum Dare! I just returned from my vacation and am super motivated to do some programming. As always, I will do a Javascript/HTML5 game. My goal: Be better than previously and aim higher than last time

So this was LD 23. You can play my entry here: The Island of Dare

It’s the fourth time I participated so I can compare my performance to my previous ones. Overall I’m happy with my progress. Here are my experiences:

What went well:

• motivation: I really wanted to get something done this weekend to push my motivation for other projects. So I was really excited when the competition started.
• technology check: My game has only characters on colored background for visuals. At first I wanted to do this via DOM (so every character is one DOM node), but I did a performance check on this appoach and got only 3 FPS. So I decided to do it with canvas instead.
• time for bug fixing: Like last time, I sat down and took time to play my game over and over again. So I could find most of the bugs and fix them.
• story: I wrote a story this time It’s not overly complex or innovative but hey – STORY!
• sound: It’s my first game which has some kind of a soundtrack.
• learning new things: I never did procedural content generation before so it was a completly new field for me. I was a bit scared and my motivation dropped when I didn’t understand everything completely, but it was worth going through. PCG is awesome!
• timelapse: After two failed tries to produce a timelapse, it worked. It feels so productive when you see the work of 48 hours in four minutes. Find my timelapse here: Timelapse
• version control: 93 commits in my GIT repository. It’s good to know you can always go back when trying wierd things (like SVG rendering).
• follow the flow: Playing the game is the key. If I missed something, I added it. Planning everything is not a good idea to my mind.
• twitter: I always want to tweet more, but this time I really did it. Yay

 
What I should do better:

• user testing: I did a user testing, but it was like four hours before the deadline. I felt tired and decided not to do add features which were clearly missing. I should do usertesting earlier.
• theme: I still have a hard time coming up with a good idea for a given theme. I don’t know why…
• underestimation: I think I could have managed a more complex game… But well, I guess I was too cowardly.

So – and now I’m going to play your games.

Okay, here is my progress so far: fenmar.de/LD23/demo2 I will probably keep this style so I can make it playable in a console

Just messing with procedural level generation: http://fenmar.de/LD23/demo1/

… I entered my first LD. I came back for every main event and now I’m going to do my fourth LD. I certainly learned a lot in this year and I’m super excited to learn even more this weekend. So I’m IN! My goal for this time: Of course finish a game and have a more innovative game concept than the last times.

So here is my list of tools:

• Technology: HTML5 + Javascript
• Framework: three.js
• Graphics: GIMP (maybe Graphicsgale or Tiled, depending on theme and game concept)
• Sound: sfxr, inudge, Audacity
• IDE: eclipse
• version control: GIT

Let’s make games!