And mercifully my entry will contain neither pixel art, nor puns!

This time I’m determined to use Unity and do something 3D – notepad++ and possibly blender and/or sculptris if I absolutely cannot make all my 3D assets procedurally

Let the games begin!

Edit: Oh, I meant to say paint.net, not notepad++ perhaps I would be better off doing my graphics in a text editor …

I have to do something to improve on the community scores I’ve been getting in previous dares, so I’m pulling out all the stops and posting a picture of my actual real life desk on the blog! Inspired, I know.

I mentioned the codebase/languages I’ll be using in my previous post so in this one I should add that I do all my javascript and html coding in PHP Storm, use Paint.net for graphics and a combination of creative’s sound recorder and audacity for pasting together music (not that I’m hopeful of having time to get sound included) Oh and I’ll be using putty to connect to my AWS EC2 server. Spotify will be providing me all of Sweden’s finest exports and if I get hungry I will eat my toy buffalo (EDIT: went for Mexican instead – just as well as he’s not really mine).

My codebase for this LD will probably be extracted from the last entry I did (about 3 dares ago), the code is all here:

Multiplayer Zombie Garden Adventure

zombie garden code

However, I’m going to spend some time tonight looking at three.js and other canvas libraries for the rendering, as I’m fairly sure it’ll be better than my own.

Same tech as last time which means:

node.js
socket.io
html5/canvas
jquery

and one lucky winner out of mongodb and mysql will be chosen as the database, if necessary.

Hello Ludumites,

As promised I have posted pretty much every scrap of reusable (and plenty that isn’t reusable) web game code I’ve ever written, on my brand spanking new wordpress site. Assuming I do end up making a game for LD20 that’s web based and has a server component, then some of this base code will be used. Other than that, everything will be written from scratch. The other libraries involved being node.js, socket.io, jQuery and JSON. Sorry for not getting this blog post together sooner

I’ve thrown this together very quickly so if I’ve accidentally left server or database passwords in there then I guess that’s a bonus for anyone who is interested enough to read it

now for some sleep

Good Luck everyone!

My node.js and canvas basecode

If all goes according to plan, I will compete again this time.

I’d really like to use HTML5/canvas on top of node.js and mongodb to do something web based with persistent content and/or multiplayer. So I will be doing a blog post on the subject of using those things together to make games.

However, if the theme doesn’t suit that set-up, or I have a 3D idea that’s feasible in the timeframe I’ll probably default to OpenGL/Java.

Last time I entered, I used .NET with the SlimDX DirectX wrapper. But that alienated too many people who otherwise might have given it a try. I think I’ve learned my lesson that unless my screenshot looks awesome, people are not going to bother with a download. I probably downloaded only 10% of windows games last time, and played nearly all the web ones.

Well, that was interesting

My first Ludum Dare but surely not my last. It’s been more fun, more rewarding and a lot tougher than I expected. I have awesome amounts of respect for anyone else who completed their entry, particularly if they got everything in it that they intended.

I’ve also ended up making a completely different game from what I had in mind on completely different tech. I had been planning to use jMonkeyEngine with Blender for 3D but none of the 3D game ideas I had really fitted the theme.

Unfortunately, the game has no sound I simply ran out of time. If I had worked ridiculous hours, I might have got sound in, but I might not have finished the gameplay or got all the bugs out of it.

My Entry

Ok, no messing about, this time I’m competing… Or changing my name for next time!

I’ll most likely be using jMonkeyEngine…
or slimdx…
or SDL…
or Unity…
or Windows Forms????

How many hours do I have again?….

At least I know I’ll be using:

Blender for any 3D graphics
Paint.NET for 2D “art”
sxfr & audacity for sound.