My submission A Game of Towns is up now. It’s not exactly the way I had planned it, but I am quite happy with it given the time.

Play it here

I had hoped to do things like scaling up the play and adding upgrades, but I quickly learned that Javascript is not the language for me. I think the majority of my weekend was spent trying to decipher what the type of certain variables were. I definitely like my languages TypeSafe.

Unlike my previous game for Ludum Dare, I am actually thinking about keeping the development going. I’ve always been interested in simulations, and that’s really all my submission does.

I have a laundry list of features I wish I could have added, but my main regret is not being able to add any real user interaction or skill into the game. It is fairly fun to watch though, in my opinion.

Well, I look forward to everyone’s games and especially look forward to finally going to sleep.

This will be my second attempt at LD, but this time I’m going to do the 48 hour version rather than the 72. Last time I worked in a team and used a few assets, but this time all will be done by me.

I created a small, terrible little Horde Mode style game as a warmup: Bothordia.

I will be using the Jaws engine and Coffee Script for all the actual code.

Graphics: GIMP and maybe a Sprite editor, not picked one out yet.
Music: Maybe Sfxr, but doubt I’ll have the time to make any music/sounds.

Should be a fun weekend, and look forward to the all the games that will be created.

The little pebble things are the comets you collect.

Every time Ludum Dare comes along I always said I’d do it. But I never could get myself to sit down and do it. This time round is different.

I’m not doing the Dare, but I am doing the Jam. Mainly because I felt better coding a game with a friend; Dan Bell. For the 72 hours, I’m staying at Dan’s place, as it seemed easier to work in the same room than over Skype.

So far we’ve made pretty good progress. Dan came up with what to do very quickly. Basically it begins like an Osmos style game, you collect comets to gain mass, and once you have enough mass you can move onto the next stage.

In the second stage you need to build up an atmosphere, making sure you don’t get too close to stars and boil away all the precious water you may have gathered (Will need to look into the science a little more).

The third stage is similar to the second, you need to avoid getting too hot or too cold, so that the life that has grown on your surface can flourish and not freeze to death. Again, we’ll probably look into this more on the third day.

Today we started at 7am and have managed to get most of the first stage of the game done. Neither Dan or I are artists or composers so we’ll probably be skimping on this things until the last minute.

We’re using Playn for all the game mechanics and JBox2D for all the physics. Both of these have been working fairly well, but are poorly documented at times.

Graphics: Inkscape/Photoshop/aseprite; We’re not really decided on an art direction yet, but will use one of those, tools.

Sound: sfxr and Creative Commons License Music (Most likely) I can’t remember where Dan found a good intro song, will ask him tomorrow.

I’m shattered, so night!