Here is a timelapse of some of the art creation of my Ludum Dare entry!

Still lacking quite a bit behind. “Wasted” 5 hours traveling to my friend making the music to record things. But it was really fun + I have music and cute monstersounds by her flatmate now :D.

I’ll see! I don’t think I can finish it like I imagined it, but I should be able to get the “core” gardening loop going tomorrow.

First gameplay with placeholder art on the little island. Hanging really behind, hope the next 2 days will be really productive x)

So I’m lacking quite a bit behind, but it felt good to take some time with the concept.

Starting with the idea of an ecosystem simulator, I ended up at two monster-brothers who wants to find a new home.

The goal of the game is to nurture the garden and build the house, without any of the brothers starving. Both have specific roles: the younger one fishes for seeds for the garden, while the older, stronger one nurtures the seeds (=food) and cuts down mushroom-trees to build the house. They can only achieve their goal if they work together. However, the younger brother needs to eat way more often, so there should be gameplay situations where you need to help him as older brother, so you both move towards your goal.

I didn’t plan on joining LD this time, but the theme .. it’s just my cup of tea, fuck 😀
This theme is actually close to the very first LD I participated in “Tiny World”, which coincidentally later also got my nickname and way to approach art.
Well’ll see. Have some plans for tomorrow and am a bit sick, but I may try making something small.

Tools (in case I join):

• Stencyl
• GIMP
• Audacity

First ideas:

Do something, where I use my photographs as background and/or mix them with other media.

Also, here is a link to my tiny worlds photography, if you want to use it as inspiration: http://www.tinyworlds.org/photography.html

I rated 50 games so far! Here are my favorites in no particular order.

1. Fish Physics

A weird little game, I really liked to  fool around with.
Click here to play

2. 13 Jellyfish

Great pixelart graphics and pirates!
Click here to play

3. Sonder

A little puzzle game with interesting observations on life.
Click here to play

4. Huge & Cute

A pretty little puzzle game with an interesting mechanic.
Click here to play

4. Voyage

Space travel and the human condition.
Click here to play

5. UN4CK3D

An immersive hacking “game”.
Click here to play

6. Spell Bear

A cute bear fighting evil furniture.
Click here to play

My Game

I made a little game with hand-drawn graphics.
Click here to play

This was a really nice Ludum Dare, where I experimented with hand-painted graphics and ended up creating a little, personal game.
As this post mortem would spoil your experience, I suggest to check out the game first here: http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-37/?action=preview&uid=10000 and then come back and read.

What went right

1. Hand-painted graphics

I created all graphics using felt-pens and a simple ball-point pen, which was a pretty relaxing experience.

My process looked like this:

• look up real-life/photo reference
• “block out” colors & shapes first, so the felt-pen doesn’t mix with the ballpoint pen
• create a messy outline around the object (so it looks “drawn”)
• scan, transparency from white, import

If you want to look me “over the shoulder” creating the graphics, I made a timelapse video here: Youtube
I then combined the graphics with a paper texture I created some time ago and brought everything together in GIMP. Here is also “baked in” the light of the windows and room.

( Ingame I put light, middleground and background into different layers to create a bit of depth in the scene)

2. Personal Meaning

While the game can not be seen as an 1:1 representation of my life, there is a lot of symbolism pointing towards me and my thoughts.
This made me very vulnerable, but also created some of the most meaningful reactions I ever got on a game project.

3. Sound Design

A large part of why the game seems to many relaxing and atmospheric can be accounted to the sound and specifically the music.

I used the wonderful “Peace is king” album by bbatv (Creative commons). He created the album while recovering from anxiety and depression, wanting to create something that “promotes recovery and healing” as much as possible. I think this personal background made the music really meaningful and touching and linked nicely with my game.
For the sounds itself I used some out of my own sound library and recorded the ones I hadn’t in there yet.

What went wrong

1. Time management

I forgot to plan in times for breaks. One day I also woke up way too late, which I had to make up for in the end sprint.
Most of the actual gameplay was done on the night of the last day up until 5am. My neighbour left to work before I went to bed that day ^^

2. Deciding on an idea early on

I made the mistake with multiple Ludum Dares now. First I focus on the style and then I really struggle with the gameplay, usually around the evening of the first day.
Quite some frustration there, but it turned out really nice in the end ^^

3. Animation & Interactivity

Some people describe the game as poem, but there really is not much opportunity for the player to express themselves. Ludipe shared a really interesting perspective on this:
“Perhaps it’d be cool to put those items in different rooms that you can explore in any order; it’s always nice to let players express themselves through gameplay, even if they can only choose the order in which they find things. Exploration and discovery are powerful feelings :-)”
Another thing that was critized was the lack of animations. I created only simple character animations, since hand-drawn animations take time.
I ended up using procedural animation for the character to save time (GIMP’s iWarp filter has an animation feature). The effect is interesting, but the tool is really not too advanced.

For the next Ludum Dare ..

1. For the jam, personal asset libraries are super useful! So I want to start again extending mine.
2. Plan in time for breaks.
3. MAYBE not work on the style first 😀
4. Learn tools for procedural/bone-based animation

So all in all I really enjoyed this Ludum Dare! Definitively one of my favorites so far.

I hope you found this post mortem helpful, and learned some things you can apply to your own process!

If you want to see more of my art, you can take a look at www.tinyworlds.org.
I’m also photographing tiny worlds besides making games

Not sure if I’ll manage to finish, but here is a screenshot of my game atm.

You can follow the further development on Twitter, if you want

Here is a little Gif 😀

(game is not about houseplants)

I’m making hand-painted graphics for my game – using felt pens!

Thinking of doing handpainted graphics for my game.

I just have very few different colors for felt pens, but no time to get new ones ^^

I created some variations, want to have a “doodely” style, so you see that it is hand-drawn at a glance.

What do you think? Do you have maybe an idea what I could also try out for a hand-drawn look? Maybe watercolors?

EDIT: More or less final look. Drawn with felt pens, shapes and colors are dominant.

Foreground objects have outline around them. Will add it on top of a nice paper texture ingame