I’m still wavering a little, but for now, I think I’ll be participating. Plus I gotta use my new 27″ monitor! If I don’t participate, it’ll be wasted. And also, I’ve been really lazy lately (which is why I’m unsure about this), so if I do participate maybe it’ll get me past my laziness.

I dunno what I’ll use. Probably something with HTML5.

So hopefully see you all in ~24 hours!

Last night I attempted to start the jam with some friends. Unfortunately it didn’t live up to my expectations I guess, and I ended up feeling quite discouraged because we didn’t get much done. I slept in, and when I finally got online, I broke the news to them that I wanted to go it alone. Fortunately we’re still on good terms I think, and I’ve now refocused, restarted with a new idea (that seems very realistic given the remaining time), and made progress.

So now I’m joining the actual competition. I’m sticking with the framework I wrote this past week – using canvas and JavaScript. I have my simple idea: a missile defense game similar to the one in the awesome keynote. I have some scribbles as to how it’s going to end up being somewhat fun/challenging. And I now have a working prototype of adding turrets to the tiny world (so that you can defend it, of course!).

Try out the prototype here. It is updated each time I push to Github, so you might see something different from the screenshot below. Works on all browsers that support canvas, and possibly IE as well (haven’t tested it yet, but I added Chrome Frame to it, in theory).

2012-04-21 4.58.49 PM EST

I’m putting together my framework for LD 23! It’s hosted publicly on Github, so go check out the demonstration and the source! I’ve decided to go with canvas, and instead of find some library, I’m going to write my own small library. So here it is. I’ll be updating that repository and pushing changes to it, so those links will be kept current. Watch or bookmark them if you care to.

I created a tileset format and tested loading and displaying tiles from it. It’s working well and took hardly any time, but there’s time I won’t have to waste during my precious 48 hours! You can see the animated glider on the demonstration page.

Also I put code for Google Chrome Frame. I’m currently on a Mac, so I can’t test it, but supposedly it will inform IE6/7/8 users that they should go get a plugin called Chrome Frame which allows them to view canvas graphics. So assuming it works (and I WILL test it and get it working before the compo), it should allow IE users to also play my game, despite their inferior browser choice.

Anyway that’s all for tonight, it’s really late here on the east coast of the US of A. More to come!

Previous post: I’m in!

I am about 95% certain that I will be participating in Ludum Dare 23! I will be doing something web-based (canvas or Three.js) targeting Google Chrome 18 (the current stable release). I’ve been very impressed by some of the new web tech that’s making it into the latest stable versions of browsers, and I’ve had years of web dev experience, so I feel very confident.

Over the next 8 days I hope to get a test app/framework set up – that’s one thing I wished I had done in the past. I’m going to be using Git and pushing every stable increment to a public server and Github, so I’ll be encouraging everyone to check out the game as I develop it. I have a Wacom tablet that I’ll use for art, and a MIDI keyboard that I probably won’t use for sound (if I get to sound, it’ll probably be sfxr…) but maybe! And then I have my 17″ MacBook Pro (OSX and Win7 VM/bootcamp) and a few other laptops/netbooks.

Soo I think that about covers it. Now to see if I can put down my current game project and hack some stuff into Github before Friday! See you all then!

Next post: Canvas, tiles, and Google Chrome Frame!

Woohoo! I’m excited. This Ludum Dare #20 will be my second one (I participated in #18 Enemies as Weapons).

My main improvement goal this time is to have a more complete game done by the end of it. If I find time and motivation, I’ll prepare something of a library before Friday (and open source it, as per the rules). But basically, last LD I had a toy, not even a game; there was no end goal. This time I will push to have a working game by the end of it. And as with all of these, I’ll learn a lot along the way!

I’m unsure what technology I will use. I will most likely end up writing a Java applet like last time, but I could also go for something in pure HTML and JavaScript. Perhaps even WebGL – I’ve never used it, but I am familiar with JavaScript and somewhat familiar with OpenGL, so I don’t think it would be too difficult to figure out quickly.

Since everyone else is posting other things they’re going to use, here’s my list: My computer will be my MacBook Pro. For graphics, Photoshop and my Wacom tablet should do the trick. Audio will of course be made by Sfxr (or Bfxr since Sfxr is a Windows-only app); I have a MIDI piano but I very likely won’t have time to make music. If I write the game in Java, my IDE will of course be Eclipse; if HTML&JavaScript, I’ll use BBedit and debug with Firebug.

I think that about covers it. I’ve been very diligent in voting for themes, so I’m hoping to have a good one this time (“discovery” wasn’t so great in my opinion, but “enemies as weapons” was awesome).

Good luck to everyone else participating this weekend!

My toy is done! (actually it has been done & submitted for a few hours now) It has no goal, thus why it’s more of a “toy” than a game.

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-18/?action=preview&uid=2421

It is played in the browser, because it’s a Java applet. It should work wonderfully in Windows and Linux with Sun Java 1.6.0_10 or newer. There is a link on the page to a Mac version but it’s iffy at best. Sorry Apple users, upgrade to a superior OS. 😛 In all seriousness though I wish I could’ve gotten it completely cross-platform. I feel like that would deserve a gold star or something.

Anyway I’m … content, I guess. Not entirely pleased, but not displeased either. And I’m sure this wasn’t bad at all for my first Ludum Dare. I learned some things:

• Games need a goal. Next time I will plan to make a game, not a toy. I can’t believe I didn’t see this from the get-go.
• Do something out of the ordinary. This game ended up frighteningly similar to the game that my group created at the Global Game Jam earlier this year. I became pretty depressed the moment I realized this fact, only a handful of hours before the end of the competition. I am an extremely uncreative person when it comes to ideas, and this discovery only underscored that fact.
• Preparation is good. I’m talking about the time before the competition. School started this past week for me, but it didn’t start until Wednesday. What did I spend Monday and Tuesday doing? Not preparing for Ludum Dare, that’s what. Next time I need to actually prepare, because I spent a lot of time writing code that could have been prewritten as a library. I think my game would be much better if I had done that.
• Breaks are good, too. I think I paced myself pretty well; I’m exhausted but not beat. But it definitely helped that I took breaks. I got plenty of sleep both nights, and I even stopped to bake cookies. I made sure to keep very calm and not rush or overexert myself. I think I did a pretty good job with this but I definitely want to keep it in mind in the future.

Well that’s about all I have to say about that. Good luck to everyone! I got a lot out of this weekend. I’m working on my timelapse video now, and I’ll either edit this or make a new post when I put it up on the Tube of You.

Birds of Prey screenshot 1

My game is “Birds of Prey“.

Birds are flying south for the winter; stop them! There are several types of birds [not yet] and all you have is your bare “hands” (I plan to port this to Android where it’ll make more sense). Grab a bird and fling it into the others; don’t let them fly south!

Each of the birds will fling in a slightly different way. The first one (and only one at the moment), which I secretly name Spearbird, gets flung in a straight line. The flinging mechanic is there; the collision and random generation of birds is not. So I have a while to go, but I’m making good progress!

Please take a look; play it in your browser! All you need is Java 1.6.0_10 or newer, it’s a Java applet. Browse on over to http://insertnamehere.org/birdsofprey/ and give it a try!

Here’s a screenshot for those of you that can’t get it to work. I’m off to bake cookies.

Haha, I just introduced a sort of bug. Check out my Java applet! Click and hold your mouse on a bird to see the spin bug.

http://insertnamehere.org/birdsofprey/

Whew, it’s been a pretty cool 2.5 hours so far! I have my idea, some plans drawn on paper, a few basic photoshop sketches, and some code written. In fact, I’ve already figured out how to deploy it, and I’ve been pushing it to Bitbucket, so I’d say I’m really flying!

Please visit the following page and let me know if it works for you. I’m especially interested in those of you with Linux and Mac OSes, since I wrote and deployed this on Windows. Let me know if it works for you or not.

You need Java 1.6.0 update 10 or newer, otherwise it’ll just give you an error.

http://insertnamehere.org/birdsofprey/

So yeah. Let me know how that goes. It’s hardware accelerated with JOGL. Also please tell me if it popped up a security warning that you have to accept or not; it doesn’t for me, but maybe I’m just weird. A link to the Bitbucket repository is at the bottom of that page. I’m probably going to bed soon.

Thanks for your time!

I have decided on my game title: Birds Of Prey. The ideas are flowing, a bit better than expected! Let’s hope I can keep this up, it’s already 10:30pm here my time…

Mercurial repository on bitbucket: http://bitbucket.org/ricket/birds-of-prey

I am using Java and JOGL, thus the source is in Java with some Eclipse project files.

Is there something like sfxr for music?

I have my monitors configured so that my second monitor is to the upper left of my primary monitor. But when it takes screenshots in dual monitor mode, it acts as if the second monitor is on the right, so I just get a screenshot of my screen plus an extra 1600×1200 black area to the right.

Is there any solution or do I need to move my monitor to the right side?

Wish I would’ve tried this a week ago.

Or alternatively, is there a better timelapse capture program that can handle this situation?

I’m no expert on Wikipedia. I dare not edit an article, unless I see ads or a simple typo; writing articles is not my forte. But someone who has Wikipedia knowledge needs to create a Ludum Dare page on Wikipedia. For as of this moment, there is none.

That is all.

Hi everyone, I’m Ricket, and I’ll be participating in the upcoming LD 18 competition. It’s my first LD so go easy on me! 😀

I’ll most likely be using Java and JOGL to make my game, though I’m not very experienced in them. So, it’ll be a great learning experience for me, and I can only wish for something decent to come out of it.

After the competition, if anything reasonable did actually get created, I will most likely port it to Android. We need more games on our Android phones, after all!

As for myself, I’m a student at North Carolina State University, majoring in computer science with a concentration in game development (and minoring in mathematics).

Good luck to everyone!