Ludum Dare 27 | Ludum Dare 26 |
I’m gonna be busy this weekend since it’ the first time I’ve come to the US and my friends want to take me places, but there’s a chance I’ll have enough time to scramble something together for the jam.
My tools:
Wish me luck!
I’ve been with the LD community for almost 10 years now, entered about 15 times and finished 2 games (and made one joke entry). My track record is further away from “good” than ISS is right now from me
There is a silver lining though: I have a lot of experience with failure and the last two times I’ve entered I managed to finish games I was happy with.
This is all to say that no matter if it’s your first time and you’re nervous about failure, or your 15th time and haven’t managed to finish a game yet, we’re all in this for fun and learning, and not finishing anything doesn’t mean you didn’t learn anything, and it doesn’t have to mean it wasn’t fun.
Here are a couple of things I’ve learned from my failures over the years and from actually finishing the games:
All that said: i’m in!
My weapons of choice:
Hope to see you guys finish and have tons of fun 😉
Hello fellow Ludumdarians, both veterans and newbies alike!
Me and a workmate decided we’re gonna participate in Ludumdares and this is the second we’re participating together (apart).
My setup is simple:
Language: C++
IDE: Eclipse CDT
Engine: My own.
For my engine/base code I grabbed code from my libraries and threw it all in one spot that I’m sharing with the world here:
https://bitbucket.org/spliter/ludumdaregame/src
Yes, that is a 1.5 mb codebase (including .dll though) for a ludumdare game, and it contains a lot of code that will most likely be useless, but I didn’t really have had time to clean it up.
Either way: Have fun, and learn because that’s what LudumDare is all about!
So!
After many, MANY LDs that I’ve witnessed but didn’t manage to participate (and one in which I spawned an abomination that will probably land me in the 6th circle of hell) I have finished my Magnum Opus:
Bunneh
The gameplay is simple:
Eat all the veggies, avoid the falcon.
And so without further ado, I bid you adieu, and give you my gameu:
http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-26/?action=preview&uid=1301
You’re the little guy about to be brutally devoured by a falcon.
I’ve been with this community since 2009, so far I haven’t managed to submit any game despite participating in 3 compos so far.
I am here to make up for it. I have been preparing mentally and I’ve worked on several prototypes in the past. I am ready. I am in, and this time I won’t give up!
I thought I should make this official:
I’m in.
Also I’ll finish the game. And then I’ll win every trophy and first place in all of the categories in voting. Then pigs will fly.
Wish me luck!
Yeah, so after that shamefull release of the first game I wasn’t content, but more importantly it showed me I can still make small games like I used to make on GameMaker, that’s why I decided to give miniLD20 another go and do something that’s actually fun to play.
Here’s the first screen:
It might not look like much but i’ve spent the last 3 hours trying to make a little sperm looking fella with a wagling tail and failed miserably. Still I’m not one to give up so easilly so I added another tail and made it move like an octopus.
I’m still not sure how I’m gonna make a theme-related game out of that but I sure like swimming with this guy around.
Ok, made a game in about 1 hour.
it’s about destroying GREED!
Every object has only one instance.
It’s the worst game you’ll play this miniLD I can guarantee that.
Release (windows):
http://www.benhem.com/catboxbeta/WorstGameEver.zip
Source (I think it’s possible to compile for other platforms, no tested though):
http://www.benhem.com/catboxbeta/WorstGameEverSource.zip
Yeah, my last blog post was pretty inconsequential and unrelated.
I might try to make another game.
Here are some of my graphics:
I wonder what the game will be about?
Ok, so I’m no good with themes like “greed” so I went for the alt theme. I’ll try to shovel in some greed there but I’m still trying to figure out how.
Oh, and I still haven’t thought of the game mechanics themselves despite already starting to write code (I would post a screen if it wasn’t a black screen with a tini fish in the middle of it).
so… yeah…
…but now I have officially admit I have failed in making a game in 48 hours. The culprits are not planning ahead, rushing things, and distracting myself too often. In the beginning I set my expectations quite high as I usually do but I knew I wouldn’t be able to finish the game. Still, I was hoping to make 4 to 7 levels.
However when a one succeeds he learns little, where he fails he learns a lot, and I did.
This is what it could have been:
By not planning ahead I didn’t prepare my engine for loading levels from a file which was my pitfall. In the last 24 hours I rushed everything, making hacks and half-solutions that cost me a lot of time, hard work and stress. I also lost an incredible amount of time because I wanted to make my engine as modular as I could, so it would load maps, save the game, load the game etc. This is not possible without planning and sketching beforehand, and the first thing I should have done, which I didn’t was to get up from my computer, sit on my bed, grab a drawing sheet and plan everything there.
So although I have failed in creating a game I have learned a great lot from this competition, as for me I still feel like I’ve succeeded.
But be warned! Even though I dropped off now I will be back for the next competition, and when that time comes, I will be ready! And I shall Win!
~Spliter
What this image shows is what I managed to do in 12 hours of work:
Absolutely nothing.
It’s two squares that don’t collide and you can control one of them though all it does is fall too fast for you to do anything.
I need to setup the collision system and I’ll be able to start making the game logic.
For the past 8 hours most of my time programming was absolved by pretentious bugs, which upon fixing revealed even more bugs. But at least I’ve fixed them all!
This has put me behind the time and most probably I won’t finish my game. Still I will submit my source code, because at least the engine part will be finished! And it’s a good one.
Still I hope I can at least make two or three levels for my game just to have something to show when someone asks me “so how did that 2 day game competition went?”.
Being a programmer with the attention span of a cat next to a yarn ball isn’t helping though.
All the time up until now I had no Idea what to do, the theme was nothing I’ve tackled before, I even was gonna call it quits since nothing came to my mind, but people on IRC were supportive enough to convince me not to.
Still, 6 hours of work did nothing to me, only as I sad back and made a quick back for my game an Idea sparked.
I’m gonna make a game about just getting out there and having fun, enjoying the marvel of nature, and discovering far more than you’d want to.
An exploration side view platformer.
~Spliter
The crab and rice fought bravely but in the end I am the winner.
My webcam is horrible.
While at the same time studying for the exams :]
Hello! It’s my first time at LD, and I WON’T chicken out at the last moment like I did with the miniLD…
I’m just getting the feel of the posting system for now but my game engine is ready, keyboard cleaned of crumbs, screen polished to a shine and my damn DVD drive still not working.
Anyways, you got any tips for a LD beginner?
[EDIT] DAMN! My engine is still lacking sound and map loading, the keyboard still has crumbs in it and my screen has fingerprints all over it!! This is all going to hell! Well… at least the DVD drive is working…
[EDIT2] It’s still not working!!
